Archive for the ‘Angela Merkel’ Category

April 4, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

What do you do when you’ve suddenly lost 7,000 megawatts of nuclear power?  Why you start importing electricity from someone who hasn’t closed their reactors, of course.
 
That’s what Germany has done since Chancellor Angela Merkel – surrounded by Greens – took the hasty step of closing down Germany’s seven oldest  reactors in response to Fukushima. Reuters reports today what seemed inevitable – the Germans, formerly an exporter of power, are now importing 12 percent of their electricity, mostly from France and the Czech Republic. Those countries have power to spare because they rely heavily on . . . . nuclear energy.

“Prior to this, a scenario typical of March had been in place, involving net exports of 70 to 150 GWh a day,” reports Reuters. "Power imports from France and the Czech Republic have doubled, those into the Netherlands and Switzerland have halved.”

That hasn’t been the only impact. “Wholesale prices of German quarterly power in 2011 have risen by 12 percent,” says Reuters, quoting a report from BDEW, the German utility industry association. “Carbon emissions prices have also risen by 10 percent.”

Chancellor Merkel ordered a three-month shutdown after Greens raised a public outcry over Fukushima. The uproar is likely to increase by the end of this month with the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl. Greenpeace International is reportedly preparing to release a study claiming a million people around the world died as a result of that accident. An extensive UN report done five years ago said the figure was 60 deaths with the possibility of 4,000 additional cancers. Analysts are going to be challenged trying to figure out why there is such a discrepancy between the two reports.

Read more about it at Reuters
 

If you think we’ve got it bad in this country from anti-nuclear detractors, take a look at what’s happening in Germany.
 
Riled up by the Merkel government’s decision to extend the life of the nation’s nuclear plants, anti-nuke protesters descended upon an isolated railroad bridge near Dannenberg and stopped a train carrying nuclear waste shipments by chaining themselves to the tracks. Riot police dealt with the mob of about 4,000.
 
The waste is the residue of a much larger volume of spent fuel shipped annually to AREVA’s reprocessing plant at Le Hague. The French extract 90 percent of the material as useful products and then vitrify the remaining 10 percent in glass. This glassed material is then shipped back to Germany. The French are storing all their vitrified material from 30 years of operating their 59 reactors beneath the floor of one room at Le Hague. The residue from Germany’s 17 reactors is being stored at a warehouse near Dannenberg in preparation for permanent storage in a geological repository.
 
About 25,000 protesters marched in Dannenberg on Saturday against the storage facility and then a rump faction of about 4,000 attacked the train on Sunday. Small squads hung a banner from the railroad bridge and then others tied themselves to the tracks. Police eventually removed the protesters and the shipment moved on, eventually arriving safely at its destination.  Apparently none of the protesters feared being in such close proximity to the 16-inch-thick steel casks.
 
The great irony of the German protests is that Chancellor Merkel still has not worked up the nerve to tell her country that the only way it will ever be able to replace the 26 percent of its electricity provided by nuclear will be by reverting to coal or natural gas. Instead, Merkel insists that the extension of nuclear is a “bridge to a renewable future.”  Protesters are suspicious that this “bridge” is only leading to a nuclear future – and they are right, since renewables will never be able to carry 25 percent of Germany’s electrical load. Nonetheless, anti-nuclear sentiment is gaining ground in Germany, with almost 50 percent of the population now opposed. All this does not bode well for the future of the German economy.

Read more at the Lethbridge Herald
 

In a day when even the major news outlets don’t seem to have a good grasp on what’s happening in the energy world, you have to rely on the blogs.



Dan Yurman’s “Idaho Samizdat” (now relocated to Ohio) gives a magnificent example in this long and penetrating analysis of Germany’s nuclear follies.


Did you know that Chancellor Angela Merkel may have imposed the 50 percent tax on nuclear reactors profits as a trap for German Green groups?  Once the government becomes so completely dependent on these revenues, it will be impossible for the Greens to close them down. And did you realize that Greens foresaw this trap and opposed the tax anyway because they will settle for nothing less than a nuclear-free Germany?


 â€¨Did you know that millions of Germans have their pensions vested in the nation’s four utility stocks and that the utilities may be using the threat of dividend cuts in their efforts to escape the burden of the tax?
 â€¨As Patrick Moore comments, every wind farm and solar collector the Germans put up just means more natural gas imported from Russia. Yet anti-nuclear sentiment is running so strong in Germany right now that is may cost Merkel the next election.


Read this blog entry for the best analysis yet on Germany’s dance with energy suicide.

Read more at Idaho Samizdat