Sustainability: The German ModelBy: Matthew Charles Lindsay

CNRE 1234 Inventing the Sustainable Future Professor: Dr. Dean Stauffer

GA: Allison LeBlancNovember 9th, 2015

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Introduction:

Germany. A western European nation which has set itself apart from its European brothers and International friends has begun to see the importance of a green, sustainable, and energy independent Germany. However, this path to what Germany has molded itself into has been marked with much conflict and strife, in fact Germany wasn’t unified until 25 years ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall and consequent fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 and 1992 respectively. However, in those 25 years Germany has by no means sat on the side lines. In the past 25 years Germany has grown into a juggernaut, boasting the worlds fourth largest economy with 3.85 trillion in GDP over 2014 according to the World Bank (World Bank 2015). That’s nothing to sneeze at! Along with economics, Germany has become a center for culture and politics, rivaling that of many European nations and even the United States. Germany is a central member of the European Union, one of its strongest and wealthiest nations, as well striving to become a strong voice in diplomacy across the globe. But what does this have to do with Sustainability? In fact, it has very much to do with German sustainability. When it comes to implementing renewable resources it costs vast amounts of money; to implement these technologies in a meaningful and impactful way a country must possess the means to buy and run these new sources of power. Germany has no shortage of money, and in return has the ability to invest in its future, plain and simple. Germany, especially in the last 15 years has put an emphasis on expanding its green sector, and boy how it has grown. Don’t be surprise to see Germany become even more dominant in the future, not just in sustainability but in international affairs as well.

To be brief, fossil fuels have had a firm grip on humanity since it was first commercially used in the late 19th century. These fuels have created polluted skies, polluted waterways, and a myriad of environmental and ecological problems. These problems stretch to every corner of the globe effecting millions, if not billions, of people on a daily basis, needless to say this is a problem which needs to be addresses immediately. To combat this problem, an industry or sector has developed; the “Green Sector”. This “Green Sector” over the course of the past 20 plus years has developed and implemented new sources of energy across the globe know simply as renewable energy, and like the name in-tells, these energies provide an abundant supply of power with virtually no impact to the environment around it. Germany has taken hold of these new technologies and ran with it. In fact, Germany has become the world leader in renewable power, and that will be the emphasis of this paper. Germany has developed a vibrant and expanding green sector, one which implements power sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and nuclear to provide a large portion of Germany’s total energy needs. This paper will discuss Germany’s implementation of these renewable power sources and how their model can be used by other nations to expand the use of renewable resources, and in the long run eliminate the need for fossil fuels all together.

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Umschlaten auf zukunft; switch to the future. This is the motto of the Energiewende, a policy in which Germany has truly seen a switch to the future. This program put in place by the German government only in the last 5 years, the later half of 2010 to be exact; however, its in short life it has rout drastic changes in both energy production and the use of renewable power across Germany (Holzer 2005). But to understand the latter, one must take a look at the Energiewende’s predecessor, The German Renewable Energies Act of 2000. To explain this policy in a nut shell, Verna Leïla Holzer from the University of Potsdam writes:

The explicit objective of the law is to develop a sustainable power supply. This objective is explained with the protection of the climate, nature and the environment. As the direct reference to the objective of lowering the social costs of energy supply shows, renewable energies should be promoted with the implicit objective of reducing the use of fossil energy sources and the related harmful effects on environment and health. The precise objective of contributing to the further development of technologies for the promotion of renewable energies also forms part of the first paragraph of the EEG. In addition, the EEG has clear quantitative objectives: a share of at least 12.5% of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010 and 20% by 2020 (Holzer 2015).

Holzer in this piece has outline the objectives of the GREA, or better yet the entire German sustainability movement. She explains that the GREA is pushing to develop a sustainable power supply, to implement more green energy, protecting the environment, lowering the cost of energy for the average German, reduce the use of fossil fuels, and create expectations for the development of a renewable power supply. In actuality, The GREA has reached and even surpassed the expectation which it set out for itself back in 2000. For example, the expectations of 12.5% of Germany’s power to be produced by renewable sources by 2010 has been exceeded by leaps and bounds, in fact Germany reached 14% by 2010. From it implementation in 2000 Germans electricity produced from renewable resources has increase from 6% in 2000 to more than 27% in 2015 (Holzer 2015). There is no doubt that this policy has pushed Germany to become one of the worlds powerhouses in renewable energy production.

With a simple understanding of the German Renewable Energies Act, the Energiewende can now be understood fully. Basically the Energiewende is a continuation of the GREA; however, this time around the Germans have taken a stronger, more optimistic, stance on the use of renewables. The website energytransition.de, sponsored by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a think tank for green projects and policy, and the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union, a program designed to empower the European identity, provides an excellent source for information on the Energiewende. This website puts forth 9 points that cover what the Energiewende plans to do; however, I’ll only touch on 3 points. The first of which is that the German Energiewende is an ambitious, but feasible undertaking:

A lot of people outside Germany, including environmentalists, are skeptical. But even the skeptics like Germany’s goal of demonstrating that a thriving industrial economy can switch from nuclear and fossil energy to renewables and efficiency. The German can-do attitude is based on the experience over the last two decades, when renewables matured much more quickly, become more reliable and much cheaper than expected. The share of renewable electricity in Germany rose from 6 percent to nearly 25 percent in only ten years. On sunny and windy days, solar panels and wind turbines now increasingly supply up to half the country’s electricity demand, which no one expected just a few years ago. Recent estimates suggest that Germany will once again surpass its renewable electricity target and have more than 40 percent of its power from renewables by 2020. Furthermore, many German research institutes and the government and its agencies have

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run the numbers and developed sound scenarios for a renewable economy (Morris and Pehnet 2015).

This point illustrates that the Energiewende is a massive undertaking, any massive energy project would be, yet the German people are up for the challenge of overhauling their energy sector. This point also illustrates the success of German renewable power sources and how their use will be further instituted across the nation into the future, in fact according to this quote many expect that renewable energy production will surpass 40% by 2020. The Second point it draws is that the Energiewende is strengthening the economy and creating jobs:

The economic benefits of the transition already today outweigh the additional cost over “business as usual”. The switch to a highly efficient renewable energy economy will require large-scale investments of up to 200 billion euros. Renewables only seem to cost more than conventional energy, but they are getting cheaper, while conventional energy is getting more expensive; furthermore, fossil fuel remains highly subsidized, and the price of fossil fuel does not include environmental impacts. By replacing energy imports with renewables, Germany’s trade balance will improve and its energy security will strengthen. Already, roughly 370,000 Germans work in the renewables sector – far more than in the conventional energy sector. Unemployment has reached an all-time low since reunification in 1990. While some of these are manufacturing jobs, many others are in installing and maintenance. These jobs for technicians, installers, and architects have been created locally and can’t be outsourced. They already have helped Germany to come through the economic and financial crisis much better than other countries (Morris and Pehnet 2015).

As pointed out by this quote, the Energiewende is a positive for the German economy as well at the working class. The Energiewende will not only reduce Germany’s dependence of the oil of the Middle East, but also help to create an energy independent nation. Energy by Germans for Germans. Along those lines, the Energiewende will also serve to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, the quote states that 370,000 jobs have been created across Germany since the move to strengthen Germany’s renewable energy sector, and undoubtedly that number will increase by leaps and bounds as renewable energy becomes more and more prevalent. And finally the third most important aspect of the Energiewende is that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is an affordable one. The website has this to say about that:

Germany has benefited economically from its international leadership role in going renewable – similar to Denmark and other pioneers moving to renewables. Germany has created the world’s largest domestic solar PV market. German commitment and Chinese mass scale production has helped to drive down the cost of renewables worldwide. In Germany, installed system prices for solar PV plummeted by 66% from 2006 to mid-2012. It will be much cheaper for other countries to invest in renewables now that the costs are lower. On top of that, many countries have much better solar resources than Germany; some of them with the capability of producing up to twice as much power from the same solar panel, because of more sunshine (Morris and Pehnet 2015).

This quote illustrates the fact that Germany has become a pioneer in the area of solar energy due to the falling prices of solar panels, down 66% from 2006 to 2012, that’s 66% in just 6 years. This shows that as time goes on renewable energy will become cheaper to produce, especially solar, and in turn will make these renewable energies more accessible to more and more people and in-turn more nations. All in all, the German model of sustainability, the Energiewende, has prove itself to be a feasible means of escaping the grips of fossil fuels. Becoming ever cheaper, more accessible, and ever more efficient, the sources of

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renewable energy which Germany has implemented will only become more wide spread throughout the world, making out planet greener and a better place to live.

The most popular source of renewable energy which Germany has developed in the last 15 years is solar. In fact, Germany had the highest capacity of solar energy in 2014 and held the 5 th spot in capacity added according to the International Energy Agency. To put Germany’s solar energy production into numbers, according to Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, a German based solar energy research firm, states that in 2014, solar power generated a total of 35.2 TWh, or enough power to light up 3.2 million US household for an entire year, and to think that’s only 6.9 percent of Germany’s total electricity generated (Fraunhofer 2015) (“How much … 2015). That’s a lot of electricity, and to think all that power is harnessed from the sun which shines on our planet every day, just waiting to be captured. But can the average person afford to invest in solar power? The answer is a resounding yes, and that yes is becoming louder each year. In fact, the costs of PV power plants have fallen annual rate of 13 percent a years since 2006, and with the combination of the cost for photovoltaic cells decreasing and those cells becoming more efficient, without any hesitation it can be inferred that this trend will continue into the foreseeable future (Fraunhofer 2015). All of this sounds good, but why doesn’t every one just go out and buy some solar panels, strap them to their roofs, and begin to draw in that sweet sweet free power? Well the answer is simple, cost and its not always sunny in Seattle.

The first dilemma, cost, is a problem which plagues all renewable resources, at least for the time being; However, not to fear because as technology advances and production becomes cheaper as too will solar energy. For example, in Lion Hirth’s piece, “Market value of solar power: Is Photovoltaics cost-competitive?”, he states the following on the trends of photovoltaic costs:

The remarkable growth of solar power has been accompanied by a decrease of equipment cost. Prices for solar panels have decreased, a reason for and most probably also a consequence of the deployment boom. Retail prices for small-scale roof-top installations in Germany have fallen by 15% p.a. during the last 7 years and reached 1600 €/kW. However, both retail and wholesale prices seem to have stopped falling since the end of 2012. Large regional cost differences continue to exist, with prices in the U.S. being twice as high as in Germany. Solar LEC varies widely, depending on resource quality, equipment prices and discount rate. Under favorable circumstances, they might be as low as 100€/MWh (Hirth 2013).

As Hirth expresses, the cost of the most widely used type of solar energy in Germany, rooftop instillations, has dropped over the course of the last 7 years prior to 2013 when this article was written. Hirth then goes on to state that this price freefall has hit a snag, he states that in 2012 the prices of solar panels, both retail and wholesale, have stopped falling. Why is this? Well Hirth expounds upon that issue as well, he states:

In economic terms, replacing electricity from retail markets with ‘self-produced’ solar power constitutes a negative externality: generating solar power locally has a negative impact on other economic actors, as they have to pay more for electricity networks, levies and taxes. Hence the concept of grid parity corresponds to a private, not a social, perspective: reaching grid parity might indicate that investments are profitable for the individual investors, but it does not indicate that they are efficient for society. provides a model-based assessment of German solar externalities. To align private interests with society’s needs, self-consumed solar PV generation should be subject to the same taxes as other generation, and grid fees should include capacity payments to reflect the true cost structure of electricity grids (Hirth 2013).

So to simplify what Hirth is saying, the costs of solar power will stay at a constant rate because the private sector wishes to maintain control of this source of revenue. To do so, they place levies and taxes

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on private individuals who choose to use rooftop solar instillation, and make it harder for those to be economically linked to the grid. This poses a large obstacle for many average people who wish to invest in renewable power for their homes or businesses. Who wants to spend thousands to get the panels and then have to pay taxes and levies on top of that? Obviously many people, to the Germans the benefits of renewable energy outweigh the costs, which is evident in the fact that Germany creates the most solar power of any other nation. Germany wants its solar power, and nothing will get in its way. The second dilemma is the fact that its not always sunny, hence you can not always generate power. Although this dilemma is pretty self explanatory, to implement solar power in one’s country, that country must take into account the amount of sunlight it receives on a daily basis. Countries such as the United Kingdom would not want to base its entire renewable energy sector on solar because its cloudy there most of the time; however, in a nation such as panama, which is located along the equator and receives sunlight nearly every day, would want to place a large emphasis on solar. The amount of sunlight a country receives is instrumental when it come to solar power. In the case of German, places which are closer to the equator will provide a better source of direct sunlight, areas such as the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in the south. These places provide an excellent location for solar power to be generated on a large scale, and in fact that’s what Germany is doing.

The next aspect of the German model of sustainability is wind power. To illustrate Germany’s dedication to wind energy the nation in recent years has invested heavily in developing a maintaining a strong network of wind-farms both on-shore and off-shore. In fact, all that hard work has led to Germany becoming Europe’s largest producer of wind energy, by the end of 2013 German wind-farms had reached total capacity of 34 GW, in third place globally, falling behind China and the United States with 91GW and 61GW respectively (Bräutigam and Frey 2014). But third place isn’t anything to scoff at, in fact this number has been increasing at a steady rate over the past decade; however, that steady rate increase could change, and for the better. Recent trends of development show Germany’s wind energy production increasing in an exponential manner, mainly due to an increased lean towards off-shore wind-farms. So what’s the difference? Off-shore, On-shore? The answer is simple, off-shore wind farms are wind farms which are located in German waters in the frigid and windy North Sea, on the other hand on-shore wind farms are wind farms located in Germany proper spinning over small towns and large cities. Let’s take the first type, off-shore, and dig into what makes it such a promising venture for Germany, as well as many other nations. In an article by Germany Trade and Investment, a division of the Federal Republic of Germany, briefly covers the marketability and promise which off-shore wind power offers Germany. It states:

As of July 2014, ten projects with a capacity of over 2.5 GW were under construction, with more planned to enter the construction phase in 2015. Construction of the Riffgat wind farm (108 MW) was finished in July 2013, closely followed by BARD Offshore1.This is the largest wind farm currently operating in German waters with a total capacity of 400 MW. Eighty turbines were installed 100 km northwest of the German island Borkum in 40-meter-deep water. The parks join the North Sea test wind farm alpha ventus (60 MW), and Baltic Sea wind farm Baltic 1 (48 MW) which began operating in 2010 and 2011 respectively. To date, offshore wind turbines with a capacity of 628 MW are in place in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and feeding power into the grid. In total, thirty-one offshore wind farms in the German North Sea and another six projects in the Baltic Sea were formally approved by January 2014. With a 30 percent share of all consented European offshore wind farms, Germany possesses the highest potential for the development of offshore in the years to come (Bräutigam and Frey 2014).

From this quote from the article, it is clear that off-shore wind power is promising for the future of the Energiewende, as well as the greater sustainability of Germany. The next type, on-shore, is the most proven of the two, and in turn has been the type most implemented by the German government. In the

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same article it stated that on-shore wind farms in Germany provide greatly for the economy, have been steadily becoming more efficient as newer models are produced, and that more and more wooded areas are being looked at to become places for new, low impact, wind farms (Bräutigam and Frey 2014). So how can those big pinwheels in the sky be a bad thing, with all the positives: basically “free fuel”, zero emissions, uses minimal land. That can be narrowed down to the two hindrances that solar power had, costs and unreliability. The first point cost is probably the biggest hindrance to wind energy currently; however, the cost of wind turbines are decreasing. To break down the cost of wind turbines the equation is simple, in fact it can be broken down into four categories: Grid connection, planning, foundation, and the wind turbine itself. According to an article by the International Renewable Energy Association, the break down goes: 11% Grid connection, 9% Planning, 16% Foundation, and 64% Wind Turbines (Gielen 2012). In fact, when all is said and done, it cost between 1,700 and 2,450 USD per kW for an on-shore turbine and from 3,300 to 5,000 USD per kW for an off-shore. To put that into total costs, according to the European Wind Energy Association the average on-shore wind turbine produces 2.5 MW and a off-shore produce the likes of 3.6MW, that’s 4.3 million and 118 million respectively (Gielen 2012). That a ton of money, and that’s exactly why wind energy is so expensive; However, these costs have been coming down in recent years to a level which will make it more feasible, hence the greater development of off-shore and on-shore wind-farms in recent years. The second point reliability is also a very important figure to take into account. When it comes to the wind one thing is clear, it does not always blow. In Germany this is why many wind turbines are located at the bases of mountains and where the wind is moving steadily, and as of recent, in the North Sea where the wind is always blowing. This wide variety of locations makes wind energy a versatile energy source, basically if the wind moves at a steady rate that place can have wind power, and if a nation has a coast or is along a body of water that’s even better. Obviously Germany has taken steps to not only develop a system of wind farms, but also improve and innovate on what was previously available. This energy source is one which Germany as a large stake in, and don’t be surprised to see it evolve and grow in size as prices decline and efficiency increase.

The next link in the German sustainability chain is Biomass energy, one which may be more familiar to Americans. When thinking of Biomass energy, the most common and widely used is ethanol, or a type of corn alcohol which can be burned as a fuel in automobiles. Out of Germany’s repertoire of renewable energy sources this one may be the most versatile and fascinating. A possible fuel of the future? Germany believes so. However, the policy behind this bright and promising alternative has not shared the bright and promising outlook of its basis. In fact, toward the end of the 1990’s Germany faced a crisis on the front of biofuel policy. Without getting into the details, Germany was divided between seven factions on the issue of Biofuels: Energy securers and growth promoters, Agrarian promoters, Ecological modernizers, the promoters of developing and emerging countries, the Radical justice demanders, Environmentalists, and Sustainability promoters. For those seven the first five viewed biofuels as a positive for Germany, reasons ranging from energy independence to revitalizing German energy, and the following two viewed biofuels as a negative, reasons ranging from biofuels being a drain of food supplies to biofuels not being ecologically sustainable. Finally, you have the last group which flip sides depending on the year, this group viewed biofuel as a positive alternative to fossil fuels, but only if it were produced in a environmentally friendly way; a middle of the road group. Due to this division it took Germany nearly two decades to come to a decision on Biofuels; however, as the numbers would led many to believe, the yeas outweighed the nays, and the results are the strong presents of Biomass in Germany today (Kaup et al 2013). As of recent, 2013, the German energy market consists of 11% of total energy production coming from Biomass, which is a whopping 62% of the German renewable energy market (Morris and Pehnet 2015). Obviously the Germans want to make biomass a true alternative to fossil fuels. But what truly is biomass, or biofuel energy? In the research article by C.N. Ibeto, A.U. Ofoefule, and K.E. Agbo of the University of Nigeria, the befits of this new and emerging source of alternative fuel are clearly expressed, they state:

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Ethanol provides energy that is renewable and less carbon intensive than oil. Bioethanol reduces air pollution due to its its cleaner emissions and also contributes to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions … since much carbon dioxide is taken up by the growing plants as is produced when the bioethanol is burnt, with zero theoretical net contribution. Several studies have shown that sugarcane-based ethanol reduces greenhouse gases by 86 to 90% (Ibeto et al 2013)

A cleaner alternative which can reduce greenhouse gases by up to 90%, why isn’t everyone investing in biomass? The largest hurtles that biomass has is deforestation and biomass’s relative newness. This first problem come is the fact that many scientists believe that biomass maybe harmful, more harmful than fossil fuels even, in areas where forest are being cut down to create biomass (Ibeto et al 2013). The reasoning behind this is that if people harvest all the trees in an area there will be less to absorb the carbon dioxide which is still present in the atmosphere, a real “burning the candle at two ends” conundrum. The second problem which faces biomass is its relative newness, in fact the same report from the University of Nigeria reports that ethanol as a gas substitute is concerning because only about 5 million automobiles out of 135 million in the United States are currently Flexible-Fuel Vehicles, or vehicles which run off of ablend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline (Ibeto et al 2013). Although those numbers may need to be taken with a grain of salt since that data is from 2011, but with all seriousness this stands as a large obstacle for the widespread usage of biomass, or biofuels in general. To become a credible alternative to gasoline biomass must overcome its general obscurity and blossom into the versatile alternative it has the potential to become.

So now that the advantages and dis-advantages of Biomass energy are out of the way, what truly is biomass? What is it made of? The answer is simple, anything. Not exactly anything, but any type of fibrous material, AKA organic materials. The pre-mentioned article from the University of Nigeria, which was very helpful, discuses the various types of materials which may be used to produce Biomass. The ones which they touch on the most are olive pits, corn, sugar cane, sweet sorghum, switch grass, cassava, miscanthus, and sweet potatoes of all things. However, all these materials have a commonality, they are all easy to be grown, some grow naturally, and can be grown in many different locations and climates across the globe. This makes Biomass a global alternative to fossil fuels, one which doesn’t require millions of dollars to create, just a large amount of land in which you can grow crops. This makes biomass energy both a great alternative to not only the developed world, nations like Germany and the United States, but also developing and underdeveloped nations like Nigeria, a quickly developing nation in western Africa, or The Central African Republic, a nation which faces a very uncertain future not only in acquiring energy, but also on a humanitarian level. Obviously biomass has a great potential in our quickly developing world, don’t be surprised to see the use of sustainable biomass become a wider used, and more mainstream, source of alternative energy in all corners of the globe in the near future.

Finally comes the last and most controversial alternative of the German sustainability model, nuclear. The once great provider of power during the soviet era, Germany has now turn its back on the relic of a bygone era; however, that does not spell the end for nuclear power, for Germany or another nation. According to Gerd Winter’s report “The Rise and Fall of Nuclear Energy Use in Germany: Processes, Explanation and the Role of Law”, German began development of nuclear power after the United States developed the first nuclear weapons; however, Germany wish to use this new technology for good and not war. Following WW2 Germany so feared the dark side if nuclear power it began to find its way into the collective thinking, one such instances was that of the Godesbergy Manifesto of the Social Democratic Party:

This is the contradiction of our time: Man has unleashed the power of the atom and now fears the consequences of his own creation; . . . Yet this is also the hope of our time: Man can make his life

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easier in the atomic age, free himself from anxiety and distress and create prosperity for all if he uses his ever growing power over the forces of nature solely for peaceful ends… (Winter 2015)

Needless to say the fear of a nuclear Armageddon was a real threat. Based on this belief, the Germans began to develop Nuclear power plants starting in 1959 with the passing of the aptly named Nuclear Energy Act, this act would go on to create a system of 32 commercial reactors which would be erected between 1962 and 1989 (Winter 2015). In fact, at its height in production, 1999, German nuclear power topped out at 30.7% of all of Germany’s power production (Winter 2015). Since that watermark the production of electricity from nuclear power in 1999, German nuclear power has steadily declined, reaching the 22.4% mark in 2010 (Winter 2015). But what has cause this decrease in nuclear power production, the Energiewende of course, the crusher of all nuclear power ambition and all that is not ecologically friendly. In actuality it wasn’t the Energiewende which spelled the end of German nuclear power, although it was the possible death blow, for many years, dating back to the 1970’s, nuclear energy has had its detractors. The first of many nails in German nuclear powers coffin was its dwindling political support in the 1980’s, especially with the election of the “Green Party” into the Bundestag, the German parliament, in 1984 (Winter 2015). In the same year the Greens, as they become known, introduced a “Bill concerning the immediate decommissioning of all nuclear installations in the Federal Republic of Germany”; although not passed, this bill started the cascade which would eventually topple nuclear power (Winter 2015). Another strong force to end the use of nuclear energy in Germany was the meltdown and destruction of the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986, this cause many parties to distance themselves from nuclear energy entirely; however, not much headway was made on the issue until 2002(Winter 2015). In 2002 Germany began its “exit from nuclear energy”, eliminating the creation of new power plants and limiting the life of existing plants to 32 years; however, due to the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power station in early 2011 Germany’s stance on nuclear energy become even more restrictive. In the following month it was determined that out of the 17 authorized nuclear plants the seven oldest, which were all built before 1980 and one built in 1984, were to be closed for three months for inspection, after inspections these closures became permanent (Winter 2015). In fact, in 2011 the German government announced a plan to shut down all nuclear reactors by 2022.

In all actuality German Nuclear energy is not long for this world; However, that doesn’t mean Nuclear power can’t be a viable option for other nations. In fact, according to the International Energy Agency the United States tops the list with 100 active reactors producing nearly 20% of America’s power needs, 798616.26 GWh, that nearly 8 million American households a year (“How much… 2015). So is nuclear as bad as the Germans make it out to be? It depends on who the question is directed at, ask anyone from Chernobyl, or Fukushima, or even Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the answer would be a resounding no; however, many Americans opinion of nuclear energy is no opinion. The Simpsons live under the shadow of a cooling tower for goodness sakes! Nuclear energy is as much a part of America as apple pie, just more radioactive, in fact the city of Richmond, VA, the capitol of Virginia. is partially power by a nuclear power station located at Lake Anna in Louisa County. Nuclear power is everywhere in America, but does that make it safe? No. To be blunt nuclear power in the United States is not any safe than those in Germany or even the one at Chernobyl. Accidents can occur, and have, the hazardous materials which these stations create take millennia to decompose, nuclear power does have its downside. However, to reduce the probability of accidents and safeguard the public it serves, governments must take a hand in keeping nuclear reactors safely operating. But let’s get to the positives of nuclear power. Nuclear power has low greenhouse has emissions, nuclear power is powerful and efficient, it’s reliable, unlike many other renewable resources, the cost for the electricity produced is low, and the cost for fuel is low due to the small amount of uranium used to produce power. Nuclear has its bright side and its dark, and the nations which choose to embrace it must understand what comes along with the territory. Nations like Germany may be moving away from nuclear power, but don’t look for nuclear to die off, nuclear energy will continue to remain a major staple of the renewable energy movement for years to come.

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Umschlaten auf zukunft; switch to the future. The motto which Germany has used to shape its energy future. A future which holds promise, which holds the possibility for a greener, more energy independent Germany. A future which can be that of many developing nations. The best example of which come in the form of the United States neighbor to the south, Mexico. In fact, Mexico has embraced the teachings of the Energiewende and modeled its own transition to that of the Germans, especially when it comes to solar power. In fact, almost the entire country of Mexico is a prime area for solar power, receiving a large amount of sunlight on a daily basis. According to research, Mexico has the potential to generate up to 6kWh/m^2/day, nearly double that of German production of 3.2 kWh/m^2/day (Hernández et al 2015). By no means is Mexico lacking in the ability to produce green energy; however, Mexico does lack the financial means which the Germans possess. This lack is what holds Mexico from reaching its potential; however, Mexico has made moves to make a change on this front. Mexico is becoming a world power in trade, ranked 15th according to the International Monetary Fund, and will no doubt overcome its current limitations, look for Mexico to become a player in the solar energy market very soon (IMF 2015). With Mexico as a protégé of sorts, the German model of sustainability has a mean to prove itself, not only to validate German spending and hard work, but also to show the validity of the green movement as a whole. Germany has proven itself as a world power, both in economics, politics, and renewable power, but now its time for the nations of the world to follow in Germany’s path. Nations such as the United States, China, Brazil, and Nigeria, must step up and become spokes persons for their perspective regions, they must become champions for the greater implantation of renewable energy. This planet needs leaders to lighten the path into the future, Germany may have been the first, but it can not be the last. To bring a real switch to the future, every nation must embrace renewable energy as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. The German model can bridge that gap, bring the change so desperately needed, and help foster a healthier planet for the future. The only question is will the nations of our planet embrace the model Germany has set out, can we as a planet switch to the future?

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Literature Cited:

Bräutigam, A., and E. Frey. 2014. Germany Trade and Investment. Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. 2015. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/veroeffentlichungen-pdf-dateien-en/studien-und-konzeptpapiere/recent-facts-about-photovoltaics-in-germany.pdf. 17 September 2015.

Gielen, D. Renewable Energy Technologies: Cost Analysis Series “Wind” Bonn, Germany: International Renewable Energy Agency, 2012.

Hirth, L. 2013. “Market value of solar power: Is photovoltaics cost-competitve?”. IET Renewable Power Generation 9.1 (2013): [37-45].

Holzer, V. 2015. “The Promotion of Renewable Energies and Sustainability: Acritical Assessment of the German Renewable Energies Act.” Intereconomics 40.1 (2015): [36-45].

“How much electricity does an American house use?”. www.eia.gov. 29 October 2015

Ibeto, C.N., A.U Ofoefule, and K.E. Agbo. 2011. “A global overview of biomass potentials for bioethanol production: A renewable alternative fuel.” Trends Applied Sci. 6.5 (2011): [410-425]

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