Germany’s green goals on track

GermanyWindAlicePopkorn_CC

Despite claims that dependance on Russian gas derails Germany’s energy revolution, the country will instead ramp up renewables

While the pro-nuclear lobby crows that Germany must now extend the life of its remaining nuclear power plants and will need to expand its use of coal as access to Russian gas gets cut off, the country has a different approach.

Instead, reports Reuters, the German government has produced a draft paper that would see an accelerated expansion of renewable energy capacity as the answer to weaning itself off reliance on Russian gas. 

Rather than achieve its goal of abandoning fossil fuels by 2040, the country now sees a scale-up in renewables achieving that goal by the earlier date of 2035.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to have given Germany further impetus to accelerate its renewable energy transition by amending its Renewable Energy Resources Act to further benefit wind and solar power in particular.

This would mean that “the share of wind or solar power should reach 80% by 2030,”  Reuters reported. “By then, Germany’s onshore wind energy capacity should double to up to 110 gigawatts (GW), offshore wind energy should reach 30 GW – arithmetically the capacity of 10 nuclear plants – and solar energy would more than triple to 200 GW, the paper showed.” More

(Photo of wind turbines in Germany by Alice Popkorn/Creative Commons)

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