But the VIK group, a German association of industrial energy consumers, has done the feared estimation. It is expecting the rise in cost per MW-hour to be as high as 85%. These numbers are based on the 11% rise in energy costs (compared to the same period last year) just after the seven oldest nuclear reactors were taken off-grid. But this brutal price rise is just the icing on the cake, as Germans are already paying double what the French pay for their electricity, even though Germany has historically been a net energy exporter. Imports of French energy to Germany are expected to skyrocket as the Germans try to contain prices. And just a reminder: France's energy mix is 80% nuclear power.
Now forgive me if this sounds sarcastic, but isn't it unethical to import nuclear power when you have declared you are against it?And if your problem is nuclear power's safety, keep in mind that some of the French nuclear plants are very near German territory. The Fessenheim plant, for example, is just 1.5km from the German border. Something similar happens with nuclear plants in Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. All of them are much closer to Germany than Chernobyl is, yet you do not see people shouting about it. Just another example of how anti-nuclear sentiment is clouding the judgement of some people. You are losing your precious energy independence in vain.
If any country has the strength and discipline to successfully perform such an energy somersault, it is Germany, that is for sure. But as always happens (or should happen) in economics, one should think about the cost-benefit ratio of the decision before taking action, because the shift towards renewables will strongly boost already profitable German renewable energy companies like Siemens Energy, Nordex, and Solarworld, just to name a few. But the main question remains: will the boost to the renewables sector compensate for the injury caused to the rest of the sectors affected? The answer, given the wide spectrum of German industry, is probably no.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
I agree with you that the Germans are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're right, also, that of the major world economies, Germany is the best-placed to handle the switch to renewables with minimal pain.
Your characterization of renewables, however, is somewhat inaccurate, mainly because it ignores the fact that electricity generated from solar or wind can be stored. So Berlin isn't going to be plunged into darkness just because it isn't sunny today.
That's quite aside from the fact that solar panels can continue to collect energy from the sun even on a cloudy day - as you ought to remember if you ever used a solar-powered pocket calculator when you were at school...
2 - totaliberal
Thanks for your comments Dr Dreadful, really appreciate them.
About electricity being able to be stored, my answer would be yes and no. Technically you can store it, with simple batteries, but doing it at a national scale is impossible as of today. There is no available system that is capable of storing enough electricity to supply, say a city, for one or more hours.
In fact one of the more challenging aspects of the 'Smart Grid' concept is intelligent load distribution to ensure you can provide everyone with electricity while maximizing the utilization of existing cheap/clean sources first. You are not trying to store it as it is very difficult, but instead you try to use renewables first so you need less of other sources.
Regarding solar power you are right again, it still works when cloudy but its efficiency goes down sensibly. And while a calculator sips very little power and can continue working on a cloudy day, feeding an industrial facility from solar power its a totally different scenario. Having the solar panels not working at their peak performance could cause power disruptions, and that is something a business cannot afford.
Do not get me wrong, I am as interested as you are in having clean energy sources but the technology is still not mature enough to fulfill the needs of a full country; specially when we are talking about a country the size of Germany.
But as we both said, if someone can find the way to do this, it is Germany.
3 - Glenn Contrarian
Actually, Germany's making great strides in solar energy. Currently, 17 percent of electricity in German homes is from renewable energy, and :
Germany has broadened its framework for R&D and for the commercialization of energy storage technologies. The federal government expects renewable energies to account for 35 percent of Germany’s electricity mix by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, with further investments in energy storage a prerequisite.
I was listening to the Thom Hartmann show a few months back, and one of the things he found while he and his family were living in Germany was that the government gives loan guarantees for homeowners who want to install solar panels to power their homes. It's a win-win situation - the homeowners who take advantage of this significantly boost the value of their homes, pay little or nothing (or even less than nothing) for their residential energy, and the nation as a whole inches closer to energy independence.
But we'll never do this here. Why? Because there's a certain powerful segment of this population that is absolutely convinced that if the government's involved, it must be a Bad Thing.
4 - totaliberal
Or maybe you will never do it because oil companies are lobbying to make you more difficult to be energy independent ;)
5 - Glenn Contrarian
My next article will be about almost precisely that.
6 - Leroy
I have a hard time imagining Germany frivolously throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What I think is that they analyzed all factors, like public approval, future oil trends, alternate energy sources, their own geopolitical position, etc., and decided that this move would not only insure their own energy needs but also make them world leaders in energy independance, and IMO they even project an intercept date.
Meanwhile, the USA surrenders technology leadership by subsidizing sunset industries like coal ($4billion/year) and oil (at LEAST $4billion/year) while choking off future industries like solar with, like, $200million/year (maybe less as the vested interests keep attacking).
I don't think that German industry (unlike the USA) is content to sit on $2trillion of retained earnings while it's banks sit on another $2trillion of cash and while the biggest business of the future, alternate energy, slips away from them.
Good thing we didn't fight WW2 like this or we'd have left our ships anchored in port and our airplanes half-disassembled on the ground.
7 - pablo
3 Glenn Contrarian:
An article about nuclear power Glenn, and your not out touting it? My oh my oh my. Have you had a change of heart after plutonium MOX fuel is spewing out of reactor 3 in Japan Glenn. Or have you become a nuke proponent in the closet perhaps after the biggest nuclear power accident in history?
8 - Glenn Contrarian
No, I'm not against nuclear power at all - remember, I've worked quite a few years around nuclear power and I know enough to not be afraid of it, but to have a VERY healthy respect for it.
FYI, the Fukushima plant was a very early design - it's been called the 'Model T' of nuclear reactors. For starters, NO modern nuclear reactors have a storage area for the spent fuel on top of the reactor vessel itself.
That said, last year a solar cell was finally developed that would be able to produce electricity as cheaply as does a modern reactor. If we are wise, we'd focus on developing such a technology - but until it matures, I have no problem with me and my family living within ten miles of the ten or more nuclear reactor vessels which are contained within the ships and submarines that are close to where I live.
9 - totaliberal
Exactly my thoughts Glenn, until another technology can give us enough power and supply stability as nuclear energy does we will have to hold on to it. We know it is not the final solution, but it is the best we have...
And about nuclear safety... everything evolves and is made safer but I like to compare it to a car, no matter how many driving aids, active and passive safety measures a modern car implements, if you drive it wrong you will crash. It is a matter of responsibility.
I'm looking forward to the article you mentioned in comment #5 where will I find it?
10 - Glenn Contrarian
I haven't written it yet - I will tomorrow or the next day when I have time on my hands, and then probably two or three days more before BC publishes it...so probably Monday.
11 - Cannonshop
#8 Got a link to some data on that cell, Glenn? if so, the company that designed it might be a darned good stock to buy into-the big problem with solar cells has been cost-efficiency and reliability-a cell with nearly the same efficiency as nuclear is, well...possibly up there with the self-contained rifle cartridge, internal combustion engine, or personal computer in terms of technological significance.
12 - Leroy
If one wants to allow the market to determine the future of nuclear then you must revoke the Price-Anderson law, which saddles the taxpayer with insurance liability. If nuclear had to pay it's way then it would be economically inferior to many renewable methods. But nuclear has been relieved of the heavy financial responsibility of failure by sticking the taxpayer, and, indeed, the whole remainder of the worlds population, with the consequences of nuclear failure.
And every time there's a reactor failure the fans of nuclear say the same thing "Oh, that was that bad OLD design, but our bright shiny NEW designs have solved that!". Then we get to wait on pins and needles for a few years waiting to see how this bright shiny new reactor will fail.
13 - totaliberal
Leroy, have you ever seen a new design fail? I do not think so...
Managing nuclear facilities carries a lot of responsibility even in modern designs, but this responsibility is a lot more bearable when you have the correct tools.
14 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
I've got an article pending that gives the links - it's Boeing, btw, that developed a solar cell that's 39% efficient, as compared to nuclear power's current 33% efficiency.
Nice to think that of all things, it's Boeing that did it! You work for them, don't you?
15 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
Here's a link.
16 - totaliberal
39% is a quite respectable number! My biggest worry though is that while the fuel supply for nuclear power plants (uranium) can be kept steady, the 'fuel' for solar cells (sun rays) is totally unpredictable...
I find quite encouraging though that someone as tied to fossil fuels as Boeing is investing good money in renewable energies. Nice move.
17 - Glenn Contrarian
totaliberal -
Germany's not exactly the sunniest of places...but they're doing it and well. We can, too.
My article on what's going on with alternative energy has been submitted. We should see it in a day or two.
18 - Leroy
A few years ago some engineers calculated that 100% of the USA daily electric requirement could be met by a patch of Nevada desert 90 miles on a side. Later, Scientific American published an article by engineers detailing such a project, including maintenance duties, service lanes, etc. Over the years the required desert territory kept going down and was about 20 miles the last I saw.
Of course one wouldn't want to concentrate production so greatly because of distribution grids.
Low-grade solar conversion from rooftops, parking lots, etc., will become available with PV or thermal-PV paints and coatings.
We have to think of energy providers as members of the same team, not as competitors in a cage match battling to the death.
IIRC thermal power is currently the largest alternate energy source in California. The earths core is always hot and is within a short distance of anyplace on the globe. Doesn't depend on a sunny day or blowing winds. Any bright farm kid can make a Stirling engine to harness low grade heat with tools in the barn, some junkyard trash, and access to a library (or internet, these days). Good thing because we depend on those farm kids for a lot of science and engineering.
We don't need to risk the future of a country or the health of citizens for the frivolous excesses of electrical overconsumption.
19 - Cannonshop
#14 I work for the commercial aircraft division, that's defense-and-space, we don't generally mix at my level.
20 - totaliberal
Leroy, good piece of information, didn't know the fact of the Nevada desert.
But talking about geothermal energy, it was proved it increases earthquake probability by placing additional stress on the tectonic plates. The industry is already working in solutions for that, but meanwhile I don't think earthquake-prone California is the best place to test...
21 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
But it's still your company...so that's not a bad thing, I would think.
22 - Cannonshop
Oh, I agree it's not a bad thing-at all. Boeing's also deep into developing petroleum alternatives from algae and a few other neat projects regarding energy, advanced materials, etc.
The article you linked made me a bit of a liar though-it's not the Defense and Space branch of the company, at least, not directly, it's on of those little one-horse shops Boeing buys up from time to time when they find one that has a solid idea but is under-capitalized.
Which probably explains a hell of a lot about their success-not so much of the typical stifling corporate Bureaucracy involved that you'd find with one of the larger...what 'groupings'? Divisions? branches?
I just hope these cells are cost-effective to produce. 39% efficiency makes them cost-effective to USE, but if a useable amount of them costs too much to MAKE, it'll end up being a prestigious laboratory toy, rather than a serious advance in the technology.
The article didn't go into what these new Cells are made of, which may be a decent sign-if they're made of materials that aren't ridiculously hard to get, (or work with) the company would want to keep the recipe to itself as long as possible to keep competitors off until they've got a good hook into the market.
As you know, while I think AGW is hogwash, I'm keen on alternative energy and have been for a long time. These are good news provided the development can make it from laboratory to production floor at a decent cost for volume production.
after all, petrol should be used for chemical feedstock, rather than having to burn the stuff for gathering groceries.
23 - totaliberal
The thing Cannonshop mentions: being efficient to use but not to make is what happened at the beginning with wind farms, they were neither efficient to make nor to set up. But as technology progressed (and energy prices went up) wind farms became a viable source. I think this is what's happening with solar power these days, although the technology is quite more complex in this case so we must be patient.
24 - Cannonshop
Actually, I was referring to the raw materials required-if you need 'black' gold (not petroleum, but gold that's been chemically altered black) well...that's a material that you have to synthesize from something that is both expensive, and rare (and, currently, pretty petro-intensive to dig up.)
Ditto for needing "Rare Earths"-the rarer your material stock is, the less effectively you can bridge the gap between cost of production, and value of output.
Wind-Farms/Wind-Mills are just a straight engineering exercise, I've seen people powering their homes with units made of scrap. The large-scale applications issues with wind-farms are mainly matters of mechanical reliability and governing the output so that you're not surging and browning out at random-which is a straight engineering challenge that can be got around by cleverness and the human ability to apply tools to solve problems.
otoh, if your system relies on something that occurs in the earth's crust about one part in a billion tonnnes or less, you've got a serious problem that you can't overcome by extended cleverness and the application of tools.
Basically the difference between a tech that is dead-ended by materials availability, versus a tech that is just difficult get right due to human error.
25 - totaliberal
Well, commercial wind turbines are not safe from this issue, much like everything that has magnets inside, rely on rare-earth metals which are not that rare in quantity but China controls 97% of the entire world's supply which could be quite problematic in the near-future.
I talked about the issue here