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Germany's Energy Catastrophe

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Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#61

Post by iammjm »

ajuc wrote: post #23

The funniest thing is - Germany was repeatedly warned by Eastern European states that this (literally this) will happen if they continue to build Nord Stream 1 and then Nord Stream 2 and try to "fix" Russia by trade. Russian government already poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2004. Killed opposition and journalists both in Russia and in EU. Invaded 2 countries (Chechnia and Georgia - I don't even count Li…

I very much agree with this post. Also, don't forget about Russia's decade-long war against democracies via bot farms, support for populist parties, bribes, and assassinations (even on German on British soil). Many German politicians behaved like arrogant morons and ended up drinking their own cool aid. Now they are trying to minimize the damage by throwing Ukrainians under the bus. They find the war annoying, because it disturbs their business as usual. I feel like they have more of a problem with Ukraine than with Russia, because Ukraine is putting up a fight and complicating Germany's relations with Russia. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised as this is the country that started both world wars and let Hitler just do his thing as the Holocaust unfolded. Some of those people are still alive. I live in Germany by the way.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#62

Post by qayxc »

ajuc wrote: post #23

The funniest thing is - Germany was repeatedly warned by Eastern European states that this (literally this) will happen if they continue to build Nord Stream 1 and then Nord Stream 2 and try to "fix" Russia by trade. Russian government already poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2004. Killed opposition and journalists both in Russia and in EU. Invaded 2 countries (Chechnia and Georgia - I don't even count Li…

> It's mind-boggling how a big European state like Germany with big ambitions and supposedly independent media could be so ignorant for 3 decades with nobody in the country taking the warnings seriously.

That's a warped perception. There has been a huge controversy (also in the media), it was the government and primarily chancellor Merkel who pushed for a adopting a soft line with Russia.

Critique was small since the Left traditionally sided with Russia, the Right was very sympathetic to authoritarian regimes in general, and the libertarians saw nothing but economic opportunities (cheap resources). Since military strength hasn't been a focus ever since the early 90s, economic ties were seen as both an effective measure to keep peace and an advantage to the domestic industries.

EE states have of course their own concerns, but let's be real here: every country is first and foremost focusing on their own interests and tends to ignore or downplay the interests of others, especially "small fish" like states that have little economical and political weight. Sounds harsh, but that's the reality of politics everywhere and not particularly surprising.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#63

Post by mads_ravn »

ajuc wrote: post #23

The funniest thing is - Germany was repeatedly warned by Eastern European states that this (literally this) will happen if they continue to build Nord Stream 1 and then Nord Stream 2 and try to "fix" Russia by trade. Russian government already poisoned Ukrainian presidential candidate in 2004. Killed opposition and journalists both in Russia and in EU. Invaded 2 countries (Chechnia and Georgia - I don't even count Li…

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it —- Upton Sinclair.

But agreed that this boggles the mind. The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with is lobbying by German industry.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#64

Post by mahkeiro »

skrause wrote: post #4
dijonman2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is the best option, no? Of course it has risks but given how awful coal and other traditional power sources run it seems to be the best option. We are only going to use more and more energy, generating and lowering energy costs will be a net positive for all. Especially to support EVs.

Well, let's take a look at France: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/business/france-nuclear-p... > As the European Union moves to cut ties to Russian oil and gas in the wake of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, France has been betting on its nuclear plants to weather a looming energy crunch. Nuclear power provides about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a bigger share than any other country in the world. But the industry…

France currently has half the reactors stopped (28/56), but why? - 7 are stopped for refurbishment as their lifetime extension require important work - 13 are stopped for the corrosion issue detected - 3 are currently replacing the nuclear fuel - 5 are stopped for other technical issue

It's true that this year France will only produce 300TWh instead of 350TWh last year which is not the gloom picture that you try to make. By Novembre most of the reactors are planned to be backed online.(https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/energie/infographies-ba...)

The main problem is that the new reactors that were supposed to come online 10 years ago are still not there, and that the multiple offshore wind generation projects are still blocked!

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#65

Post by ajuc »

planb wrote: post #25

We don’t have an energy problem. We have a gas problem. I’m open for (re-)discussing nuclear energy here in Germany, but we could run 100% on nuclear or coal and a full gas stop by Russia would still have catastrophic consequences. We need gas for industrial/chemical processes and heating our homes. In fact, if the Energiewende had progressed a bit further, then more houses would have installed a heat pump by now.

You have foreign policy blindness problem, no independent media problem and most of all - "everything except making cars and exporting them doesn't matter" problem. Otherwise I can't explain how you were so dumb for 3 decades.

It's not like Germany is so poor it can't afford to pay 50% more for gas. Or that it couldn't build an LNG terminal just in case. Poland which is much less wealthy - managed to do it. How come nobody in Germany seriously raised these issues for 3 decades? Mainstream didn't care cause industrial output was the only thing that mattered. And EE countries are russophobic, we Germans are so much smarter. They will understand eventually that it's for their own good.

You have a lot of rethinking of your foreign policy to do. Germany can't continue to be an informal leader of EU with such obvious incompetency (and I'm charitable here, cause if it's not incompetency it's betrayal).

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#66

Post by spockz »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #35

Of course the flip side is that Germany is going cold turkey on coal and gas in the next few years. Once that process is completed, it will have a huge head start on other countries looking to slowly transition to being carbon neutral. That's actually a good thing. Short term it's disruptive for sure but it is already leading to huge public spending. Which of course also is the classic recipe to mitigate the risks of…

I’m not so sure Russia will depend on Europe for it’s gas price/revenue. Oil is already being diverted east and to India that are willing to buy. So ultimately Russia has the same income, the environmental pollution will be the same, and yes Europe may have green energy.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#67

Post by DocTomoe »

stewbrew wrote: post #17

I'm tired of these probably nuclear industry backed articles that are wrong and miss the point. 1. Nuclear energy is no solution. See here for an example how things turn out in real life (in German): https://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Deutsche-Solaranlagen-haengen... 2. Germany doesn't really lack electricity. You cannot replace gas in industrial processes that need heat just like that with electricity. If you could, you…

> Germany doesn't really lack electricity.

... yet.

There is an interesting report on the ARD Mediathek [1] right now in which - among other nuclear-involved people - the guy responsible the flow of electricity talks about power production and consumption. He points out that while it is true that at some points in time, renewables provided 95% of our consumption, there are still other times where they make up less than 1%. He then proceeds to explain that we do not have the energy storage to survive that, and that such an energy storage - with our current technology - will not be technically feasible, and that our neighbouring countries will not be able to support us if bad comes to worse.

His prognosis is that if we proceed with the nuclear shutdown, we will perpetuate coal burning for the foreseeable future.

Oh, right, some genius also decided to stop that.

We like to think of ourselves to be enlightened trailblazers. But maybe we should take a step back and consider if we might be wrong.

[1] https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/dokus-im-ersten/dokumentar... - the part I'm talking about starts at about 35:35, German only (unfortunately)

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#68

Post by avar »

sexy_panda wrote: post #54
locallost wrote: post #6

Germany proceeded with their "nuclear exit" in 2011. Had they gone the other way and all in on nuclear, they would be in the same situation as they are today as planning and building nuclear plants takes a lot longer than 10 years. Actually they would be way worse because instead of having 50% of electricity coming from renewables, they would still have 45% of it coming from coal, instead of 25% in 2020 (did not chec…

Just to make things clear: Nuclear energy is just cheap because it gets massively funded by the state. Nuclear power plants are the most expensive way of generating energy and the least sustainable way. We don't even have a good way to dispose nuclear waste. We were checking for a "Endlager" which means a place to hoard all the nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Guess what? No one wanted it. Bavaria tr…

    We don't even have a good way
    to dispose nuclear waste.
Sure we do, just aerosolize it and vent it into the atmosphere! At which point...

    Nuclear energy is [...] massively
    [subsidized] by the state.
...You'd have a fair comparison to other modes of energy production. It's not nuclear that's massively subsidized, everything else is.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#69

Post by ThePhysicist »

VaxWithSex wrote: post #48
Zanfa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On sustainable energy sources: I, as many other germans, receive all of my electricity from purely renewable energy sources for more than ten years now. 24/7. Grid-scale storage (apart from hydro, but that's basically maxed out or unsuitable for most geographies) is still an unsolved problem for renewables, even the largest lithium-battery ones are basically a rounding error. You'd need multiple weeks worth of batt…

It's a solved problem for Germany. Electrolyze Hydrogen, store it in the existing gas infrastructure for the winter. Use the gas plants to burn it in the winter.

That has a round trip efficiency of around 20-25 % I think (more if you can also use the process heat), so we would need to over-provision renewables by 400 % to make it work.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#70

Post by someweirdperson »

planb wrote: post #25

We don’t have an energy problem. We have a gas problem. I’m open for (re-)discussing nuclear energy here in Germany, but we could run 100% on nuclear or coal and a full gas stop by Russia would still have catastrophic consequences. We need gas for industrial/chemical processes and heating our homes. In fact, if the Energiewende had progressed a bit further, then more houses would have installed a heat pump by now.

> We don’t have an energy problem. We have a gas problem.

As soon as the risk of running out of gas turns into reality, and people won't be able/allowed to heat their homes as usual, many will start plugging in their electrical fan heaters. The gas problem might expand into an electricity problem. How much of a problem, we'll probably find out soon.

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