Renewables supply 14 pct of German power: industry

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL0861814820080108

Renewables supply 14 pct of German power: industry

Tue Jan 8, 2008 3:19pm GMT

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Renewable energy made up more than 14 percent of Germany's power consumption in 2007, up from almost 12 percent in 2006, with wind as the main contributor, the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) said on Tuesday.

Energy derived from wind, solar, water, biomass and thermal heat accounted for 9 percent of Germany's total primary energy consumption last year, reducing the country's CO2 emissions by 115 million tones, the association said.

While growth of renewable energy production was stronger in Germany than anywhere else in the world, the association cautioned that government plans to cut support for the industry may hamper future growth.

The BEE referred to the effects of higher taxation for biofuels, which took its toll on the sector's growth last year as its share of Germany's overall fuel consumption rose only slightly to 7 percent from 6.6 percent in 2006.

...

:applause:

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R

[GliderGuider]

2. That's excellent news!

I really didn't think the it was possible for non-hydro renewables to supply 9% of primary energy in an industrial country. It's nice to be proven wrong on something like that.

I'm really impressed with Angela Maerkel's leadership, and with the vision and dedication of the whole German population.

[phantom power]

3. 15% is where the intermittancy problem is predicted to come into play.

I'm curious to see how things play out when real-world utilities start bumping up against this threshold.

[jpak]

5. It's more like a 20% threshold

and, as Germany's wind and solar assets are dispersed geographically, this will mitigate any potential problems with intermittancy...

[phantom power]

7. Well, as you know, I remain skeptical about the benefits of dispersal...

but that's why I'm curious to see what actually happens. If they add another 10% to their renewable portfolio, that should be sufficient to put all of our theories to the test.

[NNadir]

10. First off, it's not 14% of primary energy. Secondly, Merkel is a gutless asshole.

She has refused to overturn the idiotic German policy of stupidly vandalizing the largest, by far, source of Germany's Greenhouse Gas Free Energy.

She knows that the policy is stupid too and still doesn't have the guts to turn it over.

She has stood by with her thumb in her ass because her predecessor is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom.

Germany has zero plans to phase out coal. It will not do so, and the minute that the wind stops blowing, the Germans will turn to Slovakia, France and to their shiny new coal plants.

What the geniuses in Germany seem not to have realized is that the freighters lugging their coal from South Africa will all be diesel powered - and no, the diesel is not biodiesel from the rototilled rain forests of Sumatra.

When one hears this dopey "percent talk" one immediately recognizes that the unstated portion of the commentary is this: "84% of German power is NOT produced by renewable energy."

We're more than half a decade since the grand German nuclear phase out was announced. Last I looked, 84% of Germans have not announced an intention to use no power unless it comes from renewable energy.

She has a great new climate change policy, by the way: "Play pretend, and avoid counting:"

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37033/story.htm

In fact, Germany has vast plans to increase the percentage of energy that is not Greenhouse gas free and frankly, to import the rest of its electricity from places like Poland.

Germany has the dumbest policy in Europe. It's about to get disastrously worse.

[lebkuchen]

4. Wind turbines in Germany are becoming much more common,

even in the eastern sector. It's called "planning ahead." Don't you wish Bush did?

[progressoid]

6. Bush and Clinton and Bush and Reagan and

the American public.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Don't you wish they'd listened to Carter?

http://www.energybulletin.net/9657.html

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=7369

...

The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.

We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

...

Many of these proposals will be unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices. The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.

...

We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have to have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than if we begin to conserve right now.

...

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=6904

...

This major legislation is a necessary first step on a long and difficult road. This energy plan is a good insurance policy-for the future, in which relatively small premiums that we pay today will protect us in the years ahead. But if we fail to act boldly today, then we will surely face a greater series of crises tomorrow--energy shortages, environmental damage, ever more massive Government bureaucracy and regulations, and illconsidered, last-minute crash programs.

I hope that, perhaps a hundred years from now, the change to inexhaustible energy sources will have been made, and our Nation's concern about energy will be over. But we can make that transition smoothly--for our country and for our children and for our grandchildren-only if we take careful steps now to prepare ourselves for the future.

...

[progressoid]

9. We're really not that bright are we?

I met a guy recently that is still pissed at Carter for making us drive 55. :crazy: