Why was a nuclear phaseout easier than a coal phaseout in Germany? This is one of the most frequently asked questions we hear. Craig Morris has an answer about the historic reasons – and it’s not what you’re expecting. For the potential of a future coal phaseout, he has co-authored a new study.
All posts tagged: History
Reality check: massive overcapacity on German power market
Foreigners sometimes quote statements made by industry experts and politicians over the past decade to show that the country did indeed conscientiously build coal to replace nuclear. That’s true, but as Craig Morris explains the outcome was that, contrary to these expert expectations, renewables replaced nuclear, so we are now left with excess coal capacity. Part 2 of a 3-part series.
Renewables Power a Rural German Village
Regardless of debate about the success of Germany’s renewables revolution, there is no denying that a small town in the corner of rural eastern Germany, 40 miles south of Berlin, may be one of the best examples of decentralized self-sufficiency. Feldheim (pop. 150), in the cash-strapped state of Brandenburg, was a communist collective farm back when Germany was still divided into East and West. Now it is a model renewable energy village putting into practice Germany’s vision of a renewably powered future, as RMI’s Laurie Guevara-Stone reports.
Vauban: District of the 21st century
A barracks as a forerunner in terms of urban development and sustainable living? What sounds like a mismatch is today the home of more than 5,000 citizens of Freiburg, Germany in a district called Vauban, as Julian Wortmann explains.
Change or transformation?
40 years after the upheaval of the 1973 oil crisis the energy transformation has entered the global lexicon, perhaps most famously through the German term “Energiewende”. Both devastating and inspiring, the 1973 oil crisis presented an opportunity to make a change. Like the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011, it opened a rare door through which public opinion and policy makers could meet with the common purpose of emerging from a crisis. Looking back today, Aurelia Rochelle Figueroa identifies the 1973 oil crisis can be seen as a turning point in the energy policy debate and the genesis of the ongoing energy transformation.
“Efficiency lacks a loud lobby”: An interview with Florentin Krause
Recently, our Craig Morris did a three-part book review of the original “Energiewende: growth and prosperity without petroleum and uranium” from 1980. He then spoke with one of the authors, Florentin Krause, who had a few bones to pick with Craig’s reading – and with the current implementation of the concept in Germany.
Dubious reports about “Energiewende in doubt”
The Anglo world repeatedly reads news about Germany’s changes to energy policy as a sign that Germany is abandoning renewables. Craig Morris says the misunderstanding is cultural; the success of Germany’s switch to efficiency and renewables, macroeconomic.
Looking back at the Energiewende 1980 – Nuclear Cannot be Efficient
In the late 1970s, the first major protests against nuclear power had already taken place in Whyl and Brokdorf. Perhaps no other publication better reveals what the arguments against nuclear were back then than the original book Energiewende. Craig Morris was mainly surprised at the early focus on overall efficiency.
Looking back at the Energiewende 1980 – 55 Percent Coal?
The term “Energiewende” did not come about in 2011, but rather in the late 1970s, and it was canonized in an eponymous book from 1980. But a close read reveals that “Energiewende: growth and prosperity without petroleum and uranium” is not about phasing out coal at all – quite the contrary, as Craig Morris reports in this three-part series.
From Coal to Renewables – The Jobs Perspective
Over at the Washington Post, environmental blogger Brad Plumer rightly points out the social responsibility we have in the switch from old technologies (coal power) to new ones (renewables). Germany has quite a bit of experience switching coal miners to green jobs, and Craig Morris knows the German word for it: Strukturwandel, or structural change.