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> Germany closing even new coal plants Please don't greenwash Germany's horrible energy strategy after they prematurely closed nuclear plants because of Fukush
by tpmx 5y ago
> Germany closing even new coal plants
Please don't greenwash Germany's horrible energy strategy after they prematurely closed nuclear plants because of Fukushima-based populism. One example: They brought a new 1.1 GW coal power plant online last year that they expect to run until at least 2038. (Datteln 4: https://www.reuters.com/article/deutschland-klima-uniper-idDEKBN2CU0G2 https://www.reuters.com/article/deutschland-klima-uniper-idD...)
- zabzonk 5y ago> Please don't greenwash Germany's horrible energy strategy Quite. One good thing (the only one?) that came out of Thatcherism was the end of the British coal industry, though at the cost of enormous suffering for many people. Although BoJo and his crew of sub-100 IQ morons seem to be intent on opening a new one. These stickers in the 70s, mostly on polluting Citroen 2CVs used to really piss me off: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F2b1ccb4a-1cea-43de-be5d-3ea4bd48c903.png?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=600 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt... And actually now, which I had completely forgotten, I remember meeting a gorgeous blond girl in Bennets Bar in Edinburgh, about 1978, and her taking me back to my flat in her car with the "Nien Danke" sticker on it. And I said it would have to go. Well, you can probably imagine what the result was.
- Tepix 5y agoShe was right though. Nuclear power was unsafe and you can argue that it is still unsafe as last seen during Fukushima.
- ggm 5y agoSee, if you'd met her at Sandy Bell's or Mathers, that would never have happened
- zabzonk 5y agoYou are right about Sandy Bell's. Never been in Mathers, I don't think (at least not consciously). Actually, more memories are now flooding back. One of my flat-mates (not the greatest-looking man) met up with a really hideous woman in Sandy Bells and tried to inflict her on us - we fairly resolutely said "NO" - it all worked out for the best in the end - he ended up with a nice nurse.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago>These stickers in the 70s, mostly on polluting Citroen 2CVs used to really piss me off What? A 2CV is a tiny, lightweight car, with a miniature engine. How much pollution can it possibly throw out already? Surely far less than many brand new cars today. I know you can actually almost see the petrol fumes coming out of some big old cars, but to go after 2CV owners is absurd IMO. Although i'm not any kind of expert, so i might be wrong. "Green 2CV".
- zabzonk 5y agoIt's the engines that do the polluting.
- enragedcacti 5y agoAccording to Wikipedia it seems the car was effectively killed by the 1992 (introduced in '89) European Emissions Standards. Emissions tech has come a long way; just looking at the legal max emissions, the 2CV failed to 2.72g/km CO emissions while the legal max since 2006 has been 1g/km CO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV#1980%E2%80%931990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV#1980%E2%80%93... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Emission_standards_for_passenger_cars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Em...
- Scoundreller 5y ago> From a technical perspective, European emissions standards do not reflect everyday usage of the vehicle as manufacturers are allowed to lighten the vehicle by removing the back seats, improve aerodynamics by taping over grilles and door handles or reduce the load on the generator by switching off the headlights, the passenger compartment fan or simply disconnecting the alternator which charges the battery. Ugh
- bserge 5y agoThat's hilarious. Just... Why? Either set realistic targets or test them properly, this isn't Formula 1 for emissions.
- mickeypi 5y agoThe extraction of coal is really destructive too. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-monster-is-threatening-to-swallow-a-small-town-in-germany https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-mons...
- tpmx 5y agoActually featuring Bagger 288, famous in certain parts of the Internet in the late '00s.
- phone8675309 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow for those not in the know on the most common Bagger 288 meme.
- adrianN 5y agoI think nobody expects Datteln 4 to run until 2038. They just claim this in case there is a possibility to grab tax money to shut it off earlier. Even today coal barely makes economic sense. With rising CO2 prices very soon burning coal will be net negative.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoThat was a highly political move and indeed not Germany's finest moment. Also, why build a plant with a useful life of less than 20 years? That year spells out how desperate things are for coal right now. In any case, 1.1GW pales in comparison to the amount of renewables coming online every year. Also, Germany is actually shutting down more coal than that this year (1.5GW). That 2038 deadline is part of a plan to shut down most of their remaining coal plants: https://www.mining.com/germany-to-shut-1-5-gw-of-coal-generation-by-december/ https://www.mining.com/germany-to-shut-1-5-gw-of-coal-genera.... Call this a last 'success' for the coal lobby. They are going to lose most of the coal capacity by 2038 but they got to have a new plant. I'm sure that made sense in somebody's head when they agreed to take the plant into operation but only until 2038. That plant had already been built so they were negotiating about taking it into operation at all. They won that battle but then lost the battle about shutting down all of the coal plants. In any case, this might end up being the last coal plant Germany ever built. This being a relatively modern plant, it might also be the last one they will shut down. That might happen a lot sooner than 2038 too. There will be elections in Germany at the end of this summer. Conservative CDU, and its coal friendly sister party CSU who were responsible for pushing this through, might find themselves having to negotiate with the green party over exactly this topic. And depending on how things go, they might have to swallow their pride and compromise. Like they compromised with SPD before. Shutting down coal in Germany is a hot topic. Shutting down brown coal, which is the nastiest form of coal, doubly so. That's the real hot potato politically. My impression is that there will be lots of haggling over that final shut down year during every election between now and 2038. So, that deadline might start shifting a bit. Since that's only 17 years from now, I'd say 2030 is a nice round number to shoot for. Given some political will, that might actually happen. In the grand scheme of things whether its 2030 or 2038 won't actually matter a whole lot. It's going to be definitely a thing of the past somewhere in that time-frame. I imagine at some point it also becomes a "lets just rip off the band-aid and get it over with" kind of thing for politicians. The less coal remains, the less power the coal lobby will have to preserve what remains. They are losing power every year. 1.5GW this year.
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoThey closed nuclear plants because of strategic-level corruption: Former German Chancellor Gerhard Shroder accepted a senior position at Rosneft as soon as he left politics: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54462311 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54462311 Germany replaced nuclear power with Russian gas.
- nerbert 5y agoAnd is now pushing for the EU to label gas as "green" and oppose the same label for nuclear energy. Beautiful.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoIt's funny, because you always imagine Germany is the pinnacle of efficiency, and that their infrastructure and accompanying strategy should be flawless.
- imtringued 5y agoNo, those are complete opposites of each other. If you want to ruin your neighbors and run an import deficit you must first ruin your own infrastructure by not spending a single penny on it.
- junon 5y agoI live in Germany. It's really sad to me how completely willfully ignorant even highly academic scientists here (some of which I know personally) decry nuclear on grounds of decade-old information or simply by citing Fukushima or Chernobyl.
- whatever1 5y agoOh well, history showed that it is impossible to avoid huge nuclear accidents regardless of the wealth/culture/technological maturity/form of government. Until proof is provided that something changed fundamentally, I don't want it (or its waste [1]) in my neighborhood. You can have it in yours. [1] https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article251017489.html#:~:text=An%20underground%20Hanford%20tank%20holding%20123%2C000%20gallons%20of,the%20past%2067%20tanks%20are%20suspected%20of%20leaking https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article251....
- CameronNemo 5y agoAre those "huge" nuclear accidents worse than the effects of coal mining and burning? If you are not willing to host nuclear power in your community, are you at least willing to commit your community to using less energy?
- dredmorbius 5y agoNuclear energy presently accounts for 4.3% of global energy mix.[1] Expanding that proportionately, rather than 3 major accidents, we'd be looking at something more on the order or 70 such accidents. Using coal as a baseline is unjustified where coal is being actively phased out for cleaner alternatives. Much of this has been natural gas (a nonrenewable greenhouse gas contributor, though one with a good safety record), but wind and solar are cheaper than coal, competitive with gas, and growing rapidly (increasing over 2020, in a year energy consumption overall declined). The biggest risk with nuclear power time and again has proved to be organisational, not technical. (This is a major focus of the late Charles Perrow's work, which I strongly recommend.) Unfortunatley, organisational failures tend not to have technical fixes. In the case of nuclear energy, they have very long-term consequences, on the order of centuries. Well-running nuclear power plants are some of the safest forms of energy production we have. They are not the safest, with solar trending far better, as well as most hydro (there is one notable exception, as with nuclear, it's a case of organisational failure, unlike the notable nuclear accidents, the incident site is now home to 17 millions of people living without any residual risk). Wind power carries some risks, but those are all but entirely limited to workers, not the general public. IPCC have studies of risks on a per-GWh generation basis, which largely corroborate this.[2] If we were to compare nuclear with coal only, based on 2020 generation mix, the multiplier for accidents would be closer to 6-fold rather than 70-fold, though that is still 18 major nuclear accidents rather than the three commercial operation incidents observed. Note too that there are several further nuclear incidents where non-generating plants and military operations are concerned, as well as numerous near-catasterophes such as the Tokaimura criticality incident (again: an organisational failure). ________________________________ Notes: 1. This and other energy statistics are from the BP Annual Statistical Review for 2020, released two days ago. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... 2. http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report esp. p. 845.
- imtringued 5y agoGermany built a new power plant in 2015 that they shut down this year. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/shutdown-complete-moorburg-power-plant-stops-burning-coal-good https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/shutdown-complete-moorb...