Germany plans to build 26 new coal plants

[Confusious]

Despite the Chancellor's push for climate protection, energy companies' plans for 26 new coal-fired power plants are likely to win approval

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2007/gb20070321_923592.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

one step forward, two steps back.

oops, didn't notice it was an older article. At the end of the article, it stated that merkle was only going to build the new plants IF they phased out nuclear power. since they kept the nuclear plants, they won't be building coal plants.

[kristopher]

1. More clear evidence (as if we needed any)

The base of support for nuclear is the same as the base of support for coal.

[Nederland]

3. You have that exactly backwards

...but that is not surprising.

The article quotes Merkle as saying that the coal plants would only be built if Germany phased out nuclear power. That would pit nuclear advocates and coal advocates against each other...

[kristopher]

4. I'm correct.

The country doesn't want coal OR nuclear; it is the rightwing government that is trying to limit the choice to those options.

Nuclear has always been the fallback position for coal. The overlap between the economic stakeholders of coal are almost identical to the ecomonic stakeholders of nuclear.

[Confusious]

6. Or maybe enough solar won't be ready in time?

No, that's not possible, because all you have to do is wave a magic wand and all coal could be replaced with solar and wind, at no cost.

for someone who is suppose to be in "academia" you sure have a limited view. It couldn't possibly be anything other then you say it is.

[Dead_Parrot]

7. lulwut?

Ahh, those evil right-wing Germans. And their massive solar power build-out.

http://www.thelocal.de/money/20101015-30513.html

Critics have recently attacked renewable energy subsidies as a waste of money, but on Friday Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen defended the measures.

“The economic value of renewable energy far exceeds the costs,” he told daily Financial Times Deutschland. “Effective and climate friendly energy security is a virtue that also has a price.”

The conservative Christian Democrat also said that the green energy industry has created some 340,000 jobs, which adds value to the subsidy.
Emph mine, in case you couldn't tell.

Hint: What you are supposed to do is look at the evidence first, and draw your conclusions second.

[kristopher]

11. What is there to comment on - it isn't relevant to the discussion

The right wing has been attacking the renewable programs every change they get. Would you like a wall of bullshit articles and studies their think tanks have produced to show what a failure renewable policies have been? If so just a few minutes of googling should satisfy you so go for it.

With renewable energy having support levels above 90% which do you really think is the path to meeting their goals:
1) reject renewable power outright and try to shut down all the existing programs?
2) Squeeze as much money as possible out of the opportunity to extend the life of the existing fleet (barely possible politically) while continuing the effort to build build (an unlikely prospect)?


Seriously are you really this politically tone deaf or is it just another of your deliberate obfuscations?

[Dead_Parrot]

12. "The right wing has been attacking the renewable programs..."

The quote shows they are actually defending it, at least in Germany.

But, whatever. Your ability to accept reality has always been a little... different.

[kristopher]

13. Your ONE example isn't representative.

I gave a cogent full explanation and the best you can do is cherry pick 8 words.

As pathetic as usual.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. My one example...

...is sufficient proof that that they are not "attacking the renewable programs every change they get" (sic).

It's also one more example than you have given.

[Nederland]

8. Let me get this straight

The evil right-wing German government is stacked with nefarious people that hate the environment and love both coal and nuclear. And since they love both coal and nuclear, they come up with a plan that ensures that either coal or nuclear will lose...?

[kristopher]

9. Have you been in a coma for the past few decades?

Here is the same history lesson for you yet again. It has to be repeated for you often because you are dedicated to defending the right wing position and therefore would love nothing more than to pretend reality doesn't exist.

In 1992 at the UN Rio Earth Summit the problem of AGW as recognized as a global problem requiring action.

This sent the right wing into fits and began their war against e the academic community that gave definition to the problem and the environmentalists who were leading the call for action.

Their strategy has been clear for sometime.

Deny as long as possible.

When denial is no longer possible, delay any action that reduces the cash flowing through their system.

When actions that threaten their cash flow are inevitable, try to define the potential avenues where the cash stream may be diverted - favored technologies being nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration.

Failing this they will lose hundreds of trillions of dollars globally over the coming decades to the non-centralized distributed grid.

The problem with their plan is that part of their delaying strategy has been the insistence that renewables must compete on economic terms. Now that they are crossing that price threshold and the excuse is losing its ability to hold back the tide, they are faced with the fact that the economics of their fallback technologies absolutely SUCK.

Without commandeering the public purse, nuclear and CCS are dead in the water.

But they are damned sure not finished trying to drain trillions from the public coffers.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. So, no comment to my post #7, then?

I'm dying to know how you spin it.

[Nederland]

15. Nice non-reply

You completely failed to explain why people who supposedly favor BOTH coal and nuclear would setup a plan that ensures that ONE of them would lose.

[kristopher]

16. It is very clear if you have the capacity to reason...

Sorry to learn of your disability, I'll try to be even MORE basic in the future.

You wrote, "why people who supposedly favor BOTH coal and nuclear would setup a plan that ensures that ONE of them would lose."

B e c a u s e

t h e

a l t e r n a t i v e

i s

r e n e w a b l e

e n e r g y

w h i c h

o f f e r s

t h e m

n o t h i n g.


H o p e

t h a t

h e l p s.

[Nederland]

22. Nice try

Poor fella hasn't got a clue.

[joshcryer]

21. Do Germans not have the ability to elect their officials?

Because if the country didn't want coal or nuclear then it would be advisable for them to elect people who respect their wishes.

[Confusious]

5. Boy, that filter is screwed n tight isn't it? Do you get any air in there?

So if they replaced coal with solar, would that make the coal and solar base the same?

[XemaSab]

23. Somethings either screwed too tight

or not tight enough. :hide:

[joshcryer]

20. More clear evidence that when nuclear is phased out, coal is the first choice to be phased in.

[kristopher]

25. Nuclear-coal coal-nuclear just two sidea of the right wing coin toss.

Here is who framed "the choice" you are trying to help legitimize by pushing the BULLSHIT that those are the only choices.

We need neither.

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

A recent survey suggested more than 30% of people believed the country was "overrun by foreigners".

...

Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at "the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country."...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451

We have that same 25-30% of rabid righties here.

[joshcryer]

30. I agree that we don't need either. But fact remains that coal is built regardless.

And you don't have a problem with it. You spend more time bashing nuclear when you should spend that time bashing coal.

[kristopher]

31. This isn't a cheerleading team - this is an attempt to have an ADULT discussion

...about what we replace coal with.

I see no one advocating here for coal in any form in spite of your repeated attempts to slander those who oppose nuclear with baseless and false dichotomy of "it is either/or; either coal or nuclear so those opposing nuclear are therefore supporting coal. That is a clear example of the "if you don't support the war in Iraq, you hate America" method of persuasion.

Actually I think I've seen the foundation for that somewhere recently.

Oh yes, now I remember...

1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable;
5. there are no other large low-carbon “baseload” alternatives;
6. there’s no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.

Nuclear supporters on the other hand, ARE supporting a technology that has a very high degree of overlap with the economic stakeholders profiting from coal fired electricity.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. I'd be suprised if they all go ahead

The driving force for that was the nuclear phase-out: Now that's not happening, they don't need the coal.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of NG going in, though.

[txlibdem]

17. Any politician proposing coal should be ridden out of town on a rail

It is sickening that anyone would even consider a new coal plant with what we all know today.

[kristopher]

18. Agree - even with carbon capture coal is a third rate solution to AGW

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[txlibdem]

19. BEVs and solar panels

I love the idea of driving an electric car that gets its "fuel" from solar panels on my roof. The payoff comes from the savings from not having to buy gasoline. There is also a smaller but still satisfying savings from never needing oil changes, tune-ups, radiator flushes, and reduced wear and tear on the brakes would significantly lengthen their life.

The solar panels would be paid off in a little under 5 years; after that you'd be driving for free.

It's looking more and more attractive now that oil is back up to $82 per barrel. We use www.gasbuddy.com to find the cheapest gas in the area when we fill up.

[Confusious]

24. where can you get solar panels that pay off in 5 years

the best I've heard is 20.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for-homeowners-solar-investments-dont-always-shine

[DrGregory]

26. Only in DREAMS!!

where can you get solar panels that pay off in 5 years
--------------------------------------------------------

Those only occur in the DREAMS of eco-wackos.

Dr. Greg

[txlibdem]

27. I was told there would be no math...

Normally you're right. If you try to pay off the solar panels by calculating the savings in your electric bill you will definitely find that it will take 15 to 20 years to pay back the cost. That's not what my post was about at all.

I calculated both the size of the solar panels and the time to payoff by the savings from driving an electric car instead of my current gas guzzler. Here's how I did the math, briefly.

1. Figure out how many miles you usually drive in a year.
2. Calculate how many kilowatt hours it would take and how much the electricity would cost to power your electric car for that number of miles.
3. Estimate the price of gas for the next 5 years. I just took the current price for gas in my area.
4. Using the mpg of your current vehicle, calculate how much you spend on gasoline per year.
5. Using the total kilowatt hours from step 2, calculate the size of the solar panels you need to "fuel" your electric car
6. Figure the actual net cost of your solar panels including installation (don't forget the rebates and tax credits)
7. Divide the net cost of your solar by the annual cost of gasoline to see how many years it would take to pay off the solar

A couple of notes. You do not need a huge solar array to power your electric vehicle unless you live in a very poor area for solar power. Google solar payoff calculator, keep putting in different values till you can figure out what size of solar array you will need in order to make enough electricity for your EV.

[Confusious]

28. Sounds like a good plan.

though not one that would help many people I know. most just get by and don't have the extra money to spend, even though it would be a good thing, both for the enviornment and their pocket books.

[txlibdem]

29. Not right at this moment, I agree

Neither I nor any of my friends or neighbors can afford to do that. But sometimes I need a plan to move toward, lest I simply tread water or wander aimlessly. My expectation is that the costs will go down in time and I'm slowly saving pennies toward that goal so one of these days those two curves will intersect.

For example: We're slowly replacing our lights with LED lighting. We've already done that where we can but the ones we can afford are only good for night lights and hallways. LED light bulbs are now available (well, in December anyway) to replace the standard 60 watt bulb but they cost $60 each (that's out of my budget for a light bulb). There are several big companies making them now (finally) and they will bring costs down by the sheer volume of production -- experts say that 2012 will be the year they will be an attractive alternative to CFL's.

I am still using CFL's in all of my lamps and most of my can lights but I am concerned with the fact that CFL's have toxic mercury in them and would pollute our landfills or may cause a problem if you drop one and it breaks. But my experience has been that CFL's do not last 7 years like they say. I've had to replace some of them after 1 year in the can lights and 4 years in some of my lamps. I just don't trust them any more due to my personal experience with them. As they say, your mileage may vary. That is why my focus is now on moving toward the LED light bulbs.

But the key is to start with one light bulb. That's it. Just one small change. Then build on that...