With Greenpeace successfully forcing the shutdown of nuclear power, and keeping out fracking for gas, what’s left? A boom in coal. In fact, over the next two years Germany will build 10 new power plants for hard coal. Europe is in a coal frenzy, building power plants and opening up new mines, practically every month. It might sound odd that a boom in German coal is the result of Greenpeace’s political success. --Ezra Levant,
Toronto Sun, 7 January 2014
Germany’s wind and solar power production came to an almost complete standstill in early December. More than 23,000 wind turbines stood still. One million photovoltaic systems stopped work nearly completely. For a whole week coal, nuclear and gas power plants had to generate an estimated 95 percent of Germany’s electricity supply. --Daniel Wetzel,
Die Welt, 24 December 2013
Europe’s appetite for cheaper electricity is reviving mines that produce the dirtiest Across the continent’s mining belt, from Germany to Poland and the Czech Republic, utilities are expanding open-pit mines that produce lignite. The projects go against the grain of European Union rules limiting emissions and pushing cleaner energy. Alarmed at power prices about double U.S. levels, policy makers are allowing the expansion of coal mines that were scaled back in the past two decades. Lignite demand worldwide is forecast to rise as much as 5.4 percent by 2020, according to the International Energy Agency. --Stefan Nicola and Ladka Bauerova,
Bloomberg, 6 January 2014
Germany’s energy transition has also been a transition to coal: Despite multi-billion subsidies for renewable energy sources, power generation from brown coal (lignite) has climbed to its highest level in Germany since 1990. It is especially coal-fired power plants that are replacing the eight nuclear power plants that were shut down, while less CO2-intensive, but more expensive gas-fired power plants are currently barely competitive. Energy expert Patrick Graichen speaks of Germany’s “energy transition paradox”: the development of solar and wind farms, yet rising carbon dioxide-emissions. --
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 January 2014
Question: What happens when you forcibly implement an overly ambitious plan to overhaul your entire energy infrastructure by ridding yourself of both nuclear power and coal, instituting on outright ban on hydraulic fracturing and hence natural-gas exploration, and relentlessly subsidize politically preferred forms of so-called “green” energy that investors and consumers aren’t choosing to use of their own volition? Answer: Across the continent’s mining belt, from Germany to Poland and the Czech Republic, utilities are expanding open-pit mines that produce lignite. This is what happens when you let big-government delusions of “green” grandeur commandeer policy. --Erika Johnson,
Hot Air, 7 January 2014
Coal remains the biggest source of fuel for generating electricity in the U.S. and coal exports are growing fast. Demand is being stoked by the rise of power-hungry middle classes in emerging economies, led by China and India. By the end of this decade, coal is expected to surpass oil as the world's dominant fuel source, according to a recent study by consultant Wood Mackenzie. --John W Miller and Rebecca Smith,
The Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2014
The Energy Information Administration estimates that hydrates contain more carbon than every fossil fuel available on Earth combined. EIA also reports that these ice-like structures could hold anywhere from 10,000 trillion to more than 100,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. By way of comparison, the administration, which acts as the independent statistical arm of the Energy Department, said in 2013 that there are just over 7,000 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas deposits throughout the world. --Clare Foran,
National Journal, 24 December 2013
