Subjectivist wrote:Without a link to a specific report I can't make heads or tails of this thread.
forbin wrote:They shut down their nuclear reactors and claimed at that time they were ahead of the target .
It seems they have been resting on their laurels since ......
I have always regarded Germany's stance on Nuclear power as a bit hypocritical as they import nuclear 'leccy from France . However they are pushing ( or have pushed ) ahead with clean generation.
can the USA do the same ?
methinks they could do better
Forbin
Wood accounts for a majority of renewable energy generation in Poland and Finland, and nearly 40 percent in Germany...
After years in which European governments have boasted about their high-tech, low-carbon energy revolution, the main beneficiary seems to be the favored fuel of pre-industrial societies...
“Burning very few wood fuels shows any carbon benefit over coal,” says Scot Quaranda a spokesperson for the Dogwood Alliance, an anti-deforestation group in Asheville, N.C. “In most cases it’s actually worse than coal or natural gas.”
regardingpo wrote:It's even worse how they're burning wood and pretending that it's good for the environment. Whenever you read "Germany generates xx% energy from renewables" there are two things to know:
1. it's not energy, it's electricity (this is their favorite "mistake")
2. a lot of it comes from biomass which is worse than burning coalWood accounts for a majority of renewable energy generation in Poland and Finland, and nearly 40 percent in Germany...
After years in which European governments have boasted about their high-tech, low-carbon energy revolution, the main beneficiary seems to be the favored fuel of pre-industrial societies...
“Burning very few wood fuels shows any carbon benefit over coal,” says Scot Quaranda a spokesperson for the Dogwood Alliance, an anti-deforestation group in Asheville, N.C. “In most cases it’s actually worse than coal or natural gas.”
http://grist.org/climate-energy/europe- ... wait-what/
M_B_S wrote:
Germany's dirty little coal secret
Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by an estimated 10 million tonnes from 2014 to 2015, in a blow to the country’s claims to climate leadership.
Higher demand for heating oil and diesel, plus use of lignite (brown coal) for power generation, were behind the 1.1% bounce, according to Green Budget Germany.
The think tank warned this set Europe’s largest economy off course for its 2020 target of a 40% cut from 1990 levels.
****************
So there is NO better climate morality in Germany under Merkel
dissident wrote:The claim that burning wood is no better than burning coal is obvious nonsense. Coal is fossilized carbon that makes a net addition to the CO2 in the atmosphere. Burning wood recycles CO2 that was in the atmosphere in modern times back into it and results in no net CO2 contribution as long as the burned trees are replanted.
The fundamental idea behind bioenergy is that it’s carbon-neutral because it releases the carbon that plants absorb when they grow, and thus does not add carbon to the air. Why is this wrong?
It’s a common misunderstanding. Burning biomass of course emits carbon, just like burning fossil fuels. The assumption is that the plant growth to produce that biomass offsets the emissions. But the first requirement for a valid offset, whether for carbon or anything else, is that it is additional. You can’t count plant growth as an offset if it was occurring anyway. Plant growth can only offset energy emissions if it is additional. Counting plants that would grow anyway is a form of double-counting.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed the inference in a 2006 document that evaluated CO2 releases compared to energy produced for 53 different fuels. It determined that wood and wood wastes had a greenhouse emission factor roughly 20 per cent higher than coal.”
Biomass electricity generation, a heavily subsidized form of “green” energy that relies primarily on the burning of wood, is more polluting and worse for the climate than coal, according to a new analysis of 88 pollution permits for biomass power plants in 25 states.
"The American Lung Association has opposed granting renewable energy subsidies for biomass combustion precisely because it is so polluting,” said Jeff Seyler, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of the Northeast. “Why we are using taxpayer dollars to subsidize power plants that are more polluting than coal?”
Cutting and burning forests makes climate change worse. Doing it in the name of “green energy,” as the wood pellet industry does, is one of the environmental crimes of the century.
The biomass industry wants EPA to declare that burning biomass has zero emissions – but the agency isn’t going to do that, because it’s a matter of simple physics that burning wood in power plants generates a lot more carbon pollution than burning gas or coal. Arguments that this carbon pollution shouldn’t “count” rely on the idea that all that carbon pollution will be offset somehow, with new forest growth at some future time, and that’s a problem for the biomass industry – because generally wood-burning power plants don’t have much interest in replanting trees, much less in waiting for them to grow to maturity. All the while, the atmosphere is counting that carbon pollution.
Thank you, President Obama, for recognizing biomass isn't "carbon neutral"
Dear Mr. President:
On behalf of our organization that promotes science-based energy policy, we applaud the administration’s public opposition to the “biomass loophole” that would enable utilities to burn wood for electricity while ignoring its carbon pollution...
Treating bioenergy as carbon neutral undermines the goal of reducing carbon pollution under the Clean Power Plan. This is not a guess — the European Union (EU) already tried this approach. The EU classified bioenergy as carbon neutral while putting a price on carbon pollution. The result was a massive increase in burning wood for electricity because this practice avoids the carbon price...
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