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Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

spiegel.de

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Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#61

Post by geff82 »

eukgoekoko wrote: post #59
geff82 wrote: post #23

The Energiewende is actually one of the reasons I still live in Germany: I want to see how it happens. It is stuff that our grandchildren will be proud of. And by the way, private energy consumption is heavily taxed (for a good reason), yet energy hungry industries are exempt from it. And they feel the effect: because of the growing effect of the renewable energies, they now pay one of the lowest electricity prices i…

> yet energy hungry industries are exempt from it. And they feel the effect: because of the growing effect of the renewable energies, they now pay one of the lowest electricity prices in the world. Not sure about the whole world, but Germany definitely has one of highest prices for elctricity in Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

You are not contradicting what I said. Consumers pay a lot (and always have). I said that energy hungry enterprises are exempt from it.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#62

Post by hef19898 »

jwr wrote: post #54
hef19898 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that there is no such place anywhere in Germany or Western Europe there actually is point in that argument. Which is the question who should have nuclear power plants as it is impossible to get rid of them. A country like Germany where tight controls can be reinforced or someone else like say Ukraine or Czechy. The other point is that fact that you need the distance in case the plant blows up. Which…

Nuclear plants do not "blow up". This is FUD, pure and simple. People are unreasonably scared of nuclear energy, and we might lose a planet because of this. For real data on how dangerous nuclear energy is, please look at https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

Well, there actually is some unreasonable view on nuclear. Especially in Germany. Doesn't change the fact that long term we should get rid of it. The storage of the waste is just to tricky and when not if something goes wrong we talk about serious damage.

That we should IMHO get rid of coal earlier isn't exclusive, so.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#63

Post by [deleted] »

androidrebel wrote: post #11
sctb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just asked you yesterday to please stop stoking nationalistic flamewar. If you won't follow the guidelines and post thoughtfully and informatively we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I read the article and find nothing in it that I would consider nationalistic or that would stoke a flamewar. Can you please explain what you meant? Thanks

[deleted]

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#64

Post by cygx »

hackeraccount wrote: post #50
netsharc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure if the survival of human race is at stake, money is no object. If someone in a foreign country invented a machine that everyone can buy to make themselves carbon-positive, the logical move for any government would be subsidize the purchase, even if that means great debt: but as the planet continues surviving, the country will go on collecting tax revenue from productive citizens/businesses and will be…

The point is that while you can spend a lot of money you can't spend infinite money. There's a finite pile of euros. Every euro you spend on something stupid is one less euro you can spend on something smart.

Money is a tool of social organization that lacks instrinsic value. Any time we as a society refuse to do something worthwhile for the sole reason that it would cost too much, that's a capitulation to human stupidity and/or greed.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#65

Post by eukgoekoko »

geff82 wrote: post #61
eukgoekoko wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet energy hungry industries are exempt from it. And they feel the effect: because of the growing effect of the renewable energies, they now pay one of the lowest electricity prices in the world. Not sure about the whole world, but Germany definitely has one of highest prices for elctricity in Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

You are not contradicting what I said. Consumers pay a lot (and always have). I said that energy hungry enterprises are exempt from it.

> I said that energy hungry enterprises are exempt from it.

That's not what I was arguing with. Your statement about "they now pay one of the lowest electricity prices in the world" is just terribly untrue.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#66

Post by vkou »

hef19898 wrote: post #39
sisu2019 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and how are these PV users going to cover their baseload?

Long term? Some kind of storage solution in combination with hydro power and, my preference, natural gas as it burns much cleaner than coal. Short to mid term? Same as above, only that storage will have to be replaced with something else. Since coal is clearly favoured by the system in Germany coal has to replaced by itself. Coal is just the worst alternative. Unfortunately nuclear is no option in Germany, until stor…

Natural gas is not a sustainable long-term solution. World emissions need to be brought to zero, in the next five years, in order for us to avoid a climate castrophe.

If we are still positive at the five-year mark, that means zero at, say, the ten-year mark, and negative emissions for many decades.

Natural gas has no place in this long-term.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#67

Post by [deleted] »

eukgoekoko wrote: post #65
geff82 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not contradicting what I said. Consumers pay a lot (and always have). I said that energy hungry enterprises are exempt from it.

> I said that energy hungry enterprises are exempt from it. That's not what I was arguing with. Your statement about "they now pay one of the lowest electricity prices in the world" is just terribly untrue.

[deleted]

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#68

Post by sgift »

hef19898 wrote: post #45
atupis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I don't get why German does have very limited transfer capacity between Norway,Denmark and Sweden. Those countries have lot cheap renewable energy.

I believe I remember from my masters that there are plans (underway? to be? already in place?) to actually connect the countries. Would be great if that worked out.

You probably think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORD.LINK ? Building is in progress.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#69

Post by semi-extrinsic »

hef19898 wrote: post #45
atupis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I don't get why German does have very limited transfer capacity between Norway,Denmark and Sweden. Those countries have lot cheap renewable energy.

I believe I remember from my masters that there are plans (underway? to be? already in place?) to actually connect the countries. Would be great if that worked out.

While there are some pretty huge electrical links in place already, there is a large political and public resistance towards expanding this.

For the public, they know that the endgame is more expensive electricity. No good. For local industry, it basically amounts to taking the increasingly large competitive advantage they have of cheap, low emission electricity and just giving it away to Europe.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#70

Post by cygx »

yourMadness wrote: post #49

For those of you that want to see the data behind this story: https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&p... I think the history is one of a failed economic subsidy program that accidentally accelerated the PV-industry by a few years. There were several growing PV manufacturers in germany up to around 2011/2012. In that timeframe the manufacturers were all busy building new factories, but the governm…

Some relevant numbers (TWh) from that graphic:

                2002    2018
    Total        503     545
    Coal + Oil   253     205
    Gas           40      44
    Nuclear      156      72
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