Germany Exports More Electricity Than Ever Despite Phasing Out Nuclear Energy 473
An anonymous reader writes "Der Spiegel reports that Germany has exported more electricity this year than ever before, despite beginning to phase out nuclear power. In the first three quarters of 2012, Germany sent 12.3 terawatt hours of electricity across its borders. The country's rapid expansion into renewable energy is credited with the growth. However, the boost doesn't come without a price. The German government's investments into its new energy policy will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades, and it still relies on imports for its natural gas needs. It also remains to be seen whether winter will bring power shortages. Is Germany a good example of forward-looking energy policy?"
Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Interesting)
How are your rates?
How hard is it to get a 3-phase drop for your new business?
Are you really going to have a shortage this winter?
Do the tax dollars you've put into this feel like they were decently spent?
People with less-progressive powergirds would like to know.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Informative)
German here.
For private households, rates in 2011 were (on average) approx. 0.25 €/kWh (= 31 US $ / kWh). 0.036 € of this (0.045 US $) goes to renewable energy sources (mostly wind and solar), which is subsidized by the electricity consumers (NOT by the goverment, as some seem to think). In total, around 45% of the price is taxes and subsidies. Remember that we use less than US households though - the average 3 person household uses approx. 3500 kWh/a.
No idea about the 3-phase drops for new businesses... but I never heard of anyone not getting connected. New buildings _always_ get connected (by law). Germany is a pretty densly packed country, which helps a lot when doing infrastructure.
There will not be a shortage in the winter. There are still plenty of reserve plants, and the european grid is pretty well connected. Some 5 GW less will not make it collapse.
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now there's another difference. am I correct in reading that as a portion of everyones bill goes to renewable costs? probably in a weighted contribution/costs manner (ie, logical manner)
cause that's way different than most of the US (in fact not heard of anywhere in us doing it that way, though could be wrong).
what they tend to do here (least the places i've lived) instead is you pay the normal rate for juice, however its made locally. and then if you want it from a "green source" cause youre "environmental
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Your electric company is required to buy a proportion of its energy from renewable sources. That costs more than fossil electricity, hence the indirect subsidy.
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Pretty sure my electric company isnt required to do any such thing. For one they dont purchase any energy.
They produce and supply all the juice around here, and only just recently completed a massive windfarm in west OK.
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Your electric company is required to buy a proportion of its energy from renewable sources. That costs more than fossil electricity, hence the indirect subsidy.
Just remember that EU recognizes burning freshly cut TREES as Biofuel. Burning trees in Coal plant is a "clever" way of bypassing regulations and becoming an eco plant (you only need fixed percentage of biofuel in coal plant to become green).
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Insightful)
what they tend to do here (least the places i've lived) instead is you pay the normal rate for juice, however its made locally. and then if you want it from a "green source" cause youre "environmentally conscious", you can pay extra for electricy that comes from a green source...cause it's somehow different from normal electricity. and there was a big scandal recently cause someone found out they were paying the premium and it couldnt be determined just how much of their juice was from the regular old power plant down the road, cause the systems arent seperate.
Since it's all one big grid, you don't need to know where *your* electricity is generated to know that you're taking advantage of "green" energy. If people are paying for 1MWh of "green" power and some green plant somewhere is injecting 1MWh of green energy into the grid, then they are getting what they are paying for.
It doesn't matter if most of the power to your house comes from the coal plant down the street and most of the power from the green goes to the industrial plant next door to the "green" plant. Your higher "green" rates are paying for that "green" generator to be hooked into the grid and generating power, reducing demand from non-green sources.
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It's called "voting with your wallet." There's only one power carrying wire going into your house, and it's owned and operated by one company. But that company can still offer you the choice of supporting renewable or more environmentally friendly sources. If they aren't balancing their energy purchases accordingly it's fraud and should be punished.
The situation is the same as buying a domestically made product. There's probably nothing really different other than the price, but you might do it to supp
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's like planting trees to offset your carbon footprint or buying Fair Trade food. Sure, the actual carbon atoms from the aircraft you were on are not the ones being absorbed by the tree, and sure the actual bar of chocolate you buy might not necessarily contain 100% Fair Trade ingredients. The point is your contribution rebalances the system as a whole by that amount.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Informative)
And the kicker is they dont change anything other than your bill. You CANT buy only "green" energy unless you go off grid and set up your own solar/wind farm.
You obviously can't buy only green energy - by the time the current gets to you, there's no way to distinguish anyway - but you can affect the overall composition of the pool. So if you've signed up to pay more, your power distribution company will source power from more green suppliers next month - so, overall, fewer kWh gets provided by gas plants, and more by e.g. hydro, even though "yours" are not necessarily so.
At least that's how it works in WA.
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I keep my house at 74 in Texas, which ranges to 100+ (Fahrenheit) in the summer, and I rarely ever go above 3500. Are you sure you're 3 person house is lower than the average here in the U.S.?
As to whether or not it's worth it, the value is realized when oil availability decreases. Any new investments will have a very large up-front cost, as well as a higher cost for any new technologies (solar is a good example here where the ROI is rather low).
Wind is a different story though, and solar is rapidly changin
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're way under the average for the U.S. then. In 2010, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 11,496 kWh [eia.gov]
Wow! I just got my yearly bill yesterday, my consumption in the last 12 months was 959 kWh. (I'm in Germany, this is electricity from pure renewable sources (mostly hydroelectric), I'm paying 22 Euro a month). OK, no AC here, no electrical heating either (except for water). I've been fairly power-conscient since moving last year though, mostly LED lighting, hardly any standby power for anything and I got rid of nearly all electrically powered kitchen utilities etc.
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A lot of us in the US, particularly in the South of the US use natural gas for heating, cooking, water heating, the clothes dryer....
I grew up with it, thinking it was the way most everyone did, but was surprised to
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because nobody lived there before air conditioning was invented, or common.
Life there would be uncomfortable without air conditioning, but it would certainly be possible.
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Actually people die in Texas every year due to heat exposure. A simple google search will turn up any number of results for any particular year. It's not uncommon. Claiming something is 'livable' is much more a matter of what you define as 'livable'. If you mean hide in the shade without moving, conserve your water and exertion, etc. until the sun goes down, then yes, you could survive much like the wildlife here does.
If you mean any sort of reasonably 'normal' existence, then no, you can't.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany has a very high standard of living, and is a fairly cold climate. Every time someone mentions the future of energy some American always says that no matter what the only acceptable option is the only that does not involve them reducing energy consumption at all because somehow watts = quality of life.
The US needs to get its act together on energy efficiency and catch up with the rest of the world. Maybe then people will take energy policy suggestions from the US seriously.
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European houses tend to be much better insulated than American houses. Certainly in the UK, very few people have air conditioning. In southern Europe it is probably more common, but I don't think it is that common in Germany.
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European houses tend to be much better insulated than American houses. Certainly in the UK, very few people have air conditioning. In southern Europe it is probably more common, but I don't think it is that common in Germany.
Looking at Wikipedia, the average temperatures in the UK (Belfast) are around 30f lower than they are here (Florida). I'm sure that has a much larger effect than insulation. If temps were 30 degrees cooler here, I probably would never use my air conditioner (or my pool!). Those two are the biggest hitters on my electric usage by a wide margin.
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Then explain to me, why, in years that we have a somewhat long period where temperatures range pretty close to 60 here in Florida, does my power bill go to almost nothing? And, when I cover my windows in the dead of winter, the heat runs a lot less? It may get pretty hot in Florida, but it also gets pretty cold in Germany. I also used to live in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. With a well-insulated house up there, your heat or AC ran very little. If you had a badly insulated house (as my friend's
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Informative)
look up 'cavity wall' which has been pretty much standard in europe since the sixties; and since the eighties they where standard equiped with insulation aterial between them. I expect by 2020 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house [wikipedia.org] to be the building standard in most of europe.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:4, Insightful)
I expect by 2020 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house [wikipedia.org] to be the building standard in most of europe.
You don't have to expect anything, it is a given that this is going to be a legal requirement in the EU by 2020.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty amazing. Those low numbers aren't attainable here. You'd die of heat exposure.
How did Americans survive before the advent of air conditioning?
I lived in Memphis, TN for 5 years without any air conditioning - summertime temperatures were regularly well into the 90's with high humidity. Those in the southwest where there is low humidity in the summer can get by with "swamp coolers" to cool their house, but in Memphis my only reprieve was a whole house fan - a big 3 foot diameter fan that sucked air up into the attic through a central hallway - brought a nice breeze in through all open windows. Things got uncomfortable on the hottest days, but I was never near death.
If you're really living in an area where you'd die of heat exposure if the air conditioning fails, I'd move someplace safer.
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I never suggested it was. I merely am refuting his claim that it is impossible for humans to survive in the climate without AC.
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By way of comparison, average retail electricity rate in the U.S. is about 0.11 USD / kWh. It varies by region but that's the national average,
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2) I did not hear about any problems.
3) No, there will not be a shortage in Germany. Companies are required by law to have enough reserves. That is the reason why Germany is exporting so much power overall, and it is increasing the cost of power. Also, last winter showed that it is France who will get in trouble first, sinc
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> How are your rates?
~ 0.22 Euro-cents/kWh
> How hard is it to get a 3-phase drop for your new business?
3-phase is standard, every home has it.
>Are you really going to have a shortage this winter?
I don't thinks so. The grid here is rock-stable and there are reserves in the European grid.
> Do the tax dollars you've put into this feel like they were decently spent?
The government is not spening, the bill is payed by the (private) consumers.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:5, Informative)
Rates: on average €0.25/kWh
3-phase drop: is standard for every premise, even a 1-bedroom apartment has it
shortage in winter: no, Germany has been a net exporter of electricity for ages. Talks about shortages are usually corporate FUD.
To clarify: there is no tax euro spent on the electrical infrastructure. The conversion to renewable energy is financed by payment guarantees, which in turn are financed by the consumer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Act [wikipedia.org].
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3-phase question -> funny . In Slovakia (old east block - 150miles from GER) you get 3-phase to 95% of apartments/houses so its no isue( germany will be propably the same)
I see you are from US by your question. US power is mess as your Internet and Telecom providers. (blakout in NYC-dowtown - single point of failure.14th st)
Our power distribution is different then yours. We dont have transformers for every house, but only for bigger areas transformers owned by power company and therefore by default its
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I'm not intimate with all the details of US power distribution, but my understanding is that the norm is that the long-distance lines operate very high voltage from the generating plants to the local substations, the local substations step it down to high voltage and distribute it to neighbourhoods, and the neighbourhoods have multiple transformers that step down to consumer voltage, with 1 local transformer per every 10 houses (give or take). No transformers on the house, just split-phase to provide 110 an
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ergo I really doubt you have any idea what you're on about. Also, the generalizations are just unfair.
It's key to note that Germany has exported the most electricity this year despite beginning to phase out nuclear. This bit of reporting sounds a bit slanted to me and designed to preclude the eventual outcome; the story would have a lot more meaning if Germany had had a record year of electricity exportation after most of their nuclear sites are offline. Then they'd really be proving something. And that would be great, but let's not count those chickens just yet. For the record, it's not a matter of me being anti-green, it's me just being cautiously realistic.
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Okay, how about this. Japan managed to get through the whole summer peek demand period with only a few reactors online. No blackouts or brownouts, no return to stone-age/agrarian living. No real change of living standards of lifestyle.
Re:Could we hear some Germans tell this story? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily. His point, that whenever evidence contradicts ideology on nuclear matters, supporters of nuclear energy tend to brush away the evidence (and get modded up as a result) is definitively true.
I know that if evidence doesn't fit the model, pro nuke people throw away the evidence (the same way as other right wing, libertarian, religious people do) so this all may be lost on you. The fact is that germany continued to export electricity some time ago despite the fact that 8 of their 17 nuclear reactors were down. A lot of that was sold to France, where the nuclear industry has traditionally had free reign, and yet consistenly (and "misteriously") fails to deliver.
Reuters on this: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/europe-power-supply-idUSL5E8DD87020120214 [reuters.com]
(There is one error in the article. That fact did not silence critics of the nuclear phaseout. Nothing short of a gunshot will silence the hard-headed pro nuke fools. Not that I advocate that, mind you, just stating an empirical fact).
Oh, and at some point there was only one nuclear reactor running in Japan. That didn't push them to the stone age nor anything of the sort.
How does their per-capita (Score:2)
...usage rates compare with other nations?
How much usage do they have compared to what's generated?
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Actually I wasnt making a point per se. Just the first thing my engineer brain latched onto cause thats how I analyze things: how to quantify the statements in relation to others. For all I knew they could be generating trillions of watts and using none cause everyone uses coal. I know thats not really the case, but just saying, having never been to Germany I have no idea, though I am told europe in general uses far less energy per household than we in the US do.
Two usage examples I know of off top my head:
Re:How does their per-capita (Score:5, Informative)
But there is also the cultural factor. For instance every fridge, washing machine, anything that remotely uses power has a big fat sticker with the energy efficiency class on its side. Nobody likes to buy something with a B on it when you can spend a bit more that says A.
This goes even further. We use so little water that lakc of water seriously threatens our drains. So the utilities started to flush them.
Most of the cars you see in the inner cities are quite small. And a lot of them are highly fuel efficient. Bigger cars used for commuting are diesel powered. You'll see a lot of Blue Motion Volkswagen that are so fuel efficient they put a Prius to shame.
The head of our government is a physicist. That propably also helps. They tend not to be that easily bullshittable. She can do the maths herself. Also one of our states is governed by the Green party.
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I sweat like a stuck pig
I either hate you or love you, depending on if you did this on purpose or not.
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Why should he be ashamed? He pays for it... Not everyone needs to set their AC to a setting you agree with.
Because he doesn't pay for it. His energy use has negative externalities which we all pay for.
List of countries by energy consumption per-capita (Score:2, Informative)
Ask, and the internet provides:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita
Pretty Cheap compared to the War on Terror (Score:5, Insightful)
which has exceeded 3 trillion dollars. I'd gladly trade the money spent on war for a stable power grid that doesn't go down at the drop of a leaf
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which has exceeded 3 trillion dollars. I'd gladly trade the money spent on war for a stable power grid that doesn't go down at the drop of a leaf
Source? Last I saw it was just under $1.4 trillion cumulative for the last 11 years...
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It doesn't mean anything particularly useful; except of course that global warming will knock that refining capacity out more often in the future...
The point being that if we'd spent 1.4 trillion on our infrastructure here at home, perhaps, just perhaps, hurricane Sandy wouldn't have done quite so much damage to our electrical grid.
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Sources for your claims of public union crony gifting?
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As far as energy goes, the cost of defending myself from getting blown up by someone that hates me isn't comparable to energy costs.
I can't even imagine living inside your head. I genuinely feel sorry for you.
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It just...didn't happen. Partly due to a shortage of people wanting to explode, and partly due to our security measures.
Our security measures suck. Even in the "secured" areas they demonstrably suck. I can only conclude that it's mostly due to a shortage of people wanting to explode, since far more people die in the USA at the hands of disgruntled ex-employees and general psychos than from terrorists, and the terrorists don't bother with the unprotected targets, like the psychos do. The terrorists fart around attempting to blow up airplanes when they've got the whole airport to explode in.
But what can you do when the legitimate opposition to our security agrees with the exploding people and wishes our society would cease to exist?
This would seem to imply that you ha
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And the TSA cost 8 billion in 2011. So, no where near a trillion.
I wasn't saying it did.
Hundreds of billions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hundreds of billions for something that you can sell and gives the country a renewable supply of energy?
That's a bargain compared to all the wars, bailouts, pork projects, mansions for the few, etc. the rest of the world is "buying" with it's tax money.
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mansions for the few
What makes you think that spending hundreds of billions of dollars on something won't involve at least some real success stories among the thousands of businesses with whom that money is spent? Why do you not want people to be successful in an industry that everyone says they wish was more attractive?
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Actually, most of the European bailouts is paid by Germany. Also, total costs are not comparable, only per capita ones.
Re:Hundreds of billions? (Score:5, Insightful)
0.17% isn't much though. That is probably less than the area of Germany taken up by maize grown for biogas, and that certainly doesn't provide 16GW average.
Also note that the array will actually be more than 100GW peak, and peak will be during daytime when the heavy industry is running.
It is also slightly unfair that you expect 16GW yearly average. 16GW of nuclear power does not provide 16GW average, because the demand just isn't there at night or during weekends and downtime for inspections can be lengthy.
"Let Germany Figure Out" EU's Renewable Energy? (Score:2)
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Actually, Germany is somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of the percentage of renewable sources in the electricity mix. The problem is that they also consume a lot of electricity (industry and population), so their consumption really matters in absolute terms. That's why it is an important country -- if they can pull it off, it means that other large industrial producers like France and the UK also can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_European_Union
Keep in mind that that report
It only requires the will (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not a victory for renewables, but for democracy. German citizens want to go renewable enough that they are willing to swallow the costs. Germany is a rich enough country to do that, and rich countries can accomplish amazing things when they have the will to do so. That doesn't mean renewable became any more viable economically, or that other poorer countries have any chance of replicating this feat.
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Renewables are economically viable, compared to other energy sources like nuclear. The tired old claim that they are not is just FUD, unless you are willing to state that in fact nuclear and perhaps coal (if you include healthcare costs) are as well.
Re:It only requires the will (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not a victory for renewables, but for democracy. German citizens want to go renewable enough that they are willing to swallow the costs. Germany is a rich enough country to do that, and rich countries can accomplish amazing things when they have the will to do so. That doesn't mean renewable became any more viable economically, or that other poorer countries have any chance of replicating this feat.
I agree with the first part of what you wrote, but not the second. Germany has purchased so much solar PV that it has pushed the PV industry far down the experience curve. This results in far lower PV prices for everyone else.
I've been saying for years now that basically the entire world should be sending a Christmas card to Germany every year. The Germans took a HUGE economic hit that wound up making solar PV much more cost effective for everyone.
Cables (Score:2)
And by the way: lot of nukes are closed in europe because they found small fractures in the reactors. In Belgium even the government starts talking about brownouts this winter.
Forward Looking Policy? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, they are not an example of good, forward looking policy. They are a horrible example.
They are replacing established, 0 carbon emission, nuclear power plants with other sources that have either higher emissions because of their construction (wind, solar) or with sources that just plain have carbon emissions from their operation (natural gas). I know natural gas is way better than coal, but they're replacing nuclear with gas which increases carbon emissions.
If we want to impact global warming we have to
Re:Forward Looking Policy? (Score:5, Interesting)
This article is about Germany where it is obvious, that road is not that long, as everyone (especially nuclear lobbyists) was saying. In 2011, 3% of German electricity was produced by solar, in 2012 it will be over 5%, which is amazing 2% per single year only on solar energy. Wind energy is about 7% and is also growing at least >= 1% per year. Add to this new (wind) mega-turbines (>= 10MW per one turbine), and you see that pretty soon Germany will turn on non-renewable sources only in still more rare situations.
Wind = Gas (Score:2, Insightful)
Wind power is the best thing ever happened to Gas powerstations manufacturers.
For every wind farm, you need a gas powerstation of the same size to compensate when the wind is not blowing.
So, over one year, wind power rejects more CO2 than a nuclear plant of same capacity.
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"For every wind farm, you need a gas powerstation of the same size to compensate when the wind is not blowing.
that's a complete lack of understanding energy distribution.
I mean, it's simply..stupid.
Re:Forward Looking Policy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wind and solar don't have the capacity and it will take a loooooong road of building for them to even come close to replacing other forms of electricity generation.
That's exactly what we are trying to disprove. Yes, there are immense engineering challenges, but germany has a long and distiguished history of great engineers and I believe we can do it. It's like the moon landing in the 60s for the US, the goal is distant and we're not exactly sure how we are going to reach it, but the fact that the target stands is inspiring a whole generation of engineers to do what seems impossible. Now, the political challenges are a completly different topic...
Re:Forward Looking Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Forward Looking Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is utterly wrong. Solar is one of the ONLY technologies that will make it possible to continue energy usage trends for the next century. We couldn't practically build nuclear power plants fast enough to keep up with growing demand. Wind is also a very good option, which should be exploited as much as possible.
While I support nuclear power plants in general, I'm not so sure Germany made the wrong decision. They made the decision in the wake of the Fukishima disaster, and *if* their investigation determined their own nuclear plants are vulnerable to some natural disaster or another, shutting them down BEFORE a disaster happens is ideal. Waiting until AFTER a disaster happens, and only *then* shutting them down, is the worst possible outcome for everyone.
Re:Forward Looking Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)
The decision was not just because of Fukushima, it was for economic reasons as well. Nuclear is expensive. It costs a lot to build, a lot to operate safely, a lot to insure, a lot to decommission and a lot to deal with the waste. You can argue that it shouldn't cost that much but the fact is it does. I don't know the history in Germany but the UK government tried to sell the fully functional nuclear plants it built in the early 80s and no one would buy them. In the end they couldn't give them away, they actually had to pay companies to take them and agree to pay all the decommissioning and clean-up costs too.
There is also the opportunity to get ahead with renewables. The market is rapidly expanding and Germany wants to be one of the big players. High end engineering is their thing.
With regards to Fukushima the issue is not so much that German plants are vulnerable to large earthquakes or tsunami, it is that even in a modern first world country you just can't trust the guys running the plants. They will grow complacent after decades of safe operation, and they will put profit before safety, and they will probably screw up their handling of a disaster as well.
Gross or Net kWh? (Score:3)
Exporting all those MWh is great, but are they just importing it back at night?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Of course not, they use solar power at night.
Re:Gross or Net kWh? (Score:4, Funny)
No, they all go to sleep precisely at 8pm. This is Germany we're talking about.
A couple of math points (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Based on the summary numbers, Germany basically has the equivalent of 1.4 Gigawatts of spare capacity. Likely more as I'm sure they don't sell 100% of their excess capacity. This works out to enough to power about 1 million American homes.
2) The cost of the renewable energy looks like it will cost less than the war in Iraq did for the United States.
Draw your own conclusions.
Throwing Electricity away is the right expression (Score:5, Interesting)
What are those exports? It's the solar power and wind power that can't be used for lack of domestic power transmission and simple lack of demand in the areas where it is generated. This power must be exported, because it cannot be consumed. Despite all that, wind turbines still have be shut down at peak generation - leading to a steady decline in actual capacity factors of wind turbines. (Don't worry about you money, of course feed-in tariffs are still being paid when turbines are shut down ...)
The most important question on those exports is hidden by the phrasing of those propaganda news: How much did germany get in return for those exports and how much did it cost to produce them? It doesn't take much in the way of imagination to conclude that it isn't much at all. Domestic power prices regularly drop to a fraction of the feed-in tariffs being paid for wind and solar power (occasionally dropping into negative territory) and exports are unlikely to offer better rates.
The result of all that? Germans will pay an average of 0.28 Euro - or about $0.40 per kWh next year, up from 0.25 Euro this year. With a clear trend upwards, as more and more wind turbines and solar cells that produce useless electricity come online. With the recent push for off-shore wind generation that will be 50-100% more expensive than solar power (depending on the scale of the solar power plant), this will only rise. Germany will catch up with the very highest electricity prices in Europe next year (Danemark) and is set to surpass them right thereafter.
Meanwhile, the need for transmission lines is still seen as a conspiracy of the electricity utilities by most "greens" in Germany. The need for serious storage capacity, which is already rather giant, is still not recognized.
This is what you call a bubble - worth on the order of $350bn and rising - paid by electricity consumers through their bills. The only people who profit from it are those who have enough money to pay for solar cells or wind turbines and the more money they spend on them, the more they get. A classic transfer of money from the poor to the richest of our society - all brought to you by massive lobbying of the Green party.
And you need to import too (Score:2)
When the wind is not blowing, either you need to activate a CO2 generating natural gas power plant (with increasing price of natural gas) or import from other countries that would gladly charge you top money for this energy you need and can't produce.
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And...?
it's STILL less CO2.
Of course, this assume they aren't using a water reservoir to maintain a balanced load. Some location in the world are always windy.
AND just becasue it isn't windy where you farms happen to be, doesn't mean it isn't windy ion other places that could sell you their surplus from wind.
I'm not a big fan of wind as a base load supply for several reason, but what you list is simply short sighted and ignorant.
France is twice cheaper (Score:2)
France: 0.12 Euro per kWh.
Job Creation (Score:2)
"Hundreds of Billions" over 20 years? That seems to be pretty inexpensive.
Also think of all the jobs for installing/servicing/billing that are being created.
With more adoption of solar/wind/tidal generation, the initial price of the equipment should go down, once
the Chinese market undercutting is "fixed"
Natural Gas: not enough for everyone (Score:2)
"it still relies on imports for its natural gas needs"
There is a limited supply of natural gas (I'm not talking about stocks and how long we could sustain on reserves of natural gas but on the limited bandwidth of existing and soon to be activated pipelines).
Natural gas is used for 2 usages in Europe: electricy production and home heating.
Germany is currently at the end of majors pipelines coming from Russia, the largery biggest provider of natural gas to Europe. So Germany can prioritized its own usages of
Totally bogus (Score:2, Informative)
That is so bogus. Germany relies on coal. It's replacing its nuclear generators with coal powered generators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany The thing about renewable generation is mostly a lie.
Those exports aren't welcome? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, according to this article [bloomberg.com], the neighbors don't want that exported electricity and it's causing problems with their grids.
To easy to debunk (Score:2)
When Germany need all of their power is during the winter, when temperature is well below zero degrees. During this period they will not export a single watt of energy out of Germany.
12.3 Twh = 12 300 Gwh = 12 300 000 Mwh.
12 300 000 Mwh / 273 days / 24 hours = 1 877 Mw per hour.
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If you think renewables are expensive... (Score:5, Insightful)
...just wait until you see how much those non-renewable alternatives like tar sands and coal-to-gas will cost you. And that's before you figure in the cost to clean up the mess they make.
Remember: deepwater horizon had a wellhead as far beneath the waves as Denver is above them, and the oil itself was farther below the seafloor than the peak of Everest is above sea level. Loooooooong gone are the days when you had to be careful with a pickaxe in Texas lest you set off a gusher.
Oh -- and it's petroleum that fertilizes our crops and powers our transportation infrastructure, and we've already burned up half of the planet's total reserves. The easy-to-get-to and high-quality half, of course.
Like it or not, the days of cheap energy are done and gone with. If we're smart, we'll bootstrap ourselves to a solar-based energy system, which won't be cheap, but it will give us more power than any of us can imagine. There's enough insolation just on America's residential rooftops to power the entire planet, for example. If we invest wisely, as Germany is doing, we'll sacrifice a little bit of short-term comfort for a lifetime of luxury. If we invest poorly, as Obama will have us do with his "Drill, baby! Drill!" energy plan... ...well, if we actually follow through with that, we're well and truly fucked.
Cheers,
b&
Re:If you think renewables are expensive... (Score:4, Informative)
Sincerely,
Germany
Wrong title (Score:2, Insightful)
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I have a friend who works in a German power plant, in the back end handling coal orders, deliveries, etc.
Never been so busy, apparently.
Wind and solar are mostly hot air (Score:4, Informative)
There's a lot of talk about wind energy in Germany, but in truth most of our energy stems from coal and natural gas plants. And that's not going to change in the foreseeable future. Check out the up-to-date statistics on power production in Germany [eex.com] that eex provides.
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Actually most Germans heat without electricity. Old heating systems often run on oil, most newer ones run on gas (which can without problems be replaced by biogas because it's chemically identical) and increasingly wood pellets (made from the leftovers of sawmills). You even see an increase in prices for cheap furniture because it is made of this compressed sawdus which is now worth something instead of being thrown away :-)
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Re: Backup Heating (Score:2)
I installed a wood burning insert into our fireplace. It has a large glass door so you can still see the flames for ambiance. It is 70% efficient, using a blower to circulate heat and is designed to reignite smoke to reduce particulates. I gather wood locally from trees my neighbors cut down after summer storms.
So I can heat the house in the event of a power outage. I also have an inverter so I can use my prius as a generator to run the blower, router, wifi.
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A well insulated house can easily be heated with a couple dozen candles with an outdoor temperature around 0F.
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So there are no blizzards in Germany, eh? [bbc.co.uk]
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The high trade surplus does not clear for possible power shortages in winter . On particularly cold days when the sun is not even the wind blows, Germany is dependent, according to the Agency on a so-called cold reserve. At that include power plants in Austria.
Incidentally, "cold reserve" is code for "coal". All they have done by shutting down nuclear is to switch to coal. There have been other articles about this as well. Solar is great and all, but it doesn't generate base power load well.
Re:But , but (Score:4, Informative)
But renewables don't work! Subsidies for oil companies! Drill baby drill etc.
They don't work.
Here in Ontario(Canada), it's cost electricity users $20B in subsidies so far, and is costing the average rate payer right now about 3c/KWH on top of their electricity bill on ToU billing at peak. By 2016, Ontario is projected to be at 16c/KWH one of the highest in North America. This is all because of subsidies, or the FiT(Feed it Tariff) program. Where utilities get paid at a higher rate than they can sell for. Usually between 40-60c/KWH.
But hey, look above. A german mentioned that they're paying 0.45c/KWH right now. Enjoy that screw over, though he didn't mention that nearly 800k germans can no longer afford electricity [www.welt.de] and have been cut off. Though the article is considered dated from June of this year, and it's figured to be over 1 million germans now.
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"Isn't Germany currently building a ton of new coal-fired plants because 'renewables' are too unreliable to base an industrial economy on?"
No.
Re:But , but (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
German coal power revival poses new emissions threat [bbc.co.uk]
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I know what I'm talking about. You do not. The numbers I gave were specific to Germany, since that's the subject at hand
The Pacific Nothwest is exceptional, in that there's LOTS of hydro to be had, and very few people living there. While it's technically a "renewable", it's completely inelastic, and been fully maxed-out since the 50s. no matter how much demand increases, you'll never get any more energy out of that hydro. California was getting 30% of