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Germany's Energy Catastrophe

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Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#71

Post by DocTomoe »

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.

I would love to see a reference about this being actively used, in a meaningful capacity (as in: enough to prevent a countrywide blackout).

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#72

Post by epups »

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…

> Nuclear energy is just cheap because it gets massively funded by the state.

No it doesn't. Not anymore than gas, coal and renewables at least.

The issue of disposal is also simply incorrect. There are plenty of places to store it, France does it, everyone does it. Do you know where the waste from coal goes? Into the atmosphere, where it kills thousands directly and potentially billions indirectly with global warming. So it's comical to criticise nuclear for waste issues.

Barring hydro (which Germany cannot have) and coal/gas, there is no alternative but nuclear. Renewables cannot be a reliable source of energy because they are intermittent. You will always need some stable source, and currently (and for the foreseeable future), it's nuclear.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#73

Post by jillesvangurp »

cm2187 wrote: post #44
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 think the revenues will shrink to Russia ultimately as europe will cut its dependancy on gas, but in the short term, the squeeze on gas supply created a price hike that more than offset the reduced volumes for Russia. That may continue and finance Russia’s war.

Of course. The question is when. If they Russia cuts off the gas they basically will just destroy their economy faster. And it's a matter of time before production elsewhere ramps up to compensate. The coming winter will be a challenge, the winter after that it will be solved one way or another. Probably at great cost but it will be a lot less of an issue.

Also, Russia needs more than just cash to fuel the war. They are currently cut off from a lot of essential imports and the international market and their army clearly is under-performing because of apparent logistical, supply, and morale issues.

I think Germany might prove to have a lot more stamina than Russia. Riding out the next winter without Russian gas won't be fun but it will be able to deal with it. On the other hand, I don't think a second winter in the Ukraine is going turn things around for the Russians either and I think they are well aware of it. So, Putin can commit economical suicide or he can come back to the negotiation table. The question is what he has to bring to the table. It's not looking like he has much to offer.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#74

Post by epups »

DocTomoe wrote: post #67
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 th…

It's amazing how many well intentioned people cannot grasp this very simple point. There is no way to run a grid solely on solar and wind. Therefore the choice isn't between those and nuclear, it's between nuclear and coal/gas.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#75

Post by DocTomoe »

ajuc wrote: post #65
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…

> Germany is so poor it can't afford to pay 50% more for gas

Germany isn't. Many Germans are. If missing gas leads to industry breaking down, more Germans will be.

Germans being made poor, especially for no good reasons other than the decisions of politicians abroad, tends to lead to unintended, but severe consequences. Already, wannabe autocrats are winding up their propaganda. Guess which countries they will have a look at first.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#76

Post by epups »

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.

There is no large scale hydrogen storage facility that could take even 1% of German's energy needs.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#77

Post by mvgcf »

VaxWithSex wrote: post #50
WanderPanda wrote: post #40

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. More probably you‘re running on green (washing) electricity certificates from Norway…

Nope, 100% green energy in the hands of the citizens.

This. It is 100% green energy. No certificates or whatsoever.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#78

Post by seszett »

daccle wrote: post #2

Yikes! Totally ignoring the climate impact of nuclear power. Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time). Finally explaining that there were only 28 deaths after the Chernobyl accident, ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer and deformed unborn children. Sorry, this article is totally wrong in so many ways.

> Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time).

That's actually not been true for the last 40 years or so. In France, nuclear power plants have been doing load following without problem. They are apparently able to adjust their production by 80% over 30 minutes. One such episode is explained here: https://lenergeek.com/2019/03/07/mix-electrique-nucleaire-tr...

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#79

Post by mvgcf »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #58
mvgcf wrote: post #10

This op-ed is getting things so utterly wrong, I don‘t even know where to start. The Energiewende (so cool he can make use of a german word, so much credibility) here in Germany is working just fine. It is a reasonable investment in our future. The reason natural gas is a problem right now is not that we have insufficient energy. The lack of gas is problematic because it is a preliminary product used in chemical proc…

Those renewable energy contracts were mostly a scam in my opinion, most of these providers just bought renewable electricity from the stock market when it was cheap and sold it to consumers at a premium, creating zero new renewable capacity in the process. Greenwashing at its finest. And last year when prices for renewables went through the roof due to several unanticipated factors most of them went belly-up and had…

While you do make a fair point on greenwashing being a problem in general, your opinion does not apply to my non greenwashed contract. 100% green energy and a coop investing heavily in more capacity.

This is true for gas (heating) and electricity, btw.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#80

Post by epups »

Germans simply won't admit this. I talked to some people who are in high positions in the Green Party, and they all have this obviously stupid belief that we will simply switch to renewables instead of reactivating nuclear. What they don't grasp is there is no such option. It's either nuclear or coal/gas. Any argument against nuclear must take into account the extreme damage Germany is doing to the environment with their current strategy.
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