Posted on 08/05/2015 5:42:54 AM PDT by thackney
The German energy mix has been radically changed in recent years, predominantly driven by two forces: a desire to expand renewables’ market share (a task accomplished by generous state subsidies called feed-in tariffs), and an aversion to nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Within Germany these changes have had a number of perhaps unforeseen and certainly unfortunate consequences, including jacked-up power bills for businesses and households and, somewhat bizarrely, an increased reliance on the particularly dirty type of coal called lignite. But the ripple effects of Berlin’s energiewende are expanding past national boundaries, and, as Politico reports, Germany’s neighbors are finding their own grids strained by intermittent solar and wind production:
The country’s move away from nuclear power and increase in production of wind or solar energy has pushed it to the point where its existing power grids can’t always cope. And it’s the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France that have taken the brunt.
“If there is a strong blow of the wind in the North, we get it, we have the blackout,” Martin Povejšil, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the EU said at a briefing in Brussels recently.
Germany has failed to beef up its energy transmission infrastructure at the same pace as its burgeoning solar and wind industries, that is, and on especially sunny and windy days it relies on the hospitality of its neighbors to distribute those supplies. Poland and the Czech Republic have been forced to pony up $180 million “to protect their systems from German power surges”, while within Germany itself NIMBY-ism is preventing the construction of some key transmission lines.
When examining the costs of boosting renewables, it’s a big mistake to leave out the expense of building out the grids needed to handle production. Germany seems to have made just that error with its energiewende, and central Europe is struggling to cope.
German winds make Central Europe shiver
http://www.politico.eu/article/strong-winds-in-germany-a-problem-in-central-europe/
The country’s move away from nuclear power and increase in production of wind or solar energy has pushed it to the point where its existing power grids can’t always cope. And it’s the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France that have taken the brunt.
“If there is a strong blow of the wind in the North, we get it, we have the blackout,” Martin Povejšil, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the EU said at a briefing in Brussels recently.
Germany’s north-south power lines have too limited a capacity to carry all the power that is produced from wind turbines along the North Sea to industrial states like Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg and onto Austria. That means the extra electricity is shunted through the Czech Republic and Poland.
The solo draws to a close
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/dossiers/germanys-energy-transition-european-context
Germany’s energy transition in the European context
Germany’s energy transition began as lonely expedition. Expanding green energy rapidly and switching off its nuclear power stations antagonised some neighbours and the European Commission. Germany has now learned that it cannot reach its goals independently and is investing in cooperation. But while many European countries are following in Germany’s footsteps, a European consensus does not appear within easy reach.
In a recent speech to an international audience in Berlin, the influential state secretary of the German energy ministry Rainer Baake explicitly addressed critics of Germany’s energy transition (Energiewende), saying, “People in this country and also outside of Germany who believe this must be some kind of act of renationalisation of energy policy […] could not be more wrong.” Germany, Baake insisted, wanted to develop the transformation of the energy system – replacing fossil and nuclear power with renewables – in close cooperation with its neighbours. A Green Party member and one of the architects of the Energiewende, Baake pointed to Germany’s history of largely ignoring its neighbours on energy policy, and its current, more cooperative intentions.
“Until two to three years ago, the Energiewende was mostly a solo project of Germany,” says Markus Steigenberger, head of European Energy Cooperation at the German energy think-tank Agora Energiewende*. “Now, the European dimension is very present at the top political level, not only among experts.”
Most idiotic policy ever.
I coined the term "liberalsicle" for all the idiots in New England and North America who are going to freeze to death because they can't figure out heating or politics. These guys are flat out Enviro-Nazis so I have to come up with a new term.
You might want to coin another term for the idiots in California who cannot figure out how to desalinate, store, and use water.
It comes down to cost.
California Opens Up the Floodgates for Desalination
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/california-opens-up-the-floodgates-for-desalination-150508.htm
...The move was welcomed by developers who already are moving ahead on big desalination projects, including the Carlsbad Desalination Project, a $1 billion plant near San Diego that is under construction and scheduled to begin delivering potable water to consumers this Fall. That project is expected to provide 50 million gallons of fresh water each day, about 7 percent of San Diego County’s water needs....
...California already has a string of small-scale desalination plants, such as one built in 1991 on Santa Catalina Island that provides about 90 percent of the drinking water for that isolated offshore community. By comparison, the Caribbean nation Aruba provides its residents with freshwater using a desalination plant with a capacity to provide 11 million gallons of freshwater a day. Israel currently has the world’s largest desalination planet, and its plants’ combined output provide freshwater to 35 percent of the population, with plans to produce 70 percent of Israel by mid-century.
Until now in California desalination was never considered as a serious option for quenching the state’s thirst, because the water was several times more expensive than water from conventional sources...
As I read the article, the problem isn’t that they don’t have enough power, it’s that they have too much power from the windfarms.
My post also referred to storage and use. If the state had built enough reservoirs, the situation might be different. If a huge amount of water was not diverted to maintain a species of fish that is not even native to the habitat, the situation would be different.
There are many different alternatives to the lack of water, they don't want to seem to pursue any of them.
The lines that would have carried the power from the wind-energy rich areas of north Germany to Bavaria....were cancelled out by various states where this high capacity line had to run through. What they’ve done is destabilize the Bavarian industrial output for the next three decades....in hopes of capturing newer industry into their regions.
My feeling is that Bavaria has figured this out and will quietly work out deals from Austria and Czech.
Childish games....to enrich pockets.
Oh that must be why they are burning babies and wood pellets for heat in the winter!
Aquadafts?
When the geniuses who devised the wind farms came up with this scheme, they knew what they were doing, as they created a whole new utility that must store power. They gave themselves a reason for existing at the expense of affordable and available power for everyone as an entire new infrastructure must be built to regulate wind generated power in the entire country (Germany). As I have noticed, this was not a nationwide effort, but an enviro-whacko mandate whose main purpose was to shut down nukes...not provide people reasonably affordable energy.
It's what the EPA would do if the congress let them. As you can see, they care about the children...even when they're freezing to death in the winter!
Too cerebral.
So, where in the article is it talking about anybody freezing in the winter? Also, where in the article does it talk about storing energy? Also, where in the article does it talk about this not being a nationwide effort? You’re making a whole lot of assumptions that are not supported by the data. If you have any other data that shows that, by the German economy utilizing wind power, there will be deaths by freezing, by all means please share this data.
The data I’ve seen is that, in the first quarter of 2014, renewable energy (mostly wind and solar) met 27% of Germany’s need for electricity - didn’t see any stories about people freezing.
If there is no viable way to store large amounts of energy that can be utilized when the windmills are not turning, the power will go out...I didn't pass the laws of physics...just studied them.
As I recall, your original contention was that people would be freezing to death in the winter due to the use of wind power. Is that still your contention?
Then you talk about the need to create a whole new technology to store energy (it’s just physics!) so you will have power when the wind stops blowing. That would be true if you were relying on wind power for 100% of your power needs. I don’t think that Germany is truly planning to get 100% of their power needs just from Baltic Sea wind, though. If you use a mix of wind/solar/hydro/coal/natural gas/nuclear, you can cover those days when the wind isn’t blowing. They should still look at energy storage as much as they can to help cover peaks, but it’s not a requirement.
As for your contention that the only reason they are going to wind is to get rid of nukes, so what? In my opinion, the biggest problems with nukes is that, when they go wrong, they go wrong in big and really expensive ways. What has the cost to the Japanese economy been since Fukushima went wrong? How many decades will they continue to pay for that? If that had been a natural gas power plant (or any other type) would they still be paying for that now? We won’t even talk about Chernobyl!
But, I digress. Your original argument was about freezing babies due to wind power. I still haven’t seen any proof of this. Is there an article from some German newspaper you could send me about that?
see link http://www.britannica.com/topic/Green-Party-of-Germany
Again...no one in the "Green" party gives a hoot about providing affordable power for Germany, or anywhere else, for that matter. After they get rid of nukes they'll concentrate on coal, and after coal they'll concentrate on gas. That's how fascists operate...it's all about control!
So, you still haven’t supported your original contention regarding people freezing to death because of wind power.
You also haven’t supported your contention that a whole new technology to store energy is required (it’s just physics!).
I made the comment that the problems with wind power (occasionally the wind doesn’t blow) could be covered by having a mix of power sources. You responded, I think, with a link to the Encyclopedia Britannica about the Green Party. I have to accept your contention that this article talks about their agenda to get rid of all fossil fuels since this article resides behind a pay wall. However, since the Green Party only holds 10% of the seats in the German Parliament, I’m not really concerned what they think, since they are not even close to being in control of German Policy (BTW, I think the Greens could properly be called Socialists, not Fascists).
So, back to the real world. I believe that renewables can be a valuable part of a diversified energy policy and, apparently, the 90% of the German Parliament that are not the Green Party agrees with me.
For a fun experiment you could deck out your house with solar panels and windmills and try to power your lights, heat, computers, etc. for a full year. It could be a fun experiment which will enable you to learn that the only "renewable sources" of energy are fossil fuels, trees, peat, and gas.
You could write the Green party members (or any enviro-whacko in the US if you don't understand German...they're all the same) and ask their opinions on burning wood, coal, and gas.
You can also study heat's relation to mass, and maybe will understand that bodies (human or otherwise) that have less mass (children) than larger mass (adults) naturally hold heat for a lesser amount of time when chilled.
You may ask yourself, "what is the law of supply and demand, who passed that law, and what does it mean when supply of a commodity, say, generated electricity decreases? Does the price go up when the demand goes up? hmmm...
You may even get really crazy and bombastic and study Economics 101, and ask yourself if the amount of time and money spent (cost) of "diversified" energies, i.e. the effort it takes to combine them, store them, and integrate them into usable supplies, is more or less than concentrating your efforts on a single source? After your whimsical journey in which you truly learned the answers to all of these mind-boggling questions, call up 90% of the German (or any) Parliament and quiz them on precisely what they understand about these issues. Fortunately, I already know the answer!
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