The new national energy plan unveiled by the German government last
autumn is already obsolete in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Berlin
now faces the challenge of devising a new mix of fossil and renewable
energy sources to prevent the worst effects of climate change. But how
quickly can Germany dispense with nuclear power and what will the
phase-out really cost?
Neckarwestheim, 43 kilometers (27 miles) north of Stuttgart in
southwestern Germany, has a lot planned this year. The town of 3,500
people wants to build a new cultural center, install two traffic
islands, break ground on a new 11-hectare (24-acre) development zone and
beautify the square in front of its church. Neckarwestheim isn’t
exactly short on funds — at least it hasn’t been until now.
Since 1976, when a nearby nuclear power plant went into operation,
Mayor Mario Dürr and his predecessors have come to expect a handsome sum
of money flowing into the town’s coffers almost every year. The tax
revenues have transformed the provincial village into a dapper town,
complete with gourmet restaurants and a new 18-hole golf course.
But since Chancellor Angela Merkel’s sudden the sudden change of
heart on nuclear energy — and the decision it prompted by electric
utility EnBW to shut down one of the plant’s two reactors last week —
the mayor has been forced to rethink his spending plans. Dürr now
expects Neckarwestheim to lose 250 jobs and to see its local business
tax revenues shrink from €7 million ($9.9 million) to €3 million in only
one year.
He insists that development plans are not in danger, because the town
has sufficient reserves. “Things will get a little tighter, but we can
still get by without EnBW,” the mayor says defiantly.
A town in Germany’s Swabia region is reluctantly bidding farewell to
nuclear power, and the rest of the country could soon follow. Seven of
Germany’s oldest nuclear plants have been shut down and are now unlikely
to be placed back online, while the remaining 10 are expected to become
redundant. Just how quickly this occurs is a question that politicians
and electric utilities will have to resolve in negotiations over the
next three months. One thing is clear, however: The energy source that,
until recently, seemed so clean, safe and inexpensive is suddenly being
viewed as highly dispensable.
The shift in Germany’s energy policy that was triggered by the
catastrophe in Japan couldn’t have been more abrupt. The about-face has
rendered obsolete the new energy plan the chancellor unveiled last fall
and boldly touted as a revolution. Now that the government needs a new
mix of fossil and renewable sources of energy, the consequences will be
revolutionary. The energy industry needs a new business model, the
government is revising its energy supply strategy and consumers will
have to get used to the idea that none of this will be free.
Phasing Out Plants While Keeping the Lights On
How the sea change will affect companies, politicians and people
depends mainly on how quickly the nuclear phase-out moves forward. Until
now, nuclear power has constituted about 22 percent of the electricity
mix. Now everything revolves around the question of how to devise a time
frame for shutting down nuclear plants while keeping the lights on.
The utilities are able to handle the immediate shutdown of the seven
older reactors relatively well, although the situation could become
exacerbated in the next few days when an eighth nuclear power plant,
located in the town of Grafenrheinfeld between Frankfurt and Nuremburg,
is also shut down. Last year inspectors noticed abnormalities in the
central cooling pipe in the heart of the plant in Bavaria, which is
operated by E.on. The utility company now plans to replace the pipe in
the context of costly repairs to the plant that will take several weeks
to complete.
The remaining natural gas, coal-fired and nuclear power plants are
still producing enough energy to make up for the roughly 8,000 megawatts
Grafenrheinfeld and the other seven plants would normally provide. But
what happens with the remaining nine nuclear plants, which currently
supply Germany with about 13,500 megawatts of electricity? How quickly
can the country plug the gap in the system if it dispenses with these
plants? And, more importantly, what will it replace them with?
There are already growing calls for a comeback of natural gas and, in
particular, coal, notwithstanding the myriad environmental concerns.
Michael Vassiliadis, head of the Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial
Union (IG BCE), says Germany needs to engage in “a new social debate”
over coal’s contribution to the energy mix. A coal renaissance would, of
course, invalidate Germany’s stated long-term goal of reducing the
earth’s temperature by 2 degrees Celsius compared with the
pre-industrial age.
A Choice Between Two Evils
The government faces a tough decision over which goal should come
first: reducing CO2 emissions or avoiding the hazards of radiation — a
choice between one of two necessary evils.
The environmentalists at Greenpeace, who have come up with their own
calculations on how Germany could survive without nuclear power, are
experiencing the same dilemma. In that energy scenario, which they call
“Plan B,” it would take six to seven years before Germany is ready for a
complete phase-out. Even that, says expert Andree Böhling, would
involve making some changes.
Germany would have to take a much bigger step toward expanding
renewable energy, especially wind power. In addition, energy consumers,
particularly industry, would have to improve efficiency even further.
Currently about three dozen companies, such as aluminum and steel mills
consume almost one-quarter of all electricity produced in Germany.
Finally, Böhling’s calculations show that the utility industry would
have to build roughly 10 large gas and steam turbine plants. Thanks to
new discoveries and drilling technologies, gas is now available in
abundance worldwide. The notion that nuclear power would lead mankind
into the future was always a fairy tale, says Böhling. “Natural gas,”
the Greenpeace expert insists, “is a bridge we can rely on.”
According to Böhling, this bridge would become passable even more
quickly, namely within three to four years, if the utilities would
increase capacity utilization at their coal-fired power plants, at least
for a transitional period. Even environmentalist Böhling says he could
accept this as a temporary solution.
Could it really be that easy? Can Germany achieve a complete nuclear
phase-out by the middle of the decade by saving a little electricity,
building a few more wind turbines and about a dozen gas power plants,
and keeping coal-fired plants up and running for a while longer? The
truth is that it won’t happen as quickly as some predict — or as easily
and cheaply, either.
Part 2: Can Power Grid Handle Shifts?
The town of Wustermark, in the eastern state of Brandenburg, is
located about 30 kilometers west of Berlin. If all goes well, in four
years one of Europe’s most advanced gas-fired power plants will be
standing on the edge of a thinly populated industrial area and
generating electricity. It is a €640-milllion project that the Swiss
company Advanced Power plans to build in collaboration with German
engineering giant Siemens — unless a local citizens’ initiative manages
to stop the venture.
Local residents are protesting against the planned power plant. They
don’t want to see a giant concrete building in their backyards, even if
the project means higher tax revenues and new jobs for their debt-ridden
community. Managing Director Folker Siegmund, who knows full well that
opposition from citizens has killed similar projects in the past, is
taking the local resistance seriously. “No major project is immune these
days,” says the executive.
It is practical obstacles like this that will make it so difficult
for Germany to quickly bid farewell to the atom — and make the
Greenpeace scenario more of a theoretical possibility. Citizens’
alliances and climate activists are trying to torpedo virtually every
plan to build a new power plant, and they are often successful. The
organization German Environmental Aid (DUH), which is coordinating the
protests nationwide, prides itself for having halted the construction of
15 coal-fired power plants with a total output of more than 14,000
megawatts.
At least four other planned large plants are also about to be
cancelled, including a power plant in Datteln in North Rhine-Westphalia
in the west where construction is almost finished. Because of planning
mistakes on the part of the plant operator E.on, work has come to a
virtual standstill on the construction site. The 180-meter (590-foot)
cooling tower, visible from many cities in the surrounding Ruhr region,
already feels like a modern industrial memorial.
A Lack of Reliability
Experts say that by 2020, Germany will have to add highly efficient
coal and gas reactors with a total output of 10 gigawatts to the grid,
the equivalent of about 12 large power plants. Because so many new
projects have been thwarted, the country lacks key capacities to
guarantee a supply of energy in the post-nuclear age.
Operators also cannot simply reactivate old power plants that have
already been shut down. “In most cases,” according to electric utility
RWE, “operating licenses have expired or are limited in time.” To get
the old power plants up to speed, operators would have to install new
environmental technology, an investment that rarely pays off.
The expansion of renewable energy sources, no matter how rapid, can
hardly offset these deficits among conventional power plants. Today
about 17 percent of electricity in Germany comes from renewable sources,
and the government predicts that the number will go up to between 35
and 38 percent by 2020. While this would undoubtedly represent
tremendous growth, wind and solar power will hardly be capable of
satisfying significant portions of demand for electricity. The problem
is that they lack a key characteristic: reliability.
The available wind energy on some autumn days is enough to eliminate
the need for all nuclear power plants. But this is far from the case on
most days of the year. Solar power is equally inconsistent. There are
summer hours when solar panels feed more power into the grid than the
Germans need, but their contribution on the whole is not significant.
Germany gets an average of 1,600 hours of sunshine a year. Solar
panel performance declines rapidly during the remaining 7,000 hours, and
at night they generate no electricity at all.
Troubles with Offshore Wind Farms
Generating power in large offshore wind farms would be much more
predictable, because the wind blows much more powerfully and
consistently at sea than on land. This is why electric utilities plan to
invest billions in offshore projects in the coming years. They are
promising that offshore turbines will provide 10,000 megawatts of
permanent and reliable electricity by 2020 — enough to cover about
one-eighth of peak demand in Germany.
But the major utilities have hardly followed up their announcements
with actions. They have constructed a pilot project, Alpha Ventus, but
the giant turbines, each as tall as Cologne Cathedral, have proved to be
extremely trouble-prone. Utilities E.on, EWE and Vattenfall have
already had to replace six of the 12 turbines. The entire project was
delayed by months as a result, say the operators. According to
Environment Ministry officials in Berlin, the expansion of offshore wind
farms could even be years behind schedule.
For this reason, the industry has recently refocused its efforts on
the mainland. According to Hermann Albers, president of the German Wind
Energy Association, repowering, or the replacement of old turbines with
significantly taller and more powerful ones, will provide additional
capacity. The industry estimates that three to four nuclear reactors can
be replaced in this manner, but only if the infrastructure necessary to
transmit the generated electricity is available. And that is precisely
the stumbling block.
Thousands of kilometers of high-voltage lines are needed to transmit
wind-generated electricity from the north to major markets in central
and southern Germany. The surprising plan to shut down nuclear power
plants only exacerbates this imbalance, grid operators warn. “The
(electricity) grids are not designed to handle such a serious
redistribution of loads,” E.On CEO Johannes Teyssen told SPIEGEL in an
interview published this week. In other words, there will be a growing
threat of blackouts.
According to calculations by the German Energy Agency (Dena), up to
3,600 kilometers of additional 380,000-volt lines are needed in the
coming years to maintain grid stability. “An accelerated expansion of
renewable energy, which the government proposes, is useless if we lack
the grid capacity to absorb the electricity,” warns Dena Managing
Director Stephan Kohler. And if the expansion fails, Kohler adds, it
will not be possible to reach the 38-percent target for renewable
energy.
There are even bigger bottlenecks when it comes to the supply of
power storage devices. They are indispensable to bridge periods when
there is little wind or sun, and to offset fluctuations. So-called
pumped storage hydroelectric plants are considered ideal.
Part 3: Too Little Storage, an Insufficient Grid and a Lack of Output Capacity
At times when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining but demand is
low, the excess electricity is used to pump water into elevated
reservoirs. When electricity is needed, the stored water is released,
driving massive turbines that can generate large amounts of electric
energy within seconds.
Pumped storage hydroelectric plants with a total capacity of about
7,200 megawatts are currently installed in Germany. However, an
additional 14,000 megawatts would be needed by 2020 — at a minimum. RWE
Innogy CEO Fritz Vahrenholt describes a hypothetical scenario in which
the wind stops blowing for 10 days. To offset the loss, Germany would
need 313 times as much pumped storage capacity as exists today. A
windless period lasting that long, says Vahrenholt, is by no means
uncommon.
German topography, however, offers little room for additional water
storage facilities without a massive reshaping of the landscape. And in
the few places where it would be possible, companies are encountering
resistance.
For decades, water has been used for pumped storage at Schluchsee
Lake in the Black Forest, where an artificial reservoir is positioned
600 meters above the turbines in the valley. Now the Schluchsee plant
operators want to expand the system in the town of Atdorf, but the
environmental organization Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), opposes
the project, which is slated to cost billions.
According to BUND, the planned expansion would interfere with water
protection zones, endanger the habitats of protected species and put
“too much strain” on the region. BUND officials are quick to point out
that they are not fundamentally opposed to building pumped storage
hydroelectric plants, just not in Atdorf.
Underperforming Green Energy Sources
A lack of storage capacity, insufficient grid strength and too little
output capacity: The expansion of renewable energy is encountering
roadblocks, particularly given that other green energy sources are also
underperforming.
Geothermal energy, or energy produced by terrestrial heat, could
cause seismic reactions and even small earthquakes. Biomass grown to
produce energy competes with food production. And since the turmoil
began in the Arab world, it has become clear that the massive Desertec
solar project, which would supply electricity tapped from the sunny
region and transport it across the Mediterranean, could also be facing
problems. In addition to technological challenges, some fear it has the
potential to be used by North African despots as an electricity weapon
against Europe.
And if the expansion of gas-fired power plants is also delayed,
suppliers will have no choice but to quickly upgrade aging coal plants,
despite the cost. The consequences will include higher CO2 emissions and
greater costs.
“If we continue to depend on old plants, the price of CO2
certificates will rise significantly and make electricity more
expensive,” says Dena head Kohler. This tendency already made itself
felt last week on the EEX energy exchange in Leipzig, Germany, where
prices in the futures trading market shot up as a result of the
foreseeable shortage of CO2-free nuclear energy. Meanwhile, the price of
coal went up by eight percent and the price of natural gas by 11
percent within a week.
There will be a price to be paid — financially, at first — for
speeding up the nuclear phase-out. The expansion of the extra
high-voltage grid alone is expected to cost about €10 billion by 2020.
But the use of natural gas and, most of all, coal, will also exact an
environmental cost if these sources are to make up for at least some of
the lost nuclear power, because renewable energy sources alone will be
incapable of satisfying demand.
The road to our energy future is dirtier than the dawn of the
renewable age would suggest. Most of all, it leads away from centralized
units, like massive power plants, that generate large amounts of
electric energy at relatively low efficiency levels and distribute it
throughout the country.
The future energy system will be more compartmentalized,
decentralized and regional. It will be a blend of regenerative forms of
energy, co-generation plants, flexible gas turbines and storage systems,
all of which will be controlled by intelligent grids. The business of
energy giants like RWE and EnBW is not designed for this type of system.
Even the old nuclear town of Neckarwestheim has recognized the signs
of the times. The town government has budgeted €50,000 to mount solar
panels on its new cultural center. It also plans to generate electricity
with gas collected from the digesting tank in its sewage treatment
plants. Neckarwestheim’s new mantra could very well read: Small,
flexible and with no radiation risk whatsoever.
I am ready to answer any of your questions,
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“The Expert” National Energy Broker
Steven Banass
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