Nuclear power and the French energy transition: It’s the economics, stupid!

[Yo_Mama]

37. Uh, no, the German electricity sector is becoming ever more dependent on coal

http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/germany_returns_to_coal

Utilities in Germany, the largest power market and economy in Europe, have increased their use of coal-fired power plants continuously since the beginning of the year, Reuters reports. Analysts now project annual coal-fired power generation in 2012 will increase to 130 million megawatt-hours (MWhs), an increase of 15.5 million MWhs or 13.5 percent over 2011 levels.

All that additional coal combustion means about 14 million metric tons of CO2, assuming utilities burn hard coal, according to estimates from Matteo Mazzoni, an energy and carbon analyst at Nomisma Energia. Emissions would be higher if German power plants turn to lignite, or brown coal, a dirtier variety with lower energy content that is plentiful in the country.

Even assuming utilities burn hard coal, the increased emissions would be the equivalent to about 6 percent of total German emissions in 2008, or the average annual emissions of 2.8 million U.S. cars.

It is not the associated fossil fuel costs which are increasing - it is the associated renewable subsidy and distribution costs which are increasing. After the elections this year they will settle down and figure out a plan, but the costs of paying the renewable subsidies are mounting very rapidly:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-environment-ministry-plans-to-cap-subsidies-for-renewables-a-880301.html

and:
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=12278

Without amendments to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), the costs for the German Energiewende could add up to a trillion Euros “by the end of the thirties of this century”, Federal Environment Peter Altmaier told the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

Feed-in tariffs in the amount of EUR 67 billion which had already been paid pursuant to the EEG, and another EUR 250 billion which will have to be paid until 2022 (as feed-in tariffs are granted for a 20 year period), equalled EUR 317 billion, Mr Altmaier explained. Another EUR 360 billion had to be added if the expansion of new renewable power plants continued unabated and nothing would be done to cut tariffs. This would lead to costs of EUR 680 billion by 2022, not including the costs for grid expansion, reserve capacity, R&D, electromobility and the energy-efficient renovation of buildings, he said.

more:
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=12112