Thursday, February 20, 2014

Coal delivery at the Elysée!

Yesterday morning around 6:30 am, just before President Hollande (France) was scheduled to meet with Kanzler Merkel (Germany), there was a special delivery at the Elysée (the building where President Hollande works and  meets people): a truck load of coal (5 tons!). As you can imagine this was not meant to feed the President's central heating system, but to protest against the fact that France - and Germany to a lesser extent - don't do much to boost renewable energy. It was all organized by Greenpeace France, an activist association that is very good at providing the media with strong images. Proof is... that they even made it to PDP ;-) Now if you wonder if I woke up at 5am to be on time to take this photo, well, no! It was taken by Greenpeace photographer Pierre Baëlen.

7 comments:

  1. I know this isn't meant to be a political blog but I still like it when you let us know what's the haps in your hometown. Somehow, it gives me an even better connection to La Ville-Lumière.

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  2. I don't know much about France's energy policy, but it is hard to criticize Germany as not doing enough in renewable energy. Just the opposite. They are pushing renewables so hard it is eating into the economy because of the high price of renewables and they are risking the reliability of energy supply because of the intermittency of renewables.

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    Replies
    1. True Jack, but they also use a lot of coal since they've decided to close their nuclear power plants. But yes globally they have much more windmill power than France.

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    2. Eric

      Germany is buying nuclear power from its neighbours ( France and Czech republic) - it is a NIMBY policy

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  3. A point well made (but I wonder if it was well taken).

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