Energy transition more important than protection of nature (Fritz Vahrenholt) Germany

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Fritz Vahrenholt: Energy transition more important than the protection of nature?

March 4, 2017 | 07:30 The Basler Zeitung interviewed Fritz Vahrenholt on the energy turnaround on 18 February 2017: --"That's absurd!"

Former environmental politician and energy manager Fritz Vahrenholt on German energy policy and Switzerland.

BaZ: You have called the German energy transition a "disaster". How so?

Fritz Vahrenholt : First of all, after the tsunami in Japan, the German government decided within a weekend to renounce nuclear energy, which until then had created the base load for German industry. Since then, the government wants to replace this secure energy with fluctuating electricity from sun and wind. Everyone knows that this is not sensible.

Not me. Explain it to me.

We have 50 to 100 days and sometimes whole weeks a year with no wind and little sun.

Then they produce less than ten percent of the need. And when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, there is too much electricity in the grid, and as the storage capacities are lacking, we switch off wind power plants. We have an escalating problem - either too much or too little power.

Why is the problem getting worse?

Because with every addition of such "fluttering power", by every wind turbine and every solar cell, the fluctuations are increased.

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Let's start at the top: Nuclear energy has no future.

This is the policy that was decided, even though there were no serious complaints and fears regarding German nuclear power plants.

In Switzerland, it is planned that the nuclear power plants will continue to run as long as safety permits.

That's smart. This will give you time, time, and maybe even cost-effective storage technologies.

And the used nuclear fuel - misnamed nuclear waste?

The disposal issue is completely independent of whether the power plants run for 30, 40 or 50 years. After Fukushima, only Switzerland and Germany have decided on an energy turnaround. Even in Japan, people are again banking on nuclear power and coal. In 2022, the last German nuclear power plant will be shut down and there will then be no secure supply in the south of Germany. We are increasingly dependent on natural forces if we then want to do without coal and gas power plants.

Why is that bad?

I have nothing against wind and solar energy if it is economical and ensures a secure power supply. But that will not work until the memory problem is solved. They must be able to make the natural forces a reliable supply.

It just needs enough solar and wind power plants.

No, even if we triple the wind capacity, the production will remain near zero in the doldrums. The sun is similar, especially at night. Wind turbines only generate as much electricity as if they were running at full power for just 90 days a year. For photovoltaic, there are 35 full load days. It can be seen from this that it can not succeed without storage to ensure a secure supply.

Why is that so important?

You always have to keep in mind what the existing system does. Whenever there is a demand for power somewhere, this power must be delivered in the same second. If the floodlight system of FC Basel is turned on on a winter evening, the additional requirements must be made available within seconds. They can not start production with solar or wind energy.

What does that mean?

When the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, we have too much electricity in Germany. We give away surplus electricity, often at negative electricity prices, to foreign countries. Because of the primacy of renewables, it is first necessary to shut down the conventional gas or coal-fired power plants, then even wind power plants, which will still be paid for, even though they will not produce anything. The cost now a billion euros per year, that's absurd! Once again, new sources of energy are only a reliable supplier if we have solved the storage problem.

Such technologies exist.

Yes, there are possibilities, for example pumped storage, ie reservoirs in the mountains.

As you pump up water and leaves it off when the power is needed. Already to compensate for a four-day breeze, you would have to pump the Lake Constance (500 km ², 100 m deep) to a high level and drain again.

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Why is not that possible with batteries?

Maybe someday to be possible. Then also has the changeable wind and solar energy a chance. Today it is much too expensive - well and gladly 20 euro cents per Kilowatthour - and that adds to the actual electricity costs and fees. This can only afford the wealthy private household. Any industrial use of electricity they can forget for cost reasons.

In Switzerland we have many pumped storage plants. They have paid off well for years. Now they do not earn anything anymore.

The reason for this is the completely out of joint production of wind and solar power in Germany. Then when it's windy, we push the excess over our neighbors across the border. This electricity is already paid by the subsidies, if it arises, so it costs nothing or even has a negative price. The pumped storage plants, however, need about eight euro cents to survive economically. That's a big dilemma for Switzerland. Thus, their domestic - almost CO? -free - electricity production is suddenly called into question.

Excess production endangers our hydropower.

We have 50,000 megawatts of wind power in Germany. If all produce, they must first turn off coal and gas power plants, but then also wind power plants themselves, otherwise a collapse threatens. If that is not enough, we will pour the electricity across the border and destroy the energy supply of our neighboring countries. Conversely, these neighbors have to help us with electricity when there is no wind. The Poles are no longer pleased with this and have mounted phase shifters at the border, so that the German excess electricity can no longer go to Poland. The Czechs will do the same.

Could Switzerland do that, too?

I can imagine that this debate in Switzerland at some point begins and one asks oneself: "Do we really have to pay for the overblown and unbalanced energy policy of Germany?"

Presumably there are people in Switzerland who would answer this question with no. I understand that.

But then Switzerland would have to be self-sufficient, which requires new gas-fired power plants.

If the nuclear power plants have been taken off the net, must flexible gas power plants take over their function. However, the German energy transition has made gas power plants unprofitable because of the surplus electricity. A modern gas-fired power station in Bavaria was shut down one day after commissioning, because it was not worth it.

Let's talk about money. Electricity is becoming more and more expensive for consumers, but in the international market it is always cheaper. Where does it come from?

Quite simply: wind and solar power are still twice to three times as expensive as conventionally generated electricity. To compensate for this, the additional costs are charged to the customers through a transfer fee and distributed to the producers of wind and solar energy. Every windmill owner and owner of a solar roof gets a fixed compensation for his electricity, which ensures a whopping 20-year return. The surcharge increases the cost of electricity for the customers. Renewable electricity is paid in advance and enters the grid at zero price, displacing conventional electricity from the market. This lowers the electricity price on the stock exchange. Both effects together lead to an increase for the private customer.

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In the past, you simply subsidized the nuclear power plants. Electricity has always been expensive.

In Germany, the nuclear power plants were not subsidized and I can not imagine that for Switzerland. The research and development of nuclear power has been funded by the state, but that is not objectionable.

And the risks? They did not have to fully insure the nuclear power plants.

That was a decision supported by politics and society. Today, that would be decided differently. But the question does not arise, since new nuclear power plants can not be operated economically.

Their alternative is to let the nuclear power plants run as long as possible and to rely on the development of storage technologies.

If we have competitive storage technologies, then we can handle fluctuating energy such as sun and wind.

So you are only concerned with the order?

I agree. After all, we can not just unbuckle the horse from behind and build the wind and solar power plants first, if we know that they will only provide a secure power supply if we have storage technologies that still need to be developed. Everything else does not seem to me very wise.

What does that mean for the industry Location?

There is already a deficit in electricity supply in Bavaria and Baden-WĂźrttemberg. You can do that by building pipelines from the north. But that will take years and because of resistance to overhead lines it will be very expensive. Switzerland is related to Germany.

In the event of a power shortage, this also has an effect in Switzerland.

Is there no resistance from the industry?

There is no resistance from the energy-intensive industry because it is exempt from the levy charge - as in Switzerland. Steel, Chemistry, copper, aluminum even benefit from the deep Gross commercial praise. In reality that is System but much more expensive.

The households and the small ones Companies just pay the bill. We now see that new industrial investments tend to be omitted. You do not invest in a country where you do not know exactly how energy prices are develop. In addition to price, security of supply also plays an important role. She takes with each new wind rad.

What are the dangers of wind turbines?

I myself have founded a wind power company in 2000 and made big and know the technology very well. It would never have occurred to me to believe that such fluctuating energy could be used to operate a rail network. We all have to learn that. Wind energy not only brings benefits. In Germany, a wind power plant is planned on average every 2.7 kilometers, although we already know today that Greif Birds, bats and other endangered species will disappear as a result. The red kite is endangered. The 26 most important sing Bird species are on the decline. The impact on the habitats of plants and animals is enormous. If a nuclear power plant had destroyed as much nature as wind energy does, it would have been quiet for a long time been laid.

Why do the conservation say that organizations not?

The deeper core is as follows: The political Greens have made the energy transition a program, no matter what. In reality they were never a nature conservation party in 4

Germany, but an anti-capitalist party engaged against nuclear power and industry.

That's why they have no lifeblood when it comes to flora and fauna. Of course, there are nature conservation organizations that are on this green party line and others who actually do nature conservation. For the former, the energy transition is more important than the protection of nature.

But there is resistance to wind turbines.

Yes. In the countryside there is an enormous, very bourgeois protest potential.

Ironically, this reminds me very much of the beginning of the anti-core energy movement. It is today like this: the dream of the urban elite of a supposedly clean energy provision is made on the backs of the rural population who is losing their homes.

Who wins and who loses financially?

Those who receive subsidies for a solar roof or participate in wind energy funds usually do not belong to the lower class. The workers, the welfare recipients, the tenants in multi-family dwellings, these are the ones who are being asked to pay and who will provide the twenty-year state-guaranteed returns of the wealthy.

You see two possibilities for further development: muddling through or correcting.

One will have to correct sometime, at the latest after the first net breakdowns. The longer it takes, the bigger the difficulties become. If we have a fantastic battery in ten years that costs five eurocents per kilowatt hour, things may get down. But that is politics according to the principle of hope. I would not bet on that and certainly not as a politician commit a nation to it.

First appeared in the Basler Zeitung , which we thank at this point for the imprint.

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