Germany's proposal to keep its nuclear reactors running on average 12 years longer than planned will bring in €30 billion ($38.69 billion) in taxes and levies from utility companies, Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle said Monday.The German plan is consistent with the proposal that I suggest in The Climate Fix -- tax or otherwise price today's energy supply to invest in tomorrow's energy supply. India's government has proposed a variant on this theme with a coal tax to be used for clean energy innovation.
"It's about €30 billion overall. These are large sums that will be directed to the government, toward renewable energy," Mr. Brüderle said in an interview with radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. He added that the revenue includes the contributions utilities will be obliged to make toward renewable-energy research and development, and a tax on nuclear fuel rods. The fuel-rod levy, which utilities fought vigorously to avoid, will generate an estimated €2.3 billion annually but will be limited to six years, Mr. Brüderle said.
Germany's main opposition party opposes the nuclear proposal, according to Der Spiegel:
The new compromise has already been criticized by the opposition and opponents of nuclear energy. Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the center-left Social Democrats, described the agreement as a "black day for energy policy." He said the coalition government, which consists of the conservative Christian Democrats and the business-friendly Free Democrats, had given in to pressure from the big energy companies. As long as old, highly profitable nuclear power plants are still online, they will hinder the development of renewable energy, Gabriel said.Gabriel does not see nuclear as a renewable technology. Last year, when he was Germany's environment minister, Gabriel was asked about how Germany would meet its emissions reduction targets, close nuclear power plants and provide for the nation's energy needs. He replied that the answer was . . . coal power:
Germany’s environment minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democratic Party) is pushing for the construction of new coal-fired power plants in Germany. “We need eight to twelve new coal plants if we want to get out of nuclear energy,” Gabriel said on Friday at a meeting of the Mainz-Wiesbaden AG (KMW) in Mainz. With regard to the opponents of the planned coal-fired power in Mainz, the minister said: “Those who demonstrate against coal-fired power will get nuclear power plants instead.” Gabriel said, the decision about which power plants are built is the responsibility of companies and not politics. He added that new coal power plants would not increase carbon dioxide emissions.It is unclear if Germany will explicitly debate coal vs. nuclear -- but if Merkel is smart she will, as the political winds are blowing her way. Regardless, the German proposal is part of a broader trend in energy and climate policies.
First of all, old plants would be closed. In additon, the emissions trading scheme would limit the level of emissions. "You can build 100 coal-fired power plants and don’t have to have higher CO2 emissions," said the environment minister.
Renewable energies would not be able to close the gap in energy supply that will arise due to the shutdown of nuclear power plants by 2020, said Gabriel. Even gas-fired power plants are not a real alternative because their power generation is expensive and thus not competitive for the energy supply of industrial production.
18 comments:
With all their subsidies for wind and solar - world leaders, etc - the last time I heard the Germans had yet to cut their carbon output. At that rate, the planet is certain to burn to a cinder.
Germany has 8,300 MW of coal fired electricity plants currently under construction.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6812GQ20100902
They is a good article on it in The Economist 9/4-10th. They have a pie chart. Coal 18.3 + lignite 24.6 + oil 2.1 +gas 12.9 = 57.6. If you convert nuclear 22.6 it will 80.5% for fossil fuels.
The continual substitution of 'climate' for 'energy' is tiresome. This is an 'energy policy' - no significant link with 'climate.' If anyone really believes that this and the energy policies of other countries will have a measurable effect on climate, can we see the calculation?
Is this true? "First of all, old plants would be closed. In additon, the emissions trading scheme would limit the level of emissions. "You can build 100 coal-fired power plants and don’t have to have higher CO2 emissions," said the environment minister." It seems to me that if that statement is accurate, then
where we live in the land of cheap coal, we would not want to switch to natural gas.. as has been suggested.. or am I missing something?
Paul Biggs --4
That's a pet peeve of mine as well as I hope that anyone who attempts to be an honest broker in these matters use accurate terminology that clarifies rather than fogs the debate.
@All,
Currently a terrible lot of energy in Germany is produced by the mining and burning of "Braunkohle". Google it, look at the images and wonder. These giant machines are excavating 200 m or more out of the landscape. The kohl is burned in electricity generating plants, resulting in probably the worst ever recorded production of CO2.
I am happy with nuclear.
From the post: "It is unclear if Germany will explicitly debate coal vs. nuclear..."
Perhaps the debate is nuclear versus wind: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/germany-s-extension-for-nuclear-power-threatens-offshore-wind-investments.html
===quote===
The German government’s plan to extend the phase-out of nuclear power risks hampering investment in offshore wind turbines, a technology that may provide much of the country’s renewable energy by the middle of this century.
Utilities including E.ON AG and RWE AG may cut their investment in the industry to compensate for a tax of 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) a year they will be charged, said Charlie Hodges, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The levy on nuclear-plant operators is meant to support renewable energy.
“It’s probably detrimental for offshore,” Hodges said. “Keeping that much nuclear power online means electricity prices will be stable and maybe even with some downside potential. That suggests less investment” in wind energy.
===end quote===
Paul Biggs hits that nail well.
If we are going to free ourselves from the shackles of CO2 bloviation, why not call energy policy 'energy policy'?
Another question is why should the sole non-CO2 producing form of reliable energy be taxed to subsidize unreliable energy sources like wind or solar?
I wonder what will happen when politicians who want to cut carbon learn they have been misled about the danger of AGW?
About 1996, the modellers wrongly assumed the major part of 'global dimming' is from polluted clouds. The mistake arose because theory used by Twomey to predict higher albedo for thin polluted clouds [more diffuse scattering] neglects geometrical optics and breaks down for thick clouds. Twomey realised it, others didn't.
By 2004, experiment showed albedos of polluted and unpolluted clouds are similar and at c. 0.7 or more, much greater than predicted [<=0.5]. You can easily calculate the energy Twomey missed. If a thick cloud has 0.7 [spherical] albedo, 30% diffuse leaves the base, 30% diffuse leaves the top leaving 40%, a pseudo-geometrical, backscattered central peak: a boundary effect explicable by Mie theory.
Interestingly, NASA now puts out an entirely false explanation of high cloud albedo: http://terra.nasa.gov/FactSheets/Aerosols/ : 'greater surface area of more smaller droplets, reflects up to 90% of sunlight'. This appears to be believed by many in climate science.
So, the IPCC's claim [Figure 2.4 in AR4] of -0.7 W/m^2 'cloud albedo effect' isn't justified by experiment or theory: the 1.6 W/m^2 'Total net anthropogenic' should be nearly halved. But because the models must account for considerable natural warming, I'll be surprised if there's more than a third left.
Some history
German abandonment of nuclear power
In 2000, the German government, consisting of the SPD and Alliance '90/The Greens officially announced its intention to phase out the use of nuclear power. Jürgen Trittin (from the German Greens) as the Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, reached an agreement with energy companies on the gradual shut down of the country's nineteen nuclear power plants and a cessation of civil usage of nuclear power by 2020.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
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Higher cancer risk for children near nuclear power plants found in Germany
A new study on behalf of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection is the first study to show reliable results: the risk of children under 5 years of age to contract leukaemia increases the closer they live to a nuclear power plant.
http://www.insnet.org/ins_headlines.rxml?id=5571&photo=
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Germany: the new dirty man of Europe: George Monbiot
The new emissions agreement is a disaster. Angela Merkel is prepared to go green only when it doesn't hurt big business.
So much for the Europeans leading the way on climate change. Even as our governments claim they want to drag the world into an effective climate agreement in Poznan in Poland, they have just pulled Europe out of one in Brussels.
The agreement they have just reached is a disaster. The 20% carbon cut they promise by 2020 falls miles short of what's needed, and they'll be able to buy most of it from abroad anyway. All this means, in a world which has to eliminate most of its carbon pollution, is that other countries, which have sold their easiest reductions to us, will then find it harder to make emissions cuts of their own. It's carbon colonialism, in which Europe picks the low-hanging fruit in developing countries, leaving them with much tougher choices later on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/12/greenpolitics-poznan
@Alexander-
As climategate demonstrates, politicians, like many people, have an amazing ability to simply ignore information.
Also note, as the whitewashes demonstrate, that many politicians are well rewarded to support orthodox AGW, or to at least avoid questioning it in any reasonable manner.
This modern version of sale of indulgencies called European Emission Trading Scheme is truly FUBAR. The most tangible result has been the transfer of tens of billions of euros from consumers the energy companies with biggest handouts to those using coal as their fuel.
http://www.wwf.de/fileadmin/fm-wwf/pdf_neu/Point_Carbon_WWF_Windfall_profits_Mar08_Final.pdf
I think this guy may have hit the nail on the head vis-a-vis German energy policy
http://isisma.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/The_German_Coal_Industry_Economic_Necessity_and_Politics.137110927.pdf
"Coal and steel are central to Germany’s post-war heroic rebuilding myth"
Pirate,
I would submit that this is an indictment of the entire AGW community. Not one thing done under pressure of the AGW community has made any difference in CO2 or climate. Nor will it.
The AGW movement has been a complete waste of public resources.
And now Germany is going to cripple its one clean dependable source of energy in favor of an undependable source of poor quality energy. Sources that destroy landscapes and kill migratory birds.
"Coal and steel are central to Germany’s post-war heroic rebuilding myth"
Yes and its wealth. However it is in conflict with EU CO2 targets and the strongest green movement in the world (with a basis in a traditional, nature loving folk culture).
The interesting point is that the "dash for coal" that lately emerged in Germany can in part be attributed to the original nuclear phase out. As such it was an important cornerstone of the energy roadmap of the last Government. A vivd example of how things get messed up when long-term strategies are revised every five years or so...
"Germany’s dash for coal: Exploring drivers and factors "
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.02.017
Roger,
A couple of years ago I recall James Hansen sent a "close-down-coal-keep-nuclear" open letter to the previous centre-left German administration (which must have included Sigmar Gabriel). He was rebuffed at the time.
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