beso; could it be that Australia, compared to the cloud-bedecked UK, has more sun than it knows what to do with, & while Germany’s nuclear phase-out is set for 2022, its coal phase-out is set for 2038 — a completely screwed-up sense of priorities.
Germany is Europe’s biggest producer and burner of coal. And, what’s worse, the greater part of it is lignite or brown coal — just about the filthiest fossil fuel there is. Whole swathes of ancient forest are still being sacrificed to allow the opencast mining of this environmental nightmare. Unsurprisingly, the country is the EU’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, which has the knock-on effect of undermining attempts to get Germany’s eastern neighbours, especially Poland, to clean-up their smokestack industries.
Meanwhile in Britain, the last coal-fired power station should be gone in the next few years and renewables, including offshore wind, have become cost competitive.