Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking.<p>From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this causes the regulatory requirements to prevent nuclear from being economically viable.<p>The article does a good job of covering the risks, but personally I'd bet on the Germans here - even if the 'Energiewende' doesn't pay off per se, the rewards from the science and engineering knowhow will be huge. The only comparable project I can think of is the Apollo Program, though a quick google suggests that was never more than 1% of GDP, and the returns from the science on that were massive and lasted for decades. Likewise, CERN, which was about as blue-sky as things get, gave us the World Wide Web: completely tangential to its stated purpose, but what kind of rate of return did that give us?<p>So here's a question for the peanut gallery: has there ever been a large-scale public investment program into science and engineering (that ISN'T based on destroying things in new and exciting ways) that has not proved to be a good investment in the long run?<p>(On a side note, I <i>really</i> want to have a stickybeak around a 30MW AC/DC converter!)
I don't like this. Instead of heavily subsidizing some technologies, they should tax externalities (i.e. pollution) and let the markets do the rest. It's annoying having to pay 15% more energy bills because somebody has decided that wind and solar are the hot thing of the moment.<p>Bad, really bad. Same way of thinking that brought us to the debt crisi in Europe.
The article has a heavily biased view. Some points it gets wrong:<p>>"If you close eight nuclear plants, which were carbon-free, overnight, you will increase carbon emissions,"<p>Nuclear plants are not carbon free. Getting the uranium, transporting the nuclear waste, transporting the people who run the plant costs a lot of carbon emissions. You need to look at the whole picture.<p>>Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air conditioners<p>The summer in Germany isn't that hot. Middle europe, not california. Accordingly, we don't have air conditioners (in general)<p>Look at who is cited - People from large companies loosing their monopoly and Sinn, a conservative "expert".
Can somebody explain to me the part of the article where it says you have to convert AC to DC to travel long distances (for far offshore wind power)? I understood it to be the exact opposite, that AC could go long distances without major loss and DC needed a new station every few blocks.
I find the criticism torwards the Energiewende quite hard to understand, sure it is a very difficult problem but unless we find a fundamentally new energy source or nuclear fusion becomes viable the path Germany is on is without alternative. It's better to work on the problem now, developing knowledge that helps our economy and makes us a worldwide leader than holding it off unless we are near collapse due to oil prices or worse have to engage in a war about resources, especially since the latter is something Germany must not engage in.
I guess the problem with a long article, even an interesting long article like the one submitted here, is that it is hard to read to the end. Near the end of the submitted article is this paragraph:<p>"A second problem is that even when it comes to alternative energy sources, Germany doesn't reward carbon dioxide reduction. Rather, its policy establishes well-defined subsidies for specific technologies: a kilowatt-hour of solar power is rewarded more than power from offshore wind, which in turn earns more than power from onshore wind. Even though solar subsidies have been reduced to rates far lower than the ones Leurs locked in, solar power still pays the highest rates. If reducing emissions were the focus, however, more money would be directed toward reducing energy use. 'If you could choose the optimal instruments, focusing on those areas first where you can achieve your goals most inexpensively, you would focus not so much on renewables but much more on efficiency,' says Pittel, the energy economist from Munich."<p>This ignores the advice of Amory Lovins<p><a href="http://www.rmi.org/Amory+B.+Lovins" rel="nofollow">http://www.rmi.org/Amory+B.+Lovins</a><p>(Amory Lovins profile page at Rocky Mountain Institute website)<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/speakers/amory_lovins.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/speakers/amory_lovins.html</a><p>(TED profile)<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_a_50_year_plan_for_energy.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_a_50_year_plan_for_ene...</a><p>(TED Talk video "A 40-year plan for energy")<p>and generally the advice of any thoughtful scholar on how to improve worldwide energy efficiency. The German Energiewende plan is a remarkable example of intentionally wrong policy choices that waste the money of German taxpayers and utility rate-payers and delay innovation. It's a good thing that other countries have differing policies that better encourage innovation, especially innovation to reduce energy consumption.<p>AFTER EDIT:<p>Another subthread here talks about the economics of importing energy versus producing it domestically. An astute HN participant mentioned the principle of comparative advantage. For onlookers who may not have seen a good reference on comparative advantage, I suggest "Ricardo's Difficult Idea,"<p><a href="http://www.pkarchive.org/trade/ricardo.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pkarchive.org/trade/ricardo.html</a><p>by an economist who has been awarded the Nobel memorial prize in economics, an essay that explains why trading for resources is generally much, much better than trying to produce all resources within national borders.<p>There are some other good explanations of the principle of comparative advantage easily found via an online search:<p><a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadv...</a><p><a href="http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/cadv_e.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/cadv_e.htm</a><p><a href="http://iang.org/free_banking/david.html" rel="nofollow">http://iang.org/free_banking/david.html</a>
I liked the article but think that it's missing the point: very soon there will be no other choice of what direction to take. We are saying "It's risky! Let's just sit back and watch." as if the status quo can go on as our energy consumption and populations both continue to grow. There will be mistakes made along the way, but mark my words, the Germans are going to be eating our lunch faster than you can say Energiewende.
I'm living in Germany and to support this 'Energiewende', I'm only buying green electricity. It is more expensive but I'm happy to pay more if I can boost the industry around it and also help our environment. Many young people think like this.
> [They] decided to build a polysilicon plant in Tennessee, partly because energy costs in Germany were so high.<p>This makes USA look like a 3rd world country being used as a haven for environmentally harmful industry installations.
One of the things that always surprises me when talking about lulls from wind and solar power, is that the assumption always is that we _have_ to provide continuous power. Would it not be possible to have industrial facilities that run in bursts when the energy is available (or more likely cheap), and then turn off again? Sure, this is not as easy as the old way to do things, but seriously, this is not impossible, nature essentially works in this way. Prime candidates would include extremely energy intensive industrial processes with short runtimes.
This is not an 'experiment'. But please go on telling us that it is impossible, we'll get it done it even quicker. For an engineer, there is no better motivation.
Stephan Reimelt, CEO of GE Energy Germany: "Germany is forcing itself toward innovation. What this generates is a large industrial laboratory at a size which has never been done before. We will have to try a lot of different technologies to get there."<p>It has been done before, at far greater scale. WW1 and WW2. Some of the best innovations or inventions are derived out of a person or a nation having their back to the wall. Hence the famous saying: "necessity, who is the mother of invention" (dating back a mere 2400 years or so, and it's probably older as a known premise).<p>I would anticipate very impressive industrial breakthroughs in renewable energy coming from the German experiment.