Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#311

Post by lm28469 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

flo123456 wrote: post #226

jokoon wrote: post #220

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.

> AFAIK nuclear power has all sorts of problems, the main one being that nobody knows what to do about the waste

You're breathing the wastes of fossil fuel based energy sources every single second of your life and it will 100% reduce your life expectancy and quality of life.

The best case scenario of fossil fuel based energy production is worst than the worst case scenario of nuclear based energy production.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#312

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

squiggleblaz wrote: post #203

csomar wrote: post #191

Title is not really accurate: 1. Electricity is not free in Germany, it's actually expensive; and 2. Germans do heat their homes.

Your point (1) is the point of the article. If the market price of electricity is 0€/MWh, the retail price is still bloody expensive because there's a ton of taxes, most of which do not relate to source of the energy nor its cost. You claim (2) is a misunderstanding of the title. The title is intended to be interpreted as "Why Germans won't heat their homes with electricity, even if it's free". That is how I immediat…

> market price of electricity is 0€/MWh,

The general market price is not 0€/MWh. That's nonsense. The price is on the short-term spot-market, which is only a small part of the larger electricity market.

Consumers who need to heat homes / buildings / etc. are not buying on the spot market, but have long term contracts.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#313

Post by lm28469 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:10 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #45

jsjddbbwj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a virtue thing. Energy is just very expensive in Europe compared to for example the US.

I'd still pay the cost, because energy is cheaper than my free time.

It takes like 2 minutes to hang a full load of laundry.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#314

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:12 PM UTC

squiggleblaz wrote: post #259

Tepix wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market price does not directly correlate with the retail price even if you take into account taxes and other fees. The average market price may affect the retail prices in the long run if it goes up or down. We're seeing prices for electricity as low as 0€ (or lower) because there isn't enough storage capacity.

We're seeing prices for electricity as low as 0€ or less because people aren't using it efficiently. Part of that is because there is insufficient storage capacity, preventing it from being used when there's more demand and less wind. But another part of that is that retail prices don't correspond close enough to market prices, so people aren't incentivised to use the best source of energy available at a time. An ele…

> extremely difficult to cancel contracts here for instance

No, it's not difficult. Changing your energy provider is usually quite easy and there are a lot to choose from. I did it a few years ago and the new provider did all the paper work for me.

It's just that many end consumers are not prepared to do it. And no one does it on a daily base on the spot market.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#315

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:15 PM UTC

tom85 wrote: post #214

grafporno wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is at about 30 cents/kWh.

I think he talks about the market price and not the end user price with taxes infrastructure etc.

which market price are you talking about? There are several.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#316

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #220

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…

> 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.

Merkel was also the responsible minister for reactor safety. She understands the risks, too.

> But after Fukushima, she was forced to stop nuclear plants

No, the exit was long before decided. The conservative government was trying to exit from the exit. But that would had created mass protests. Then Fukushima happened and basically everyone went back to the already agreed exit.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#317

Post by luckylion » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:22 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #304

marcus_holmes wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating more renewable energy is pointless unless it reduces/replaces the use of fossil fuels. Having more energy than we need is useless, and there's an environmental footprint to even the greenest wind farm. The point the article is making is that because of the way the renewable industry is being funded (from taxes on electricity consumption), consumers are opting to continue burning fossil fuels rather then use…

> Creating more renewable energy is pointless unless it reduces/replaces the use of fossil fuels. It does. > The point the article is making is that because of the way the renewable industry is being funded (from taxes on electricity consumption), consumers are opting to continue burning fossil fuels rather then use electricity. No, it doesn't. Renewable energy has a systematic preference and its share in electricity…

> This is not what is happening. The goal is to have more than 85% reneable energy for electricity production in 2050.

I believe the point was that, because of the subsidies that are included in the price for electricity, that electricity isn't used for what it could be because it's more expensive than fossil-fuel options.

Even if there was 100% renewable energy for electricity production in 2050, that wouldn't help with emissions that stem from heating unless you'd also make people heat with electricity. And to do that, you'd need to lower the prices (or raise the prices of alternatives).

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#318

Post by pr0nin » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:23 PM UTC

systemtest wrote: post #276

jillesvangurp wrote: post #186

Interestingly, most of Finland heats with electricity. I used to live there before I moved to Germany. Unlike Germany, Finland does not use a lot of natural gas. So, Germans subsidizing Finnish heating with clean energy is not necessarily a bad deal for Finland. I'd say it's a better deal for the planet than Russia subsidizing gas usage in e.g. Belarus, which is currently negotiating a new deal for this with Russia (…

Phasing out gas heating is going to be a very, very big job in the Netherlands. Replacing an energy source is easy, just place a nuclear power plant / solar field down and phase out the coal power station. Done. However, almost all homes in the Netherlands are heated by gas directly from the source. The gas is used to heat up water in the home and pump it through radiators on the wall or in the floor. A highly effici…

> You can't heat a home in the winter like that so you also need to isolate every home.

Yes you do or just pay for inefficiency.

I've spent 2 years in Netherlands moving from Ukraine. I was shocked how (some) Dutch people ignorant to save warmth of their houses and schools in winter. Only way to change that make it expensive. As it should be.

It's apparent to me as Ukraine has turned away from Russia subsidised (cheap) gas at 2014. So most of Ukrainians now know that there are no such thing as free energy. Someone has to pay in one way or another.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#319

Post by 2wrist » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:24 PM UTC

systemtest wrote: post #276

jillesvangurp wrote: post #186

Interestingly, most of Finland heats with electricity. I used to live there before I moved to Germany. Unlike Germany, Finland does not use a lot of natural gas. So, Germans subsidizing Finnish heating with clean energy is not necessarily a bad deal for Finland. I'd say it's a better deal for the planet than Russia subsidizing gas usage in e.g. Belarus, which is currently negotiating a new deal for this with Russia (…

Phasing out gas heating is going to be a very, very big job in the Netherlands. Replacing an energy source is easy, just place a nuclear power plant / solar field down and phase out the coal power station. Done. However, almost all homes in the Netherlands are heated by gas directly from the source. The gas is used to heat up water in the home and pump it through radiators on the wall or in the floor. A highly effici…

here in the UK there was the whisper of using the gas system to deliver hydrogen (or a variation). I heard last year that one of the big gas mains in Yorkshire was being converted to supply hydrogen.

I guess if you replace the boiler on the other end with a fuel cell based system that was still 'wet' so the radiators and water heating in the house stayed the same the there may be less change needed?

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#320

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 12:24 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #310

lispm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the way I see it Germany is sacrificing the overall less negatively impactful option (nuclear power) for fossil fuel but we don't. Fossil fuel consumption for electricity production is going down.

It could go down much faster.

One would wish. In reality it's quite difficult. We are rebuilding the whole electricity landscape for a country with 80+ million people. The time frame for this is 50 years.

There are lots of factors which are working against it. For example Germany has heavy coal resources (unlike France for example) and it's the largest domestic source of energy. Thus the country has used it for many many decades and this brought wealth and employment to people. Now to tell them that their coal-related jobs will be replaced is creating massive resistance in certain federal states against changing that.