Zigzagkoers Duitse energiebeleid

Gedurende de laatste jaren vertoont het Duitse energiebeleid een zigzagkoers. In juni 2010 verklaarde de Duitse Bondskanselier, Angela Merkel nog:

'I think it's fair to say that our energy supply scheme will become the world's most efficient and environmentally friendly.... The agreement will maintain affordable energy prices both for private consumers and businesses. Our aim is to further promote renewables, and we see nuclear and coal-fired power plants as an indispensible bridge towards this goal. This is a revolution in the energy production sector, no more, no less.'

Lees verder hier.

Na Fukushima werd de koers echter verlegd. Brede subsidiestromen leidden tot een ongekende groei van duurzame energie. Maar recentelijk werd de rem daarop gezet. Charles Hawley rapporteert daarover in 'Der Spiegel':

The share of renewable energies in Germany's power mix has shot up so high that the electricity grid and the subsidy framework has been unable to keep up. Now, the government wants to slow down the process. German commentators say that the current chaos endangers the entire project.

Many scoffed at the initial target that Chancellor Angela Merkel set last June, when she announced that Germany was turning away from nuclear power and toward renewable energies. Her government decided that by 2020 renewables would make up a 35 percent share of the energy mix. It was, said many experts at the time, an impossible goal.

In the 14 months since then, however, the situation has changed dramatically. In the first half of 2012, the country generated fully 25 percent of its electricity needs via wind, solar and other alternative power sources. Doubts as to whether the 35 percent target is attainable have virtually vanished.

Now a new set of problems have cropped up, and quickly. The fast pace into the renewables future has meant that German consumers are faced with skyrocketing electricity bills and that the country's energy grid has suddenly become outdated. Indeed, Environment Minister Peter Altmaier now finds himself in the awkward position of having to put the brakes on the country's energy revolution. ...

Justus Haucap, an economics professor at the University of Düsseldorf, writes in the Financial Times Deutschland:

"The question is how to reach the targets in the most cost-effective way possible so that consumers and industry are not overburdened. The dramatic inefficiency of the renewable energy subsidy program is currently driving up the cost of the energy revolution unnecessarily."

"The primary reason for the problem lies in the 'third path' policymakers have chosen to lead us into the renewable future. There is neither a centrally planned economy to steer the energy system nor are the rules of the market economy allowed to regulate the system according to the laws of supply and demand. Instead, a model of 'decentralized planned economy' is being pursued. Municipalities, states, the federal government and the European Union are all creating plans independent of each other and of those affected. There is no coordination . The result is a fair amount of chaos with policymakers struggling to keep up. Everyone is aware that the situation cannot continue if the renewable energy revolution is to be a success. As such, the question is whether we want to move from where we are today in the direction of a centrally planned economic model or rather in the direction of market economy principles."

Lees verder hier.

Maar beleidsvoornemens willen nog wel eens anders uitpakken dan bedoeld. Zo rapporteerden Stefan Nicola and Tino Andresen van Bloomberg:

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government says RWE AG (RWE)’s new power plant that can supply 3.4 million homes aids her plan to exit nuclear energy and switch to cleaner forms of generation. It’s fired with coal.

The startup of the 2,200-megawatt station near Cologne last week shows how Europe’s largest economy is relying more on the most-polluting fuel. Coal consumption has risen 4.9 percent since Merkel announced a plan to start shutting the country’s atomic reactors after last year’s Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Germany’s largest utilities RWE and EON AG (EOAN) are shunning cleaner-burning natural gas because it’s more costly, while the collapsing cost of carbon permits means there’s little penalty for burning coal. Wind and solar projects, central to Germany’s plans to reduce nuclear energy and cut the release of heat- trapping gases, can’t produce electricity around the clock.

“Angela Merkel’s policy has created an incentive structure which has the effect of partially replacing nuclear with coal, the dirtiest fuel that’s responsible for much of the growth in the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions since 1990,” Dieter Helm, an energy policy professor at the University of Oxford, said by phone Aug. 17. Building new coal stations means “locking them in for the next 30 years” as a type of generation, Helm said.

Germany’s increasing coal consumption is part of a global return to the fossil fuel that’s cheaper than most alternatives. The amount of coal burned worldwide rose 5.4 percent to account for 30 percent of total energy use last year, the highest proportion since 1969 .

Lees verder hier.

Alweer een groene droom vervlogen. Of toch niet? Zoals ik al vaak eerder heb geschreven: CO2 is uitstekend voor de plantengroei. CO2 is een bouwsteen van het leven. Groener kunnen we het niet maken.