Paul,

With enough money even pigs can be made to fly.

Germany is building out its transmission to get the power from the Baltic to Bavaria where much of the nuclear plant capacity is scheduled to be shut down and where much energy is needed.

Germany will also have to build gas turbine plants for balancing the variable, intermittent wind energy.

When wind energy is balanced with gas turbines, 10% wind energy on the grid will reduce grid CO2 emission intensity by < 7%, i.e. < 70% efficient. Nuclear energy is > 95% efficient. Germany apparently thinks it can afford this folly, but many other nations cannot.

Cloudy, snowy, rainy Germany, (average effective PV solar CF = 0.095) should have had its PV solar build-out in Southern Europe to reduce 2 times the CO2 emissions.   

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/89476/wind-energy-co2-emissions-are-overstated

Here is a summary if US were to follow suit to have 30% of its 2062 energy from wind.

A national wind energy build-out would: 

– result in a littering of the US landscape with several hundred thousand, 450-ft to 550-ft tall, noise-making, health-damaging, industrial wind turbines everywhere there is wind. See note.

– require connecting them all with highly-visible, transmission systems.

– require integrating their variable, intermittent, zero-dispatch-value energy into the grid using less-efficiently operated hydro plants in some places and inefficiently-operated, CO2-emitting, gas turbine plants almost everywhere else.

– require rolling a part of the above mentioned LCOEs/kWh into rate schedules; households and small businesses would bear the brunt, because bigger businesses would be largely exempted for international competitive reasons, as is the case in Denmark and Germany.

– the CURRENT US energy production is about 4,000 TWh/yr, would be 6,578 TWh/yr in 2062, at a 1%/yr growthrate. Wind energy production: 300,000 IWTs x 3 MW each x 8,760 hr/yr x US capacity factor 0.25 = 1,971 TWh/yr, 30% of 2062 production. 

 Note: The CF =  0.25 accounts for transmission and distribution losses.

– the capital cost (2012$) would be trillions of dollars (wind turbines, gas turbines, transmission). 

Wind turbines: 200,000 x 3 MW x $2,000,000/MW (onshore) + 100,000 x 3 MW x $4,200,000/MW (offshore) = $2.46 trillion 

Gas turbines for balancing: 400,000 MW x $1,500,000/MW = $0.6 trillion 

Transmission: $0.3 trillion

Total = $3.36 trillion.  

As the buildout woud take at least 50 years and the wind turbine useful service life is about 20 years, wind turbines built in the first 20 years would need to be replaced during the next 20 years, etc. This is in addition to further build-out to achieve a capacity of 900,000 MW by 2050. Additional capital cost for year 0 -20  replacements, plus year 20 – 40, plus year 40 – 50 = 20 yr/50 yr x 900,000 MW/2 x $1,500/MW x 2.5 = $450 billion, for a total of $3.38 + $0.45 = $3.83  trillion.

Note: For about 50% of that capital one could build 500,000 MW of nuclear plants that would last about 60 years to produce 500,000 MW x 8,760 hr/yr x CF 0.90 = 3,942 TWh/yr, 60% of 2062 production, of relatively low-cost, CO2-free, steady, 24/7/365 energy and that would use most of the existing grid system; twice the production for half the capital.    

– most of existing energy plants would need to be staffed 24/7/365, fueled and kept in proper operating condition to provide energy when wind and solar energy are insufficient or absent. 

– Assuming conventional coal plants would be phased out during those 50 years, the other 70% of energy would primarily be from natural gas, nuclear, hydro, coal gas, PV and thermal solar. Energy from coal gas, wind, PV and thermal solar likely would not be competitive with natural gas, unless subsidized or given other preferred treatment.

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/84293/wind-turbine-noise-and-air-pressure-pulses

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/89476/wind-energy-co2-emissions-are-overstated

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/83704/reduce-co2-and-slow-glo…

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/47519/base-power-alternatives-replace-base-loaded-coal-plants

You know Willem, people here in Germany working directly for Siemens or outsourcing for it are coming to regard you as a kind of “Besserwissender” Don Quixote tilting at Windmills. This is a Siemens sponsored Website and it was writing about its four high sea inverter stations handling the wind output which is the equivalent of 4 60´s tech nucleear reactors.  Abd all you can do is Quixotically rant against wind- touting nuclear as the solution.

There is one thing you and your Sancho Panza co-responder forgot about in your pro-nuke calculations.  The very high price of nuclear waste disposal. The nukes were subsidized by governments in construction, and radioactive waste disposal is also highly subsidized with tax-payer money.  Currently, with the global build out of nuclear energy, we are getting a total global cost of insecure radioactive wate hiding of 40 billion U.S.D. per annum.

Add those radioactive waste hiding costs to nuclear, and it is definitely not as cost effective as you claim it to be.

In my other response, I listed all the clean tech alternatives Germany can and will apply to reduce dependency on nucleasr as it phases it out, and dependency on fossil fuels as it phases it out.

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy measures taken together add up.  Goodness, advanced engineering power management systems, motor upgrades, and building energy management systems were carried out in New York´s Empire state building – reducing its power and heat needs by a full 50%, measures which amortize in only 4 years. 

You disparage the Very High Tension Direct Current transmission line system going up in Germany along its excellent state owned rail line system.  But the 7.500 kilometer domestic build up costs only 20 Billion Euros… already approved, thank you. 

As for the entire energy future switch.. yes it will cost.  But, I don´t see you complaining about the 1.5 Trillion U.S.D. F 35 cost overrun program which will cost U.S. taxpayers a whopping $1.5 trillion U.S.D..  Your derisive comment “With enough money, even pigs can be made to fly” seems to be a lot more applicable to the F 35 than Germany´s clean energy build out.

Now, in your calculations about nuclear, start to include the costs of castor transportation to intermediate storage and final storage, and all of a sudden, nuclear does not look so cost efficient, does it.  It then becomes more expensive than solar, wind, upgraded hydroelectric, anchored on – stream hydrogelectic, etcetera.

Goodness, you write about how German´s should use solar power from its sun rich sunny neighbors.

Guess what, it is already doing that. There´s the German French “Desertec” program putting up concentrated solar power project in Morocco by a consortium headed up by Munich Re-Insurance also with headquarters here in Munich.  And, goodness gracious, Siemens is complementing that concentrated solar power with 7.500 wind turbines along the Moroccan Atlantic coastline to supply local Moroccan needs as well as feed into the Desertec transmission lines to France and Germany. 

And Munich city owned ulities are not only investing in North and Baltic Sea wind projects, they are also investing in Spanish concentrated solar projects.  You write of the necessity of upgrading power plants to combined cycle gas and steam turbine systems as if it were a negative.  Goodness, Munich Utilties upgraded its power plant south from coal to Gas and Steam Turbine over a decade ago. (Highly efficient, it also feeds into Munich´s extensive and intensively hooked up long distance heat – hot water grid.)=

Goodness, you write about Southern Germany as if you understood anything about its renewable energy build out in things such as high temperature waste incineration, bio-waste digesters producing methane, solar p.v., upgrades to hydro- or anchored, on stream hydroelectric, or its participation in projects such as Andasol in Spain or Desertec in Morocco. 

Let us talk about “cow poop power”.  Feed lots and dairy operatoins account for 48% of “greenhouse gas” agrarian methane generation. it contributes to global warming.  If you capture it for fuel, you turn it into co² among other things, which has a much lower “greenhouse gas” warming effect.  So, doe it not make common sense to capture all the methane from cow manure, and generate power with it?

I am “conservative” in some ways.  I like to attend weekened retreats at the Benedictine Monastery of St. Ottilien west of Munich.  It is a missionary monastery, so 150 monks from all over the world are in training there.  They also have a boarding school, and an adult education center. The monastery earns its keep by Agrarian and frestry operations.  Now, they just built a very interesting “state of the art” barn- which even includes a “milking merry go round” for the cows – which lets two men milk 120 cows inside an hour twice a day.  Fancy that, a “cow carousel”.

And they also push all the manure through a “methane recapture” digester system, and feed that onto fuel cells- providing 100 % of the heat needed for the entire complex, including the cathedaral sized neo Gothic church, and 80% of its power.  Much of the rest comes from solar, thank you.  We are talking about the manure from 150 head of cattle – providing the heat for the entire complex – the monastery proper, the boarding school dormatory, the school building, the adult education weekend dormatory, the cafeterias, the emplolyee housing, – a small city in a sense- running off “cow poop power”, augmented by solar. 

Goodness, the average German farm can produce about 100 kilowatts of “cow poop power”, or “cesspoool sludge, – cellulose waste rotting” methane power, in addition to free heat for the building. That is 24/7 base line power in addition to on building solar, and farmer co-op wind. The energy potential of that alone- in Germany, is 22.000.000 KWh – were it to be totally built out by 2025. 

Goodness, Germany also passed a coupled co-generative law.  All new buildings are mandated to have 1 inch wide vacuum insulation windows, facade and roof insulation. There are also programs for retrofitting that to existing buildings.  And where they are not hooked up to utility long distance heat hot water systems, they are mandated to have combined shallow-geothermic – solar heat and hot water systems, supplemented in the deep winter by gas heating systems- which are also mandated to be “coupled co-generative”- i.e. producing both heat and power.

Another law subsidizes retrofitting existing buildings with coupled co-generative heat and power systems, SMART grid coordinated of course.  Now, VW has teamed up with “Lichtblick” wind energy utility company to provide SMART GRID coordinated baseline power that way.  For a five thousand Euro leasing down payment, a multi family building owner has VW/Lichtblick come in, tear out the old heating oil, or gas heating unit, and replace it – with a VW rabbit engine, running off natural gas. The low revving engine drives a 10!= KWh Siemens generator, and the exhaust heat also drives a an Alpha Stirling motor- driving a 10 KWh generator– before the exhausts are captured to provide heat and hot water to the building.  That is pretty efficient use of natural gas otherwise only used for heating, isn´t it?  That is, it is coupled co-generative, optimized power heat and hot water for multi-family units, small office buildings, etcetera.  And, they intend to install 200.000 such SMART GRID coordinated units in the state of Lower Saxony, and the city states of  Bremen and Hamburg- as a base line backup for wind and solar. They generate when they want to, and the building owner gets radically reduced heat-hot water costs, in addition to lower power costs, plus a 15 Euro a month rent from the utility.  It is a brilliant concept. No expensive zoning permits are needed. No expensive real estate rentals or purchases are needed by the Lichtblick utilities.

They will pay a total of 36.000.000 million in annual rents- to the 200.000 building owner- customers – for the space to generate 4.000.000 KWh of smart grid coordinated power at night when the sun is not shining, and perhaps the wind is not blowing.  The joke gets even better when you consider another group is working to develop “aqeuous fuel sysems” for internal combustion engines.  Combined with the Lichtblick utilties system, it becomes “aqueous fuel” renewable-sustainable energy system.  The build out on that 4 GWh will cost a total of about 6 billion Euros- a dollar fifty per producing watt- installed. This is a SWARM – SMART GRID VIRTUAL POWER PLANT – and will run 10% natural gas, 90% demineralized water – aqueous.

Mr. Post, try imagining a build out of 1 million such “aqueous aided” CHP units in Germany. That alone would provide a full 20 GWh in power to the German grid for a price of about 30 million Euros, not expensive at all, almost fossil fuel free.  The systems amortize inside of 5 years. That cost effectively replaces 20 nukes being shut down does it not? We radically slash the co² emissions associated with heating, and generate a lot of power to boot that way.  Considering the strength of the model, I have serious doubts that Lichtblick Utilties will be the only ultitity company using this “SWARM” model. 

Now add up the build out of of methane recapture systems in agrarian areas – 20 megawatts, and this-

20 megawatts. – That´s 40 MWh right there, ain´t it?  And, we eliminate a lot of heating oil consumption at the same time, don´t we?  And we don´t have any nuclear waste problems from that, do we? Manure methane CHP and aqueous CHP are two more ACES up the German renewable sleeve you were not aware of were you old Pro Nuclear Don Quixote compulsively obsessively “tilting at windmills”.  Now all we have to do is find you the approrpriate Sancho Panza and a scullery maid named Dulceana. And before you start to rant about the cost effectiveness of nuclear again on this site, get your numbers right about the true costs of nuclear waste disposal by hiding it. Add the forty billion U.S.D.  for global nuclear waste hiding systems and the numbers for nuclear don´t look so competetive or rosy after all, do they?  Honestly, you don´t know “shit” about how Germans are innovatively and literally using shit on an icnreasing scale to power their economy.  Being Rabelaisian about it, your pro-nuke flatulance is such that all you would need to do is put a methane recapture system on your butt so you could power and heat your house for free.

Goodness, this is a Siemens sponsored web site, and Siemens posts articles about its contribution to the German build up of wind, and all you can do is be contrarian and rant against wind.  It´s almost like wearing a Ku Klux klan robe to a meeting of the N.A.A.C.P. isn´t it?

An Arab saying has it: “The dogs may bark, but still the caravan moves on.” Germany is exiting both nuclear and fossil with wind, solar p.v., concentrated solar, high temp waste incineration, expanded and built out hydroelectric, methane recapture systems, on site aqueous aided CHP systems.  And again, i think Siemens has every right to celebrate its solving a difficult problem about high seas power conversion for transporting it to shore on a web site it sponsor. But you don´t even appreciate that in your Quixotic jilting against windmills.  Nuclear dogs like you may bark at it, but stilll the wind caravan moves on.

Kent,

Germany is a rich nation. It probably will be able to finance its energy change. The great majority of other nations cannot.

Confusion reigns in Germany. Read this URL.

http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id_mailing=296&toegang=d296c101daa88a51f6ca8cfc1ac79b50&id=3799

 Here is a URL showing CO2 trends. Germany’s effort is a pebble dropped in a pond.

http://theenergycollective.com/robertrapier/89616/global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-facts-and-figures#comment-28046

http://theenergycollective.com/robertrapier/91721/renewable-energy-facts-and-figures?ref=popular_posts&nbsp;

Capital Cost Estimate by Siemens:

Siemens estimates the total price tag of meeting Germany’s renewable, energy efficiency and CO2 emissions goals at about 1.7 trillion euros ($2.26 trillion) by 2030; the estimate includes decommissioning nuclear plants, energy storage and CO2 sequestering systems.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/17/us-siemens-energy-idUSTRE80G10920120117

Remember that does not get Germany to its energy and CO2 emission goals by 2050, which would be about another 1.7 trillion euros, for a total of $4.5 trillion by 2050.

If the US were to follow Germany’s course, the cost would be about ($14.5 trillion, US GDP)/($3.5 trillion, German GDP) x $2.26 trillion = $9.36 trillion, plus about another $9.36 trillion for 2050 emission goals, for a total of about $18.7 trillion by 2050.

The US cost likely would be even greater as it is more spread-out than Germany and more of its aging electrical systems would need to be upgraded and replaced.

It is 100% sure, the US will NOT follow on that course anytime soon, if ever, and almost all other nations will not either.

Additional estimates of capital and other costs are in these URLs.

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/67528/german-nuclear-decommissioning-and-renewables-build-out

http://www.welt.de/dieweltbewegen/article13506987/Energiewende-kostet-335-Milliarden-Euro.html

 Germany Will Not Make a Global Warming Difference:

World Energy Consumption in 2035: The Energy Information Administration, EIA, is projecting the world’s energy consumption to increase from 505 quadrillion Btu in 2008 to 770 quadrillion Btu in 2035, an increase of 53 percent. 

Worldwide, the renewables fraction (which includes hydro) of total consumption is projected to increase from 10.6% in 2010 to 15.2% in 2035, the fossil fraction to decrease from 84.1%  in 2010 to 79.1% in 2035.  

Note: 1,055 Btu = 1 Joule; a quadrillion = 10 to the power 15.

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/world.cfm&nbsp;

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm

World CO2 Emissions in 2035: World CO2 emissions (in 1,000 million metric tonnes) were 29.89, 31.63 and 33.51 in 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively, projected by the EIA from 29.89 in 2008 to 43.2 in 2035. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2#zoomed-picture

http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser/#release=IEO2011&subject=0-IEO2011&table=10-IEO2011&region=0-0&cases=Reference-0504a_1630

Germany’s CO2 Emissions Reduction: China, the US, Europe and Germany emitted (in 1,000 million metric tonnes) 7.46, 5.27, 4.3 and 0.79 in 2009, respectively.

China, the US, Europe and Germany projected emissions are (in 1,000 million metric tonnes) 11.7, 6.4, 4.4 and 0.55* in 2030, respectively.

*Germany’s CO2 emissions target for 2030 is 55% below the 1990 Kyoto base year, or (1 – 0.45) x 1.232 = 0.55.

This means significantly greater quantities of CO2 will be emitted in 2035 than in 2008 and that any efforts made by Germany to reduce its CO2 emissions will be extremely insignificant regarding global warming. 

Even if all of Europe were to reduce its CO2 emissions to zero, the increase by other nations would be about twice as great as Europe’s decrease. 

Conclusion: The above data indicates Germany’s (quixotic?, misguided?, irrational?) exuberance towards renewables will make no global warming and/or climate change difference, but will adversely affect Germany’s future economic well-being, because it will end up with an energy systems setup that will have about 2 to 3 times the levelized (owning+O&M) cost of competitor nations that did not follow Germany.

Germany is implementing renewables through subsidies more so than other nations, because it has the excess capital to do so, and because it claims to want to set an example to the world. A bit of chest beating; gorillas do it in the jungle. Other nations, especially the developing nations, do not have the resources, and/or the willingness, to follow Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions&nbsp;

http://theenergycollective.com/robertrapier/66900/why-debate-over-global-warming-academic

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/09-carbon_emissions.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2

http://www.thinkglobalgreen.org/CARBONDIOXIDE.html

http://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/2010-saw-the-largest-ever-increase-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

Dear Willem:  I asked a blunt question about the costs of hiding nuclear fuel.  You managed to evade that one.

As far as your other stats: die Welt estimate was about 350 billion Euros.  Converting existing nukes, shut down, and still running, to deep hot rock, closed system geothermal would cost about 60 billion Euros.  In the long run, that is cheaper than storing nuclear wastes in intermediate “cool down” and “final storage”, doing special demolition, and replacing with other forms. Cheapest solution- transport the wastes to intermediate storage and convert to deep hot rock. Do-able.  

What do you mean by “other nations” can´t afford it?  Greece has ample wind and solar capacities being built out- and easy to tap geotheremal. (If you had ever been to Santorini- you´d see how that alone will generate 4 GWh in geothermal power- right on the hot spot in the middle of the volcano.  What about the geothermal in Italy?  Spain is getting out of its economic crisis with a build out of solar and wind if you haven´t noticed.  And, what about Morocco which is booming with the massive “Desertec” program investments in Saharan concentrated solar and wind? (and 7.500 big Siemens turbines going up right along with it on the constant wind West Moroccan atlantic coast?) The English build out in wind is bigger than either Germany, the Netherlands or Denmark by the way.  When Donald Trump complained to the Scottish Parliament that close offshore wind turbine projects were spoiling the view of the golf courses he was developing,and he threatened to pull out of his golf course projects if the “unsightly” off shore wind turbine projects he claimed were destroying tgourism were not stopped, he was laughed out out of hall by all  members of all parties in that Scottish parliament.

Other nations cannot afford it?  India is embarking on a “both” path, putting up nuclear, but also wind along its lonng, amply wind coastlines, and concentrated solar on 240 square kilometers of arid land. (That concentrated solar power project alone is the equivalent of about 200 nukes or so.  its being jointly carried by the Tata Group, Mittal Group, and the Indian subsidiaries of a number of major global infrastructure suppliers.

Or let us consider. the oil and gas rich, rare earth and other mineral rich “Association of S.W. African states.   The prime ministers, and energy ministers of those 11 SW African states just inked a deal with G.E. and Lockheed to put up – 24.700 wind turbines. That will benefit their economies as well as the U.S. economy, I believe.  The capital of Zambia also inked a deal for three, high temperature waste incineration power plants- with heat recapture p.g. using Stirlings on a heat – to stirling motor grid. Unfortunately, I have no more information about the size, output, or location of those 24.700 wind turbines in those 11 countries. I was informed about the deal by an “energy consultant to that association” who helped to structure the forward financing and land acquisition for the wind turbine parks and transmission lines.

Now, the Nile does not flow through rich countries from its headwaters on Lake Tangenika down to Alexandria, Egypt, or the Blue Nile from Ethiopia.  However, dropping anchored, floating hydroelectric units – down its length, three or four per kilometer, each generating 4 MWh each, will generate a lot of power for lighting to displace kerosene and help their nascent industries.  That will go up along the Nile, and the Blue Nile, except for Lake Nasser in Egypt, and put out a lot of hydro-electric power without the need for any new dams. Imagine built in Africa  wind turbines going up down the entire length of the Nile Valley as well. Now try imagining  concentrated solar along with that.  (What do you mean poorer nations cannot afford it?)  And then wind turbines along the river coasts for added power.  Then there is volcanic geothermal in the East Congo, Barundi, Kenya.   And consider non-dam, anchored on-stream hydroelectric in the entire Congo Basin for inexpensive, rapid electrification.  Not too expensive there is it?

Or let us take one of the poorest areas in the world- the eastern horn of Africa – Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia.  At last, now that oil has been discovered there, the U.S. and other countries sent in “black op” forces to train African forces  to actively pacify and build up Somalia.  (Its the oil, stupid.)

Do you know that those countries are sitting on one of the world´s last big reserves of oil that is retrievable by convential vortical drilling, on shore and offshore… with reserve estimates growing every day, and underneath the oil sandstone, there are layers of oil and gas bearing shale.  (the sandstone reserves onshore-offshore- are estimated to be anywhere between 7.5 billion and 12 billion barrels, with the patches of underlying shale reserves in the area  estimated to be up to 24 billion barrels.  And believe me, that area is opening up rapidly to supply a gas and oil hungry India, Indonesia, and China.(Indonesia also has reserves, but will buy cheaper from Africa if it can.)

The fields in those countries were divided up at a not too secret conference in Nairobi held a few years back, and the wells are going down and the pipelines are going in.

Fancy that.  China and India are already importing from the region. And what are the other “Nairobi” plans? Well, anchored on stream hydroelectric on their sections of the Nile, Blue Nile, massive wind build up in the valley, massive concentrated solar (mostly made in country, thank you. and massive solar p.v. build up from their oil and gas incomes.  What do you mean, “they can´t afford it”. They can´t afford not to build up their power grids that way.  And they have the oil income money to do it.

That is already decided on. Mr. Post.  So, let´s start yadding up by taking North European Wind projected build up on the North Sea and the Baltic – about 10.000 units.  Then let us consider the northern coast of France (Normandy, Brittany), and down the French Atlantic coast to the Bay of Biscay, around the Northern and Western coasts of iberia. At least another 10.000 wind turbine units are scheduled there , thank you.  Then we have to take the projected Siemens “wind addition” to the Moroccan “Desertec” concentrated solar  program-  another- 7.500 wind turbines.  That is 27.500 wind turbines right there. 

Then, we can add the massive GE /Lockheed deal for 24.700 wind turbines going into the Association of SW African States. (Mr Post, you would have it that they can´t afford a massive wind build out, but those deals are inked.) Now let us consider the Nile valley project all the way from Lake Tanganika to Alexandria-  with anchored, on stream hydroelectric, 2 or 3 – 2 MWh  per kilometer, then add wind turbine parks as adjuvent power on each kilometer, and concentrated solar and solar.  (‘That gets us up to 52.200 wind turbines right there does it not?) 

That will generate a lot of power in areas that presently use kerosene for lighting.  One of the hottest selling items in Africa are small solar lithium battery charging stations powered by either solar or small wind to replace kerosene.

Night fishermen on Lake Victoria fishing for fresh water sardines used to use kerosene lamps on little rafts with nets suspended under them to catch the fish.  It was dirty, often dangerous, and spills polluted the lake.  Now Siemens solar charging stations around the lake charge – li-ion batteries powering low energy lamps-. Much cleaner and cheaper than kerosene for the fishermen.  Siemens set up a similar deal with Sri Lanka, for the brack-water prawn fishermen there.  It is an exremely interesting set up of small solar displacing kerosene bit by bit, enabling a the build up of grids with solar, concentrated solar and wind- building up and out from different centers and connecting into grids.

But let us get back to the east African Wind buildup. Mr. Post, you  say Africa cannot a They can´t afford not to build it. We are not just taling about the Nile Valley on stream, anchored hydropower, the wind, and the concentrated solar there, we are also referring to the coastal build up.  The East African oil fields extend down through Tansania and into Mocambique.  Fancy that.  And, they are also projecting wind, solar p.v.  and concentrated solar along the coastlines as well.  The build out of wind, solar, concentrated solar, anchored, on stream hydro-electric is projected to be massive.  Wind along will be over 30.000 units in East Africa from Durban to Djibouti. Do tell us how poorer coutnries cannnot afford a solar and wind build up. So that is another 30.000 wind turbine units going up in addition to the 52.200 already mentioned. 

Aha… this gets to the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey.  All of the countries are planning, projecting massive build ups of solar p.v., concentrated solar, hi-temp waste incineration systems, Hybrid night-time hi temp waste incineration- daytime concentrated solar power plants. (also going up in Spain, thank you.)                  

Consider the length of the coastlines, and then add some very high mountainous areas between Southern Saudi Arabia and Yemen favourable to wind build out in addition to solar p.v. and concentrated solar.. And, consider other inland areas with a very high wind energy potential, say along the border between Iraq and Iran. to name but a few.  Believe me, they are all investing, and even foreward financing sustainability systems for their “poorer” Arabian cousins in Iraq and Syria. (like once the Syrian civil war is decided on way or the other, Syria will rebuiold with sustainable energy.)

We wrote about the excellent € 400 billion French German  Desertec Program putting up conentrated solar and wind in Morocco, and piping the power under the Straights of Gilbratra via VHDC lines discussed in this article.  Well, the Arabians and Turks are planning their own version of Desertec and are pre-financing the massive infrastructure build out. It is called “Nabucco”. It is planned to be an “energy and transportation” “magistrale” running all the way from the Emirates up to Danzing in Poland. Fancy that.

At the moment, the Djebel Ali freight re-loading center reloads containers from ship to ship, ship to plane, or plane to ship.  By the end of the decade, it will be reloading from standard gauge rail to ship or ship to standard rail.

A conventional-high speed passenger and freight rail line will run from Dubai, through the other Emirates,l up the East Coast of Saudi Arabia, dip into Qatar, then through Kuwait, and Iraq into Turkey which is engaging in a massive build up of conventional and high speed rail with German and Chinese assistance. (Fancy that.) The rail will be paralled by a four to six lane highway.. Then, in addition to the road and the rail, gas and oild pipelines will be carrying petroleum products north, obviating the need for super tankers and l.N.G. tankers to some key markets.  This project is called Nabucco. What makes Nabucco different from Desertec or the North and Southstream Russian gas pipeline systems is that it is combining everything. Rail and road transportation, and gas pipelines.  Something else will distinguish Nabucco… Very High Direct Current Lines will also run along the “Nabucco Magistrale”-carrying wind, concentrated solar, photo voltaic power, generated along the way to fill local needs, plus excess, all the way from the Emirates into Turkey., and across Turkey to Ankara and up to Istanbul… road, rail, gas, oil, concentrated solar, solar voltaic, and wind power will be built along the entire stretch. So we can consider another twenty thousand or so  wind turbines feeding into that Nabucco line grid. I am not even consiering the india or Chinese build outs of wind. I just wanted to say that Germany is not the only cturny that can afford solar. and wind. There is a massive projected build out of onshore, coastal, and offshore installatons. So altogether,  I know of approximately 100.000 wind turbine units going up in western Europe, Africa, the middle East, Turkey, the Black Sea region and the Eastern Balkans.

Wind is the biggest growing part of the “sustainability industry”.  I don´t think that Jeff Immelt, CEO of G.E. is very unhappy about being a part of the massive order for 24.700 wind turbines from the Association of S.W. states, which includes 11 countries down there. Siemens C.E.O. Peter Loescher is not unhappy about the massive build out of wind energy either.  As for your claims that a wind turbine has to be replaced at the end of its amortization period, that is utter nonsense. With proper construction and maintenance, and the right kind of anti-corrosion technologies, those things will be pumping out and pumping out.  The transformer platforms and transmission lines are built to last and will not neet replacing, will they. Nor will the tower foundations, nor the towers. Installed is installed.  They will be up for centuries, thank you. New kinds of blade coatings being developed will eliminate any and all blade surface cracking in all weather conditions. (Both G.E. and Siemens have their eyes on that already, thank you.) And, with proper maintenance, we can expect very long working lifetimes of the turbines, and not replacement after 30 years.  (Goodness, when China re-opened, Siemens was delighted to be shown an industrial motor built by Siemens that was still in operation at a factory there, installed in 1904.  And that motor is still running.)  

The pioneering work done by Siemens on the North Sea wind project- a build out of four transformer platforms to transmit 3.5 GWh of power, is also part of a learning curve for Siemens in cost effective VHDC transmission which will be needed on all of the coencentrated solar and wind projects in the first quarter of the twentieth century.  That is what this Siemens sponsored Website was trying to inform us about.  Unfortunately, Mr Willem Post, you have to stick your anti-wind, pro-nuclear sentiments up on this Siemens sponsored site all the time, as if you were the sole expert on the subject.

Mr Post, you avoid the question put to you about the “True costs” of nuclear.  You manage to evade questions  pertaining to the massive costs of hiding nuclear fuel in intermediate “cool down” storage and final storage.  (Those costs increae every year.  Right now, its about 40 billion U.S.D. p.a. and rising.  Those are costs Mr. Post gingerly evades talking about in his pro nuclear, anti-sustainability rants which bear no relationship to actual reality.  (Goodness, he claimed only Germany can afford solar p.v. concentrated solar and wind, and then insulted the people who sponsor this site by saying “given enough money, even a pig can be made to fly.”

We know that Mr. Post is a pro-nuker who hates wind, but evades the cost factor of hiding radioactive wastes in his slightly distorted calculations. (Does he hold shares in a uranium mine, or a nuclear waste disposal company or what?) I am also quite confident he is as equally unfamiliar with European critical rationalist socialGoodness, there is another false argument Mr Post puts up, namely that an entire wind turbine will have to be replaced after a twnety year amortizatoin period. That´s almost as foolish as arguing against hydroelectric. Goodness we can´t build the Hoover damn, we would have to replace it after its twenty year amortization period.  Of course, an additional twenty percent in costs will incur over the original installation costs for maintenance and repair over the twenty year amortization period.   That is calculated into all renewable energy systems. On the other hand, there are no fuel costs,  low environmental impact costs over the period of amortization, and no extraordinarilly high radioactive waste disposal costs in intermediate and final storage which are definitely not solved by a long shot. There is no need to replace a wind turbine after twenty years of operation given proper proper protection andmaintenance measures on the base, the tower,  the turbine generator, the nacel, and the blades. It may happen that blades have to be removed and re-coated, and turbines taken down, replaced and repaired.  But replace them in toto… that is nonsense. Once up, the base and the towers will remain in service for hundreds of years.  

That is almost as absurd as putting up an argument against light rail streetcars, subway, commuter rail, and high speed rail which Siemens also builds) making an asburd claim they have to be replaced every twenty years. Nonsense.  Some Munich Mass transit is still using light rail streetcar trainsets from the early sixties during fast pulsing rush hour traffic, or subway trainsets dating from 1972 when the first stretches of the expanding Munich subway system went into operation. ((40 years of good operation of Siemens subway trainsets given the correct maintenance measures.  The first Siemens built ICE trains for German rail that went inot operation in 1992, are still in operation-and given good maintenance will provide another 20 years of excellent service..  (And goodness, Simens and Russian rail spent 5 billion Euros on optimizing its Velaro ICE so it could safely operate on the St. Petersburg to Moscow stretch at temperatures down to – 50° celsius with 180 MPh wind chill factors. I assume Mr. Post would say “too expensive” about the SAPSAN rail service between St. Petersburg and Moscow, but who cares about his Rumpstilzkind opinions. We in Germany know we have some good export items in wind, just like G.E. CEO Jeff Immelt knows he has a gpood sales item in wind. (Remember those 24.7000 wind turbines going up in the Association of SW AFrican states fro G.E. and Lockheed

Wind is the fastest growing sector of the sustainability power industry, and the experienced Siemens is gaining from Helgoland Wind- HeWin- will substantially cut costs elsewhere.)

One thing keeping  down on the massive Helgoland- HeWind project that will put out 3.5 GWh, of power, the equivalent of four sixties type nuclear reactors, are special logistics and delivery coordination programs developed by Siemens for “just in time”time delivery of all parts to construction sites on shore on on sea.  Siemens production line and robotics programs are so advanced, that even the Jet Propulsion Laboratory asked Siemens to adapt its programs to the newest Mars exploration vehicle due to land on Mars next month. I think that is fantastic.

That brings us to something else. Mr Post prefers nuclear over all renewables without ever telling us the costs of or his solutions for disposal of nuclear wastes. (He does tiptoe about that in his supposed calculations does he not?)

Now, I also confident Mr. Post is equally ignorant of a non-source-free alternative to the source-free Rutherford-Bohr standard model.  A team in Europe was recently able to successfully upgrade that Iberian Bullular model to establish Bullular model homeostasis while accounting for its inherent quantum EPR effect. That upgrade establishes the relationship between the electro-magnetic positron and electron functions of atomic level matter, and gravity.  They are backing up the theory with corroborative technology- such as “GFR” Gravity Field Retransformation (c) 2006, 2007, ) Patent applications in preparation.  No B.S..

And this is tech Mr. ProNuke Post will intensely like he puts down solar in Germany. claiming an insufficient amount of light to make it feasible. GFR  is a tech that functions anywhere, and squeezes power directly out of gravity with efficiencies of up to 15%.  The developers of that  will most likely invite Siemens to make the first birds as  the proprietory Global partner on this.

 As for Mr. Post, he is perfectly free to continue being a pro-nuke Troll quixotically lancing at wind mills on this site.  Maybe he´ll even find a few Sancho Panzas t go along with him, even a Dulceana, who knows.  

The wind build out in Europe, Africa, the middle East is considerable.  And, off course, Siemens is doing some excellent exploratory work in HVDC transmission which make the future of clean energy brighter.  

To respsond to those efforts by saying that  “with enough money you can make a pig fly” is an insult to everybody in the world who works in the wind industry, be it for Avesa, Lockheed, Siemens, Alstrom, Philipps or G.E.. (I am acquainted with the “Strategic economic energy consultant to the Association of Southwest African States who structured the financing and closed the deal with G.E. and Lockheed for the 24.000 wind turbines going up there.  The same person also helped structure the massive 10 billion Euro deal- between – Krauss-Maffei-Wegman and Saudi Arabia- for 1000 Leopard 2 Main Battle Tanks- being constructed in Spain by sub-contractor General Dynamics- another export item from Germany keeping its economy strong.)

If you count in the costs of radioactive waste hiding – i.e. transport to intermediate storage, securing intermediate storage, and then finding and developing good final storage, and securing final storage so there are no accidents like the one that happened at the Asse deposit in Northrhein Westphalia, then nuclear is the most expensive government subsidized form of energy there is.

Germany can well afford to build up its domestic HVDC grid along German rail lines. 7.500 kilometers are going in- there.  And other subsidies are going up for HTDC lines to Spain (picking up solar and wind there.) and to Morocco from the Desertec program.  The earmarked expenditures are only €20 billion Euros. (The sun most always shines in Morocco, and like the Helgoland “HeWind” installation on the North Sea, the wind most always blows there- which will power those 7.500 big Siemens wind turbines. (Goodness- those turbines alone will generate the equivalent of 20 nukes going into the Moroccan and European grid- and we´re not even talking about all the concentrated solar going in- (using salt batteries for nighttime delivery)

Desertec has its headquarters here in Munich where I live.

And lets get back to Germany´s already built up rail systems, commuter rail, light rail and subway systems – now converting to A +++ motors with brake energy recycling.  That is very efficient.  Like about 85% more efficient than traffic on the road. Saves a lot of fossil fuel energy, does it not.  (And those transport systems – urban and German rail, also provide jobs, purchase equipment, constantly upgrade, etcetera- a significant factor in the German economy, thank you.) Nothing so efficiently moves people and freight like a steel wheel on a steel rail. And the excellent existing build out of rail is a nice factor keeping German fossil fuel consumption much lower than in the U.S. thank you, Mr. Post. 

Abnd how do we keep running those trains with clean energy.  Wind and solar, domestic and imported. Of course, we are also going to build out, non dam “anchored, on stream- hydroelectric.  Take the Inn River for example.  Cooperating with Austria, Bavaria can build that out- say 2 units apiece on every kilometer of the Inn from innsbruck to Muhldorf- where it joins the Danube.  – Tri-maran hulls- with turbines suspended in the river below winter ice formation levels. 2 megawatts apiece.  Hm.

How much hydroelectric will non-dam, anchored hydroelectric produce on that 3 hundred kilometer stretch?  Add it up- 600 units producing 2 MW each 24/7…. means 1.200 MWh… which is more than the already shut down Isar I nuclear power plant, thank you. Of course, Bavaria has the Lech, already dammed.  So, we can upgrade all of the Lech river dam turbines to A +++ to squeeze 30% more power out of them. (And Munich utilities are doing the same with its different hydro plants on the Ilz and elsewhere.- 30% more power is 30% more power… and Munich already gets 50% of its power from hydro.) We can add anchored on stream hydro- from below dams to the headwaters of the next dam system on the Lech as well, squeezing out more power until it joins the Danube.  Oh, and what about 1.500 anchored on stream hydro- units on the Danube as well, from Neu Ulm all the way to Passau?  How much would that add in clean power to the Bavarian grid?  Hm? At 2 megawatts a unit, that means another 3.000 megawatts, or 3 GWh in local hydro-electric going up- boosting the percentage of hydro even higher.  (And we are not going to get into the energy potentials of anchored on stream on all the other German rivers.)

Of course, Bavaria is sitting on the south German “Molasse field”. It is already starting to exploit the field for deep geothermal power and heat, but it is building.  Right now, feasibility studies are being conducted for converting all the nuclear power plants in Bavaria, shut down, and to be shut down by 2022, to a closed system hot rock geothermal. For that, we will adapt the latest in oil drilling technologies, driving down deep and then running a horizontal line on each drill- and run a second inner concentric line down into it…. using sequestered co² as the heat medium to the steam generators driving the turbines.  Safe, non-seismic. 

The price for conversion to deep geothermal would run between 1.2 to 2 billion per nuclear power plant.  Hm?  So, if we do all 24 shut down and to be shut down nukes that way-

And what do we do with the shut down Isar oneß  Bavaria is sitting on the Molasse geothermal field. So, that can be cost effectively converted to closed, hot rock geothermal for about 1.5 billion Euros. We can do the same to the Isar II, the Memmingen, and Neu Ulm nukes.  The total price for converting all nukes to deep geothermal is estimated to be around – 60 billion Euros.  Why just shut down and demolish?  Convert them, and keep the p.g. capital.  That is a cost effective way of exiting nuclear, isn´t it Mr. Post.

Germany is not suffering for exiting nuclear.  Now, le´s take waste methane generation and high temperature waste incineration power plants.  One good example Germany set and is gleefully exporting, are methane waste capture – helping to fire high temperature waste incineration power plants.  (four are going up in the Emirates – which run high waste incineration at night- concentrated solar by day.  Fancy that.)

Munich built its system a long time ago.  A waste digester plant in the North part of town- takes sewage sludge and chopped cellulose wastes- to generate methane which is piped under the Isar River to the Oberföhring power plant.  Fancy that.  And that and natural gas are used to incinerate all of Munich´s garbage in the two furnaces driving the steam turbines. Of course the methane enriched sludged is pumped into it as well.  So everything I flush down the toilet and throw into the trash is returned to me in the form of power and long distance heat- in the energy upgraded building- which also has three inch facade insulation, and one inch wide vacuum twin pane insulation windows. (those programs have been in place for years, cutting heat costs.)  The other efficient power plants are also hooked up to the extensive and intensively connected long distance heat hot water CHP grid.

Fancy that.  For Munich alone, that means a savings of 4.000 million barrels of heating oil, i.e. cutting net import price by about – 480 euros. And it saves Munichers a net price cost in heating oil- at over 1 Euro per liter, of over 636 million Euros.  We are really not suffering because of our “energy saving- renewable energy” programs.

Goodness, CHP – combined heat power!  Germany recently revised its renewable energy laws – so it mandates shallow geothermal heat pumps, solar heat, and a combined heat power gas fired back up system on all new buildings in addition to facade, window, and roof insulation.  (with solar p.g. being optional.)  That cuts a lot of heating oil and natural gas just for heating prices, does it not?)

In building CHP systems are good backup baseline power.  The optimized system looks like this- an internal combustion engine- running 10% nat gas, 90% “browns gas” (generated by turbo thermo coupling plates on the engine) resonated- (the Stan Meyers system) that drives a 10 KWh A +++ engine, and exhausts first pass through an Alpha Stirling motor (using deuterium as the heat modulator- optimal efficiency) driving another 10 Kw generator- and then- with heat exchange into the building.

VW and Lichtblick utilities are already using internal combustion engines- driving generators — with heat exchnge for multi-family dwellings and small office buildings.  (with its projected build out of 200.000 units, that achieves the equivalent of 2 Gigawatts of in building CHP SMART GRID coordinated, the equivalent of 2 nuclear power plants.)  with the expanded system, and retrofitting 1.000.000 units using the Stan Meyers systems- we can achieve a massive saving on heating oil while putting another 20 gigawatts of power onto the grid.  That build out of 1 million units to that system which seems to violate the 1s and 2nd laws of thermodynamics will only cost €30 billion, at a net installation price, including V.A.T., labour, labour taxes, and the rest. The price is nice. E1.50 per producing watt, which will balance out the more expensive systems.  And very low nat gas consumption.

Oh yes, CHP.  As I write, 3000 farms unit are already equipped with manure methane  or cesspool sludge/cellulose waste methane digesters. These then feed fuel cells which provide power, and heat to the farm buildings.  (It makes sound ecological sense because methane is a strong greenhouse gas.  And feed lot and dairy operations account for 48% of Northern Hemispheric greenhouse gas emissions.  Capturing that and burning it as fuel lowers the greenhouse gas warming potential because the bio-product co2 has a much lower global warming factor. 

The build out on that to all 200.000 German farms by 2025 will cost about 10 Billion Euros – but with each farm generating an average of 100 KWh… it will add 20.000.000 KWh of base line power to the grid at a cost of only 2 Euros per producing watt installed! It is a lot cheaper than nuclear, thank you. It eliminates methane greenhouse gas, and eliminates the need to import a lot of fossil fuel gas and burn it.

This is in addition to all the solar going up on farmhouse roofs and the wind turbines put up by farmer co-ops.  Averaged over the year, a village equipped with methane recapture units, solar, and farmer co-op wind gnerates 2.5 times as much power as it consumes.

Wildpoldsried in S.E. Bavaria is a good example of combined methane recapture, rooftop solar heat, solar voltaic, and farmer co-op wind.  And it gets visitors from all over the world who are interested the combined system for their own rural areas.

French state owned oil company, Total, is building up similar systems in Normandy and Brittany, prime meat growing and dairy areas in France.  When all German and French farms are equipped with this, it will mean a massive 40 MWh in “poop power” going on line.  And, yes, Mr. Post, it can be applied to U.S. rural regions as well, making them virtually energy autonomous for power and building heat.

Cheaper and clearner than nuclear by a mile.

I really don´t have the feeling that Germany is going to economically suffer due to its nuclear exit as Mr. Post always tries to tell us on this Siemens sponsored website.

(i.e. a German corporate sponsored website.)

Now let us continue on with German developed Energy Efficiency measures.

There is something called “power management” in buildings and factories which c.n.c. splices the distribution going to different motors- and it can cut consumption by up to 30%.  Then, there are the new A +++ rated drive motors. Combine C.N.C power energy management with efficient drive motors, and you get energy savings of over 50% on a new production line as compared with a production line installed in the 90s. Siemens Industry order books for that are more than full, thank you.  The German automotive industry has already upgraded a lot of lines to it, and is continuing to upgrade, cutting energy consumption.  Order books for Siemens eneregy efficient production lines are more than full.  They come in from all over the world, thank you.)

(That is to say, Germany not only has the lowest labour costs per produced unit, it has the lowest fossil fuel energy costs per produced unit as well.  The U.S. has long way to catch up with that.)

Then there is the Siemens “building energy management” system.  That CNC regulates heat and air conditioning in a building which cuts consumption. 

To use an example.  The owners of the empire state building recently installed

all sorts of things in a building upgrade- i.e. new low energy motors on its elevators and escalators, ditto for the air conditioning units, plus power energy management systems plus building energy management systems, and it cut total consumption of energy by 50%, and that rapidly amortizes the upgrade in a period of only four years. People can use their heads and their calculators- and then say- “hey, that means margin”.

Take a county hospital for example. It can be retrofited wit rooftop solar, solar heat, ground heat, additional shallow geothermic, and have an aqueous aided – CHP system as described above, plus power management systems, plus building energy management systems.  That slashes overall energy consumption by over 80%, leaving them margin to upgrade their imaging technology – x rays, tomographs, magnetic resonance imaging, combined CT MR imaging, and Computer aided diagnostics- cutting treatment costs and dangers of maltreatment by improved diagnostics, lowering legal insurance costs. (Beleive me Mr. Post, German clinics and hospitals are upgrading to that.)

Germany is not going to economically suffer due to its nuclear exit as Mr. Post keeps re-itereating on this particular Siemens sponsored site.  

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