German energy consumption (click to enlarge).
I wrote just the other day about 2 natural gas plants totaling 1 gigawatt in capacity that are likely to soon be shut down because of the tremendous amount of wind energy on the grid in northern Germany, where they’re located. More news out of renewable energy leader Germany is that the country got 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources in 2011, and that it’s energy consumption dropped 4.8%.
“German consumption of oil fell 3%, gas by 10.2%, lignite coal by 0.7% (although hard coal rose 3.7%), and nuclear by 22.9%. At the same time, use of renewable energy climbed by 4.1% and represented about 20% of the country’s electricity and 10.8% of total energy in 2011,” Stephen Lacey reports over on Climate Progress.
“An increase in residential and industrial efficiency combined with milder temperatures in 2011 provided the conditions for the decrease in consumption.”
But aside from these numbers, there’s still the big (false) threat that certain energy players and politicians try to push — the (false) idea that switching to renewable energy and increasing energy conservation will harm the economy. Here’s Stephen’s statement on that:
“Analysts expect German GDP growth to be around 3% in 2011, about the same projected for the U.S.”
Poor Germany — clean air, clean water, a clean conscience, and no price to pay for it.
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