Germany: The World's First Major Renewable Energy Economy

[Fledermaus]

Germany's Reichstag in Berlin is set to become the first parliamentary building in the world to be powered 100 percent by renewable energy. Soon the entire country will follow suit. Germany is accelerating its efforts to become the world's first industrial power to use 100 percent renewable energy -- and given current momentum, it could reach that green goal by 2050.

A 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, and add 800,000 to 900,000 new cleantech jobs by 2030 as it does so.

To overhaul key parts of the German economic juggernaut while it is hurtling down the highway, the roadmap lays out an integrated approach, involving measures for greater energy efficiency as well as a steady expansion of all types of renewable energy and a stronger focus on research and development into the next generation of green technologies....

According to the plan laid out in the roadmap, a raft of new energy efficiency measures, including the construction of a smart grid, should reduce the country's primary energy consumption by 28 percent in the next twenty years from 13,842 PJ (peta-joules) in 2007 to 12,000 PJ in 2020 and 10,000 PJ in 2030, slashing billions off the bill that the country has to pay for increasingly costly energy imports.

By 2020, 30 percent of the electricity consumed in Germany is set to be coming from renewable energy sources, with wind energy contributing the most at 15 percent, bioenergy second with 8 percent and hydropower third with 4 percent. By 2015, photovoltaics are expected to reach price parity and so become commercially viable.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/04/germany-the-worlds-first-major-renewable-energy-economy

[rollingrock]

1. Anything with the word 'reich' in it

gives me the creeps.

otherwise, good to hear.

[B Whale]

2. Lol, me too. Poor Germans

can't escape history or their own language. oh well

[Doctor Cynic]

4. I hear they're planning a Final Solution to their energy problems which will work for 1000 years.

[newfie11]

3. Germany is so far ahead of America in renewable energy already!

It is interesting to drive along and see solar panels on 400 year old homes, wind turbines, and the high speed trains. To bad here in America all we can do is feed CEO tremendous salaries and the politicians continue to fight for their own self interests not the good of the country.