Just a couple of days ago I talked with some british folks about renewable energy and the german energy policy. Apparently German polititians finaly understood what the people have demanded for decades already. At least since the protests against the planed nuclear power plant in Wyhl in the early 1970s there is a big movement against nuclear power in Germany.
Ever since, the polititians repeated their mantra: “Without nucelar power we will have blackouts.”
Ignoring the fact that other major european countries do not use nuclear power in their energy mix. Ignoring the huge potential of renewable energy. Ignoring the dangers that nuclear energy brings even to high-tech countries.
My british friends made a deprecatory comment like: “Yeah it is nice to shut down your nuclear power plants and then import the nuclear energy from France.“.
That seems to be the narrative framed by the british media – or at least thats what stick with the people. Even though I don t know my friends for a long time I would guess that they are quite aware of politics and especially sensible for environmental news. So I was in fact quite surprised by their comment.
I answered, that even though we shut down 8 nuclear reactos after Fukushima, we still export energy to our neighboring countries. Reading the Newspaper this morning I could not resist a big smile when I read, that even while facing an unusual wave of cold wheater in central Europe, we are actually exporting energy to France – the biggest nuclear energy producer in Europe.
How did that come? Due to a German Renewable Energy Act, introduced by the green party and the social-democrats in 2000, Germany managed to boost the share or renewable energy supply on total electricity consumption from 6.4 % in 2000 to more then 20 % in 2011. Our Minister of Economy (head of a marginal 3 % liberal party) Philipp Rössler wants to undermine this law by cutting down on the secure payment of little solar power plants who are mostly owned by individuals or families as a personal investment or by cooperatives who try to build up local energy supply. Ignoring the fact that in these days of high energy demand the nuclear energy actually provides almost 10 000 MW in peak hours (that is the equivalent of seven nuclear power plants).
Face it! The future is renewable!












