AFP
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Google said Tuesday it is investing $280 million to help finance home solar projects in the Internet giant's largest effort yet to promote clean energy.
Google said the money will go to create a fund that will help SolarCity, a company which provides solar energy options for homeowners and businesses, to finance more solar installations across the United States.
"This is our largest clean energy project investment to date and brings our total invested in the clean energy sector to more than $680 million," said Rick Needham, Google's director of green business operations.
"We continue to look for other renewable energy investments that make business sense and help develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy," he wrote in a blog post.
He said Google had also entered into a partnership with SolarCity to provide solar power to the homes of Google employees at a discount.
Google last month announced a $55 million investment in a California wind energy farm, and in April, the Mountain View, California-based company announced a $100 million investment in a wind farm being built in Oregon.
Google in April also said it has invested $168 million to help complete the construction of one of the world's biggest solar power plants in California's Mojave Desert.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Climate change panel in hot water again over 'biased' energy report
By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor
Thursday, 16 June 2011
The world's foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world's energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.
Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence.
The allegations are particularly damaging as they represent the second controversy to hit the IPPC in a matter of years. In 2009, a tranche of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit were leaked two weeks before the crucial Copenhagen climate summit. Climate change sceptics said they showed scientists manipulating data to talk up the threat of global warming, as well as trying to suppress their critics.
Six committees investigated the allegations and published reports detailing their findings. Climate scientists were criticised for their disorganisation and a lack of transparency, but none of the inquiries found evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.
This week's criticism of the IPCC centres on the organisation's investigation into the potential of renewable energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In its six-page press notice it stated: "Close to 80 per cent of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century." Further on it admitted that, at its lowest estimate, renewable energy might account for only 15 per cent of primary energy supply, but this was not picked up in media coverage in The Guardian and Daily Mail website, and on the BBC.
Yesterday, after the full report was released, the sceptical climate change blog Climate Audit reported that the 77 per cent figure had been derived from a joint study by Sven Teske, a climate change expert employed by Greenpeace, which opposes the use of nuclear power to cut carbon emissions.
Last night, the IPCC said it had been made clear that the 77 per cent figure was only one of the estimates made from the models and that Mr Teske was just one of 120 researchers who had worked on the report. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "Exxon, Chevron and the French nuclear operator EDF also contribute to the IPCC, so to paint this expert UN body as a wing of Greenpeace is preposterous." But Mark Lynas, a climate change writer in favour of using nuclear and renewables to combat global warming, said: "It is stretching credibility for the IPCC to suggest that a richer world with two billion more people will use less energy in 2050. Campaigners should not be employed as lead authors in IPCC reports."
Thursday, 16 June 2011
The world's foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world's energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.
Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence.
The allegations are particularly damaging as they represent the second controversy to hit the IPPC in a matter of years. In 2009, a tranche of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit were leaked two weeks before the crucial Copenhagen climate summit. Climate change sceptics said they showed scientists manipulating data to talk up the threat of global warming, as well as trying to suppress their critics.
Six committees investigated the allegations and published reports detailing their findings. Climate scientists were criticised for their disorganisation and a lack of transparency, but none of the inquiries found evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.
This week's criticism of the IPCC centres on the organisation's investigation into the potential of renewable energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In its six-page press notice it stated: "Close to 80 per cent of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century." Further on it admitted that, at its lowest estimate, renewable energy might account for only 15 per cent of primary energy supply, but this was not picked up in media coverage in The Guardian and Daily Mail website, and on the BBC.
Yesterday, after the full report was released, the sceptical climate change blog Climate Audit reported that the 77 per cent figure had been derived from a joint study by Sven Teske, a climate change expert employed by Greenpeace, which opposes the use of nuclear power to cut carbon emissions.
Last night, the IPCC said it had been made clear that the 77 per cent figure was only one of the estimates made from the models and that Mr Teske was just one of 120 researchers who had worked on the report. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "Exxon, Chevron and the French nuclear operator EDF also contribute to the IPCC, so to paint this expert UN body as a wing of Greenpeace is preposterous." But Mark Lynas, a climate change writer in favour of using nuclear and renewables to combat global warming, said: "It is stretching credibility for the IPCC to suggest that a richer world with two billion more people will use less energy in 2050. Campaigners should not be employed as lead authors in IPCC reports."
New microchip could prevent 'standby' energy loss
NEC's memory chip uses small magnets to retain data and can cut standby consumption to zero for electronics such as TVs
Michael Fitzpatrick
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011 08.00 BST
Televisions could be left on standby without wasting energy, say the makers of the new microchip. Photograph: John Alex Maguire/Rex Features
Japanese scientists have developed a new micro-processing chip which they claim could do away with the energy loss caused by appliances while on "standby".
Existing chips in electronics that eat up energy when a device is switched off but plugged in could be replaced by the new microchip by 2015, claims NEC Corporation (NEC) and researchers at Tohoku University.
While individual TVs and computers draw relatively little standby power, a typical British home bristling with appliances constantly drawing power on standby can amount to almost 10% of residential electricity use.
The new memory chip can cut standby consumption to zero for electronics such as TVs that require circuits to be continually energised for a quick start up. The new chip uses small magnets, instead of power, to retain data. NEC says this means the possibility of electronics that start instantly and consume zero electricity while in standby mode.
Such circuits exist now but are not popular owing to their slower performance compared with traditional microcircuit chips, according to a report by electronics industry analyst UBM Electronics.
The new circuits use something called "spintronics" to store vital data when they are switched off. Data is contained in each electron's spin rather than the electrons themselves, making for a more efficient chip and lower energy consumption. Prof. Naoki Kasai of Tohoku University, said:: "Power for the memory can be shut off since it does not require electric power to save or store data. Instead, it use small magnets to store '0' and '1'."
Savings could be greatest in data centres which are now multiplying because of a demand for server-based "cloud" computing. Kasai said that the technology could cut power consumption by around 25% at data centres where servers are required to be in standby or in use at all times.
There are several national and international initiatives aimed at reducing the energy wasted by standby mode, while the EU hopes to encourage further energy savings this year with the introduction of a new EU law that will require energy efficiency labelling on all electronic appliances by 30 November.
Michael Fitzpatrick
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011 08.00 BST
Televisions could be left on standby without wasting energy, say the makers of the new microchip. Photograph: John Alex Maguire/Rex Features
Japanese scientists have developed a new micro-processing chip which they claim could do away with the energy loss caused by appliances while on "standby".
Existing chips in electronics that eat up energy when a device is switched off but plugged in could be replaced by the new microchip by 2015, claims NEC Corporation (NEC) and researchers at Tohoku University.
While individual TVs and computers draw relatively little standby power, a typical British home bristling with appliances constantly drawing power on standby can amount to almost 10% of residential electricity use.
The new memory chip can cut standby consumption to zero for electronics such as TVs that require circuits to be continually energised for a quick start up. The new chip uses small magnets, instead of power, to retain data. NEC says this means the possibility of electronics that start instantly and consume zero electricity while in standby mode.
Such circuits exist now but are not popular owing to their slower performance compared with traditional microcircuit chips, according to a report by electronics industry analyst UBM Electronics.
The new circuits use something called "spintronics" to store vital data when they are switched off. Data is contained in each electron's spin rather than the electrons themselves, making for a more efficient chip and lower energy consumption. Prof. Naoki Kasai of Tohoku University, said:: "Power for the memory can be shut off since it does not require electric power to save or store data. Instead, it use small magnets to store '0' and '1'."
Savings could be greatest in data centres which are now multiplying because of a demand for server-based "cloud" computing. Kasai said that the technology could cut power consumption by around 25% at data centres where servers are required to be in standby or in use at all times.
There are several national and international initiatives aimed at reducing the energy wasted by standby mode, while the EU hopes to encourage further energy savings this year with the introduction of a new EU law that will require energy efficiency labelling on all electronic appliances by 30 November.
When will we see solar panels on the White House?
Grist: Last year president Obama promised to install solar panels on the White House by the end of spring. So where are they?
Bill McKibben for Grist
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011 14.36 BST
Nothing tests a relationship like home renovation. (Well, maybe the twittering of crotch shots, but I mean for ordinary folks.) Fixing the kitchen, putting in a new bathroom: "It can bring up core issues in communication and highlight power struggles and inherent weaknesses in the marriage," Rick Heil, a marriage therapist, told the Chicago Tribune. One counselor in Palo Alto has an entire practice devoted to "providing individuals and couples the tools and skills they need to make home renovations a positive and rewarding experience for everyone involved."
Her expertise might be needed this week, because it's beginning to look like the White House has dropped the ball, gotten a little lazy, not done what it said it would do when it said it would do it, GODDAMNIT!!—as an enraged spouse might say. (See what I mean?)
The relationship between environmentalists and President Obama has always been a trifle fraught. We were coming off eight years of an abusive relationship, and he made some grand, even grandiose, promises. (The day he won the nomination, for instance, he said it "was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." That's the kind of stuff that makes us tingle.)
And at first he seemed to be delivering: He crammed some green stuff into the economic stimulus package, put offshore drilling permits on hold, and restored critical protections under the Endangered Species Act that had been removed in the waning days of the Bush administration. We swooned. "It is difficult to overstate the tremendous progress President Obama has made in just 100 days," said then-Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. "He has moved swifter and smarter than any president in recent memory."
Alas, that was the high point. Before too long he was opening vast new stretches of offshore America for drilling, and sitting on the sidelines during the Senate climate debate. He started cozying up to our foes (he went hat-in-hand to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's biggest anti-environmental lobby). Earlier this year, he opened a huge swath of federal land in Wyoming to new coal mining—so much coal that he might as well have opened 300 new coal-fired power plants. He even sold out the gray wolf during the last budget negotiations, agreeing to a congressional rider removing it from federal protection. By last week, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt was accusing the White House of "appeasement" in the face of Republican provocation. The New York Times agreed: "in recent months the White House has been far too quiet on the problem of climate change, and its once-promising efforts to regulate industrial pollution, toxic coal ash and mountaintop mining are flagging."
The perfect symbol of this deterioration? Look no further than the roof of the White House.
A year ago, some of us decided it would be a great symbol of commitment—kind of a renewal of vows—if Obama would put solar panels on top of the White House, just the way Jimmy Carter had done back in 1978. After all, this was something he could do all on his own, without even having to ask the Congress. And who doesn't like solar panels?
But we had to push and plead—specifically, we had to find one of the old Carter-era panels, mount it behind a biodiesel van, and bring it all the way down from Unity College in Maine, where it had been producing hot water ever since Ronald Reagan ripped it off the White House roof. Even then, the three college students who made the trip were stonewalled—the president's aides met with them, but refused to say whether the White House would ever put up solar panels or explain its reluctance. The three students ended up in tears on the sidewalk outside.
Those tears turned to joy two weeks later, however, when the administration suddenly announced it would take us up on our offer. In front of a thousand cheering people at the first GreenGov symposium, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, "I am pleased to announce that by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House."
That was nine months ago. There's now one week left until the end of spring.
We still have faith. A week's a long time. In the last few days, 20,000 Americans have written to ask the president to keep his promise. The White House is a can-do bunch (they bailed out the banks in a matter of hours!). Hope springs eternal. Sort of.
We'll be watching the roof. (We'll be watching more important things too, like whether the White House approves a new pipeline to the tar sands of Alberta later this year, a 1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent.)
Why do relationships have to be so hard?
• Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books on the environment, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and founder of 350.org. He also serves on Grist's board of directors.
Bill McKibben for Grist
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011 14.36 BST
Nothing tests a relationship like home renovation. (Well, maybe the twittering of crotch shots, but I mean for ordinary folks.) Fixing the kitchen, putting in a new bathroom: "It can bring up core issues in communication and highlight power struggles and inherent weaknesses in the marriage," Rick Heil, a marriage therapist, told the Chicago Tribune. One counselor in Palo Alto has an entire practice devoted to "providing individuals and couples the tools and skills they need to make home renovations a positive and rewarding experience for everyone involved."
Her expertise might be needed this week, because it's beginning to look like the White House has dropped the ball, gotten a little lazy, not done what it said it would do when it said it would do it, GODDAMNIT!!—as an enraged spouse might say. (See what I mean?)
The relationship between environmentalists and President Obama has always been a trifle fraught. We were coming off eight years of an abusive relationship, and he made some grand, even grandiose, promises. (The day he won the nomination, for instance, he said it "was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." That's the kind of stuff that makes us tingle.)
And at first he seemed to be delivering: He crammed some green stuff into the economic stimulus package, put offshore drilling permits on hold, and restored critical protections under the Endangered Species Act that had been removed in the waning days of the Bush administration. We swooned. "It is difficult to overstate the tremendous progress President Obama has made in just 100 days," said then-Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. "He has moved swifter and smarter than any president in recent memory."
Alas, that was the high point. Before too long he was opening vast new stretches of offshore America for drilling, and sitting on the sidelines during the Senate climate debate. He started cozying up to our foes (he went hat-in-hand to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's biggest anti-environmental lobby). Earlier this year, he opened a huge swath of federal land in Wyoming to new coal mining—so much coal that he might as well have opened 300 new coal-fired power plants. He even sold out the gray wolf during the last budget negotiations, agreeing to a congressional rider removing it from federal protection. By last week, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt was accusing the White House of "appeasement" in the face of Republican provocation. The New York Times agreed: "in recent months the White House has been far too quiet on the problem of climate change, and its once-promising efforts to regulate industrial pollution, toxic coal ash and mountaintop mining are flagging."
The perfect symbol of this deterioration? Look no further than the roof of the White House.
A year ago, some of us decided it would be a great symbol of commitment—kind of a renewal of vows—if Obama would put solar panels on top of the White House, just the way Jimmy Carter had done back in 1978. After all, this was something he could do all on his own, without even having to ask the Congress. And who doesn't like solar panels?
But we had to push and plead—specifically, we had to find one of the old Carter-era panels, mount it behind a biodiesel van, and bring it all the way down from Unity College in Maine, where it had been producing hot water ever since Ronald Reagan ripped it off the White House roof. Even then, the three college students who made the trip were stonewalled—the president's aides met with them, but refused to say whether the White House would ever put up solar panels or explain its reluctance. The three students ended up in tears on the sidewalk outside.
Those tears turned to joy two weeks later, however, when the administration suddenly announced it would take us up on our offer. In front of a thousand cheering people at the first GreenGov symposium, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, "I am pleased to announce that by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House."
That was nine months ago. There's now one week left until the end of spring.
We still have faith. A week's a long time. In the last few days, 20,000 Americans have written to ask the president to keep his promise. The White House is a can-do bunch (they bailed out the banks in a matter of hours!). Hope springs eternal. Sort of.
We'll be watching the roof. (We'll be watching more important things too, like whether the White House approves a new pipeline to the tar sands of Alberta later this year, a 1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent.)
Why do relationships have to be so hard?
• Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books on the environment, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and founder of 350.org. He also serves on Grist's board of directors.
What Italy's nuclear referendum means for climate change
Voters overwhelmingly backed anti-nuclear campaigners' demands to block any new atomic power in Italy
Ask a stupid question and you'll get a stupid answer. That's what happened in the Italian referendum on nuclear power on Monday, where voters overwhelmingly backed anti-nuclear campaigners' demands to block any new atomic power in Italy. Referendums are not a good way to set energy policy, nor many other aspects of national policy either – if a referendum were held on capital punishment in Britain, a hefty majority would support bringing back hanging.
The Italian result needs to be seen in the context of a wider European political debate where anti-nuclear campaigners – led by the greens – have been successful in discrediting nuclear power. No doubt a referendum in Austria would have the same result, while the governments of Switzerland and Germany have already decided to phase out their nuclear plants altogether in response to the Fukushima accident in Japan.
As a lifelong environmentalist, and author of a 2009 book which laid out the terrifying prospects of uncontrolled global warming, I cannot help but feel that the decisions of the German and Swiss governments rank among the worst climate-related policies of recent years. Carbon emissions cannot do anything other than rise as a result of phasing out the continent's largest source of zero-carbon power – and doing this just a week after the International Energy Agency reported that 2010 carbon emissions rose to the highest levels ever is little short of criminal.
There is perhaps a certain discomfort about the fact that one of the best options for tackling global warming just so happens to be a technology that greens had spent decades opposing before climate change even hit the agenda. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard green groups insisting that climate change is the "greatest challenge ever to face humanity". Yet their refusal to reassess their inherited positions against nuclear power suggest that none of them actually believe what they are saying – or that most environmentalists are prepared to take refuge in ideologically motivated wishful thinking even when the future of the planet is at stake.
If the German greens really took climate change seriously, they would instead be pushing for a phase-out of coal – which generates by far the largest proportion of the country's power and consequent carbon emissions – from Germany's electricity grid. Instead, the new nuclear phase-out plan will see a hefty 11GW of new coal plants built in years to come, with an additional 5GW of new gas. The only way emissions from these plants could be controlled would be through "carbon capture and storage" (CCS) – yet Greenpeace in Germany has already mounted a successful scaremongering campaign against this new technology, helping to ensure that future fossil emissions will go into the atmosphere unabated.
Unfortunately, the new coal plants will spew out more radioactivity into surrounding areas than any of the German nuclear plants would have done if they stayed open, thanks to the fact that trace isotopes in coal escape up power station chimneys. That all of this has come about in response to Fukushima – a non-fatal accident which has so far injured no one, not even the workers who have bravely battled to stabilise the tsunami-stricken reactors – elevates irrationality to a guiding principle of political policy in countries which supposedly pride themselves in taking scientific rationality seriously.
Indeed, it would be far more rational on a risk-precautionary basis to phase out Germany's organic farming sector, given that the recent E coli outbreak – now traced to organic sprouts produced on a farm in Lower Saxony – has killed nearly as many people as Chernobyl (36 at the time of writing, with 700 or more suffering permanent kidney damage). I have not of course heard any suggestions to this end from the German greens. And just imagine the hullaballoo had the sprouts been genetically modified instead of the "healthy" organic option.
The German government insists that the nuclear phase-out plan is entirely compatible with its emission-reduction goals. Yet this is the same government which recently extended subsidies for loss-making coal mines until 2018. It also flies in the face of mathematical logic: in 2008 Germany relied on nuclear for 23 percent of its electricity. Renewable generation in Germany has increased substantially in recent years (to 17% in 2010) – yet to ask renewables to replace nuclear as well as fossil fuels will make the achievement of Germany's climate goals doubly difficult, and therefore twice as unlikely to actually happen.
The silliness does not stop there. Much of Germany's renewables investment has been in solar photovoltaics in recent years, thanks to extraordinarily generous feed-in-tariffs. Yet these solar roofs are so expensive that they cost more than €700 per tonne of carbon abated, compared to a carbon price in Europe of €15 or less. One expert study suggests that the whole solar experiment up until this year has already landed German energy consumers with a €120bn liability for the next two decades – this in order to generate a mere 2% of the country's electricity, or less than a single large nuclear plant.
In contrast, the UK's energy policy actually looks quite sensible these days. There is a broad ambition – articulated by the excellent Climate Change Committee – to decarbonise the entire electricity sector by 2030, by deploying nuclear and renewables in roughly equal proportions of 40% or so. There is a lot of sense also in Britain's policy of ramping down feed-in-tariffs for solar PV, which cost the Earth while doing little to reduce emissions in this cloudy northern country. Unlike the UK, however, Germany has gone around trumpeting its new policy as worthy of emulation by other nations – let us hope for the sake of the climate that no-one follows down the blind alley led by the German greens.
• Discuss the future of the green movement with Mark Lynas in London on 6 July
Ask a stupid question and you'll get a stupid answer. That's what happened in the Italian referendum on nuclear power on Monday, where voters overwhelmingly backed anti-nuclear campaigners' demands to block any new atomic power in Italy. Referendums are not a good way to set energy policy, nor many other aspects of national policy either – if a referendum were held on capital punishment in Britain, a hefty majority would support bringing back hanging.
The Italian result needs to be seen in the context of a wider European political debate where anti-nuclear campaigners – led by the greens – have been successful in discrediting nuclear power. No doubt a referendum in Austria would have the same result, while the governments of Switzerland and Germany have already decided to phase out their nuclear plants altogether in response to the Fukushima accident in Japan.
As a lifelong environmentalist, and author of a 2009 book which laid out the terrifying prospects of uncontrolled global warming, I cannot help but feel that the decisions of the German and Swiss governments rank among the worst climate-related policies of recent years. Carbon emissions cannot do anything other than rise as a result of phasing out the continent's largest source of zero-carbon power – and doing this just a week after the International Energy Agency reported that 2010 carbon emissions rose to the highest levels ever is little short of criminal.
There is perhaps a certain discomfort about the fact that one of the best options for tackling global warming just so happens to be a technology that greens had spent decades opposing before climate change even hit the agenda. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard green groups insisting that climate change is the "greatest challenge ever to face humanity". Yet their refusal to reassess their inherited positions against nuclear power suggest that none of them actually believe what they are saying – or that most environmentalists are prepared to take refuge in ideologically motivated wishful thinking even when the future of the planet is at stake.
If the German greens really took climate change seriously, they would instead be pushing for a phase-out of coal – which generates by far the largest proportion of the country's power and consequent carbon emissions – from Germany's electricity grid. Instead, the new nuclear phase-out plan will see a hefty 11GW of new coal plants built in years to come, with an additional 5GW of new gas. The only way emissions from these plants could be controlled would be through "carbon capture and storage" (CCS) – yet Greenpeace in Germany has already mounted a successful scaremongering campaign against this new technology, helping to ensure that future fossil emissions will go into the atmosphere unabated.
Unfortunately, the new coal plants will spew out more radioactivity into surrounding areas than any of the German nuclear plants would have done if they stayed open, thanks to the fact that trace isotopes in coal escape up power station chimneys. That all of this has come about in response to Fukushima – a non-fatal accident which has so far injured no one, not even the workers who have bravely battled to stabilise the tsunami-stricken reactors – elevates irrationality to a guiding principle of political policy in countries which supposedly pride themselves in taking scientific rationality seriously.
Indeed, it would be far more rational on a risk-precautionary basis to phase out Germany's organic farming sector, given that the recent E coli outbreak – now traced to organic sprouts produced on a farm in Lower Saxony – has killed nearly as many people as Chernobyl (36 at the time of writing, with 700 or more suffering permanent kidney damage). I have not of course heard any suggestions to this end from the German greens. And just imagine the hullaballoo had the sprouts been genetically modified instead of the "healthy" organic option.
The German government insists that the nuclear phase-out plan is entirely compatible with its emission-reduction goals. Yet this is the same government which recently extended subsidies for loss-making coal mines until 2018. It also flies in the face of mathematical logic: in 2008 Germany relied on nuclear for 23 percent of its electricity. Renewable generation in Germany has increased substantially in recent years (to 17% in 2010) – yet to ask renewables to replace nuclear as well as fossil fuels will make the achievement of Germany's climate goals doubly difficult, and therefore twice as unlikely to actually happen.
The silliness does not stop there. Much of Germany's renewables investment has been in solar photovoltaics in recent years, thanks to extraordinarily generous feed-in-tariffs. Yet these solar roofs are so expensive that they cost more than €700 per tonne of carbon abated, compared to a carbon price in Europe of €15 or less. One expert study suggests that the whole solar experiment up until this year has already landed German energy consumers with a €120bn liability for the next two decades – this in order to generate a mere 2% of the country's electricity, or less than a single large nuclear plant.
In contrast, the UK's energy policy actually looks quite sensible these days. There is a broad ambition – articulated by the excellent Climate Change Committee – to decarbonise the entire electricity sector by 2030, by deploying nuclear and renewables in roughly equal proportions of 40% or so. There is a lot of sense also in Britain's policy of ramping down feed-in-tariffs for solar PV, which cost the Earth while doing little to reduce emissions in this cloudy northern country. Unlike the UK, however, Germany has gone around trumpeting its new policy as worthy of emulation by other nations – let us hope for the sake of the climate that no-one follows down the blind alley led by the German greens.
• Discuss the future of the green movement with Mark Lynas in London on 6 July
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