“Green” energy policy in Europe – The numbers don’t lie
March 10th, 2010
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Many countries in Europe like to talk about how “Green” they are and indeed in many of these countries the Green Party has become one of the most powerful political parties and has gained control of the government, either directly or as part of a coalition in the past decade. But for all the talk of programs for renewable energy, reduced greenhouse emissions and better enviornmental policy, how have these countries actually been doing and how do they compare to the less “green” countries?
For the purposes of this comparison, a “green” energy policy is defined by the following:
- Rejects nuclear power, in the most extreme examples, calling for its complete phaseout or banning it outright.
- Strong focus on wind and/or solar power
- Favors enormous subsidies to wind and solar power
- Generally has a fairly favorable stand on natural gas, even if it is rarely (if ever) mentioned
- Attempts to reduce energy consumption through effeciency
- Believes it is acceptable to heavily tax or penalize energy usage as a means of encouraging reduced consumption
- Is supported by Greenpeace, the Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Earth First and other groups with similar agendas
The following numbers are from the US Energy Information Administration. Some of the data is a couple of years old, but if anyone knows of any other source of information that provides better country profiles with comprehensive data of this type, let me know.
Lets take a look..
Belgium – Somewhat Green
Currently, the government of Belgium is controlled by the Christian Democratic and Flemish Party, but when it comes to energy, the policies of Belgium would be the policies are very much in line with “Green” politics, especially when it comes to nuclear energy. In 2003, Belgium passed a law banning the construction of new nuclear power plants and seeking to expedite the closure of the existing nuclear facilities. This would result in a complete nuclear phase-out by 2025. There has been a good deal of controversy on this issue, however. The current political leadership is generally considered to be right of center and concern has been expressed over the fact that loss of nuclear power would force Belgium to import most of its electricity. While the Greens are not in control of the government of Belgium, they remain a powerful political group which does control some local offices.
When it comes to energy-related CO2, which serves both as an indicator of greenhouse emissions and a general indicator of the fossil fuel emissions of a country, Belgium is not doing especially well.
While the emissions in Belgium have only risen nominally, the same can’t be said for the country’s consumption of natural gas. It’s skyrocketed and in the process left Belgium extremely dependent on the constant importation of gas.
Austria – Very very Anti-nuclear, Very Green
Austria has a reputation for being one of the most anti-nuclear countries in the EU and indeed in the world. This was not always the case, as the Austrian government favored nuclear energy in the 1960’s, but in 1978, the Austrian Parliament banned the use of nuclear fission for energy purposes in the country until 1998 and banned the transport of nuclear material through the country, effectively making any nuclear activities, even pure research impossible. The ban was only for thirty years, but sadly the Parliament of Austria renewed it in 1997, thus affirming the country’s anti-nuclear stance.
Austria gained attention when the country threatened to block the entry of its neighbor, the Czech Republic into the European Union unless the country shut down the Temelín Nuclear Power Station, located about 50 km from the border with Austria. Representatives from Austria to the EU have consistently pushed for anti-nuclear policies, but with little success.
The official energy policy of Austria favors “renewable” energy as the cornerstone of future energy development. Their emissions numbers for energy-related Co2 are … abysmal.
Despite efforts to build more generation capacity in the form of wind and solar, the net generating capacity of the country is actually slightly down.
Austria has managed to reduce coal burning, but this has been replaced by a combination of electrical imports and natural gas, which, not surprisingly, has surged.
Denmark – The World Leader In Wind Power – Very Green – Very Anti-Nuclear
Many in the “Green” movement like to point to Denmark as an example of what a country’s energy policy should be. Denmark is fiercely opposed to nuclear energy, outlawing any nuclear reactors in the country in 1985. Only three nuclear were reactors ever built in Denmark, a series of small research reactors at the Risø DTU National Laboratory, but that reactor was ordered shut down and the laboratory has since been renamed the “Risø DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy.“ The laboratory no longer does any nuclear related research.
Denmark is also one of the biggest supporters in the world of “renewable” energy, especially in the form of wind power. Starting in the 1980’s, the country invested billions upon billions of Euros in wind energy, making it one of the largest producers of wind turbines in the world and giving Denmark the undespited first place in wind energy as a proportion of total domestic electrical generating capacity. By the late 1990’s the country claimed to have over 15% of power coming from wind and by 2005 the number topped 20%, with nameplate capacity exceeding three gigawatts.
A large portion of the energy from wind farms is exported (often at a loss) to Norway and other nearby countries where hydroelectric installations can provide some degree of load-following and energy storage – albeit at a huge net energy loss.
Despite the huge investment, the emissions of energy related CO2 in Denmark have not been going down, at least not by very much. In fact, they seem to be all over the place.
There really does not appear to be any kind of trend, certainly not downward. There have been some reductions in emissions since the mid 1990’s, but those have been pretty modest and don’t even go far enough to undo the growth in the early 1990’s. It appears that the CO2 emissions are as variable as the wind. One major reason for the reduction in CO2 emissions may be the reduction in the use of coal in Denmark. Coal has the highest emissions per unit of energy of any fuel, as coal is nearly 100% carbon. Coal use has been dropping, even if not spectacularly.
Is this because coal is being replaced by wind? Not exactly. Coal is being replaced with another fossil fuel: natural gas. Natural gas does have some benefits over coal: it produces somewhat less CO2 and is substantially less dirty when it comes to emissions like mercury, sulfur dioxide and fly ash. However, natural gas is also more expensive and less stable in prie and supply. The use of natural gas does not eliminate the emissions issues with coal, it only reduces them somewhat, and the price is security of energy supply.
In the early 1980’s Denmark’s consumption of natural gas was very small, almost negligible and Denmark was not a net importer of gas. Since then, the consumption of natural gas has skyrocketed in Denmark and hundreds of billions of cubic feet are imported annually.
Spain – The world leader in solar power
Spain has gotten a lot of good press for the numerous solar projects it has bled copious amounts of national treasure into. Spain has some of the world’s largest photovoltaic plants and also has constructed large solar thermal “power towers.” Spain not only subsidizes solar energy directly but also mandates higher rates for electricity be paid to solar generators than other sources of electricity by grid operators and rate payers. Spain also has been increasing wind capacity in recent years and now has a large wind power industry.
Spain has eight nuclear power reactors, but has generally been opposed to nuclear energy since the late 1970’s. In 1983, the Socialist government of Spain enacted a ban on the construction of any new nuclear power plants and has restricted the upgrades to any existing nuclear plants. This also haulted the construction of new reactors at two of Spain’s nuclear power plants, even though the reactors were already partially built. In 1994 a further law stopped any further construction on partially built plants, which had been in a state of limbo since the 1983 decision, insuring that the plants would be torn down and not completed.
Officially, Spain is committed to phasing out nuclear energy in favor of renewables. Shutdowns of nuclear power plants began in 1990, when a small turbine fire shut down one of the nuclear plants. The government would not allow an upgrade or replacement of the turbine, effectively shutting down the plant and any others which may encounter the need for systems replacements. The José Cabrera nuclear power plant, a relatively small nuclear power reactor was shut down in 2006 after 38 years of operation.
Spain’s ambitious renewable energy policy has helped the country achieve something that many would have thought impossible. Spain has actually done worse than pittiful policies of Austria. CO2 emissions alone have skyrocketed:
Coal consumption in Spain is down slightly, but the natural gas imports of the country have gone in a different direction. Want your energy, Spain? Better pucker up and prepare to plant a big smooch right on Russian’s backside, or someone might be inclined to turn off the supply. So much for domestic energy security…
The Netherlands – Very Green
You could just about call the Netherlands Greenland if the name were not already taken by the large island north east of Canada. The Netherlands actually provides taxpayer money to support groups like Greenpeace, which is headquartered in Amsterdam. Illegal ships run by groups like Greenpeace and Sea Shepard fly the dutch flag and are ported in Amsterdam. The Dutch have been big supporters of “renewable” energy and in recent years have been fervently anti-nuclear.
The country does have nuclear power reactors, but inn 1994, the Dutch Parliament voted to phase out all nuclear energy. In 1997 the first plant was shut down. A second nuclear reactor remains in operation in the Netherlands at the Borssele nuclear power plant. Plans had initially called for shutdown in 2003, but the power deficit could not be filled by other sources, leading for an extension in the plants operating license until 2013. Later the Dutch government decided that the plant would be allowed to operate up to 2033, if necessary, but have reserved the power to shut it down if they believe it is not meeting safety standards – a very arbitrary requirement.
The operators of the plant are required to pay most of the profits from the plant into a fund for “sustainable energy.” Profit is almost illegal in the Netherlands and in this case, the money goes to a fund that provides about half a billion euro in direct subsidies toward the construction of “sustainable energy” – meaning wind and solar power facilities.
In recent years, the Dutch public has become more receptive of nuclear energy, but with powerful entrenched groups like Greenpeace screaming bloody murder at the very word “nuclear” the country remains a very anti-nuclear nation in terms of policy.
Fossil Fuel Related CO2 has only gone up nearly as fast as wind turbines...
The increase in Co2 emissions is not surprising considering that the Netherlands has been burning nearly twice as much coal in recent years as it did in the early 1980’s.
Sweden – Somewhat Green In The Past (situation has changed twice)
Sweden is an interesting case when it comes to “Green” politics. Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, the government of Sweden favored nuclear energy and was not prone to burning money on things like renewable energy. That changed in 1980, when the political party in charge, force a referendum in which Swedish voters could vote on the fate of nuclear power in their country. However, the ballot measure only allowed for three different phase-out options, effectively making it a no-choice situation for voters.
For some time, Sweden was committed to the phase out of nuclear energy, but this never really happened because the language of the law allowed for nuclear energy to be used until renewable energy could replace it: In other words, forever. However, it also prevented Sweden from building or upgrading their existing nuclear plants. Despite the politics that seemed to hate nuclear energy, the Swedes by and large have supported nuclear energy in public opinion poles.
Only recently was the policy reversed. Still, in the intermittent time period, Sweden has, like many other countries, invested quite a lot in “renewable” energy and has seen absolutely no benefit from it. Today Sweden gets most of its electricity from hydroelectric and nuclear power generation. For political reasons, the two reactors at the Barsebäck nuclear power plant were shut down in 1999 and 2005, respectively. This lead to a small increase in the net electrical imports to Sweden. Sweden also has some fossil fuel power generating capacity, although this only accounts for about 10% of the total power generated in the country.
Interestingly, the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel in Sweden dropped throughout most of the 1970’s. However once “Green” politics began to take hold in the early 1980’s the dramatic improvements just about flatlined.
Sweden does not use natural gas in any large capacity for power generation. The use of natural gas has risen in years past, in part because Sweden used almost no natural gas prior to 1980 and has since begun to use gas for heating and industrial activities like oil refining. However, after an initial rise in the 1980’s, when gas was first introduced at a large scale, it has since barely increased at all. As a net exporter of gas, Sweden is not dependent on gas imports and not at all dependent on gas for electricity.
Sweden is not far from Denmark and has a similar climate (although it is actually a bit colder). It also has twice the population. Yet Sweden consumes only a tiny portion of the natural gas that Denmark does! Per-capita, the average Swede uses less than ten percent as much gas as the Danish.
Coal is also not used at any large scale for power generation, and has largely been disused for heating. Some coal is still used for industry, coking and other such uses, but the trend has been toward less coal consumption since the mid 1980’s.
The UK: A little bit of both. “Middle of the Road”
The UK is not the kind of green stronghold that many other European countries have become, but at the same time it is not strongly anti-green either. The country has 26 nuclear power reactors, with the last being built in 1988. Although the UK does not have any official “nuclear phase out” like other countries do, it also has not been building any new nuclear power plants. The proportion of British electricity provided by nuclear energy has dropped as some of the older plants have reached the end of their useful lifespans and been retired. The UK still operates at least two Magox reactors, which are considered to be technically obsolete and are slated to be retired in the next few years with no viable replacements yet forthcoming.
The UK also has a fuel reprocessing operation, although it not as large or as modern as that of France, in part because of political opposition. Politically the issue has remained very contentious. Two of the largest political parties in the UK (the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democratic Party) generally been opposed to new nuclear plant construction, but have fallen short of calling for a nuclear phase our or banning the possibility of new nuclear plants. The current political party in power in the UK is the Labour Party, which has generally been more receptive toward nuclear energy. In 2008 the government gave the go-ahead to begin planning for new nuclear power plants, but plans for new plants are still very tenative.
In other areas, the UK also has been only somewhat receptive to “green” politics and policies. The UK has begun to burn money on worthless wind turbines in recent years and has promoted “renewable” energy, but not nearly to the degree that some other countries have. Energy effeciency legislation in the UK has not generally been quite as draconian as in Germany, Spain or the Netherlands. The UK continues to rely heavily on coal for electricity, and like many other countries, has been increasingly turning to natural gas for power generation. British society has begun to fall for the “organic food” nonsense, but has not gone so far as to ban genetically modified foods.
Given the indecisive politics and general stalemate of British energy policy, it’s not surprising that the energy related CO2 emissions from the UK are not getting any better. However, unlike most of the “greenest” nations, they’re not really getting any worse either, which actually makes the UK one of the better examples of energy policy in Europe…
The UK did manage to decrease coal consumption for most of the 1980’s and 1990’s, but as “green” policy support became more popular in the mid to late 1990’s and new nuclear power plant construction ended, the numbers began to rise again.
So too has natural gas consumption. The UK has historically been a large producer of gas and increased development of North Sea natural gas fields in the 1990’s eventually lead to the UK being a net exporter of natural gas. Unfortunately, increased demand domestically combined with well depletion and restrictions on further development of natural gas fields has once again turned the tide and made the UK a net importer of gas.
Romania: Not Green At all
Romania is about as un-green as you get, if you go by the politics of groups like the Green Party, Greenpeace and other enviornmental groups. For one thing, Romania has not spent any significant national assets on “renewable” energy in the form of wind, solar and other worthless energy forms. Romanian energy policy has long favored the deployment of hydroelectric energy to the maximum extent and the use of nuclear energy.
Romania has been seeking nuclear energy since the 1980’s and began construction of its first power reactors the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant in the late 1980’s. The project was put on hold for a few years due to the disruptions caused by the fall of communism, but resumed in the early 1990’s. Unit one, a CANDU-6 reactor began full operations in 1996 and unit two in 2007. Unit two was amongst the lowest cost CANDU-6 reactors ever built and was completed under budget and ahead of schedule.
At present, Romania is constructing two additional reactors and has plans for the possibility of adding up to three more reactors in the near future.
The combination of pro-nuclear policies and improvements to fossil fuel power plants while all but ignoring solar and wind power may bother many in the psuedo-enviornmental movement but Romania’s CO2 numbers don’t lie.
Although Romania remains a net importer of natural gas, the country has managed to buck the trend of most other nations when it comes to natural gas consumption. Romania has slashed domestic consumption of natural gas, with a very noticeable drop when they first began using nuclear energy as a major energy source in 1996. Coincidence?
Coal consumption is generally down as well:
France: Not green at all and a huge thorn in the side of the whole “Green” movement
France embraced nuclear energy like few others ever have. In a relatively short period of time they went from being a large importer of power with very little domestic nuclear energy to being nearly 100% free of fossil-fuel in their power generation sector and the regions largest exporter of electricity. France managed to go from only a relatively small percentage of nuclear energy on their power grid to more than 80% i just a couple of decades.
The CO2 numbers for France are considerably better than many other countries. The country managed to buck the trend of higher CO2 emissions throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s. Since the completion of the nuclear energy transition, CO2 has risen, but only slightly. All and all, France produces less CO2 today than it did in the early 1980’s and even less than the mid 1970’s. Something few countries can claim.
Natural gas consumption has risen, though not as badly as most other countries in the region. Recent initiatives to increase the use of electric heat and other replacements of fossil fuel with electricity are beginning to reverse this trend.
Coal consumption is another story. It’s only gone down to almost nill. Today France only uses a small amount of coal for things like coking and as a carbon feedstock for chemical processes. Coal is no longer used for prime energy in France.
Amazingly, despite these numbers, the French are not using less energy. In fact, the consumption of energy in France has actually gone up.
It should be noted that the CO2 numbers in France only reflect the gross emissions within the country. They don’t take into account the net reduction in CO2 emissions and gas consumption that occurs when French-generated nuclear electricity displaces other sources in adjacent countries. Exports of electricity have only gone up.
Germany: Very Green and phasing out nuclear energy
A quick look at the CO2 figures from Germany might lead one to think that the country is doing fairly well when it comes to cutting back. However, these need to be taken in context. The modern state of Germany came about from the reunification of East Germany and West Germany. East Germany was equipped with soviet-era infrastructure that was anything but effecient. Since then, there has been a rapid modernization of East German facilities, accounting for most of the reduction in CO2. Even so, the net CO2 emissions have not fallen by very much and are generally a flat-line.
Coal consumption dropped immediately after reunification, but by 1999, most of the older East German power plants had been upgraded and the trend began to reverse, if only slightly.
While coal consumption has only risen moderately, natural gas has seen a steeper rise.
Given that Germany has installed a great deal of wind, solar and other “renewable” capacity, you might think that they’re producing more energy than in the past. You’d be wrong, however, because domestic prime energy is actually down. This does not mean that less energy is being used, however, as more and more electricity is being imported.
The Czech Republic: Not Green
The Czech Republic has not invested very much in the favorite “Green” energy systems, such as wind and solar. The country continues to get much of its power from coal, but has embraced nuclear energy as and has considered expanding its nuclear power capabilities. 60% of the public supports more nuclear energy, which would add to an already significant domestic capacity.
Nuclear energy already represents 30% of the power generated in the Czech Republic. There are six power reactors in the Czech republic, with the first coming online in 1985 and the most recent coming online in 2003. Last year, the country announced it was interested in taking bids for building of additional reactors. There are also projects underway which are expected to upgrade the power output of existing reactors. The two reactors at the Temelin nuclear power plant currently produce 963 MWe each, but are being upgraded to produce 1050 MWe in the near future.
The enthusiastic support for nuclear energy in the Czech Republic has had some political concequences. Austria has repeatedly claimed that the reactors put their country in danger and even threatened to block the Czech Republic from entering the European Union. Yet the Czech Republic remains strongly in favor of nuclear energy, both for enviornmental benefits and because of the impact it has on the country’s energy independence. The head of the Czech Academy of Sciences recommended increased nuclear energy.
It’s no wonder that there is such support, the country has done quite well with the current energy policy. CO2 emissions are down since the mid 1990’s and have not risen as they have in most other countries.
Coal consumption has been on a downward trend.
This would not be noteworthy if, like so many others, the Czech Republic had replaced coal consumption with consumption of more expensive and mostly imported natural gas. It has not.
Conclusion:
While some might claim that correlation does not imply causation, it’s certainly clear that the more “green” energy policies are not producing any benefits when it comes to emissions or energy independence and economics. Furthermore, it appears that those which are most prone to embracing these policies are actually doing fairly poorly. The numbers are surprisingly consistent: countries which have committed most strongly to renewable energy and have moved away from nuclear energy are failing, while those that reject this ideology are doing very well, in many cases, improving signifficantly. Countries which are somewhere between or have gone back and forth on the issue have seen similarly inconsistent or neutral levels of improvement.
It’s also worth looking at the numbers for CO2 per capita rank. Nuclear-friendly France ranks number 59, and Sweden, which uses a combination of nuclear and hydroelectric ranks number 62. Meanwhile Germany ranks 36, but is rising, Belgium is 25, and Denmark is ranked 31. The Czech Republic is 24, but improving.
Of course, there’s more than just power generation that goes into what makes a country’s CO2 footprint large or small. Oil refining, heating and transportation also factor in. In general, colder countries use more energy and countries that are geographically large rely more on automobiles. Even given these differences, there’s no indication that sticking to a renewable-based and anti-nuclear energy policy does anything to help with CO2 emissions. Indeed, the data indicates the opposite may very well be the case!
The numbers don’t lie!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment, Good Science, History, 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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March 11th, 2010 at 11:57 am
It’s also interesting to note how reliant Denmark is on norwegian and swedish hydro in order to integrate wind turbines into their grid. They export most of their wind power at basement prices, Sweden and Norway dial back their reservoired hydro a bit allowing reservoir levels to rise; at some point the wind dies down and Denmark wants to imports electricity, Sweden and Norway dial their hydro up a bit so they can export.
Recently Nord Pool felt compelled to introduce a new price floor, allowing danish wind to sell to Sweden and Norway for negative prices at particularly inconvenient times: http://www.nordpoolspot.com/Market_Information/Exchange-information/No162009-Nord-Pool-Spot-implements-negative-price-floor-in-Elspot-from-October-2009-/
Quote Comment
March 11th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Phil said:
Phil – both your points are categorically wrong.
The amount of energy ‘wasted’ in modern Western nations, has been grossly overstated by the so-called Negawatt supporters, and I have yet to see properly referenced sources for their contentions that there is a vast amount of room for improvement. In fact in most cases they are not preaching higher efficiencies, (that is doing the same with less) as they are demanding a net reduction in overall use by being frugal. This is not the same.
As to the second point, there are no efficient renewable sources, that themselves do not have a major environmental impact like hydro, and geothermal for example. Converting more nebulous sources like wind, waves and solar will never be efficient in any systemic sense because they are too damned diffuse and intermittent. To properly harness them would require vast installations that themselves would both dominate the landscape and raise the level of complexity of the grid past the point where it would remain reliable.
We have nuclear energy. I am getting tried of repeating this, but the fact is it is available now, ALL of the traditional issues with this power source that have been raised over the last fifty years, now have good solid solutions, and the only thing that is stopping nuclear energy from becoming the dominant supplier of electric power on this planet is political.
The history of this time, as it will be read by our great-grandchildren, will not be kind to those that pursued renewables and avoided the obvious solution. It will be seen as one of the great collective blunders of the past, and will be ridiculed as such.
Quote Comment
March 11th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Ontario says they will phase out coal by 2014, should help with CO2. However they decided not to pay $26 bill. for reactors, instead they’re paying 80¢/kwhr for this.
http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/
How much you wanna bet they still have coal in 2014?
Quote Comment
March 11th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
[Other] Matthew said:
Oh god no! Just their energy policy. France has a huge social problem that’s just about insurmountable: the whole country is full of the French!
Troberg said:
That’s kind of my point. Denmark went with wind, Sweden went for nuclear and hydro. The superior strategy should be obvious
MrD said:
They are a net exporter, but they burn as much domestically as they export. The consumption cuts the potential exports in half.
Phil said:
I agree that the US is not a shining example of good energy policy – far from it. However, the consumption of both energy and fuel needs to be taken in the greater context of a country’s energy needs: colder countries almost always consume more energy. The use of oil/gasoline has a lot to do with population distribution. The US has a level of “sprawl” that you don’t see in most of Europe. It makes automobiles necessary and the only way to change that would be to radically redistribute the population.
But as I said: the US is not a shining example of good energy policy. I mean, I’m a little envious of Romania and South Korea which I consider much better examples of energy policy.
Regarding the two points: First, I don’t think that the data supports the use of “renewables” as a viable means of reducing fuel consumption or emissions. It simply does not work. Denmark is using more fossil fuels than in the past and has not reduced carbon dioxide emissions. Spain spends more of its GDP on “renewable” energy than any other country. It has enormous investments in solar power and has been at it since the early 1990’s. Clearly, Spain has yet to show any progress in national emissions.
Countries like Romania and France (especially in the 1980s) show progress. Sweden shows progress as well, especially when they were building reactors back in the 80’s. No country that rejects nuclear energy and spends high GDP proportions on renewable energy development shows any consistent improvement – none.
As for wasting energy: This is really more myth than fact. Big energy users tend to be the first to adopt the most effecient technologies without any need to subsidize or force the issue. it’s a simple issue of saving money and creating more with less. If you have to force someone to become more effecient it’s likely because the amount of energy they are “wasting” is fairly trivial to begin with. Then there’s Jevons paradox which has a tendency to bite you in the ass.
BMS said:
Yes, hydroelectric does factor in. Its the one renewable energy source that does work and hence my own stand is to encourage its use to the maximum extent possible within reasonable enviornmental impacts.
(That despite the fact that it is also the most dangerous form of power in terms of probability of a catastrophic failure resulting in severe loss of life. Actually, it’s BY FAR the worst in this respect)
BMS said:
The Czech Republic is actually a very interesting case-study if you have looked at any of the news items on their energy policy. Historically, the country has relied almost entirely on brown coal (filthy) to produce energy and until recently it was nearly 100% of their base generating capacity, with a small amount of hydroelectric and trivial gas generating capacity.
The country began to go nuclear in the 1980’s (actually there were a couple of very small pilot nuclear plants before that, but the first one of any scale opened in 1985) The country is admittedly not in an economic situation that enables it to build plants as fast as they would like to, but in 2000 and 2003, they opened two new reactors with a capacity of about 950 MW each. For a country of that size, that’s a fairly large chunk of generating capacity.
As it now stands, the Czech Republic is only about 60% dependent on coal for power generation. The current government is very pleased with the nuclear plants built. They plan on upgrades to squeeze out a bit more power and also they hope to have more reactors under construction in the next few years.
There has been an enormous increase in the power used in the Czech Republic due to more development in the past ten years. The country has, never the less, managed to have a respectable, if not huge, reduction in CO2 emissions since the early 1990’s. They’ve also managed to keep coal use in check while at the same time not becoming dependent on natural gas.
I’d look at the Czech republic as a country that is becoming very enthusiastic about nuclear energy. Clearly they consider their investment in nuclear energy thus far a success and would ultimately like to use more of it to reduce coal usage.
Romania is another similar situation, although abit ahead of the Czech republic: True, they have a ways to go, and they started off in a fairly unadmirable situation to begin with, but their economic improvement has been fairly good and energy consumption is up, but emissions are down. They are pleased as punch with their CANDU’s and enthusiastically want more of them.
Anyway, I respect the point of view that this is overly simplistic and that may be right. In any case, I do want to see some debate. That’s healthy. Back and forth discussion by intelligent people is what needs to happen.
Furthermore: On a national note, I’m not trying to bash Europe or the Europeans. Obviously I’m an American and therefore an outsider. My reason for this is that the European continent represents a fairly broad spectrum of energy policies that can be looked at side by side.
There are countries in Europe that are pro-nuclear and have been building reactors and increasing capacity in recent years. (Romania, the Czech Republic, Finland)
There are countries which are fairly neutral: They built reactors in the past and still have them but are not building new ones and are not investing huge amounts of money in “renewables”
Then there are countries which are very strongly renewable-friendly and do not see nuclear power as part of their energy policy. These include Spain, Austria, Denmark, Germany. What these countries have in common is that their energy policy is based on renewable energy – they spend a high proportion of GDP and have high capacities for wind and solar.
Of those which have chosen to invest heavily in renewables, I do not see a single example of a resounding success, even given that many have been doing so for many years.
I don’t harbor any ill feelings toward a country like Spain that has built large solar installations and enormous wind capacity. I would be completely respectful of Spain’s policy if they made a truthful statement like: “We attempted to improve energy policy over the past 15 years by heavily subsidizing renwables and implementing solar power station building. We did this in good faith that it would provide enviornmental benefits. Clearly it has not. It was a noble experiment and now it is inescapable that it has not returned a benefit.”
Quote Comment
March 11th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
drbuzz0 said:
The French would likely say that France is full of everyone BUT the French these days, and that is at the root of their problems.
Sort of reminds me of a poster I saw recently in Florida. It showed a black and white photo of some native Americans (Apache, I think) taken sometime in the 1800’s. The caption read something to the effect of, “Just ask the Indians what happens if you don’t control immigration.”
…
Quote Comment
March 11th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
DV82XL said:
Heh. Well to be honest, I am not really the prejudiced type and I have nothing against the French as a group. (I should add, when I am critical of a country, I’m saying I dislike the national policy, not the individuals who live there).
I was making a bit of a joke over an old saying that I believe came from the UK “The biggest problem with France is it’s full of the French.” Traditionally, the British have had a stereotype of the French has being stuck up, rude and difficult to deal with. (Not surprising considering the two countries were enemies for much of their history.)
Actually, I find it a little funny how different nations have looked at eachother.
Syphillis is a funny example of this. To the Germans and the Italians, it was known as “The French Disease.” The French never called it that. They called it “The Spanish Disease” or occasionally “The Italian Disease” The British were split on calling it “The French Disease” or “The Spanish Disease” but also accepted “The Italian Disease” In Germany it was also acceptable to call it “Russian Disease” or “The Eastern Disease,” but in Russia it was “Polish Fever” and occasionally also seemed to pick up even more ethnic names like “The Scotsman’s Curse.”
It seems a number of illnesses (many of them STD’s) went by the name “Spanish Fever,” although this term later taken over by the Spanish Flu of 1918.
It seems everyone thought that syphilis was caused by some other foreign country but never admitted it was just as much domestic.
Anyway… I think it’s funny.
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March 11th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
drbuzz0 said:
I think that the Czechs would agree.
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March 11th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Yes, quite funny really. It’s that std’s are seen as dirty, unsavory and something nobody actually wants to admit that an STD might actually be festering in the population domestically. The “Old French Whore” is one that seems to imply that there are not plenty of old whores in London, while really there are plenty of indigenous whores, yet stereotypically the whore has a French accent. Surely in France, this would not be the case.
My father’s generation had a saying that I had heard from older family members. It’s an unsavory euphemism for saying that a woman was loose, dirty and would likely give you a disease. “She bedded a mic” as in “Stay away from that one, I hear she bedded a mic” The implication being that Irishmen were somehow carriers of all kinds of things and any woman willing to bed one of them was clearly a walking biohazard.
I heard a similar saying, not so common, for a man being infected. Anyone ever heard “He picked up something Spanish?” as in the saying “Poor bloke, he got drunk and left with some damn. Seems he picked up something Spanish and’ll have to see the doctor.”
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March 11th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
By the way: Before someone thinks I can dish it but not take it when it comes to energy policy, I’m working on a post comparing the US to other countries in terms of energy policy, trends and so on.
The US does not come off well.
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March 11th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
DV82XL said:
I’d like some more details about this comment: if I get you right, do you think that there not enough white Christians in France ? Too much colors for you, maybe? Too exotic? You sound like a supremacist, so, if not, please explain a little more. It would strengthen your comment if you happen to live in France now and know a little about the current status of the French society, but somehow, I doubt it.
Back to the subject, on CO2 emissions, I just think that France struck gold on that: the idea behind the big nuclear program was independence from fossil fuel imports (which is still a big issue), not CO2 emissions reduction. Now, energy company like AREVA (reactors and fuel cycle) and EDF (power producer and distributor) have no major competitor in France (despite liberalization laws) and are really strong now in Europe.
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March 12th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Matt the French said:
France, like many European countries has experienced a great deal of immigration from the Middle East, North Africa and to a lesser extent Asia. There’s no denying that this has caused social problems. You may remember the riots that occurred a couple of years ago and primarily involved Muslim youth.
It’s a very acute problem in many European countries.
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March 12th, 2010 at 1:59 am
France is weird.
They have this fantastic energy policy which they have applied with intelligence and determination.
They tax the bejeezus out of businesses, and provide no fault labour laws which make it impossible to fire people for misconduct without incurring fairly substantial legal liability. In France, you can do a mom and pop type business, or a mega-corporation. It’s hard (and very risky) to grow beyond owner/operator scale.
They undercut the competitiveness of their own workers by allowing unskilled, low wage migrants to flood into the country in huge numbers.
The civil service expect to get handsomely paid for doing, effectively, very little. When they don’t get their way, they paralyze the whole country. This seems to happen every weekend (or every weekend I’m in France).
And then they blame the whole darn fiasco on “Muslim youth”….
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March 12th, 2010 at 2:09 am
Matt the French said:
First, as many regulars here know, I am a French-Canadian and a Francophone, and I read enough material published in France to know what is going on there, and were I you I wouldn’t be assuming tones of moral ascendancy if you do live there (and are pure lain.)
Nevertheless, the original remark was made as a tongue-in-cheek reply to Doc’s over-the-top statement prior that “France has a huge social problem that’s just about insurmountable: the whole country is full of the French!”
You have taken my remarks in that exchange out of context, but I obviously hit a nerve thought, didn’t I?
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March 12th, 2010 at 7:59 am
Lying by numbers
I took the time to check your stated source ( http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) and found out some interesting things. I focused especially on Germany and Spain, two of your prime negative examples.
Let’s start with Germany:
First you try to sell falling “Primary Energy Production” as a reason for Germany’s reduction in emmission. A closer look at the EIA statistic ( http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=GM ) reveals that “production” also includes the production of coal but is NOT ITS USE. The drop in German “Primary Energy Production” is not a drop in living standards, it’s giving up uneconomical coal mining and switching to import coal.
The statistics you SHOULD have presented are “Primary Energy CONSUMPTION” (slightly up) and “Electricity Net Consumption” (also slightly up). Now the big hammer is “Electricity Net Generation” http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/GM_elec_prod_large.png , which is up 20% ! Now if you compare the increase in consumption of primary energy and electricity generation with the drop of emissions, you will find that Germany has succeeded. Not dramatically, and there IS the eastern block effect, but a correct look at the numbers shows exactly the opposite of your conclusion.
Now Spain:
I don’t have an as glaring example of actual falsehood as in the case of Germany (PE production vs consumption) but let’s look at those charts again nonetheless. First open up the Spanish CO2 Emmissions:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/SP_co2_large.png and let’s compare that to the Spanish generating power http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/SP_elec_prod_large.png you can also pull up Primary energy consumption if you want, it looks the same.
Now what the numbers tell us is that spain has been building up industry like crazy. It is very hard to read a failure of wind power out of the CO2 chart once you put it against generating power. One could actually say that, despite relying on wind they have almost tripled generating power (although a bit more than half of that increase seems to stem from fossile fuel, likely gas).
Another thing I noticed is you calling Spain “the world leader in solar” along with your 2005 statistic. Now Spain IS the world leader in solar, but if you check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain or http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php you will notice that almost all solar plants went online in 2008 or 2009, a good 3 years after the end of your statistic. So the solar expansion does NOT show in the numbers at all.
In short, you are either misreading the charts or trying to sell your point so hard that the facts don’t matter. Now considering that you seem to be a smart person in general, I can’t shake the impression that it’s intentional misleading rather than accidential misreading.
You, Sir, lost a lot of credibility.
Satan_Klaus
PS: We are NOT talking about the economy of renewable sources where some of them look truly pitiful (PV in rainy, cloudy, flatland Germany for example. Solar-thermal in arid, sunny, highland Spain looks somewhat acceptable). I’m also not disputing the success of France or (also hydro blessed) Sweden. I just looked at your source and found (and proved) your conclusions for Spain and Germany false to the point of being unsavory.
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March 12th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Satan_klaus said:
Not quite. While it is true that electricity generation in Germany has increased in the past 15 years (PDF), natural gas has been as much responsible for this increase as solar and wind.
This is mostly irrelevant, however, since CO2 emissions are going to depend on the Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES), of which electricity comprises only a small portion. In the case of Germany, we see that TPES has remained fairly flat or has even slightly decreased since the eighties (PDF), mostly due to a reduction in the amount of coal burned for energy (which Steve points out), including replacing some coal with natural gas.
The contribution that solar and wind have made (the tiny orange region at the top of the graph) is pitiful. Germany’s CO2 emission reductions are largely a result of using less coal, using natural gas instead of coal, and producing less energy overall.
No, they’re not relying on wind for much. Spain’s renewable energy sector did not contribute much at all to this near tripling of electricity generation since 1980 (PDF). Instead, it resulted from Spain doubling its use of coal for producing electricity, building nuclear plants, and most recently, drastically increasing its use of natural gas for electricity. Since 1980, electricity generation from nuclear has increased almost twice as much as generation from wind and solar combined, and generation from natural gas has increased three times as much as these renewables.
Who cares? Even if you add up the (peak) capacity of all of the “largest” solar plants mentioned on that Wikipedia page, they amount to only about 570 MW for a country that already has over 70,000 MW of capacity. It’s a drop in the bucket. Even worse, these solar plants have a capacity factor of something like 20%, so they’re not even comparable watt-to-watt to Spain’s existing baseload capacity.
Spain’s solar expansion is trivial. It’s just a feel-good scam to waste a substantial amount of money on something that doesn’t produce much of anything at all except EU subsidies and energy sprawl.
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March 13th, 2010 at 6:14 am
drbuzz0 said:
I was waiting for that reference, because, at the time of the riots, we catch a glimpse of what was broadcast in the US and it was frightening. 2 main errors:
- riots did not involve “Muslim youths”, there were involving poor youths, who are shunned out of employment and other prospects. Religion has nothing to do with that, it is a simplistic way of looking at this problem, a journalism bias
- massive immigration has been stopped in the 80s, it is now really difficult to get a visa to France (or any European country). The “riot youth” were born in France, are French from immigrants parents. They don’t know **** about their country of origin, never visit it, don’t plan to do it, but support it anyway during the world cup like you would support the underdog.
My message here is that the main problem is economical, not racial. It is big enough, don’t put this nasty cherry on the top.
And please, beware of the journalists, they see what they want to see. You wouldn’t like French news reports on the US, you obese-gun slinging-nationalist Americans…
DV82XL said:
The joke is funny when you say “is full of the French”, but not as funny when you say “is full of Muslims”. That is how I heard it anyway, hence the nerve hit. If it is not your message, then I apologize. If it is, then please see the answer to Doc above.
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March 13th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Matt the French said:
For the record I did not write ‘is full of Muslims’ – you read that in yourself. What I did write however was a fair observation of the way a lot of pure lain French think.
You might also note that I underlined the fact that I am French-Canadian, and if you know anything of our history, you would realize I know full well the feeling of being treated like a foreigner in the country of one’s birth.
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March 13th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Matt the French said:
There’s a difference between what it means to be “French” versus “American.” The US is a country of immigrants so anyone born here is pretty much as American as the rest of us. That’s not the case in Europe. There are established ethnic populations of a country that go back thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. The French are Francs, Normands and so on. If you’re a French born citizen of African parents, you’re seen as distinctly different from those who are indigenous for thousands of generations.
“New World” countries (the United States, Canada, Australia) have a distinctly different culture when it comes to citizenship and heritage. The cultural identity of these countries tends to be based on mixing of cultures to some degree.
There’s a saying “France for the French.”
Part of it is a desire for cultural preservation. There are certain things that are distinctly associated with a given European country (or even a region there of) These include language, cuisine, arts and other kinds of things that can be threatened by having a lot of cultural influx.
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March 13th, 2010 at 11:15 am
drbuzz0 said:
I think you are better in science than European history: you cannot really believe that is because your country has been around for 2000 years that the people in it stayed the same. First of all, some European country like Germany or Italy are quite recent (150 years, younger than the US), and I am not even talking about Eastern Europe. Second, Europe being a continent, populations tend to travel, and France being somehow in the middle of that continent, lots were passing through.
Before North Africans, France saw coming Polish and Eastern Europe people, then Spaniards and Italians, and that is for the 20th century only. From the French revolution, French law granted nationality to legal residents quite easily (more difficult now but possible after 5 years of residency). While we have traditions, they are nourished, not threatened by other cultures, contrary to what you say.
Cuisine is the perfect example: French cooks gathered recipes and ingredients from different places therefore constantly evolved the big French cooking book… Let’s hope we can do the same with the people in France.
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March 13th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Cosidering my recent attack on Mr. Buzzo’s numbers, I can’t refrain from quoting this one, it is just too good:
drbuzz0 said:
Granted not much is known with absolute certainty about the dawn of man, but it is generally accepted (outside the creationist community) that homo-sapiens appeared between two and five hundred thousand years ago and left Africa about a hundred thousand years ago. Many European nations have a long and proud history, France included, but not even the famously proud French would trace back their ancestral settlement rights to before homo-sapiens, I think.
On a lighter note, In the view of many of their European neighbors, the French are stereotypically considered to emphasize the ‘homo’ part and ’skimp’ on the sapiens part of their human existence.
Satan_Klaus
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March 13th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Matt the French said:
To some degree, yes, but there’s no way you can compare countries in Europe to the US in terms of composition in general. Sure, Germany as we know it is only 19 years old, but the region and the population goes way way further back. It’s one thing to have some influx of new and foreign cultures, but at some point it overwhelms a country and it’s culture and heritage.
In the US it’s always a complete mix. You walk down the street and see light skinned blonds walking next to red heads, Asians, Hispanics, Mediterraneans, Indians and so on. You go to any major city and there will be Italian restaurants, (which are actually an Americanized version of Italian), you’ll see Irish-themed pubs and bars, you’ll see many establishments that have a distinct mix of two or more cultures.
You see that to some degree in European cities, but go to some place like Ireland and a person with a Spanish accent or dark skin sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s not the color of their skin, of course, it’s more than that. Ireland has catholic churches and a few protestant ones. It has ales and stouts and cider and whiskey to drink. They eat shepherd’s pie and stews.
If suddenly the country were filled with other nationalities, such that there were more mosques than catholic churches, half the population didn’t speak English, belly dancing was more popular than dancing a jig, tacos, stir-fried rice noodles, curry cured lamb were the most popular foods and 30% of the population drank Saki while another 20% preferred vodka, then would it look anything like Ireland? No, of course not.
Yes, a culture can adapt and borrow from foreign influences, to some degree, but there are many cultures around the world that no longer exist because they were swamped and completely overrun by others. At one time, there was a very distinct German-derived culture that thrived in a portion of Western Pennsylvania. It’s been so dispersed that it no longer exists.
Matt the French said:
You are confusing legal citizenship with heritage. I’m an Irish-American. I’m a native born American but of Irish ancestry. This whole concept is fairly unique to the New World. Most French are simply French. Not Italian-French or Indian-French, just French. The only ones who can claim that in the US are Native Americans, and really there are very few 100% full blooded native Americans Anymore.
Obviously everyone came from somewhere at some point, but that’s besides the point.
“You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk, But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American”
Matt the French said:
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve become so enamored by the idea of multiculturalism that you don’t even understand what a culture is.
Look, to use the melting pot analogy: If you have copper and you add a tiny bit of tin, you know what you have? You still have copper, only now it’s less pure copper. You add some more tin and now it’s “copper with some tin in it” then you add some more and now it’s neither copper nor tin, now it’s something new called “Bronze” now add lead and you’ve got “bronze with some lead imputations” and keep adding it and you have “Pewter” but keep adding more and more lead and you have “lead, with some minor impurities”
You know what would happen if you suddenly moved 200 million Chinese into Italy? You’d no longer be able to get around speaking Italian there and there wouldn’t be very many capachino places anymore. You know what would happen if you moved the whole population of Brazil into turkey? It wouldn’t seem very Turkish anymore. If you moved 30 million Indians, 40 million Chinese, half the population of Mexico and 20 million Russians into Ireland, then in addition to being very crowded, I doubt you’d see a lot of the culture Ireland is known for.
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March 13th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Satan_Klaus said:
I dispute your numbers for age. I personally buy into the hypothesis that places the divergence of homo sapians closer to 400,000 years ago and migration to Eurasia being fairly soon after that (50,000 years)
Actually based on everything we know about human migration, it tends to happen faster than we usually estimate. I doubt that humanity just sat in one place before starting to move around. I’d suggest that relatively early on in the species there was a movement into the Middle East and Europe.
The fossil record is fairly limited, I’ll admit, so there’s room for disagreement on that.
I suppose you’re suggesting, however, that there are no distinct cultures in the world and that if you suddenly moved 200 million foreign people into Germany, that there would still be beer halls, Oktoberfest, umpa bands, schnitzel and Christmas trees, just as there had been before.
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March 13th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
DV82XL said:
Hope I’m not picking a fight on this one:
To be fair, I don’t know that there would be any “French Canadians” as a group or in any way seen as seperate if there had not been a lot of concerted efforts to preserve the language and culture.
Quebec and Canada as a whole have a lot of laws and traditions aimed explicitly at preventing French from being overrun and assure that there’s always recognition. Less than a quarter of Canadians are French Canadian, and when you consider that the surroundings include the US and that France is an ocean away, I think that if French Canadians had been apathetic about the matter, then the whole thing would just melt into North America and be overrun with English, in the same way that the Pennsylvania Dutch (actually German) or the Appalachia Scots and the Acadia-Cajun groups basically faded into the background and melted into the greater North American English-speaking culture.
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March 13th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
drbuzz0 said:
No, I’m just making fun of your numbers because they are breathtakingly ridiculous.
As I admitted, not much is known about the early history of mankind and your early migration therory is a valid hypothesis. We can only know (with at least some) certainty when the earliest specimen of our race lived in Europe that we have found. Likely, the one we dug up by chance won’t be the first one to set foot in europe. Maybe homo-sapiens was there four hundred thousand years ago, we will only know for certain if we find one that old.
However, disctinct cultures are a remarkably shortlived, or rather rapidly changing affair. Nothing on the scale of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years like you insist. Germany has existed, in one form or the other, for about two thousand years but the sole (and only somewhat) consistant thing is the language. And even that changed a lot. A modern day German would have a hard time understanding 14th century German and proto-Germanic is a completely foreign language to him.
Most of the cultural institutions you described are very recent introductions, usually not more than two hunderd years old. Octoberfest is actually exactly two hundred years old, being first celebrated in 1810. Even the way we celebrate Christmas today, and consider it to be a traditional ‘must observe’ social event with rigid ritual, would be alien to a German just a hundred years ago. In short, cultures don’t get created, diluted, and as a result, destroyed; they flow. Many traditions formerly considered cultural staples of Germany have passed away along with the elderly people who failed to pass the tradition on to their grandchildren. New ones have arisen in their stead.
Of course a sudden, immediate, influx of, say, more than 10% of foreigners will dangerously destabilize a country. Possible climate refugees are a big danger factor here. But at a slower rate the foreigners will only transform the host countries culture gradually, which, as I have outlined, is a natural process. Even a European country does not consist of a monolothic culture, it consists of people. If the people change, so does the prevailing culture. Not necessarily for the better, but no worthy culture is in need of aggressively protecting every part of it. It’s good elements will be defended and eventually assumed by the immigrant minority while it’s less noteworthy parts will pass away and be forgotten. If Schnitzel is replaced by Döner Kebab, so be it. Same with Oktoberfest, Umpa bands and beer halls, all of them Bavarian traditions by the way, who consider themselves as ‘a people apart’ from the other Germans and only happen to share a language and a country by accident.
Bavaria calls itself a ‘free state’ for a reason. Before the unification of Germany just one hundred and fourty years ago, each of the little states that comprise modern Germany was free with its own monarch and alliances. It was common for them to wage war against each other and if it was not for an overpoweringly strong prussia, Germany might well have ended up as several smaller countries sharing the same language like the UK does with Ireland or France does with Belgium.
So culture and national identity are very short lived things in the great scheme of things and if the French manage to keep the (sometimes uneasy) peace with their immigrant community for just a hundred years, then, certainly the people of magreb decent will cheer for the same football clubs and eat the same ‘traditional’ dishes as the people whose ethnicity we noawadays call French – and, likely, some of those dishes will be of North-African origin as will be some of the players. Really quite similar to the ‘traditional’ side dish served to both the (actually Austrian) German Schnitzel as well as the Bratwurst: French Fries, which happens to have a distinct, uniquely American ingredient as well as being a Belgian invention.
Your ‘amalgamation’ example is actually not all bad, because this is exactly what is happening. But on a timescale that reaches over generations. For the old, the confusing and somewhat alien mixed culture they experience in their waning years is the natural culture of the young, native and immigrant alike. Of course there are always ‘pockets of resistance’, shut-out communities that try to guard their (not seldom immigrant) culture from adopting the mixed ways of the main stream but they tend to break down after a hundred years or so when no one alive remembers the old ways.
Satan_Klaus
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March 13th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Satan_Klaus said:
That might be true, but it has more to do with the attachment to a tradition or its composition in the mind of the public as part of their identity. Despite the fact that Oktoberfest is comparatively young, it’s one of those things that is quintessentially German.
What do you think of when you think France? If you had to draw something that indicated the setting was France, what would it be? I’m going to guess the Eiffel Tower. Is the Eiffel tower really a long standing institution of France? I should think not. It was built in 1889, against the wishes of a sizable number who thought it was ugly. It was proposed that it should be taken down after the 1889 World’s Fair.
Yet can you imagine the outcry if this young, initially temporary structure were taken down or even damaged? It is so iconic to the cultural identity and the emblem of Paris and France that to be even threatened would likely result in an enormous backlash.
There’s the statue of Liberty in New York, which is not even American. My family lived in Brooklyn New York, and it might seem odd that 40 years after a baseball team left Brooklyn there would still be a very deep scar and feeling of loss. I mean, they were only there from 1883 to 1958. The Holiday of Thanksgiving has only been celebrated since the 1860’s in the US and is one of the deepest rooted traditions.
It really doesn’t matter how old something is as long as it’s old enough that no living person can remember before it.
Satan_Klaus said:
Traditionally, yes, it has been gradual and gradual change is not generally the kind of thing that causes conflict – not in the same way that something like completely overhauling something in a matter of a few years does. It would be considered tragic by most French if the sidewalk cafes of Paris were gone, replaced entirely with Mideastern-style markets, Turkish bizzares and Irish pubs in a matter of two or three years. Perhaps it would be tolerated if it happened over several decades…
Why is it that it would necessarily be so gradual without some kind of method of control or keeping it in check? An airliner can carry a good 500 people, and transport them from one part of the world to another in less than a day and there are literally millions of people around the world who can afford a ticket and might consider France a better place to live than where they do now.
It’s entirely possible, with modern transportation infrastructure, that 60 million Chinese, 40 million Pakistani’s, 30 million Indians, 30 million Africans, 20 million Latin Americans, 10 million Russians and a few million others could be brought to France in a matter of months. Whose to say it would never happen? Mass migration of such an extent is not without precedent, although mechanized transport and current populations would dwarf anything in the past.
The vast majority of Indians have a lower standard of living than most in France and there are about one billion of them. The same goes for much of China and Africa. If given the opportunity, who is to say that the country of France could not see a population influx so enormous that the national density became larger than one human being per every few square meters while the population density of India dipped bellow that of Antarctica?
It is both technically and economically feasible to transport such enormous numbers in a few years.
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March 13th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
It is actually worst than that, doc: it was estimated that given the opportunity to freely immigrate to an industrial first world country, approximately three billion people would take it. If there were a developed country that had an absolute no questions asked open-door policy it would be overrun – the market for cheap travel could be so enormous that they would have container ships ferrying tens of thousands per voyage at a rate of thousands of arrivals and departures per day.
There is actually a theoretical point at which the population density at sea level over a large area is so huge that carbon dioxide is produced by respiration faster than it can defuse and people begin to die from it, but I’m sure they’d die first from other things.
Given that immigration movements tend to continue even after an area is no longer hospitable (it takes some time for word to get back that it’s just as bad over here as back there) a small European country that opened its borders could be so overrun that habitable areas would be literally shoulder-to-shoulder for miles on end. LITERALLY shoulder to shoulder.
Say nothing of cultural suicide, such a policy would be direct suicide.
Oh back on topic: The numbers regarding Germany and power and pollution are a bit ambiguous. However, I don’t think there’s any doubt that a closer look reveals that the energy policy since the mid 1990’s has been an epic failure. Not quite as bad as spain perhaps, but much money has been burned on wind turbines even as they construct enormous coal power plants.
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March 13th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Chem Geek Gregor said:
That is actually a good point. The reason why I was attacking Mr. Buzzo’s statistics was because from the presented statistics alone, for Germany, beside being misleading (primary energy production vs. consumption) you can’t read the ‘epic environmental fail’ out of them. Green Germany has actually had some successful environmental strategies, like introducing insolation standards for homes, and those, unlike the startup solar plants, might actually show in the statistics as well as the usual random noise.
However, there are things very worthy of critique. A thousand times worthier, actually. Did you know that Germany actually is subsidizing coal? COAL! And not just a little bit. Subsidies used to be 8% on every kw/h (I can’t find current numbers at the moment because they don’t put it on the power bill anymore) but solar subsidies are just 1.2 cents per kwh and at ~20 cents/kwh end user price those 8% for coal used to be a bit more than that.
To sum it up for sane people who can’t get this madness into their heads on the first try: The German government is paying mining companies to deplete its own country of natural resources, destroying the landscape in the process, so that power plant operators don’t have to import CHEAPER coal from Australia.
The blame is mainly on the Social Democrats who fear of losing a traditional voter clientel. But the Green party to blame as well because they never campaigned to put a stop to this madness. Their reasoning: “Anything is better than nuclear.”
COAL! Argh!
I don’t disagree with everything on this site. I just get the feeling that the polemics to facts ratio is sometimes a bit too high for proper scientists. If you come upon a statistic that doesn’t say what you want to say, it’s not good form to bend the facts until it does. It might do for the other side but it’s not good enough for us.
Satan_Klaus
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March 13th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Satan_klaus said:
Point taken. On a larger note, this actually occurred to me when making this post. The problem is this: the situation with Germany is especially complex and very difficult to express or go into without going pretty in depth into the policies and statistics.
Of course, that presents a problem. What should I do? Omit the country from the comparison of European countries? No, that would be a very glaring omission. Perhaps I should have gone more into it. However, if I did, it would have taken up about three pages on its own.
I chose the middle road. To include it and to simplify or summarize much of the context, probably over-simplifying it. This may have been a mistake. Actually, it probably was.
Of course, you can’t really dissect the energy policy of a country with a few graphs. Especially on the European mainland, there is enormous back context to this. The continent has undergone no less than two major economic revolutions in the past 20 years – the fall of Eastern Block communism and the rise of the EU as a major economic force. Countries have completely changed their political standings multiple times and none really have a monolithic, consistent and one-sided energy policy.
Perhaps I missed my initial point that I tried to start off with. My point in showing these numbers is this: Many believe that those societies which adopted renewable energy subsidies, tariffs and so on lead the way in improving enviornmental footprint. Yet, it appears that there is no greater trend of improvement associated with that kind of policy
Regarding my criticism of Germany, Spain and others for energy policy, I get asked about this a lot as to why I pick on these countries. Is it because I think that US Energy policy is better? Do I think they’re really the worst ones in the world?
No. US energy policy is deplorable. It’s horrible. There is very little I can say good about American energy policy at all. However, I see no need to convince anyone of this. The US has a horrible energy policy that has earned it a well deserved poor reputation. It sucks and everyone knows how bad it sucks.
That said, I am constantly hearing about how Germany in particular and also Spain and the Netherlands are shining examples of everything a country should be for energy policy. In fact, I constantly hear politicians suggesting that we need to be more like them or that the rest of the world is in danger of falling far behind these few countries which are the leaders of the world in making a better planet, developing better technology and also that their **** doesn’t stink.
There are constantly articles in the American and International Press that say things like “Germany’s Big Green Energy Boom” and “US Falling Behind on Green Energy” or “Spain Solar Energy is Envy of the World.”
This is what gets to me. The US is currently blowing the tops off of mountains in West Virginia, and shame on us for doing that! It pisses the hell out of me. However, I dislike hearing that the answer to this problem is to be more like Germany, which is doing no better.
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March 13th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Gordon said:
French Quebec maintained its language and culture through its own efforts long before Person and the B&B commission decided the federal government should get involved, and it might surprise many outside hat Provence did not think it was a good idea to shove French into the face of the rest of the country ether. However having said that the whole issue comes down to this: When the confederation of Canada was formed, it was agreed that there were two founding peoples and two official languages that would be considered co-equal. This was the contract made to forge this nation.
When I wrote above that I know what it feels like to be considered a foreigner in the country of one’s birth, it is because I am old enough to remember being treated like an unwelcome alien in parts of Southern Ontario when I was a kid, and being told to ’speak white’ and being told to ‘go back to Quebec and stay there’ Now these were red-necked ignoramuses, upset because we just used their bantam hockey team as towels to wipe-up up the ice in their own rink, but it was very unsettling, and it wasn’t just the one time ether.
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March 14th, 2010 at 1:54 am
DV82XL said:
Okay, you’re right about that, but part of my point is that it’s something that French Quebec did make efforts to do. It’s like they were apathetic to the prospect of being overrun by their English-speaking neighbors and completely lost in the mix. I mean, since the beginning there was a recognition of the culture. It’s not quite like some other distinct cultures and languages that are isolated and end up being overrun, because I don’t think really bothered to even consider some of them until they were trampled over by a larger group.
DV82XL said:
Forgive me if I come off as ignorant of what that’s all about. I’m not from anywhere near there, I don’t speak French and my father and therefore 50% of my family came from Michigan USA, so I have no idea what that’s like.
Still, that sounds like a bunch of idiot punks just blowing wind at someone who is “different” and no citizen should need to suffer that kind of bull****.
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March 14th, 2010 at 8:13 am
drbuzz0 said:
This is a stupid example: copper and tin can not have sex together and share their genetic pool and their culture. Culture is the reflection of a group of people, it evolves everyday; it is not as permanent as the atoms are.
drbuzz0 said:
Do you read what you are writing? This is ridiculous: your numbers are ludicrously high and your argument make no sense at all, this has nothing to do with the actual numbers of immigration in France in the last 30 years, which was the start of the discussion if you are remembering correctly. You are trolling your own blog.
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March 14th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Gordon said:
This is probably not the place to discuss this topic – however, “je me souviens” was not a phrase coined just for the purpose of writing it on car license plates. We have a history of struggling against assimilation, since the Quebec Act of 1774. There has never been a time where this wasn’t a factor in French Quebec’s relationship with North America.
Gordon said:
In many ways it was, however it was also an accurate reflection of how French-Canadians were historically received in the rest of Canada, in fact the phrase ’speak white’ was routinely flung at soldiers during the war when two of them had the audacity to talk to each other in their own tongue in earshot of English speaking officers.
Look I have no chip on my shoulder, and I’m not a Separatist. As far as I am concerned we are maîtres chez nous in Quebec, and our language and culture are both strong. But to pretend that there are not those in English Canada that wish we would assimilate, and are vocal about it, is to ignore reality.
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March 14th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Matt the French said:
No, it’s an extreme example to illustrate a point. Obviously 100 million is not a realistic number, but at one million the same effect would occur, although smaller. Still, if there was an open borders policy, it’s not really that unrealistic that there could be hundreds of millions in a few years.
I really hate it when something goes this off topic, though..
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March 15th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Matt the French said:
Hey, that’s not nice. I’m not obese.
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July 23rd, 2010 at 8:13 am
DV82XL Says
“Negawatt supporters, and I have yet to see properly referenced sources for their contentions that there is a vast amount of room for improvement. In fact in most cases they are not preaching higher efficiencies, (that is doing the same with less) as they are demanding a net reduction in overall use by being frugal. This is not the same.
As to the second point, there are no efficient renewable sources, that themselves do not have a major environmental impact like hydro, and geothermal for example. Converting more nebulous sources like wind, waves and solar will never be efficient in any systemic sense because they are too damned diffuse and intermittent. To properly harness them would require vast installations that themselves would both dominate the landscape and raise the level of complexity of the grid past the point where it would remain reliable.”
While you claim that “I have yet to see properly referenced sources for their contentions” by other commentators you yourself are guilty of the same, as in the last sentence above. Mere assertion doesn’t prove anything. Similarly with your use of terms like “Negawatt”, “worthless renewal energy”, etc. Using pejorative terms to colour alternative energy sources doesn’t provide much support for your arguments.
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July 23rd, 2010 at 10:51 am
Pierre Yeap said:
The term ‘Negawatt’ was coined by Amory Lovins, a known supporter of renewable energy. In his vision, Negawatt power is the idea of creating incentives to reduce demand for electricity to ease the load at peak times or alleviate the need to build more generation plants. In theory, these negawatts can be aggregated and an arbitrage market could be created to trade these. However there is little to distiguish implementations of this scheme from simple from simple rationing via punitive tarifs. Thus my contention that it is not about higher effececies, but net redutions in consumption.
Hydroelectric power plants sited on rivers change the natural conditions of these water bodies through both short-term and long-term impacts. These manifest as changes in water quality, erosion, fluctuation in water temperature and water flow, and eutrophication. As well the migration of aquatic species, and shifts to the gross ecology of the effected water shed must be taken into account. These are not trivial. See here:
COMMENT HYDROELECTRIC DAMS: TRANSBOUNDARY ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
There are several environmental concerns behind geothermal energy. The power plants can adversely affect land stability in the surrounding region. Hot water from geothermal sources will contain varrying amounts of dangerous elements such as mercury, arsenic, and antimony which, if disposed of into rivers, can render their water unsafe to drink. See further:
Geothermal energy: Effects on the environment
The shortcomings of wind and solar have been discussed many times on this site, with references provided. I’m not going to repeat them here.
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July 24th, 2010 at 1:57 am
Matt the French said:
Me, I can’t understand France
I’ve been there many times, and the people are brilliant. Marseille has THE best rugby culture on the planet. French energy policy is outstanding. The roads are excellent. Civil engineering is brilliant.
Labour policies are hopeless. The economy is ridiculous… I don’t see how most French people can feed themselves, given prices and incomes.
It’s almost the polar opposite of the UK… particularly when it comes to the roads.
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July 25th, 2010 at 11:59 am
DV82XL said:
Up until the advent of the Industrial Revolution Man had lived more or less in harmony with nature and had left relatively little impact on the natural environment, including the biosphere. However in a mere 200 years or so, Man’s impact on the environment has become more and more unsustainable, basically enabled by the exploitation of first coal, and then petroleum resources. Until the present nuclear energy has made very insignificant contribution to this energy mix. However this situation is unsustainable beyond the next few decades. The Sun is ultimately the fundamental source of long-term renewal energy whilst nuclear energy (discounting fusion energy in the foreseeable future) is not really sustainable for very far into the future – perhaps a few decades – until uranium runs out, see quotation below), unless fast breeder nuclear (or fusion) reactors are deployed. See quotation from Gavan McCormack in japanforum.com :-
Long-Term Nuclear Program. The dream of energy self-sufficiency has fired the imagination of successive governments and generations of national bureaucrats. Trillions of yen have been channeled into nuclear research and development programs. The lion’s share of national energy Research and Development (64 per cent) goes on a regular basis to the nuclear sector and additional vast sums, already well in excess of two trillion yen, have been appropriated to construct and run major centers such as the Rokkasho nuclear complex.[16]
Nuclear power at present makes a modest and declining contribution to world energy needs, 17 per cent in 1993 declining to 16 per cent by 2003. Just to maintain existing nuclear generation capacity globally, it would be necessary to commission about 80 new reactors over the next ten years (one every six weeks) and a further 200 over the decade that followed.[17] To double the nuclear contribution to the global energy, bringing it to about one-third of the total, a new reactor would have to be built each week from now to 2075.[18] The head of the French government’s nuclear energy division, speaking to the April 2006 Congress of the Japan Nuclear Industry Association at Yokohama, estimated that in order to raise global reliance on nuclear power from its present six per cent to 20 per cent by mid-century (ie, a modest increase) it would be necessary to construct between 1,500 and 2,000 new reactors globally.[19] Even such a mammoth undertaking, trebling current nuclear capacity, would still constitute only a modest contribution to solving global energy problems.
While it can be argued that all forms of renewal energy, including wind, solar, tidal, geothermal or even old-style hydro have their environmental impacts they are ultimately the only long-term solution to global energy requirements, and the sooner they are developed the earlier the unsustainable fuels can be phased out, before negative environmental effects become irreversible. Environmental impacts of most types of renewable energy can be mitigated to acceptable levels, and can ultimately be reversible, if necessary. The same cannot be said in the event ‘accidents’ happen to even the best designed and maintained nuclear facilities, and the likelihood of such ‘accidents’ happening will increase exponentially and become ultimately inevitable as the number of such facilities increases. This is not taking into account the problems of disposal of nuclear waste, which have by no means been solved. All nuclear waste produced to date have only been temporarily stored, not permanently disposed of safely. With the proliferation of nuclear reactors of all kinds the problem will only get worse. While uranium wastes may ultimately be reasonably disposed off at great cost in an acceptable manner, the same cannot be said of nuclear waste containing plutonium contamination. It is well known that a teaspoon of plutonium dispersed into the atmosphere (as would happen in the case of a catastrophic explosion of a fast breeder reactor, or even of the detonation of stored plutonium or plutonium waste) would kill tens of millions of human beings (perhaps all human beings as well as all animal life). Please be aware that all nuclear (uranium fuel based) reactors produce plutonium as a by-product. The environmental impact of such nuclear catastrophes will be irreversible and cannot be compared to the negative environmental impact of renewal energy facilities. Please see:-
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gavan_McCormack/2602
It only takes ONE error to permanently render the earth potentially uninhabitable to humans and perhaps all life. AND THAT ONE ERROR/ACCIDENT WILL HAPPEN.
<The shortcomings of wind and solar have been discussed many times on this site, with references <provided. I'm not going to repeat them here.
All these impacts of renewal energy are reversible or can be mitigated. BUT it only takes ONE error at a fast breeder nuclear facility to permanently render the earth potentially uninhabitable to humans and perhaps all life.
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July 25th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I am so impressed by cut-and-paste postings by those that cannot understand the contents.
Sufice to say that this is nothing but noise unless you can supply some proof for assertions like “It only takes ONE error to permanently render the earth potentially uninhabitable to humans and perhaps all life. AND THAT ONE ERROR/ACCIDENT WILL HAPPEN
Anyone can say anything they want; the real question is can they martial enough in the way of facts to prove what they claim. You have not met that minimum standard to be taken seriously here.
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July 25th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
As I understand it, there was 13kg of plutonium in Fat Man, 1 gram of which was converted to energy. The majority of that 13kg remained plutonium and was quite effectively dispersed into the atmosphere. Is it a miracle that there is still life on Earth?
What about the many test explosions of other plutonium bombs? How many times has the Earth been saved from plutonium poisoning by sheer dumb luck?
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July 25th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Shafe said:
Both the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were uranium bombs of relatively small size. Even then most of the survivors of the blasts died of radiation disease subsequently.
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July 25th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
Who can this person be so breathtakingly stupid?
Please Google:”Fat Man” fathead, and tell me again that Nagasaki was hit with a uranium bomb.
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July 25th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
DV82XL said:
You censure comments when they don’t come with references. When references are given (even quoted) you again resort to polemic and baseless insults. Perhaps the only evidence that will convince you will be the effects you suffer when you are confined to the same room as a kg of plutonium for a short exposure.
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July 25th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
You provided no references.
The bomb dropped on Nagasaki contained no uranium.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1016
A kg of Pu will not harm you unless you eat or inhale it.
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html
You don’t seem to be very good at this.
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July 25th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
Pierre, your last post shows you have not done even the minimum to try and understand these issues. Why should anyone take what you say seriously when it is painfully apparent that you know very little of the subject at hand? The only insult here is being made by you to the intelligence of everyone here.
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July 25th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
If by “harmony” you mean hand to mouth, with a short average lifetime and a lot of fighting to avoid starving to death, freezing to death or otherwise dying because of nature and ultimately generally dying of infectious disease then yes…
Actually the average person’s impact was, in many ways, much higher without industrialization. It’s just there were fewer people and they lived much shorter. An example would be sewage. If your population is small enough you can all **** in the woods and its no problem. More people and designated outhouses, latrines and eventually sewage treatment becomes a necessity. Likewise, a single family living in a small cabin can cut down a surprising amount of trees to just keep warm. Central heat and indoor plumbing reduce the per-capita impact.
Pierre Yeap said:
You skipped right past the renewable biofuels: trees and whale oil.
Pierre Yeap said:
Oh PUH-LEASE. We’ve had a few meltdowns, a big explosion at a huge nuclear reactor that blew the whole damn core into the atmosphere. We’ve had major meltdowns at at least two fast breeders, a fire in a graphite reactor pile, several accidents in the Soviet Navy. There have been many thousands of nuclear explosions, hundreds in the atmosphere. Some of these tests were multi-megaton and tests have been conducted in the upper atmosphere, at ground level, at medium altitudes, under water, in shallow pits and in every other situation you can imagine.
The earth remains inhabitable.
Shafe said:
We are still alive despite the fact that:
- The United States and United Kingdom dispersed many kilograms in non-critical nuclear tests known as “plutonium dispersal tests.” These tests actually included simulated weapons miss-firings and other events to determine plutonium dispersal and contamination. Some noteworthy events included Operation Roller Coaster and Project 56
- The Soviet Union and China engaged in similar tests, although the number and scope is unknown. They may well have been larger.
- Nuclear weapons are not 100% efficient in fissioning plutonium. Early weapons only fissioned a bit more than half the plutonium. Hundreds of atmospheric tests have been conducted and all plutonium weapons tests have left some plutonium behind.
- There have been several incidents that scattered plutonium as the result of weapons being destroyed or the primary exploding. These include the 1950 crash of a B-36, The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, which scattered plutonium across beaches in Spain, the 1968 Thule Incident, the explosion of a Redstone missile carrying a nuclear warhead on Christmas Island and others including several by the Soviet Union.
- In 1978, a Soviet RORSAT nuclear-powered satellite entered the atmosphere and scattered transuric and fission byproduct material across Northern Canada.
DESPITE ALL THIS, LIFE CONTINUES!
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July 25th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
When you say “radiation disease” are you talking about acute radiation sickness or long term issues like cancer?
Most of those who survived the initial blast and died within the later days and weeks had not only radiation sickness but burns and other injuries, so it’s hard to really separate those.
However, the vast majority of those who were in the area and lived for months or years after actually lived relatively healthy lives. There has been an increase in cancers shown in the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s, but it was not as huge as some have made it out to be. It may be that a few hundred died. I don’t mean to downplay this, but war is hell and people who are subjected to having the city bombed don’t generally have the best health.
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July 25th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Pierre Yeap said:
You’ve either been terribly sloppy with your citations or just outright dishonest. You do not distinguish between the cited material and your own commentary when you credit the linked paper. You make it sound as though the author wrote:
When the author’s actual statement was:
You extrapolated from a “teaspoon-sized cube” sufficing to “kill 10 million people” to a teaspoon “dispersed into the atmosphere” killing “tens of millions of human beings (perhaps all human beings as well as all animal life).” How about a citation for that whopper.
Further, consider the quality of your citation. Look through the author’s own citations and see how many refer only to other opinion pieces. In his conclusion the author cites Greenpeace to support the assertion that wind power can provide more energy and jobs than nuclear. Come now.
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July 26th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Shafe said:
Not Even Wrong
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July 26th, 2010 at 1:24 am
Chuck P. said:
It could hurt you if a brick of it fell on your head….
PS. Don’t feed the trolls.
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