The Failure Of German Enviro-Wackiness

The Germans pride themselves on green correctness, but it backfires on them.

http://www.spiegel.de/international...-policies-fail-to-achieve-goals-a-821396.html

I liked the part about excessive water conservation.

And the bill is coming due for their nuclear hysteria.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15300384,00.html

35,000 jobs to go offshore?

 

TC politicians in Europe cash in on the green hysteria of the day. They make promises they cannot keep, and support projects they know will fail....all because the ignorant masses VOTE. The politicians don't give a rats patute because they get the votes TODAY, and the failures and collapses come AFTER they are out of office with their millions.

About 6 years ago the Spanish gov't went bat - poop crazy supporting solar power plants. They GUARANTEED private investors a huge return on their money (with public funds of course). The plants are up and running yes, and so heavily subsidized they are the single biggest reason that Spain is headed down the toilet right behind Greece. The politicians in power NOW are frantic but they are dealing with the mess the previous guys left, after they left office with all their kickbacks.

Obama's tried to do it hear but fortunately Americans are not quite (yet anyway) as gullible and the Solindras and the others get held up to public scrutiny.

 

All the more reason for Americans to reject European enviro-wackiness.

Californians seem to like this nonsense.

 

A silly article by an anti-environmentalist who is just trying to hype his new book. As an example of his foolishness, he makes a big deal about the supposed dangers of CFL lightbulbs and the health risks of breaking them but his info comes from sensationalist articles in a couple of Murdock's sleazy British newspapers. The actual facts can be found in a number of places and one of those is The Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks, an independent scientific committee that advises the European Commission on matters of consumer safety, public health and the environment.

Mercury in Compact Fluorescent Lamps
(excerpts)

3. Do mercury emissions due to light bulb use and disposal pose a risk to the environment?

3.1 Compared to traditional incandescent bulbs, compact fluorescent lamps save not only energy but also mercury emissions during their entire useful life. This saving in mercury emissions exceeds the amount of mercury they contain and that they could potentially release if broken or inadequately disposed of. Indeed, producing electricity in coal-based power plants leads to the release of mercury to the environment. Since close to a third of electricity in Europe is produced from coal, using any type of light bulb contributes to mercury emissions, even if the lamp itself contains no mercury. Each year, natural events (e.g. volcanic activity, weathering of rocks) and human activities (e.g. mining, fuel use, dental amalgams) are responsible for the release of thousands of tons of mercury into the environment. In the EU, the estimated mercury emissions associated with the use and disposal of household lamps (incandescent, halogen & CFLs combined) are relatively low compared to other sources. It is therefore considered very unlikely that their contribution to the amount of mercury present in the environment poses any risk.

5. Do environmental benefits of compact fluorescent lamps outweigh potential risks?

Compared to conventional household lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) save energy and result in lower emissions of mercury, greenhouse gases and other pollutants. The EC Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) is therefore of the opinion that compact fluorescent lamps offer a net environmental benefit compared to the other light bulbs considered, even when mercury content is taken into account. On potential risks SCHER concluded: Compact fluorescent lamps that break accidentally in a consumer’s home are not expected to pose any health risks to adults and the risk to a foetus exposed through its mother is negligible.

Isn't it kind of strange that your source posts articles without putting any dates on them? LOL. In any case, their presumptions about higher energy prices caused by Germany renouncing nuclear power proved to be wrong and major increases haven't materialized, except as caused everywhere by rising oil prices.

German Solar Growth Continues
German Tariff Cuts Haven't Slowed Solar Growth
Green Chip Stocks
By Stephanie Ginter
Thursday, March 15th, 2012
(excerpts)

Despite issuing substantial cuts in feed-in tariffs, Germany's solar market continues to expand, making it the world's second largest in annual installations of solar panels. Last month, Germany's Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen and Economy Minister Philip Roesler announced plans to reduce annual solar installations to between 2.5 and 3.5 gigawatts (GW) for this year and next. However, with 1 GW of new photovoltaic installations in January and February, 2 GW in March, and 2 additional GW of installations expected between April and June, projected annual solar installations are well above the 2.5 to 3.5 GW Germany's government wishes to see on a yearly basis.


German Solar Superior To French Nuclear
Nuclear-Powered France Relies On German Solar Power To Stay Warm
Green Chip Stocks
By Nate Holl
Friday, February 10th, 2012
(excerpts)

France was served up a big piece of humble pie this week as the country was forced to turn to Germany for a little extra power in the wake of a vicious cold snap running through Europe. Last March, French officials were openly critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to shift the country’s power sources away from nuclear energy and rely completely on alternative sources of energy. The Chancellor’s decision came after the nuclear disaster that rocked the Fukushima power plant in Japan. The decision to shut down 17 reactors by 2022 was quickly denounced by French officials, stating that the move would result in greater dependence on fossil fuels, lead to increased carbon emissions and greater German dependence on imported atomic energy from France. French industry Minister Eric Besson said, somewhat boastfully, that the German shift to alternative energy sources would cause German households to pay twice as much for power than homes in France, where nearly 80 percent of the country’s power is derived from nuclear power plants.

But oh how the tides have turned. It seems that France’s dependence on nuclear energy is it’s greatest weakness in times of severely cold weather. Because France is so reliant on nuclear power, it has an excessive number of electrical heating systems. And since the country has been lax in adding enough additional holding capacity over the past decade, nuclear plants are having trouble meeting the boost in demand caused by the current cold snap. But Germany swooped in to save the day. In fact, German power exports to France reached 5 gigawats last Friday, an amount of energy equivalent to around four nuclear power plants. According to German Journalist Bernward Janzing, the exports did not come at a time of low consumption. Germany was apparently consuming 70 gigawats of power at the time the energy was exported. Janzing also reports that the exported power did not create a strain on Germany’s power grid. The 5 gigawats of power was not pulled from the country’s reserves, but was in fact was coming from power that was generated from photovoltaics, located in southern Germany. Power prices in Germany remained stable after the move, a clear indication that Germany is not experiencing a power shortage from the move away from nuclear power, as many French officials predicted. Oh and remember how French industry Minister Eric Besson predicted German households would pay two times the amount of those in France? Well due to the country’s current energy woes prices have gone up 50 percent and the country has requested citizens to reduce their electricity consumption.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

 

Solar energy in murky Germany. Obviously Barnum was thinking about Germany where he made his comment about one born every minute.

 

Actually Barnum was referring to gullible denier cult dupes like you.

Germany is getting over 12 terawatts of power from their solar installations. As the article I just posted points out, Germany is getting so much power from solar, they were able to sell 5 gigawatts to France in one day. Quote: "The 5 gigawats of power was not pulled from the country’s reserves, but was in fact was coming from power that was generated from photovoltaics, located in southern Germany."

Renewable energy in Germany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The share of electricity produced from renewable energy in Germany has increased from 6.3 percent of the national total in 2000 to over 20 percent in the first half of 2011.[1] In 2010, investments totaling 26 billion euros were made in Germany’s renewable energies sector. According to official figures, some 370,000 people in Germany were employed in the renewable energy sector in 2010, especially in small and medium sized companies. This is an increase of around 8 percent compared to 2009 (around 339,500 jobs), and well over twice the number of jobs in 2004 (160,500). About two-thirds of these jobs are attributed to the Renewable Energy Sources Act[2][3] Germany has been called "the world's first major renewable energy economy".[4] In 2010 nearly 17% (more than 100 TWH) of Germany's electricity supply (603 TWH) was produced from renewable energy sources, more than the 2010 contribution of gas-fired power plants.[5]

Renewable electricity in 2010 was 101.7 TWh including wind power 36.5 TWh, biomass and biowaste 33.5 TWh, hydropower 19.7 TWh and photovoltaic power 12.0 TWh.[6]

 

They have 12 terawatts of installed capacity. If they are getting a sixth of that, it is a remarkable day.

What say you about the unintended consequences of over-zealous German water conservation - it makes their cities stink and drain systems clog up?

 

Boy that article on France and nuclear is one ignorant piece of (*)(*)(*)(*).

#1 If its cold the nuclear plants would be functioning better than if it were warm. You get better heat rates the colder it is.

#2 The power didn't come from any single source. Power flows as it will. Most likely that power that flowed into cold northern France came from nuclear plants in cold northern Germany. The source nearest to the load will supply the power. That is simple physics.

#3 What actually happened was that the dispatchers in Germany sold the power at the price of the solar since it was their most expensive unit of power. But that is a financial concept on a physical one.

The author of the article is a complete ignorant idiot.

 

The author of the article is a complete ignorant idiot.

Possibly, or he is simply spinning to make his political agenda. In any case your real-life points about energy production and distribution will be ignored by enviro-nuts. Many, perhaps most, enviro-nuts are indeed completely ignorant of energy.

hehe...several years ago I was in San Francisco. They had rubber tired city busses, but downtown they were powered by overhead trolly lines...100% electric. Now this is an efficient system to reduce pollution, but huge signs on the busses read Pollution FREE Public Transport.

There are millions of voters in the USA that are actually so clueless that they believe electricity is "Pollution Free". When in fact, to the largest degree, these buses and the eco-nuts Nissan Leafs (or would it be Nissian Leaves??) are powered by COAL. Every time those San Fran buses pulled up a steep hill, or miss treehugger plugs in her Leaf, somewhere in Arizona or Utah, a coal fired power plant belched another puff of smoke. But I would take any bet that most SF residents have no idea this is true.

 

Your reading comprehension is usually pretty good so I do not know how you missed a point of the article. The French have a large number of electrical heating systems in their homes so when it gets cold, the demand on the power stations increases. The "heating" mentioned in the article has nothing to do with how well the nuclear power plants are functioning. Even though the plants function better in the cold, it is not enough to overcome the increase in demand.

 

Manny you do realize that Germany gets only 3% of its power from solar ?, yet the article says that solar power from Germany saved France......?????

France was saved by coal gas and nuclear from Germany...they CHARGED France the solar rate (which is exorbitant) because they only use it at home in emergencies (because is is so expensive).....starting to understand yet???

 

I got the article Mannie. It was yet another non sequitur designed to confuse the reader. How does reliance on electrical heating have any relationship to solar power? The implication of the article is that there is some problem with nuclear in the cold that makes it worse than solar. The opposite is true. Solar functions worse the colder it gets nuclear functions better.

Nice try though.

 

Clueless ignorance masquerading as dogmatic certainty. As usual.

Solar power in Germany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Germany is one of the world's top photovoltaics (PV) installers, with a solar PV capacity as of 2011 of almost 25 gigawatts (GW). The German solar PV industry installed about 7.5 GW in 2011,[2] and solar PV provided 18 TWh (billion kilowatt-hours) of electricity in 2011, about 3% of total electricity.[3] Some market analysts expect this could reach 25 percent by 2050.

 

Perhaps. Or, more likely, it is you. You who cannot understand because of some dogmatic mental blocks.

Nuclear power plants don't function appreciably better in cold weather. They do function worse when outside temperatures exceed 95°F but that doesn't mean they work better in the cold.

You contradict yourself. LOL. The "source nearest to the load" in France is not "nuclear plants in cold northern Germany", which the farthest from France. It would be, as the article I posted stated: "The 5 gigawats of power was not pulled from the country’s reserves, but was in fact was coming from power that was generated from photovoltaics, located in southern Germany."

Or, again, perhaps it is just you who is incapable of comprehending the facts.

 

LOLOLOLOL....who exactly is "completely ignorant of energy"? LOLOLOL. As usual, Fuddy, you have no idea what you're talking about. Only 1.7% of California's electricity comes from "COAL". 30% of our electricity comes from renewables and clean hydro.

California's Major Sources of Energy
CA.gov

 

No Windy, you very obviously did not 'get' the article. You misunderstood almost everything.

Obvious comprehension problems here. How could you get it so wrong? Of course there is no connection between those two. The article doesn't imply that in any way. It clearly says that France, because of their usual abundance of electricity from their nuclear reactors, relies very heavily on electrical home heating. They didn't have enough back-up reserve power plants to keep up with demand during a severe cold snap. Germany, which btw is still more into gas heating, had an abundance of electricity during the cold snap in spite of having closed down eight nuclear power plants in 2011. Germany was able to sell France a big chunk of excess electricity coming from the big solar power plants in southern Germany, not too far from France. Try reading this again a few times and maybe you'll finally 'get' it.

No, Windy, that was not the implication of the article. You just can't understand it. You manage to be wrong about everything. Solar photovoltaic systems actually work better in colder temperatures. Nuclear doesn't work much better in cold weather, it just works worse when it is hot because the cooling towers can't keep up so they have to ramp down the reaction.

Efficiency lost in extreme heat, but not enough to stop energy production
CleanEnergyAuthority.com
Chris Meehan

There’s a complex relationship at work between photovoltaics (PV), heat and sunlight. Solar power works best when the sun’s shining (of course). But when the sun’s shining, everything gets hotter. PV semiconductors offer more resistance in extreme heat, making them less efficient when the modules should be most efficient. Thankfully, this additional resistance is small, at most, reducing efficiency by about 10 percent. So despite PV panels being best suited for regions like the southwestern United States, which receive upwards of 6.0 kilowatt hours of sun per square meter daily, PV panels actually function better at colder temperatures, particularly crystalline silicon-based cells, which are the most commonly used. In an arid region like the southwest, most of today’s PV cells aren’t operating at their peak efficiency during the hottest days of the year.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)


Nuclear Power Can’t Stand the Heat
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c....1j5j0j1j1j8-2.10.0...0.0.jH1koJpKY3k&ct=clnk
Not only is nuclear power expensive, unsafe, and polluting, it presents yet another problem – it is unreliable in hot weather. Contrary to claims that nuclear power is a solution to climate change, nuclear reactors actually have to reduce output or be shut down during heat waves, when electricity demand is the highest. Nuclear reactors produce electricity through the heat generated by splitting atoms. The heat is used to create steam, which turns a turbine hooked up to a generator that supplies electricity to the grid. Water from nearby rivers or lakes is used to cool the steam. Water used for cooling elements in the generators is usually heated to 125 degrees Fahrenheit (ºF) and then air-cooled in towers to 95ºF before being re-circulated. But when the air temperature outside rises above 95ºF, the water in the towers cannot cool sufficiently and the reactor cannot run at peak capacity. Moreover, if the water is too hot, it cannot be returned to the river or lake without jeopardizing aquatic life.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

 

No. You misunderstood the article. Livefree already explained it.

The reason Germany was able to sell France the power was because Germany does not have a large number of electrical heating customers so the drain on the German system was not as extreme as the drain on France's system.

 

How is this in any way related to what I posted?

 

This isn't dogma. This is my job. I could give two (*)(*)(*)(*)s less where the power comes from. All I care about is price and reliability. Both of which suck with solar.

The maximum efficiency of any thermal plant is determined by the ratio of hits heat source to its cold source rmax = 1 - (T cold/T hot).

Ha Ha Ha, you are too busy looking at a map of only Germany and France. The electrical inter-tie that ties Germany to most of the populace Northern France runs through Belgium and the Netherlands. If armies have so easily crossed Belgium and the Netherlands what made you think that power does not?


As you can see there is very littler interconnection between southern Germany and France. Most all of the interconnection is in the North.

As for your article. Its misapplying a financial concept as a physical one. The dispatchers may have sold the power as solar but it was nuclear power that actually crossed the northern inter-ties. The power was needed in the north and it came from the north. Hell a good portion of it probably came from England power flows as it will.

I comprehend facts better than you do. You entire argument is based on an absolute ignorance of how power generation and transmission actually works.

"German Solar Superior To French Nuclear"

"Because France is so reliant on nuclear power, it has an excessive number of electrical heating systems."

If you are reliant on solar power you are just as reliant on electrical heating. If the problem is electrical heating that alternative isn't solar its natural gas or even more nuclear. Why use solar which loses a tremendous amount of its capacity when its cold over nuclear which actually gains capacity in the cold. Your article is playing word games to create a false impression?

 

And how does that relate to solar? The article is trying to create the false impression that solar is somehow superior to nuclear because of the cold weather. The opposite is true. Bother produce electricity so neither reduce your dependence on electrical heating. And nuclear is more efficient in the cold than solar. If dependence on electricity is the problem and you aren't going to switch to natural gas heating than nuclear is the far better choice because it gain capacity as it gets colder. Solar loses capacity and the problem gets worse.

 

But that has nothing to do with the point I was addressing. I did not mention solar. I did not address which is superior. I merely mentioned that the article stated nothing about how nuclear power functions in the cold weather. France was having issues because of demand and not because nuclear power's performance.

 

Of course the article didn't mention how nuclear power functions in the cold weather. That would inform the reader. The propose of this article is to misinform the reader. Its worded in such a way as to give the false impression that the problem lied with nuclear generation and that solar is better. That isn't the case. Nuclear is actually far superior to solar in cold weather.

Your argument is that the article didn't lie. It just omitted important facts and used misleading wording to give the reader a false impression. Like I said in an other thread only young children and politicians do not understand that lying by omission is still lying. Which one are you?

 

Nuclear power works just fine in cold weather. A little nuke has powered operations at the South Pole for years.

What about those stinky German cities?

 

Headline was wrong. Article stated the facts. Nowhere in the article did it state or imply that solar was superior to nuclear. Only incorrect fact in the article was that solar power was re-directed to France. Solar power in southern Germany freed up power else where to be directed to France. As the original article was in German, it is very possible that the author translated the original article incorrectly.

Translation: Solar power is a stabilizing factor. "the photovoltaics are currently very helpful."

Whatever the case, the bottom line is that all the complaints about the faults of alternate energy by the anti-alternate energy crowd are unrealistic. All sources of power have and can develop problems. That is the main point of the article to which livefree linked.

 

No it didn't. Even the meet of the article tried to imply that there was something wrong with the nuclear through misleading wording.

Yes we know you think that lying by omission isn't lying. Child or politician take your pick.

No it didn't free up power elsewhere. The solar was there regardless. Its not dispatchable and cannot be controlled. The power sale would have occurred regardless and the French wouldn't have paid as much. All the solar did was allows the Germans to gouge the French.

I actually understand the industry. That statement meaningless bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

Really that was the point of livefree's article? So what exactly was wrong with the nuclear generation again? You keep trying to have it both ways because you prefer dishonesty.