March 22, 2012
Germany’s $263 Billion Renewable Energy Initiative
Stefan Nicola at Bloomberg:
Not since the allies leveled Germany in World War II has Europe’s biggest economy undertaken a reconstruction of its energy market on this scale.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is planning to build offshore wind farms that will cover an area six times the size of New York City and erect power lines that could stretch from London to Baghdad. The program will cost 200 billion euros ($263 billion), about 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2011, according to the DIW economic institute in Berlin.
Germany aims to replace 17 nuclear reactors that supplied about a fifth of its electricity with renewables such as solar and wind. Merkel to succeed must experiment with untested systems and policies and overcome technical hurdles threatening the project, said Stephan Reimelt, chief executive officer of General Electric Co. (GE)’s energy unit in the country.
Utilities running gas-generating plants in Germany lost 10.92 euros a megawatt-hour today at 12:16 p.m. local time, based on so-called clean-spark spreads for the next month that take account of gas, power and emissions prices. That compared with a profit of 20.95 euros in October 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. U.K. generators earned 2.06 pounds ($3.27), down from a profit of 7.02 pounds in October.
“Germany is like a big energy laboratory,” Reimelt said in an interview.
More here.
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 08:55 AM | Permalink
Comments
At first glance, taking 20% of German energy consumption from nuclear to wind/solar seems like a pretty expensive use of 200 billion euros. Shouldn't they be replacing fossil fuel powered plants first?
Posted by: prasad | Mar 22, 2012 10:17:49 AM
Couldn't they use very massive flywheels to stabilize the energy output from solar and wind? Or they could pump water into elevated tanks during power surplus times and use gravity during power deficit times.
Posted by: reader | Mar 22, 2012 10:39:48 AM
This is indeed an historic decision on the part of Germany. The gamble I see is not so much in generation, but in energy storage (because of wind/solar's intermittent nature)and peak load levelling (a task presently allocated to gas-turbine generators, etc.)
Smart-grid and distributed storage will be critical factors in this transformation. Technologies like fuel-cells could fit into this nicely...with the added benefit that it could kick-start the so-called hydrogen economy.
Electric power engineering has become very sexy again!
Posted by: Bill | Mar 22, 2012 10:59:03 AM
Smart move when all the U.S.eh? can muster is etch a sketch energy policy.
Posted by: Dredd | Mar 22, 2012 11:06:50 AM
Now if they can just develop an electric car with more than a 70 mile range.
Posted by: reader | Mar 22, 2012 11:44:31 AM
Indy cars (Indianapolis 500) were fueled by methanol for 50 years.
Methanol can be made from the atmosphere with electricity.
During that process CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere.
Converting CO2 / water to methanol, fuel of the fastest cars on earth, is the result.
Too much CO2 in the air worrying you? Methanol Economy!
The reason we have not gone to any number of fuels better than what we use is because we are governed by psychopaths.
Posted by: Dredd | Mar 22, 2012 2:40:54 PM
Bill | Mar,
"This is indeed an historic decision on the part of Germany. The gamble I see is not so much in generation, but in energy storage (because of wind/solar's intermittent nature)and peak load levelling (a task presently allocated to gas-turbine generators, etc.)"
Good point.
A solar thermal power plant in Spain generates electricity 24/7 by storing excess in molten salt repositories underground.
Should the Sun hide itself, the liquid salt is used in steam generators to continue til "here comes the sun" again.
Posted by: Dredd | Mar 22, 2012 2:56:47 PM
Dear prasad,
are you serious to question that this makes sense and would ultimately eliminate the need to use any unsustainable power. The Nuclear is the worst.
It would have never come to existence if governments around the world would have not been strong armed to take over all of the real cost of securing nuclear power productions, specifically the still unresolved waste storage... You can't use all in nuclear weapons and Germany has still none because the population is sick of getting bossed around by the needs of the war industry!!! for very good reasons. The German politicians only move on this because of political survival. The secret behind the german energy revolution is media diversity and education of the people nothing more and nothing less.....They don't need a Fukushima or a homemade Chernobyl to wake up
Posted by: mica hubertus mick | Mar 24, 2012 5:24:17 AM
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