The German Green party has run on a platform of being environmentally friendly and making clean, safe, sustainable energy and development a priority. But things are not quite what they seem, and evidence indicates that the the actual policies of the Green’s are actually the most misguided, destructive and dishonorable ideology to ever come to power in Germany. the SECOND most misguided, destructive and dishonorable ideology to ever come to power in Germany.

Germany is currently in a program to create more environmentally-friendly sources of energy, or so they say. The primary aim of the program is to eliminate nuclear energy. The secondary is to increase renewable energy, and the distant distant distant third is to maybe someday consider maybe possibly thinking about doing something about the coal use.

Now, first lets take a look at the “renewable” sector, because that is what seems to be getting the most attention:

Germany has poured more money into renewable energy sources than any other country on the face of the earth. In 2006, the nation invested a whopping $12 BILLION in renewable energy installations. In one year. Having invested billions per year since the 1990’s, Germany is currently up to about 9-10% power generation from renewable energy sources. However, of about nearly half is hydroelectric facilities, most of which already existed before the renewable energy initiative. The actual amount of power generated by solar and wind energy has been reported at somewhere around 4%, although the net energy saved is likely less. By all measures it remains a relatively small portion of overall capacity.

Germany has invested billions per year in photovoltaic solar systems to provide grid power. This includes major subsidies to home and business owners to install them, resulting in the highest electrical tarries of any European country. Some larger projects include such things as a solar generating plant, which produces roughly the equivalent energy output of a large locomotive and cost only about half a billion dollars. They have also invested a huge amounts of money in wind power, which has been slightly more successful than solar in producing energy – but really, that ain’t saying much. There are more than 18,000 wind turbines in Germany and the country produces more wind power than any other nation on the face of the earth.

Currently, the plan is to get renewable energy sources up to 12% by 2010. They’re a bit behind schedule, but they might just make it. Right now that’s projected to be another $30 billion or so dollars but then again it’s not like they haven’t spent that much before. The government has announced a tentative goal to get to 25% capacity by 2020, but doing so would require drastic reductions in energy requirements, even if current gargantuan expenditure were continued. How this will happen has not been addressed.

What About Nuclear?

Currently, nuclear energy is the largest source of CO2-free energy in Germany, but the parties in power are hoping to end that as soon as possible. The country now has 17 nuclear power reactors, but soon they will only have 16. In 2000, the ruling “Green” party of Germany announced plans to completely abandon nuclear power, refusing to grant any new licenses for nuclear energy and planning to shut down all nuclear reactors in the country by 2020.

Since the party came to power in the 1990’s, they’ve focused heavily on nuclear energy, often exploiting the scare over the Chernobyl accident in the 1980’s. Protests against nuclear plants are common and slogans like “denuclearize your country” are found on many local elections. This despite the fact that the demand for energy in Germany has been growing and the use of renewable have not been able to keep up with this. The results have included energy rationing in parts of the nation. The policy has been seconded by the Social Democratic party of Germany which has ruled in coalition with the Green party for several years.

The next plant planned to be shut down will be late this year or early next year. The Biblis-A nuclear reactor had been providing 340 megawatts of energy since 1975. Although the one of the older reactors in the country, it was in good condition and could have provided nuclear energy for some years to come. Utility companies had put in emergency requests to keep the reactor running, as shutting it down on schedule could result in problems providing electricity, but the German government refused and forced the reactor to be closed last year. This despite the desire of power generating companies to continue running the reactor.

The shutdown policy has basically been set in stone, and the German government has shown no signs of wavering from it. Even the most modern reactor will be shut down with no possibility or reconsideration. The list can be found here. What this amounts to is a policy which will insure that the reactors are shut down as soon as reasonably possible and destroyed so that future governments could not reverse the decision. This is regardless of whatever safety, health or enviornmental developments may occur.

But it gets worse…

Germany has forbid upgrades or major overhauls of their nuclear plants and not surprisingly this has lead to a few minor incidents where major components of the aging nuclear power plants have failed. Although none of the incidents involved any danger to the public, they did force the emergency shutdown of two of the reactors. Citing this as evidence of the dangers of nuclear power, German’s energy minister demanded that seven of the older nuclear power plants in Germany be shut down immediately. The plan was rejected due to the fact that this would lead to a serious lack of generating capacity in Germany, although the ruling party remains committed to forcing the shutdown of all reactors as soon as is possible.

The Dirty Filthy Secret:

Considering all the rhetoric of the “Green” party about the environment and the fact that Germany has signed the Kyoto protocol and repeatedly stated that they are committed to the reduction of CO2 and to environmentally friendly energy sources, one might be surprised that they are increasing the generating capacity of their coal plants. Due to the increase in energy demand and the shutdown of nuclear reactors coal-fired power plants are being built in Germany at an extreme pace. This should not be surprising, considering the history of solar and wind energy in actually providing useful grid power.

More than half of German’s power currently comes from coal, with most of that being “brown coal” which produces massive amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrous emissions and soot when it burns. Germany has upgraded many of the plants to “clean coal” but this does not solve the problem. For one thing, “clean coal” only means that the emissions are scrubbed for major smog pollutants and sulfur compounds. It does not reduce the CO2 emissions at all. And reducing 90% of sulfur, heavy metal and nitrous emissions might be all well and good, but when you’re burning 80,000 tons of coal a day, that remaining 10% is still a real lot.

Right now, Germany has at least 37 coal fired power plants which are either under construction or major upgrade! Germany operates some of the world’s largest and most CO2-producing power plants. Although there are plans to install scrubbers and emission controls, many of these massive plants are actually being upgraded to increases capacity! The plant pictured to the left is the new Neurath Power Plant, which is currently under construction. It will add to an existing coal power plant at the location. The resulting power generation will be a WHOPPING 4.5 GIGAWATTS! So much for “Decentralized Power generation.” The plant will burn more than 100,000 tons of coal PER DAY. Also, it won’t actually look as pretty as the rendering.

Many of the plants in Germany already dwarf most power plants. Germany already has five of the top 25 coal-fired power plants in the world, each burning tens of thousands of tons per day. Many are build in the eastern part of the country, where coal is mined. Some of the plants actually have their own dedicated strip-mine which is in nearly continuous operation just to feed the power plant.

The image bellow shows one such plant. This is Jänschwalde Power Station, located near the border with Poland. It generates about 2 gigawatt of power, which is roughly equivalent to a two-reactor nuclear plant. This image was apparently taken in the winter so some areas are white with snow. The blue area is a lake and on the north shore is a community of workers. To the east is the power plant. Steam can be seen from the cooling towers. The entire area bellow and to the east of the power plant is all strip mines. The black strips are the area of recently excavated coal and the area between the two major mines is formerly mined area, some of which has been backfilled. The actual strip of uncovered coal is about two miles long railroad tracks can be seen to haul the filth… coal to be burned. This frame is several miles across.

(click to enlarge)

There are no apparent plans to reduce the use of coal for power generation, but quite the contrary. In addition to the plants under construction many plants have long-term plans for upgrade. The plant shown to the right is Scholven Power Plant. It currently produces 3800 megawatts of electricity as well as 500 megawatts of thermal power for industrial operations in the area. Plans are to shut down two of the smaller boilers on the site and replace then in 2014 with new generating units. The first one will probably be 1100 megawatts and additional construction may include two or three more gigawatts of capacity by 2020.

This is hardly unique. Most of the large power plants in Germany are being expanded. Kraftwerk Schwarze Pumpe Power Station, for example, was built to the tune of 2.5 billion euro in 1997 and is planned for operation for decades to come. Other power plants are currently under contract for upgrades totaling tens of billions of Euros.

As mentioned, many do incorporate scrubbers, although this has presented a huge problem for the disposal of contaminated water, chemical waste, fly ash and other toxic waste generated in massive volumes by the “clean” technology. Other large power plants operate with no scrubbers and will not be upgraded for some time. Apparently the German government considers this something that can wait… unlike the closure of the nuclear power plants.

More info on the massive coal plants can be found here and here. They truly are enormous.

Conclusion:

Considering the fact that Germany says it wants to decrease CO2 production, it’s rather questionable that they are committed to closing their nuclear plants so soon. The fact that nuclear plants are being closed without consideration and are made the biggest and most public policy of the current government is an obvious sign that it is dogmatic and not based on science or a legitimate desire for sustainable and environmentally friendly energy.

Coal fired power plants remain the elephant in the room, and they are being only increased in size while the government has made a lot of noise about their renewable efforts. The fact that these are not planned for closure in the future calls into question the actual “green” motives of the government. The public face of Germany has been ecologically friendly with a commitment toward renewable power but there is a very very dirty secret they do not want to talk about. The fact that expansion is already being planned for the future shows a lot about the truth about the ability of “renewable” energy sources.

Nuclear energy has become a bonfire scape-goat issue for the German “Green” party to yell about and make the whipping boy of their enviornmental rhetoric. The reality is actually very anti-environment.

But then again: Dogmatic scapegoating of a group as the cause for all of Germany’s problems by an extremist political group is nothing new to the country. When will they learn?

Damn right I’m mad and I don’t care if I have to insult the country. I gotta breathe that same atmosphere too! If some of the images here are insulting to Germany fine. They should be ashamed of themselves!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Nuclear, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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