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The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#51

Post by freeflight »

DocTomoe wrote: post #45
freeflight wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are forgetting the part where RWE is also paying the income of a whole lot of miners, who would suddenly be without a job if the mines where to be closed. That is the biggest political hurdle here, it's not solely RWE being greedy, a lot of it has to do with nobody being able to offer these miners any job alternatives once their mines are closed. Yet these miners make up a substantial part of the population in ce…

> You are forgetting the part where RWE is also paying the income of a whole lot of miners, who would suddenly be without a job if the mines where to be closed. In all fairness, Germany lost about four times as many jobs when we destroyed our solar industry.

The only thing I'm aware off is that the Groko has been giving out way fewer licenses for PV installations, which has lead to a considerable slow-down in building out PV capabilities.

But afaik we didn't really destroy the industry, we just lost our edge [0], which has in part to do with industrial espionage [1], and in other parts with China simply out manufacturing anybody else as soon as they get the gist of building something.

[0] https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/wirtschaft/Der-Niederga...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial...

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#52

Post by roenxi »

chokma wrote: post #50
cipher_system wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs at risk are not only those in the coal industry but also the jobs powered by the coal. You can't run a business without electricity. So if coal makes up about a third of the power then about a third of the jobs in Germany could be lost. Of course coal can and should be replaced by something better but thats gonna take a while and Germany has chosen to phase out nuclear before coal so this is a consequence of…

Last year Germany exported about 9% of its electricity. So the country could reduce their use of lignite (~ 24% of total energy produced) by at least this amount. And I think the math is off there - if Germany cuts 24% of its energy production over a couple of years, energy may become more expensive, driving away the factories using extreme amounts of electricity[1]. It would not result in losing a lot of jobs, and m…

That logic doesn't apply neatly because 40% of their electricity comes from renewables which aren't necessarily dispatchable. They might be exporting, eg, solar surplus at noon and have exactly what is needed at night.

I recall some of their neighbors were annoyed a year or two ago because Germany was dumping surplus and destabilising their grids.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#53

Post by cleansy »

quibbler wrote: post #5
roenxi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impressive, aren't they? The industrial muscle keeping people warm and happy. I assume Germany has a modern program of mine rehabilitation, so you're only able to see the parts that are currently part of the active mine. The historic mine footprint of an old mine is probably twice or thrice what is visible; much larger but invisible from satellite because it has been rehabilitated. Eg, the area just north-west of Tag…

If it can be rehabilitated, is it really so bad? Some are also coverted to lakes, in the hopes of creating attractive leisure destinations.

And this can take decades, until swimming in the water doesn't impact health. Let alone the fact that the additional water to maintain the water level in an unnatural lake like that may be needed elsewhere. What many people forget is that during the excavation all kinds of metals and materials are uncovered leading to red water for the first couple of decades until everything is settled. I am from a german region (Lausitz) where all of that happened and believe me when I say that I'd rather have some out-of-the-job miners than big patches of land filled with lakes instead of "home towns".

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#54

Post by Grue3 »

ntzm wrote: post #7

[flagged]

In case of Germany, it's anti-science anti-nuclear "environmentalists" that are destroying it. Energy is needed regardless of the economic structure of society. Now which kind of energy will it be? Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#55

Post by adrianN »

freeflight wrote: post #38
hef19898 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot agree more! The only ones profiting from coal subsidies are RWE and company while evryone else pays for it. It would be much more worthwhile, even for RWE themselves, to just use the coal subsidies and plaster all active and potential strip mines with solar farms. But then we are talking about old German politics and corporate culture, so that won't happen anytime soon.

You are forgetting the part where RWE is also paying the income of a whole lot of miners, who would suddenly be without a job if the mines where to be closed. That is the biggest political hurdle here, it's not solely RWE being greedy, a lot of it has to do with nobody being able to offer these miners any job alternatives once their mines are closed. Yet these miners make up a substantial part of the population in ce…

20k miners against 100k wind power employees that now have to deal with zero new wind turbines being build in Germany, or 80k solar power employees who lost their jobs when the solar subsidies were axed...

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#56

Post by FrojoS »

Kliment wrote: post #10
roenxi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impressive, aren't they? The industrial muscle keeping people warm and happy. I assume Germany has a modern program of mine rehabilitation, so you're only able to see the parts that are currently part of the active mine. The historic mine footprint of an old mine is probably twice or thrice what is visible; much larger but invisible from satellite because it has been rehabilitated. Eg, the area just north-west of Tag…

That's correct (I live nearby). What you also don't see was what was in the way of the mine before it got there. It was populated space, all the towns got cleared out. Normally when someone blows up thousand-year-old cultural monuments we call it terrorism, but not when it's RWE (the mine operator) doing it. The compensation people get is nowhere near proportional to the damage - they get paid based on a fictional es…

There was a very good joke in the satire/comedy TV show "Die Anstalt" recently:

The reason saving these coal jobs is more important than the solar jobs, is because the former are NOT RENEWABLE.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#57

Post by adrianN »

cipher_system wrote: post #39
Kliment wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's correct (I live nearby). What you also don't see was what was in the way of the mine before it got there. It was populated space, all the towns got cleared out. Normally when someone blows up thousand-year-old cultural monuments we call it terrorism, but not when it's RWE (the mine operator) doing it. The compensation people get is nowhere near proportional to the damage - they get paid based on a fictional es…

The jobs at risk are not only those in the coal industry but also the jobs powered by the coal. You can't run a business without electricity. So if coal makes up about a third of the power then about a third of the jobs in Germany could be lost. Of course coal can and should be replaced by something better but thats gonna take a while and Germany has chosen to phase out nuclear before coal so this is a consequence of…

Germany could close some of its coal plants immediately if it ran the mostly idle gas plants at capacity.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#58

Post by raxxorrax »

wirrbel wrote: post #35
hannob wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends a lot on the area. Most of the solar installations are in the richer southern areas on private houses, whereas the large wind installation can be mostly seen in eastern and northern germany.

Lots of conservative backlash against wind energy in the south. "Asparagus landscapes" was a slogan used to get votes of people who don't want wind turbines around. Also fear mongering for infrasound etc.

That aside, the north is better suited for wind energy because topological reasons. The sea would be even better. Problem is the still lacking infrastructure to transport energy southward where heavy industry actually needs it.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#59

Post by cipher_system »

chokma wrote: post #50
cipher_system wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs at risk are not only those in the coal industry but also the jobs powered by the coal. You can't run a business without electricity. So if coal makes up about a third of the power then about a third of the jobs in Germany could be lost. Of course coal can and should be replaced by something better but thats gonna take a while and Germany has chosen to phase out nuclear before coal so this is a consequence of…

Last year Germany exported about 9% of its electricity. So the country could reduce their use of lignite (~ 24% of total energy produced) by at least this amount. And I think the math is off there - if Germany cuts 24% of its energy production over a couple of years, energy may become more expensive, driving away the factories using extreme amounts of electricity[1]. It would not result in losing a lot of jobs, and m…

Sure but then power lines needs to be built from where the power is produced to where it is used. This is also part of Energiewende but it is not that easy to just put up high voltage lines through a densely populated democracy. It could take years or even decades to build a new grid.

Their competitors are also becoming more efficient over time and if you have no capacity at all in a region no new factories can be built there. High paying jobs could be replaced by low paying jobs.

Not saying it shouldn't be done but I understand it's a political balancing act. Ideally a global carbon tax, making it the same for everyone, would help but i've given up hope on that.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#60

Post by raxxorrax »

Grue3 wrote: post #54
ntzm wrote: post #7

[flagged]

In case of Germany, it's anti-science anti-nuclear "environmentalists" that are destroying it. Energy is needed regardless of the economic structure of society. Now which kind of energy will it be? Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.

> Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.

Heh, nope, everyone does reap the consequences... That said, nuclear power is no viable long term solution and if we imported uranium from Russia, everybody would start to cry again.

Being anti-nuclear isn't necessarily anti-scientific. It is a risk assessment. While I tend to have favored nuclear power, especially towards the current energy setup, I don't think it was a catastrophic decision.

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