Skip to main content

More Thoughts on Germany, Russia, Natural Gas and Nuclear Energy

A friend of ours from Germany who works at the World Nuclear Association is wondering what the latest news on Russian natural gas might mean for the country of his birth:
I would like to close this blog by quoting a suggestion of how the German electricity supply could be made less dependent on foreign countries and in the same time avoid the dumping of large amounts of CO2 into our air. This quite bold suggestion was given - funnily enough - by the above quoted Reinhard Loske of the Green party - probably not intending to make a real suggestion by saying this but nevertheless:

In an article in the Braunschweiger Zeitung of November 8th 2005, he writes that "Should nuclear power seriously contribute to climate protection, more than 80 NPPs would have to be built in the next 40 years in Germany alone".

Well, I don't know where this number comes from, but this sounds like an interesting suggestion to me!
UPDATE: It looks like some of Germany's political leadership is thinking the same thing:

Germany will review plans to close nuclear power plants at a national summit after a dispute between Russia and Ukraine cut gas shipments to Europe, Economics Minister Michael Glos said.

"Russian gas supplies were reliable in the past," the lawmaker from the Christian Social Union said in a faxed statement. 'Yet we need a fundamental rethink how we can exploit energy available in Germany in the longer term." Chancellor Angela Merkel had already planned meetings with energy industry chiefs and a summit on energy policy in February or March.

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should