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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

#91

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

DocTomoe wrote: post #83
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 electrici…

> Cutting subsidies to coal and/or increasing subsidies to solar just raises the cost of energy for end users

Source? And does that include the future costs of the environmental impact for the end users that will still be alive by then?

> Germans already paying a ridiculous amount of money per kilowatt hour

What exactly is ridiculous about a price that reflects the actual costs?

> (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).

If you are paying 40 US cents per kWh for electricity in .de, then that's because you chose to, not because that's the market price.

> 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.

So ... we should implement right-wing politics so that right-wing politics doesn't win? What's even the point of that argument?

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#92

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

someguydave wrote: post #85
adrianN wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

All of those, plus "smart grid" stuff to get better control over demand, plus Power to Gas (electricity to methane) and gas turbines (very inefficient, but existing infrastructure can store huge amounts of energy, and efficiency isn't the primary concern for the exceptional case).

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#93

Post by adrianN »

someguydave wrote: post #85
adrianN wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Build enough batteries and hydro to last for a few hours to a few days and use power-to-gas for longer periods of low generation (e.g. winter and no wind). There is already infrastructure in place for strategic gas reserves. We just need to build additional gas plants to meet demand when wind and solar are at production minimums.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#95

Post by adrianN »

freeflight wrote: post #90
adrianN wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

I only have a German source: https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/braunkohlewirt...

> Der Bundesverband Braunkohle wies auf Anfrage darauf hin, dass seine Unternehmen auch für Beschäftigung bei Zulieferern sorgten und spricht von insgesamt etwa 50.000 Arbeitsplätzen.

> The German lignite coalition pointed out on request that their companies also provided employment for suppliers and speaks of a total of about 50,000 jobs.

Of course all of those jobs are concentrated around the mines. For those communities closing the mines is hard. But imho getting rid of lignite ASAP and just giving the affected people as much money as they got from working is the right way forward.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#96

Post by hef19898 »

freeflight wrote: post #51
DocTomoe wrote: post #45

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. 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 build…

That the German manufacturers were subsidy chasing production dilitantes did help neither. But yes, politicals played a role. Still do in solar to this day.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#97

Post by hef19898 »

freeflight wrote: post #90
adrianN wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

And how many jobs do you actaully get from one mine today? 10 when you used to have hundreds due to automation. These jobs are gone and won't come back regardless of mining or no mining. That nobody manages to communicate that to the people and offer them alternatives is a large reason things like the AfD. Doesn't help that politicians in these regions are largely in corporate pockets one way or the other doesn't help.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#98

Post by avian »

adrianN wrote: post #57
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…

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

Don’t know specific situation in Germany, but gas turbine plants in my country are “mostly idle” because they are there to keep the grid stable (they spin up fast to cover peak demand). They can’t be run at capacity.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#99

Post by titzer »

novalis78 wrote: post #40
titzer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's people and exponential growth. Doesn't matter what -ism you put on the end of your shovels.

That’s quite the Malthusian viewpoint. Alternatively: “Malthus theory, which holds that since the world’s resources are more or less fixed, population growth must be restricted or all of us will descend into bottomless misery. Malthusianism is scientifically bankrupt — all predictions made upon it have been wrong, because human beings are not mere consumers of resources. Rather, we create resources by the development…

I'll take your Malthus and raise you a Bartlett. https://bollocks2012.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/the-greatest-s...

Also, from your linked article from random space cadets: "Unless people can see broad vistas of unused resources in front of them, the belief in limited resources tends to follow as a matter of course."

Sorry, but O(2^n) is going to grow faster than O(n^3), which is the fundamental limitation of the speed of light for a space-faring civilization expanding in a shell from its origin.

Exponential growth just does not scale.

Re: The coal mine that ate Hambacher forest

#100

Post by sabertoothed »

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.

Being anti-nuclear (fission as we use it today) is not per se anti-science. If you do some research on how humanity has dealt with nuclear waste in the past and how it is still dealing with it, you may come to a different conclusion.
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