Germany: chancellor Scholz on Nord Stream 2 and nuclear power

 Newly appointed chancellor Olaf Scholz refused in a speech to interconnect the question of the operating licence of contentious pipeline Nord Stream 2 and the tense situation in Ukraine. Nord Stream 2 is a purely commercial project, he said. He disagreed with french President Macron about the future of nuclear. He pointed out that Germany has other energetical models. 

Source WELT:

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has spoken out against combining the operating license for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with efforts to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis. “With regard to Nord Stream 2, it is a private-sector project,” he said on Friday night after the EU summit in Brussels.

For commissioning, compliance with European law has to be clarified in one aspect. "An authority in Germany decides on this quite apolitically," emphasized the SPD politician. This is "a different question" than the current efforts to prevent a violation of the Ukrainian borders.

The Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia to Germany was completed weeks ago. The Federal Network Agency decides on the operating permit. The pipeline has long been criticized by the US, but also by some EU countries. They fear that they are too dependent on Russia for energy supplies.

At its summit, the EU unanimously threatened Russia with retaliation in the event of an attack on Ukraine. In a joint statement by the heads of state and government, Russia urgently needs to defuse the tensions caused by the deployment of troops on the border with Ukraine and aggressive rhetoric. Any further military aggression will have "massive consequences and high costs".

France: transmission system operator publishes study on energy sources by 2050

 French transmission system operator Réseau de transport d'électricité (RTE) has published a strategy with different scenarios on energy consumption in France and the required energy sources for the coming decades until 2050, writes Le Monde:

It is an understatement to say that this work was expected, and that it will be commented on. The national manager of the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE) published on Monday, October 25, the main findings of a vast study aimed at defining the future of the French electricity system. Launched in 2019 at the request of the government, this forward-looking exercise entitled "Energy Futures 2050" sets out six scenarios that are supposed to make it possible to achieve carbon neutrality within thirty years, and therefore to fight against climate change.

Lomborg : german politicians are fooling themselves about the efficacy of renewables

 Another scathing account of Dane Björn Lomborg with Germany's energy policy. In an article for germany newspaper WELT he works out that Germany's measures to reduce CO2 are mostly ill-considered, useless, expensive and moreover strain emerging economies:

In a rational world, climate policy would be about finding the most cost-effective policy for the very real problem of global warming. But in the real world, many climate policy measures seem to be more about making us feel morally superior than using scarce resources effectively to have a noticeable impact.

Every spring, the lighting at the Brandenburg Gate, as well as on millions of buildings around the world - including the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Empire State Building - is switched off for an hour under the campaign name "Earth Hour". The idea behind it is to jointly set an example for climate protection. But if you get people to turn off the lights for an hour, it doesn't have a noticeable effect on the climate. And if people light a few candles instead, that actually increases the net emissions.

The dirty drawbacks of supposedly "clean" renewable energy

Interesting angle by Jason Hickel in Foreign Policy: 

"The phrase “clean energy” normally conjures up happy, innocent images of warm sunshine and fresh wind. But while sunshine and wind is obviously clean, the infrastructure we need to capture it is not. Far from it. The transition to renewables is going to require a dramatic increase in the extraction of metals and rare-earth minerals, with real ecological and social costs."

 (...)

"In 2017, the World Bank released a little-noticed report that offered the first comprehensive look at this question. It models the increase in material extraction that would be required to build enough solar and wind utilities to produce an annual output of about 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s enough to power roughly half of the global economy. By doubling the World Bank figures, we can estimate what it will take to get all the way to zero emissions—and the results are staggering: 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminum, and no less than 4.8 billion tons of iron."

(...)

"The problem here is not that we’re going to run out of key minerals—although that may indeed become a concern. The real issue is that this will exacerbate an already existing crisis of overextraction. Mining has become one of the biggest single drivers of deforestation, ecosystem collapse, and biodiversity loss around the world. Ecologists estimate that even at present rates of global material use, we are overshooting sustainable levels by 82 percent."

You can read the rest of this interesting piece via the below link:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/06/the-path-to-clean-energy-will-be-very-dirty-climate-change-renewables/ 

McKinsey: Germany misses climate goals; threat of supply shortfall

An analysis by consulting company McKinsey of the Germany energy sector comes to the conclusion that the self-defined goals for carbon dioxide are not met.

"Mit 866 Mio. Tonnen lagen die CO2-Emissionen (gemessen in Mio. Tonnen CO2e -Äquivalent) 2018 trotz einer Reduktion um 4,5% gegenüber dem Vorjahr immer noch 116 Mio. Tonnen über dem anvisierten Ziel von 750 Mio. Tonnen CO2e. Am langfristigen Trend ändert die vorübergehende, vor allem witterungsbedingte Verbesserung im Vorjahr nichts. McKinsey-Seniorpartner Thomas Vahlenkamp warnt: „Laufen die Emissionseinsparungen im gleichen Tempo weiter wie im vergangenen Jahrzehnt, werden die CO2e-Ziele für 2020 erst acht Jahre später erreicht und die Ziele für 2030 sogar erst 2046.“

Furthermore the coal phase-out until 2030 is a threat to the security of supply if there is no compensation. The disconnection of coal plants will deprive Germany of 43 % of secured power in the coming 10 years.

"Der beschlossene Kohleausstieg sieht die Abschaltung von 29 Gigawatt (GW) Kohlekapazität bis 2030 und weiteren 17 GW bis 2038 vor. „In den nächsten zehn Jahren gehen somit im Zuge des Atom- und Kohleausstiegs rund 43% der gesamten gesicherten Leistung des Jahres 2018 vom Netz“, stellt McKinsey-Experte Vahlenkamp fest. Ohne ausgleichende Maßnahmen sei die Versorgungssicherheit in Deutschland in Gefahr. Bis 2030 würden Modellrechnungen zufolge zusätzliche Kapazitäten von 17 GW benötigt, um die Stilllegungen zu kompensieren, um Schwankungen bei den Erneuerbaren auszugleichen und Spitzenlasten abzufedern. Sonst könnten schon ab Mitte des kommenden Jahrzehnts erste Engpässe auftreten, die sich bis 2030 verschärfen könnten."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.mckinsey.de/news/presse/2019-09-05-energiewende-index 

Expert: energy transition to renewables in Germany unrealistic

For Robert Schlögl, director of Fritz-Haber-Institut and Max-Planck-Institut for energy conversion, the shut down of conventional power plants and replacement by wind and solar won't work as renewable energies are subject to fluctuations. Also battery technology for storage has physical limits.

You can read the interesting interview via the below link:

https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/plus199039073/Klimaneutralitaet-Grundidee-der-Energiewende-absolut-unsinnig.html 

Germany gives away electricity and pays the taker

Germany energy experts urge law makers to change absurd side effects of german EEG reallocation charge (mentioned here) that hurt german consumers.
Pointing to jeopardy of energy supply security.

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/energiewende-deutschland-gibt-strom-ans-ausland-ab-und-zahlt-auch-noch-drauf-a-1186004.html

German EEG hurt consumers in case of storms

Storms reveal the absurdities of remuneration of renewables in Germany.
In case of strong wind, turbines produce excess electricity that has to be fed into the electricity grid. This electricity glut leads do negative prices on the EEX energy exchange.
Since the EEG reallocation charge obliges the grid operators to buy the electricity to fixed, predifined prices, the spread has to be paid by the consumer.

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/energie/article170189224/Strompreis-Kollaps-durch-Herwart-offenbart-Wahnsinn-der-Energiewende.html