simple yes or no question
Here is a simple yes or no question for Chris Nelder and Craig Morris - is Germany building a fleet of new coal fired powered plants or not?
Here in the USA, new coal plants are essentially DOA - killed by cleaner, cheaper, fracked shale gas. In Europe, where they refuse to frack the shale (apparently because of a scary HBO movie) they have no cheap shale gas. Thus, their choice seems to be nuclear (France) or coal (Germany).
I would be a lot more impressed by Germany if they truly were replacing nuclear with renewables. But that doesn't appear to be what they are doing at all. Instead, they are replacing nuclear with coal. How do we know this? Because they are engaging in a massive build out of coal fired plants.
That was the gist of James Conca's article. He was lamenting the idiocy of Germany's great leap backward, to the fuel of the 19th century - coal.
Perhaps Craig Morris and Chris Nelder should visit the new coal fired plant near Cologne. It seems these two gentlemen believe this plant doesn't exist, or that it is merely emitting aromatic fragrances.
Solar PV and windmills are nice enough, but if they could get the job done, than Germany wouldn't be building coal plants. Germany is an abject example of the failure of the Green movement, not of it's success, and the new coal fleet coming on-line is proof of this.
