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| Fig. 1: Germany Energy Consumption. [3] |
In 2011, Germany decided to slowly shut down its nuclear power plants by 2022 and use this shift towards a carbon-free future. [1] By 2014, over 61% of Germany's energy relied on imports that consisted of mainly petroleum and natural gas, all of which come with an environmental cost. [1] To make up for the inability to produce large amounts of energy without imports, Germany was relying on nuclear power plants, but this stopped with their decision to shut them down. Now Germany aims to become greenhouse gas neutral by 2050. Although there are arguments that their efforts aren't anywhere near enough. [2]
Germany's support for nuclear energy started out strong in the 70s when there was a perceived vulnerability in energy supply. Although, with each nuclear disaster around the world, the protests against nuclear power grew stronger in Germany and as a result, Germany began to steer away from nuclear energy. [2] Finally, after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, Germany set a plan to close all the nuclear power plants by 2022. Despite the fact that nuclear is a renewable energy, reducing their carbon emissions, the opposition against this method was too strong to ignore. Therefore, Germany turned to other sources to make up for it. In 2019, Germany's Nuclear energy consumption was 0.67 exajoules, approximately a 7% decrease from 2008. [3]
Germany's plan to go green, or Energiewende, is the defining feature of Germanys decrease in carbon emissions. Energiewende includes a goal of an 80-95% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2050 and a 40% reduction of its carbon dioxide emissions. [1] Despite immense progress made, Germany is still falling behind. This is partially due to the fact that closing down the nuclear plants resulted in slight setbacks. In addition, Germany already had a high reliance on oil and natural gas, so when the nuclear and coal phase outs are complete they will have an even higher reliance on these sources. A large portion of this natural gas comes from the Nord Stream Pipeline, a pipeline that exports natural gas from western Russia into the European gas grid. [4] This pipeline provides energy to Germany while it slowly phases out coal and nuclear energy. Germany slowly became more reliant on both this pipeline and coal because they were unable to generate enough energy once they began to transition away from fossil fuels. The problem is that natural gas still isn't carbon free and while it can be a bridge between more harmful fossil fuels and a carbon-free energy environment, it can also be difficult to move past the use of natural gas. [5] This is also more likely to happen with a resource like the pipeline, that transports massive amounts of energy. Despite this, Germany has still seen an increase in other renewables and a decrease in coal consumption at a rate of 1.4% per annum. [3]
While Germany is making progress on going green, their plan might have been a bit too ambitious. There are notable challenges with their transition to a greener future. Heavily relying on imported goods has not only slowed down their progress, but can also be unreliable; any external factor such as policy, climate change, or weather could drastically effect the ability to use these energy sources. [6] So while its clear that Germany has the policies in place to go carbon-free, Germany still has a way to go to become self-sufficient.
© Autumn Warren. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] M. Xiao, "Germany's Energiewende," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2015.
[2] L. Kramm, "The German Nuclear Phase-Out After Fukushima: A Peculiar Path or an Example for Others?" Renew. Energy Law Policy Rev. 3, 251 (2012).
[3] "Statistical Review of World Energy 2020," British Petroleum, June 2020.
[4] C. Hasson, "German Natural Gas and the Nord Stream 2," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2017.
[5] D. Langlet, Nord Stream, the Environment and the Law: Disentangling a Multijurisdictional Energy Project," Scandinavian Studies in Law 59 179 (2014).
[6] M. Lee, "Why Germany Went Green ," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2016.