Nuclear energy suffers from a crisis of confidence. The long-term development of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy is slow. Whether clean energy can solve the global energy dilemma is once again questioned. After a long consultation of 12 hours, Berlin’s local time is late on May 29th and the German government holds power. The coalition reached an agreement on closing deadlines for domestic nuclear power plants. German Environment Minister Norbert Latterggen said after the meeting: Before 2022, all domestic nuclear power plants were shut down, and Germany was also the first economic power to completely abandon the nuclear power.
For a long time, clean energy including renewable energy such as nuclear energy and wind power and solar energy was considered as the key to solving the global energy shortage; however, since the nuclear accident in Japan, the voice of opposition to nuclear energy has been rising all over the world. This time, Germany announced that it will give up. Nuclear energy is even more of a concern to the entire world.
At the same time, the long-term development of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy has been slow. Whether clean energy can solve the global energy dilemma has again been questioned.
Green energy**
The wave of industrialization that began in the 1950s and lasted for more than 200 years has achieved a historic leap in the human society from the agricultural era to the industrial era. The global economy has expanded unprecedentedly.
However, while human beings have achieved great material civilization achievements, they have caused global resource shortages and environmental deterioration due to excessive consumption of natural resources. Especially after the middle of the 20th century, the global energy crisis represented by oil was successively linked. break out.
The petroleum embargo imposed by the oil-exporting countries on the West in 1973 directly caused the latter's economic crisis. The second oil crisis from 1979 to 1980 caused the economies of Western countries to suffer severely. Because oil even led to war, the two Gulf Wars are closely related to the rich oil resources in the Middle East.
How to deal with the energy crisis and achieve sustainable human development has become a common theme in the world.
Clean energy based on nuclear energy, wind energy, and solar energy is considered to be an inevitable choice to replace traditional energy sources and solve the energy crisis. Especially after the financial crisis of 2008, there was a wave of green energy worldwide.
During the presidential campaign, Obama promised to implement energy policies that help to mitigate climate change, create jobs, and reduce US dependence on petrochemical energy.
After taking office, Obama announced that he will commit to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% compared to 1990 by 2050 and will implement a $150 billion, 10-year clean energy plan and create 5 million green jobs. Work opportunities to develop new energy technologies including wind and solar energy, bio-energy, nuclear energy, and clean coal.
The “American Progress Center†(CAP), a think-tank providing Obama with a green strategy, proposed six strategies for energy conservation and renewable energy development in the “Green Recovery: A Plan for Creating Good Jobs and Building a Low-Carbon Economyâ€: Continuous Improvement Energy efficiency in the United States; construction of large-scale passenger and freight railroads; construction of smart grid transmission systems; development of wind power; development of solar energy; and development of the next generation of bioenergy.
Like the United States, European countries have also implemented new energy projects based on clean energy. In September 2010, the German government announced a draft new green energy plan, announced the construction of a huge wind farm, the development of electric vehicles, and the construction of a European super power grid. , to extend the life of nuclear reactors and other decisions, and claimed to set off a green energy **.
At the same time, the Spanish government also announced the launch of a new energy plan for the medium and short term. It is expected that by 2020 it will reduce energy expenses by 11.5 billion euros and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 36.43 million tons. Among them, energy expenditure will be reduced by 323 million euros between 2011 and 2012, and plans to issue 100 specific energy-saving programs.
The European "2020 Strategy" will focus on the development of a "low-carbon economy" in the next decade. It not only proposes to build a single energy market in Europe by 2014, but also adjusts the proportion of renewable energy sources to 20% by 2020.
Sun Qin, general manager of the China Nuclear Industry Group and General Manager, once told the media that in the future China will also have to develop clean energy. He disclosed that China proposed that clean energy (the proportion of energy) be up to 15% by 2020 and 11.4% by the end of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan†period, which is currently around 7%.
China's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" specifically puts forward "Strengthening the modern energy industry, promoting the transformation of energy production and utilization methods, and building a safe, stable, economic, and clean modern energy industry system."
For a time, clean energy has become a hot topic, and many media even cheered that this new energy-based, clean energy ** is the concept of human development after the industrial ** in the middle of the 18th century and the information in the middle of the 20th century. Another pattern of development.
Clean energy seems to have infinitely bright prospects.
After the nuclear crisis, Japan’s nuclear accident crisis, the safety of nuclear energy has become the focus of the world’s attention. Many countries have stopped nuclear power projects under construction and re-examine nuclear energy development plans. In the United States, Germany and other nuclear power countries, the government is facing environmental protection organizations and The people are under tremendous pressure.
In the end, less than three months after the Japanese nuclear accident crisis, the Merkel government announced that it would completely abandon nuclear energy.
Prior to this, the U.S. Department of Energy announced plans to officially terminate the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project that has spent more than 10 billion U.S. dollars over 24 years. The permanent burial of nuclear waste on the Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas was once considered the best solution for the United States to deal with nuclear waste.
In an exclusive interview with the News Weekly Reporter, Tom Leyte, a senior expert from the famous American think tank Rand Corporation and a professor from the Graduate School of Paddyland, said that the failure experience of the Yucca Mountain Plan indicates a more worrying issue. It is the public’s unacceptability and distrust of nuclear energy construction and nuclear waste disposal that will create more resistance and challenges to the progress of the permanent nuclear waste repository.
The director of the German Institute for Development Policy and Deputy Director of the German Government’s Global Advisory Council on Environmental Change, Dürk Messner, also expressed his views on the safety of nuclear power to the journalist. He believes that the destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will It has an impact on the future of the world's nuclear energy economy.
For Germany and Switzerland decided to withdraw from nuclear energy production. The important adviser of the German government agrees that he believes that at present three issues concerning nuclear energy have not been resolved: the danger posed by serious reactor accidents; the final storage of nuclear waste has not yet been resolved worldwide; civil nuclear power and weapons The connection between nuclear material proliferation.
In addition, Dilke Messner said that from a market economy point of view, nuclear energy production is not profitable, "because there is no insurance company in the world willing to provide insurance for nuclear energy. The risk must be borne by the country, and ultimately the citizens. â€
Therefore, he believes that nuclear energy cannot solve the energy demand problem of the ever-increasing world population and the world economy. “It is at best only a transitional technology that will definitely lead to the form of renewable energy.â€
Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Secretary-General of the 2012 Sustainability Summit Sha Zukang also said in an exclusive interview with the publication that Japan’s nuclear crisis has “polled cold water and alarmed the development of nuclear energy.â€
From a global perspective, 13% to 15% of the world's electricity supply currently comes from nuclear power. As an important part of clean energy, the nuclear crisis has undoubtedly adversely affected the promotion and use of clean energy. In Germany, which has just announced its abandonment of nuclear energy, nuclear energy accounted for 22% of its national total energy in 2010. Next, what kind of energy is used to replace the gap left by nuclear energy is a big problem facing the German government.
In addition to nuclear energy, there are many problems in the development, promotion, and use of clean energy such as solar energy, wind energy, and biological energy.
Can clean energy break the energy predicament Dilker Mesner expressed his optimism about the future of clean energy and placed high hopes on Europe and China. He said that Europe and China are the world of wind energy and solar energy equipment production. Market leader, there is great innovation and growth potential to change the world economy. Both sides can cooperate in training engineers and researching renewable energy systems for the world economy.
He believes that if the scale of this cooperation is large enough, it will show that Europe and China will embark on the path of an environmentally friendly economy and have a strong signal for other participants.
In response, Dr. Kenneth Green, a scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, expressed the opposite view. He believes that the development and use of clean energy, including nuclear power, wind power, and solar energy, are too costly to spread. He proposed that the best way to control energy costs is to ensure a fair market competition environment and to develop a highly targeted environmental tax to control the impact of energy use on the external environment.
Kenneth Green said that the popularization and elimination of certain energy sources and the development and stagnation of energy technologies are difficult for the government. The European green energy industry has brought some negative results, including causing more unemployment and leading to energy prices. rise.
He used Spain as an example to explain that the installation of “megawatts of green energy†per megawatt reduces about 5.28 jobs in other economic fields, and the cost of creating “green jobs†may be the loss of 2.2 other jobs. Since 2000, Spain has spent 571,138 euros (about 771,000 U.S. dollars) to create "green jobs", in which the investment (subsidy) needed to create a "green job" opportunity in the field of wind power generation exceeds 1 million euros. At $1.35 million).
In Italy, if the capital investment used to create a "green job" opportunity is shifted to the general economy, nearly five jobs can be created.
He added that the use of wind energy and solar energy has led to a 7.5% increase in home energy prices in Germany, and has led to Denmark’s highest electricity prices in EU countries.
For the prospect of biofuels as a new clean energy source, the scholar of this famous American think tank even thinks: This is still an unrealistic fantasy. The reason is that no one can afford such an expensive cost.
He estimated that biofuel technology will take at least 20 years to be competitive in price, but it will take longer if they are to replace conventional fuels. At the same time, any crop of biofuels will compete for land with food crops and will occupy animal habitats, parks, and wilderness areas. "So, the so-called "new generation of biofuels" actually has no miracle at all," he said.
One day after Germany announced its abandonment of nuclear energy, Hong Kong’s “Wen Wei Po†also published a report analyzing that clean energy is not a panacea for solving energy problems: strong winds sufficient to generate electricity do not exist for 24 hours; solar power is expensive; biomass energy ( In order to obtain energy from animal and plant materials, it means that a large number of trees must be felled, which also damages the environment.
In this regard, Sha Zukang told this correspondent that human beings need new energy for sustainable development. However, this requires capital and technology, and it is necessary for developing countries to benefit from the development of new energy. Therefore, international Cooperation is the key. Developed countries must provide developing countries with the necessary support.
For a long time, clean energy including renewable energy such as nuclear energy and wind power and solar energy was considered as the key to solving the global energy shortage; however, since the nuclear accident in Japan, the voice of opposition to nuclear energy has been rising all over the world. This time, Germany announced that it will give up. Nuclear energy is even more of a concern to the entire world.
At the same time, the long-term development of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy has been slow. Whether clean energy can solve the global energy dilemma has again been questioned.
Green energy**
The wave of industrialization that began in the 1950s and lasted for more than 200 years has achieved a historic leap in the human society from the agricultural era to the industrial era. The global economy has expanded unprecedentedly.
However, while human beings have achieved great material civilization achievements, they have caused global resource shortages and environmental deterioration due to excessive consumption of natural resources. Especially after the middle of the 20th century, the global energy crisis represented by oil was successively linked. break out.
The petroleum embargo imposed by the oil-exporting countries on the West in 1973 directly caused the latter's economic crisis. The second oil crisis from 1979 to 1980 caused the economies of Western countries to suffer severely. Because oil even led to war, the two Gulf Wars are closely related to the rich oil resources in the Middle East.
How to deal with the energy crisis and achieve sustainable human development has become a common theme in the world.
Clean energy based on nuclear energy, wind energy, and solar energy is considered to be an inevitable choice to replace traditional energy sources and solve the energy crisis. Especially after the financial crisis of 2008, there was a wave of green energy worldwide.
During the presidential campaign, Obama promised to implement energy policies that help to mitigate climate change, create jobs, and reduce US dependence on petrochemical energy.
After taking office, Obama announced that he will commit to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% compared to 1990 by 2050 and will implement a $150 billion, 10-year clean energy plan and create 5 million green jobs. Work opportunities to develop new energy technologies including wind and solar energy, bio-energy, nuclear energy, and clean coal.
The “American Progress Center†(CAP), a think-tank providing Obama with a green strategy, proposed six strategies for energy conservation and renewable energy development in the “Green Recovery: A Plan for Creating Good Jobs and Building a Low-Carbon Economyâ€: Continuous Improvement Energy efficiency in the United States; construction of large-scale passenger and freight railroads; construction of smart grid transmission systems; development of wind power; development of solar energy; and development of the next generation of bioenergy.
Like the United States, European countries have also implemented new energy projects based on clean energy. In September 2010, the German government announced a draft new green energy plan, announced the construction of a huge wind farm, the development of electric vehicles, and the construction of a European super power grid. , to extend the life of nuclear reactors and other decisions, and claimed to set off a green energy **.
At the same time, the Spanish government also announced the launch of a new energy plan for the medium and short term. It is expected that by 2020 it will reduce energy expenses by 11.5 billion euros and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 36.43 million tons. Among them, energy expenditure will be reduced by 323 million euros between 2011 and 2012, and plans to issue 100 specific energy-saving programs.
The European "2020 Strategy" will focus on the development of a "low-carbon economy" in the next decade. It not only proposes to build a single energy market in Europe by 2014, but also adjusts the proportion of renewable energy sources to 20% by 2020.
Sun Qin, general manager of the China Nuclear Industry Group and General Manager, once told the media that in the future China will also have to develop clean energy. He disclosed that China proposed that clean energy (the proportion of energy) be up to 15% by 2020 and 11.4% by the end of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan†period, which is currently around 7%.
China's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" specifically puts forward "Strengthening the modern energy industry, promoting the transformation of energy production and utilization methods, and building a safe, stable, economic, and clean modern energy industry system."
For a time, clean energy has become a hot topic, and many media even cheered that this new energy-based, clean energy ** is the concept of human development after the industrial ** in the middle of the 18th century and the information in the middle of the 20th century. Another pattern of development.
Clean energy seems to have infinitely bright prospects.
After the nuclear crisis, Japan’s nuclear accident crisis, the safety of nuclear energy has become the focus of the world’s attention. Many countries have stopped nuclear power projects under construction and re-examine nuclear energy development plans. In the United States, Germany and other nuclear power countries, the government is facing environmental protection organizations and The people are under tremendous pressure.
In the end, less than three months after the Japanese nuclear accident crisis, the Merkel government announced that it would completely abandon nuclear energy.
Prior to this, the U.S. Department of Energy announced plans to officially terminate the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project that has spent more than 10 billion U.S. dollars over 24 years. The permanent burial of nuclear waste on the Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas was once considered the best solution for the United States to deal with nuclear waste.
In an exclusive interview with the News Weekly Reporter, Tom Leyte, a senior expert from the famous American think tank Rand Corporation and a professor from the Graduate School of Paddyland, said that the failure experience of the Yucca Mountain Plan indicates a more worrying issue. It is the public’s unacceptability and distrust of nuclear energy construction and nuclear waste disposal that will create more resistance and challenges to the progress of the permanent nuclear waste repository.
The director of the German Institute for Development Policy and Deputy Director of the German Government’s Global Advisory Council on Environmental Change, Dürk Messner, also expressed his views on the safety of nuclear power to the journalist. He believes that the destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will It has an impact on the future of the world's nuclear energy economy.
For Germany and Switzerland decided to withdraw from nuclear energy production. The important adviser of the German government agrees that he believes that at present three issues concerning nuclear energy have not been resolved: the danger posed by serious reactor accidents; the final storage of nuclear waste has not yet been resolved worldwide; civil nuclear power and weapons The connection between nuclear material proliferation.
In addition, Dilke Messner said that from a market economy point of view, nuclear energy production is not profitable, "because there is no insurance company in the world willing to provide insurance for nuclear energy. The risk must be borne by the country, and ultimately the citizens. â€
Therefore, he believes that nuclear energy cannot solve the energy demand problem of the ever-increasing world population and the world economy. “It is at best only a transitional technology that will definitely lead to the form of renewable energy.â€
Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Secretary-General of the 2012 Sustainability Summit Sha Zukang also said in an exclusive interview with the publication that Japan’s nuclear crisis has “polled cold water and alarmed the development of nuclear energy.â€
From a global perspective, 13% to 15% of the world's electricity supply currently comes from nuclear power. As an important part of clean energy, the nuclear crisis has undoubtedly adversely affected the promotion and use of clean energy. In Germany, which has just announced its abandonment of nuclear energy, nuclear energy accounted for 22% of its national total energy in 2010. Next, what kind of energy is used to replace the gap left by nuclear energy is a big problem facing the German government.
In addition to nuclear energy, there are many problems in the development, promotion, and use of clean energy such as solar energy, wind energy, and biological energy.
Can clean energy break the energy predicament Dilker Mesner expressed his optimism about the future of clean energy and placed high hopes on Europe and China. He said that Europe and China are the world of wind energy and solar energy equipment production. Market leader, there is great innovation and growth potential to change the world economy. Both sides can cooperate in training engineers and researching renewable energy systems for the world economy.
He believes that if the scale of this cooperation is large enough, it will show that Europe and China will embark on the path of an environmentally friendly economy and have a strong signal for other participants.
In response, Dr. Kenneth Green, a scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, expressed the opposite view. He believes that the development and use of clean energy, including nuclear power, wind power, and solar energy, are too costly to spread. He proposed that the best way to control energy costs is to ensure a fair market competition environment and to develop a highly targeted environmental tax to control the impact of energy use on the external environment.
Kenneth Green said that the popularization and elimination of certain energy sources and the development and stagnation of energy technologies are difficult for the government. The European green energy industry has brought some negative results, including causing more unemployment and leading to energy prices. rise.
He used Spain as an example to explain that the installation of “megawatts of green energy†per megawatt reduces about 5.28 jobs in other economic fields, and the cost of creating “green jobs†may be the loss of 2.2 other jobs. Since 2000, Spain has spent 571,138 euros (about 771,000 U.S. dollars) to create "green jobs", in which the investment (subsidy) needed to create a "green job" opportunity in the field of wind power generation exceeds 1 million euros. At $1.35 million).
In Italy, if the capital investment used to create a "green job" opportunity is shifted to the general economy, nearly five jobs can be created.
He added that the use of wind energy and solar energy has led to a 7.5% increase in home energy prices in Germany, and has led to Denmark’s highest electricity prices in EU countries.
For the prospect of biofuels as a new clean energy source, the scholar of this famous American think tank even thinks: This is still an unrealistic fantasy. The reason is that no one can afford such an expensive cost.
He estimated that biofuel technology will take at least 20 years to be competitive in price, but it will take longer if they are to replace conventional fuels. At the same time, any crop of biofuels will compete for land with food crops and will occupy animal habitats, parks, and wilderness areas. "So, the so-called "new generation of biofuels" actually has no miracle at all," he said.
One day after Germany announced its abandonment of nuclear energy, Hong Kong’s “Wen Wei Po†also published a report analyzing that clean energy is not a panacea for solving energy problems: strong winds sufficient to generate electricity do not exist for 24 hours; solar power is expensive; biomass energy ( In order to obtain energy from animal and plant materials, it means that a large number of trees must be felled, which also damages the environment.
In this regard, Sha Zukang told this correspondent that human beings need new energy for sustainable development. However, this requires capital and technology, and it is necessary for developing countries to benefit from the development of new energy. Therefore, international Cooperation is the key. Developed countries must provide developing countries with the necessary support.