This Q&A was organized to give members of DK an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about what Germany's energy policy really is about live and from a reliable source. There is a lot of misleading information being tossed around about Germany's energy policy, and criticism of that country for its alleged shortsightedness, even stupidity, in embarking on this challenging path into the future. I hope there will be a lively discussion that will spark ideas of how the United States may adopt some of Germany's policies to develop green energy sources and create thousands of jobs that can't be exported overseas. One size doesn't fit all, of course, but Germany is blazing a new trail in this area, and hopes to be an example to many of how we can put the brakes on climate change and leave the earth a better place for future generations.
Thanks to citisven for his support and collaboration on this joint experiment.
A brief history: I’m an expat who has lived and worked in Germany for 25 years. I’ve been reading Daily Kos since 2004 and registered in 2008, and one of the topics I follow is renewable energy. When the Japanese earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan and the Fukushima facility in March 2011, Germany famously changed its energy policy. This reversal on nuclear energy was not really an about-face at all, but reverted to a policy that had been put into place in 2002 – in other words years before - by the SPD-Green government, which paved the way for increasing reliance on renewable energy sources and switching off the nuclear power plants. Merkel’s conservative government had just recently managed to get the parliament to agree to leave the nuclear power plants online 8 - 14 years longer than the Renewable Energy Sources Act of 2000 (enacted 2002) had provided for, so when that extension became a political liability after the Fukushima disaster, the government decided to drop it. After doing quite a bit of research on the subject and not finding all the answers I was looking for online, I decided to approach the Green Party directly for more information.
Enter Georg Bonsiepe, who is our featured guest today.
Georg has been a member of the Alliance '90/The Greens (German:Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) since 2000. He was born in Ahaus, Germany (near the Dutch border), where one of three temporary German nuclear waste storage facilities is located, which exposed him to the issues surrounding nuclear waste at an early age as well as to the power of protest. After his Abitur (academic high school diploma, which is credited as an AA in the US), he studied Political Science at the Otto-Suhr-Institut of the Freien Universität Berlin (Free University Berlin), obtaining his degree as a Diplom-Politologe (something like an MS in Poli Sci) in 2008. During that period he spent a year at Cairo University as an exchange student. Georg has worked in politics since earning his degree and became involved with energy issues as staff member for Michael Schäfer, a member of the Berlin State Parliament who serves on the Energy Policy Committee. For the past year Georg has been a Research Associate on the staff of Hans-Josef Fell, Member of Parliament, co-author of the original Renewable Energy Sources Act of 2000, author of several books and papers on energy and the Energy Policy Spokesman for the Green Party in the German Parliament (the federal government level, equivalent to our House of Representatives).
http://www.hans-josef-fell.de/...
Georg has signed up at Daily Kos at my invitation, but not as an official spokesman for the German Green Party but as private individual with extensive knowledge of German energy policy, a subject of much debate and even more misconceptions here at the Big Orange. We hope to engage in constructive, rational and above all CIVIL discussion about Germany’s decision to get rid of nuclear energy in favor of renewables first in 2000, then reaffirmed after the Fukushima disaster last year.
My first question about German energy policy was related to a topic that often comes up: Some claim that Germany’s rejection of nuclear energy automatically means that more coal-fired plants are going to be built, even though I know that Germany is really committed to the Kyoto Protocol and has even reduced their carbon footprint more than the Kyoto Treaty called for.
Germany is set to clearly exceed its Kyoto target (21%): by the end of 2009 national greenhouse gas emissions had already been reduced by 28.7% compared with 1990. The European Union (EU15) is also very likely to meet its Kyoto target (8%): up to 2009 the decrease in emissions of the EU15 totalled 12.7% compared with 1990. The current 27 EU member states (EU27) had even reduced their emissions by 17.4% by 2007 - despite continuously rising economic growth. This clearly shows that within the EU it has been possible to combine economic growth and emission reduction.
Bolding is my own.
http://www.bmu.de/...