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Thread: Germany Pulls an Ocasio-Cortez, close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, rely on renewable

  1. #1

    Germany Pulls an Ocasio-Cortez, close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, rely on renewable

    Those irrational, crazy-ass Germans!


    https://www.latimes.com/world/europe...urce=nextdraft

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


    Germany, one of the world’s biggest consumers of coal, will shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over the next 19 years to meet its international commitments in the fight against climate change, a government commission said Saturday.

    The announcement marked a significant shift for Europe’s largest country — a nation that had long been a leader on cutting CO2 emissions before turning into a laggard in recent years and badly missing its reduction targets. Coal plants account for 40% of Germany’s electricity, itself a reduction from recent years when coal dominated power production.

    “This is an historic accomplishment,” said Ronald Pofalla, chairman of the 28-member government commission, at a news conference in Berlin following a marathon 21-hour negotiating session that concluded at 6 a.m. Saturday. The breakthrough ended seven months of wrangling. “It was anything but a sure thing. But we did it,” Pofalla said. “There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”

    The plan includes some $45 billion in spending to mitigate the pain in coal regions.



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  3. #2
    More coal for everyone else

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"



  4. #3
    will shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over the next 19 years
    Do it now!!!
    "IF GOD DIDN'T WANT TO HELP AMERICA, THEN WE WOULD HAVE Hillary Clinton"!!
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  5. #4
    Well I pay 11 cents a KWH for coal fired electric . What do the germans anticipate paying in 20 years ? My guess is twice that . Mine has not changed in 20 years .
    Do something Danke

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by aGameOfThrones View Post
    Do it now!!!
    "The Patriarch"

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by aGameOfThrones View Post
    Do it now!!!
    Exactly, 19 years is too late, the earth will end in 10 years if we don't do something now.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

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  8. #7

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    Exactly, 19 years is too late, the earth will end in 10 years if we don't do something now.
    In 19 years they might change their mind. Do it Now!!!
    "IF GOD DIDN'T WANT TO HELP AMERICA, THEN WE WOULD HAVE Hillary Clinton"!!
    "let them search you,touch you,violate your Rights,just don't be a dick!"~ cdc482
    "For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?"
    All my life I've been at the mercy of men just following orders... Never again!~Erik Lehnsherr
    There's nothing wrong with stopping people randomly, especially near bars, restaurants etc.~Velho



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  11. #9
    Didn't I just read that energy costs for consumers has already gone up 500%?

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    Didn't I just read that energy costs for consumers has already gone up 500%?
    Going up .
    Do something Danke

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by AngryCanadian View Post
    Germany is stupid.
    Worse than that it is evil because they are aware of the harm it will do the people .
    Do something Danke

  14. #12
    Well there's one country that won't be mandating electric vehicles in the next two decades.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    Exactly, 19 years is too late, the earth will end in 10 years if we don't do something now.
    Quote Originally Posted by aGameOfThrones View Post
    In 19 years they might change their mind. Do it Now!!!
    Why does this remind me of all the politicians who say “the spending cuts will kick in after 10 years”.
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  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by James_Madison_Lives View Post
    Those irrational, crazy-ass Germans!
    That is exactly what every person here other than you thinks, and we're not being sarcastic.

  17. #15
    In case you haven't been paying attention, the market is closing way more coal plants than central-planning governments.

    http://ieefa.org/ieefa-report-u-s-li...ired-capacity/
    http://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/...ctober2018.pdf

    Record Drop in U.S. Coal-Fired Capacity Likely in 2018 Utilities Are Accelerating Shutdown Dates as Plants Grow Increasingly Uneconomic

    This year will most likely see a record set for coal-fired power capacity retirements in the U.S.
    IEEFA expects a total of 15.4 gigawatts (GW) of capacity to close in 2018 through the retirement of 44 units at 22 plants in more than a dozen states.
    At least 11GW have already been closed this year, and the retirement trend is on pace to easily
    In the US, electric generation is typically bid into markets - which means that the lowest cost producer of generation is king in the marketplace. In our case, that means natural gas. Even with the coal subsidies, those plants can't keep up with the price pressures. Even nuclear power is feeling the pinch - not because the cost to produce the energy is high, but the costs to control the potential hazards are high. Solar and wind can't compete without their subsidies either. Hydro is still the most economical but it's capacity is limited and new dams are unlikely because of the downstream impacts to communities.

    In short, all forms of generation have upsides and downsides, but the market is far better at figuring those things out than your central-planners.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by James_Madison_Lives View Post
    Those irrational, crazy-ass Germans!
    What Germans?

    “This is an historic accomplishment,” said Ronald Pofalla, chairman of the 28-member government commission, at a news conference in Berlin following a marathon 21-hour negotiating session that concluded at 6 a.m. Saturday. The breakthrough ended seven months of wrangling. “It was anything but a sure thing. But we did it,” Pofalla said. “There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”
    That was 28 pigs, and Farmer Jones, "wrangling" about what fatwas were going to be placed on the heads of the feckless German people.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    In case you haven't been paying attention, the market is closing way more coal plants than central-planning governments.

    http://ieefa.org/ieefa-report-u-s-li...ired-capacity/
    http://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/...ctober2018.pdf



    In the US, electric generation is typically bid into markets - which means that the lowest cost producer of generation is king in the marketplace. In our case, that means natural gas. Even with the coal subsidies, those plants can't keep up with the price pressures. Even nuclear power is feeling the pinch - not because the cost to produce the energy is high, but the costs to control the potential hazards are high. Solar and wind can't compete without their subsidies either. Hydro is still the most economical but it's capacity is limited and new dams are unlikely because of the downstream impacts to communities.

    In short, all forms of generation have upsides and downsides, but the market is far better at figuring those things out than your central-planners.
    I wonder what the cost of nuclear would be if we were allowed to build a new plant. The last time I checked the most recent nuclear plant built in the US was in the 1970s because it's too hard to get a new one approved.

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Madison320 View Post
    I wonder what the cost of nuclear would be if we were allowed to build a new plant. The last time I checked the most recent nuclear plant built in the US was in the 1970s because it's too hard to get a new one approved.
    The U.S. ain't the world, and naturally they're expensive as hell. Finding a place to store the radioactive waste is, too. But the War on Coal will make everything else as costly eventually. Which, you know, is necessary if the arms merchants are to keep using weapons grade plutonium.

    Poor people will be back to rationing their electrical use the way they did a hundred years ago. Air conditioning will be back to being a luxury. They might even have to start building buildings with windows that open again. And forget about the 99% having automobiles. But nuclear weapons will be cheaper. Every little podunk nation will be able to afford them.
    Last edited by acptulsa; 03-01-2019 at 09:37 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    We believe our lying eyes...

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by CaptUSA View Post
    In case you haven't been paying attention, the market is closing way more coal plants than central-planning governments.

    http://ieefa.org/ieefa-report-u-s-li...ired-capacity/
    http://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/...ctober2018.pdf



    In the US, electric generation is typically bid into markets - which means that the lowest cost producer of generation is king in the marketplace. In our case, that means natural gas. Even with the coal subsidies, those plants can't keep up with the price pressures. Even nuclear power is feeling the pinch - not because the cost to produce the energy is high, but the costs to control the potential hazards are high. Solar and wind can't compete without their subsidies either. Hydro is still the most economical but it's capacity is limited and new dams are unlikely because of the downstream impacts to communities.

    In short, all forms of generation have upsides and downsides, but the market is far better at figuring those things out than your central-planners.
    These plants are switching to natural gas supplied by fracking. Right now it's cheap because fracking operations are receiving cheap loans from banks supplied with federal reserve cash.

    Many of these fracking operations owe more money than they are making, but the banks and venture capital groups keep giving them loans. The bubble will burst soon enough, like all bubbles do.

    Here's an article explaining the situation.

    http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...ncial-tremors/

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Why does this remind me of all the politicians who say “the spending cuts will kick in after 10 years”.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Why does this remind me of all the politicians who say “the spending cuts will kick in after 10 years”.
    AF, post on your own account.
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  24. #21
    Coal currently accounts for about a third of German's energy production. They are set to close down their last nuclear plant in 2022.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ations-by-2038

    Almost three quarters of Germans believe a quick exit from coal is important, according to a poll of 1,285 people by the broadcaster ZDF.

    Dave Jones, a power analyst at the London and Brussels-based thinktank Sandbag, said: “2035 is really the ambitious solution. The bigger question is about how quickly it happens [for example, interim goals].”

    The commission said that gas would become Germany’s backup power of choice, rather than coal, which would make it more similar to the UK energy system.

    Merkel, speaking in Davos last week, said that, as the country ditches coal and closes its last nuclear plants in 2022, “we will need more natural gas, and energy needs to be affordable.” Her government has a goal of increasing the share of renewables in electricity supply from 38% today to 65% in 2030.

    One of the most contentious issues has been the cost of compensating energy firms for shutting coal plants before the end of their lifetime.

    About €40bn will be awarded under the commission’s plans; the industry had hoped for €60bn.
    The German energy secretary, Thomas Bareiß, has said the move away from coal was necessary but would be a “very expensive transition”.
    http://fortune.com/2018/12/21/german...ast-coal-mine/

    Germany Closes Its Last Active Coal Mine, Ending 200-year-old Industry

    Germany will witness the end of an era Friday.

    Around mid-afternoon, a team of dusty miners will bring up the last lumps of hard coal mined in the country from the Prosper-Haniel mine in Bottrop, in the heart of Germany’s industrial northwest. It’s a bittersweet farewell for an area already down on its luck.

    Prosper-Haniel was the last operating hard coal mine in a region defined by that industry for 200 years. The Ruhr River valley, once the economic engine of post-war industrial Germany, has been down on its luck for decades. In the 1950s, more than 600,000 locals worked in the mines — in 2017, it was down to only 4,500, Clean Energy Wire reports. More than 5 million people live in the 15 cities of the Ruhr area, but their incomes trail the state average by €1,500, and unemployment rates there are double the national average.

    Germany’s government is still waiting on the final report from a coal commission to explain how, exactly, a country that still relies on coal-powered plants for a third of its energy can give up the fossil fuel for greener options. Domestic coal has already been replaced by imports from Russia, the U.S., Australia, and Columbia. The commission report is expected in February and will become part of Germany’s first federal Climate Action Law in 2019.

    While mining hard coal is officially over in Germany as of today, mines for lignite, or brown coal, remain in operation. Protests between occupiers of the Hambach Forest and energy giant RWE, which wants to raze part of it to expand its lignite mine, have been an ongoing spectacle in German news media this fall.

    German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will be in Bottrop today to bid farewell to this era of Germany’s economy.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    The U.S. ain't the world, and naturally they're expensive as hell. Finding a place to store the radioactive waste is, too. But the War on Coal will make everything else as costly eventually. Which, you know, is necessary if the arms merchants are to keep using weapons grade plutonium.

    Poor people will be back to rationing their electrical use the way they did a hundred years ago. Air conditioning will be back to being a luxury. They might even have to start building buildings with windows that open again. And forget about the 99% having automobiles. But nuclear weapons will be cheaper. Every little podunk nation will be able to afford them.
    And that's all of us.

  26. #23


    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 03-01-2019 at 04:21 PM.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    And that's all of us.
    but only in the "wealthy" countries. in the rest of the poor countries around the world, they are still happily building new coal powered plants.



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  29. #25
    We're probably about 10 years away from fusion reactors being used in commercial applications. This looks to be the most promising design I am aware of.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC1yRnLQ

    I wonder what the enviroment/climate alarmists are going to dream up after that.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Grandmastersexsay View Post
    We're probably about 10 years away from fusion reactors being used in commercial applications. This looks to be the most promising design I am aware of.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9kC1yRnLQ

    I wonder what the enviroment/climate alarmists are going to dream up after that.
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielco.../#18fd12b59bb4

    The second is a report by a panel of distinguished scientists from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to the DOE which concluded that a $200 million annual investment in the technology for the next several decades could lead to a commercially viable reactor before 2050.
    So for about $10 billion we can have one in possibly 30 years. (article from this past January)

    The catch is that these reactions generate very hot and very unstable globs of plasma (in excess of 500 million degrees Fahrenheit) which require tremendous amounts of energy to maintain. To date, the longest recorded sustained plasma operation is just over one minute long.
    While fusion technology certainly seems to be gaining momentum in academic, policymaking, and venture capital circles, the promise of reliable fusion power has always been ‘just a decade or two away.’ No one is rooting for the success of this energy panacea more than I am, but if history is any guide, we should not hold our breath just yet.
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 03-01-2019 at 07:44 PM.

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielco.../#18fd12b59bb4



    So for about $10 billion we can have one in possibly 30 years. (article from this past January)
    Meh. Everyone likes to hate on new technology. I understand the skepticism. We here so many things that never come to fruition. General Fusion already has working reactors that produce several times more energy than they require to operate. Their design is the best design I've seen at capturing that energy. All the Tokamak reactors only considered that as an after thought. General Fusion is working on a 70% scale fusion plant that they claim will be ready in 2023.

    https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/0...-montreal.html

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Grandmastersexsay View Post
    Meh. Everyone likes to hate on new technology. I understand the skepticism. We here so many things that never come to fruition. General Fusion already has working reactors that produce several times more energy than they require to operate. Their design is the best design I've seen at capturing that energy. All the Tokamak reactors only considered that as an after thought. General Fusion is working on a 70% scale fusion plant that they claim will be ready in 2023.

    https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/0...-montreal.html
    Any link to their net power yield- energy in vs energy out? It has been done but I can only find examples which use more energy than they produce.

    This article is from just last year: https://futurism.com/mit-fusion-powe...-time-it-works

    The trickiness of using fusion as a form of energy is that, to date, every experiment has yielded net negative energy — meaning more energy goes into heating that subatomic soup than comes out for potential use.


    https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-p...tionize/96/i32

    Once the reactor is generating net power, the team will take at least 10 years “to explore different parameters to optimize the process,” ITER Director General Bernard Bigot says. Bigot says it may not be until 2055 or 2060 that fusion is ready for commercial implementation on the power grid.
    Tim Luce, the scientific director of ITER, acknowledges that radioactivity is a concern with fusion. One of ITER’s oft-criticized delays was due to the extended process of complying with France’s nuclear regulations. But Luce says fusion is hard enough without having to make a plasma that’s over a thousand times as hot as the sun. “You’ve set the goalpost—which was already high—even higher,” he says.
    One thing TAE Technologies is not currently testing in its facility is the fuel it ultimately plans to use: a mixture of hydrogen and boron. Most companies hope to use the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which is radioactive, as fuel. Fusion reactions involving those hydrogen isotopes take the least amount of energy to initiate, and the neutrons produced are highly energetic. These energetic neutrons can bombard atoms in the reactor walls, creating radioactive isotopes. Binderbauer wants to avoid using or producing radioactive materials.

    But hydrogen-boron fuel comes with a significant caveat. Instead of operating at tens or hundreds of millions of degrees, TAE Technologies’ reactor will have to heat the proton-boron plasma to over a billion degrees to initiate fusion.
    Fusion researchers have learned the hard way that they need to be skeptical. Those who’ve been working on fusion for decades have lived through multiple waves of the fusion hype cycle or have been swept away by it themselves. There are many stories of fusion researchers who made big promises—exciting their colleagues, the public, and governments—and then failed to deliver. Some of these researchers turned out to be frauds, while most simply got too carried away to notice errors in their science. It’s hard not to become entranced by the potential of fusion technology, ITER’s Luce says. “People want to see fusion work because it is as good an energy source as you can imagine,” he says.
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 03-01-2019 at 08:46 PM.

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Any link to their net power yield- energy in vs energy out? It has been done but I can only find examples which use more energy than they produce.

    This article is from just last year: https://futurism.com/mit-fusion-powe...-time-it-works





    https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-p...tionize/96/i32
    The YouTube link I posted earlier discusses it. They aren't the first to do it either. That is no longer the barrier. If my memory serves me correctly, the barrier is to produce approximately 10 times more energy than the reactor consumes. This way it will be financially viable to make a power plant. The plant itself will cost money to make and will only have a certain lifespan.
    Last edited by Grandmastersexsay; 03-02-2019 at 09:40 AM.

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Grandmastersexsay View Post
    The YouTube link I posted earlier discusses it. They aren't the first to do it either. That is no longer the barrier. If my memory serves me correctly, the barrier is to produce approximately 10 times more energy than the reactor consumes. This way it will be financially viable to make a power plant. The plant itself will cost money to make and will only have a certain lifespan.
    Actually the video says that has not been achieved yet. They hope to generate more energy than goes in but they have not been successful. He even says his machine does not work yet. See twelve minutes in.

    "So finally, most people think that fusion is in the future and will never happen. But as a matter of fact, fusion is getting very close. We are almost there. The big labs have shown that fusion is doable, and now there are small companies thinking about that and they say its not that it cannot be done, but it's how to make it cost effectively. General Fusion is one of those small companies and hopefully, very soon, somebody, someone will crack that nut. And perhaps it will be General Fusion. "
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 03-02-2019 at 02:07 PM.



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