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Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants

Rogue Valley

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Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy

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1/26/19
Germany, one of the world’s biggest consumers of coal, will shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over the next 19 years to meet its international commitments in the fight against climate change, a government commission said Saturday. The announcement marked a significant shift for Europe’s largest country — a nation that had long been a leader on cutting CO2 emissions before turning into a laggard in recent years and badly missing its reduction targets. Coal plants account for 40% of Germany’s electricity, itself a reduction from recent years when coal dominated power production. The plan includes some $45 billion in spending to mitigate the pain in coal regions. The commission’s recommendations are expected to be adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. The decision to quit coal follows an earlier bold energy policy move by the German government, which decided to shut down all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. At the time, that was harshly criticized as reckless by business leaders, who worried that it would raise electricity prices and make their industries less competitive against foreign rivals. They also pointed out the futility of the move because no other major industrial country followed Germany’s nuclear exit. Twelve of the country’s 19 nuclear plants have been shuttered so far.

The plan to eliminate coal-burning plants as well as nuclear means that Germany will be counting on renewable energy to provide 65% to 80% of the country’s power by 2040. Last year, renewables overtook coal as the leading source and now account for 41% of the country’s electricity. Powerful utilities and labor unions helped keep coal-burning plants operating and previous governments even planned to expand the number of coal plants to compensate for the pending withdrawal from nuclear power. The panel that made the recommendation to close coal plants included leaders in the federal and state governments along with top industry and union representatives, scientists and environmentalists. “It’s good that Germany now has a clear road map for the phase-out of coal and we’re on the path to becoming carbon-free,” said Martin Kaiser, executive director of Greenpeace Germany and a member of the commission. An opinion poll by ZDF television Friday showed 73% of Germans are in favor of a speedy phase-out.

I imagine the usual DP coal-lobbyists will show up to whine about clean energy and denounce climate change.
 
Gonna be tricky but it is good to have goals. Reminds me a bit of when some white dude in Washington said that some country should go to the moon by the end of the decade... crazy eh?
 
Just seventy years ago, the Berlin Airlift was flying huge quantities of coal during the winter months. Coal was a primary source of residential heating.
 
Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy

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I imagine the usual DP coal-lobbyists will show up to whine about clean energy and denounce climate change.

Just fyi I hate when they say renewable and treat it like it is clean energy, because often times it is not. Europe itself to meet the renewable energy demand has been switching to wood pellets, which requires deforestation which increases greenhouse gasses as well as wood producing carbon when burned. If the wood is not perfectly dry it can produce more carbon then coal itself.

Odds are germany is following the rest of europe and switching to wood fire plants as it meets the eu renewable energy demand and requires minimal modification to coal plants. However this method is the opposite of green and can easily be worse than coal power plants. Never go by the renewable energy claim in europe, if they do not specify and just say renewable it means they are using wood pelets to replace coal often in the same plants.

Sometimes peopl are in such a hurry to make things better they never stop to realize they are making things worse.
 
Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy

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I imagine the usual DP coal-lobbyists will show up to whine about clean energy and denounce climate change.


1) Who would have thought that Germany, one of the bastions for green energy, still has 84 coal-powered power plants in operation ...

2) We, too, can make promises that are still 19 years away ... (grin)

China made a similar commitment at the Paris Climate thingy ... while building more coal-power plants.


Germany's electricity retail price is already the second-highest in Europe, right after Denmark.
 
It is a goal worth trying to achieve, I hope they pull it off.
 
1) Who would have thought that Germany, one of the bastions for green energy, still has 84 coal-powered power plants in operation ...

Germany has closed 12 of its 19 nuclear power plants. They do indeed chip away at their energy goals.
 
More lung cancer too.

My dad told me that during the Soviet Union, they built a town out of coal somewhere in west Siberia. I think it was primarily the streets, and they contained high amounts of coal. They probably did it as an experiment to save money. My dad said, he went there, and it rained and snowed and turned everything black. The coal stuck to the buildings, everything was discolored, and people couldn't breathe. That's crazy. I could ask him for more details about it, and name... but he said he never forgot the sight of it.
 
Just seventy years ago, the Berlin Airlift was flying huge quantities of coal during the winter months. Coal was a primary source of residential heating.

In the Age of Coal, homes and businesses had a special chute for the coal delivery. It usually terminated in the basement, right next to the coal-fired furnace.
 
In the Age of Coal, homes and businesses had a special chute for the coal delivery. It usually terminated in the basement, right next to the coal-fired furnace.

My paternal grandmother had a coal bunker in the family house in Berlin. Also an apple bin. As a 5 or 6 year old, I was terrified of the cellar. The radiators in the house put out a very dry heat; I remember my father filling metal bowls with water and leaving them on the radiators for some humidity.
 
China has a long term plan to wean itself off coal as well. It's only backward nations like Republicanistan that cling to coal.

Seems like Germany is Republicanistan... They aren't weaned yet.

South Africa, Poland, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Russia and India are Republicanistan as well....
 
Come and tell us all about it in 19 years.......

"over the next 19 years to meet its international commitments"

And let me guess.... they will be paying lots more for other energy sources.
 
And what is China doing......
So the government says we will cut back on coal fired powered plant but that is not happening.


China is building coal power again

CoalSwarm published a report on September 26 warning that 259 gigawatts of coal power capacity – equivalent to the entire coal power fleet of the United States – is being built in China despite government policies restricting new builds.

This blog reported last month that China was building 46 gigawatts of coal power that had been shelved or suspended, and which was discovered by CoalSwarm through an analysis of satellite imagery.

The new estimate by CoalSwarm takes the 46 gigawatts found by satellite imagery and adds other projects in the pre-construction/construction phase, as well as 57 gigawatts of shelved projects that seem likely to go online in the near future.

https://www.chinadialogue.net/blog/10761-China-is-building-coal-power-again/en
 
Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy

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I imagine the usual DP coal-lobbyists will show up to whine about clean energy and denounce climate change.

This is good but with a catch.

Germany had to deal with radioactive fallout from Chernobyl back in the '80s and has had a strong aversion to nuclear power since.

As such they're not just trying to phase out fossil fuels but nuclear power at the same time. This will be a challenge! If only the Germans were any good at engineering... ;)
 
Just seventy years ago, the Berlin Airlift was flying huge quantities of coal during the winter months. Coal was a primary source of residential heating.

So Germany should return to 1940s technology instead of going forward?
 
China has a long term plan to wean itself off coal as well. It's only backward nations like Republicanistan that cling to coal.


Sure; maybe in 200 years. In the meantime, they're building more coal power plants.
 
So Germany should return to 1940s technology instead of going forward?

Where do you get that from? The thread topic had coal and Germany in the title; I didn’t think I was derailing the thread by making a tangential post.

I always wanted to use tangential in a sentence! :2wave: :shock:
 
This is good but with a catch.

Germany had to deal with radioactive fallout from Chernobyl back in the '80s and has had a strong aversion to nuclear power since.

As an aside, investors are buying parcels of land at Chernobyl, Ukraine for solar-panel farms. The electrical infrastructure is already present. The first farm is already on line.

solar_park_activ_solar_flickr.jpg
 
The German energy disaster continues, now heaping on another huge increase in costs and now the Germans need to be nice to the Russians and the Chinese or else they wont get the gas they need to keep the electric grid operating.Not only does gas cost more than coal production but there are the costs of taking down the nuclear plants and paying investors for their lost production, plus the grid needs something like $100 billion Euros over the next decade to keep up with green energy production.

German electricity, already super expensive and getting more so as far as they eye can see.

Plus the grid is increasingly unstable, a problem that will only get worse.
 
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