BBC – 30 May, 2011
Germany pledges to end all nuclear power by 2022
Germany’s ruling coalition says it has agreed a date of 2022 for the shutdown of all of its nuclear power plants.
Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen made the announcement after a meeting of the ruling coalition that lasted into the early hours of Monday.
Story here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208
The Swiss are following this lead.
I will be in Germany for 2 weeks this summer. My tenth year teaching at a Classical Guitar festival there.
I have made many good friends there, all are very green but many are also skeptical of CAGW.
I expect to have some “lively” discussions about nuclear power 🙂
I have sent them literature on thorium power and modern nuclear power.
We do what we can.
To be honest, a part of me wishes they’d do it tomorrow, never mind 2022 – and be guinea pigs, showing the world how idiotic this all this when they’re all fighting over bread again. On the other hand, if you remember the last time Germans were fighting over bread, the fascists took power. Maybe this is exactly what the greenshirts want.
Stark, staring mad. The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.
Fools
Yet right next door
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html
If one of our major economic competitors volunteers to commit economic suicide, how should we respond?
Deutschland, deutschland unter alles?
Now they only have to find an effective way to ban shale gas exploration, and they’ve reached their goal to deindustrialize Germany. And then this shining example will be joined triumphantly by all other nations, especially the chinese and indians.
An deutschem Wesen soll die Welt genesen!
My poor old country lost its china again.
Unless they replace with cheap coal, there goes the strength of Europe.
Just read this myself – so I expect the Germans will be energy poor in due course? Presumably, they will build more coal/gas fired power stations and back down from the crazy EU emissions regs?
It sounds like Black Outs and power shortages for Germany as well as the UK then.
Completely mad. Despite the recent disaster in Japan, nuclear power is one of the safest forms of power generation. Hydro-electric is far more dangerous. Ironically, I seem to recall that, after investigations into the disaster and assessments of their other sites, Japan affirmed that they would continue with nuclear power.
‘Knee jerk energy policy’ is a perfect description. How many magnitude 9 earthquakes and huge tsunamis does Germany normally experience?
Our UK government is similarly mad, but at least they are planning new nuclear build.
There’s a very interesting report in today’s printed Daily Telegraph. The first part is another blow against wind power: research predicts that winds in the UK are set to fall over coming decades. Current output is pitifully small and completely unreliable, despite all those monstrosities that litter our countryside, but if the research is correct, it will be even more pitifully small. But, on the other hand, that research is almost certainly based on computer models….
The second half of the report is even more interesting. It appears to contain a strong blow against AGW, which is surprising, as the Daily Telegraph’s climate coverage is normally completely biased and one-sided.
The report stronly relates changes in climate to solar activity. It strongly suggests that the mini ice age, 1645 to 1715, was caused by low solar activity, with quotes from Prof. Lockwood. A quote from Lockwood: “We reached a high point of solar activity in 1985. Since then, it has been declining. The probability is that that decline will continue for the next 40 years”.
After a lag of a bit over a decade, the global climate appears to be starting to follow the sun.
There’s another report on the same page: the IEA’s figure for 2010 CO2 emissions is 30.6 gigatons, a record amount. Naturally the report is filled with AGW doom and gloom, and it ignores the fact that nature emits around thirty times more, but it does raise a serious question: with CO2 emissions still rising, why is the global temperature failing to do the same? Could it be something to do – gasp! – with the sun?
Chris
Based on the feedback from one of my German friends – more people will be buying UPS and generators to keep their electricity supply going…
At least in Australia, currently, I only need to pull out the generator when the weather goes very ‘wild’ and trips out the local sub station. If we get the Carbon Tax I think will look to wiring it in permanently.
Germany doesn’t need nuclear energy as such. If 40 years ago West Germany had decided not to build up nuclear power plants and build more coal power instead, we would have no problem today. Electricity from coal is just as cheap, and we have plenty of coal resources.
Furthermore the nuclear programme has effecively been stalled after 1989 anyway, because since then no new reactors have been built. Nuclear has a share of 20 – 25% of Germany’s overall electricity production and has remained frozen at that stage for the last 20 years. Since old reactors will eventually be shut down anyway due to age, nuclear phaseout has been factually decided back then, even though few people in Germany are aware of this fact. And that is not a problem as such as long as it’s being done economically wisely and replacement power plants are built in time.
However Germany has decided to go mad this spring after the Fukushima incident and decided to shut down its reactors at a much faster pace. That decision alone is already costly and irrational, because it means to throw away functioning investments worth many billions long before the natural end of their lifespan, which thus have to be replaced much earlier than originally planned. Not only that, but the intention is to replace them not with cheap coal plants, but most likely with ecologically correct stuff such as wind turbines. This again will increase costs manifold, it will be a burden on our economy and reduce living standards. Unfortunately these implications are rarely discussed here.
Living in Germany is currently quite depressing. There is no rational reason for such a shutdown race. Even if you’re opposed to nuclear power, the Fukushima incident gave us no new information we didn’t have already, so no reason at all to change our policy, which had been a slow abandonment anyway. There is absolutely no reason to go down this economically insane route.
So let’s see:
That means relying on:
1. Russian natural gas supplies – now that’s really smart.
2. Wind power – already shown to be very unreliable and expensive in Germany – also very smart.
3. Solar power – could work for perhaps 25% of the time in Germany.
The coal has run out and also that’s not a green option!
So what are the Germans going to do for energy? The answer could be to buy it from France’s new generations of nuclear power plants. Another answer could be to invade Russia for its fuel resources – however, that didn’t work out too well last time around.
This is about a goofy a decision as any group of politicians has ever dreamed up – the certainty of de-industrialisation as part of an official policy of economic suicide.
The real story, which isn’t being told, is the disaster unfolding at Fukushima, which NOBODY seems to want to care about or give any data on the radiation in water, food, etc etc etc.
You guys DO know that 3 of the reactors are in meldown right? TEPCO only like 2 weeks ago finally fessed up to there being a meltdown since 16 hours after the tsunami struck, meaning, meltdown has been in full effect since March 11.
Unbelievable.
http://www.fairewinds.com
What was once the most powerful economy in Europe destroyed by “the movement”
Then again, as brownouts and blackouts begin to bite, perhaps they will see the light (even candlelight)
They’re kaput. Germany is heading for industrial collapse, unless someone pulls them back from the brink. As I remarked over at Bishop Hill, perhaps the upside will be found in what de-industrialisation will mean – people dying of cold and cancelled operations because of lack of energy. Once the rest of the world has seen that happen to a once-mighty nation like Germany, it will be a a wake up call.
Gas prices going up to $5+. Home gas bills tripling+. Electricity tripling+. Intentional mismanagement, and social engineering to steer it along. All geared towards more control of your personal life through financial thrashing of the populace, the gazillion new laws and regulations for our own protection, pretty much making everybody liable for being some kind of violator if they don’t like them for whatever reason. Automated machines to assure compliance, and/or to be used for enforcement… even elimination if necessary. This has been the dream of the military-industrial complex for decades, if not centuries.
Great news, it’s well past time to dump that disgusting technology.
New frontiers in energy will come from this.
Question…. you guys are weather people… what’s going to happen to all that radiation spewing at Fukushima if that supertyphoon hits the area…. curious about that……
Most of us will be alive ten years from now so we’ll have a front row seat to watch Germany compete for all those next generation telescopes since Germany will be virtually light free at night.
As Greenpeace predicts, there’s a lot of money to be made. Mostly at dawn – all those broken bones from stumbling around in the dark Then there’s the Spring Burial Festivals where the mortuary sector will be able to bury all those folks that froze to death in the winter (something about that long period cycle of cold predicted).
For the political minded, another example of kicking the can down the road. Regardless of no hydrocarbons and no nukes, they figure they’ll be out of office and basking in Bermuda in 2022 anyway. Oh, and the lots of money will be, as usual, used to buy votes and increased graft and corruption.
Austria did the same thing in 1978. At least they had a referendum.
It only works when you can buy your energy from decrepit Russian nuclear power stations, or from the French – who are going to make a fortune selling power from their nuclear stations. Germany cannot survive on renewables alone.
So a lovely opportunity for the Poles to sell them some fracked shale gas. Unless the French manage to get fracking banned, in which case the Germans can import nulear electric from them.
Ok, so now the little electron-thingies that everybody needs are going to be made by green pixies and sun-elves instead? mmmmm… or maybe they’ll just dig into those 100 years or so or worldwide coal reserves and burn that in the meantime….