Germany’s dirty secret
What secret?
Germanys dirty secret is not a secret at all and very openly
discussed in Germany, most 10 year school children in Germany know about it,
also know about renewables and nuclear. Whereas in Germany the discussion about
energy is factual and balanced, the British public is deprived of an honest
factual debate. The press stirs up hysteria and negative news go hand in hand
with renewables instead of nourishing a meaningful debate and this the BBC
story is such an example. In press the
‘vast’ subsidise renewables receive are mentioned without mentioning the
subsidies fossil and nuclear receive, the terrible impact on wildlife
renewables have are mentioned without mentioning the deadly impact other human
made construction have, the terrible visual impact of renewables are mentioned
without mentioning other manmade obscurities. Bear in mind that Wind turbines
as well solar can be taken down whenever there is no need anymore without a
trace. Different to nuclear power plant everything can be recycled and nothing
used in the production of renewables comes even close to the toxicity and
danger nuclear poses. Whilst thriving
for perfection we have to remember that nothing is perfect and every form of
energy generation has an ugly side. For these reasons energy saving has to be
top priority above anything else, the energy we don't use we don't have to
produce in any form! Unfortunately not many people make money this way which it
why it never has really taken off! Of course We have to assess the energiewede
critically and try to learn but we have to apply the same critical thinking to
everything else!
The BBC story line is that lignite underpin the renewables
in German and is the flip side of the coin, a necessity to the Energiewende so
to say. Well, this is not the case and if the Green party would still be in
government this would have not happened. Look at Spain, within 10 years enough
renewables were installed to generate 20% of the country electricity needs
without any flip side. Well, that's not
true and wildlife has suffered through wind turbines however we have to see
that in perspective as mentioned above and in many instances I wonder if that's
was not done purposely to discredit that technology. Many stories appear connecting Spain’s
economic crises to the ‘vast’ cost of renewables bear in mind the truly vast
subsidise fossil fuel receive. http://www.dw.de/fossil-fuel-subsidies-outstrip-renewables-funding-by-billions/a-17465775
Therefore and for
many other reasons that argument is utterly unfunded and if anything renewables
have helped to buffer the economic crises.
Back to the BBC story the graph shown is from 2012 not 2013
and it’s the gross domestic energy production. If you now put an graph for the
UK or most industrialised nations next to it you would find that these all look
pretty similar. There is no reference that actually the CO2 emission on 1990
level has fallen by some 20%, that the energy consumption has been reduced and
so on. There is mention of the fact that between 2002 and 2012 enough capacity
from renewables was installed in Germany to increase the electricity supply by
over 92 Terawatt hours to 136TWh that equals 37% of Britain’s electricity needs
in 2012. Better still, if the overall energy production is included, renewables
produced some 314TWh in 2012, almost a 200TWh increase since 2002. showing that
the energy storage issue is artificially inflated what’s needed is a
electricity grid which can distribute the power quickly. Somewhere the wind
will blow or the sun shine and somewhere is somebody needing that energy
Putting this in perspective all nuclear reactors in Britain
produced in 2012 some 64TWh of electricity, receiving vast amount of subsidies
in the past, present and it looks like in the future!
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/746/74603.htm
Also these reactors where build over decades not 10 years. So if you want to
reduce CO2 and other pollutants quickly, have local independent energy supply
create substantial employment renewables are the answer. http://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=GB
We can easily rephrase the head line into ‘the nuclear
industry dirty secret’ in reference to so many underreported facts. Such as The
money wasted on nuclear power plants which never produced any meaningful
electricity never mind the accidents and incidences. openly discussed in
Germany but hardly if ever in the UK. http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/milliardengrab-atomkraft100.html
Shall we call ‘the banks dirty secret’ in reference to the
66Billion pound the Government has most likely lost during the banking crises
or shall we call the ‘Fracking the dirty secret’. Well, if you want to destroy
national heritage, ruin peoples livelihood and nature, create an even bigger
devide between poor and rich and yes of course generate an income for a few
lucky ones, go for fraking, nukes and fossil in general.
Interestingly the telegraph had an story http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10755598/Global-solar-dominance-in-sight-as-science-trumps-fossil-fuels.html
and is hopefully the start of more constructive reporting on
these matters. Still with a certain element of Schadenfreude the article points
to the 100Billion Germany apparently wasted on renewables mainly on solar and
that many of these companies go bust and
so On. I don’t think any money was wasted right the opposite. Without this
‘waste of Money’ the world would most likely be quite a different place. This
investment initiated by the Green party whilst in office between 1998-2005
kick-started an industry which employs millions worldwide is generating huge
amounts of energy harnessing what’s given for free without producing
pollutants. There was another interesting angle to all of that in the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/10/desmond-tutu-anti-apartheid-style-boycott-fossil-fuel-industry
This is very encouraging but we must keep going, keep
repeating challenge people’s opinions not personalities we live in an very
exiting transmission period. The world is not flat, we have flying machines,
rockets, spacecraft’s the latter thought not to be possible 100 years ago and
the longitude problem was not solved by the most prolific scientist at the time
but by a cabinetmaker John Harrison.
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