HOW ARE
RENEWABLE
ENERGY SOURCES
BEING SABOTAGED?
W
hen the International Energy Agency
(IEA) publishes its studies on energy
security and economic development,
governments often take them at face value.
But for a number of years now, the IEA has
been systematically underestimating the
growth of renewable energy and thus the
potential of climate-neutral power plants.
For example, the IEA has projected global
photovoltaic production to be 200 gigawatts
in 2030, but, in fact, the figure for 2017 was
already considerably higher. Nevertheless,
governments continue to base their political
decisions on these faulty estimates, and the
large energy producers take advantage of it:
Because as long as the output coming from
sources of alternative energy appears to
be lagging behind, there will be very little
political pressure on the energy companies
to clean up their act.HOW MANY
JOBS WILL BE
LOST BECAUSE
OF THE TRANSITION
TO RENEWABLE
ENERGY?
N
o other country in the world uses as
much brown coal (lignite) as Germany:
This combustible rock that is formed
from the natural compression of peat has
been responsible for approximately one-
fifth of the country’s total CO 2 emissions.
(The heat content of lignite is also relatively
low, as compared with other varieties.) In
signing the Paris Climate Agreement, the
German government made a commitment
to cut its CO 2 emissions by more than half
by the year 2030. But the implementation
of that goal is progressing at a slow pace.
One of the arguments made in favor of a
slowdown is that the implementation would
endanger jobs. Some 20,000 people work
in Germany’s lignite industry. But compared
with the almost 340,000 jobs available in
renewable energy, that is a relatively small
number, and halting the implementation
threatens those very jobs. Climate expert
Volker Quaschning says: “The contribution
of China’s competition in renewable energy,
which along with political uncertainty has
resulted in an 80 percent reduction in the
domestic photovoltaic industry, has caused
a loss of 80,000 jobs. In addition, more than
40,000 jobs in the wind power industry are
acutely threatened.”Volker Quaschning is a professor of
renewable energy systems at the
University of Applied Sciences for
Engineering and Economics in Berlin.Interview:
How can we halt
climate change,Prof. Quaschning?
WHAT TECHNOLOGY DO
WE NEED IN ORDER TO
MAKE THE TRANSITION?
We’ve had the appropriate technology for
a long time. To make the German economy
climate-neutral by 2035, we will have to
quadruple the output from wind power and
increase solar power by a factor of 10. The
challenge for the U.S. is far greater because
relatively little has been done.
DOESN’T MANUFACTURING
SOLAR PANELS PRODUCE
A LOT OF CO 2?
The technology has advanced so much that
even in areas with relatively little sunshine,
solar panels recover the energy that was
needed to make them after only two years
of operation. Modern solar equipment has a
life expectancy of up to 35 years—the same
as coal-fired power plants. But in the case
of solar, the cost of producing and setting
up the equipment is recovered in the first
10 years—after that, everything is savings.
THERE IS SUNSHINE ONLY
DURING THE DAY, AND
THE WIND DOESN’T BLOW
CONSTANTLY. WON’T
WE CONTINUE TO NEED
COAL-FIRED POWER
PLANTS TO MAKE UP
THE DIFFERENCE?
That’s a question the conventional power
producers like to raise, however the answer
is a firm “no.” Renewable energy is already
delivering approximately half of Germany’s
energy needs. That’s an average of course,
and the fi gure is indeed higher in the daytime
and lower at night. But we use the excess
energy we produce during the day to create
climate-neutral hydrogen, which is used to
fire calorific power plants and make up the
deficit. The best thing about it is: We already
have sufficient gas-fired plants and storage
facilities because we have been importing
natural gas from Russia [editor’s note: this is
supplied by Gazprom, which is ranked third-
worst in the world for its CO 2 emissions].
Because Russia has also been known to
use its natural gas as a political weapon,
we have to be aware of the threat that the
Russian state could simply turn off the gas.
Thus we store a three-month supply, and
we also have the space we need to store
the gas we create from renewable energy
sources. The goal is to make Germany not
only climate-neutral but also independent
of foreign sources.WHAT ABOUT OTHER
COUNTRIES? CHINA’S
COAL-FIRED POWER
PLANTS PRODUCE MORE
CO 2 THAN ANYONE ELSE.
China will take a lot longer than we will
to become climate-neutral because their
energy needs are so much greater. But at
the same time, the Chinese are far ahead
of us when it comes to electromobility and
photovoltaics. China will soon be reaching
its maximum consumption of coal because
most of it will already have been exhausted.
This milestone will cause a huge reduction
in the Chinese coal consumption. And oil-
producing countries such as Saudi Arabia
are also investing heavily now in renewable
energy sources. When it comes to natural
resources, the Saudis have a lot more than
just petroleum—namely, sunshine.ideasanddiscoveries.com 25 May 2020