The Post-Partisan Emporium

German energy monitoring site Agora-Energiewende looks at the year 2022 and it winds up only as it possibly could. The return to coal shows up quite clearly in the numbers, the  FAZ reports . The  increased use of coal-fired power plants as a gas substitute has thwarted Germany’s climate goals in 2022 , according to a study. Although overall energy consumption fell by almost five percent, mainly due to high prices, the use of coal and oil cancelled out the greenhouse gas savings, according to an evaluation published Wednesday by think tank Agora Energiewende. Also the transportation and construction sectors could not reach its targets in the past year again. Thus Germany, based on provisional figures, produced 761 million tons of greenhouse gas almost exactly as much as 2021. The self-imposed upper limit for 2022 was missed by about five million tons.” Thematically, an article from  Die Welt  (paywall) fits in: Insulation chaos and nuclear phase-out end the dream of clean energy … Geda

Germany Is Dismantling A Wind Farm To Make Way For A Coal Mine By  Michael Kern  - Oct 26, 2022, 9:30 AM CDT A wind farm is being dismantled in western Germany to make way for an expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in a “paradoxical” situation highlighting the current prioritization of energy security over clean energy in Europe’s biggest economy.   The dismantling of at least one wind turbine at the  wind farm  close to the German coal mine Garzweiler, operated by energy giant RWE, has already started. RWE  says  that lignite, or brown coal, has been mined from the Garzweiler coalfields for over 100 years. RWE also  said  at the end of September that three of its lignite-fired coal units that were previously on standby would return to the electricity market on schedule in October. “The three lignite units each have a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW). With their deployment, they contribute to strengthening the security of supply in Germany during the energy crisis and to saving na

By John Kemp, senior market analyst Global coal-fired electricity generators are producing more power than ever before in response to booming electricity demand after the pandemic and the surging price of gas following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The world’s coal-fired generators produced a record 10,244 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2021 surpassing the previous record of 10,098 TWh set in 2018 (“ Statistical review of world energy ”, BP, July 2022). Coal-fuelled generation is on course to set an even higher record in 2022 as generators in Europe and Asia minimise the use of expensive gas following Russia’s invasion and U.S. and EU sanctions imposed in response. By contrast, mine output was still fractionally below the record set between 2012 and 2014 because older and less efficient coal generators have been replaced by newer and more efficient ones needing less fuel per kilowatt. Global coal mine production was 8,173 million tonnes in 2021 compared with 8,180-8,256 million per year betwe