Germany’s grand energy experiment

"Most readers of BNC know the story — after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the German government announced that Germany would phase out all of its nuclear generation capacity by 2022. In almost the same period, Germany also aims to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions to 40% of 1990 levels (by 2020). Their emissions have already fallen by 22% since 1990, due in part to the reunification of West and East Germany and the subsequent closing down of the most polluting industrial and energy plants. So they have another 18% to go. Given the nuclear policy, can it be done?

According to this study by the Ecologic Institute (published prior to the nuclear shutdown announcement), Germany will have to initiative a range of aggressive measures, focused on energy efficiency, smart metering, car taxation, renewable energy heating systems, etc. etc. This was to make up a ‘gap’ compared to 2009 policies of 70 – 90 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2-e. The gap is now much larger.

Let’s look at the task ahead.

In 2010, 16.9% of Germany’s electricity came from renewable energy sources; nuclear provided 23.3%. The relative share, spread across renewable-based electricity (not final energy), is shown in the figure on the right. The installed renewable capacity was 55.7 GWe, producing 101.7 TWh of electricity, for an all-tech-averaged capacity factor of 20.8%. The aim is for renewables to provide 35% of electricity by 2020."

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/07/29/germany-gee/

To those who dismiss Barry Brook as another nuke shill, I include the following:

"Perhaps, I reflect, it’s actually quite good that Germany is following this path. Why? Because it will surely prove, once and for all (okay, I’m still an optimist at heart), that either:

(i) less nuclear power = more fossil fuels + higher carbon dioxide emissions, or

(ii) renewables + energy efficiency really can cut CO2 emissions, displace fossil fuels, and do so cost effectively, without any need for nuclear.

If (i) transpires, the argument for governments to pursue nuclear energy becomes significantly bolstered. If (ii) miraculously comes to pass, then terrific! — Germany will have led the way. Either way, other nations will be armed with the right sort of real-world evidence to know which is the correct path to follow — hypotheticals be damned."

...this week. Must have passed 150 windmills standing still along the way, nice for a boat ride - less for renewable power generation.

Ultimately it hardly matters if Germany can replace nuclear with green power, it will still mean more carbon emissions than keeping nuclear power.

many many more PVs than the last time I took it (I do not really recall seeing any at all in previous trips),
it is now a common sight on buildings large and small, as well as a number of wind turbines.

That said, I was not really looking out the windows much.

Also, took the TGV from Paris to Frankfurt last week and do not recall seeing a single turbine or PV in France.
France is a nice place, but unfortunately, it has the nuclear spectre of a potential Nukushima hanging over it like a black cloud.

*ICE = Germany´s Inter-City Express highspeed electric train (up to 300km/h).
** TGV = France´s Train à Grand-Vitesse highspeed electric train

Forget fossil-fuel powered cars and planes, the ICE/TGV are where it is at baby!

Barry Brooks lost all credibility when he posted that article after Fukushima.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x284853

says that the renewable grid will be 99% reliable.

That means that one hour out of every hundred will not have reliable electrical service.

Right now our grid is as close to 100% reliable as I think we can feasibly get. Yeah, we had rolling blackouts in California 10 years ago due to collusion on the part of the electrical companies, but every loss of electricity since then has been due to an act of god: lightning, fires, squirrels, and so forth.

I don't think we should try for high penetration unless there's some way that we can guarantee the same electrical reliability we have now.

"The U.S. electric power system is designed and operated to meet a “3 nines” reliability standard. This means that electric grid power is 99.97 percent reliable. While this sounds good in theory, in practice it translates to interruptions in the electricity supply that cost American consumers an estimated $150 billion a year."

http://www.galvinpower.org/resources/library/fact-sheets-faqs/electric-power-system-unreliable

You wrote, "Almost every high-penetration scenario I've seen says that the renewable grid will be 99% reliable.
That means that one hour out of every hundred will not have reliable electrical service. Right now our grid is as close to 100% reliable as I think we can feasibly get. Yeah, we had rolling blackouts in California 10 years ago due to collusion on the part of the electrical companies, but every loss of electricity since then has been due to an act of god: lightning, fires, squirrels, and so forth. I don't think we should try for high penetration unless there's some way that we can guarantee the same electrical reliability we have now."

Your remarks are a bit strange. Studies that examine various levels of renewable penetration are usually focused on time and resources required to achieve those levels, and specific claims related to grid reliability do not usually form a part of the subject matter. That's because it isn't the characteristics of any particular source of generation that determines grid reliability, but rather the way those sources of generation are all hooked together.

It is accepted (and I know of no one anywhere that disputes this) that a distributed grid based on renewable sources of generation will be able to deliver far more reliability than a centralized grid. If you have access to a body of knowledge that contradicts that accepted fact, then It would be wonderful if you would share a couple of references so that the claims could be examined properly and compared to the previous literature on the subject.

I'm very eager to see the papers, thanks.

Please provide specific citations for your claims.

Did you make a mistake or deliberately misconstrue facts?

You wrote, "Almost every high-penetration scenario I've seen says that the renewable grid will be 99% reliable. That means that one hour out of every hundred will not have reliable electrical service."

Scenario (iii) = replace all existing nuclear plants with Thorium cycle plants, build renewable energy generation everywhere, and immediately begin shutting down Coal then Oil then Natural Gas. Once all fossil fuel use has been replaced with renewable energy generation then we begin shutting down the oldest nuclear power plants until we reach 100% renewable energy.

Replace all fossil plants with thorium & renewables ASAP by building at the current proportion of nuclear:renewables.

Follow up by replacing nuclear where it can be replaced feasibly with renewables.

and therefore cost effective. Also, our currently operating nuclear power plants need to be replaced as part of step one.

Since you are in the realm of fiction with functional, market ready and proven thorium reactors why no just go all the way to dilithium crystals and transporters that we can reconfigure as synthesizers?

Please come back to the year 2011. We need you to join us in fighting against fossil fuels:

as well as a super-sized holodeck and vintage MooG synth.

... except the Moog organ. Those went out of style in the 70's, no? Can I replace with a cross dressing diva DJ?

The excess electricity could be used to actively sequester carbon from the atmosphere, speeding up the planet's recovery time from this little geo-engineering experiment of ours. Either the electricity could be used to directly convert atmospheric carbon into a more stable form through chemical means that could be buried, or used to grow large amounts of biomass that could then be converted to terra preta or some other carbon-dense organic material that could also be buried.

I was going to say carbon nano-tubes or buckeyballs (useful in cutting edge electronics and maybe batteries) but then I thought about the volume of storage needed since only a few percent of the carbon can be made into nano-tubes.

And diamonds have industrial uses (diamond-tipped saw blades, tunneling equipment use diamond-tipped cutters that need to be replaced regularly).

Anyway, thank you for your comment!
:hi: