The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest • Hacker News Board

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#81

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #55

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…

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...

There are a lot more "coal power employees" than just miners. Comparing entire sectors to just a subset of one is unfair.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#82

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

bubblewrap wrote: post #28

Kliment wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is actually an excellent candidate for solar (though not nearly as much as places like Spain). It has an enormous solar installed base that produces a sizeable amount of energy, and had the buildout incentives not been cut a couple years back solar would be the second biggest electrical energy component today. Meanwhile coal is still heavily subsidized, to the tune of 4 billion euros yearly.

Solar apparently hasn't become viable after years of subsidization. And the problem of storing energy is still not solved. There is no solar power at night. Subsidization of coal would of course be equally wrong.

Solar is already cheaper than coal without subsidies. That alone counts as viable even if given the most pessimistic assumptions like "no power storage" it could leave generators running only at night.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#83

Post by DocTomoe » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #30

bubblewrap wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar apparently hasn't become viable after years of subsidization. And the problem of storing energy is still not solved. There is no solar power at night. Subsidization of coal would of course be equally wrong.

> Solar apparently hasn't become viable after years of subsidization Whether that is true or not: How do you expect it to become viable when coal is subsidized? > And the problem of storing energy is still not solved. Source?

> Whether that is true or not: How do you expect it to become viable when coal is subsidized?

Cutting subsidies to coal and/or increasing subsidies to solar just raises the cost of energy for end users, which does not affect the average HN user, but will affect the average citizen.

Germans already paying a ridiculous amount of money per kilowatt hour (in fact, we are the first world country with the highest electricity price, 40 US cents as compared to 12 US cents you would pay in the States).

Raising subsidies is an antisocial move that will lead to increased public unrest, at a time when we see right-wing politics raising it's ugly head again.

In the end, the pot goes to the spring till it breaks.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#84

Post by ekingr » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

jfk13 wrote: post #2

The scale of the scars on the earth here is pretty staggering: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Hambach+Forest/@50.89999...

Thanks for the link.

What's most crazy is when you compare it to the nearby city of Köln (1+m inhabitants). It's almost the size of the city center!

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#85

Post by someguydave » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #78

someguydave wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear fission is the only non-carbon technology that could realistically get to 100% supply. Ending its generation in Germany was a mistake.

I agree that it was a mistake, but there are several studies showing how Germany can switch to ~100% wind+solar.

What do they propose to deal with massive swings in generation and demand? Hydroelectric pumping? Batteries?

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#86

Post by adrianN » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #81

adrianN wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

There are a lot more "coal power employees" than just miners. Comparing entire sectors to just a subset of one is unfair.

Even the coal lobbyists admit that there are at most 50k jobs if you also count component suppliers and the like. 50% of the 20k direct employees are also 50 or over. We could just pay them early retirement and would get away cheaper than the damage the extra CO2 causes.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#87

Post by MR4D » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #71

> To add insult to injury, the coal that is extracted here is brown coal, also known as lignite, which emits particularly high levels of carbon dioxide. This surprised me, because surely you get one molecule of CO2 per atom of carbon in the coal, regardless of the kind of coal. But it seems there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my stoichiometry - lignite has a higher moisture content than ot…

I had a power company as a client once, years ago. They had a plant that burned lignite. I was new to the industry and asked what that was.

The response they gave me was “it’s like burning dirt.” Man, lignite is nasty stuff.

Burning freaking dirt. Can’t wait for this stuff to be outlawed.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#88

Post by reacweb » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

fzort wrote: post #70

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think they have a clear concept of a viable solution. Do you have a clear concept of a viable solution? (Hint: Killing the ecosystem that sustains humans is not it.)

> Do you have a clear concept of a viable solution? Nuclear. Solar farms take 450 times more land than nuclear to produce the same amount of energy (source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08... )

I think nuclear is the best current solution, but it is too late to build nuclear plant now because it requires 40 years to be cost effective. I hope that solar will become better than nuclear in less than 10 years.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#89

Post by realusername » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #78

someguydave wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear fission is the only non-carbon technology that could realistically get to 100% supply. Ending its generation in Germany was a mistake.

I agree that it was a mistake, but there are several studies showing how Germany can switch to ~100% wind+solar.

I highly doubt about it considering how much they already spent and how (very) far they are from that goal.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#90

Post by freeflight » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #86

vonmoltke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more "coal power employees" than just miners. Comparing entire sectors to just a subset of one is unfair.

Even the coal lobbyists admit that there are at most 50k jobs if you also count component suppliers and the like. 50% of the 20k direct employees are also 50 or over. We could just pay them early retirement and would get away cheaper than the damage the extra CO2 causes.

Could you please source that claim about the number of jobs being affected?

I find it somewhat implausible that whole German states could have such vastly different opinions on the coal exit when those directly affected supposedly only makeup 20k-50k people.

Because those kinds of numbers regularly embezzle where these people are spending their money. Wouldn't be the first time whole German communes suddenly become underdeveloped due to the biggest employers in the region shutting down/leaving.

That's why I can fully understand the people in those regions, they are presented with a choice that has no apparent advantage to them, only disadvantages.

Would you vote for your own job/income getting regulated in non-existence, when nobody offers you an alternative? Because that's the current situation: Nobody is offering alternatives to those people, yet everybody expects them to just give up their livelihoods.