France vs Germany: two strategies for carbon-free energy

While we now know the composition of the new German government and it has just committed, through the voice of Olaf Scholz, to phasing out coal in 2030, and in France, President Macron has just pleaded for the nuclear energy, Christian Semperes takes stock of the two strategies adopted respectively by the two countries and wonders about their future. While the shared objective – the transition to totally carbon-free energy production – seems identical, the means to achieve it seem quite different.

What is the energy transition about?

To put it simply, the energy used by our societies makes it possible to satisfy our needs in transport, industry, agriculture, the tertiary sector and residential. For this, we have several means, electricity and other sources of energy. And when we do not use electricity, today we mainly use fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. This is the case of the car which today uses oil which emits CO2 by combustion, a greenhouse gas. At the global level, the current energy transition therefore aims to achieve "carbon neutrality" by substituting energy sources that emit CO2 with energy sources that emit little or no CO2 to stabilize the greenhouse effect and the rise the average temperature of the planet. It is a climate issue and therefore a planetary habitability issue for biodiversity in general and the human species in particular.

Energy transition strategies

For the energy transition, the first strategy consists in favoring the use of electricity as a source of energy because it can be produced by different low-carbon energy sources. This is the reason why, in addition to a necessary energy saving strategy, countries are moving towards a significant increase in their electricity production. For example, for cars, the objective is to do without oil in favor of either electricity or hydrogen, which does not emit CO2. But as you will have understood, the strategy that stems from this postulate is based on the means of electricity production chosen by initiating “the energy transition”. Indeed, we should not use low-carbon hydrogen that is not found in its natural state by manufacturing it from energy sources which would emit CO2! Obviously ! It gets better by saying it!

In the sovereign domain of energy which impacts the energy and economic independence of a country, the strategy is decided at the political level. The strategy chosen obviously determines the results obtained throughout the transition. Especially when you want to replace one energy with another, several elements must be taken into account at the same time, the carbon impact of the means of substitution production, their cost, the country's energy and industrial strengths and weaknesses (*), the ecological priority, the laws of physics and the current state of knowledge and know-how. It's all about "logic". But in this area, several logics clash in European countries. Let's take a closer look.

(*) The slogan of the French state in the 1970s was: "In France, we don't have oil, but we have ideas!" This was indeed an example of taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of the country in the development of an energy transition strategy.

The French energy transition strategy

In this logic, the politicians in power in France in 1974 decided to turn away from fossil fuels for the production of electricity and particularly oil, in favor of nuclear energy by building and starting up in 21 years and in complete safety. , 58 pressurized water reactors and 1 prototype fast neutron reactor, i.e. 2.8 reactors per year. When politicians give manufacturers a long-term vision of an order book, they have time to establish an industrial policy and develop appropriate skills. A 1989 ministerial report (1) was commissioned by Michel Rocard Prime Minister and Brice Lalonde Secretary of State for the Environment. Already at the time, 32 years ago, this report aimed to assess the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. On page 40, this report already specified that at 90%, the low-carbon French energy mix composed of 70% nuclear and 20% hydro allowed us to say that the energy transition was, I quote, "acquired", in 1989 ! He even specified, page 41, I quote, that “French electricity exports made it possible to significantly reduce the CO2 emissions of our neighbours”. This logic has placed France today among the countries in the world that produce their electricity with low-carbon means, with a result close to the objective of carbon neutrality. In Europe, we can mention the 2 countries, Norway and Sweden, which are also carbon neutral, but thanks to their specific hydrography that France does not have. With these examples, we show that carbon neutrality is possible with different strategies depending on the specific strengths of the countries.

Germany's energy transition strategy

Germany used a different logic from 2011. Germany began by shutting down a significant part of its nuclear fleet, rather than its fleet of fossil, gas and coal power stations that emit large amounts of CO2. It even built and started up a 1100MW lignite-fired power station (*) in Datteln in June 2020. With this logic, and even with 4 times more installed capacity of low-carbon renewable means of production, Germany still emits on average 6 times more quantity of CO2 per year than France.

(*) Lignite: cheap coal but of poor energy quality and high CO2 emitter.

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The carbon impact of the means of electricity production

By these 2 examples, France / Germany, we perceive 2 types of political logic to achieve carbon neutrality and therefore 2 strategies. Let's see the consequences.

The 5 means of low-carbon electricity production in decreasing order of carbon impact are solar, offshore wind, onshore wind, hydro and, the least carbon-intensive, nuclear. However, they do not have the same quality of service. Wind and solar are dependent on the weather and cannot be modulated according to electricity needs. It is a fatal energy, totally independent of energy needs. In the current state of knowledge and know-how, the storage of electricity is not capable, in volume, of compensating for their random intermittency that is not synchronous with the energy needs at the scale of a country, and even less of Europe. Batteries also require mining resources, which are by definition limited on a planetary scale. Similarly, the European weather being influenced mainly by the Atlantic Ocean, the proliferation of intermittent means does not make it possible to satisfy the variations in energy needs. In other words, when there is little wind in one European country, it is also the case in the others. For solar energy, it is day and night, in the same time slots in Europe, the production of European solar parks is synchronous. Under these conditions, renewable energies therefore need modular and controllable means of production if, at the same time as the energy transition, the political decision-maker wishes to keep all things equal. That is to say the guarantee of quality and continuity of service. In other words, without power cuts. It gets better by saying it! By introducing renewable energies into the European energy mix, countries must therefore maintain modular and controllable means of production.

The evaluation indicator of the strategies used

An indicator that illustrates a country's energy transition strategy is the diversity of means of electricity production, intermittent and modular, and therefore the installed capacity of these means of production. Below, the graph shows the installed electrical power of European countries, in descending order of total installed power (Source: https://energy-charts.info/). While Germany and France have comparable electricity consumption, at the top of this graph, Germany with an installed capacity of nearly double the second country, France, because of its fleet of intermittent renewable energies ( wind and solar power) of 119GW, 4 times greater than in France. The installed capacity of German modular and controllable fossil production means with a high carbon impact is comparable to the installed French nuclear capacity with a very low carbon impact. The intermittency of renewable energies is therefore compensated in Germany by fossil fuels. The result on the quantity of CO2 emitted is final. The carbon impact is 6 times greater in Germany than in France, see the graph (Source: http://electricitymap.org) These two situations illustrate the difference in strategy of the 2 countries for its energy transition. The end of nuclear power, which Germany thinks to compensate by the massive introduction of renewable energies, conditions the use of fossil fuels.

Countries such as Portugal and Denmark are often cited as emitting little CO2. It should be noted that their production fleet is 10 times less important in terms of installed power than that of France. In other words, it is quite easy to emit little CO2 in quantity, with low production. As the graph shows, the other countries which have an installed capacity comparable to France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Poland, are not yet carbon neutral.

Germany's future strategy

What can Germany do to achieve carbon neutrality in the context of a massive increase in electricity consumption to reduce the use of fossil fuels in other sectors? In the logic of carbon neutrality, it must stop its fleet of coal-fired power stations as a priority. But, given the intermittency of renewables, what can you replace it with?

Germany's choice to phase out nuclear power therefore has a strong impact on the economic aspect and public acceptability of the continued deployment of renewable energy, which is already substantial.

France's future strategy

What can France do? Thanks to its energy transition in the 1980s, it is now close to carbon neutrality in its electricity production with a historic nuclear and hydraulic mix with a share of intermittent renewables. But given the colossal increase in electricity needs inherent in the eradication of fossil fuels from our society and given the German example, the sole use of renewable energies will have a strong economic impact and acceptance by the population. to prove.

The French electricity network operator, RTE, has published its analysis of the 6 possible scenarios for achieving carbon neutrality in 2060. Since RTE says that these 6 scenarios are "technically possible", the choice will have to be made on these 2 components, the economic aspect and the acceptability of the population. From an economic point of view, the 2 extreme scenarios proposed by RTE, namely 100% renewable energies and only 27% of installed power from nuclear, the funding gap amounts to an additional €18 billion per year for the 100% renewable scenario. This represents a gap of +€700 billion by 2060.

The current energy transition bill already amounts to €121 billion in public subsidies levied on fuel taxes (€11c/litre of fuel) by 2046, according to the Court of Auditors. Is the taxpayer ready to finance a scenario with a difference of +€700 billion? On the assumption of the 3 scenarios that favor renewable energies, is the French population at the same time ready to accept an increase of 4 times more land and solar wind farms, not counting offshore wind farms?

Conclusion

How can we manage to promote a country, Germany, which is the largest emitter of CO2 in Europe for its electricity production, because it is going to get out of coal and replace it with gas? The communicators of the new German government coalition can add the qualifier “natural” to the gas, it will always be methane, a powerful fossil greenhouse gas from oil (CH4 + 2 02  2 H2O + CO2). They can add the qualifier "modern" to gas-fired power stations, they will always emit CO2, the greenhouse gas whose emissions the world has set itself to reduce in an eco-logical logic of carbon neutrality.

This is, however, what France did in the 1980s, 40 years ago already, by reaching today 97% of its low-carbon electricity production, as EDF says. France has demonstrated since 1978, the start date of the French electro-nuclear park, an energy mix financed by public borrowing reimbursed because it is profitable in the long term, safe, low carbon, which at the same time ensures quality, continuity service to the public and securing the European network.

This choice of strategy is no longer a social problem. It has become a vital need for the sustainability of biodiversity and of the human species. It gets better by saying it! But … if there is still time!

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