I guess, there is always space for another “Why are you closing your nuclear reactors Germany” story to rehash the same old points… It is unfortunate that angle gets that much airtime.
Here is what I wish we highlighted about the Energiewende. 👇
nytimes.com/2020/01/08/opi…
Here is what I wish we highlighted about the Energiewende. 👇
nytimes.com/2020/01/08/opi…
1/ GHG emissions per capita were 80 percent higher in the United States than in Germany in 2017 – which is a polite way to say that the United States has a lot of work to do merely to be able to see Germany eye-to-eye on carbon footprint. That's a good place to start.
2/ Will Germany miss its 2020 targets? Yes, but only by a bit. In fact, in 2019, there was a sharp drop in coal production, bringing Germany much closer to its 2020 target. cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-…
3/ Side note: with the steep decline in 2019, Germany has cut coal-fired generation by 42% vs. 2007 (and 45% vs. 1990, the target baseline). If you use the Rhodium estimate for U.S. coal in 2019, the decline is 53% vs. 2007 and 41% vs 1990. So not *that* different.
4/ The usual story, in Germany, is that power is pulling its weight in delivering GHG reductions but other sectors are not. That’s only partly true. Industry is down 29% vs 1990, households 30%, and the commercial sector is 42% (data only to 2016 for this sector).
5/ Industry stopped delivering GHGs gains post 2001 – so the reductions were possibly driven by restructuring in East Germany. And GHGs from the commercial sector have also stopped falling for 15 years now. But the targets are set against 1990; most sectors have delivered.
6/ The problem, of course, is transportation, where emissions are exactly where they were in 1990, which is bad relative to the 1990 target (to be fair, in the United States, transportation emissions are up 22% vs. 1990).
7/ This brings us back to nuclear power. Could Germany have achieved its 2020 if it had not reduced nuclear power? Likely yes, although the reductions in nuclear output as not as dramatic as you might think: -65 TWh in 2007-2019 (when coal output in 2019 was over 170 TWh).
8/ But that’s how democracies work—they don’t follow the techno-economic optimal path. This is also a reminder: you can have leadership that believes in climate change and wants to act, and the politics can still be super difficult. Broad calls for "action" only get you so far.
9/ Did Germany pay for the Energiewende? Sure. But there is also a tendency to exaggerate the costs without context. Electricity prices are high, but consumption is lower so the net cost (as a share of household income) is not that different vs. the United States.
10/ And by the way, retail electricity prices rose in the United States too – the German increase was higher – but not only due to the renewables surcharge (there was also a spike in taxes). Once you account for that, the changes are not super different.
11/ And of course the more outlandish fears – that the Energiewende would undermine the economy or lead to rolling blackouts – none of that came to pass. Plus, Germany subsidized the decline in the cost curve for renewables for all of us.
12/ So sure, say what you want about German attitudes about nuclear power. But that's climate policy in a democracy -- and harping on this issue is just an effort to make a political point. It’s not an actual assessment of the Energiewende. (fin)
