As the hysteria reaches new levels and the anti-atomic power groups are ever more adamant about a nuclear-free Germany, Angela Merkel has been pressured to announce that some of Germany’s nuclear power plants will be closed. That’s probably good news for the gas industry, and for Germany’s neighbours.
But right now, Germany does not have the gas capacity to step in and take up the slack, and so expect the country to put its gas development on the fast-track, and to import.
The construction of coal power plants faces massive resistance here, and so that too is also out of the picture. So where will Germany get its power when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow?
By abandoning coal and nuclear, Germany may succeed in isolating itself when it comes to energy. Either it will have to become dependent on its neighbors, or its population will be expected to behave like energy misers and to fret over every milliwatt that gets used.
Some of Germany’s electric power will be generated by natural gas. And the rest? Not to worry. Germany has got plenty of neighbors around who are less prone to atomic hysteria and who will be willing to sell power – for a price. Plenty of new atomic power capacity is being planned just to the east (see World Nuclear Association). And everywhere else around the world, atomic power plants are being constructed, planned or proposed.
Reactors now under construction
According to the World Nuclear Association, 62 reactors are currently under construction.
China: 27 reactors
Russia: 10
India: 5
Germany: 0
Many more reactors are being planned – 158 in total. When one looks at the chart, Germany columns are filled with goose eggs.
China: 50 reactors
India: 18
Japan: 12
Russia 14
USA: 9
Germany: 0
And many more are being proposed: 324 reactors in all.
China: 110 reactors
India: 40
Italy 10
Russia 30
Ukraine: 20
Japan: 12
Russia 14
USA: 23
UAE: 10
Vietnam: 12
Turkey: 4
Poland: 6
Germany: 0
Plenty of Germany’s neighbors are positioning to take over the job of producing electricity. If Germany should find it’s too expensive to produce electricity with sun and wind, or it’s too difficult to get a steady supply, then it will have to call Italy, Ukraine, Poland or Russia for help.
=================================================================
UPDATE (IN GERMAN) on Fukushima:
http://liberalesinstitut.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/update-zum-fukushima-storfall/
German media seems to ignore the fact, that hundred thousand of Japanese people right now have other problems then Fukushima. Many lost their families, their property, their job.
35% of German journalists are green, 10% are red….they try to create a anti-atomic climate in Germany. 🙁
And the other 55% are drones.
hahahahaha!
Come to Australia where the MSM ratio would be probably 55% green and 40% red.
Beano,
MSM in Australia are 80% brain-dead.
Which maybe a pre-requisite for “green” or “red”.
I think a lot of money will go in nuclear research in the near future to be spend in redundant design of so called ‘idiot proof reactors’ that don’t depend on permanent cooling after an emergency shut down.
There will be a jump on natural gas including shale gas (gigantic reserves in Germany).
Because the green sustainable technology is non existing we will be talking nuclear again within this decade.
That is if we are able to shake off the current green political establishment of lunatics that is preparing for the final kill of the EU economy with mass immigration, incredible green spending, the destruction of the Euro currency and the incredible accumulation of debt with the purpose to drive us in the arms of UN Global Governance.
As for the Japanese nuclear crises:
Radiation levels are falling.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12749444
The biggest impact of the current “German Crises” will be a steep increase of the consumer electricity bills.
Mark my words.
Japan wasted 78 billion to solve global warming. That’s not spend, but WASTED.
That’s almost 50 % of the money they will need to rebuild the mess created by the recent quake and tsunami damage currently estimated at 180 billion US dollar.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/japanese-government-wasted-78-billion-to-solve-global-warming/
and
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42077408/ns/business-world_business/
A summery of the numbers behind Chernobyl:
http://www.chernobylreport.org/summary-en.pdf
Mar 14, 2011
Welcome to the Third World
By Paul Driessen
Even as the shale gas and fracking revolution shakes up the US and global energy and climate change scene, both United States and European political elites insist on pursuing policies that make sense only in a parallel universe. In the universe inhabited by real US and EU workers and families, those policies will likely usher in a future defined by energy prices and access to electricity commonly found only in the Third World.
My latest article explores this situation, underscores the economic and employment benefits that oil and gas hydraulic fracturing could bring, and challenges Obama Administration policies that are blocking this and most other real energy development – except what requires constant infusions of taxpayer subsidies. The drag on our economic recovery is enormous.
Develop American energy or say good-bye to jobs, revenue and modern living standards !
As Britain suffered through its coldest December in a century, families were forced to choose between keeping homes warm and feeding their children nourishing meals – thanks to climate policies that have forced extensive reliance on wind power and deliberately driven energy prices skyward.
Barely two months later, the UK’s power grid CEO informed the country that its days of reliable electricity are numbered. Families, schools, offices, shops, hospitals and factories will just have to “get used to” consuming electricity “when it’s available,” not necessarily when they want it or need it. A new “smart grid” will be used to allocate decreasing electricity supplies, on a rolling basis or according to bureaucratic determinations as to which consumers most need available power – mostly from wind turbines that provided a pitiful 0.04% of Britain’s electricity during its coldest days last December.
Meanwhile, the EU’s Energy Commissioner warned that German electricity prices are already at “the upper edge” of what society can accept and businesses can tolerate. Taxes, levies and regulations imposed in the name of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming are forcing companies to relocate to other countries and causing “a gradual process of de-industrialization” across Germany.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a full and independent investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, its practices and suspect science…
Read more…
http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/2011/03/welcome-to-third-world-paul-driessen.html
Watch this time lapse video of Kirishima volcano to the end, otherwise you will miss out on the surprise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-JTv8vkK0
Wonderful, thank you!
“Nuclear power plants shut down in Germany”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12745899
Here’s a German update perspective on Fukushima:
http://liberalesinstitut.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/update-zum-fukushima-storfall/
Thanks Pierre. The author explains that it is probably not the containment that is defective but a torus-shaped condensation chamber at the bottom of the reactor; it goes around the containment and has the purpose of allowing steam from the water cycle of the reactor to condense.
My thoughts:
So what escaped was not parts of the core but radioactive inert gases (that would be Xenon) – that’s bad enough, as a decay product of Xenon is Caesium, which can in the human body be inserted into bones and so become a long term health hazard. But it doesn’t indicate a core meltdown yet. And probably no plutonium around yet. That’s good.
Thanks, Dirk, for this summary in English.
Correction: Caesium accumulates in soft tissue; Plutonium is the one that accumulates in bones – at least according to Richard Black from the BBC, who describes the current levels of radiation rather concisely IMHO…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12732015
And this has a very important consequence:
“How long will any contamination last?
Radioactive iodine decays quite quickly. Most will have disappeared within a month. Radioactive caesium does not last long in the body – most has gone within a year. However, it lingers in the environment and can continue to present a problem for many years.”
Caesium has a half-life of 70 years.
Why oh Why are the nuclear plants shut down, i have not heard one reason yet as to why, so why shut them down, they are working, right, safely, right, so why shut them down. You cant fix stupid!
I gotta check the economics of micro generation with a Stirling engine and tax free LPG. Maybe it’s already cheaper than the grid.
I notice that the UK does not figure in your lists. I take it that the cut off point of 0 was chosen in order to hide the decline?
The vote from the UK jury for the next decade is minus 7 and counting!
Their heads are firmly buried in the sand, surprised we have enough sand!
AFAIK the UK is just building 3 GW of gas powered plants; that’s not too bad. Probably more will follow.
Germany produces only 14% of electricity with gas, we have some long-term contracts with the Russians that couple the prize of gas to the prize of oil – so the Russian gas is more expensive for us ATM than it would be on the world market. This could explain why we don’t use more gas.
In typical calm, no-nonsense German fashion, Energy Commissioner Öttinger describes the situation thusly:
“There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen,” he told the European Parliament.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12749444
/sarc
You couldn’t invent these people.
When you look at the DAX, you could think Munich had been vaporized. 😉
This is the big threat to big cities and disaster area’s:
The infrastructure is destroyed, no electricity, no car fuel and empty stores.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/japanese-first-person-account-ground-zero
In the mean time a mass evacuation of foreigners from Tokyo and NW Japan is underway:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/china-orders-mass-evacuation-its-citizens-northeast-japan
Every cloud has a silver lining:
“The German move also helped push the price of carbon emissions permits in Europe to its highest level since November 2008, as country substituted coal-fired power for nuclear generation.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12745796
A day for the warmists! /sarc
Business as usual: Russia, Belarus sign 9 billion nuclear power contract
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Russia-Belarus-sign-9-billion-apf-4040845331.html?x=0
The Fukushima news roller coaster continues to make headlines.
Most content reaches hysterical levels, only a few come in with a balanced and objective content.
The latest news is a report about the possible presence of 600.000 used fuel rods that have been stored above the reactors and in separate storage facilities at the Fukushima plant location approximately 20 years of fuel use. This is an incredible amount of nuclear material.
These used fuel rods are still very radioactive and with the water cooling interrupted the heat results in combustion releasing a deadly vapor.
You can read the entire story here:
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2011/03/14/nuke-engineer-fuel-rod-fire-at-stricken-reactor-would-be-like-chernobyl-on-steroids/
The latest news is that the used rods stored at Fukushima 4 reactor (out of service) have caught fire for the second time.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_EARTHQUAKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-15-18-34-09
The story here is that no country want’s to volunteer to be a depository for the used fuel rods.
Much of the Uranium used for these rods comes from Australia. There have been plans for Australia to build a used fuel depository some where out in the desert – many miles from any city or town. The NIMBY and anti nuke mob have so far nixed these plans.
Digitalglobes satellite imagery anaysis Fukushima
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/digitalglobes-satellite-imagery-analysis-fukushima
Reactor Design in Japan Has Long Been Questioned
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html?_r=2
DirkH
15. März 2011 at 20:36 | Permalink | Reply
“I gotta check the economics of micro generation with a Stirling engine and tax free LPG. Maybe it’s already cheaper than the grid”.
I am currently making the calculation for a propane generator for heating and electricity based on a praxis trial.
I already have a generator system based on a almost new SMART three cylinder engine and a fork lift engine that I salvaged from the scrap yard ready and installed and a mother tank which also allows me to fuel up my car installed in the garden. The exhaust emissions (water vapor and CO2) are diverted to a greenhouse in the garden.
For the fuel tank see:
http://www.propan.de/boote_tanken/boote_tanken.html
If you’re interested I send you the evaluation I think will be finished next month.
I also installed a 12 volt network through the entire house which is fed by two solar panels I savaged from a caravan which was removed from a camping and two ship batteries. I am using this all winter with the panels simply lying on the ground (easy to remove snow).
This is only for lighting (excellent 12 volt lamps, standard fitting at the camping and caravan shop), the lcd television and the computers.
The generator is planned for running the washing machine, the dish washer, the dryer, the microwave and the fridge.
I didn’t perform a long run test until now.
The idea is to be independent of the grid and have sufficient fuel storage to overcome a possible crises.
The solar panel were already five years old and I wouldn’t have bought them new anyway. The same goes for the batteries that were 2 years old but still going strong, all for very little money, just some time and effort.
The big mother tank (5440 ltr. allows me to fuel up the car, heat the house and generate electricity for at least three months and provides safe storage.
If everything sorts out well I will prepare and ship a similar system for use abroad.
Ron,
I didn’t know you were such the do-it-yourself type. Sounds interesting what you’ve got there. If you want to post the evaluation here, you’re welcome. These do-it-yourself projects are interesting for many readers.
PS: You don’t need a permit for keeping such a fuel tank on your property?
Magnified pictures of Fukashima 3 and 4
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/magnified-picture-reactors-3-and-4-post-explosion
P Gosselin
16. März 2011 at 09:43 | Permalink | Reply
Ron,
These do-it-yourself projects are interesting for many readers.
PS: You don’t need a permit for keeping such a fuel tank on your property?
Pierre,
If there is no natural gas grid available and you have the garden space you can have such a tank without any problems.
All the paperwork is taken care of by the supplier of the tank.
As for the set up of the generator there is nothing special about it.
It’s just a car engine welded on a steel frame driving a generator (electric engine of a fork lift)
You can buy Honda type generators delivering 1 KW/h up to 3 KW/h for
a few hundred euro on the web and convert them to propane.
I.M.O. this is a non story.
If you look at you tube and type in ‘home made generator’ you will find hundreds of do it yourself projects.
I selected a bigger engine (maybe not big enough) because I wanted electricity and heating and low rpm to limit noise production and high redundancy. But a bigger engine means an increase in fuel consumption so I think there won’t be a price to be earned for efficiency.
As said, my goal is to be independent from the grid and have a safe fuel stack available to bridge a longer period of time.
(I didn’t like the idea to stack gasoline)
On a professional level there are currently very efficient (but costly)
systems available to generate electricity and heat.
See: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/dear-england-power-to-you/
There is also the VW project “Lichtblick” for home power generation integrated in the grid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnmjmEmg_-E
What I don’t like about the Lichtblick AG system is that the idea behind the home power genertion is to couple those generators by remote control to compensate for the wind power fluctuations and the idea of bio gas use. Both biogas and wind power are based on a hoax and I don’t do hoaxes as I don’t like ‘control’ bought with public funding.
.The country will keep its seven oldest nuclear reactors.offline as part of a nationwide safety review to run through.June told reporters in Berlin today..Two of the seven are currently offline while the remainder.totals 5.2 gigawatts of the 20.7 gigawatts installed over.Germany s 17 reactors. .Germany which relies on reactors for 23 percent of its.power is the first European country to take such measures after.explosions at Japan s Fukushima plant sparked safety concerns..German electricity a European benchmark rose on the outlook.for lower supply while European Union carbon dioxide permits.gained as utilities may burn more fossil fuels to meet demand. The Japanese incident has country-specific aspects.that are unlikely to apply to Europe but the nuclear debate .especially in Germany is not governed by reason. .The federal government and premiers of the German states.where nuclear-power stations are located have agreed that.facilities that began operation before the end of 1980 are.being stopped for the duration of the moratorium Merkel said.after a meeting in Berlin today.