Basil Venitis asserts the most important and most overlooked energy issue today is the growing crisis of global energy supply. Cheap, industrial-scale energy is essential to building, transporting, and operating everything we use, from refrigerators to Internet to hospitals. It is desperately needed in the undeveloped world, where 1.6 billion people lack electricity, which contributes to untold suffering and death. And it is needed in ever-greater, more-affordable quantities in the industrialized world: Energy usage and standard of living are directly correlated.
Fourthreichian Premier Durao Barroso points out that every euro added to the cost of energy is a euro added to the cost of life. And if something does not change soon in the energy markets, the cost of life will become a lot higher. As demand increases in the newly industrializing world, led by China and India, supply stagnates, meaning rising prices as far as the eye can see.
I support the introduction of renewable energies by using more old-fashioned, established sources of power in the meantime. I think it's fair to say that my energy supply plan will become the world's most efficient and environmentally friendly. My plan will maintain affordable energy prices both for private consumers and businesses. My aim is to further promote renewables, and I see nuclear and coal-fired power plants as an indispensible bridge towards this goal.
By 2050, 80 percent of Germany's electricity should be harvested from renewable sources. This is a revolution in the energy production sector, no more, no less. For now, though, the country's pre-1980 nuclear power stations will remain online for a further eight years, with the more modern post-1980 ones running for an extra 14 years.
Nuclear power currently produces almost one-quarter of Germany's electricity. Renewable energy sources make up about 15 percent of the power supply, with the remainder coming from traditional fossil fuels like coal. I held a telephone conference late on Sunday with the presidents of nuclear power concerns Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall, who promised to also voluntarily contribute some of their profits to ecological endeavors.
It is as yet impossible to say when Germany would abandon nuclear energy for good, but I pledge only to use the technology for as long as it was necessary. I know that people are very skeptical and critical of nuclear power. I take these concerns very seriously.
Modern nuclear technology has made nuclear reactors completely safe. Hoi polloi fear that a nuclear reactor might explode! Venitis asserts this is impossible! Reactor grade uranium is 5% U-235 that produces slow chain reaction. In order to get to bomb grade uranium, the kind that will explode with an instantaneous chain reaction, uranium must be enriched to 90% U-235. With energy prices so high, nuclear reactors bring windfall profits!
On the other hand, a reactor can melt down. This is what happened at Three Mile Island. A valve stuck open and a series of mistakes led the operators to think the core was overflowing when it was actually short of cooling water. They further drained the core and about a third of the core melted from the excess heat. Americans were at shock and awe, because they were not sure what was happening. At the end, the melted fuel stayed within the reactor vessel.
Critics had predicted a China syndrome where the molten core would melt down into the earth where it would hit groundwater, causing a steam explosion that would spray radioactive material across a huge area. Three Mile Island was an industrial accident, but no one was injured.
Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, points out this was not the case at Chernobyl, where a cheap Soviet design did not provide a concrete containment structure around the reactor vessel. A stupid mistake set fire to the carbon moderator, which controls the flow of neutrons. The result was a four-day fire that spewed radioactive debris around the world. More fallout fell on Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from Chernobyl than from Three Mile Island!
Fourthreichian Diplomacy Czar Catherine Ashton points out nuclear power is risky for investors, because it ties up more capital for longer periods of time than its main competitor, natural-gas-fired generation. Nuclear power makes economic sense only if natural gas prices are very high. Then, over time, the high initial costs of nuclear power would be offset by nuclear power's lower fuel costs.
Venitis notes that until recently, gas supplies were thought to be increasingly scarce, but recently natural gas reserve estimates increased drastically, because of technological advancements in shale rock drilling. So natural constraints are no longer in play and natural gas prices have returned to reasonable levels. Government efforts to force nuclear power plant construction will thus prove economically counterproductive.
Fourthreichian President Haiku Herman points out renewable energy comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are naturally replenished. All forms of energy are expensive, but as time progresses, renewable energy generally gets cheaper, while fossil fuels generally get more expensive. Once the renewable infrastructure is built, the fuel is free forever. Unlike carbon-based fuels, the wind and the sun and the earth itself provide fuel that is free, in amounts that are effectively limitless.
While fossil fuel technologies are more mature, renewable energy technologies are being rapidly improved. So innovation and ingenuity give us the ability to constantly increase the efficiency of renewable energy and continually reduce its cost. Once the world makes a clear commitment to shifting toward renewable energy, the volume of production will itself sharply reduce the cost of each windmill and each solar panel, while adding yet more incentives for additional research and development to further speed up the innovation process.
Fourth Reich(EU) needs a holistic flexible power system that can always produce electricity when wind doesn't blow and sun doesn't shine in a particular country, by hooking in to another country. Fourthreichian cooperation can help, as different countries specialise in different renewable technologies. Off-shore wind is very strong in Britain, and sunshine is plentiful in Greece.
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