Posted on 09/07/2012 6:20:18 PM PDT by count-your-change
While the U.S. is either closing coal fired powered plants or forcing them to change to much more expensive natural gas, Germny is pressing ahead with coal fired generation of electricity.
Has Germany abandoned its efforts to be "green"?
No, but the rising costs and unreliablity of "green" electricity has some German government ministers concerned. Go to the link and read the rest of the article with the excerpt below:
"He (Altmaier) is also worried that his country could become dependent on foreign imports of electricity, the mainstay of its industrial sector. To avoid that risk, Altmaier has given the green light to build twenty-three new coal-fired plants, which are currently under construction."
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
You can count eastern Europe as well. Many countries in Europe have flipped the bird at EU environment policies.
The smart grid movement is partially driven by the irregularity of renewable power sources. And “smart grids” are driven by a desire to micromanage human energy usage to shut down demand when renewables cannot deliver.
http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/Risks-of-the-Smart-Grid
Impossible to describe but utterly amazing.
Sounds just like rationing. Of course the rationers will never be the rationees.
“Guess Who Loves Coal Fired Power Plants”
Me?
I remember reading in an article here on FR a few years back that there are enough known coal deposits in Wyoming and Montana to power the entire United States for the next six hundred years, counting projected population growth.
Don’t get too carried away with praise for Germany here. They’ve got to do coal as, if you remember, after the Japanese tsunami and their nuke plants being damaged, causing leak of radiation, Germany decided to do away with nuclear power plants as a source for electrical power. They are big greenies, you know. However, they’ve got to get their power from somewhere, so it appears the coal industry is the lesser of two evils to their mind.
I was recently in Aachen, Germany attending a business conference and just marveled at the huge coal strIp mine that fed the coal directly to a power plant by conveyer belt.
They know a strategy like Obama’s will push demand into other energy forms and run costs......creating other shortages, Costs of coal are a internal thing and not benefiting the saudis as well as additional dependence on the saudis.
They know the folly of outsourcing your energy needs when you have a viable source at home
“Altmaier has given the green light to build twenty-three new coal-fired plants, which are currently under construction.”
Two things:
A) “green light”.....pun of the day.
B) How does one give the green light to 23 new power plants that are already under construction.
Is this an oxymoron?
All arguments of electrical power really boil down to a discussion of coal vs. nuclear. That's it. Discussion over alternative energy is a red herring, but this doesn't stop politicians from seizing every photo opportunity at a solar plant or wind farm.
Japan = nuclear
Germany = coal
France = nuclear
USA = coal
China = nuclear and coal
Australia = coal
Canada = coal
The real discussion needs framed accurately. There are only two options that can provide enough power when we need it, reliably, and cheap enough not to destroy our economy, coal or nuclear. Now make your choice in that context.
One problem with nuclear plants is the lack of standardization in their design. The facility at Palo Verde in Arizona sought to overcome this by planning on building five identical plants (scaled back to three). Each one was in a different stage of build and that allowed problems in one to be avoided in the other two.
Even so the cost over the time of building rose considerably.
Check this one out
http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Workshop/Trencher2.jpg
The U.S. is unlikely to build any more nukes in the foreseeable future so that leaves coal and/or nat. gas power plants and as nukes are decommissioned their output will have to be replaced somehow.
Is the U.S. building enough capacity to replace what is going offline? A good question.
The big question is a political one....will it be mined?
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