On September 8, WRI and the German embassy hosted an event featuring Jochen Flasbarth, President of the German Federal Environment Agency, Umweltbundesamt (UBA). The event, moderated by WRI President Jonathan Lash and with respondents Christopher Flavin, President of the Worldwatch Institute, and Ana Unruh-Cohen, deputy staff director for the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, highlighted UBA’s effort to figure out how the country could transform its electricity supply to
100 percent renewable energy by 2050.Germany has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80-85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. The country’s motivations for this steep reduction are both economic and environmental. While climate change is a driver, the economic benefits from eliminating energy imports from foreign sources, combined with the country’s desires to remain a leader in green manufacturing, as countries like China ramp up their renewable production, encouraged further ambition.
...Flasbarth presented the results of UBA’s research, which focused on the electricity sector. UBA’s analysis was based on three primary assumptions: first, that all regions of the country exploit their best available renewable energy resource potential, second, that there would be an increase in the exchange of electricity between the different regions of the country, and third, that there would be very few imports of energy from other, neighboring countries. Ultimately, the agency found that a carbon-neutral grid could be achieved in Germany under these conditions, even while maintaining its highly industrialized status and without significant changes in consumption patterns and lifestyles.
“We went on the safe side, using a conservative estimate, knowing that people will not change dramatically,” Flasbarth said....
...In the scenario presented at WRI, UBA envisions their
power supply to be adapted to their geographic circumstances – an energy mix based on solar photovoltaics, wind, biomass, and a large portion of geothermal. In his opening remarks, Jonathan Lash pointed out that Germany is already a leader in clean energy. Even during the recession, investment in German renewable rose 20 percent. Furthermore, by 2009 the country employed over 300,000 people in renewable energy sectors, an 87 percent rise since 2004. At the same time, German business confidence just rose to a 3 year high. In contrast, as Christopher Flavin pointed out, the United States produces slightly lower levels of renewable energy – as a share of its total energy use – than it did in the early 1990s....
http://www.wri.org/stories/2010/09/germanys-green-economy-strategy We do not need nuclear.
It is really as simple as that.