Archives par mot-clé : Germany

climate-debate

Expert: German Coal Exit Will Cost 80 Billion Euros, But “Changes Europe CO2 Emissions By 0”

by P. Gosselin, February 22, 2020 in NoTricksZone

The German government recently decided to exit from coal generated power by 2038, and now one expert says that the exit is going to cost handsomely, and bring zero result. Still, that 2038 target is too slow for some.

That’s how German politicians make decisions on things that concern the economy and environment. The German government’s aim of a coal phaseout is to contribute to protecting the climate. In reality, it will have no impact at all.

German online FOCUS magazine reports here: “80 billion euros are to be given to the affected regions and companies in the coming years as aid and compensation.”

But for some experts, the 2018 target date for completing the coal exit is too late, and thus risks seeing Germany emitting another 140 million tonnes of extra CO2 between 2020 and 2040 by exiting so slowly, so claims the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

To keep that 140 million ton figure in a global perspective, it is barely a drop in the bucket when compared to the 33 billion tonnes emitted globally and annually. The climate is not even going to notice it.

 

Continuer la lecture de Expert: German Coal Exit Will Cost 80 Billion Euros, But “Changes Europe CO2 Emissions By 0” →

better to know...?, energy and fields

Green Energy: German Electricity Prices Skyrocket To Record Highs

by P. Gosselin & H. Douglas, Jan 27, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

For a long time, electricity prices have known only one direction: upwards! Ever faster, ever more clearly.

Now the shock for many families: The Federal Government has presented official figures in an answer to an inquiry from the FDP Free Democrats parliamentary group in the Bundestag and announced the true extent of the electricity price increase.

320 euros extra annually per household

In the past ten years, the price of electricity for households and industry has risen by a third.

According to the Augsburger Allgemeine, which quotes from the paper, the price of electricity rose by 35 percent between 2009 and 2019.

For a typical household with 4,000 kWh per year, this means 320 euros in additional costs for electricity alone.

This is even more than the various comparison websites had previously calculated.

…

climate-debate

Lingen Cheated: Germany’s New All-Time Record High Resulted From DWD Weather Service Lousy Station Siting

by P. Gosselin, July 28, 2019 in NoTricksZone

During last week’s record-setting European heat wave, Germany’s previous record of 40.3C was impressively shattered by the measurement station located at the northwest city of Lingen, near the Dutch border, some 50 kilometers from where I live. The German DWD weather service and media loved it!

Controversial siting

Yet, controversy now swirls about the new record setting measurement since it has come to light that the measurement is fraught with some considerable siting issues.

As the photo published by T-online here shows, the station is located right near a DWD office building, is shielded from the wind by grown trees and is located not far from a public swimming pool.

Meteorologist Michael Theusner told t-online.de: “The monthly average of the daily highs in Lingen has been deviating more and more upwards from the average of the highs in Lower Saxony since 2010.” The station has become increasingly shielded and thus tends to heat up more.

Swiss veteran meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann wrote the extra heat possibly could be heating the station by up to another 3 degrees!

DWD accepts overheated reading

…

climate-debate

MULTIPLE ALL-TIME LOW TEMPERATURE RECORDS SET ACROSS GERMANY — RARE JULY FROSTS RAVAGE SAXONY

by Cap Allon, July 5, 2019 in Electroverse

On the back of the well documented 3-days of heat last week, Germany is now setting multiple new record low temperatures as the anticipated and long-lasting Arctic front begins to take hold.

The mercury in Rotenburg, Lower Saxony plunged to 2.9C (37.2F) on Thursday morning — low enough to break the town’s all-time record cold temperature for the month of July which had stood since 1946, according to wetter.com.

The new record low temperature comes just days after Germany logged an all-time record high — serving as further evidence of the swings-between-extremes brought on by low solar activity and the associated weakening of the jet stream.

SEE ALSO: The Changing Jet Stream

Along with Rotenburg, many other regions of Germany also registered record-low temperatures on Thursday morning.

I’ve listed a few below (data again courtesy of wetter.com):

  • Quickborn: 4C (39.2F) — lowest July temperature since 1999.
  • Göttingen: 4C (39.2F) — lowest July temperature since 1996.
  • Soltau: 4.1C (39.4F) — lowest July temperature since 1986.
  • Friesoythe: 4.7C (40.5F) –lowest July temperature since 1971.
  • Lippstadt: 4.8C (40.6F) — lowest July temperature since 1990.
  • Diepholz: 5.1C (41.2F) — lowest July temperature since 1971.

In addition, the village of Deutschneudorf in Saxony reported ground frost this week — an event that’s only occurred on six previous occasions throughout all of Germany during the month of July.

…

climate-debate

Dry Hot North German Summers Were More Common 1000 Years Ago, Scientists Report

by P. Gosselin, June 19, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Dry Summers Like 2018 Were Common in the Middle Ages
Dry summers were not rare 1000 years ago. Researchers from the University of Greifswald’s research group ‘Landscape Ecology and Ecosystem Dynamics’ have been able to reconstruct 1000 years of the dry summer period in northern Germany.

 

Beech forest – photo: Dr. Tobias Scharnweber

The article ‘Removing the no-analogue bias in modern accelerated tree growth leads to stronger medieval drought’ was published in 2019’s February edition of the journal Scientific Reports.

As part of the current collaborative research project BaltRap (The Baltic Sea and its Southern Lowlands: Proxy-Environment interactions in times of rapid changes), the researchers investigated growth rings in nearly 2000 living beech trees – including some from the university’s own Elisenhain forest – and archaeological wood used for construction from around 1000 A.D. The growth rings found in this wood are a unique archive of previous environmental conditions. If the climatic conditions are good, growth rings are wide; in unfavourable years, like in dry 2018, there is little growth. Dendroclimatology uses this correlation to reconstruct past environmental conditions.

…

energy and fields

Wind Energy Woes: German Expansion “Collapses To Near Zero” …”2019 Threatens To Be A Disaster”

by P. Gosselin, June 11, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Despite all the talk about the need to transition over to green energies, Germany’s progress — in especially wind energy — has ground to a complete halt.

German news site iwr.de here reports that the expansion of wind energy in Germany has “come the a stop” as the government has scaled back subsidies and enacted stricter permitting laws.

“As in April 2019, only nine new wind turbines went into operation nationwide in May,” IWR reported. “The year 2019 threatens to be a disaster for the wind industry in Germany.”

The IWR reported further: “In the first five months of 2019, only around 60 new onshore wind turbines went into operation nationwide. This is the result of an IWR evaluation of data from the market master data register of the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA).”

“A catastrophe” for wind power

At Twitter green energy activist Prof. Volker Quaschning called the collapse a “catastrophe”, tweeting that the expansion of wind power “collapsed completely”. He added that “it will be impossible to meet the CO2 reduction targets” and that 40,000 jobs in the wind industry are “on the brink”.

…

climate-debate, energy and fields, renewable energy

German Employer’s Association Op Ed: “No Expert Politician In Berlin Believes In Switch To Green Energies Any More”

by P. Gosselin, May 14, 2019 in NoTricksZone

As the pressure mounts in Germany to switch off coal power plants and to rapidly transition over to green energies, one gets the feeling that it all has more to do with a desperate, last-ditch effort by the green energy proponents to rescue their pet green project.

Behind closed doors, no one in Berlin believes in it

Now, just days ago, energy expert Dr. Björn Peters wrote at the German Association of Employers site that the Energiewende has deteriorated to the point that: “No specialist politician in Berlin believes in the success of the Energiewende any more. Whoever you ask, everyone says this only behind closed doors and thinks that if you go to the press with it you can only lose against the ‘green’ media mainstream.”

Peters warns that what is needed in Germany is a good dose of reality and “a fresh start on energy policy.”

Advantages of fossil fuels “too great”

The German expert writes that despite the hundreds of billions of euros committed to green energies, “chemical energy from coal, oil and gas supplies about four fifths of primary energy worldwide and also in Germany and thus represents the present energy supply”.

…

climate-debate, press and newspapers

Summit leak reveals EU rift on climate change

by Frédéric Simon, March 21, 2019 in Euractiv

Confidential documents prepared in advance of a two-day EU summit in Brussels have exposed an East-West divide in Europe on climate change, with Germany siding with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in their refusal to commit to climate neutrality by 2050.

The leaked documents, seen by EURACTIV, show the amendments proposed by each country in preparation for the final statement of the leaders summit that opens in Brussels on Thursday (21 March).

And when it comes to climate action, the papers reveal a growing rift between two distinct groups of countries.

On the one hand, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden and Denmark have all backed a European Commission plan to decarbonise the EU by 2050, linking it specifically to the Paris Agreement objective of keeping global warming below 1.5°C.

A French proposal, for instance, underlines that Europe should strive for climate neutrality “by 2050, in line with the 1.5 degree objective of the Paris Agreement”.

It then calls on EU member states “to prepare a discussion in the European Council in June to define the announcements of the EU at the September Climate Summit in New York”. Both amendments were rejected in the final draft.

On the other hand, Germany, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have refused to specifically link EU climate action with the 1.5°C objective. They also oppose any time-bound commitment to the EU’s climate neutrality objective, deleting any reference to 2050 for reaching that goal.

…

renewable energy

Unreliable Power Source…Adding Capacity Does Little To Solve Germany’s Green Energy Power Gaps

by P. Gosselin, March 6, 2019 in NoTricksZone

German wind park protest group MenschNatur posted here explaining how even adding more wind and solar capacity does not make Germany’s energy supply any more reliable, but in fact may even make it less so.

Time and again the proponents of the Energiewende (transition to green energies) promote the idea that we must invest massively in more wind and solar power plants and that only an accelerated expansion can save the transformation to green energies.

Thus the wind energy protest group MenschNatur has taken a closer look at the increase in installed nominal capacity over the past years and compared it to what actually gets fed into the grid.

How increases in wind generator capacity affects the feed-in power is described in the following diagram. MenschNatur plotted the installed capacity of all German onshore wind turbines from 2014 to 2018, along with what actually got fed in.

Figure 1: Expansion of rated installed wind power capacity and the power that actually got fed into the grid in Germany. Chart: MenschNatur, by Rolf Schuster.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Top German MP Warns Of Climate Law Dictatorship

by Benny Peiser, February 23, 2019 in GWPF

You know we have overcome the dictatorship of the proletariat here in East Germany, and now we are facing a dictatorship of the climate law. I do not consider this law to be compatible with a market economy. –Andreas Lämmel, CDU member of the German Bundestag, Deutschlandfunk, 23 February 2019

Climate policy is increasingly splitting German’s coalition government of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD). The coal exit was supposed to be part of a comprehensive climate law. But if and when that comes no one knows. That’s because the coalition committee has actually stopped the far advanced legislative project of Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD), according to the government.  —Andreas Mihm, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 February 2019

…

climate-debate, sciences-general

German Scientists To More Closely Investigate Cloud Formation, A Vital Component In Climate

by P. Gosselin, January 27, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Leipzig, 20 December 2018

Researchers from Leipzig cooperate with scientists from Punta Arenas (Chile) to learn more about the relationship between air pollution, clouds and precipitation.

Leipzig/Punta Arenas. How do airborne particles, so-called aerosols, affect the formation and life cycle of clouds and precipitation? In order to come one step closer to solving this question, atmospheric scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the Leipzig Institute for Meteorology (LIM) at Leipzig University will observe the atmosphere at one of the cleanest places in the world for at least a year. The choice fell on Punta Arenas because the city is located on a comparable geographical latitude as Germany and will thus enable comparisons between the northern and southern hemispheres. The measurement campaign is part of the International Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), which aims to improve weather and climate forecasts for the polar regions through intensive measurements.

…

climate-debate, energy and fields

Germany totally kills coal – will likely end up in the dark, without heat and light

by Anthony Watts, January 27, 2019 in WUWT

From the LA times, a bold move, but unlikely they can pull it off.

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

…

…

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.

…

The initial targets are considerable, calling for a quarter of the country’s coal-burning plants with a capacity of 12.5 gigawatts to be shut down by 2022. That means about 24 plants will be shut within the first three years. By 2030, Germany should have about eight coal-burning plants remaining, producing 17 gigawatts of electricity, the commission said.

…

 

 

climate-debate, renewable energy

Can wind and solar replace fossil fuels?

by Richard Patton, January 1, 2019 in WUWT

Statements implying that wind and solar can provide 50% of the power to the grid are not difficult to find on the internet. For example, Andrew Cuomo announced that

“The Clean Energy Standard will require 50 percent of New York’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030…”

Considering that the wind is erratic, and the solar cells only put out full power 6 hours per day, it seems a remarkable statement. Can intermittent energy actually supply that much power?

For some answers, we turn to Germany, which has some of the highest electric bills in the world as well as a high proportion of its electric power produced by wind and solar (19%). Let’s take a look at German consumption and generation.

 

…

renewable energy

Germany’s green transition has hit a brick wall

by O. Lundseng at al., December 21, 2018 in WUWT

More people are finally beginning to realize that supplying the world with sufficient, stable energy solely from sun and wind power will be impossible.

Germany took on that challenge, to show the world how to build a society based entirely on “green, renewable” energy. It has now hit a brick wall. Despite huge investments in wind, solar and biofuel energy production capacity, Germany has not reduced CO2 emissions over the last ten years. However, during the same period, its electricity prices have risen dramatically, significantly impacting factories, employment and poor families.

Germany has installed solar and wind power to such an extent that it should theoretically be able to satisfy the power requirement on any day that provides sufficient sunshine and wind. However, since sun and wind are often lacking – in Germany even more so than in other countries like Italy or Greece – the country only manages to produce around 27% of its annual electric power needs from these sources.

…

climate-debate, press and newspapers

Germany heads to COP24 without coal-exit plan

by Julian Wettengel, November 28, 2018 in Euractiv

Germany’s task force on planning the definite phase-out of coal-fired power production has scrapped plans to present a decision before the end of this year.

Several days after three eastern German federal states had demanded better and more detailed plans to support coal mining regions, the so-called coal commission has decided to “conclude its work on 1 February 2019”.

The task force set up a working group from its ranks to draw up further concrete proposals for coal regions and to hold talks on these with both the federal and state governments, the commission said in a press release.

…

better to know...?, renewable energy

Germany’s Energiewende program exposed as a catastrophic failure

by Larry Hamlin, September 30, 2018 in WUWT

“Germany’s Federal Audit Office has accused the federal government of having largely failed to manage the transformation of Germany’s energy systems.”

“A little more than a year before Germany’s climate-policy “milestone 2020”, the auditing body has concluded a catastrophic assessment of the government’s energy policy. Germany would miss its targets for both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and primary energy consumption as well as for increasing energy productivity and the share of renewable energy in transport. At the same time, policy makers had burdened the nation with enormous costs.”

The audit further concluded that the program is a monumental bureaucratic nightmare where “The Federal Government, incidentally, does not have an overall grasp of the costs or any transparency in this respect.”

…

climate-debate

Germany’s retreat from Paris Climate Accord goals

by Anthony Watts, August 27, 2018 in WUWT

Via Reuters:

Merkel says EU should meet existing emissions aims, not set new ones

A proliferation of extreme weather events around the world provides ample evidence that climate change is a reality, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, but she rejected calls for more ambitious climate protection goals.

But Merkel said such calls, most recently from the European Commission’s climate chief Miguel Arias Canete, for swifter cuts to harmful carbon dioxide emissions would be counterproductive, adding that setting new goals made little sense when European countries were already struggling to meet their cuts targets.

…

climate-debate, press and newspapers

Spiegel Science Journalist Takes Climate Heat-Hysteria Head On: “Speculation”…”Time For A Cool Examination”

by A. Bojanowski, August 4, 2018 in NoTricksZone/Der Spiegel

Geology major, science journalist Axel Bojanowski just penned a commentary at Spiegel Online on the recent hot weather hype we witnessed in the wake of Europe’s warm and unusually dry summer.

…

The title of his commentary: “Overheated – Forest Fires, Drought, Heat – Has The Climate Catastrophe Already Arrived? Time For A Cool Examination.”

See also here

renewable energy

Germany’s Renewable Energy Disaster – Part 2: Wind & Solar Deemed ‘Ecological Disasters’

by ‘Stop These Things‘, August 14, 2018

Germany’s wind and solar experiment has failed: the so-called ‘Energiewende’ (energy transition) has turned into an insanely costly debacle.

German power prices have rocketed; blackouts and load shedding are the norm; and its idyllic countryside has been turned into an industrial wasteland, with its forests, no exception (see above).

Hundreds of billions of euros have been squandered on subsidies to wind and solar, all in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide gas emissions. However, that objective has failed too: CO2 emissions continue to rise.

climate-debate, renewable energy

New Study Concludes Europe Will Always Require 100% Back-Up By Conventional Energy

by P. Gosselin, July 5, 2018 in NoTricksZone

A new German paper assesses wind energy in Europe . The results are devastating. It concludes that wind energy requires almost 100% backup and that the more capacity that gets installed, the greater the volatility.

The paper appearing at the VGB, authored by Thomas Linnemann and Guido Vallana, finds that “the total wind fleet output of 18 European countries extending over several thousand kilometers in north-south and east-west direction is highly volatile and exhibits a strong intermittent character.”

In other words the power supply across the European grid fluctuates wildly and thus cannot work well. The paper’s abstract continues: …

climate-debate

Germany’s Planned Coal Exit Hits A Wall

by Dave Keating, May 31, 2018 in PowerUp

Germany’s task force for phasing out coal was meant to launch this week, but yesterday the government quietly announced it is delaying the kick-off. It is the third time the coal exit commission’s launch has been delayed.

The task force has become so controversial – even before it comes into existence – that the government can’t get it started. Since the idea was proposed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel last year, it has been plagued by fighting over who will lead it, what it will do, and how much power it will have.

renewable energy

Green Failure: German Solar Industry Crashes And Burns…Solar Jobs See Blood Bath!

by Michael Kruger, April 21, 2018 in P Gosselin NoTricksZone

Michael Kruger at German skeptic site Science Skeptical here writes about how solar energy indutry in Germany has disintegrated spectacularly.

What follows are 4 charts that show us some shocking trends, and how in reality the German solar industry has seen a bloodbath that can be rated as one of the worst in a long time. The reality is that Germany’s green revolution is far from being a model for the world.

climate-debate

Germany Proves That Burning Money On Green Energies Does Not Reduce CO2 Emissions…”Bitter Result”

by P. Gosselin, March 28,2018 in NoTricksZone

German CO2 equivalent emissions refuse to budge 10 straight years running, despite hundreds of BILLIONS invested in green energies.

As we have been hearing recently, global CO2 emissions continue their steady climb, despite the trillions of dollars committed to green energy sources worldwide and efforts to curb CO2 emissions.