Take a Cool Guess—The Fun Quiz on Renewable Energy and Environmental Sustainability. Today’s Topic: Germany Putting Spear Through Coal
Question: How many people from across Europe gathered near the Hambacher Forest in western Germany on Saturday to defend the area from the expansion of coal-fired energy and demand much more ambitious climate action?
Answer: Can be found at Clean Energy Answers.
Relevance: According to Greenpeace, one of the organizers behind the demonstration, the enormous crowd made up of local farmers, environmental activists, church groups, local residents and supporters from other countries, including Italy, France and the Netherlands. It was the largest-ever anti-coal demonstration in the Rhineland. Said a spokesperson, “The German coal phase-out needs to start here and now and the last coal plant needs to shut down by 2030 if we are to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
Craig,
Great ! What an absolutely brilliant idea ! Close down 41.8% of German Power production !
Hmmm,..let’s see how that works out, eh? Germany is the world’s most heavily dependent economy on its mining sector. That should achieve economic deprivation for 82 million people. Since Germany is the economic powerhouse of the EU, that should also collapses the EU economy, creating poverty on a scale not seen since 1946.
Hmmm,…’course they could always rebuild those nuclear plants, but they don’t like those either. Oh, well, it’ll be winter soon and with like the demonstrators will all perish in a blizzard.
Hey, while we’re looking back over your doomsday warnings, here’s one from your list :
2015;
” Growing pollution, rising crude prices, depleting crude oil stock reserves, increasing environment awareness would be the key for electric vehicle sale promontories around the globe.
Despite the rapid economic and monetary growth of China and India, United States is by far the world’s largest consumer of crude oil, accounting for more than 20% of the average of 87.9 Million barrels per day (bpd) used around the planet. United States of America’s high dependence on imported oil has contributed to a set of economic, security, geopolitical, and environmental problems, and, thus, there is a growing national interest in reducing petroleum use.
A new study, “Global & United States Electric Vehicles Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017”, predicts sales in the global electric vehicle passenger car market are estimated to witness manifold jump in the years to come. Global electric passenger cars are anticipated to contribute majority share to the global electric vehicle market sales with over 3.6 Million units being sold by 2017.
The outlook for electric vehicle market globally and in the United States seems very promising due to increase in overall consumer spending, growth in population, increasing demand for environment friendly vehicles and growing government support. These factors are expected to drive the electric vehicle market to new heightened figures in the near future.”
Gosh ! What a difference 5 years makes !
EV sales in 2017, even including China’s unreliable over optimistic figure, is perhaps a shade over 1 million, or less than 1% of total vehicles sales.
Far from “dwindling fuel reserves’ the US has become self sufficient and an oil and gas exporter !
Why are these foolish demonstrators so certain that rapidly developing technology won’t be able to deliver “Clean Coal” by 2030 ?
Or,..is it really just all about politics ?
As I’m sure you know, no one is calling for the immediately shut-down of electrical power, but rather a concerted effort to phase out coal as quickly as possible.
Craig,
But why ? After spending many billions of dollars on unsuccessful alternatives, it’s quite evident that both coal and nuclear are the only economically viable generators of industrial scale energy.
Both of these power resources are being starved for investment in Europe. How can anyone confidently predict that with sufficient incentive and funding both reliable technologies can’t continue to produce economically cost effective, clean(er) environmentally positive base-load energy for the next century?
The potential by-products of coal have the potential to contribute to emission saving products in other heavily polluting industries such as construction, cement, etc.
The decision to “phase out” Coal and nuclear may prove to be impossible, as a result neglecting to promote cleaner, safer use of these fuels would prove to be irresponsible, not only economically, but environmentally.