Germany plans to produce half of electricity needs with alternative energy

[jay gw]

Germany's ambitious plan to phase out nuclear power by 2020 while also reducing its reliance on fossil fuels has made it a leader in efforts to fulfill the Kyoto protocol.

But critics are now predicting an energy crisis.

Germany's government is hoping that abandoning its reliance on coal - which currently accounts for around half of the country's power needs - will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40% compared with 1990 levels, well below what is required in Kyoto.

But the country is also, crucially, abandoning its nuclear programme - planning to phase reactors out completely by 2020. Some in the industry - including advocates of renewable energy - have called this a "contradiction".

"It is a fact that nuclear plants work without CO2 emissions," Petra Ullman, of energy company Eon - which runs a number of nuclear power stations - told BBC World Service's One Planet programme.

Under the current legislation, each of Germany's 19 reactors will be phased out on its 32nd birthday - at which point it is closed.

The first one - the Stade nuclear reactor near Hamburg - has already shut and is awaiting decommissioning. To replace the energy demands, the government is proposing to boost its already considerable investment in wind power.

Germany already produces 40% of all the world's wind power, and the hope is that by 2010, wind will meet 12.5% of German energy needs. The country has 16,000 wind turbines, mostly concentrated in the north of the country, near the border with Denmark - including the biggest in the world, owned by the Repower company.

Professor Wolfgang Pfaffenberger of the Bremen Energy Institute is sceptical about the potential for wind power.

"The specific problem is that you cannot always have the wind when you need the energy," he argued.

"That's why at the moment more than 15% of our capacity is wind power - but it produces only 3% of our energy.

"So we have to build up an enormous over-capacity - which adds to our cost."

Dr Pfaffenberger points out that an average kilowatt from wind costs 10 cents, whereas the average cost of electricity on the market is only about one-third of this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4295389.stm

This story is awkwardly worded. Are they trying to say that only 3 percent of Germany's power needs are produced by wind, but they plan to increase that to 12.5 percent? Why is 15 percent of capacity wind power but only 3 percent of energy is?

And, someone that understands this technology....what does this mean:

"Dr Pfaffenberger points out that an average kilowatt from wind costs 10 cents, whereas the average cost of electricity on the market is only about one-third of this."

Does that mean that relative to other sources of energy, wind power is more expensive to produce...the costs of producing electricity using wind power is more than oil or coal?

[Donks]

Originally posted by jay gw
"Dr Pfaffenberger points out that an average kilowatt from wind costs 10 cents, whereas the average cost of electricity on the market is only about one-third of this."

Does that mean that relative to other sources of energy, wind power is more expensive to produce...the costs of producing electricity using wind power is more than oil or coal?
Since the comparison is with "the market," I'd assume they mean it would be cheaper to buy the electricity form France or some other country that has a surplus than to produce it themselves using wind turbines.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by jay gw
This story is awkwardly worded. Are they trying to say that only 3 percent of Germany's power needs are produced by wind, but they plan to increase that to 12.5 percent? Why is 15 percent of capacity wind power but only 3 percent of energy is?

And, someone that understands this technology....what does this mean:

"Dr Pfaffenberger points out that an average kilowatt from wind costs 10 cents, whereas the average cost of electricity on the market is only about one-third of this."

Does that mean that relative to other sources of energy, wind power is more expensive to produce...the costs of producing electricity using wind power is more than oil or coal?

Right. What the article is saying is that while their wind turbines could produce 15% of their overall power if they all worked at optimum capacity the whole time. They dont. They work at around 20% of their optimum capacity becuase you dont always get optimum winds. Hence the figure of 3% of the total production

Hence to up this to 12.5% of total you would need just over 4 times the number of wind turbines they now have.

What Dr Pfaffenberger is saying is that the cost of a kilowatt from a wind turbine is 10c whereas the market value of it is only 3c. In other words, a wind turbine watt is three times more expensive at cost than what the people of Germany are currently happy to pay retail for their electricity. To put it another way, wind power is operating at a massive loss and can only function with massive subsidies or a 200% increase in electricity bills.

[rppa]

Originally posted by jay gw
Germany already produces 40% of all the world's wind power, and the hope is that by 2010, wind will meet 12.5% of German energy needs. ...
"The specific problem is that you cannot always have the wind when you need the energy," he argued.
...
"That's why at the moment more than 15% of our capacity is wind power - but it produces only 3% of our energy.

This story is awkwardly worded. Are they trying to say that only 3 percent of Germany's power needs are produced by wind, but they plan to increase that to 12.5 percent? Why is 15 percent of capacity wind power but only 3 percent of energy is?

Yes to the first question. Wind produces 3% of Germany's needs now, and they want to increase that to 12.5%.

As to the second question, let me explain with some numbers. Let's say that the total electrical consumption was 1000 GW. Of that, 3% or 30 GW is produced by wind on average. In order to get that amount of wind power on average, they had to build 150 GW of generating capacity because it isn't windy all the time. All power systems are designed for peak rather than average loads, so most of the time you have more capacity than you are actually drawing. But they're saying the overcapacity is much more for wind power.


And, someone that understands this technology....what does this mean:

"Dr Pfaffenberger points out that an average kilowatt from wind costs 10 cents, whereas the average cost of electricity on the market is only about one-third of this."

Does that mean that relative to other sources of energy, wind power is more expensive to produce...the costs of producing electricity using wind power is more than oil or coal?

Yes. Sounds like other generation methods are much more cost effective, and a shift to more dependence on wind is going to double or triple consumer electrical bills.

[jay gw]

Ok, so consumer bills may go up, but....

- isn't the costs of pollution factored in? Wind doesn't produce smog which causes millions of people to have health problems. Isn't that cost in there somewhere?

- Germany doesn't have this to save, but if the US were able to move X percent to wind/nuclear, then wouldn't the military expenses be lowered? Why would the US military be needed in the Mid East? Colombia?

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by jay gw
Ok, so consumer bills may go up, but....

- isn't the costs of pollution factored in? Wind doesn't produce smog which causes millions of people to have health problems. Isn't that cost in there somewhere?

- Germany doesn't have this to save, but if the US were able to move X percent to wind/nuclear, then wouldn't the military expenses be lowered? Why would the US military be needed in the Mid East? Colombia?

In the case of nuclear, then yes, the cost of pollution is factored in as waste must be disposed of. What about the climate change that interfering with the wind is going to produce? What about the loss of birdlife? What about the dispoiling of whats left of Europe's countryside with sodding great turbines? What about the noise pollution?

Ending dependence on the Mid-East is a major plus of switching away from petroleum. Unfortunately wind power isnt the answer and uranium is also a limited resource- until seriously large amounts of money are ploughed into fusion reserach then things wont change much Im afraid.

[rppa]

Originally posted by jay gw
Ok, so consumer bills may go up, but....

- isn't the costs of pollution factored in? Wind doesn't produce smog which causes millions of people to have health problems. Isn't that cost in there somewhere?

- Germany doesn't have this to save, but if the US were able to move X percent to wind/nuclear, then wouldn't the military expenses be lowered? Why would the US military be needed in the Mid East? Colombia?

All of the above. Also, fossil fuel costs are only going to go up as well. So there will be a point at which wind, solar, geothermal, etc. begin looking like reasonable alternatives.

The entire energy sector worldwide is looking at a shift over the next few decades from a few large generating plants to many micro-plants, which will incorporate all sorts of technologies.

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Ending dependence on the Mid-East is a major plus of switching away from petroleum. Unfortunately wind power isnt the answer and uranium is also a limited resource- until seriously large amounts of money are ploughed into fusion reserach then things wont change much Im afraid.

Petroleum should not even enter into this debate because it isn't much used to generate electricity.

Uranium may be a limited resource but it isn't very limited. Uranium is a fairly plentiful resource, overall. It would take many, many decades to even use up the uber-cheap stuff we're currently using (especially if we burned it efficiently). Besides, it isn't the only nuclear fuel available.

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by Donks
Since the comparison is with "the market," I'd assume they mean it would be cheaper to buy the electricity form France or some other country that has a surplus than to produce it themselves using wind turbines.

Germany should make an overseas phonecall to ex-governor Gray Davis of California and ask him if he thinks that'a a wise move.

[jay gw]

Germany should make an overseas phonecall to ex-governor Gray Davis of California and ask him if he thinks that'a a wise move.

When California had to buy electricity from other states, the price mysteriously went up 200 percent or so.

It was one of the reasons the public threw out Davis and put in Arnold Schwarzeneggar as governor.

[Soapy Sam]

Does alternative electricity come in alternative current?

Or , alternatively, is it alternating, like non-alternative current?

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by jay gw
It was one of the reasons the public threw out Davis and put in Arnold Schwarzeneggar as governor.
Wise choice. Arnold is nothing but air.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Rob Lister
Petroleum should not even enter into this debate because it isn't much used to generate electricity.


True, but petroleum can be replaced- to a large extent - by electricity.

Pertoleum is used for two things 1) transport and heating 2) Making plastics and extracting organic chemicals.

Personally I think its ludicrous that in the 21st century so much of our transport is powered by something as valuable as petroleum. Its simply to usefull and limited a resource to go burning like we are. So rather use it for purpose 2) and focus on eliminating purpose 1).

As to 1): It is entirely possible that all of Europes railways become completely electrified- excluding petroleum from a large transport sector. It goes without saying that heating and cooling could be electrical rather than oil powered. Hydrogen fuel-cell powered buses are already being trialled throughout Europe and its entirely possible that soon, all public transport could be so. Its not too much of a stretch to see how this could extend to all land transport especially with the advent of these things: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1423451,00.html

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
True, but petroleum can be replaced- to a large extent - by electricity.

Pertoleum is used for two things 1) transport and heating 2) Making plastics and extracting organic chemicals.

Personally I think its ludicrous that in the 21st century so much of our transport is powered by something as valuable as petroleum. Its simply to usefull and limited a resource to go burning like we are. So rather use it for purpose 2) and focus on eliminating purpose 1).

You can make plastics out of just about any hydrocarbon you want - including vegetable matter. The reason we DON'T do that is because it takes more energy to do so. In a very real sense, when you make a plastic out of petroleum products, you're using the petroleum for the energy required for plastics. That being the case, the tradeoff between different uses of energy (transportation, heating, plastics, etc.) is really best handled by the market. Oil gets used up according to how we need it, and we don't need it for plastics any more than we need it for transportation and heating.

[jay gw]

A report from the world's biggest wind power producer denouncing wind farms as too expensive and inefficient has been widely dismissed in the UK.

Money would be better spent targeting energy efficiency to combat greenhouse gases, the German Energy Agency said.

It comes as UK wind power grows at the fastest rate in the world, with the government aiming generate 10% of energy from renewable sources by 2010.

A government spokeswoman said the UK was in a different position to Germany.

The report by the German government-backed agency says it will cost Germany 1.1bn euro (£700 million) to link its wind farms to the national grid - which it must do if it is to reach its target of 20% of energy coming from renewable sources by 2015.

With more than 15,000 turbines, the nation has the most wind farms in the world.

But, says the report, almost the same cuts in carbon dioxide emissions - at nothing like the cost of wind power - can be achieved by installing modern filters at existing fossil-fuel power plants.

Anti-wind farm groups say the revelation, from a country which in some areas already has 20% of its energy supplied by wind power, confirmed their views.

They also said government grants paid to the sector meant the taxpayer was subsidising "this madness".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4300723.stm

So there are "anti wind farm" activists?

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by jay gw
So there are "anti wind farm" activists?

More than you'd think. Do a web search. Some people, many influential, are rabidly anti-wind...in their back yard at least.

Of course, given the size a wind farm has to be in order to be...efficient (overstatement of the year) then it has to be pretty big which puts it in nearly everyones backyard. I think they look neat. Others disagree mumbling something about the 'ruining the natural beauty, yada, yada. I also hear (no pun intended) they they are quite loud.