NY Times: Germany to build 8 new huge coal plants.

[NNadir]

SCHWARZE PUMPE, Germany — In the shadow of two hulking boilers, which spew 10 million tons of carbon dioxide a year into the air, the Swedish owners of this coal-fired power station recently broke ground on what is to be the world's first carbon-free plant fueled by coal. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, presided over the ceremony.

The power plant in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany, operated by Vattenfall. The company is building a carbon-free plant, but only as a demonstration model. Germany plans eight new coal-fired power plants over the next five years.

"We accept the problem of climate change," said Reinhardt Hassa, a senior executive at Vattenfall, which operates the plant. "If we want a future for coal, we have to adopt new technologies. It is not enough just to make incremental improvements."

But the new plant, which will be just a demonstration model, pales next to the eight coal-fired power stations Germany plans to build for commercial use between from now to 2011 — none of them carbon-free...

...There is another downside to coal, evident barely a mile from the plant here. Bulldozers have begun demolishing a 450-year-old mill town, which blocks the path of the open-pit mine that supplies coal to the plant. The last residents are being forced to pack their belongings and abandon their homes for a new settlement nearby.

Such uprooting is an unavoidable cost of Europe's hunger for coal, executives here say. They also say the technology to capture carbon dioxide is too costly, at a time when they are already spending billions of euros to replace Europe's aging power plants. Finding places to store the carbon dioxide is a headache in countries like Germany, which are densely populated and have a history of protesting against the storage of more troublesome pollutants like nuclear waste...

...Here in eastern Germany, vast deposits of brown coal, also known as lignite, lurk beneath the table-flat countryside. There are similar deposits in the Rhine and Ruhr valleys in the west. Though Germany has been mining in these regions for decades, the supply is far from exhausted.

So great is the demand that the government allows companies to forcibly resettle villages that lie in the path of their excavators. The process is costly and litigious and can take more than a decade.

"This is a very difficult issue for us," Mr. Hassa said...

...The economic forces are getting harder to resist. Coal is Germany's main generator of electricity, and the government plans to phase out the next largest source, nuclear power, by 2021. Though use of natural gas is growing — Germany and Russia are jointly building a pipeline under the Baltic Sea — last winter's cut-off left a bad taste in Berlin...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/business/worldbusiness/20eurocoal.html?pagewanted=2

Bold and italics are mine.

I'm sure that Germany, which has decided to abandon nuclear power, will make it all better by installing a windmill or two, and a couple of extra solar panels.

That will make it all better.

[dbackjon]

1. Talk about being stupid

I never want to hear from a self-righteus German again about Greenhouse gases, etc. There decision to dump nuclear power is bad for the earth.

[Kellanved]

2. Oh thanks a lot

Yes, the German position about being leading in green-house gas reduction has a smack of self-righteousness.

The nuclear power decision is not quite as easy, though. The obvious reason is naturally political situation: with mushrooms and game meat still beyond acceptable radiation thresholds, it is a tad harder to ignore Chernobyl than in the US. On top of that, many people associate the nuclear plants with infringements on personal rights (rightly so, BTW).
Then is the incredible waste of money: trillions went into nuclear power research, without any notable results and payback. It was frankly money thrown into the trash.


The political reasons are just the easy ones, though. The real reason is quite frankly economic impossibility: no power company has any interest in building a nuclear power plant. The capital needed is far beyond the amount a private company can bring up; the EU rules forbid the old practice of giving nuclear power plants away for free (the only way to make them economically feasible).
The "dumping" decision actually extended the legal lifespan of Germany's rustbucket reactors.

As to the new plants: they are in the former east, where no nuclear power plants are. Vattenfall does not build these things to replace nuclear plants, but to replace older coal plants. Do they suck? yes. Is there a feasible alternative? no.

[dcfirefighter]

3. In what ways does a nuclear plant infringe on personal rights?

And what is the alternative: how does a coal power plant not infringe on those same rights?

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Hmmm

"Without any notable results and payback" is actually quite a fair assesment: Nuclear power currently accounds for about 18% of the worlds electricity, which is billions of tons of CO₂ not in the air as a result.

The results and payback for not developing nuclear energy, on the other hand, would be very notable indeed by now. Certainly we're noting the effects of not investing more - everytime you play "spot the glacier", for example.

[Kellanved]

8. oh

a) Taking a full life-cycle calculation of nuclear power results in CO2 emissions. "No" is just not going to happen for any form of power.

b) Payback in a very realistic sense. The trillions invested research has only yielded one single existing power plant (which never performed that well): Atucha I.
Is that what you call a good investment? (sure, that would explain a lot)

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Err, what?

a) I never said it didn't.
b) WTF?
:wow:

[Kellanved]

10. err

Wrong post - sorry.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. That's alright then...

Thought I'd woken up on the wrong planet for a moment... :D

[NNadir]

5. This is nonsense, pure nonsense.

It doesn't matter where the coal plants are, east or west. They effect every human being on the planet. Since my children will have to live with the effects of global climate change, much as I do, I can assure you my rights are infringed.

Silliness and mysticism aside, complete nonsense about mushrooms, the German nuclear decision is stupid. The Germans are playing nonsense games about pretending to go solar, and they are building coal plants. The solar plants will probably never produce a single exajoule, and Germany will dump billions of tons of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides, as well as metric ton quantities of toxic heavy metals into the environment. That effects the personal human rights of every living man, woman and child on the planet. The shit that's raining out the skies, poisoning the water and the land is a hell of a lot more toxic that the crap in their mushrooms.

Simply because there are some Germans who pay attention only to the radiotoxicity of mushrooms (which is low) and ignore the much larger chemotoxicity associated with coal, does not mean they are saving lives. On the contrary they are costing lives with this decision, which is a paean to ignorance.

[Kellanved]

7. Is that so?

Well, if you dismiss the simple and factual description of the situation in that way, I can see where your argumentation comes from.


It may be that the perception from abroad is different. In Germany, very few people believe in Solar for anything except warming water. The sun just doesn't shine that often.

And Nuclear Power plants infringe on my rights (as might coal plants): There are several rather questionable laws in effect, especially regarding the operation of nuclear plants and the payment of possible damages, which are very directly infringing on my rights. Moreover, nuclear power is associated with the strong 1984-police state.

A to the new plants. You make it sound, as if building nuclear plants instead would a) be possible and b) improve anything. Neither is the case.

Anyway, the simple economic reality is that nuclear plants have a too poor ROI, unless they are built and guarded for free. In the current legal situation that's not possible, as it is impossible to get a feasible financing scheme for a nuclear power plant done. The EU constitution would have changed that, but it was rejected.

The "opt out" of nuclear power is actually a veiled extension of the lifespans of the existing reactors; just a buzzword to hide the fact that a few really old and really fault-prone plants can continue beyond their initial concession.

[NNadir]

12. Here's a fact for you.

If you don't build nuclear plants, you build coal plants.

In Japan, China, India, France and Finland they build nuclear plants. All these plants are quite profitable. In the French case, electricity is the fourth largest export. I'm sure that one of the buyers is Germany.

My point is clear in any case, whether you are smart enough to get it or not: The only option to nuclear power is coal.

Here is the report on external costs of energy in Germany:

http://www.itas.fzk.de/deu/tadn/tadn013/frbi01a.htm

Table 1 says it all, without any blather about your vague rights: By choosing coal, Germany is damaging the planet far more seriously than it would if it built new nuclear plants, as Finland and France are doing. Germany is choosing the highest possible risk path possible. It is certainly a decison to kill people who would not otherwise be killed.

Your generalizations about "your rights" is nonsensical by the way. I don't elevate your vague assertion of "rights" over the rights of my children to survive global climate change.

[Massacure]

13. Why does coal have zero effect on crops? Doesn't acid rain count?

[NNadir]

15. I'm not sure. The ExternE site has quite a bit of discussion of methods.

I don't have a lot of time to poke around, but I'm sure there is discussion there of this issue.

Many plants can now succesfully scrub sulfuric acid, and some nitric acid out of the exhaust. The Germany plants may mitigate to some extent, the effect of acid rain. Depending on the basicity of the soil, whether it has carbonates, the nitrates associated with coal burning can be defacto fertilizers, but I'd guess this effect is small.

[XemaSab]

18. "nitrates associated with coal burning can be defacto fertilizers"

And the least sulfur-deficient soils are in the bad part of town. :(

[NNadir]

23. Well, if you have carbonates in your soil, they'll become sulfates.

This is one way to make chalk into gypsum.

That is by the way, often what scrubbers do, change chalk into gypsum, releasing our old friend CO₂ in the process.

[Kellanved]

14. please

"Germany" is building nothing. Companies are building plants.

The only nonsensical thing here, is the belief that nuclear power is a good fairy that will solve all problems overnight. The sad truth is that nuclear power is neither politically, nor economically feasible at the moment. On top of that, it won't even solve the problems at hand. Matters like personal transport and heating have far more impact per capita than power generation.

Your honorable worry about the next generation is poorly placed; per capita Germans produce less C02 than most countries with a comparable standard of living. Even in the power generation sector it is better placed than - for instance - Japan.

Co2 emissions could be even less, but it's not like a few coal plants will be the biggest of our worries. Replacing old coal plants with new coal plants won't change much in this regard. On the contrary: modern combined coal heating/power plants have a CO2 rating equal to nuclear.

As to nuclear: a responsible handling of nuclear power is a worthy option. It is not a feasible option in a privatized economy, though.
The statistical BS about how many 100,000 humans are/were/will be killed by a given technology shows little, except for the detachment from reality of the lobbyists for the unrealistic two extremes - solar and nuclear.

[NNadir]

16. Here is a chart giving per capita emissions for all countries in the world

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1cco2.xls

Germany: 10.28 metric tons per person.

Japan: 9.44 metric tons.

Here is a chart giving economic carbon intensity of every country on the planet, a measure of the amount of carbon produced for each unit of GDP in fixed currency, 2000 USD:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1gco2.xls

Germany: 0.45 tons/1000 USD.

Japan: 0.25 tons/1000 USD.

In both cases, Japan is far superior to Germany. Since Japan's private sector is building new nuclear plants, having just put a huge one on line last year, Hamoaka, and Germany is building coal plants, the distance between Germany and Japan will become even worse.

I don't know what you're trying to claim by bring up Japan, but Germany has a long way to go to match Japan on environmental performance with respect to global climate change.

Nuclear is not "an extreme." It is a mainstream form of energy that has operated for decade long periods producing a significant portion, about 16%, of the world's electrical energy. Since 1986, two decades now, it has done so without significant loss of life, while all the while, fossil fuels have continued to kill. It is easily the lowest risk form of energy, and it is, in spite of much confusion on the part of opponents, economic. In fact, Finland, which is in the same general area of the world as Germany, clearly decided to increase its nuclear power constituent on economic grounds as well as greenhouse grounds.

This is detailed in the Finnish Tarjanne study used to evaluate nuclear energy in Finland: http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2000/pdfs/tarjanne.pdf

The problem in Germany with nuclear power is political, and as such is based on mass delusion. It has nothing to do with economics and far less to do with the environment. An effect of the political decision to phase out nuclear power is building of new coal plants in Germany at precisely a time in world history when coal plants should be being shut and replaced with nuclear plants.

I do understand that you want to gloss over the statistics, and wave your hands excitedly, since they clearly undermine your argument. If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

[Kellanved]

19. Statistics show what people want them to show

In the overall rating things like individual traffic and heating come into effect. Which is my point entirely.




Of course you are trying to say something by linking an unreachable server, which seems a somewhat strange line of argumentation. You are yourself arguing politically, as you keep bringing up the "phase out". As the phase out law actually means that Germany has more nuclear power plants running than it would without it, I fail to see your problem. The impossibility of building nuclear power plants is mostly not a political situation, but an economic one. It is impossible to finance one.


Also your magic "Nuclear = no CO2" is simply incorrect. Combined heating plants actually do better than nuclear power (which you could easily read up) and - despite the coal plants - Germany is actually reducing the CO2 output.

http://www.learn-line.nrw.de/angebote/agenda21/archiv/05/daten/g9835CO2-Emissionen-DE.htm

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Some minor corrections...

-NNadir's figure are the overall ratings
-The links work fine, try checking your system
-Phasing out nuclear power does not result in more nuclear power plants, at least not in this universe
-Lots of countries have no problems financing nuclear power
-Coal fired co-gen plants release around 650g/kWh CO₂, nuclear about 20g/kWh from here
-Your own figures show Germany's CO₂ going up and down like a yo-yo

Other than that, all your points were perfectly accurate.

[NNadir]

22. .

:rofl:

[Massacure]

25. A one smilie post seems so odd from you. Thats something jpak would do.

:rofl:

[Kellanved]

24. ..

-exactly
-Not for me
-Calling something "phase out" does not mean that the label is correct
-None of them adhering to EU rules and facing the (insane) privatized situation Germany has
-The key is combining heating and power.
-The direction goes down.

[Dead_Parrot]

26. Ah, right. I got confused...

-Fair enough. I guess if German cars are getting less efficient, it would explain it. I'd be surprised, though...
-Not much I can do about that, I'm afraid, although you own figures give the gist of it.
-It's either a phase-out or it isn't, and knowing a little about the history I appreciate it must get confusing. Is it on or off this week? And wouldn't it be a good idea to work that out before building any new coal plants?
-So you didn't actually mean "It is impossible to finance one", you meant "Germany can't finance one at the moment". Fair enough, the US seems to have similar problems getting anything done.
-Unless you've invented radiators that run at 3,000% efficiency, no, it still doesn't add up I'm afraid.
-Only since 2002. Before that it went up, before that it down, before that it went up, and before that it went down. I'm getting dizzy just reading it...

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Sounds like reunification went badly in one respect ...

The burning of this ultra-dirty, high-sulfur, 'soft' coal without pollution controls was one of the ways East Germany (DDR) managed to stay afloat, and even surpass the other Warsaw Pact countries in productivity. But it destroyed vast areas of Eastern European forests (largely in Czeskoslovakia, I'm guessing in what is now the Slovak Republic) due to acid rain, and caused an astonishing level of lung disease in downwind areas. I hope things are cleaner now, but it sounds like the addiction is still there.

But moreover -- what's this nonsense of a "carbon-free" coal-burning plant? Coal is mostly carbon. Burn it, and you make CO2. If all they're doing is pumping the CO2 underground, they better be prepared for some deadly fumaroles as it comes back up, or for a few Lake Nyos-type incidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos . I hate seeing people use the word 'sequestration' when all they're doing is pumping it underground. You can't sweep hundreds of millions of tons of gas under the rug! It's all going to work its way back out, and all that effort and expense will have accomplished nothing.

{Note that I don't buy NYT subscription, so maybe there's something in the article besides sequestration. I doubt it.}

{And "Schwarze Pumpe" is for real? You didn't make that up?}

[NNadir]

29. Schwarze Pumpe is real.

As I have this story, it has nothing to do with Germany's decision to build coal plants in the area.

Apparently during one invasion of the area, the residents painted their water pump black to give the soldiers of the invading army the notion that the bubonic plague was in the area. (How the two are connected, plague and black pumps, I don't know.)

[Dead_Parrot]

17. Non-subscription version:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/19/business/eurocoal.php

{esm - yes, it really is Schwarze Pumpe!}

[ramapo]

20. Grim, very grim

It seems that most of the rest of the world is just as suicidal as we are here in the United States. China, Canada, Germany, and the US (to name just a few) all just can't wait to destroy large portions of their respective countries all in order to spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide into an atmosphere that already has too much.

There is no way that any country will curtail growth. Alternative solutions are not being implemented in any meaningful way. Conservation is not taken at all seriously anywhere. This leads me to conclude that we are (or have) barreling past the tipping point and there is little, if any, hope of a meaningful cheange in direction.

When I was young I would imagine the future as a potentially wonderful place (assuming we didn't blow ourselves up). Based upon the last 30-40 years, I find it difficult to imagine
what condition the world will be in after another 30-40 years of this.

[hunter]

27. Perhaps humans are too stupid to maintain an industrial society.

This civilization we have created may be an anomaly. The natural human state seems to be a cruel and superstitious sort of agrarian feudalism.

[ramapo]

28. We seem incapable of learning

I guess I am a wild-eyed idealist at heart. In my fantasy, leaders of countries as disparate as China and Germany and the United States look at such things as the ramifications of burning coal, and the problems caused by a society totally dependant on the private automobile, and the unfettered waste and garbage generated by nearly every society on Earth.

And instead of building more coal plants, and more highways, and generating more crap (on oh so many levels), somebody, somewhere would say "Wait!, Stop!, we can do better, we can change the world just like the industrial revolution and information revolution did".

And instead of doing the same stupid things, which arguably weren't perhaps stupid initially, they put their country on a path based on the very best and latest technology that exists, coupled with sensible use and reuse of available resources.

Silly me....