Germany on the road to renewable energy, U.S. dithers
April 4th, 2009A new Roadmap published by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment sketches out the route the world’s largest exporter plans to take to switch over completely to renewable energy. The objective? Get Germany running on renewable energy by 2050.
In 2008, renewables accounted for 7.3% of Germany’s primary energy consumption. That figure is slated to increase to 33% by 2020, with wind energy contributing the most. The Roadmap estimates that by 2030, as much as 50% of Germany’s electricity will be coming from renewable energy sources. In twenty years time, a smart grid interconnected with the entire European electricity grid will be in place. Solar energy will be imported via Italy from the solar thermal plants operating in the sun-drenched deserts of North Africa.
A raft of new energy efficiency measures, including the construction of a smart grid, should reduce the country’s primary energy consumption by 28% in the next twenty years, saving billions in energy costs.
While Germany is already acting, the U.S. is beginning to wake up. The US interior department reported wind turbines off US coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the country’s current electricity demand.
As Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar observed:
More than three-fourths of the nation’s electricity demand comes from coastal states and the wind potential off the coasts of the lower 48 states actually exceeds our entire U.S. electricity demand.
The Executive Summary is supposedly online at http://www.doi.gov/ocs, but I haven’t been able to find it. The Interior Department’s website needs lots of work if it is to be user-friendly.