Greek green follies fail…a U-turn back to coal
Until recently, Greece was one of the largest operators of lignite-fired power plants in Europe, but in 2019 the new government took on the goal of shutting down all coal-fired power plants by 2023 and going green by 2030.
But that has turned out to be easier said than done. Greece now is putting lignite-fired power plants back into operation after a recent study by Greek electricity regulator RAE found the supply was at risk, especially in the cold winter months – due to the lack of reliable baseload power supply.
Natural gas too expensive
“With the rapid shutdown of the coal-fired power plants, electricity generation by gas-fired power plants in Greece rose to a total of 42 percent. However, Greece does not have natural gas reserves and therefore has to import the gas at a high price, making the price of electricity increasingly expensive and unaffordable for many Greeks.” reports Blackout News here. “Now the government is making a U-turn and wants to put the lignite-fired power plants that have already been shut down back into operation. For this reason, it is having the already dismantled power plants rebuilt.”
Expensive energy folly
In 2019, the new Greek government had the brilliant idea of shutting down all coal plants and going green – but wound up having to burn expensive gas and realizing it was costing too much. In summary: Dismantle the coal plants, use something that doesn’t work, and now go back to coal: An expensive and totally unnecessary energy folly.
Still, the Greek government still aims to change over more to wind and solar and so has already passed a new law to reduce the approval process for wind farms on the islands in the Aegean Sea to 150 days instead of several years.
Environmentalists against wind Aegean wind farms – no investors
Yet Blackout News reports that environmentalists are critical of wind farms in the Aegean Sea, especially Greenpeace Greece, who complain there’s neither any real planning nor designated areas where wind farms could be built.
Moreover, wind park construction licenses were granted for the island of Amorgos. “However, the plants have not been built to date. The potential investors have probably lost interest,” reports Blackout News.
So until they figure it all out, coal will be keeping the Greeks warm and the lights on.
[…] Greece Puts Coal Power Plants Shut Down in 2019 Back Into Operation…To Avert Winter Blackouts! […]
Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
When coal was king:
Big River by Jimmy Nail
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=big+river+lyrics&docid=607998538428284591&mid=D2D48DC1844D08CDC25ED2D48DC1844D08CDC25E&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
Coal is king, is it not? Lifts the barge, totes the bale.
20 million tons of coal is burned everyday on the planet, what harm can it do?
Greece has coal, burn it to generate electricity. Not a difficult decision to make the obvious choice, coal deposits exist, just mine the coal and fire up the power plant to generate electricity. The economics dictates what is used to supply electricity. Coal is energy dense, has applications for real world work, joules concentrated to benefit civilization. Nothing wrong with that.
Greeks in Greece will be happy to have the electricity. If you can fuel a ship with a million gallons of bunker fuel, you can burn coal by the millions of tons, not going to be a problem. Attach the smokestack scrubbers and you’ll have much cleaner emissions entering the atmosphere.
Coal prices increased too.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal
The Greek got cold feet.
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[…] Reposted from the NoTricksZone […]
Gypsies of Europe 😋
UK have just blown up the chimney at a Scottish coal fired power station. Won’t be easy to restart it.
[…] Reposted from the NoTricksZone […]
No, Greece has put lignite power plants only in limited operation. About 6-8% is produced by lignite power plants, 40-50% of electricity comes from natural gas.
Daily data at https://www.enexgroup.gr/ or the Entso-e Transparency Platform.
Of course Greece is not a natural gas producer. But the government is closing down the mines in order to offer them to RWE for P/V installations: almost 1GW P/Vs are planned only at the former Amynteon lignite mine. More are yet to come …
[…] So until they figure it all out, coal will be keeping the Greeks warm and the lights on.No Tricks Zone […]
[…] So, until they figure it all out, coal will be keeping the Greeks warm and the lights on.No Tricks Zone […]