Germany

While Germany has been hailed as the poster child for the green energy transition, the facts and data show it has one of the world’s dumbest energy policies. They relied on Russia for half of their energy needs in March of 2022 after spending 20 years closing their nuclear power plants while squandering $500 billion (USD 2021) promoting unreliable wind and solar energy as a viable alternative.  This was the cornerstone of their Energiewende energy policy.

Energiewende promised a transition to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply, but produced the most expensive electricity, with one of the highest carbon footprints in Western Europe, and environmental destruction exported to the developing world (mining).

These irresponsibly idiotic energy policies that have impoverished Germans, who recently paid 4 to 6 times as much for electricity as Americans, is coming to the US courtesy of the Democratic party. Following is what we face unless enough people call out what, “It works in Germany,” means.

Fast Facts

• Germany’s abandonment of nuclear energy for their vision of a country run on unreliable wind and solar has left their citizens paying the highest electricity prices in Europe, 5 times the average of US citizens (Dec 2022).  
• Unreliable wind and solar power production, collapses each day, driving coal, gas, and imports to keep the lights on.
• Germany continued closing their remaining carbon-free nuclear plants as they prepared to reopen 5 coal power plants to the aghast of some climate scientists
• Solar plants = natural gas or coal power,  due to the low performance of PV panels, which produce as little as 2% of their rated capacity during winter months.  
• Nuclear produces 85% or more of its rated capacity for all seasons and weather conditions
• Germany’s electricity is filthy compared to most of Western Europe generating 29 times more carbon dioxide (CO₂) than Sweden which depends on nuclear to be green.
• Germany maintains reliable power with unreliable erratic wind and solar power by running coal power plants and exporting excess dirty (carbon-intense) electricity to other countries whenever the wind spikes or Sun comes out.  

Background 

Two months after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine and began leveling cities with air strikes and mortar shells, Germany continued to supply the Russian war machine $220 million a day ($80 billion per year) for natural gas purchases.  While criticism arose from other free nations, Germany faced dire consequences of having to shut down major sections of their economy, without massive imports of gas, due to past energy policy decisions driven by emotions rather than rational thought and solid analysis. 

Germany’s dependence on Russian gas was just the latest consequence of one of the most economically, environmentally, and politically reckless energy policies of modern times, until the Democratic Green New Deal, the Energiewende.  

Energiewende 

To shore up support from the Green Party, which captured more than 8% of the vote in their federal elections, the parties in power agreed to close all nuclear power plants.  Politicians and citizens seemed to seriously believe that unreliable renewables, wind and solar, would magically match their power needs, allowing for the retirement of coal, natural gas, and nuclear-powered plants. Calculations of the potential wind and solar power generation over time, using one week of weather data for any location across the country, would have clearly shown the vast variation in power production relative to needs.

Too Green for Nuclear: Not Too Green for US Gas or Coal

The week that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked US president Joe Biden to send US natural gas, which means liquifying and shipping it (dramatically increasing the carbon footprint), Germany’s countrywide wind and solar electricity production ranged from 79% to 2% of their electricity load.  Germans are too “Green,” to generate nuclear power, which produces virtually no Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) once a plant is built, but not too Green to burn as much natural gas (and coal) as necessary to keep their lights, furnaces, and appliances running. 

A key element of the EU countries’ Green policy is to demonize fossil fuel production among their member states while importing this critical product from countries like Russia.  Worked like a charm until you know what happened.

Since all but a tiny few politicians will ever admit a mistake, Germany’s Chancellor continued with their plans to close their remaining nuclear power plants. blaming safety concerns.  Even though coal has killed more than 1000 times as many people as nuclear relative to the power produced.  

So how did Germany reach this energy crisis?   Like many crises occurring in today’s modern world, it begins with idiot or immoral actions.  It takes idiot thinking to expect energy from the Sun in any place on Earth, let alone Germany, to replace reliable Nuclear energy.    

Solar

Winter days in Germany are short, when it is very cloudy, leaving virtually no sun energy for generating electricity.  Meanwhile, the rest of the year the Sun’s energy reaching the ground constantly changes its intensity, until sunset when it completely disappears. This means that solar cannot replace nuclear power if the goal is to provide power when needed.  Meanwhile, wind power production is every bit as unreliable, as revealed by decades of generation data available to the public on Energy-Charts courtesy of the Fraunhofer Institute.

Increasing Greenhouse Gases for Solar

Because Germany has some of the cloudiest skies in the world, their solar installations produce about 6 times the lifecycle equivalent CO₂ compared to a nuclear plant during their operational life.  Of course, since solar is so unreliable, producing virtually no power all winter when the need is greatest and erratic power in the summer, it requires 100% reliable backup power, which involves a combination of coal, natural gas, and imports.   Consequently, the minuscule 6 g CO₂/kW-hr-equiv life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emission of an operating nuclear power plant, is replaced by power occasionally produced by solar generating at best 24 g  CO₂/kW-hr-equiv  GHG, but mostly by gas or coal generating between 405 and 1095 g CO₂/kW-hr-equiv life cycle GHG emissions.  Imports of nuclear-generated electricity from France or hydroelectricity from Norway or Sweden change this atrocious situation when available. 

Energiewende also includes burning biomass (wood) which generates more carbon dioxide than coal, further establishing Germany as the poster child for virtue signaling environmental recklessness.

Wind + Solar

Another quickly disproven claim regarding the success of the German energy policy of focusing on installing unreliable renewables (wind and solar) rather than reducing greenhouse gases, is that adding wind power addresses the deficiencies of solar.  Once again the data shows how unreliable wind + solar are when combined.

Solar and wind produce power spikes followed by a collapse during both the winter and summer.  The winter and summer solstice are the shortest and longest days in the year, making them logical dates for assessing minimum and maximum solar power generation. 

Since power produced must match the power need (load) spikes in power produced from clear noon skies in July, or unusually high winds, stress the European power grid, which must pick up the excess electricity.  At times Germany must pay neighboring countries to accept their excess power.   Conversely, when solar and wind power production collapses, as it does daily,  imports of reliable power from its neighbors. keeps the lights on and the economy running, in addition to Germany’s coal and natural gas power plants.

Costs

Perhaps the biggest gift of Energiewende is energy poverty for citizens living on the edge of society and businesses.  

Germans continue to pay a steep cost for the decision to abandon nuclear power plants producing inexpensive electricity and install expensive unreliable wind and solar.  As of December 2022, German citizens paid approximately USD 0.63/kWh, about 4 times the average US rate. while businesses paid 6 times as much. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19-related impacts, the price for residential electricity was closer to 3 times the average US rate.  The only other  Western European country to pay as much is Denmark which has a similar fetish for unreliable renewable energy.  Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, German electricity costs skyrocketed 

Carbon Intensity

German citizens paid the highest prices for electricity while generating more Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) than all but a few Western Europe countries.  But it gets worse because this data excludes the CO₂ German wood-burning power plants produce.  In one of the most sickening examples of Greenwashing, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change allows European nations to take credit for producing no CO₂ for electricity generated by burning wood, even though it generates more CO₂ than burning coal.  

This is a prime example of the destructive nature of virtue signaling, with money squandered on actions that make a problem worse is seen as a sign of virtue due to a lack of critical oversight.