German utilities and private investors have plans to construct or modernise some 84 power stations, energy and water industry association BDEW said on Monday. Of the total number counted 29 units were gas-fired and 17 coal-fired generation plants, it said. The plans this year reflect over a year of debate on how to best replace Germany's nuclear power stations, which must be closed faster than planned in light of the nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011. --
Reuters, 23 April 2012
It's a real paradox: As a result of Germany's green energy transition, nuclear power is on its way out, but coal, Germany's dirtiest resource, has become the most important energy source again. Brown coal (lignite) in experiencing a renaissance in Germany. Last year, about a quarter of the electricity generated used this most environmentally adverse resource. Its consumption grew by 3.3 percent. This has made lignite the number one energy supplier. The Government’s planned energy transition was supposed to, among other things, produce environmentally friendly electricity. It turns out, however, that the power gap, which was created by the shutdown of eight nuclear power stations, will be largely filled by brown coal.
The Prime Minister believes that unlocking the reserves of gas in shale rock under the county’s countryside has the potential to be a “revolution” creating thousands of extra jobs for the county. Mr Cameron said: “We can complete the review and see whether gas can be extracted safely, clearly in America this has been something of a revolution. I am fully alert to the potential and I am looking very closely at this industry with energy independence and security of vital importance to our country.” --
Lancashire Evening Post, 20 April 2012
Until recently we thought that conventional gas was going to run out and the most plentiful supplies of the stuff were in Russia or the Gulf. Now that we realise the rocks under our feet may hold supplies that would last for generations, the world has changed and the greens haven’t caught up. I detect something else behind the “shale rage” of the European greens. They got too close to the present renewables industries and let governments hand out subsidies without enough competition over price. They thought gas would get so expensive that renewables would look cheap by comparison. They were wrong. Instead of getting angry with the frackers, they should adapt their thinking to a world in which gas prices could fall, and persuade governments to spend some of the money we will save on a generation of renewables that might actually solve our problems. --Charles Clover,
The Sunday Times, 22 April 2012 [Registration Required]
The EU member states’ energy ministers remain opposed to binding energy efficiency targets and a freeze on CO2 emissions allowances. The debate at an informal Energy Council, on 19 April in Horsens, Denmark, gave them the opportunity to confirm their positions on this issue. Without going back over all the different points of the directive, the ministers reiterated their total opposition to the inclusion of binding targets in the text, as demanded by Parliament. They could nevertheless agree to an indicative target of 1.5% energy savings, to be achieved gradually by 2020. --Anne Eckstein,
Europolitics, 20 April 2012[Registration Required]
Argentina’s shale reserves are believed to be the third biggest in the world, after those of the US and China. Just as nuclear scientists hoped atomic power was the answer to the world’s energy needs in the 1950s, oil and gas producers believe this new resource could bring plentiful low-cost power. Shale could also bring energy independence for many nations, freeing them from a reliance on imports. Shale is recasting geopolitics and influencing companies’ investment decisions. National oil companies and international groups have spent tens of billions of dollars acquiring shale gas resources in North America. --Sylvia Pfeifer,
Financial Times, 22 April 2012[Registration Required]
The only British company in the running to build a new generation of atomic power plants has threatened to pull out due to uncertainty over the government’s energy policy – a move that could imperil the country’s nuclear renaissance. Executives at Centrica, which is planning to build a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset in a joint venture with EDF Energy, have warned Whitehall officials that the plan hangs by a thread and could be scrapped if the company does not receive assurances about the future price of nuclear-generated electricity. --Guy Chazan and Jim Pickard, Financial Times, 22 April 2012
The sun may be entering a period of reduced activity that could result in lower temperatures on Earth, according to Japanese researchers. Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century in which London’s Thames froze over and cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual in Kyoto. --
The Asahi Shimbun, 20 April 2012
