According to this article from Nuclear Power Daily, Germany wants to stop using coal for energy after they've stopped using nuclear power for energy. Noble goal, but ridiculous.
And one guy stepped up and said so.
"Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks has said that if Europe's biggest economy doesn't reduce coal use, it has no chance of meeting its 2020 target of cutting Earth-warming carbon emissions by 40 percent from three decades earlier.
Hendricks' cabinet colleague in charge of the economy and energy, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, sees things differently and has argued that coal is here to stay, citing energy security, cost and many thousands of jobs.
"We can't simultaneously get out of nuclear and coal," Gabriel, the leader of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) who co-govern with Merkel's conservatives, has said."
Das ist richtig.
Our fracking efforts have made this possible, it seems.
"The coal boom in Germany is in part an echo of US shale gas boom.
Cheap natural gas in the United States means coal is being exported to Europe where it undercuts expensive Russian gas, making cleaner and more flexible modern gas plants unprofitable, and several have shut down.
Another factor has been the collapse of the European emissions market, a system meant to factor in the environmental cost of burning fossil fuels. As the penalty for carbon emissions has dropped in price, coal plants have become more lucrative."
So, lacking more nuclear capacity, we keep burning more fossil fuels. Great.
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