Thread by @sollidnuclear

The Green Transition In Denmark Has Collapsed 🇩🇰

In short:
🕯️ Brown outs already in the 2030’s
🔌 Dependent on neighboring countries
🪵 2/3 of renewables comes from biomass
🌬️ Offshore wind tender fiasco
🏝️ Energy islands postponed

A mega thread 🧵
1/24

🔌 Brown outs already in the 2030’s

On Wedensday, @BrianVad, one of Denmark’s leading professors in 100% renewable energy systems, sounded the alarm over possible power shortages. Ironically, he’s one of the same individuals that for many years recommended a 100% RE system.
2/24

This 100% RE system is the kind of academic table top exercise that have let us to this outcome.

This comes after the Danish TSO @EnerginetDK published its annual report on Security of Supply, which makes the argument: In the future Denmark will face serve power needs.
3/24

🔌 Dependent on neighboring countries

Denmark are also expected to have the lowest domestic security of supply in the future. In 2034 Energinet expects domestic production in Denmark only being able to cover around 25-40% of its consumption in the most critical hour.
4/24

By comparison countries like Norway, Sweden and France are able to cover between 75-100% of their consumption with domestic production.

Denmark will therefore by far be the country most dependent on its neighbors in the future.
5/24

In 20-30% of the year Denmark will need to import electricity from its neighbors to keep on the lights.

In some hours Denmark will need to import between 7-11 GW of electricity in 2034. Today the maximum import requirements in Denmark are between 1-3 GW.
6/24

The recommendation by Mathiesen would be to extend the biomass fired power plants in Denmark long into the 2030’s to secure supply.

This is quite ironic as Mathiesen and his colleagues have fought against nuclear energy on Danish soil for centuries.
7/24

His colleague and former PhD supervisor Henrik Lund was one of the central figures in The Anti Nuclear Movement in Denmark back in the 1980’s.

Today Henrik Lund is a professor at Aalborg University in Denmark and the Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s high impact journal Energy
8/24

Henrik Lund said in an article from 2020 that “Nuclear energy is not a dream. It’s a nightmare”.
Lund and Mathiesen have published reports and articles on how nuclear energy is not economically feasible in Denmark, at the same time recommending biomass plants to be extended.
9/24

🪵 2/3 of renewables come from biomass

At the same time as Mathiesen sounds the alarm and recommends to keep the biomass powered power plants running, Danish national broadcaster @tv2danmark aired a documentary about Denmark’s unsustainable use of biomass.
10/24

https://twitter.com/sollidnuclear/status/1683467634216509443

Most of Danish biomass is imported, which for several decades have been criticized.

While Danish energy giant Ørsted, which operates most of these plant, claim their biomass use as sustainable, new evidence show that this is a truth with modifications.
11/24

https://twitter.com/sollidnuclear/status/1683467654282002433

In the documentary Danish journalist Morten Speigelhauer visits Estonia, where most of Danish imported biomass comes from.

Here we see Estonian wood pellet manufactures use large healthy tree trunks in their wood pellet manufacturing.
12/24

At the same time Ørsted claims their imports only consists of scrap wood and branches.

This is also the case with the U.S. company Enviva, which claims to only use scrap wood. Speigelhauer and his team once again deliever hard photographic evidence of this not being true at all.
13/24

🌬️ Offshore wind tender fiasco

If all this wasn’t enough for the danish green transition to shake, yesterday the Danish energy department announced that not a single company wants to build offshore wind in the Danish North Sea.
14/24

https://twitter.com/sollidnuclear/status/1864707506494112122

The wind tender was constructed on the basis of the Danish state being able to earn money on private companies building wind turbines in Danish sea territory. This was the case for the offshore park Thor that back in 2022 got announced by German energy giant RWE.
15/24

For the last decade Danish politicians and lobbyists in the wind sector have guaranteed that offshore wind wouldn’t need state subsidies. Therefore it’s quite humorous to see several people in the industry whine about there not being any CFD’s in the Danish offshore tender.
16/24

It’s very clear that offshore can’t survive without state subsidies. Trying to convince the public otherwise is just misleading and irresponsible. Saying this, I’m sure several people will comment that nuclear energy also needs state subsidies.
17/24

I’m not saying this is wrong, but no large nuclear utility has tried to convince the public for decades that nuclear energy wouldn’t need state backing.
18/24

🏝️ Energy islands postponed

One day before the news about the offshore tender, Danish energy agency announced that the 3 GW tender for Energy Island Bornholm would be postponed one year.
19/24

Due to problems with funding of the infrastructure surrounding the project, the agency had to postpone any bids on the offshore farms tied to the project. As the other 3 GW didn’t get any bids, it’s likely that the 3 GW at Bornholm wouldn’t get any interest either.
20/24

The whole project surrounding Energy Island Bornholm has been criticized by several independent councils and organizations as being uneconomical.

The same goes with the Energy Island North Sea that earlier this year was postponed by three years due to financing issues.
21/24

https://twitter.com/sollidnuclear/status/1843712166375162271

🤔 What will happen?

Denmark has put itself in a classic “Catch-22” dilemma.

On one hand we want to decarbonize our grid with wind and solar, but also keep our security of supply.

Both makes us reliant on burning unsustainable biomass for years to come.
22/24

Also the deployment of wind and solar have stalled as projects are not economically feasible anymore.

It doesn’t matter what Denmark does. It all leads to a greater emission of greenhouse gases, as the burning of biomass will continue.
23/24

The Danish government will be forced to keep its large power plants running as back-up, putting an extremely high extra toll on Danish taxpayers.

Denmarks green transition has officially collapsed.
24/24