Unpleasant encounter with hard facts
Guest opinion by Fred F. Mueller
Until just a few days ago, the determination of the German government to halt the presumed Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) seemed to be absolutely imperturbable. The main driver behind the German resolve to hammer down CO2 emissions both domestically and abroad while at the same time finishing off its last remaining nuclear power generating units is Chancellor Angela Merkel. The daughter of a clergyman socialized in the formerly communist east of the country, she is known for her outstanding political cleverness and flexibility in avoiding conflicts she feels she can’t win. Nevertheless, there are certain aspects where this cleverness is superseded by an almost fundamentalist doggedness when it comes to certain key points – such as exterminating nuclear power or saving the planet from overheating.
Only a few weeks ago, Germany engaged in a new initiative to revitalize the ailing international effort to reverse the course of constantly increasing worldwide CO2 emissions by replacing the vintage Kyoto protocol by more stringent and binding reduction targets at the UN conference that will be held in Paris in November/ December 2015. To this effect, Germany convinced the other European Union states to agree to a 40 % reduction scheme by 2030, sweeping across opposition from negatively affected member countries using a combination of compromises, financial incentives and sheer politico-economic pressure. As a result, the EU came out with bold CO2 reduction commitments. These in turn were meant to be used as a political lever during the preparatory meetings taking place in the current run-up to the big show.
The push for increased CO2 sobriety…
In order to underscore its ambition to shine out as a beacon of climate saving efforts, the German government additionally decided to further strengthen its position by renewing domestic efforts aimed at achieving its own commitment of reducing national CO2 emissions by 40 % (compared to 1990) until 2020. This target had at first seemed to be easily attainable since the country benefitted from the opportunity to decommission the ridiculously inefficient and energy-squandering industry it inherited from the former communist DDR. But in the past years, this special effect waned and the CO2 emissions even reversed course and climbed again. This countertrend was further underpinned when in the wake of the Fukushima events; the German government ordered to halt eight out of 17 existing nuclear power plants and decided to phase out the remaining ones by 2022. The share of nuclear power was largely taken over by lignite- and coal-fired units, with the result that in the field of power generation, Germany was unable to achieve any reduction since 2000. During the same time period, the electric power markets were flooded with heavily subsidized “green” power, causing prices to collapse to a point where conventional power utilities were unable to generate sufficient revenues. Share prices collapsed and more than ten thousand qualified jobs disappeared. In the centers of political power in Berlin, the grievances of the sector went unnoticed and even the most urgent submissions fell on deaf ears. To add insult to injury, just a few weeks ago, the sector was confronted with tough additional regulations requiring it to further reduce its CO2 emissions, while signs of mounting albeit muted unease in a growing number of industrial sectors heavily burdened by skyrocketing energy prices were ignored.
This resulted in the rebellion of vital players…
In this situation, the frustration felt by a number of foreign investors in the sector – in the first place those involved in the energy giants E.ON and Vattenfall, a subsidiary of a Swedish state-owned energy producer, culminated. The background is highlighted in a recent article written for the renowned German financial newspaper “Handelsblatt” by Wolfram Weiner, former chief editor of several leading print media. In his item, he used unusually drastic language to chastise the current state of the sector: “In reality, E.ON is capitulating. Faced with wrong decisions and impositions instigated by the German energy policy, the power generation industry is giving up in despair because political leaders have narrowed down their maneuvering space to such an extent that they are choking to death. For too long a time, the political class naively believed that E.ON and RWE (the second in rank of the sector) could be indefinitely squeezed just as a lemon – but now it is dawning to some that there simply is no more juice left…the “Energiewende” (Energy U-turn) resembles a communist command economy…(the policy) has within a short period of time achieved what the communists had been dreaming of for decades: Power generating groups are being dismantled, market rule is supplemented by command economy. But the question remains – who will in the future care about Germany’s power supply, who will invest? Is the state willing to take over these activities too in order to finalize energy-socialism”?
The led to an event that can be likened to the proverbial iceberg unexpectedly popping up right in front of the German state ship while it was plowing through the waves on its climate-saving mission at full-steam. With just a 48-hour notice delivered by a personal phone call to Ms. Merkel on a Saturday, the CEO of E.ON, the largest German and European power producer, let it be known that the company had decided to split itself in two, one part grouping fossil and nuclear power generation and a second part encompassing the “politically correct” activities in the field of “renewable” energies. Sort of a “Bad E.ON” / “Good E.ON” move. The intention is to get rid of the “bad” part as soon as possible by putting it up for sale. At the same time, this also means the “good” part will cease to be duty bound to ensure a stable power supply under all circumstances. Obviously, such a liability is not enforceable from an entity whose only power sources are unstable wind and solar power plants. In a nutshell, the message behind this move is that the silverback of the “big four” German energy producers who group the bulk of the country’s conventional and nuclear power production is about to close shop at short notice. The others will probably follow suit.
Inflicting a deadly setback…
A situation where a country’s leadership is left only 48 hours to digest this sort of threat can be likened to the sudden crash of the Titanic hitting its iceberg. Although most of the German public has not yet noticed that something really important has gone wrong, frantic activities can be noticed on the bridge, with both the minister for economic affairs and the chancellor’s office hastily preparing new legislation aiming at enhancing the situation of coal-fired plants by implementing an all-new market design. It will most certainly provide for compensation payments for coal-fired plants forced to turn idle or at minimum load when the grid is clogged by an oversupply of wind and solar energy. According to comments in various press articles, the German government seems to have realized its vessel is taking in water and is starting to list. So while the ship’s orchestra composed of green and socialist parties together with assorted NGO’s and the accomplices in the media is doing its best to drown out first anxious noises by playing climato-patriotic anthems at full pitch, the power brokers in Berlin seem to be hammering out a plan B in a desperate attempt to fend off a catastrophic breakdown of the nets. Outlines currently emerging suggest that
A) Nuclear power will remain banned. More than 30 years of demonization of the technology probably cannot be reversed,
B) Plans to rein in the soaring price of electric power prices will be abandoned. A key representative of the ruling CDU party has already warned that price hikes will continue.
C) The hope of the government that highly flexible combined cycle gas-fired power plants can be deployed in large numbers to offset the highly volatile production from wind and solar plants has gone up in smoke since these entities have much higher costs than coal-fired units. They thus were the first to succumb to the market distortions brought about by the heavily subsidized “renewable” technologies.
D) The government now implicitly recognizes that in the years to come, coal and lignite fired plants will play a substantially bigger role in securing the country’s power supply than projected. The obvious hope is that it may be possible to stabilize the vessel without having to explicitly admit the core pieces of the previous strategy have to be scrapped.
On to sweet green dreams
While the German public, lulled by decades of seemingly incessant economic upturn, will probably continue to ignore these harsh realities for some time, the long-term implications for CAGW supporters inside and outside of the country do not bode well. Given the fact that the “renewable” energy lobby remains extremely strong, with millions of people having been misguided to invest their life’s savings and pension claims into “planet-saving” energy projects, resistance to any plans to limit further engagements in the “green energy” sector will be extremely fierce. Together with the need to stabilize the ailing conventional energy sector in order to avoid a total breakdown, all requirements for energy costs spiraling out of control are in place. The government can only hope that the public will continue to accept these hikes without too much resistance. But a major stumbling blocks remains in place: German electric energy prices, already the second-highest in Europe, are increasingly choking off economic growth. More and more key sectors such as the aluminum, steel making and chemical industry are increasingly opting out of investing in the country, turning to regions offering more reasonable energy prices, notably the US. Over time, this will put the wealth of the country and with it the fate of its political leaders in jeopardy.
Germany’s anti-CO2 policy is poised to fail
With their naïve two-pronged approach to abolish nuclear and fossil fuel powered electricity generation in parallel, the German political leaders have maneuvered themselves into an impasse and now find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. The “renewable” sector propped up with at least half a trillion € in subsidies has reached proportions making it too big to fail, while conventional generation will now call in the same favors that had hitherto been granted to the “good ones”, threatening to cut supplies if they are not treated likewise. Embittered by more than a decade and a half of injuries “sweetened” by insults, one can expect that they will probably be pushing for fulfilment of their demands with little regard as to whom it might hurt. With the door to nuclear generation firmly shut and welded tight, German CO2 emissions are set to increase as naïve expectations of falling electricity demand will dissipate. Especially since no-one seems to have taken into account the power requirements of e.g. the many million electric cars that are supposed to crowd German streets in the coming decades. While arrogantly claiming the role of a vanguard policy-maker with respect to climate-saving measures, German politicians have entangled themselves in a maze of conflicting interests and harsh realities restraining their actions to near-immobility.
At some point, when the populace will finally realize it has been fooled and plundered, politicians will refrain from CAGW aspirations when it becomes evident they will not be favorable for their future prospects to be elected. And if and when Germany fails in full focus of the spotlights they themselves asked to be turned upon them, the CAGW theories will suffer a major blow on a worldwide scale. This might hopefully turn out as an important contribution to the demise of the whole CAGW scam.
have to laugh
we have one of the Ukraines minions in Aus today talking Uranium n coal purchases from us
🙁
guess they know theyll never get into the Eu anyway so they may as well go ahead n deal.
Evidently, instead of playing nice with their compatriots in the coal endowed Donbas, they are looking for coal sources abroad. The fascist regime in Kiev will send their country into the ditch under the NATO directed policies now in effect. The global elite are serving up a smorgasbord of false enemies: CAGW/CO2, Putin, Assad, Iran,…. Never mind that the US military is the biggest consumer of petroleum and the most deadly belligerent in recent history. Ironically, Gee Dubya’s seeming reluctance to sign on to Kyoto lent credibility to the alarmist crowd which was already predisposed to mistrust American policy due to the lie of Iraqi WMD.
Thread bomb.
I’ve been asked by some Ukrainians what I think about joining the EU. I referred them to Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy. I can’t picture Ukrainians I know allowing Brussels to tell them how they must grow tomatoes and asparagus, but that isn’t the worst of it. Whither the disastrous experiment that is the EU is the more serious question. They have an early 19th Century idea of what Europe is all about. I don’t see their immigration policy being changed either.
Greg
What you say confirms my suspicion that the next world war will start with Germany and Russia on the same side. But wait – didn’t the last one also?
Sounds like you are really PO’d that Bush did not sign off on Kyoto whereas most, in the light of day, are rather glad that he did not rush to sign off on that BS agreement. Fools rush in and all that.
The burden for this fiasco falls upon the German public at large, not Merkel or even the Greens. Germany will be punished for their abject, willful stupidity. Germans were among the most intelligent and cultured people on the planet. Their historical roll right now is a pitiful one: To become an object lesson and warning to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, we here in the US are the beneficiary of relocated German heavy industry. Many thanks.
This is exactly why the Germany remains a dangerous country.
They continue to be influenced by one propaganda scam after another which means they can´t be helped.
If you watch German television the climate porn propaganda is reaching incredible levels.
“If you watch German television the climate porn propaganda is reaching incredible levels”
as the s… hits the fan propaganda has always been the default setting in Germany. I expect them to be declaring total war on CO2 soon.
I won’t hold my breath for that one…..
“I expect them to be declaring total war on CO2 soon.”
That’s a good one. Since 05:45 we don’t emit any CO2.
The following article is from Pierre Gosselin of NoTricsZone (NTZ) in Germany – looks like the jig is finally up for wind and solar power foolishness in Europe, or at least in Germany.
We published the following twelve years ago in 2002:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
PEGG debate, reprinted at their request by several professional journals, the Globe and Mail and la Presse in translation,
– by Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and Allan MacRae – PEGG, November 2002
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
We were perfectly clear in our 2002 statement. It truly was not that difficult a prediction to make, but it was far too difficult for many to accept…
It is ironic that these statements only have impact when one of the former proponents of green energy nonsense admits they were wrong – when we knew that all along.
Best wishes to all and Seasons Greetings, Allan
http://notrickszone.com/2014/12/09/energiewende-takes-a-massive-blow-top-green-energy-proponent-concedes-blunder-with-ugly-consequences-huge-blow-to/
Top Green Energy Proponent Concedes: “Blunder With Ugly Consequences”!
“Energiewende” Takes A Massive Blow…Top Green Energy Proponent Concedes: “Blunder With Ugly Consequences”!
By P Gosselin on 9. Dezember 2014
German national weekly DIE ZEIT writes in its latest hard copy edition that one of Europe’s leading green energy thinkers now concedes Germany’s much ballyhooed Energiewende (transition to renewable energies) has been a “filthy blunder”.
Page 4 of December 4, 2014, edition of DIE ZEIT. “Filthy Blunder”
When the green movement itself makes such an admission, then you know Germany’s once highly ballyhooed Energiewende is truly in deep trouble, if not a basket case.
“Germany will not even come close to reaching targets”
Moreover, DIE ZEIT, an influential publication among Germany’s green centre-left, writes, “Germany will not even come close to reaching its climate target despite the massive investment in wind and solar energies.”
The admission is a massive blow to Germany’s renewable energies movement, whose troubles have long been played down or denied by its proponents.
So what has finally compelled Germany’s top greens to make such an astonishing admission? The facts show that although the Energiewende has led to a rapid expansion of wind and solar energies, it has also led to the unexpected increase in coal-fired power. Renewable energies have had the unintended effect of revitalizing coal as a source of energy. A horror for climate protection activists.
The 180° U-turn begins with Patrick Graichen, Director of the Agora Energiewende think tank, which according to DIE ZEIT, is “the most influential school of thought for energy policy in Germany“. Graichen himself was formerly responsible for energy at the Federal Ministry of Environment.
Making the air dirtier
The DIE ZEIT feature article explains how Germany’s original plan had been to expand wind and solar so that they would first replace the country’s unwanted nuclear power plants, and then later the filthy coal power plants. The idea was to use natural gas power plants to even out the huge irregularities that come with the weather-dependent solar and wind power. And as green and power grid technology developed further, even gas eventually would be throttled down to a bare minimum, and so Germany would be propelled from being the world’s worst villain to a most loved hero – in less than a 100-year span. That was the dream.
But now green energy dreamers are being rudely awakened, and the reality looks very different. More CO2 is being produced. Die ZEIT writes:
It’s a blunder with ugly consequences. The Energiewende, as it is now set up, is not making the air cleaner, but dirtier.”
The problem, DIE ZEIT explains, is that the coal is much cheaper than natural gas. As a a consequence power generators are opting to even out the green power supply fluctuations with coal power instead of gas. But because coal power plants cannot be driven up and down quickly to respond to fluctuations in supply, power producers no longer even bother throttling them down when too much power is fed in by wind in sun. The coal power plants just keep on humming and emitting anyway – even when the power is not needed. In the end it’s still cheaper than operating gas plants. Result: gas plants are being closed down, coal is coming back.
Grotesque market distortions – negative prices
The requirement to feed in green power and all the extra unneeded coal-fired electricity are now causing grotesque distortions on the electricity markets. To illustrate the perverse market conditions, DIE ZEIT describes the events of Sunday, May 11, 2014, when so much wind and solar power was fed into the grid that the power became worthless on the market and at times caused negative prices on the electricity exchanges, as DIE ZEIT illustrates:
The price on the market fell to nothing. A little later before noon, there was so much green power on the market that the German power companies were paying money to get rid of it. By early afternoon when solar power was flowing plentifully, the so-called negative power price rose to 60 euros per megawatt-hour.”
Negative prices due to an uncontrolled supply into the grid is no longer an isolated event that rarely occurs. DIE ZEIT continues:
And that is no isolated incident; it’s the future of German power production. In the first half of 2014 power prices were negative for 71 hours. But already in just a few years that number could be one thousand hours per year, according to the think tank Energy Brainpool. One quarter of the entire green energy production would be energy garbage.”
Skyrocketing electricity prices for consumers while the price on the exchanges go negative: This has got to be one of the 7 wonders of German energy management.
“An Act of God”
Clearly the German electricity market has careened out of control and is in a state of chaos. Now even the strongest denier greens can no longer stomach the deplorable electricity market situation and are conceding it has to change.
DIE ZEIT then asks how it all came to this in the first place. Patrick Graichen blames what he terms the “collective miscalculation by the experts in the branch” who falsely assumed green energies would crowd out dirty coal plants. Graichen claims that “no one could have foreseen the development.”
“Nonsense,” says Michael Limburg, Vice President of the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), a critical climate science and energy policy think-tank. He wrote NTZ by e-mail:
They are starting to confess what is not longer deniable because it’s so obvious to everyone else…typical for politicians in action. Yet, rather than taking responsibility for the damage they have created, they are now trying to act as if it were an Act of God when in reality it was completely foreseeable and they had been warned on many occasions.”
***********************************************************
Thanks Allan,
right on the spot, a nice compilation of facts illustrating exactly what is going on in Merkel’s own country and tried to highlight in my article
Fred, why limit this to Germany?
http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/12/obama-environmental-base-planning-eradicate-oil-gas-industry/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailydigest&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoksqXIZKXonjHpfsX56eklXaC0lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4FT8thI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D
Allan MacRae
December 12, 2014 at 6:21 am
Engineers have clearly been left out of the meetings inaugurating and expanding this idiocy. Virtually any engineer (civil, aeronautical, geological, let alone power engineers) could have advised what was certain to happen without a minute’s reflection. I’m expecting greens to be designing bridges next. First they would do without CO2 generating concrete and steel….
Thank you Fred and Gary.
Our above 2002 conclusions were based on considerable homework, and were later confirmed by E.On Netz insightful “Wind Report 2005”: E.On Netz is the largest wind power generator in the world.
______________________
This report is apparently no longer available on the E.On website (quelle surprise) but can be found here:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
One of the greatest disadvantages of wind power is the need for almost 100% conventional backup. E.On Netz says the “substitution capacity” in Germany was 8% in 2003, and will drop to 4% by 2020. See Figure 7 in the E.On report.
“In concrete terms, this means that in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of traditional power production can be replaced by these wind farms.”
Another big problem with wind power is that power varies as the cube of the wind speed – this causes sharp peaks and valleys in the power output from wind farms, so extreme that it can cause the entire grid to crash – try that in winter – remember the 1998 Ontario-Quebec ice storm? People died…
A near-miss occurred in German during Christmas week of 2004 – see Fig. 6 in the E.on report.
“The feed-in capacity can change frequently within a few hours. This is shown in FIGURE 6, which reproduces the course of wind power feedin during the Christmas week from 20 to 26 December 2004.
Whilst wind power feed-in at 9.15am on Christmas Eve reached its maximum for the year at 6,024MW, it fell to below 2,000MW within only 10 hours, a difference of over 4,000MW. This corresponds to the capacity of 8 x 500MW coal fired power station blocks. On Boxing Day, wind power feed-in in the E.ON grid fell to below 40MW. Handling such significant differences in feed-in levels poses a major challenge to grid operators.”
in summary, the problem with Wind Power is not the Capacity Factor of about 20%, it is the Substitution Capacity, which by 2020 in Germany is projected to be just 4%.
Regards to all, Allan
4%…sounds like they are in deep do do and maybe, just maybe, they are starting smell the roses….any one taking bets on Nuc plants staying on line and we are not talking of the French Nuc’s?
Newsel,
The problem is the greens are up to their necks in their own BS, and have been for so long it’s starting to smell good to them.
It will take a revolt by the voters to drive out the stench.
@latecomer2014: to your visit to a wind farm and finding dead birds. Everyone of these wind farms kill protected species and operate under a government issued waiver that allows them to continue the slaughter described below by Robert Bryce. These so called “Green” people have no conscience and are a purely self serving bunch.
“Killing Wildlife in-the-name-of Climate Change”
“In 2009, I (Robert Bryce) resumed writing about the enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, (enacted in 1918)[iv] and Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (enacted in 1940)[v] after groups like the American Bird Conservancy began calling attention to the threat that wind turbines were posing to birds and bats.[vi]
A July 2008 study of bird kills by wind turbines at Altamont Pass, California, estimated that the massive wind farm was killing 80 golden eagles per year. Those birds are protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.[vii] In addition to the eagle kills, the study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, estimated that about 2,400 other raptors, including burrowing owls, American kestrels, and red-tailed hawks – as well as about 7,500 other birds, nearly all of which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act – were being killed every year at Altamont.[viii]
In 2009, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated wind turbines were killing some 440,000 birds per year.[ix]”
http://www.robertbryce.com/articles/534-u-s-senate-testimony-killing-wildlife-in-the-name-of-climate-change?fb_action_ids=10202301730959188&fb_action_types=og.likes
Ironically this disaster is a side-effect of our praised democracy, which only works fine on a small scale. In bigger settings such as countries, one voter has no influency so, this voter will not take time to really get informed. Instead he/she relies on media and activists which therefore have excessive influence. In the case of climate change and energy , the moral compass is claimed by environmentalists, enabled by an over romantic vision of western societies regarding nature. In general: a society which has forgotton the trues about nature and therefore is not able to count it’s blessings (supplied by coal,oil and gas) which are in reality triumphs over nature and not harmony with nature.
It is a total mistake to think that our prosperity can be sustained by goblin technology such as windmills and solar panels. Even with a mass storage energy system, which does not exist.
The reality is, that governments have forgotten to do the arithmetic and instead have copied the ideological views of environmentalists, which have brainwashed the population with the help of the media.
Eventually, this mistake will be corrected, but in the mean time billions are wasted which should be spend on research to propare for a real energy transition.