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Students:Kristýna Sosnovcová: Difference between revisions
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== == A personal reflection == == | == == A personal reflection == == | ||
My overall opinion about the field trip is very good. Not only we | My overall opinion about the field trip is very good. Not only were we an interesting group of people but mostly the program was great, fresh and varied. I really appreciate that we have been to several places and each of them was different but still green. Everybody could find his/her own area of interest. Of course the outdoor trips are easier to remember but the lectures were important as well. For example, the lecture of Mrs. Alexa Lutzenberger which majority of other participants found rather useless was worthy of being listened to for me. | ||
The topic is in general | The topic is in general greatly relevant to our country because of several factors. First, Germany is a powerful member of the EU and therefore it plays an important role other than in policy making. For now the EU has adopted Directive 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from Renewable sources (RS) where the target is to achieve 20 % of energy (electricity, heating, transport etc.) from RS in the EU by taking individual national goals. The Czech Republic unsurprisingly accepted the low target of 13% because our starting position in 2010 was rather weak (we had only 9% energy from RS) but also because our government doesn't like to be challenged. The situation in Germany wasn't much different - they adopted only 18% goal from the 11% starting level in 2010. After the Fukusima catastrophe it changed and now Germany is working on 100 % energy from RS by 2050. The idea looks very nice - instead of burning fossil fuels they will use never-ending sources of energy. It means that Germany can be a pioneering country which can show the others whether it is possible to go this way and how sustainable RS is. Furthermore, thanks to government support there will be intensive research into technologies which, as I hope, will lead toward higher efficiency and new possibilities - another thing which is necessary to do but not popular because it doesn't bring money now but in the long-term. | ||
On the other side after listening the lecture on the topic it seems to me that Germany first took the target and after that started to count if they can fulfill limits. It is clear that Germany cannot stop all its nuclear power plants and replace them by RS so at the beginning they have to buy energy from neighbors (e.g. Czech), energy which is produced from fossil fuels. Beside that renewable technologies are quite material demanding, even though it is improving, and it also matters where these materials came from, how they were mined or where e.g. wind turbines were produced. If Germany doesn't consider all consequences its 100 % policy would exploit other countries and didn't reduce CO2 emissions only transfer responsibility to different state. I would say that similar problem occurred with promotion of energy from biomass in EU by Biomass Action Plan 2005: there was set a target and subsidies but no one had thought about land use change it would cause, high GHG emissions by transporting biomass from Latin America to Europe or loss of biodiversity due to monocultures. | On the other side after listening the lecture on the topic it seems to me that Germany first took the target and after that started to count if they can fulfill limits. It is clear that Germany cannot stop all its nuclear power plants and replace them by RS so at the beginning they have to buy energy from neighbors (e.g. Czech), energy which is produced from fossil fuels. Beside that renewable technologies are quite material demanding, even though it is improving, and it also matters where these materials came from, how they were mined or where e.g. wind turbines were produced. If Germany doesn't consider all consequences its 100 % policy would exploit other countries and didn't reduce CO2 emissions only transfer responsibility to different state. I would say that similar problem occurred with promotion of energy from biomass in EU by Biomass Action Plan 2005: there was set a target and subsidies but no one had thought about land use change it would cause, high GHG emissions by transporting biomass from Latin America to Europe or loss of biodiversity due to monocultures. | ||
On other thing is that one country can afford to try such a change but if a huge number of countries follow Germany where they will find sources and what consequences it will cause? Fortunately, Czech public doesn't sympathize with RS after PV issue and green topics are not popular in political discussions therefore Czech is secure for several years. | On other thing is that one country can afford to try such a change but if a huge number of countries follow Germany where they will find sources and what consequences it will cause? Fortunately, Czech public doesn't sympathize with RS after PV issue and green topics are not popular in political discussions therefore Czech is secure for several years. | ||