Germany has fired up a refurbished coal unit to help meet energy needs as the region’s first cold spell takes hold.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-16/germany-fires-up-reserve-coal-plant-in-winter-s-first-cold-snap#xj4y7vzkg
The success of the Energiewende on full display.
Last year’s historic energy crisis forced Germany to temporarily increase its reliance on the dirty fuel after supplies of Russian pipeline gas were shut off. While that poses a setback for the government’s plans to curb harmful emissions, it’s part of its strategy to contain price increases for consumers during the heating season.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-16/germany-fires-up-reserve-coal-plant-in-winter-s-first-cold-snap#xj4y7vzkg
Now this part is really funny.
Economy minister Robert Habeck said in an interview with German broadcaster ARD last week that the government will not need to reactivate old reserve plants in the winter of 2024-2025.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-16/germany-fires-up-reserve-coal-plant-in-winter-s-first-cold-snap#xj4y7vzkg
H/T stevez56
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Good to know that Herr Habek knows what the weather willo be like during the winter of 2024/25. He must be a “climate scientist” if he can predict the weather that far into the future.
Now I need to contact him to find out what the weather will be like next week in Oban.
will, not willo.
Please, pretty please, bring back the edit button.
And Habeck not Habek. Apologies.
No need to apologize, it happens to all of us. 🙂
Are you anti-wisp?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121044/
Edna was my favourite….
Has it been determined what the cause of the missing edit button is?
Global warming.
If I remember well it caused some problemes and didn’t do correctly what it was thought to do.
After a WP update it stopped working, giving a “you’re posting too fast” error any time it was used. I’m guessing it was removed since it was useless at a that point. Maybe it will be back if/when WP fixes it.
That’s why I always hesitate to update software. It’s an important function so I hope they fix it fast.
It would also be nice to hear from WUWT about what it is doing to try to get it back. WUWT’s completely ignoring our repeated requests for information, not even a “we’re working on it,” is, well, just plain rude. Or did I miss the place where WUWT responded?
Janice, it’s been discussed a lot in the past, given the volume of post traffic here, not surprising people have missed it.
WUWT has no control over what WP does, so there’s nothing they can do about it until/unless WP fixes it.
As far as updates, IIRC WUWT is hosted by WP which means they get updates whenever WP decides to roll them out.
They simply can’t answer these questions, and most of them were addressed a long time ago by the mods.
THANK YOU, Tony_G! 🙂
I hope the sun shines for you if you’re on holiday. If you live there I’m envious, especially of the drive through the Pass of Brander and The Falls of Lora. Magica; part of the world.
Thanks. School tattie holidays.
Usually go on the ferry at the Cloch and through Ardrishaig but the road is blocked by a landslide S of Ardfern.
A global warming landslide I am sure.
Either that (unlikely) or he presumes that Germany will be able to provide all the electricity demanded from other sources. Perhaps he believes in the Magic Battery Storage Fairy.
I second your request for restoration of the Edit button.
Well, his colleague Annalena Baerbock from the Green Party in Germany, who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs already said that there are “imps” in batteries. She confused the element Kobalt, with “Kobold” (imp in English) and said that there is a Kobold in the battery.
PS: Ironically the names of Cobalt and Nickel are historically really coming from the German terms for an imp and a mountain ghost. Because before the discovery of the elements the miners believed that some minerals looking like copper (but where in reality Cobalt or Nickel compounds like NiAs) but not behaving like copper, were witched by imps and ghosts.
Here are some sayings of our highly educated and eloquent Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
»Today is the moment when we have to ask ourselves honestly: What are the consequences for my country? But also: What are the consequences for my neighbouring country or a country hundreds of thousands of kilometres away?«
The fact that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) is not very good at history has become known at the latest after her appearance with ZDF presenter Markus Lanz. There, with regard to the Ukraine war, she had said that this was »not a war that is being waged as in the 19th century, with tanks alone.«
Coal-fired power clogs the grids.
That’s why the grid acts as a storage facility.
And then we finally manage to kill off Europe together.
»In Kiev, you can feel how the people of Ukraine burn for Europe with every fibre.«
»We love to barbecue. With certified coal.«
Eastern Cocaine instead of Eastern Ukraine
»Today we are taking a step that was long overdue: we are taking twenty Benin bronzes back to their homeland Nigeria. This will not heal all the wounds of the past. But we are showing that we are serious about coming to terms with our dark colonial history.«
»The problem with modern-type battle tanks (is) that they have to be operated technically in such a way that they can actually make a difference in the field.«
»Within the G7, we have therefore given ourselves concrete goals for the expansion of wind and solala energy.«
«Once the electricity goes into storage, it pays all the levies and taxes, and when it goes out again, it pays that too. That is uneconomical! No logical thinking company says I can generate the market with that.«
»South Africa’s road to freedom has been a bacon of hope.«
On whether Ukraine would be safe if Putin remains Russia’s president. Baerbock’s answer: “Unless Putin changes 360 degrees, not.”
Last year, weren’t they claiming that they wouldn’t need to fire up the coal plants this year?
“the government will not need to reactivate old reserve plants in the winter of 2024-2025.”
I want to know what he said last year about the winter of 2023-2024
Another in the long list of major successes of Marxism!
One would think that an intelligent person would begin to wake up to the hype and hyperbole; but the post-hypnotic trance state seems quite strong, making the alarmists nearly invulnerable to reality!
UK has had everything running the last few days, even today which is pretty breezy, Even coal and Open Cycle Gas providing half 0.5GW between them
Just coal alone has been making over 1GW these last few days (when it wasn’t windy prior to Babet’s arrival)
But even now when wind has picked up, they’re keeping the coal burners warm.
they’re even burning kerosene and ‘other‘ – whatever that might be.
The ‘Energiewenders’ response? The usual warped thinking of “We need more renewables”!!
Meanwhile, China and India are building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can making any reductions of CO2 by Germany inconsequential.
Making any reductions by the US, Europe, and Australia meaningless, combined.
In EACH OF 2018, 2019 and this year alone (not to mentionother years), China constructed more coal fired power plants than the US has left.
So they’ve replaced EVERY ONE THE US HAS LEFT THREE TIMES already, JUST IN THOSE THREE YEARS. I don’t know how many Europe and Australia have left, but the notion that “western” nations reductions mean anything is clearly a joke.
The only thing that slowed China’s coal plant construction down was the pandemic.
Chinas has 1,118 coal plants. They’re building more, and are assisting other countries to build them as well. India already has more than the US (which is in 3rd place), and they are also building more.
For every Eco-Nazi circle jerk celebration of the closure of a coal plant, there are multiple coal plant openings in countries NOT STUPID ENOUGH to buy the climate crap.
Might as well power barf directly against a Cat 5 hurricane wind while believing you’ll stay clean.
At least the Germans have that option and didn’t pass a Miliband suicide bill.
Rishi Sunak has been urged to close Britain’s gas network and instead roll out heat pumps by Sir John Armitt, chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC).
https://www.gbnews.com/money/rishi-sunak-heat-pumps-gas-energy
And in today’s Climate Clarion
“Low income UK homes ‘should be given free heat pumps’ to meet climate targets
More than 2 million low-income households should be given a free electric heat pump to replace their gas boiler if the UK hopes to meet its legally binding climate targets”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/18/low-income-uk-homes-should-be-given-free-heat-pumps-to-meet-climate-targets
I think some free insulation is called for before we start throwing money down yet another drain?
I cannot find a heat pump that comes in below at least £10,000 and if it is just a straightforward installation do we include new radiators etc?
According to the figures, giving 2 million households a free heat pump will cost at least £20,000,000,000
We’re going to need more printing presses….
Viel glück Deutschland!
So the national Infrastructure commission is proposing to close down all domestic gas boiler systems in the UK . Clearly it has not communicated this with Cadent who maintain the gas distribution system. They have just informed us that our road (with no industrial units using gas kilns or ovens anywhere near it ) will be ripped up , along with our driveways to replace the existing gas pipes with long lasting plastic piping. Given that there are 2 grammar schools and 2 private prep schools along the road , the chaos at school run time is likely to be enormous . Just for the few remaining years that we are allowed to use gas heating and cooking.
97% of people in the UK are totally unaware that there is a national infrastructure commission.
That’s [a total lack of] communication for you.
Which suggests that being a complete moron is a requirement to be chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission
It certainly helps.
“”””More than 2 million low-income households should be given a free electric heat pump to replace their gas boiler”””””
They are not free! Someone, some where pays for them. Probably the low-income folks will pay the largest share of their income to the tax man so they in turn can have a free heater!
Same thing with battery car checks from the Feddies.
HEAT PUMPS ARE MONEY LOSERS IN MY VERMONT HOUSE, AS THEY ARE IN ALMOST ALL NEW ENGLAND HOUSES
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/heat-pumps-are-money-losers-in-my-vermont-house-as-they-are-in
Vermont “Electrify-Everything” Goals Will Cost $Billions and Will Reduce Little CO2
The Vermont state government wants to electrify-everything (heat pumps, electric cars, and transit and school buses, no matter the:
1) Very high turnkey capital cost,
2) Very meager energy cost savings
3) Very meager CO2 reductions, on an A-to-Z, lifetime basis.
My Experience with HPs in my Well-Insulated, Well-Sealed House
I installed three heat pumps by Mitsubishi, rated 24,000 Btu/h at 47F, Model MXZ-2C24NAHZ2, each with 2 heads, each with remote control; 2 in the living room, 1 in the kitchen, and 1 in each of 3 bedrooms.
The HPs have DC variable-speed, motor-driven compressors and fans, which improves the efficiency of low-temperature operation.
The HPs last about 15 years.
Turnkey capital cost was $24,000, less $2,400 subsidy from GMP
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-co2-reduction-of-HPs-is-based-on-misrepresentations
My Well-Sealed, Well-Insulated House
The HPs are used for heating and cooling my 35-y-old, 3,600 sq ft, well-sealed/well-insulated house.
The basement, 1,200 sq ft, has a near-steady temperature throughout the year, because it has 2” of blueboard, R-10, on the outside of the concrete foundation and under the basement slab, which has saved me many thousands of space heating dollars over the 35 years.
I do not operate my HPs below 10F to 15F (depending on sun and wind conditions), because all HPs would become increasingly less efficient with decreasing outdoor temperatures.
The HP operating cost per hour would become greater than of my efficient propane furnace. See table 3
High Electricity Prices
Vermont forcing, with subsidies and/or GWSA mandates, the build-outs of expensive RE electricity systems, such as wind, solar, batteries, etc., would be counter-productive, because it would:
1) Increase already-high electric rates and
2) Worsen the already-poor economics of HPs (and of EVs)!!
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-costs-of-wind-solar-and-battery-systems
My Energy Cost Reduction is Minimal
– HP electricity consumption was from my electric bills, and an HP system electric meter.
– Vermont electricity prices, including taxes, fees and surcharges, are assumed at 20 c/kWh.
– My HPs provide space heat to 2,300 sq ft, about the same area as an average Vermont house
– Two small propane heaters (electricity not required) provide space heat to my 1,300 sq ft basement
– I operate my HPs at temperatures of 10 to 15F and greater (depending on wind and sun conditions)
– I operate my traditional propane system at temperatures of 10f to 15F and less
– My average HP coefficient of performance, COP, was 2.64
– My HPs required 2,489 kWh to replace 35% of my fossil Btus.
– My HPs would require 8,997 kWh, to replace 100% of my fossil Btus.
https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0199-y
https://acrpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/HeatPumps-ACRPC-5_20.pdf
Before HPs: I used 100 gal for domestic hot water + 250 gal for 2 stoves in basement + 850 gal for Viessmann furnace, for a total propane of 1,200 gal/y
After HPs: I used 100 gal for DHW + 250 gal for 2 stoves in basement + 550 gal for Viessmann furnace + 2,489 kWh of electricity.
My propane cost reduction for space heating was 850 – 550 = 300 gallon/y, at a cost of $2.339/gal (buyers plan) = $702/y
My displaced fossil Btus was 100 x (1 – 550/850) = 35%, which is better than the Vermont average of 27.6%
My purchased electricity cost increase was 2,489 kWh x 20 c/kWh = $498/y
My energy cost savings due to the HPs were 702 – 498 = $204/y, on an investment of $24,000!!
Amortizing Heat Pumps
Amortizing the 24000 – 2400 = $21,600 turnkey capital cost at 6%/y for 15 years costs about $2,187/y.
This is in addition to the amortizing of my existing propane system. I am losing money.
https://www.myamortizationchart.com
Other Annual Costs
There likely would be annual cleaning of HPs at $200/HP, and parts and labor, as the years go by.
This is in addition to the annual service calls and parts for my existing propane system. I am losing more money.
Well the good news is with all the electronic payment methods available and accepted today one won’t need to take piles of worthless paper currency by wheel barrow to purchase a loaf of bread.
Saves the back and the trees.
You know you’ve really got a problem when taxeater central is worried about the level of slushfunding going down in a race to the bottom line-
EU countries agree deal to reform power market subsidies (msn.com)
Hee, hee, hee: Central governments intervene in the markets they had previously massively distorted to distort it further to keep cheap-power (nuclear) France from subsidizing its industries with windfall fixed-price contracts to the detriment of Germany. Haven’t they heard that cash if fungible?
The fixed-price contracts are necessary because they replaced (in most cases) the regulated monopoly utility with rigged, gaming-prone energy markets that result in excessive consumer prices. And subsidizing end-users is proving costly as well as politically problematic. The same types of problems are in the process of destroying wind generation markets.
Meanwhile Green industry is working feverishly on the electricity demand side-
Electric truck maker Volta Trucks files for bankruptcy in Sweden | Reuters
Ford F-150 Lightning sales crash, production slashed (msn.com)
I expected a failure of the F-150 EV. Wrong market- mostly good old boys with a gun rack on the back- many with a plow on the front. Not the kind of people who think we need to save the planet from CO2- more worried about gun haters and face masks.
Apparently only 17% of Americans buy (can afford) new cars so they’re generally stacked with all latest upmarket tech to appeal to that segment and increasingly it looks like expensive EVs have satisfied that market-
GM scales back ambitious electric ute plans due to low demand (msn.com)
FOMO is clearly over and EVs have to compete as just another car alternative as well as ongoing mature turnover rates for the flippers and leasers.
GM is ceasing production of its popular and high-volume Bolt to concentrate on the high-end models that aren’t selling. Interesting strategy.
Yes. Price, utility (or lack of – I love that staged pic in the MSN article – no one is going to buy an EV truck to do any actual work!) among other things are reasons. Ford didn’t bother actually looking into the kinds of customers that buy the gas powered F 150.
Auto executives (suits) appear to have believed (or went along with, anyway) government blandishments and threats. Suckers.
People that really need pickup trucks for work as well as transportation are passing up the truck EVs because they aren’t fit for purpose. When pushed to do the ‘work’ the decrease in mileage turns them off and if you live in rural areas where pick ups are abundant there’s little to no charging options. Especially in the North 40.
What (apart from image manipulation) causes the red glows at the top of those water cooling towers?”
Geoff S
Climate change idiots burning??
Looks to me like the red “Keep The Planes Away” lights hitting off the waste steam of the towers.
That’s it
Sewie123,
Secretly, I knew that, but was hoping for an explanation like “Downwelling infra-red radiation juicing up the high concentration of warm water vapour and emitting large amounts of visible red light.”
At least they could be imaginative and use multi coloured party lights atop the towers, or for inclusion in the modern style, rainbow hues.
Geoff S
Isn’t that escaping vapor a more powerful GHG than CO2? What are they showing? More warming and H2O POLLUTION?
Whenever enviros show any cooling towers, they always make the nice, white steam look dark and filthy. Ease enough with Photoshop.
Even easier if you photograph them with the sun behind the plant.
500 MW seems low for the number of cooling towers…5000 perhaps?
…must have modelled it, inevitably it will be wrong…
Well, who’d a thought, all those years ago we’d all be sitting here, drinking Château de Chasselas and keeping warm with coal!
The Germans can thank their good fortune that they still have operational coal-fired plants. Here in England the dumbfek authorities blew up most of them, instead of mothballing, often by a dignitary pushing a button with much fanfare and a self-satisfied inane smirk signalling climate virtue.
The turbines from the demolished Didcot power station were sold to Germany, so they’ll be making good use of them.
Story Tip
Biden’s Kamikaze Climate Plan For The US Economy – Climate Change Dispatch
China’s primary goal is to become the lone global superpower by 2049.
And everything Biden’s handlers tell him to do, just helps China achieve that goal.
Well, the Chicoms have paid the Bidens millions of dollars. They expect something for their money, and it looks to me like they are getting their money’s worth out of Joe Biden. Just about everything Joe does helps the Chicoms and harms the United States.
Joe Biden is a complete disaster for the United States and for the World. The worst president evah!, who goes from one harmful move to another.
I heard Biden this morning call the Hamas terrorists/murderers “the other team” in his press conference from Israel.
Iran keeps saying they are going to intervene if Israel continues to attack Hamas. Normally, I would put this up to bluster on the part of the Mad Mullahs, but if they keep saying this enough, then it may become a self-fullfilling prophesy, as they will look impotent if they don’t intervene.
So, we can probably expect a big escalation of the fighting in the Middle East. I don’t know if the Mad Mullahs think this is the time to make their move on Israel but it is shaping up to look that way. They have obviously orchestrated everythng that has happened so far. How far are they going to push things, is the question at the moment.
Israel does have a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. If Israel’s survival is threatened, they will use them, as would we in a similar situation.
And the Mad Mullahs of Iran and their American sympathizers, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the cause of all this insanity going on in the Middle East right now.
Where is Obama’s statement on this situation? Not a peep out of him. No reporters are putting a microphone in his face.
Story Tip:
Greta is in trouble again
Greta Thunberg charged following Fossil Free London protest
And rightly so.
Er…no, there is no evidence a single person has died because of “climate change”
No doubt another staged “arrest” in an attempt to give the doom pixie a boost to her failing relevance. She’ll be let off with a sound “talking to”, won’t even get a fine.
Used, abused and now completely washed up has-been child star of climate porn gets arrested – again.
That’s the story. And this is where it began….
On August 20, 2018 a tweet featuring a photo of “a Swedish girl” sitting on a sidewalk was released by the tech company, We Don’t Have Time, founded by its CEO Ingmar Rentzhog:
“One 15 year old girl in front of the Swedish parliament is striking from School until Election Day in 3 weeks[.] Imagine how lonely she must feel in this picture. People where [sic] just walking by. Continuing with the business as usual thing. But the truth is. We can’t and she knows it!”
Rentzhog’s tweet, via the We Don’t Have Time twitter account, would be the very first exposure of Thunberg’s now famous school strike.
…
Tagged in Rentzhog’s “lonely girl” tweet were five twitter accounts: Greta Thunberg, Zero Hour (youth movement), Jamie Margolin (the teenage founder of Zero Hour), Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, and the People’s Climate Strike twitter account (in the identical font and aesthetics as 350.org).
https://web.archive.org/web/20230118071557/http://www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
Imagine being [climate propaganda] past it when you hit 18
The whole climate rescue movement has a quasi-religious character. That is probably why she is an honorary doctor of theology.
That’s right. There is not one shred of evidence that atmospheric CO2 has ever killed anyone.
Greta, like all climate change alarmists, assumes too much, based on nothing.
The poor, deluded child! Imagine the embarrassment if she ever wakes up to reality; CO2 is wholly beneficial, and NOTHING that GangGreen proposes ameliorates the suffering and dying of the poor!
“Er…no, there is no evidence a single person has died because of “climate change””
I guarantee you that someone, somewhere, has perished because this interglacial is colder than the Eemian. At least one…
/sarc
It’s more expensive to handle a coal power plant like a swing producer. But hey, it’s only money along the climate crusades trail.
What? In the US, AFAIK, they’re purposely dismantling/scrapping shut-down coal plants so they can never be restarted.
What facts do we have?:
The German share of global CO2 emissions is 1.8%.
Annual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere 2ppm.
According to IPCC 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in global temperature with increase of 400 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere.
If only Germany reduces CO2 emissions by 40% by 2050 (27 years), the global temperature will decrease by an incredible 0.001458 (1.5 thousandths) degrees Celsius.
(1.5/400) x (2 x 27) x 0.018 x 0.4 = 0.001458
Reducing German CO2 emissions by 100% (net zero) by the year 2100 (i.e. 77 years) (of course, this can only be achieved if all people living in Germany (84,000,000) also stop breathing) will reduce the global temperature by 0.0104 (one hundredth) degrees Celsius.
(1.5/400) x (2 x 77) x 0.018
That’s something. Or is it not? I am so happy to live in Germany. We have the most brilliant economics minister of all time here. Dr Robert Habeck has a PhD in philology and is a children’s book author (but he probably can’t even use a calculator) and will go down in human history as the saviour of the world. So be grateful and humble and stop thinking of him as a deluded child-head. Only he knows what he is doing!
Those indistinguishable-from-zero temperature reductions are purely hypothetical. In reality, there won’t be ANY change, because CO2 doesn’t “drive” anything.
Story tip
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/10/18/nic-urges-full-subsidies-for-heat-pumps/
The Commission carries out in-depth studies into the UK’s major infrastructure needs and makes recommendations to the government
You would think a self labelled, so called ‘expert’ Commission, would look at the reasons heat pumps are far inferior to gas boilers – be it costs to buy & install, costs to operate, health implications from cold, damp, mouldy, legionnaires disease riddled cooler water homes, LF noise and vibration symptoms etc
The deceit is epic
Yep, and its in depth studies apparently found UK households would save at least £1000 a year by the mid 2030s due to the “far lower cost of running renewable energy systems” says the Grauniad. They and the National Infrastructure Commission obviously believe any old rubbish 🙂
Re: “the dirty fuel” 🤨
1. Coal (as burned in Deutschland) is not “dirty.”
2. Rather! Coal is “the [energy-dense, POSITIVE EROEI (and ROI)] fuel.
This is “dirty”:
Source: https://stopthesethings.com/2020/10/10/lingering-legacy-millions-of-toxic-solar-panels-that-cant-be-recycled-destined-for-landfills/
More piles of truly dirty junk (Source: https://patriots.win/p/12hRQOFwoa/wind-turbines-are-so-ecological-/c/ )
No coal in 2024-25! Wow, starting their nukes back up that soon, good work! /sarc
Coal generation has been quite active in the UK also recently – the ones that Sharma didn’t manage to blow up
Economy Minister Robert Habeck may be counting on German industry needing a lot less energy on account of its shut up shop or moved somewhere that has reliable electricity. Being Economy Minister he should know.
Coal is the leftovers of trees that grew during the Carboniferous. Trees are green. Trees also derive their energy from the sun, so it’s really a form of solar energy, which is also green. And renewable. Thus, coal=green energy.
What has happened to Germany? How can they be so out of touch?
Our Irish ”Green” Government coalition, have reassured us there is less chance of power outs this year, because they have decided to have some of our old coal plants on standby… just incase.