241–250 of 397 posts
I recall talking to some europeans and they said they like their driers, which only half dry clothes (they put them up on a line to finish) but use less energy. It's some sort of virtue thing, I guess.
Why not capture carbon from air with surplus energy? Build few capture plants and buy energy to keep price positive, then sell carbon cerificates on european market.
Can somebody explain why electricity rates would go negative? That blows my mind. Edit: also why don’t they just mine some coins?
While subsidies are one cause, another cause is demand response problems: Imagine you have a greenhouse factory producing strawberries. The strawberries come out of the factory on a conveyor belt. Now, you can't just turn off this factory easily since it might take a week to get it up running again and you don't have any storage, so what happens when nobody wants your strawberries for a day? You pay someone to take t…
Title is not really accurate: 1. Electricity is not free in Germany, it's actually expensive; and 2. Germans do heat their homes.
I can see part of your point. The title is slightly awkwardly worded - maybe because the author of the article isn't a native English speaker? Instead, perhaps: 'Why won't Germans heat their homes with free electricity?' ...or maybe all of it be rephrased a little: 'Why won't Germans heat their homes with electricity, even when it is free?' (I think the second version best captures the two questions dealt with within…
Jean Marc Jancovici is a french energy expert, and he often talks about Germany. An important story to remember about Germany, is how Fukushima led the country to stop using nuclear power. Merkel has a PhD in physics, so naturally she understands that nuclear power is green and just better than renewable and coal. But after Fukushima, she was forced to stop nuclear plants, because as Jancovici argued, she is an "asse…
I live in Germany. Seems a different country from the one you describe.
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When I run the numbers, a solar water heater does not work out for me. In order for me to eliminate my electric heater I would need an active (somewhat more costly) solar heating system which run ~$4k the lower end if you include the cost of installation. At a rate of about $500 a year in water heating costs that's a 8 year payback timeframe for a device that has a 5 year warranty (more expensive models have longer w…
Can you do solar preheat as a retrofit to an existing electric (or natural gas) hot water heater? Coil some flexible water line in a plywood box, spray paint it all black, put a plexiglass lid on, caulk it up, and lay it out in the sun. Feed cold water through it before it hits your hot water heater. It probably would not be as efficient as a commercial solution, but it would be very cheap. Don't forget about water s…
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Heat pumps vary widely in efficiency based on temperature and you don’t mention what you are using. It isn’t just efficiency but size. A heat pump that can work on the occasional very cold day is impractical.
Modern air pumps work with good efficiency even down to around -15c which is a rare temperature for post global warming world.
For example, despite last year was on average warmest on record, my tomatoes still suffered from sudden frost in May and then again in October.
Jean Marc Jancovici is a french energy expert, and he often talks about Germany. An important story to remember about Germany, is how Fukushima led the country to stop using nuclear power. Merkel has a PhD in physics, so naturally she understands that nuclear power is green and just better than renewable and coal. But after Fukushima, she was forced to stop nuclear plants, because as Jancovici argued, she is an "asse…
> nuclear power is green and just better than renewable and coal How do you arrive at that conclusion? Better in what regard? AFAIK nuclear power has all sorts of problems, the main one being that nobody knows what to do about the waste. Building nuclear power plants isn’t exactly carbon emission free either.
Once we've decommissioned all coal power plants, then it might be reasonable to assess whether or not continued investment in nuclear is worthwhile, but until then decommissioning nuclear is actively causing harm, including huge numbers of deaths, by keeping more coal plants operational.
Jean Marc Jancovici is a french energy expert, and he often talks about Germany. An important story to remember about Germany, is how Fukushima led the country to stop using nuclear power. Merkel has a PhD in physics, so naturally she understands that nuclear power is green and just better than renewable and coal. But after Fukushima, she was forced to stop nuclear plants, because as Jancovici argued, she is an "asse…
> nuclear power is green and just better than renewable and coal How do you arrive at that conclusion? Better in what regard? AFAIK nuclear power has all sorts of problems, the main one being that nobody knows what to do about the waste. Building nuclear power plants isn’t exactly carbon emission free either.
Nuclear energy emits less co2 than renewables: it requires less metals (especially if you store electricity with batteries or other means), and renewables are not baseload energies, meaning you need to burn either coal or gas when there's no sun or wind.
Wind mills require a lot of metals, and installing them is complicated. Solar panels require mining elements, and solar panels degrade over time.
Nuclear energy is green. It's time to say it.