(Reuters) – German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour – equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity – through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said.

The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022.

They will be replaced by renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass.

Norbert Allnoch, director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster, said the 22 gigawatts of solar power per hour fed into the national grid on Saturday met nearly 50 percent of the nation’s midday electricity needs.

“Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity,” Allnoch told Reuters. “Germany came close to the 20 gigawatt (GW) mark a few times in recent weeks. But this was the first time we made it over.”

The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world’s leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed. Government-mandated support for renewables has helped Germany became a world leader in renewable energy and the country gets about 20 percent of its overall annual electricity from those sources.

Nice to see someone making progress in this. I’ll never expect to see our do-nothing politicians do anything this innovative. We’re too busy running guns for Mexican Narco-Terrorists, destroying other countries for our oil addiction, or blowing money on better ways to control the citizenry. We better change this mindset fast, lest we become a footnote in history.



  1. laxdude says:

    Great, they can almost produce half of the power they need in the middle of the day the week os the solstice (the longest day with the most light).

    Too bad peak power demands are in the winter when the sun has gone down. Remember this is Europe, not the US sun belt, they are not running air conditioners.

    I would also like to see them break down home heating. How much is currently electric that will change to gas because of pricing?

    Nuclear could be made much cheaper and simplified (therefore safer). You would just need more facilities that are smaller, therefore easier to harden and contain. You could build a small number of ‘mega facilities’ – such as in Nevada – far away from any earthquake or tsunami surge. Nuclear plants were never meant to be big, they had to get big because they were so hard to get built. The fact that each one is unique means there is no way to make them cheap.

    The fact remains that unless we discover some magic way to store electricity that non-combustion/fission will always remain until it is beamed down from space.

  2. David says:

    Running guns for terrorists? Oh yes, because I remember the magical years prior to 2008 when Mexico didn’t have gangs, guns, and drug lords. ROTLFMAO. What a made up story. Dude, Mexico’s drug lords have half their ARMY in their pockets, they’ve NEVER needed the handful of boxes of guns from the U.S. to fill their needs. Before the whole George W. Bush (yes) Fast & Furious program they ALREADY had plenty of machine guns, submarines, helicopters, explosives. Lord man, you HAVE the Google. (sigh)

    • NewformatSux says:

      They already withdrew their statement that AG Mukasey and the Bush Admin knew about it.

      If the gangs are so well supplied, then why are they sending gunrunners to the US to buy?

  3. NewformatSux says:

    http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/

    The more efficiency you get, the more a product is used. Peak oil has not yet arrived, and even when it does you still have decades of oil after that.

  4. bobbo, man enough to go first says:

    marcus–you introduce the term “absolutist” and use it in your own way==but it does make sense. Yes, I agree, poor people often pay disproportionately all for the benefit of the richer. I don’t know what makes that absolute in its clear dictionary meaning, but a wealth transfer it is.

    Absent that issue which is present in most issues, people “should be” allowed to spend their money as they please. Hard to even identify what the “waste” is if you produce electricity from solar on your own property. There is no absolutist transfer in that scenario.

    Its an excellent area of debate though–regulating the market by fiat or by free market? Pros and cons to all we do.

  5. bobbo, man enough to go first says:

    NewformatSux informingly says:
    6/22/2012 at 12:46 am

    http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/

    The more efficiency you get, the more a product is used. Peak oil has not yet arrived, and even when it does you still have decades of oil after that. //// Excellent exhaustive review that eveyone should bookmark. Then we need to add to it the RELEVANT addition of how much more carbon can we burn before we poison ourselves? “IF” we had free oil from magical spouts we would RIGHT NOW have to determine how much of it to burn before we poison ourselves. We may be too late already.

    I said: “MAY BE.”==but unlike peak oil, there is peak burning. If not already, someday …. soon.

    Its PHYSICS — a type of science.

    Feel the burn.

  6. Marcus says:

    @bobbo: I meant absolutism in the historical sense, meaning the time of Louis XIV and Frederick the Great, not as a verb.

    I think our problem in understanding evolves around the problem, that Germany does such crazy things, when it comes to green stuff right now, that a good common sense American like yourself can’t really understand it.

    To make it as simple as possible: my neighbor can make money, which the government forces me and the other peons to pay to him, by putting solar panels on his roof and using the produced power to heat the air in his garden. That has nothing to do with saving the palnet and is not in any way benificial to the country.

    One other thing: a lot of you guys wrote, that Germany has the benefit of developing it’s solar industries, creating jobs etc.

    That argument was used a lot in Germany, when they tried to explain the high cost, but in the last to years it turned out to be BS.
    About one in three solar panel producers closed in the last two years, because of the Chinese. And the Chinese can produce cheaper because of one main fact: cheaper electricity!

    The Chinese also use solar the self, and their numbers look big on paper, but if you compare them to the number of new coal and nuclear plants they build, that number looks very small.

  7. JimD, Boston, MA says:

    What about Thorium Reactors – not Uranium or Plutonium ???

  8. The0ne says:

    Many countries are going green whether that’s solar, wind or fuel based products. Some are even paying handsomely if you wanted to start a business there. Unfortunately these all have their dark sides that the public contends with. Cheating…errr, paying out for peoples homes, demolishing landscapes, killing birds with…j/k 😀 Then there are the cab drivers somewhere in Italy that takes used oil from restaurants and coverts it to fuel. How many fast food places do we have?

  9. RS says:

    What a pity that Germany’s peak power needs are not in summer, but in its notoriously cloudy winter, when the sun doesn’t shine for months at a time.

    German electricity now costs over 2x the US average. So expensive that German manufacturers like Thyssen-Krupp are relocating factories to less “enlightened” nations.

    • NewformatSux says:

      Shhh, renewable energy is the future. Don’t tell people it will cost money. California’s energy rates are set to triple from their already higher bills.

    • Dallas says:

      Here’s an idea ! When when the sun isn’t shining, we turn on some other energy source!

      This technique should work well for wind and all sorts of things. I’m a friggn genius!

      • Dallas says:

        Somebody explain to Pedo what a grid is, never mind an intelligent grid. My sheeple training community service time allocation is exhausted.

  10. NewformatSux says:

    Signs of delusion:

    1) PERSISTENT BELIEF THAT SOME-THING SERIOUS IS HAPPENING.

    2) DISORGANIZED SPEECH.

    3) FEELING THREATENED.

    4) GRANDIOSE BELIEFS.

    5) MANIPULATION OF FACTS’

    6) THE USE OF THE BOGEYMAN.

    7) SAFETY IN NUMBERS.

    Read more: http://theprovince.com/technology/Delusion+problem+with+green+crowd/6823927/story.html#ixzz1yeU74b4j

  11. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

    Signs of delusion:

    1) PERSISTENT BELIEF THAT SOME-THING SERIOUS IS HAPPENING. /// Like eco terrorists hate America and won’t let the USA drill its way to prosperity?

    2) DISORGANIZED SPEECH. /// Like we should build pipe lines from Canda to Gulf Coast so tar sand can be developed to ship to china so gas will be cheaper in America?

    3) FEELING THREATENED. /// Like if we don’t drill on every piece of land possible, American will lose the battle in wasting more energy than any other society on the face of the earth?

    4) GRANDIOSE BELIEFS. /// Like we can drill our way to energy independence?

    5) MANIPULATION OF FACTS’ /// Like we have proven reserves of oil, coal, and gas that would make us energy independent if we would just provide more corporate welfare. You know, Shell Oil really pays a lot of taxes all ready.

    6) THE USE OF THE BOGEYMAN. /// Like we shouldn’t let our energy policy be dictated by Arab Sheiks?

    7) SAFETY IN NUMBERS. /// Actually, don’t need numbers. Just Rush the coke head Rush, the Koch Brothers, and 7-8 other Texass Oil troglodites?

    DAMN NFS – – you do make a persuasive argument.

    Silly Hoomans.

    • NewformatSux says:

      Someone seems to have thought it applied to them. Hehe.

      I guess the first step to recovery is recognizing you have a problem.

  12. NewformatSux says:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/23/the-national-academy-of-sciences-loses-the-plot/#more-66150

    Sea level rise overhyped. Observed sea level rise has been 2-3 mm per year, leading to less than one meter in 300 years.

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

      Excellent article–thanks for the link. The comments are a must read putting the OP in proper context. Still reading them, then on to the NAS report itself.

      So easy to be a nay sayer and pick at slanted interpretations of the data.

      WHAT NO ONE DOES other than the accepted science is explain what happens to all the carbon that gets pumped into the atmosphere. Being brain dead stupid thinking it makes no difference at all is …… pretty brain dead stupid.

      Amusing how that works.

  13. SchwettyBalls says:

    This will not convince the skeptics that alternative energy works. You can’t reason with fools.


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