From the LA times, a bold move, but unlikely they can pull it off.
Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy
Germany, one of the world’s biggest consumers of coal, will shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over the next 19 years to meet its international commitments in the fight against climate change, a government commission said Saturday.
The announcement marked a significant shift for Europe’s largest country — a nation that had long been a leader on cutting CO2 emissions before turning into a laggard in recent years and badly missing its reduction targets. Coal plants account for 40% of Germany’s electricity, itself a reduction from recent years when coal dominated power production.
“This is an historic accomplishment,” said Ronald Pofalla, chairman of the 28-member government commission, at a news conference in Berlin following a marathon 21-hour negotiating session that concluded at 6 a.m. Saturday. The breakthrough ended seven months of wrangling. “It was anything but a sure thing. But we did it,” Pofalla said. “There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”
The plan includes some $45 billion in spending to mitigate the pain in coal regions. The commission’s recommendations are expected to be adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.
…
The decision to quit coal follows an earlier bold energy policy move by the German government, which decided to shut down all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011.
…
The initial targets are considerable, calling for a quarter of the country’s coal-burning plants with a capacity of 12.5 gigawatts to be shut down by 2022. That means about 24 plants will be shut within the first three years. By 2030, Germany should have about eight coal-burning plants remaining, producing 17 gigawatts of electricity, the commission said.
full story here
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It fascinating that a small group of faceless bureaucrats/politicians/activists can, with one vote, place an entire country on a path to penury. I’ll guess that there weren’t many (any) true scientists or engineers in the cabal.
This is a prime example of an isolated elite dictating to the people at large. It provides the politicians with cover to implement socialism.
Germany has a well established history on what happens after the country enters a state of penury and attempts to procure foreign resources.
Resumed by this joke:
Frankfurt airport ground control gives very complex instructions to a B747 captain that just landed. The aircraft asks for precisions. The ground control guy jokes:
-Ach, so firts time around here yankee boys ?
To which the captain replies:
-Negative Sir, I have been here many times on a different type of Boeing but I didn’t land.
B-17.
The U.K. passed their climate law in he midst of a light snowfall in London at the end of October, the first time snow had fallen that early there in decades. Germany votes to shut down coal as Australia suffers rolling blackouts after demolishing reliable baseload power stations. Oh the arrogance of politicians on a religious crusade.
“
“There is a horrifying recent example from my own country of what happens when electricity prices are hiked so much that poorer families can’t afford to turn on the heater. There was a brief cold snap last winter, and 25,000 more excess winter deaths than usual resulted, chiefly because those who are less well-off can no longer afford electrical power or heating oil because global-warming policies have made these essential commodities six times costlier than they would be if the free market had been allowed to work without governmental interference”.
(Of discount rates and candy-canes Guest Blogger / January 11, 2019 By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley)
I have often wondered, how well does solar work under a foot of snow.
Wrong question Ve2. The correct question is when was the last time they ever had snow in Tonopah, Nevada? https://www.solarreserve.com/en/global-projects/csp/crescent-dunes
Thermal solar is an economic dead end. It can never pay back its investors and deliver reliable electricity at an affordable cost. Only by harvesting the politically granted tax incentives and other paybacks do investors put their money into these ventures. Which is why Democrats suckle at the teets of those investors for campaign cash. Feeding at the electricity consumer trough.
Snows there pretty much every year.
Averages more than a foot per year.
Why is that the correct question?
Does the answer make the question incorrect?
(and a quick look shows a projection of 1 or 2 inches for next tuesday … I guess the correct question may be how many birds are saved by each Tonopah snowfall event.)
Human sized hamsters wheels for Germany….
Perhaps this is how they are fighting their immigration problems…no wait those immigrants also want to return to how humans lived back in the 11th century…how progressive of Germany
Mr. Putin said it loud and clear:
-You don’t want nuclear, have a problem with gas, so how will you heat your houses ? Firewood ? We have plenty of it in Siberia.
https://youtu.be/xDQDyt0B-1E
Just another goalpost move for Germany and it will end up like the last one. It never ceases to amaze what lack of knowledge politicians have when it comes to “renewable” energy.
“There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”
According to this article, lignite German mines will have almost been depleted by then. Finding other fuel sources sounds like a good idea. Wood pellets, anyone?
https://www.thegwpf.com/germanys-climate-agenda-on-the-brink-of-the-abyss/
Merkel has signed up to buy gas from the US of A as well as Russia. They’re going to need it because solar anywhere north of Italy only pays back 0.86 of the energy invested in it and wind isn’t any better.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301379
This will not end well for Norway when the 4th Reich (EU/Germany) decide they need all the energy they can lay their hands on. It’s time to get a hacksaw and cut the power lines out of the country and dig trenches along the borders to Sweden and Finland.
“This is an historic accomplishment,” said Ronald Pofalla,
— historic, yes, accomplishment, no
chairman of the 28-member government commission, at a news conference in Berlin following a marathon 21-hour negotiating session that concluded at 6 a.m. Saturday. The breakthrough ended seven months of wrangling. “It was anything but a sure thing. But we did it,” Pofalla said. “There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”
— 21 hours, seven months. So this is the compromise. Some must have wanted more cuts sooner. Some must have had some reservations. Concluded at 6 a.m. — maybe they were locked in a room without food or water or sleep until they confessed…
— There won’t be any more Germany by 2038.
Probably true, Toto; they will have subsumed the EU by then.
An accomplishment is something achieved, not something that comes before the achievement.
Sheer madness. Germany has lost its mind. I can predict what will happen, but our knucklehead green politicians in the US are going to be pointing to this for some time – until the bottom falls out of the German economy.
” … will shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over the next 19 years … ”
19 years is a long time. Plenty of time to change their minds. 19 years ago Bill Clinton (I don’t remember him either) was the US president.
When I look back, 19 years is a very short time. But I agree that it is a long time to come up with more stupid ideas.
And a new nightfall will descend upon Germany.
How shortsighted, how sad.
“There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”
Oh, yes there will be. Some or all may be shut down presently, but unless modern society crumbles in Germany, a way will be found to magically recommission most of them. Mark my words well.
on the bright side gone is any chance for a Fourth Reich.
Don’t kid yourself, the big push is for a combined European Army, and we all know who will end up controlling that.
So our children will never know snow and many will never know where a country named Germany used to be and is now a huge game park.
Mindless virtue signalling…Germany buy your yellow vests soon, cheaper by the dozen.
This will turn out just like Merkel’s, “Wir schaffen das,” regarding the “migrants” from “Syria.”
Only if Merkel desperately wants to end her public career on a disastrous down note.
As with Nazism, Germany is embarking on yet another religious crusade, this one for ‘climate’ and this one will end just as badly as the other.
Every month I check on what’s happening with ammonia fuel. This month I found an article about alternative fuels for transportation. link I note with some bemusement that the compressed air powered car refuses to die. 🙂
What’s that got to do with renewable energy in Germany, you ask? Ammonia is touted as one way to store energy from renewable sources. As far as I can tell, its main advantage is that it can be stored very cheaply in large tanks. ie. for mass long term storage, it’s probably cheaper than batteries.
commieBob, that was hilarious.
Everybody, the article was dead serious and covered all the bases on all the options for powering a car.
Things they covered as realistic options:
1) Water powered, water as fuel.
2) Liquid nitrogen(!)
3) Pure solar, “the problems have been addressed”
The kind of magical thinking on display in the article goes a long way in explaining why the electric grids in Germany and Australia are collapsing.
In my early career, I would often sit at the feet of the masters. They were uniformly easy to understand. They spent a lot of time discussing things in terms of first principles.
Junior engineers and scientists, on the other hand, most often explained things in a very confusing manner. They usually didn’t provide viable solutions.
What I learned was to look for violations of first principles. The approach was very productive.
Whoever wrote the article evidently doesn’t have a grasp of first principles.
Can someone produce some numbers? What does the catastrophe look like?
In Germany, they just exchange the old Ferraris eletricity meters against brand new, remotely controllable ones, nationwide. They will take you off-grid when it deems necessary. Your power consumption is under full control, for a start. And when wind and PV cannot deliver, you’ll be remorselelessly taken down.
How long until griff proclaims that this plan is proof that 100% renewable will work.
I expect if I’m around in 2050, I’ll be posting an update!
Through Google for instance this is being trumpeted as a great advance for renewables in the ‘life and de@th’ battle against the elements, aka climate change™.
Hard coal and lignite made up about 22% of the primary energy consumption in Germany in 2017; fossil fuels oil natural gas coal together made up 80%, renewables were 13% while the rest was nuclear and ‘other’ (Statista).
Coal, most of which is imported, will be replaced quietly by gas no doubt with little effect except on electricity price with a corresponding reduction in consumption and increased hardship for many.
Average yearly sunshine hours for German cities (North, Central and South).
Compiled from 1961-1990 data according to the website:
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Germany/annual-hours-of-sunshine.php.
Some sunshine average hours/day for major German cities: Berlin –> 4.45 hours, Hamburg –> 4.26 hours, Frankfurt –> 4.35 hours, Munich –> 4.68 hours, Stuttgart –> 4.63.
Sunshine hours for U.S. cities in contrast:
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-sunshine-by-city.php.
Chicago –> 6.87 hours/day, Miami –> 8.64, NYC –> 6.95, Dallas –> 7.80, Kansas City –> 7.70, Phoenix –> 10.6, Sacramento –> 9.88 hours/day, etc….
If that German commission thinks it can replace nuclear and coal plants with solar panels, me thinks that they are in for a huge disappointment. I have my doubts that wind energy is any better in Deutschland. If their neighboring countries follow suit, there could be some real problems on the horizon.
Germany committed suicide militarily in the early 1940s. Now they are planning on doing it economically. The first time it happened was from believing in one man’s ideology that they shouldn’t have. And now……
Country is run by women. Feelings over facts is to be expected. The mistake of my life was to move to Germany. Then, Merkel opened the borders and now this. The bill for electricity is already high.