This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I wish people would stop conflating energy with electricity.
So Germany had ⅔ of it's electricity from renewables, but still has gas for warming homes, petrol for cars, diesel for trucks, and so on.
That's fair, but it's still a very relevant metric. It shows the automatic transition made in electrification when people switch over to heat pumps, electric stoves or EVs.
It skews the metrics though. By the title you'd think Germany is already more than halfway through to become carbon neutral, when it is obviously still extremely far away from that goal. People read this and think we're actually doing okay.
The hell is "doing okay"?
I am so frustrated by the discourse around renewables and climate change. Everybody online seems to be treating it like a puzzle or a board game, where you "win" at climate change when you find the "right" solution.
That's not how it works. I don't care about the "carbon neutrality" of Germany any more than I care about the "carbon neutrality" of a patch of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a global process that is never going to end. We're always going to need energy, it's always going to come from a mix of sources and we need to eventually find a global equilibrium we can strive to maintain.
Data is data, but taking issue with news, and particularly positive news, as if they were propaganda in a campaign where eventually people will have to elect the one source of energy they consume is kind of absurd. Yes, renewables are gaining ground, solar is moving faster than expected and no, that doesn't make the issue go away and we still need to accelerate the process and remove additional blockers to that acceleration. There are no silver bullets and there never will be.
Exactly. Both numbers are interesting, because electricity will likely be scaled up in the same proportions. If we're comparing countries, we should use total energy, but if we're just looking at progress within a country, looking at electricity generation is totally valid.
You're right, but if you read beyond the title it's clearly stated that it's about electricity generation.
For anyone who is interested in a detailed view of these stats worldwide in real time and cross-border with carbon intensities and individual breakdowns by electricity source: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h
WTF is Australia doing? Aren't they aware they have plenty of sunshine and an insanely long shoreline?
Australia is just an oil company, a coal company, and a mining company disguised as a trench coat. The Liberal party (essentially just American Republicans opposed to guns) spent 2 decades killing any green energy initiatives in favor of fracking the Outback
IIRC Australia mines a huge amount of coal
Shame, innit? They could be the n1 Solar panel producers per capita and panel exporters...oh well. This is why the charge against fossil fuels has to be led by net consumers (in the name of defense against geopolitical risk) and the producers will inevitably reduce extraction for export...but local consumption of coal probably will never disappear completely unless locals complain about air pollution and lag in exportable tech.
Really cool. Thanks for the share. Also quite depressing, most countries (even rich ones who have like triple responsibility) are barely even trying.
They used to have nuclear too
Yeah, what's up with that? Nuclear works well for France, so why did it fall out of favor in Germany?
It's not perfect, but it does a fantastic job at providing a base load alternative to batteries, which could significantly reduce rollout costs if they had existing plants. It's probably not worth switching now, unless they have some dormant plants that could be fired up quickly (like we're doing in the US).
Nuclear works well for France
Apart from that the plants don't work in summer and the prices have to be capped/subsidized to keep power affordable...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der
Step 1 shut down nuclear, and switch to gas
Step 2 get hired by gazprom
Sorry but the German people and not Schroder were the ones who chose anti-nuclear. And the reliance on Russian gas may have backfired, but at the time it enabled perhaps the most efficient economy Europe had ever known.
There has always been quite a noticeable anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany, especially in the 70s/80s and after Fukushima political pressure rose to get rid of nuclear power. Some also say that the SPD was very friendly with Putin and that's why they were happy to increasingly rely on Russian gas imports. Not sure if that's true though
Not sure if that’s true though
It's an aspect, but not the whole Picture. Germans are relatively tech savvy on the one hand, but on the other hand, we also don't like change. A consequence of combining both things is that we calculate risk different. With all the issues surrounding Nuclear Fission and how much safeguarding a potential "BDBE" (Super-GAU in German or Beyond-design-basis events, like Fukushima and Chornobyl) needs, they also became pretty damn expensive to run. The fact of the matter is, German Power Companies never made money with Nuclear Fission, most of them broke even and covered the running costs, but actual profits weren't that great. Russia - with help of the SPD - made Gas so cheap, it simply made no sense to invest in Nuclear Fission reactors...even with high subsidies. With most of them being over 25-30 years old and most of them needing general overhauls due to new safety regulations and general technology improvements, the Power Companies also pushed the Lobby behind the scenes to either change regulation or phase out Nuclear Fission. The Krümmel NPP also had a serious incident in 2009 that confirmed suspicions of many Germans, that the Power Companies cut corners to make profits. It resulted in a partial meltdown, after a very serious Fire in 2007. Also, Geesthacht - the community where the NPP was located - has had a significantly higher rate of leukaemia and chromosome defects. Then came Fukushima and that was the final nail in the coffin, as popular opinion shifted. Even before actually deciding on the phase out of NPP, Krümmel was shut down in 2011 for good.
Krümmel wasn't the only reactor that has had issues. Then there's been issues with finding a suitable waste repository - turns out, encasing nuclear waste in concrete in old mine shafts is a very bad idea in most of Germany, as deep groundwater seeps in through the layers and wreaks havoc with a supposed "final and safe" resting place. And as i mentioned, most of Germans were (it has changed a bit in the last 10-25 years, sadly) relatively tech savvy and most, if not all Germans understood the basic principles of nuclear fission, as well as the dangers (some maybe blown out of proportion), because they were taught in even "Hauptschule" (Lower Secondary Education) Physics, Chemical and Biology. Considering Germany is relatively densely populated, many, many people would have been directly affected by a BDBE/Super-GAU. Either through non usable ground water, loosing their livelihood, jobs or actually losing their lives gradually. (Nodding back at not liking change...)
Granted, the way the phase out was done has been a total disaster or utter shitshow and in my personal opinion, it should have been done gradually, because a few NPPs still had runtimes for over 15 years. But yeah - general anti-fission stance, cheap Gas from Russia with the help/enablement of the SPD, negligence from the operators/loosing confidence in the operators to actually run the plants safely and different risk evaluation in the German populace all played their part. Maybe also a bit of irrational fear as well, due to the history and being right in the middle of two seemingly mad Nuclear Powers.
In any case, it isn't as cut and dry as some people think it is - IMHO. But despite what i said about letting the runtime on the plants run it's course, I’m against Nuclear Fission (or rather Boiling Water / Pressure Water Reactors) as well. Now if we get Molten Salt Reactors working properly and maybe Transmutation as well, things would be different because the equation changed...
Yeah, what's up with that? Nuclear works well for France, so why did it fall out of favor in Germany?
Lobbying (corruption).
Nuclear power is much more expensive than renewable power. Also nuclear ist not that good to regulate to compensate for swings in renewable power. And if you downregulate the nuclear power it gets even more expensive. Building new nuclear plants takes ages so renewable can be much easier scaled up. Combined with batteries the unsteady renewable power will be a lesser problem.
The outphasing of nuclear power was a bit early but in the Ende needed.
Also france Bad massive problems with their nuclear power in the summer because of a lack of cooling water.
Don't forget the propaganda. Thanks, Green party.
Meanwhile, the USA is 24%-ish renewables and 60%-ish fossil fuels. Damn fossil fuel industry and anti-progress politicians.
One of the nicer upshots of cutting the cord with Russia is the sky high price of electricity incentivizing big investments in renewable energy.
Electricity imports also rose to 24.9 TWh, driven by lower generation costs in neighboring countries during summer.
For the love of God, please just build nuclear instead of virtue signaling with solar panels while you import your energy needs.
All our nuclear plants are shut down and weren't maintained for further usage, than that few years ago when they were shut down, for decades. They are basically trash. Now just take a look at UK or France how cheap and easy it is to build new ones (when you can't sacrifice workers and environment like China). And then take a look at France's nuclear power production in recent heat summers. And finally take a look where that sweet little uranium is coming from when imported (Germany has none). And now give me a single good reason why investing in nuclear is better than investing in dirt cheap, decentralizeable renewables to cover future electricity needs.
The "just use nuclear" crowd is so dumb. They make it so obvious they have no idea what they are talking about. Which I would not mind on its own, but they always think they are the smartest people in the room and that's infuriating.
Btw French Nuclear Power Company went bankrupt last years. Because of this cheap Nuclear. It’s owned by the Government now. In South Corea the Nuclear company is due 150 Billion dollars. Bankrupt very soon. Sellafield the British nuclear dump expects costs of 136 Billion pounds until 2050. Already owned by the Government.
It’s so fucking cheap this nuclear.
There's no sense in spending limited public funding on nuclear now - renewables and storage is winning on all fronts.
Shutting down what nuclear existed was a costly mistake, but going down that path again is an even worse one
next up: zero teslas.
if germans chose a route, they, walk. (ww2, manufacturing cars, end of nuclear power..)
so fuck you elon. we hate you so much.
Germany has the EU's highest energy prices. Just saying.
Norway has one of the lowest. And they don't have only 62.7%.
99% of their energy comes from renewables.
And in the USA, some of the states with lowest prices have the highest % of renewables.
"This single thing is more expensive in this country" is a stupid way to compare prices from countries.
Norway has some of the lowest in Europe. Less than a third of Germany's prices. Norway is producing more (hydro) energy than it's able to use.
That's why it's exporting some of it to other countries today. Before Norway did this their prices were even lower.
Why is that?
IIRC it’s because there is a pseudo monopoly for the power lines which can increase prices for using them and the price for electricity orients itself on the most expensive form of electricity (coal I think), so the price benefits of renewables only benefit the seller and not the buyer
Because the price we pay is determined by the most expensive source, that's to ensure low costing energy like wind and solar make the biggest profit and get expanded further and faster.
Sure just saying, not trolling at all.
Solar drives energy prices down, not up. In the summer the energy price regularly goes negative because there is so much solar available.
And it isn't even remotely true, other countries have higher energy prices than Germany within the EU. The Netherlands for example has crazy high energy prices. And that's in absolute numbers, not even corrected for things like GDP.
Nice graph with no freaking labels.
I love it, I like it like my new contract they send me with new prices for electricity (44% up)
Sounds off, because renewbles are typically cheaper than the alternatives.
Any chance you got a 'fossil only' contract?
You should change your provider. I do it every year because thats how you can save lots of money.
