Germany 100 Percent Renewables by 2050

Sets an example for all industrial nations Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
and Prof. Peter Saunders

The UK’s Low Carbon Transition Plan [1] (see UK’s Lacklustre
Low Carbon Transition Plan, SiS 44) falls well short of the
challenges that face us. Fortunately, we need look no
further than across the North Sea to Germany for
inspiration. Germany is a large, prosperous, industrialised
country rather like the UK in many ways. It has
traditionally relied heavily on coal for electricity
generation, and has a number of nuclear power plants. But
there the similarities end.

Renewable energies exclude nuclear

While the UK’s White Paper envisages the Great Britain of
2020 or 2050 as much the same as today, Germany is looking
forward to a quite different future in which Germany will
guarantee for itself a secure energy supply and maintain its
position as a world leader in new technology.  It is forging
ahead in the development and use of renewable energy; and
nuclear power - seen in the UK as a major component of the
future energy mix - is being phased out altogether.

The nearest equivalent in Germany to the British White Paper
is a document issued by the German government in January
2009, with the title New Thinking – New Energy. Ten Guiding
Principles for a Sustainable Energy Supply [2].

The document sets out the following objectives:

· By 2020, greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced by 40
per cent from their 1990 levels – double the UK target. (By
the end of 2007 emissions had already been reduced by 21.3
per cent.)

· Energy productivity should be increased by 3 per cent
every year, so that in 2020 energy will be used twice as
efficiently as in 1990

· The proportion of energy that comes from renewables should
be increased. By 2050, half of primary energy consumption
should come from renewable sources. By 2020, the proportions
of final energy consumption, gross electricity consumption
and energy used for heating that come from renewables should
be double their current levels (which are 9 per cent, 15 per
cent and 7 per cent, respectively).

· By 2020, a quarter of energy production should come from
combined heat and power generation (CHP), again double the
present level.

· The use of biofuels should be increased so that by 2020, 7
per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions due to fossil fuels
are eliminated.