The German power generation structure is characterized by a widely diversified energy mix. In 2008, gross power generation was supplied as follows: coal - 47.3% (within this, lignite, domestic - 24.5% and hard coal, imported - 22.8%), nuclear - 22.1%, natural gas - 11.7%, hydro - 4.3%, wind energy - 6.2% and other energy sources - 7.1%. Oil contributed 1.3 % to power generation. This means that hard coal and lignite, as well as nuclear energy, are the mainstays of the German power industry.

(Source; German energy industry association BDEW in Berlin. The figures allow for rounding errors. Compiled by Vera Eckert and Madeline Chambers)

If it takes one of Europe’s mightiest economic powerhouses fifteen years and bucket loads of cheap Euro subsidies, to build wind farm fleets that only produce 6.2% of their energy, how long will it take Australia Mr. Brown?

And they are still burning lignite at 24.5% and hard coal at 22.8%?

Angela M now says the nuclear fleet will be phased out by 2022? At their current 10% energy growth rate that 22% nuclear replacement from renewables will be nearer 30%, not to mention the “spinning backup” that wind farms need. More East German Lignite I guess?

There’s also an article in the Telegraph business section last week about Scottish and Southern Energy selling more of its wind farm fleet to France to raise money to build more wind farms, this is because the European “green capital funding” mechanisms have collapsed.

If anyone can make sense of these numbers and timeframes, you’re a better man than me Gungadin!

When are we going to recognize this Euro-madness for what it is and stop trying to follow?

No body believes that Germany has a snowball's chance in hell of building sufficient renewable generation to replace nuclear by 2022. Either the vast majority will be bought in, the coal and gas generation will be ramped up, or simply the pledge ditched once the public realises the massive costs of such silly greens ideology.

This should be a lesson to the Australian public of the consequences of the greens being able to flex power.

This is typical of European politics.

The experience of the Euro should be taken as the perfect example. A bunch of self-important politicians get together and design a currency that, from the outset, is logically unworkable. The idea that sovereign entities should straitjacket themselves into a pegged exchange rate and restricted interest-rate regime is itself nonsensical without political cohesion. To this needs be added that fact that to join the team, you had to demonstrate "a budget deficit of less than three per cent of their GDP, a debt ratio of less than sixty per cent of GDP, low inflation, and interest rates close to the EU average"

It has become abundantly clear that these criteria were widely ignored, with the predictable results that we are witnessing today. I have absolutely no doubt that the same lip-service is being paid today to emission "targets".

Why anybody is remotely surprised, is itself surprising.

the..'closing down'..of nukepower..is a decade away
[things will change much in that time]

[dont take the 'promises made'..to 'phase it out seriously

who knows pole shifts do happen...
p-lus..[why arnt the germans HEADLINE getting/lying
[just like our own juliar?]

heard the latest 'joke'

i must note the exclusion of 'fuel'
from the 1000...[alone...lol..]..who must be paying..the big new tax

is it only 800 now [ie big poluters]..who 'will pay'?

so the big poluting transport mining agri'culture'...
are asured their 'petro'/polution...lol...wont be taxed

its turning into a typical july ju-LIAR spin
what her next disaster?

how is the sacking of the WHOLE coal industry..
going to create 'jobs'

are they and the transport mobs
not going to KEEP ON RECIEVING..their 12 billion fuel subsidies
on top of not getting a tax on their petro polution

will gas and heating oil also be excluded
[watch..that will be taxed...yet the kero..
of the airline INdust-try..as 'fuel'...wont be taxated?

its getting more messy ju-liar
go clean up your room

and clean up your act

we had enough of the drooling greenies
and the dribbling privateers
at media grab's...they keep nibbling

and where to get the others...now exluded
to keep the.."only 1000 lol
*will/must...may? pay"..

ie keep the media spin/lies...lie going
long enough to collect their generouse pensions
[for less than 100 working days....sitting down...listening]

then voting

as the party machine whiff/whimp..[whip]..
tells them to vote
the party line

yep i question the blooming lot of em
politrical polution..[politrickian]
the representantion you got
when your not represented

Firstly, A. Merkel is the German Chancellor and a world leader; you direspectful overpaid underworked genx/y desk jockeys can address her as such. Secondly, I detect a note of fear that the good times may be coming to an end. Fear is good if it means replacing the inane, self absorbed diatribe of nonsense that passes for informed opinion in the media. Germany has announced the end of the nuclear industry as the main supplier of energy going into the future.The only good thing to come out of the Fukushima meltdown was the wake up call that nuclear power isn't safe and that the men in charge (Tepco)are somewhere between plain dumb and insane. Renewables are the future.The only reason we are subjected to the apologist pro-coal line here in Australia is the vested interest of the global coal mining companies and the equally corrupt coal mining unions. More men somewhere bewteen plain dumb and insane. You genx/ys will get to be in a war; the war on overconsumption and greed.

Hestia

I agree with your comment for the most part, but suspect your 'audience' is made up of Baby Boomers. Sad but true.

Hestia, that was really good. Not sure what you said but it was definitely plausible.

Anyway, back to the post, we have the all detailed numbers from Germany and we have Angela M’s policy.

Clearly the stated aim and the current status do not correlate. So the question was can anyone make any sense of the numbers and the timeframes?

If you can’t that’s OK because we can’t either.

Don’t have a brain snap over it, it really is not worth it.

I guess I’ve just set us up for another blown fuse?

Thanks for that Hestia,

Please the note the hi level of hydro power in germany twice as high than Australia which can be quickly increased to compensate for when their is no wind for the wind turbines or at night when the sun does not shine.

Per capita greenhouse emissions and oil consumption in Australia are 50% more than in Germany. Even though Australia has thrice as much wind and solar energy potential as germany.

The people on this list should show respect for Angela Merkel.

Hestia,

If Angela Merkel acts like a populist pinhead, and implements bad policy to cling to power, then she does not deserve respect. (the same goes for Juliar). I am sure that with the influence of the greens that good times for everyone will be a distant memory.

Nuclear is still the safest power generation system per kWhr.

Ummmm... really, PEST?

>>Please the note the hi level of hydro power in germany twice as high than Australia which can be quickly increased...<<

What is involved in "quickly increasing" hydro power?

Is it cheap? If so, why hasn't it already been done?

SM

Then I expect you to put your hand up for building Australia's nuclear reactors in your backyard.

With the resultant waste buried in your front-yard.

Cheers

Hestia Welcome, now no chance I will side with those you are in combat with.
I too am not sure just what your views care, you put more in to your impersonation of that Mother in law in the Email.
We Australians are not the hat over the heart people some are.
I have more respect for some here in this thread than I do, and its not easy to say, for my country's leader and opposition.
Your leader is yours not being rude but she is of no interest to most of us, it is our nature .
Pest welcome too like you both to stick around we need new thoughts ideas and my welcome is an honest one.
PS saying I respect more does not mean a lot.

@Shadow Minister: No body believes that Germany has a snowball's chance in hell of building sufficient renewable generation to replace nuclear by 2022.

I'd have to agree. The country with precious little wind, solar or anything else or note. 10 years isn't long. It will be interesting to see how far they get.

@Shadow Minister: If Angela Merkel acts like a populist pinhead, and implements bad policy to cling to power, then she does not deserve respect. (the same goes for Juliar).

Indeed Shadow. But as usual this would carry a lot more weight if you saw fit to put our other notable populist in that list, Abbott.

By the way, you have been right on NBN pricing. I may have been mislead by the current NBN pricing from ISP's (recall in some cases it is identical to their current ADSL prices - even though it gives you faster access). An ISP rep who should know told me this was an artefact of something I didn't understand about the state of the NBN right now. He said Telstra charges for a naked ADSL link (ie no analogue phone) is significantly lower than what the NBN will charge.

It's a pity I don't believe you were right for any good reason. I don't think you had a clue what the pricing would be. You were just parroting the Liberal line, which under Abbott's leadership seems to be made up as he goes along. His benchmark for "truth" seem to be whether it will be enthusiastically swallowed by his side. But as you say, Julia isn't much better.

Wind farms in Germany for that matter anywhere in Europe has no comparison to Australia. The land mass of Australia is twenty two times the size of Germany. All of Germany is developed and populated whereas most of the land mass of our country is wind-swept and barren.
An ideal location for wind-farms. So I think that the Greens have got it right this time.

Ammonite,

"Then I expect you to put your hand up for building Australia's nuclear reactors in your backyard.

With the resultant waste buried in your front-yard."

Are you 12 years old?

Nuclear has 1/2 the rate of fatalities of any other generation, even wind or solar. Look it up.

When a plane crashes it is a disaster, just that it happens so seldom that it is still the safest way to travel.

Rstuart.

I appreciate your acknowledgement. While I admit that I am biased against labor, I take pains not to write anything that is baseless. Perhaps my loathing of Labor is from these pinhead populist policies that are patently against the public interest. Similarly, promising to overcompensate their voter base is akin to buying votes.

Abbott is the master of the short slogan, and while I don't agree with everything he does, his techniques have very effectively kept the spotlight on Labor's failures. While I preferred Turnbull's more professional style, Abbott is undoubtedly effective.

PEST, sooner or later you are going to have to deal with fact rather than fiction. You suggest that Germany’s 4.3% contribution from Hydro can be “quickly increased”. The UK’s Hydro systems can run at peak for 2.2 days before its water supply would be exhausted. Sweden keep theirs topped up by using wind electricity from Denmark to pump back into the catchment. It’s free electricity because Denmark can’t sell it.

So how do you propose dialing up Germany’s Hydro?

Lexi,

Stuart Young Consulting on behalf of the John Muir Trust entitled “Analysis of Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to March 2010” (Actual data from wind generators grid connections)

1. Average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.
2. There were 124 separate occasions from November 2008 till December 2010 when total generation from the wind farms metered by National Grid was less than 20MW. (Average capacity over the period was in excess of 1600MW).
3. The average frequency and duration of a low wind event of 20MW or less between November 2008 and December 2010 was once every 6.38 days for a period of 4.93 hours.
4. At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.
Also, during the study period, wind generation was:
• Below 20% of capacity more than half the time.
• Below 10% of capacity over one third of the time.
• Below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve.
• Below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
The discovery that for one third of the time wind output was less than 10% of capacity, and often significantly less than 10%, was an unexpected result of the analysis.
Coal, $68 per Kw/h, Wind, $1,456 per Kw/h, Solar, $4,482 per Kw/h.

Tell us again about this wind farm dream of yours? Or will you just give us a fresh one?

Wow, spindoc. At those prices, the energy companies must be on the brink of bankruptcy. Assuming an average household electricity consumption of 16 kWh per day (an old statistic, I know), and assuming that electricity comes only from coal, we are spending on average $1088 a day on electricity. And that's just household use. Now my power bill is quite high, but not that high ...

@Otokonoko: Wow, spindoc. At those prices, the energy companies must be on the brink of bankruptcy.

Yeah, and he's posted those exact figures twice now ... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12277#212006

He meant MW/hr, I think. Even so $4,482 per MW/hr for solar translates to $4.48 per KW/hr. And what, is he claiming people actually pay this?

If spindoc can find someone, anyone, who will pay me that sort of money, I'm gonna be a billionaire. I don't care if they even demand 90% availability - at that price I could inflate a billion shopping bags under the sea to store it. Or I could level the snowies to put in pumped storage. The mind boggles at what you could do with that amount of money.

SM,

Regarding nuclear. You claim that flying is the safest way to
travel. And when a plane crashes I believe you can clean it up
with a minimal amount of inconveniece. Nuclear power however
may be very efficient but when the power station fails the fall out
will remain for 100 years leaving future generations in the area
left to suffer.

spindoc,

Thanks for your info about wind farms. I believe that any new
technology will improve with time and be perfected. We have to give
renewable energy solutions a chance to work. Sailing ships circumnavigated the earth and today we have giant self-powered liners
doing the same in shorter time and more efficiency. So wind-farms will evolve. It's the inevitable advancement of technology. Dreaming is part of innovation and that's how civilisations advance. Nothing
is achieved through inaction.

Lexi, much as it would be nice to think so, wind power can not deify physics. It is not going to evolve, it is a blind alley.

Yes it was once the best we had for sailing ships, or the Dutch to pump water, but it was never even reliable enough to mill grain. We used water wheels for that, & only very rarely wind mills.

Today the Swedes get wind power from the Danes, who can't use it in their grid, for almost nothing, & guess what they do with it. Yes, as did the Dutch for hundreds of years, they pump water with it. It's too hard to use it for anything much else.

When I first went sailing in 1972 I spent quite a bit of money on a wind generator, & a solar array to charge my batteries. They failed miserably. Even in the trade winds, in the tropics, combined they could not do what a 0.6 horse power Honda generator could do using only 2 litres of fuel a week.

So don't dream of wind power, all it really does is make annoying, & possibly health damaging noise.

I'm sure solar will become useful sometime, but not anytime soon. If it does it will be because of some developments from private enterprise. It will not come from any amount of tax payer money thrown at some academics. They are always too comfortable to do much that is useful.

A number of EU countries now know that wind won't work, ask the Danes, & are now telling the EU to go jump, with it's requirements for percentages of renewable power. Germany is one of them. It now appears it is only the rather silly poms that are trying to destroy themselves with wind power investments.

Dear Hasbeen,

Yes with the current technology you are right. Computers today in comparison to ten years ago have made major advancements so too utilizing computer technology and advanced mechanics such as super-efficient gearing no doubt could make the simplest breeze more
efficient. We may not see it in our life-time but unless efforts are made to develop wind technology we may never succeed. I'm not an
engineer but to me it's only logical having seen the advancements made in the past 30 years in all forms of technology - why should
wind be any different. If at first you don't succeed --- well you know the rest. Why dismiss something that doesn't work today - don't give up. There are many great inventions that came out of the minds of Australian inventors that we use today. I'm sure somebody in the future will solve your concern about wind energy.

Lexi, Otokonoko, rstuart,

Now that you’ve all had your little dreams and diversions, when are you going to at least attempt to advise Angela M on how to convert 6.2% of energy contribution after 15 years of effort, into 30% contribution in the next 13 years?

Do we just leave reality out of the debate and “hope” or “believe” it will all just happen?

Or is your case dependent, like Germany’s, on burning more lignite?

Lexi, mate, it is like this.

Electricity is energy. It can only be produced by the expenditure of energy. Electricity is merely one medium we use to transport energy from one place to another, where we wish to use it.

With thermal power plants we harvest the energy in a fuel, fossil or renewable, by burning it, & using it's heat energy to generate steam, which drives turbines, to generate our electricity.

The energy density in a fuel is critical. With fossil fuels this is high, but with many renewables they are very low. You could generate electricity by burning straw, but if you have to transport that straw very far to a power house, you will use more energy in the transportation, than the straw can generate, a loss situation.

With solar & wind you are harvesting the power generated by the nuclear reaction in the sun. Wind is merely redistributing the heat from the sun, that has been unevenly distributed/absorbed on the planet.

It is the inertia in the traveling air that we harvest with a wind mill. This inertia is "used up" in driving the windmill. That is the wind is slowed or stopped, it is not there to use again. This is the reason the turbines have to be widely spread, to be in a different wind stream.

Once used the wind is stopped it's energy is gone, & some research is suggesting the stopping of the wind might have very serious consequences. Wind also has the problem of being very variable, & intermittent.

There is no way that any technology can increase the energy available for harvest in a given wind stream. It is finite.

Technology may overcome this variability, by inventing a storage system to overcome this intermittent nature. So far the only practical system is to use hydro. Pump water up hill, [as Sweden does with the Danish wind power], & run that water back down later, generating power when needed. Otherwise you can only use it when the wind is blowing.

Continued.

Continued.

Using photovoltaic generation [solar cells] has a similar problem to wind. Although the energy coming to earth form the sun is huge, it is also very thinly spread. You have to harvest it from a very large area to get enough to be of much use, & a huge area to supply even a village.

The effort required to keep them clean & connected is so great, that if applied to a few pedal powered generators, would produce more electricity, in my experience.

It is also intermittent. You only get it for a small percentage of each day. In some cases, even in the tropics prevailing weather can mean you get very little for many days.

Here again our inability to store electrical energy becomes a problem. What do we do at night, or in sustained periods of little sunshine. You can't just let the freezer defrost, because it's cloudy, & calm, now can you.

I threw out, a quite large investment in wind & solar generating equipment, about half way from the Solomons to Fiji, when they had combined, failed to to produce enough power to run the 3 small, low wattage bulbs that lit my navigation lights, for the last time. They had beaten me, but they could not beast the Pacific ocean, they did not float.

@Hasbeen: Once used the wind is stopped it's energy is gone, & some research is suggesting the stopping of the wind might have very serious consequences.

The research being a single theoretical result from one physicist. It was recent, but I can't find a link. Anyway he compared the total energy entering the atmosphere to world energy usage. I can't remember the exact result, but he claimed they were comparable. Right now we are nowhere near that limit, and its not looking like we will get close to it any time soon. Even assuming he is right the wind doesn't stop. It just slows down until the energy extracted matches the input from the Sun.

@Hasbeen: I threw out, a quite large investment in wind & solar generating equipment, about half way from the Solomons to Fiji, when they had combined, failed to to produce enough power to run the 3 small, low wattage bulbs that lit my navigation lights, for the last time.

Good lord, how could you get it that badly wrong? What happened? Did you use badly undersized batteries? You must realise this is a poor example. People use solar for this sort of stuff all the time. Its well understood and common place. There are literally solar panels everywhere you look now, driving all sorts of SCADA applications. Lexi can go out and buy solar garden lights that last for years, there is boat circumnavigating the world driven entirely solar right now, and recently a solar driven airplane made flew over several countries in Europe.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/energy-smart/brisbanes-big-ahoy-to-a-solar-seafarer-20110529-1faa2.html
http://solar-flight.com/europetour/

Whoa! miracles don't happen, that's fairy-tales. Development of technology takes decades and we may not see it in our lifetime but with time it will happen. It is possible that technology is already available but good business dictates that the old junk must be sold first.

In my profession I have to work with computers, but I hate the things so I instruct other people and watch over them by they do the physical labour of operating the computers. I did discuss my dislike of computers with an expert on computers and I explained my dislike of working with computers by saying, "If I could talk to the computer and it would respond to my verbal instructions I could achieve a lot more." His response was that those computers are available in Japan but they have to sell and dispose of all the other technology that has been produced. That is why the computer technology we buy seems to advance at a very fast rate.

With energy producing technology we simply have to wait.

its interesting...what you have added re inertia
add in friction..!

forrests ..give more friction than grass
grass takes more inertia..than bare ground
wet air trvels slower..dry air faster...[so many vairiables]

but lets see what the words reveal
less wind movenent..means air in certain places will get hotter
[the very thing winmd turbiones are trying to do..is actually making things worse]

if you doudt what im trying to say
sit out of the wind..say in your car]
no air movement...you will die on a sunny day in hours

[if you got a measuring device in your car..
you will be adding corrupted numbers to the data]

yes it was a hot day
but made worse cause there wernt no wind

and then finally the hot or cold NON MOVING AIR..moves
begins to move..

faster than it needed to..
if we hadnt stopped the natural ebb and flow of the wind

[the same would apply
to movement of water[hydro/tides]

you cant cheat nature..!
and increasing its cost..but giving others extra
thats just nutts..*

i got a friend..who has 1000 in solar credit
[apparently they dont give them cash]
well he is thinking..
to get heating in his pool...lol
cause he dont get ANY..*cash back
so might as well use his credit..lol

how much in our/credits
mean..you own them..!

cause they owe us more..
than they invested..or their assets are valued at?

if collectivly..we hold billions of credit
who do we go to..to collect it?

the sceme[fair sceme]
i put to krudd...was to issue us a new form of credit card
JUST FOR CARBON CREDITS...say 1000 worth of carbon credit

simply when asked to pay..carbon credit
the card does what cards do...and the credit goes through its function's

if you abuse your carbon credit
then you must pay..!

ie buy some on the market
buy someone elses credits

so its REALLY ONLY the poluters[abusers]..who must pay
the more you ab-use..the more you may be required to buy*

KIS principle
keep it simpler

direct action
not a big new tax

WHO OWNS [holds/creates]..these credits?
will bankers make them...or govt?

how much govt going to sell them for wholesale
better to simply give us each our fair share..!

then let others who want to buy
find sellers who want to sell

by this method
EVERYONE on earth gets credits
and..the poor can trade their credit..for food

its the right thing
but being done..THE WRONG WAY..!

Lexi,

Wind power is a mature technology, and turbines have been the focus of study for many decades. While you can expect technological advances, to improve capacity and efficiency marginally, and the cost of production to drop, the same technical limitations that existed in 1980 exist today.

There is not a snowball's chance in hell of Germany managing to meet its emission targets if it shuts down its nuclear reactors.

Lexi,

With regards to the nuclear fall out, the major component of this fall out is Iodine (96%), which has a half life of about 8 days. After 80 days about 99.9% of this isotope has gone. The other main components are Caesium-134 (which has a half life of two years) and Caesium-137 (which has a half life of 30 years),

The end result is that the dangerous contamination while never disappearing drops by about 99% in 30 years.

SM,

I can see why you're not concerned about nuclear - you probably won't be around in thirty years. In the meantime children and animals are being born with all kinds of deformities but you're not concerned - it's not in your back yard - as it is in Russia's, Japan's, et al. I wonder why these countries are concerned - and have shut down or are in the process of shutting down their reactors? Perhaps they know something? Go to Chernobyl and talk to the people there. See the after effects on the local population for yourself. Then tell us about the safety of nuclear.

& you know how many yachties, who have actually been to sea, rstuart? I know dozens who have had the perfect system, provided they never take it out into the big nasty ocean. However I know none who have still got the stuff after a couple of years, & a few thousand miles of real ocean sailing. About 12 months is the limit.

I had 2 of my mates, electrical engineers at Sydney uni, put some time into the wind generator, hoping to improve the thing to being practical. They never got there either.

Still I must try a few of those solar lights. I wonder how much they like salt. An experimental exercise, that cost millions is just a toy. There is always some fool with too much money.

Aquarius, you can't harvest what is not there. That is why I went into some detail. I did hope some alternative enthusiasts would think about the facts, rather than squirt out some more bullsh1t, but I should have realised it was a forlorn hope.

Now while you're at it, how about you tell me how you will solve the storage problem, then we can all wander down the garden path hand in hand singing hallelujah.

Lexi,

As far as I was aware, Japan is starting up its reactors at other plants, and is still intending to build more, as is Russia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Bombvschernobyldoserateinopenair.png/800px-Bombvschernobyldoserateinopenair.png

As for the radiation levels, they are about 1% of what they were just after the accident 25 years ago, and about 37 times the normal levels. The exclusion zones have shrunk by 95%, and in 3 to 4 decades the radiation will be close to normal background levels and nearly all the land will be habitable.

In spite of all the scare campaigns being run by Greenpeace, and other anti nuke campaigns, the actual figures of deformities and deaths are only a tiny fraction of what was predicted, and small potatoes compared to for example the Bhopal disaster in an Indian Union Carbide plant that killed 10 000 immediately and contaminated a huge area.

If labor had the guts to build Nuclear power stations at the sites of these large brown coal generators, they would could meet their emission targets by 2020 with minimal disruptions and increase in power costs.

@Hasbeen: & you know how many yachties, who have actually been to sea, rstuart?

Yes. I was a keen sailor decades ago. But not ocean going. All those I know are happy with their solar setups, if their panels didn't corrode. That meant not using cheap panels. And there is no reason it shouldn't be like that. Solar panels are passive things without joints or moving parts that can be permanently sealed that last at least 20 years, and when you are talking 20 years the corrosion requirements of coastal land and the sea aren't that different. Some yatchies brag the solar panels they bought 25 years ago are still going strong.

@Hasbeen: I had 2 of my mates, electrical engineers at Sydney uni, put some time into the wind generator, hoping to improve the thing to being practical.

Yes, well that's a bit different isn't it? Here you were bagging both solar and wind. Lots of the yachties complain about about the little wind turbines they have had over the years. They have icky moving high tolerance mechanical bits that have to withstand high stress. I am sure it's possible to design a reliable marine grade wind turbine, but it would come at a marine grade price. I'll bet yours wasn't made out of stainless, unlike most of the other fittings on your boat.

All that aside, your experience tells you nothing about how well or otherwise the turbines used for commercial generation work, any more than how a horrid little Chinese petrol generator tells you how well a commercial diesel generator works. As far as I am aware maintenance issues aren't a huge problem for large scale wind turbines. Their Achilles heel lies elsewhere.

I should have expected red herrings, shouldn't I. Typical greenie tactic, when you have no answer, try another question.

Regardless, there is no blood in a stone. No amount of technological wizardry will ever find a way of harvesting that which is not there.

Wind & solar generation are both suitable for isolated settlements, but will never become mainstream.

My daughter had more sense than you lot at 5 years of age. When we moved into a near town property she asked if out new house was going to have real "electric", or just that Mickey mouse stuff like the boat. Says it all really, out of the mouth of babes, but never a greenie.

Hmmm. I see we have got this far without one person giving a hint of how the Germans might be planning to proceed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec

It definitely is starry eye'ed, rather like the moon landing. But it's not totally implausible either. And if anybody is going to pull it off, it could well be one the richest nations on the planet who have had the misfortune to have one of their main energy supplies, gas, cut off by the Russian's a few years ago. They also had the misfortune of developing developing one of nuclear's get hopes, the pebble bed reactor, only to find when they dismantled the test reactor the supposedly fail safe design had leached strontium and by tritium into the surrounding soil and groundwater. To quote the wikipedia article on the subject:

"the AVR is the most beta-contaminated (Strontium) nuclear installation worldwide and that this contamination is present in the worst form, as dust."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor#AVR

Ick.

So Fukushima is not the only reason they are going down this path. It's just the most recent reason.

SM,

This is for your information:

http://newmatilda.com/2011/07/05/living-edge-fukushima
Living on the Edge of Fukushima by Rick Tanaka.

It's current.

Lexi,

Another fluff piece from a pro greenie blog? Puleez!

Rstuart,

As the deadline is 2022, I would guess that Angela Merkel will do a Juliar Gillard and as soon as the political landscape changes, quietly ditch the reactor closures.

@Shadow Minister: As the deadline is 2022, I would guess that Angela Merkel will do a Juliar Gillard and as soon as the political landscape changes, quietly ditch the reactor closures.

Nah. She won't be around in 10 years time. As she has already been there for 6 it is unlikely she will even make it 1/2 way. It looks to me like an empty political stunt to capitalise on Fukushima.

Maybe there is some higher purpose to it, such as preparing the voters for the expense of developing other sources of energy. I'd like to think so, but it seems like a forlorn hope as she is after all just another politician.

At my core Shadow I'm beginning to suspect that politically I am not so much left or right, as just plain cynical.

@Hasbeen: I should have expected red herrings, shouldn't I.

Yes you should. You started it. The relevance of your experiences with a 30 inch windmill charging a battery has to commercial power production supplying the grid it beyond me. Maybe you could comment on the health issues the low frequency noise caused you, or how many bats it killed, or how you had to keep a gas powered conventional generator spinning in case the wind stopped?

@Hasbeen: she asked if out new house was going to have real "electric", or just that Mickey mouse stuff like the boat.

I think everyone would feel the same way, including the greenies. Everyone loves the cheap, reliable electricity produced by our coal fired generation. If they didn't, we would not have a problem. Sorry, I'm off on a tangent, what was your point?