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Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

ise.fraunhofer.de

161–170 of 430 posts

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#161
post #55
post #4

Actually Germany recently shut down all of it's nuclear plants and replaced them with the dirtiest fuel possible: lignite coal burning plants. Statistics are a peculiar thing.

Germany actually replaced the nuclear energy with wind & solar. The argument that remains is that instead of phasing out nuclear, reducing coal would have been preferred. The decision to phase out nuclear has long been made (for good reasons). Keeping them active or even building new reactors of that kind is not an economically viable solution. The price Germany pays for this is higher carbon emissions for the time b…

What Germany gained is more pollution, higher CO2 emissions and a lot of hopium that current energy fubar will somehow be resolved sometimes in the unspecified future using semi specified technology (there is no large scale energy storage solution available for renewables and it will stay like this for some years to come). Shutting down nuclear was a political decision, fueled by pure ideology (and some Russian help because natural gas exports).

What entire EU gained is getting to support often unstable electricity grid in Germany. So we all gained a lot by the looks of it.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#162
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's.. complicated. Nuclear is super clean at the consumption site, but not super clean at the mining site [0]. It's almost certainly not complicated. The CO2 produced by mining uranium is irrelevant compared to the CO2 produced by burning coal fuel. > And then there's the problem that France's access to cheap uranium is a relic of extractive colonialism, and these countries don't exactly see the fair profits from…

It's complicated in the political sense. They are spelunking former colonies to meet green energy targets, while those same countries struggle to progress.

What are you talking about? Today less than 12% of French import of uranium are coming from Niger a former French colony. The main sources are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Australia.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#163
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now we have the highest electricity price in the world. Imagine what that price would have been if the renewables hadn't been there and they bought only "green" gas plants instead. Or "green" nuclear, but we don't talk about that in Germany anymore

Oh, but you are aware that we need to DOUBLE our installed capacity for gas by 2030 in order to be able to manage our electricity grid towards renewables, right? Page 25: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...

Nowhere on p 25 can I find this. Maybe you mean p 27, and I don't get what argument you are trying to make. Yes, there would be more gas capacity, but for green gas.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#164
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, we also started importing nuclear electricity from France at scale to bridge the gap. So, it’s not as bad as you put it. Nuclear waste is now somebody else’s problem…

France have been importing electricity all winter due to woes with their nuclear plants. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...

Yes, winter 2022.

And exporting during winter 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, ... 199...

France is now exporting like it was doing before winter 2022.

An exception doesn't make a rule.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this an advantage? Why should a rich country keep its industry and salaries flat for so long?

Industrial companies have been the backbone of the German economy for the longest time. They provided decent living wages for a large section of the blue collar workforce. The reality is that not everyone is built for a office job, not everyone has the skills, education or intellectual capacity to work in a service-based economy. Yet, these folks could make a decent living for themselves.

> Yet, these folks could make a decent living for themselves.

They should remember the day they are going to vote.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#166
post #31

Retail prices still seem at a record 40c/kwh or more. Perhaps tolerable with a C4 professor Fraunhofer salary, adjusted for inflation (unlike the salaries of the plebs).

For all the issues I take living in Quebec I look at my 0.07 CAD/kWh and it reminds me this place does have some advantages

Interesting. So what are the disadvantages of living in Quebec? (Never been there.)

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#167
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Keeping them active or even building new reactors of that kind is not an economically viable solution. Only reason nuclear energy is not viable is the people pushing against it, which means less nuclear plants are being built and prices skyrocketing. If people would have pushed for nuclear energy like they push for wind and solar, then we would have no coal or gas burning plants by now.

A few reasons why people might be pushing against nuclear: - high electricity generation costs - "I don't want to live next to a nuclear plant" - If Japan can't handle it securely, why do we think we can? - Unsolved long-term waste storage location - Cost for long-term storage must additionally covered by the society - We are producing radioactive waste that must be securely stored for thousands of years to feed the…

Those are mainly fake.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#168
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany actually replaced the nuclear energy with wind & solar. The argument that remains is that instead of phasing out nuclear, reducing coal would have been preferred. The decision to phase out nuclear has long been made (for good reasons). Keeping them active or even building new reactors of that kind is not an economically viable solution. The price Germany pays for this is higher carbon emissions for the time b…

What Germany gained is more pollution, higher CO2 emissions and a lot of hopium that current energy fubar will somehow be resolved sometimes in the unspecified future using semi specified technology (there is no large scale energy storage solution available for renewables and it will stay like this for some years to come). Shutting down nuclear was a political decision, fueled by pure ideology (and some Russian help…

Yep. We all gained primarily a lower living standard without reducing any CO2 consumption globally at all _and_ without improving the environment locally. Looks like a good policy to continue with, doesn't it?

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#169
post #52
post #8

Electricity, maybe. Energy? I wish. This headline would be more true if we had transportation fully electrified and all buildings heated with heat pumps, but last I heard the proposed law to require the latter transition to be started in 2024 was dropped again, and they're also still debating about starting to require transitioning the combustion engine fleets to electric by, what was it, 2030? I also still see stick…

The issue in Germany is that this transition is expensive, even more so after 16 years of decay of everything from the past coalitions. And that makes the current coalition unpopular, along with an eternaly bickering liberals(in nothing but name) trying to block any spending. Add onto that Conservative tabloids continously firing against green with every scrap they can get, and we're looking at fascists polling over…

the current coalition did massive ecological damage by not keeping the six nuclear power plants running. In 2021 they produced more energy than all installed solar combined. It would have been an easy move that would have granted us 10+ more years runway for the transformation of the heating systems. It's an illogical move to take that clean energy out and force massive costs on the people they can't really prepare for. The FDP is losing voters left and right, because they do nothing but stopping even worse politics from the coalition. They are the one thing holding back Germany from going into an unstoppable downward spiral. Germany is already rapidly losing parts of our industry, going into a recession while the burdens on social systems will soon explode. And instead of any solutions for the real problems, the SPD and Greens just want to increase taxes, driving away even more highly qualified people.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#170
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany actually replaced the nuclear energy with wind & solar. The argument that remains is that instead of phasing out nuclear, reducing coal would have been preferred. The decision to phase out nuclear has long been made (for good reasons). Keeping them active or even building new reactors of that kind is not an economically viable solution. The price Germany pays for this is higher carbon emissions for the time b…

What Germany gained is more pollution, higher CO2 emissions and a lot of hopium that current energy fubar will somehow be resolved sometimes in the unspecified future using semi specified technology (there is no large scale energy storage solution available for renewables and it will stay like this for some years to come). Shutting down nuclear was a political decision, fueled by pure ideology (and some Russian help…

The European electricity market is working quite well, imports and exports are expected to happen. Countries prefer to import electricity when it is cheaper than producing it themselves. Germany has more than enough capacity installed to handle its energy needs (even if a lot of this is still fossil). Germany does not have an "often unstable electricity grid", not at all. That information is simply wrong.
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