Yes, Passivhaus works for new buildings, and Passivhaus retrofits can indeed work for existing buildings, but only if doing so is a high enough priority to fund and roll out nationwide. That still seems to be lagging.

Over the years, one of the simple energy use items I’ve tracked world wide was “lighting” In the US you look at the lightbulbs on the shelves of the home improvement stores or places like Best Buy or Ikea. In Germany it’s easy to compare the equivalent with Saturn and Ikea – against the US counter parts. In 2012 it was uncommon to find LED lightbulbs in the German stores, CFL’s were there but not common, instead the market was for halogen lights. In the US by 2012 the transition to LED’s was well underway, and by 2016 the US IKEA had switched entirely to LED’s, most of the other home improvement stores were switching (or had switched), and the price for a 60W equivalent bulb was roughly $1.40US. When I checked German IKEA and Saturn stores in 2016, the transition to LED’s was in place and underway.

Lighting needs consume a large portion of a building energy use. Halogens save about 20% of the energy over an incandescent, where as an LED can save as much as 90%. Life expectancy for halogen and LED bulbs are about the same… unfortunately that may have locked in that higher energy consumption for lighting in Germany for about seven or eight years. That has effectively slowed the efficiency improvements and resulted in a higher electrical consumption over the years. The higher electrical consumption means the old thermal plants were still being used to offset loads.

The 20 20 20 by 2020 goals need the efficiency goals to be met and exceeded if they were to meet the CO2 reduction goals.

https://www.ag-energiebilanzen.de/

Nr. 7, 2019 (29. Oktober)
Prognose: Energieverbrauch sinkt weiter

” Da der Verbrauch an Kohlen besonders stark rückläufig war und die erneuerbaren Energien weiter zulegen konnten, geht die AG Energiebilanzen von einem merklichen Rückgang bei den CO2-Emissionen aus. ”

There have been several voices in the last few month pointing out that the emission target 2020 can still be reached. Despite the boycott of the German mafia.

On Friday – with the F4F marches – the Ende-Gelaende week starts, this time in the East:

https://www.ende-gelaende.org/en/lusatia-action-2019/

All out,solidarity!

The French atom circus faces another record year:

https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/112219-infographic-french-nuclear-shutters-through-q4

The big overhaul might not happen at all:

https://www.montelnews.com/fr/story/lirsn-met-en-doute-la-prolongation-de-vie-de-30-racteurs/1059597

(use the translation engine)

The knackers are simply to old:

https://www.montelnews.com/fr/story/l%C3%A2ge-des-cuves-est-une-menace-pour-les-racteurs–experts-/1062280

European power emissions are going down despite plenty of atom power plants closing for good:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-coal-power-set-for-record-fall-in-2019

(note the missing data for Europe for atom power generation in the chart ” Renewables, gas and falling demand all contributed to the decline in OECD coal use “)

I can’t even understand the bizarre statement that if you remain committed to nuclear, nuclear shrinks anyway. I suppose I have a different definition of “committed”. France may reduce nuclear because of a (indefensible) *political* decision to mandate its reduction (to 50%), Hardly meets the definition of “committed”. Instead, it’s just more anti-nuclear political BS.

Once again, for the remedial class. Shutting down massive generators of carbon free power does not cause emissions to go down! It causes them to go up. New renewable generation (and the massive amount of money required to build it) should actually be used to decarbonize, i.e., replace fossil fuels!

Articles like this are a sign of just how delusional people in Germany and elsewhere have gotten, in their religious anti-nuclear zeal.