Posted on 09/30/2011 2:48:11 AM PDT by bananaman22
Forty-one years ago on Sesame Street, Kermit the frog sang a plaintive song, “It’s not easy being green.”
In a gesture of solidarity, perhaps he should fax the lyrics to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government is suddenly discovering the costs of weaning itself off nuclear energy.
In the wake of Fukushima, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on 30 May that Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and Europe's biggest, would become the first industrialized nation to shut down all of its 17 nuclear power plants (NPPs) between 2015 and 2022, an extraordinary commitment, given that Germany’s 17 NPPS Germany produce about 28 percent of the country's electricity and that the country’s first NPP came online in 1969.
The seven nuclear power plants immediately shut down after Fukushima include Biblis A and B, Neckarwestheim 1, Brunsbuettel, Isar 1, Unterweser and Philippsburg 1 and the offline reactor in Kruemmel. The remaining nine to be shut down by 2022 are Grafenrheinfeld in 2015, Gundremmingen B in 2017, Philippsburg II in 2019, Grohnde, Brokdorf, and Gundremmingen C in 2021, Isar II, Neckarwestheim II and Emsland in 2022.
Truly the end of an era.
Merkel added that her government’s goal was to draw 35 percent of production from renewable energy sources by 2022.
While Fukushima proved the final impetus for the decision, Germany has long had one of the most anti-nuclear green movements in Europe. The Japanese meltdown was the final straw in convincing the electorate that Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as hundreds of smaller incidents that the risks inherent in NPPs were in fact real and lethal, that nuclear-waste storage was a problem yet to be resolved and that renewable-alternative energy was the way of the future.
Not that the decision was unanimous. The German nuclear industry Full article at: Germany – It’s Not Easy Being Green
So Germany is going back to coal-fired plants? Smart, smart .. /s
You vill findt the kost of zuch schtupidity vill bee verry verrry high indeeedt.
Fraulein.
Frau.....
Whatever.
Importing electricity is economically no different from importing cars and machinery. Germany has fought tooth-and-nail for decades to maintain its hefty trade surpluses. It will be interesting if they throw that away in the name of the environment.
What will be more interesting is when those companies that sell into Germany decide that it isn’t worth the effort to sell there any more. I have been in few meetings where that has been tossed around for my company. The cost of compliance is getting more expensive and the return is less and less. There will eventually be a tipping point.
We in germany will have no problems to shut down the nuclear power plants and the growth of renewable energy is even faster than needed at the moment. So we will even be able to shut down the nuclear plants even earlier if we want to.
It is true that we need new infrastructure given the fact that the renewable energy production is more in the north given the fact of the huge growth of offshore wind energy production while the industrial base is more in the south. The costs are not really a problem here. It is also true that we have to pay higher energy costs because of the renewable energy for over a decade.
My point of view is. We are in a very good position here comparable to the situation in the auto industry decades ago. Renewable energy is a very important future industry with huge growth over the next decades. Even today it´s a very important industry in germany. We have a very good position on the world markets here and we should defend that position.
I say the politicians were right to act like this years ago. We were more or less the first and now we benefit as a society from our investments. Well paying jobs in a fast growing industry. The world needs renewable energy and we have it and sell it to them.
There is nothing to gain with atomic energy the oil industry or the other old energy forms for developed countries. This is the past last century.
Every society can decide on their own how to act here but if you have to import these products form germany i am fine with that. 15 billion dollar investments alone in the wind energy last year within the US.
“So Germany is going back to coal-fired plants? Smart, smart .. /s
No, they will buy their power from FRENCH nuclear power plants.”
The Germans get the cheap power and the french pay the high price for the nuclear waste. That’s really smart.
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