Cost Of Germany’s “Energiewende” To Soar To €31 Billion This Year Alone
Eurostat estimates that in 2015 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion increased by 0.7% in the European Union (EU), compared with the previous year. —European Commission, 3 May 2016
Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by an estimated 10 million tonnes from 2014 to 2015, in a blow to the country’s claims to climate leadership. A 2011 decision to phase out nuclear power within a decade has seen dirty coal maintain a significant share of the energy mix. As a result, progress on emissions has slowed. A decrease in 2011 was followed by increases in 2012 and 2013. –Megan Darby, Climate Home, 14 Match 2016
According to the Institute of German Business (IW) the cost of Germany’s once highly touted “Energiewende” (transition to green energy) will soar to a whopping €31 billion ($35 billion) in 2016 alone, thus further burdening the already ailing German consumer The Energiewende is morphing into a central planning folly of the scale matched only by the Venezuelan Chavez communists. –Pierre Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, 3 May 2016
CO2 Emissions In The EU Have Increased In 2015, Despite €1 Trillion In Green Subsidies
Eurostat estimates that in 2015 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion increased by 0.7% in the European Union (EU), compared with the previous year.
CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming and account for around 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions. They are influenced by factors such as climate conditions, economic growth, size of the population, transport and industrial activities. Various EU energy efficiency initiatives aim to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. It should also be noted that imports and exports of energy products have an impact on CO2 emissions in the country where fossil fuels are burned: for example if coal is imported this leads to an increase in emissions, while if electricity is imported, it has no direct effect on emissions in the importing country, as these would be reported in the exporting country where it is produced.
This information on early estimates of CO2 emissions from energy use for 2015 is published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming and account for around 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions.
So no one waters lawns nor gardens nor crops with the source for the bulk of the real greenhouse effect.
It should also be considered then, Any energy production from outside the EU that is then sold to and within the EU, and is created by the combustion of Fossil Fuels for the benefit of the EU, the CO2 produces by that energy is a factor of EU fossil fuel CO2 production.
An excerpt from the EUROSTAT article
“It should be noted that imports and exports of energy products have an impact on CO2 emissions in the country where fossil fuels are burned: for example if coal is imported this leads to an increase in emissions, while if Energy is imported, it has no direct effect on emissions by the importing country, as these would be reported in the exporting country where it was produced.”
This is obviously a “Feel Good” LIE statement where the country importing ENERGY can say…”WE ARE SOOOO GREEN and you should follow our HYPOCRITICAL example and don’t create any CO2 in your country” but in reality, the CO2 created to give them the energy is still created for Their Benefit. If you believe that CO2 is SOOOOOOO bad…Don’t have it created to benefit you in the first place.
Last time I checked, the Air moves around the globe freely, not constrained by national borders. The CO2 created by China, doesn’t remain in China As OCO2 demonstrated
Come Winter, China burns energy for warmth (like Europe and Canada) and the little carbons circulate. IF carbon is BAD, then don’t be a hypocrite…don’t produce any or have any produced for your benefit.
With respect to the OCO2 animation, I find it interesting that from late March to early-April the concentration of CO2 is high over the oceans, yet there are lower concentrations in the Western US, the Sahara, and Western China. This is prior to the decidous trees leafing out and scrubbing the CO2 from the air. At first blush, it looks like much, if not most, of the CO2 is coming out of the oceans or from decaying vegetation as the increasing warmth stimulates bacterial and fungal activity. Note that the Four Corners area of the US burns a lot of coal, but there is no anomalous high CO2 there, apparently, at any time.
In Belgum at least we car’e for OCO !
Until the EU can outgrow stupid, and the German people have had enough of Merkle’s socialism and easy immigration and chuck her out on her keister, the folly will continue. But then we have our own cast of climate scammers stupidity over here in US by the names Obama, Clinton, Schneiderman, et al.
Hey, “saving the planet” is expensive.
We got off easy. Just imagine how expensive it would be if they had us “saving earth” from both global warming AND global cooling – at the same time?
For Global Cooling you just have to reverse the rotation of the wind turbines.
@ Chilemark OMG laughing so hard
Reminded me of when Dallas talked about putting up big fans to break up the summertime ozone inversion layers.
Might we be better off with wind turbines whose orientation is vertical rather than horizontal?
Tarquin Wombat-Carruthers
It is actually not a trivial question, and – the same way – it is not a trivial answer. Nor a simplistic one. But, bottom line, even in today’s artificially-created, heavily government-subsidized wind turbine industries (er, scams), the industry simply has not ever been able to generate enough power from vertical shaft wind turbines to justify their construction over horizontal shaft propeller-airfoil style units.
Vertical shafts do appear to have real advantages.
They don’t need yaw controls and yaw motors and yaw bearings.
Their generators can be on the ground, thus reducing tower loads and vibration up high in the nacelle, and reducing concrete and base plates requirements down low.
Their low-level equipment locations make maintenance much, much less expensive and less time-consuming.
But….
The blades push “uphill” against the wind all the time, and all sorts of schemes and covers have proven poorly effective in the real world.
The wind speed is very, very low close to the ground and is actually always zero right at the ground level itself, and – if you mount the vertical shaft turbine up high to get better average wind speeds, then you immediately lose the advantages of the vertical shaft installation. Wind speed power is a function of squares and cubic powers of the wind speed, air volume (blade area and radius), and height above ground. Higher up = much, much more power and more reliable winds with less gusting and change each second. So, a vertical shaft turbine is always getting twisted” by the winds at its upper 5%, 10% and 25% of its height. Unequal forces on a spinning shaft cause quick failures.
Saving Marxism is to?
But just think how bad it would be if they did spend the Trillion euros. /sarc
didn’t
The CO2 distribution map shows that most of the CO2 is much further north of EU, mainly Iceland-Greenland Norwegian Seas area where there considerable land and sea floor volcanic activity.
Might have missed it, but the vulcano map should be compared with the acidity map. The vulcanoes are releasing CO2 …
AFAIK oceans are slightly alkaline, not acidic .
Has anyone seen more recent OCO2 images? I would have thought that NASA would have published them regularly, but it seems not. Is it because they don’t fit the CGAW narrative?
Old’un
If you take a look at the link I put further up, CO2 distribution shown there should be a source of a major embarrassment to any CAGW-ista , even more so to the sane section of the AGW-ers ..
Note that the chart doesn’t cover all measured values – just 380-415 ppmv. Note also all that CO2 over the oceans and virtually uninhabited areas. Looks like more CO2 over and near the British Isles than the USA, and way more over Canada. Lastly, how many times have we been told that CO2 is uniformly distributed throughout the atmosphere? Probably why we don’t get press releases from NASA with latest OCO-2 results.
Jim, they don’t say “uniformly”, only “readily mixed”. Seasonal changes are +/- 20% of full scale CO2 in/out the atmosphere within months, resulting measurements +/- 2% of full scale over the same months. Seems quite well mixed to me…
Human emissions are ~9 GtC/year or about 0.01 ppmv/day. You need concentrated areas of human activity or focussing over a longer period on specific areas (as this satellite can do) to notice the human contribution…
Besides that, there are quite remarkable levels of CO2 at places where it isn’t expected, like over the NE Atlantic, where the largest CO2 sinks are situated…
That is what happens when you take a 17 or so well-above-sea-level nuclear plants offline out of fear for a tsunami in Japan and replace their output with Brown Lignite Coal power stations. I’d bet Germany is leading the increase in emissions.
Details, details in a world based on arm waving and win-the-day messaging
But they built all those windmills and solar panels 🙂
It make the German’s feel good! The fact it has no measurable effect on CO2 emissions is flawed German engineering! And very affordable at $31Billion euros this year alone! Just wait until all those wind turbines need repair…its coming!
Lost opportunity costs compound. Into a catastrophe.
=========
Sweden is missing …
it’s just the result of a few million immigrants exhaling…. 😉
Relax, it’s only fiat money to go with negative interest rates. As the Greeks will tell you, it’s a lot more fun spending it, promising it, and owing it than actually making it from risk taking and competitive production and trading.
Yes, data entry is the easy way to produce wealth!
All part of The Third Way
That’s an interesting plot. Where is that streak coming down from AK through central Canada coming from? And the jungle areas of Africa are burning? Here in the SE US the Bermuda High keeps the air fairly stagnant over the summer and fall months, so maybe that is the source of higher CO2?
As for the Europeans, if the winters turn brutal over the next 10 years, which is probable, they may be burning the furniture to stay warm.
Start planting Eucalyptus trees now and every year for the next 10 years. After the first 5 years begin harvesting the first years planted and harvest every year for the following 10 years. The first batch has 5 years to dry out before burning. and every subsequent harvest can cure for the same amount of time
Eucs mature and reach 40′ tall in 5 years and, after drying, burn well due to the Euc oil. They do tend to POP a lot though so Fire Screens are a must.
Aromatic, too.
Bird slaughter is an expensive business, so is gimme-mine rooftop solar-at-any-price distortion of markets. I’ll give the Germans consolation points for coming back around with competitive bid utility scale solar with wind excluded. Better late than never I suppose. It does make you wonder what so many trillions of misplaced capital around the world does in a variety of unintended or neglected consequences. We need a Leontief matrix study of all the unintended costs to future societies from the fixation on the energy nonproblem. I suppose it equates to another world war in Europe that amounts to arrested and delayed development. What would Europe look like without its world wars and climate war? I suppose it would be the migrant war.
Actually, the main casualty from the misplaced war on climate and energy non-problems is…..world growth to pay for debt and other needs. This becomes a major problem for priorities when the climate con cements climate spending ahead of almost all other categories and forces populations to raise taxes even higher to pay for infrastructure or other neglected needs. Pressing the envelope on more taxes on top of unsustainable rates just adds to the new normal of lost decades or generations for growth to pay the debt pile. It raise the stakes for the message managers and indoctrinated youth corps to explain it away.
There is the catastrophe.
======
This is not as bad as the article says it is. Firstly, the goal of the energiewende was to get rid of nuclear, not to make electricity at the cheapest price or to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil. So I find it eminently bizarre that this site keeps hitting Germany over the head for not achieving targets it did not set out to achieve (remember, the energiewende has incredibly high approval ratings in Germany).
Secondly, the EU would have to invest a huge amount of cash anyway to replace its aging coal fired powerplants (median age, a lot higher than mine). So just saying how much money was invested is a red herring. You should also list the costs of replacing fossil with fossil. Then you would find that renewables in 2016 are actually cheaper than coal;
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/18/new-low-for-wind-energy-costs-morocco-tender-averages-us30mwh/
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/02/lowest-solar-price-dubai-800-mw-solar-project/
There has been a huge amount of research and engineering into solving the problem of intermittancy, and every projection made by the European energy companies (who are now dumping fossil en masse) shows that it is very achievable on an EU scale, just because there is always wind or sunshine somewhere.
On a country level, very high renewable contributions have been achieved already (scotland, 50%, denmark 42%, Germany 33%)
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/19/denmark-sets-another-record-breaking-year-wind-power/
http://www.scottishenergynews.com/renewable-energy-sector-hits-50-of-scottish-electricity-generation-target-12-months-ahead-of-schedule/
All the while, the price of energy in these countries is not much higher than in the US, and definitely negligible compared to total income of a family.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/
So lets just enjoy the fact that from now onwards everyone can agree that fossil should be fased out in favour of renewables, just because of economic reasons!
Cheers
Ben
Ben, to be charitable your first paragraph is just wrong. The Energiewende policies were about CAGW, and put in place years before Fukushima caused the Germans to foolishly decide to ALSO shut nuclear by 2022. The net net is just what we see. Much more expensive electricity, screwing up the European grid (e.g. Pulses through Poland) while doing nothing for CAGW. The question is when will they come to their senses, as the Danes apparently just have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_a_Quarter_(Call_Someone_Who_Cares)
I did just today discover this simple definition from wikipedia – whilst responding the the previous occasion on which the same claim was made. Energiewende was purportedly a move from coal to renewables, until embarassing “mission creep” lead Merkel to over-confidently decide to declare a war on two fronts.
Against both Coal AND Nuclear.
The embarassment is that current use of coal is not significantly less than the 1995 figure. And that the coal in question is mostly smelly lignite. However there has been little increase in total electricity use over that time, partly due to energy efficiency measures but probably because the high electricity costs will have incentivized energy intensive industry to move away from Germany to countries that are making fewer concessions to ideological delusion.
Here is the wiki definition of Energiewende:
“The Energiewende (German for Energy transition) is the transition by Germany to an energy portfolio dominated by renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development. The final goal is the abolition of coal and other non-renewable energy sources.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_transition_in_Germany
I strongly agree with ristvan.
As I have previously written:
“Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society.”
“When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die.”
It IS that simple.
– Allan MacRae, P. Eng.
References:
Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather
June 13, 2015
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Presentation of Evidence Suggesting Temperature Drives Atmospheric CO2 more than CO2 Drives Temperature
September 4, 2015
By Allan MacRae
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, Calgary, June 12, 2015
You have to hand it to the Germans – they’re nothing if not consistent
benben spouts:
So lets just enjoy the fact that from now onwards everyone can agree that fossil should be fased out in favour of renewables, just because of economic reasons!
Complete nonsense, as usual from ‘benben’.
Very few agree that fossil fuels should be “fased” out. And coming from benben, a typical user of fossil fuels, his comment reeks of hypocrisy.
And when subsidies are deleted from the equation, alternative energy is so expensive that no one would voluntarily buy it. Not even hypocrites.
But Bernie Sanders assured me, when other people pay for it, it’s free.
I live in the province of Ontario. The current Liberal government, first elected in 2003, phased out coal and replaced it, they claimed with Wind and Solar. In actual fact they’ve built, along with the windfarms, 19 new gas-fired generating plants. Although I don’t have an actual number most are so-called “Peaker” plants, that is generating plants that only exist to backup “Renewables”. The cost of electricity has doubled in Ontario over the last 10 years, mainly due to renewable energy schemes. During that same period Ontario lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs including Caterpillar, Heinz and Kellogg because of soaring electricity rates.
I have been tracking Wind and Solar Output each day (6 readings per day) over the last 11 weeks from the http://www.ieso.ca website – Independent Electricity Suppliers of Ontario. Results are:
– Wind Output of Capacity – 28.8% (average 973 MW Output of 3,381 MW average Capacity).
– Solar Output of Capacity – 18.3% (average 36 MW Output of 195 MW average Capacity). NOTE: Capacity increased for both Wind and Solar during the 11 week period, hence the “average Capacity”.
– Wind Capacity of Total Capacity (including all forms of electricity generation) – 9.5%, Wind Output of Total Output (including all forms of electricity generation) – 5.8%.
– Solar of Total Capacity – 0.5%, Solar of Total Output – 0.2%.
– The primary forms of electricity generation in Ontario is: Nuclear – 61.8% of Total Output and Hydro 25.8% of Total Output.
This government plans to expand both Wind and Solar regardless of the impacts on electricity rates (energy poverty), manufacturing jobs or the health of its citizens. Hundreds of people have complained to the government of ill-health (headaches, problems sleeping etc.) because they allow windmills to be placed as close as 550m (600yds.) from houses or businesses. Renewable energy (except Hydro) in Ontario, as it now stands now, can be best be described as a Fool’s Paradise.
You might help your case (but probably not) if you could spell or use a spellchecker.
Repeating disingenuous claims is almost as bad as poor spelling.
Cheers.
Woops, was typing that while doing three other things at the same time. My bad 🙂
Let me guess:
1. Playing with your blocks
2. Learning your A-B-C’s
3. Dreaming about windmills
That would explain your inability to put forth a rational defense of renewable energy.
‘Multi-tasking’ is a myth!
Haha, oh come on guys, you can do better than that. Lets have some recent references please. I provide them for my statements. And again, I’m living in this region so I’m paying the electricity price (lowest in years!) and have to deal with alleged grid instabilities (haven’t experienced or read about one in years, in spite of massive deployment of renewables).
Cheers,
Ben
benben says:
I’m living in this region so I’m paying the electricity price (lowest in years!)
When subsidies are taken into account, that is a preposterously false statement.
Subsidies are the hidden cost of ‘renewables’. They’re hidden so the clueless like benben believe that they’re paying less for electricity.
They’re not. The difference is huge. But since it doesn’t show up on benben’s statement, he actually believes he’s paying less.
That belief is as credulous, naive, and juvenile as benben’s name.
We generally don’t put too much effort in debating non-sequitur at WUWT. I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2014.11.18/chart2.png
This research is worth bookmarking. Admittedly 2013. So Solar P.V. LCOE has fallen to some degree since then.
Although the cost to consumers has not fallen as it might have done if both the E.U. and America had not slapped punitive import duties on cheap chinese P.V. imports. (70% tariff here in the E.U.)
What is notable is that whilst wind LCOE has fallen over time historically – the availability of generous subsidies for off-shore hs had the effect of raising the cost to the consumer per kWh. As wind is taken further off-shore into deeper water perhaps. Anyway, according to this off-shore LCOE rose from 2009 to 2013.
That’s the trouble with dishing out free money – inasmuch as people will often find ways to spend it.
Check out figure 3 page 11 – Hydro, Gas, Coal are the winners. Followed by nuclear and on-shore wind.
As discussed before – P.V. is going to catch up and it will a very cheap source of power by 2020.
All that we then need to do is only use our lights during the hours of sunlight!!! 🙂
https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/WEC_J1143_CostofTECHNOLOGIES_021013_WEB_Final.pdf
Ah, so frog, you’re saying that PV will be very cheap by 2020? Well. That works out fine. It’s 2016 now, so just a couple of more years to go. Easy to see how solar would be relatively cheap now in Dubai but won’t be as cheap in the rest of the world until 2020. I’m glad we agree! It’s just that there is quite a large crowd here that thinks renewables are incredibly expensive and will totally bankrupt our economy whilst this is clearly not true.
And to all the people complaining about the source of the information. Well, by all means keep feeding your cognitive dissonance by fencing off every bit of the media outside of WUWT. I’m just here to discuss with people willing to look at actual data. (RWturner, thanks for your contribution, but again, that is 2013, and the energy market has seen massive changes in the past couple of years, so it’s less relevant than you would think)
Cheers,
Benj
I went through the document you provided frog. That’s pretty much the way it was in 2013. The only change is that the price has come down a bit faster than expected (see all the recent links I provided, or go google if you don’t believe the source). Also interesting to note that this report does not foresee any problems with the intermittent nature of renewables. Because these engineering problems have been solved of course, much to the disbelief of the crowd on this website 😉
Cheers,
Ben
If you claim that 2013 isn’t any indication for what energy prices are now then you should probably back that up with some evidence.
It appears that 2013 is the latest complete data available publicly. Here are the trends in prices between the EU and US, and keep in mind the US is spending $billions on wind/solar as well so this is not a fair comparison of energy prices with and without wind/solar.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2014.11.18/main.png
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/content/dam/pei/online-articles/2015/February/2europe_electricity_prices%20(1280×836).jpg
http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Screen-Shot-2015-05-26-at-12.29.12-PM.png
A better comparison to the state of Germany may be a state with little interest in renewable energy mandates, i.e. West Virginia, because states like Hawaii and California highly skew the U.S. average price.
http://gosemo.coopwebbuilder2.com/sites/gosemo/files/field/us-electricity-rates-by-state-2013.jpg
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/images/ce/State-RES-Map-Full-Size.jpg
So, energy prices in Germany are more than 360% more expensive than in West Virginia. I’m sure this has nothing to do with energy policy./s
Hey RWturner,
Thanks for the figures. Interesting stuff, but we can throw data at each other all day. Why don’t we just compare actual facts? I’ll tell you what I pay for my electricity, and you tell me what you pay. And we can see how big that difference is. Much better than scouring the internet for a figure that supports a certain viewpoint.
I posted this below also, but here for ease of access:
I am at a 100% wind energy company (e.g. they own their own wind turbines and sell that) and I pay 17.5 eurocents / kWh. This includes all costs, except a fixed 6 euro /month network charge (per household). That would be 14.5 ct/kWh without tax, which probably compares better to the US since you guys have much lower tax rates.
This is in the Netherlands, which has somewhat lower costs than Germany, as per your figures. But since this is 100% wind based energy price that shouldn’t be relevant. Also, it should be pointed out that subsidies for renewables in NL are very low because we have a right wing government for a long time now.
Looking forward to hearing your exact energy expenditure RW!
benben says:
I’ll tell you what I pay for my electricity, and you tell me what you pay.
Bogus comparison. Doesn’t take subsidies into account.
What matters is the actual (total) cost of one source of power vs another (eg: coal power vs windmills).
‘Alternative energy’ sources cannot possibly compete without truly massive taxpayer subsidies.
It could be considered more anecdotal evidence than pure fact –as well as what dbstealy said–, but here is a copy+paste directly from my electric bill.
BILLING FACTORS
Energy use kWh 398
Cost of fuel per kWh $0.021717
And I live in a state with a 20% wind energy production mandate by 2020.
dbstealy, which is why bonbon keeps insisting on looking only at what is on his statement.
He knows it’s bogus, but he’s determined to hold to onto the myth.
P.S. It is a misnomer that we pay far less taxes in the U.S. Our taxes are simply diversified in both name and nature, and most broadly passed on to consumers in the form of the manufacturer/retailer/distributor passing the buck from government regulations on to the consumer.
RW, you’re paying 2 ct/kwh? That can’t be correct right?
The main point of this is to show that energy in europe as of 2016 is significantly lower than the 2013 data provided by RW, which is a fair point in this discussion, and giving the actual price I am literally paying is a good data point.
As for subsidies: I don’t know the exact figure but it is in the order of a couple of cents per kwh at most. So that changes the picture a bit but not really in the way portrayed here on this site. Especially those insisting that people in Europe are destitute and hungry because they can’t pay their ever increasing energy bills. Haha!
benben,
I have been working in The Netherlands (Akzo Nobel Rotterdam 1978-2005), where they used lots of electricity (132 MW nominal from Eneco at that time). Since then Eneco did move to a 100% renewable company. So far so good. They make a lot of profit, simply because they earn a lot of money from subsidies (in my country GSC’s: green power certificates) and the distribution companies must take their wind power by preference and Eneco has no obligation whatever to stabilize the network for the excess wind power at one moment and none within 15 minutes later. That is done by fast cycle gas turbines which have a low yield, compared to combined cycle generation or heat-power combined generation. The companies which deliver that kind of power nowdays are working at a loss… Some like RW-E in Germany have said to Angela Merkel to stop their network support if they don’t receive compensation for this loss. In Belgium these companies are already compensated for and that is paid for by the consumers within the distribution costs.
Thus the real cost of wind power (and solar) is much higher than what you pay, not only because of subsidies and preferences, but also because you don’t take into account the extra costs caused by the rather inefficient necessary backup, both in investment and operating costs.
That means that in reality there is hardly any CO2 reduction from wind power and it is largely underpriced.
See (in Dutch) the interview with Dr. Fred Udo:
http://925.nl/archief/2016/04/21/windenergie-is-waanzin-kost-een-gewoon-gezin-eur-500-per-jaar-extra-maar-levert-niets-op/
Hey Ferdinand,
I know this is difficult for a lot of people to see, but the costs of renewables has dropped drastically the past few years and certainly wind is way cheaper than fossil (your experience is 2005, and in the posts above I already showed the difference between 2013 and 2016). Then indeed you’d need a lot of back up in the form of gas turbines. This is fine. We’d be burning gas anyway (since it’s cheaper than coal). Modern gas turbines are efficient on a broad range of utilization factors (as opposed to nuclear or coal), so the efficiency losses from ramping up and down are perfectly acceptable.
The grid is perfectly stable and hardly any new back up generation capacity has been built (if you’d really need 1:1 backup we would have 100s of GW extra gas turbines standing around which is simply not the case). We have learnt from German experience that you can get quite far with smart load balancing software and demand-side incentives (e.g. pay Akzo Nobel to reduce their demand by x% on a moments notice, this is something that is happening with a couple of major electricity consumers).
Of course you are 100% correct that operators of fossil fuel plants are hurting right now. This is because they made their business plan on a much higher utilization and now they can’t afford their CAPEX. Some solution will have to be found for that, but the costs as spread out over all users of electricity over the EU will not be very high (as per every serious study done on the subject, google is your friend).
So all of this hand wringing about the impossibility and expense of wind energy is just completely not related to the actual facts. The Netherlands is a tiny country and believe me, if I were receiving a 500 euro hidden subsidy it would be unhidden in a heartbeat. And I wouldn’t take it either. Where is the fun in that?
Also the link you linked to makes some completely ridiculous claims: ‘Toch gaan we op korte termijn al een tiende van ons land onbewoonbaar maken voor dit sprookje dat enkel op subsidie draait.’ Without any numbers or calculations or backing up their claims. Just a grumpy old white guy on camera, as always. And their other news articles are of extreme right-wing unpleasantness. Not very reliable 😉
Cheers,
Ben
Benben,
With in 2013 about 12% power from renewables in The Netherlands, of which about half from biomass, only 5% was from wind and 1% solar.
To keep the net stable and reliable, you need at least 10% backup for the case that one of the large power suppliers is out for maintenance and some other one fails at once. Thus the 5% from wind simply is using the available national fossil reserve today as buffer. If wind exceeds 10%, you need additional backup, up to 100% of the installed capacity of wind (and solar)… The extra backup, as well as its investment as its operating costs (for all times without wind) should be added to wind power prices to have the real price…
From Dr. Udo, some real world calculations (in English) about the CO2 reduction, based on the experiences of the Irish grid (comparable to the Dutch grid):
http://www.clepair.net/Udo20150831-e.html
More to read (English and Dutch) at:
http://www.clepair.net/#Wind
Ferdinand, I honestly don’t understand what is so difficult about this: the EU grid is on an EU level, so you should look at supply/demand balance on an EU level. It might not be windy in the Netherlands, or in Denmark, or in Spain, but it the wind always blows somewhere. There is decades of meteorological data available so you can prove this with ease. Please note that Ireland is NOT connected to the mainland EU grid while Denmark, Netherlands, Germany etc. are.
So you DO NOT need 100% back up in a well designed and sufficiently large energy grid, because there is ALWAYS wind energy coming from somewhere. Especially if you mix wind and solar (sunny days no wind, at night lots of wind). I’ve made this point many times already but people here just don’t seem to see it. Now obviously you’ll get into trouble by the time you reach 100% renewables. That is not possible without massive deployment of energy storage. But every simulation of EU level grid shows that you can easily go to >50% renewables (most recent german studies point to ~75%) without needing massive new backup. This is assuming you’ll replace a lot of coal with gas, but that will happen anyway for economic reasons.
So, conclusion, we can go much further with renewables without any hidden subsidies or drama about grid instability. Once we reach an overall EU level of 50% we’ll have to see if you can get further than that. But clearly that is a decade or two out. So no need to have rabid flamewars on the topic for a long long time 🙂
Cheers!
Benj
Cleantechnica.com is nothing but a shill for Big Green. They couldn’t tell the truth if they tried. Try again, Ben.
there you go, bloomberg: ‘New Record Set for World’s Cheapest Solar, Now Undercutting Coal’
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-developers-undercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai
Oh benben!
These quotes from renewable energy pushing rags!
Yes Dubai solar may actually make sense. No industry to speak of, electricity mostly for aircon where occasional power interruption does not matter, and insolation 3x higher than in Germany.
And they’ve got some pretty serious air-con:
http://www.hotelsindubai.com/do/skiing.htm
Here in greenunist Vermont, they have succeeded in lobbying away from “dirty coal” fired energy (McNeil power plant) to burning trash wood and old pallets for steam generation of electricity.
Ironically they are producing more CO2 with the biomass bit than they did with coal – a carbon density difference ?? So, we are not burning fossil fuels, but we are burning and, well to the East, my apple trees and tomato plants just love it.
yeah that sounds kinda dumb
Ben,
This is highly encouraging. I have seen electricity prices for Germany quoted at $US0.43 per KWH. Not to argue with the data source, but average electricity cost in the US is generally quoted at US$0.12 per kwh. Are these figures the as-delivered cost, with the transmission costs and all the add-ons, or is this just the generation cost? In either case, does it include the renewable’s subsidies in their cost per kwh?
So hard numbers: I am at a 100% wind energy company (e.g. they own their own wind turbines and sell that) and I pay 17.5 eurocents / kWh. This includes all costs, except a fixed 6 euro /month network charge (per household). That would be 14.5 ct/kWh without tax, which probably compares better to the US since you guys have much lower tax rates.
This is in the Netherlands, which has comparable costs to Germany. Also, it should be pointed out that subsidies for renewables in NL are very low because we have a right wing government for a long time now.
So… honestly, I just don’t understand where all of this ‘renewables are so expensive’ comes from. It’s just not true.
benben 1 pm: I don’t understand where the 14.5 ct/kwh comes from? Also, is the network cost of 6 euros a flat fee for all electricity users? And what sort of tax is on your electricity (if you know)?
Interesting to hear from someone on a 100% wind network. Is it really 100% of your consumpion?
benben:
Your bill is subsidized. The “well-head” cost for your electricity is higher than what’s on your statement and somebody (fossil fuel users) is making up the difference. This works as long as there are still fossil fuel plants to squeeze for your subsidy. The day they go “poof!” is when you will discover the true cost of your electricity.
Hey KTWO, the 14.5 ct/kwh comes from my electricity bill. There is a 3.5 ct/kwh tax on top of that. I pay a flat fee of 6.5 euro’s, which is ~ the same for everyone although different energy companies bill you in different ways of course. That’s just the cost for maintaining your connection.
DJ Hawkins, I switched a year ago from a fossil fuel based energy provider, and my parents are still with them (the biggest one in the country). The price difference was minimal (~5%). As I said, the subsidies for renewables in my country are very low. I don’t know the exact figure but think in the order of a couple of cents per kwh at most. Nothing drastic or dramatic. And certainly much less than the random swings in energy price you get anyway because the price of fossil fuels is so unstable.
benben says:
I just don’t understand where all of this ‘renewables are so expensive’ comes from. It’s just not true.
Isn’t he cute? He really believes that.
17.5 € cents = about 20¢ USD, which is pretty expensive. Plus the 6.5€ ‘connection fee’ = 6,500€ cents on top. Damn expensive.
And none of that includes the immense taxpayer subsidies necessary to construct the stupid windmills.
benben, if you really believe windmill power is cheaper than clean coal power (6¢ – 9¢ in many US States), there’s no helping you. You’ve drunk the Kool Aid.
benben, ‘3 A maximum base amount
The SDE+ 2015 assumes a maximum base amount of € 0,15 ct/kWh (€ 11.80 ct/kWh for renewable gas). Technologies that are able to produce renewable energy for this amount or lower may qualify for subsidy.’
http://english.rvo.nl/sites/default/files/2016/03/Brochure%20SDE-plus%202015.pdf
Benben,
See my reaction on the price settings of (wind) power in The Netherlands here.
You are not paying the real price of windpower: at one side windpower is heavily subsidized, and the cost (and CO2 emissions) of the necessary backup is not taken into account…
You should also list the costs of replacing fossil with fossil. Then you would find that renewables in 2016 are actually cheaper than coal; ……………………….So lets just enjoy the fact that from now onwards everyone can agree that fossil should be fased (sic) out in favour of renewables, just because of economic reasons!
Cheers
Ben
*************************************************************************************************************Or, you could compare like costs with like. Once the renewable element of the energy mix is above the level of built-in reserve, every extra “renewable” installation you add, you also have to build and pay for a conventional energy provider to cover the inevitable times when the renewable isn’t producing any energy – there is no more slack in the system to hide the deficiency.
Unless you do this there will be an energy shortage. If you do build a conventional supply for backup, why would you want to spend extra money building a part-time renewable supply when the “backup” could be used instead?
This whole exercise is not about cost per Kw/h for intermittent generation, it is about providing the cheapest CONTINUAL means of supplying the grid.
If you think you can build a renewable plant plus a conventional one for the price of a conventional one you need more help than is available on this site
SteveT
“CO2 Emissions In The EU Have Increased In 2015, Despite €1 Trillion In Green Subsidies”
And the green-sheople can’t fathom that Climate Inc., is simply a fraudulent way to funnel money into special interests.
Rwturner, {I put this here because it got crowded up-thread}
I live in the Great State of Washington. Note the 2 numbers in your images: Average rate = 8.7 in WA
15% by 2020
My rate (2016) is 8.97 plus a monthly facilities charge of $19.
[15%]: The State has massive dams and to determine who paid, how much, and why is a fool’s errand.
Anyway, that 15% number by 2020 only includes “hydro” in a very narrow sense. Namely, only increases via efficiency gains in “qualified” projects can count toward the goal. Otherwise, because of the large installed base of existing hydro the percentage of “renewable” is well beyond most places. Thus, in practice, existing hydro is not included in the calculation.
These sorts of definitions always make comparisons and reports suspect. One city added “green” technology to city buses and than claimed the job of bus driver was a “green” job.
I get ever more skeptical.
The solution is obvious.
We need more poor people freezing in the dark.
I wish I could claim this was just sarcasm.
How could CO2 emissions possibly be reduced by the countless billions spent on so-called renewables? The energy density of these alternatives sucks! According to BP, in 2014, less than 2.5% of the world’s energy needs were supplied by wind, solar and biomass. So the remaining 97.5% (plus growth) would easily account for the CO2 increase.
0.7% is hardly significant. It’s well within normal fluctuations. That’s not enough to say increased. You can say that it did not decrease, but no more.
Considering that they took Green credit for closing inefficient East German plants (which there were going to close anyway for economic reasons), this is a nice case of schadenfreude.
Also, Energiewende ist Energiekaput.
Emergent structures analysis, applying conservation of energy, demonstrates that added CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Trillions of dollars have been wasted in failed attempts using super computers to demonstrate that added atmospheric CO2 is a primary cause of global warming and in misguided activities to try to do something about it. The true temperature trend of the planet is down. How cold will it need to get for the AGWers to realize that they got it wrong? Mother Nature does not do politics.
http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
@EuroCommission
“Eurostat estimates that in 2015 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion increased by 0.7% in the European Union (EU), compared with the previous year.”
So, it is ‘estimated’ that emissions increased by an infinitesimal 0.007. What is the confidence interval of this estimate (too small to measure directly, IMHO) against the noise of all natural and man-made emissions?
Is it possible that the models which produce these estimates could generate any desired small plus-or-minus value by suitable ‘tweeking’ of coefficients and/or arguments?
And is it possible that suitably tweeked models could be used to shame or coerce member states to more faithfully fulfill their commitments?
Just asking.
johanus,
Estimates of CO2 emissions are based on fossil fuel sales (taxes!) and burning efficiency for the different types of fuel. Probably more underestimated than overestimated, due to the human nature to avoid taxes…
Thus rather accurate, as every government needs money and fuel sales is a big part of their income…
How much is the increase when you factor in the CO2 emissions from the imported products/services? What good is “Zero” even decreased emissions if it is achieved by outsourcing all of your emissions?How does that help “Climate Change?”
I am paying for this!
Furhermore, if you count carbon emissions from consumption, EU has never lowered CO2 emissions in history. EU has exported part of its emissions to China.
“Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by an estimated 10 million tonnes from 2014 to 2015, in a blow to the country’s claims to climate leadership”
Followed by a graph and a link showing that Germany estimated CO2 emission raised by 0.0% between 2014 and 2015.
http://www.aei.org/publication/on-earth-day-we-can-celebrate-being-the-only-country-to-significantly-reduce-co2-emissions-thanks-to-fracking/
On Earth Day, we can celebrate being the only country to significantly reduce CO2 emissions — thanks to fracking
http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/energynew1.png
Nice to see “Subsidy Sam” doing all right
Beats the hell out of interest rates on your savings
Until recently Malta was isolated and relied entirely on imported oil to fuel electricity generation.
The seeming astonishing reduction in the CO2 emissions from Malta (see bar graph) may be a result of imported energy via a cable interconnection with Sicily opened in 2015.
German fossile electrical power generation is actually quite stable at about 50% over the last decade with only gas in significant decline. All the added billions for wind, solar and biomass just makes up for the loss in early retired nuclear facillities.
Since Germany is replacing one no emission technology with another there should be insignificant effect on the CO2 emisssions jusr as obeserved. All they have to show fot their forced green shift is a facade where in reality neighbouring countries act as swing producers as the elements push Germany back and forth between surplus and shortfall. More than 10% of Benbens Dutch electricity is actually German coal.
Good thing the rest of European countries are not following the Danes and Germans on their march of folly. The only way the electrical power system in Europe could have coped with a 70% of needed capacity coming and going woud have been to dump(= waste) a lot of it as coal and nuclear, even with good prediction of needs and weather, can’t regulate up and down fast enough.
Unless the green house effect of CO2 turn out to be in highest range suggested by ICCP Solar and Wind on this scale and/ore this cost will be a mistake only matched by prematurely closing perfectly good nuclear generators. I always assumed democracies had robust enogh decission processes to prevent folly on this scale but i was wrong. If you control the facts and the premises for decissionmaking (in Europe we have to obey the precautionary principle as incoked by the greens, be it AGW, fracking, GMO..) you get what you want.
Spending 1 Trillion dollars on reducing a clearly beneficial gas which greens the planet is delusionally ludicrous. The CO2 distribution map shows that most of the CO2 is produced in industry-free zones. It suggests that much of the CO2 is coming from natural sources and from volcanoes and sea floor volcanic activity not industry. Most of the 1 Trillion dollars will go to either waste or fraud and will have almost no effect on industrial CO2 production which continues to increase (with no ill effects other than greening the planet).
It doesn’t take much thought to understand that CO2 reduction policies are another way of achieving income redistribution. Different country same atmosphere.
Energiewende, Merkel, Obama: Life goes on without you.
Some one tell them
Live only goes on without Energiewende, Merkel, Obama.
Don’t let me be misunderstood:
Merkel went for Chancellorship to get a retired floridan golden Girl.
And Obama next door she would comprehens.
Both never really minded politics or people.
Just a way of life.
comprehens, comprehend – my dinglish.
‘scuse.
And as always we’re bound to think of childrens future :
That demagogic demographic scare.
Merkels children –
frack along.
CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming
_______________________________________
2. and account for around 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions.
but
1. CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming.
_______________________________________
where is the proof that
— CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming —
While Belgium shows an important increase in CO2 emissions last year, the increase is not from increased economical activity, but because of two large nuclear reactors (each 1000 MW) were out of duty for more than a year and a third, smaller one (500 MW) was at the planned end of life at the beginning of last year,
That needed a lot of extra fossil fuel use and extra import (mostly from France which is mostly nuclear). Together they present around 20% of average power use here.
The problem with the two reactors was very fine air (/hydrogen) inclusions parallel with the walls. Te safety/stress tests under high radiation on similar materials needed over a year, after which the atomic energy watchdog did give green light for the restart. Meanwhile the current government lengthened the use of the smaller reactor with 10 years, so that we are again at 50% nuclear power…
That makes that this year the CO2 emissions should drop again, but the price of electricity will not drop as we need to pay lots of “green” taxes for the subsidies on solar and wind power from the past, present and future…