By Gary M. Kaye, Publisher, Zero Energy News
Prague – Czech Republic August 4, 2008 - Here in this hot spot of the old Eastern Europe, tourism is booming, the streets teeming with people speaking a huge range of languages. And despite the battered dollar, there are still plenty of Americans. Throughout the city there’s still plenty of evidence of its coal powered past and present. For the Czech Republic, as well as many of the Eastern European nations, renewable energy is more goal than reality with renewable energy sources (RES) account for somewhere between 3 and 4 percent of electric power generation, and most of that is from large scale hydro. Large scale wind is near the bottom of the pile, and photovoltaics don’t even make the list.
We took the train from Berlin, where despite many of the same resources, the renewable energy outcome is already far different. Both Germany and the Czech Republic have significant coal resources, that carry both political and economic clout. The coal industries in both nations are powerful. They employ tens of thousands, and politicians are under pressure to keep electricity cheap, especially when the price of gasoline here can range from $7 to $8 a gallon.
The Czech Republic is looking to comply with the European Union RES standards over the next ten years, but progress seems to be slow, with reluctance to jump onto the Kyoto Protocols. On the other hand, Germany is now the world’s largest producer of wind energy, and the evidence of Germany’s push into wind is everywhere. Outside of Berlin, near the city of Potsdam, which had been in the old East Germany, a wind farm stands atop a ridge line within sight of gorgeous mansions. My friend Axel, a life long Berliner, put it this way, “Do I like looking at these things on top of the hill? No. But it is better than building another atomic plant, since we don’t know how to get rid of the waste, and it is certainly better than burning more coal.” The Germans continue to have the same NIMBY debate as we do in the states, but the outcome is generally favorable. The wind turbines may not be beautiful, but they are effective. On the train ride from Berlin to Dresden, we saw miles of farm fields, where wind turbines churned at a leisurely pace.
Admittedly the Germans do have a distinct advantage over us in the U.S., and that is in the area of power transmission. Because Germany is so much smaller, it is much easier to get power to the places where people live, the reverse of the situation T. Boone Pickens faces with his huge Texas wind farm projects.
But the Germans aren’t only relying on large scale wind. We saw new home construction with integrated photovoltaics, paid for by the government. And while there is little evidence of retrofitting, German homes are often better insulated than American homes, built initially from brick instead of wood frames.
The Wind Energy Association claims that the U.S. has already surpassed Germany in terms of the total output of wind driven energy. That figure comes about a year ahead of original forecasts. But even if true, the Germans appear far more accepting of renewable energy than the Americans. And while their coal industry still lobbies to protect its business, the tide has clearly turned. It would be nice if we could say the same for the U.S.
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