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Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on October 30, 2015 at 9:08am

More sleight of hand.  Note he used 'renewables'  instead of solar or wind. Thats an old trick the watermelons use....start talking about solar and wind and then sneakily switch to renewables which includes hydro and geothermal. They also like to add in hydro because it is very cheap and helps drive down the average cost, making solar and wind look more competitive.

Iceland uses a lot of geothermal as they sit on numerous volcanoes and have a lot of hot geysers for heat and electrical generation. Germany has alot of hydro and burns peat.

And what solar and wind is used in many of these countries not because it is competitive but because it is heavily subsidized. And coal and nat gas in Europe are very expensive because extraction has been pretty much regulated into extinction.  Electrical rates in Europe are very much higher than in the US.

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Permalink Reply by M.A.B. on October 30, 2015 at 9:25am

and many of the countries Paul lists have small geological footprints and import the vast majority of oil, coal and gas so they have to utilize what they have or turn to nuclear, like Japan, but that's another topic in itself

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Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on October 30, 2015 at 11:03am

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Permalink Reply by Dan on October 30, 2015 at 12:27pm

"It’s true that Germany has increased their use of renewables and now generates over 25 percent of its electricity from renewables, with wind and solar making up nearly 15 percent of total electricity production. But this transition has come at a huge cost to the German people. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) outlined some of these costs in a study, finding that:

Residential German electricity prices are nearly three times higher than electricity prices in the U.S.
As many as 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because of an inability to pay for rising energy costs.
The cost to expand transmission networks to integrate renewables stands at $33.6 billion, which grid operators say accounts “for only a fraction of the cost of the energy transition.”
If Germans aren’t benefitting from Energiewende, then who is?"
http://americanenergyalliance.org/2015/05/07/germanys-green-energy-...

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Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on October 30, 2015 at 1:15pm

Dan, your figure of 800,000 Germans having their power cut off because of rising energy costs is bogus. http://energytransition.de/2013/08/energiewende-separating-fact-fro...

"This disingenuous debate about the renewable surcharge’s alleged price impact on the poor, as Craig Morris trenchantly puts it, is about how “promoters of corporate control of energy have suddenly discovered their compassion for people who have their power cut off by corporations.” Lomborg [skeptic of Germany's energy turnaround] even claims the renewable surcharge is “why more people are stealing wood from German forests”—but a far more logical explanation is the roughly 119-percent rise in the real price of heating oil since 2000."

Permalink Reply by Barry D on November 1, 2015 at 12:08pm

Paul,

Renewables in Germany only account for less than

8 % of energy needs.

Coal is the primary source of energy.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on November 2, 2015 at 2:15am

In Germany, renewables provided 11% of total ("primary") energy, and 28% of electricity, in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany

Permalink Reply by Dan on November 2, 2015 at 2:35am

Wood-fire plants fuelled by wood pellets are included in biomass. Half of Germany's timber production is consumed by wood fired plants. Wood fired plants are counted as renewable energy by Germany and the European Union counting them as "carbon neutral".[28]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany

Permalink Reply by Barry D on November 1, 2015 at 12:10pm

Jim,

Many geothermal projects employ hydraulic fracturing.

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Permalink Reply by Dan on October 30, 2015 at 9:53am

Wood is a renewable also.

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Permalink Reply by M.A.B. on October 30, 2015 at 11:56am

Paul, Germany imports the vast % of their energy needs because they are depleted or to costly to extract...of course they have to come up with something else......don't for a minute think if they found a huge source of fossil fuel beneath them thy wouldn't exploit using it

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Permalink Reply by Dan on October 30, 2015 at 2:44pm

"

Germany is an enlightened leader in the global battle to reduce CO2 emissions, a pioneer in renewable energy and community power projects and a champion of energy efficiency.

Or so the common narrative goes.

But try telling that to Monika Schulz-Hopfner. She and her husband, along with 250 other residents of Atterwasch, a quiet village near the Polish border, face eviction from their home of 30 years to make way for the Janschwalde-Nord coal mine.

And not just any old coal, but lignite, the dirtiest form of this ancient fossil fuel that is mined in vast opencast pits.

If the plans go ahead, the village, parts of which date back more than 700 years, will be demolished.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26820405

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