Several recent letters (in the Gazette) questioned Germany’s Renewable Energy Program. As an energy historian here’s the accurate results:
Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world. Sources of current electrical energy power: hard coal: 17 per cent; lignite coal: 23 per cent; natural gas: 12 per cent; all renewables: 30 per cent; nuclear: 13 per cent; other sources: 5 per cent.
Germany’s target is to move to 80 per cent renewables by 2050, but it is unlikely to reach that given some of the current design unreliability of renewables, both solar and wind turbines.
In addition, like the UK, Germany is phasing out nuclear power. As you can note, Germany uses 40 per cent of fossil fuels to generate electricity. It does generate excess power but has no infrastructure to export it to the EU.
You can source all this information at [email protected] from the Government of Germany or in Der Spiegel.
Bert MacKay, Oilsands Historian and Technologist, Edmonton
