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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There will be several elections between now and 2038. Germany will move down the path, but they’ll never get all the way there.
The problems to the grid will get increasingly apparent the further down the path they move so they’d have to be pretty stupid or pretty quick at moving down the path (or both) to get all the way there. If they ever do get close to all the way there they’ll have ignored the Kirk Lazarus rule:
Well, there goes the 4th Reich
I wouldt call it GDR 2.0
They sure are counting on finding a lot of unicorn farts. Their invading army of Islamic jihadists is about to slaughter them back to the stone age. Too slow apparently. They want to go back to pre-industrial energy levels now.
Deutschland, welcome to the 21st Century. It’s gonna look a lot like the 19th.
Dark ages, rather.
Make that the 18th century. The 19th century was one of tremendous technical progress; life got dramatically better.
Good on you, Germany! Your ability to find solutions to technical difficulties will surely find a way and hopefully many other countries will join you in the search for clean, safe energy – Vorsprung Durch Technik.
But, judging by the negative and bitter responses on here, you have a lot to do to win over those who only want to believe in ABC (Anything But Carbon). Maybe you never will and who cares. Especially with regards to websites such as this one. I often come here to see what excuses and new justifications come up to prevent any meaningful response to global warming, and usually I am not disappointed! Mystified at times, of course – who wouldn’t be, seeing the goal-posts being moved every few months: It’s not warming…it’s warming a little…ok, it’s warming but it’s good for us…we don’t know everything so we can’t know anything…anyway, it’s not us, so there!
However, there has to come a point where every rational person has to say ‘Enough’! It used to be quite funny on here and sometimes a little enlightening. But now, to see so much bile and anger being poured out against the traditional bogeymen of “LEFTISTS”, “COMMUNISTS”, “Islamization”, “World Government”; against the imagined “4th Reich (EU/Germany)”; that there is (apparently) something “just wrong with the German mindset. Arrogant and self important without judgement” or, again apparently true to those who want to believe it, that the “Germans obey orders”. Talk about Godwin’s Law. On steroids!
The penultimate straw: Misogyny – “Country is run by women. Feelings over facts is to be expected”
The last straw: antisemitism – “And George Soros will be laughing his ass off in whatever depth of hell his evil soul is in by then. He’ll finally have his revenge on Germany’s Christians”. That poster needs to be remembered: Joel O’Bryan
All of this unchallenged and on only one post within this website. Who knows what other dirty, nasty comments can be found deep within it. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Goodbye and good riddance.
Everyone who comes here has the right to post his opinion and what he thinks, be it right or wrong, utter nonsense or the deepest thoughts ever thought. This, too, is called freedom. Sorry to see that you don’t like it.
Even “Griff”s comments are welcome 😀
And if only as a humorous one 😀
Sometimes it’s hard to refrain from picking on ol’ griff. 😁
Feel free! I am open to any form of debate.
There have been some excellent jokes at my expense too!
JMurphy: “I often come here to see what excuses and new justifications come up to prevent any meaningful response to global warming, and usually I am not disappointed! Mystified at times, of course – who wouldn’t be, seeing the goal-posts being moved every few months.”
In 2010 , nine years ago, Democrats were in control of both Congress and the White House. They could have enacted a stiff tax on carbon and signed that tax into law. But they didn’t.
Barack Obama was President between 2009 and 2016. He could have declared a carbon pollution emergency, using that declaration as justification for pursuing aggressive enforcement of the Clean Air Act against all sources of America’s carbon emissions, not just against coal. But he didn’t.
President Obama’s announced goal was for America’s carbon emissions to be reduced 80% by 2050.
However, his published plans got us possibly one-third of the way towards that objective. At no point in his presidency did Barack Obama ever mention the necessity of imposing a program of direct carbon fuel rationing if his GHG reduction schedule wasn’t being met.
More likely than not, Democrats will be in control of both the Congress and the White House in 2021. At which point a program of massive government spending on renewable energy projects will begin.
That said, let us ask these questions of all of America’s AGW activists:
Will the new Democrat president commit to President Obama’s original goal of an 80% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2050?
Will a Democrat controlled Congress enact a stiff tax on carbon?
Will the new Democrat president declare a carbon pollution emergency and begin enforcing the Clean Air Act to it maximum possible effectiveness?
Will that new Democrat president also be honest in stating that if other GHG control measures can’t get us to an 80% reduction by 2050, a government-mandated program of carbon fuel rationing must be imposed at some point in the future?
This is a joke right? Cause it really made me laugh! Goodbye! Farewell! Enjoy the cold, cold winters!
This is not a technical problem, and that is not what the debate is about. You can run a power grid on hamsters driving dynamos if you want, you just need very many hamsters, cages, dynamos and a lot of hamster food.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkNTAiWX8g0
Likewhise you can, if you must, technically run a power grid on wind and solar equalized by huge (and I mean HUGE) rechargeable batteries or pumped reservoirs. But economically it isn’t feasible. This project is so ridiculously expensive because it wastes such HUGE amounts of resources (ironically in the misguided endeavour to SAVE resources) that it will break any nation’s back that even attempts it – economically and politically.
I hope the Kremlin is updating its hypothetical attack plan with the one or two missiles to turn NATO dark and leave it to Americans to salvage the situation in a just-in-time defense plan.
As a last ditch effort to stave off defeat Angela unleashed her vengeance weapons.
The V1 wind turbine and the V2 solar panel.
The German energy plan in ~2000 planned to shut all German nuclear power plants down by 2020, replacing them (mostly) with wind power. This was unattainable, partly because the electricity grid needed to support wind power proved to be too expensive and permits to build the grid were often blocked. So what did Germany actually do? They built over 20 new lignite burning power plants in the last 18 years. Lignite is among the dirtiest of all coal types. Their 2000 energy plan was a complete failure. Now, after building all these coal plants and actually increasing CO2 production, Germany decides they’re going to shut them down. Note the shutdowns won’t be in the next year or two, they’re planned over the next 19 years. Germany is just kicking the can down the road.
Germany executes an avian holocaust, no surprise. Windfarms devastate winged creatures.
A valid argument. The Green Blob, forerunners of animal rights and preservation of nature to the utmost, don’t let out a single word on this, what you call, avian holocaust costing so many lives of our feathered friends. Hypocrisy and a disrespect for life seem to have become another ugly trait of their characters.
Except in Germany they don’t: because the wind farms which killed large numbers of birds were 1980s designs installed on entirely unsuitable sites – Altamont pass being the chief culprit.
German – EU – windfarm planning is of non-lattice tower designs, where extensive surveys of bird life need to be completed before approval. They aren’t right in the path of migrating birds. In the UK and Germany, birds do NOT suffer from windfarms.
@griff
As usual, you are wrong, once more.
google.de will help you
Windmill will more and more be planted in forrests, even there where protected birds live not far away.
Proven is, that protected birds were shot to fullfill the demand of the not-existance of protected birds in requested regions.
Krish? Have to correct you, griffie is not wrong once more, griffie is always wrong. 😉
That’s why I wrote “as usual” 😀
A total breakdown of common sense in Germany. Unbelievable.
Energy itself it not renewable. It’s just called ‘renewable’ if more of it comes in. So they are relying on more of it coming in. Hmmmmmm.
Doing the same as South Australia and Victoria, and expecting a different result. Hmm.
The “historic accomplishment” is to base a vital public policy upon a pseudoscience.
+100
When do they acknowledge their high cost, early adopter solar panels that are in decline to minimal output?
They helped build the industry with volume but where do they stand with that now? The same goes for inverters that fail before the panels go out.
I look at this as the German version of a “no deal brexit”. It’ll predictably be a total catastrophe, but the government is determined to pull it through against all reason, because a small but loud ideological minority is shouting for it from the bottom of their lungs. We are not smarter than the Brits, we are just differently imbecile.
What was it that the American Commander at Bastogne said to the Germans when asked to surrender?
NUTS!
I think that is appropriate again.