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

ise.fraunhofer.de

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

#181

Post by johannes1234321 »

lopis wrote: post #73
Aachen wrote: 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…

In the meantime, Switzerland is installing solar panels on train tracks [0] instead of, I don't know, people's roofs. There is so much promising tech coming out in terms of energy storage and we're seeing almost zero investment from governments. Everything's backwards. [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/98944-switzerland-installing-s...

Solar panels on rail tracks are an interesting experiment, but mind that they complicated maintenance work on tracks and require quite some maintenance themselves. (Think about oil and other dirt dropping from trains; stones and small tree branches etc being thrown around with the force of the train...)

But even if they are useable and beneficial: That's not an argument not to use other available space as well.

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

#183

Post by ffgjgf1 »

locallost wrote: post #134
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can build both nuclear and solar and wind at the same time. Poland will stick to coal because of local economic interests, it has nothing to do with nuclear. > They were not, there is even less coal used since nuclear plants were shut down than before. Well.. there is no reason why there shouldn’t be zero coal use before anyone starts shutting sown nuclear power plants. For one thing the issues with nuclear waste…

If your resources are infinite you can. But they are not so you can't.

Grids in Europe are interconnected. So you can build nuclear and and import wind/solar from the surrounding countries which would effectively be the same.

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

#184

Post by Moldoteck »

lopis wrote: post #138
cubefox wrote: post #132

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.

Not only most of the bought fuel comes from other countries, including Canada, but 17% of their electro energy is generated by reprocessed nuclear fuel, also produced in France

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

#185

Post by locallost »

mahkeiro wrote: post #135
locallost wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not, there is even less coal used since nuclear plants were shut down than before. Nuclear and coal are getting continuously replaced by renewables. Coal end date is set to either 2030 or 2038 (I forget). The country people should be complaining about is Poland. It's the worst emitter of co2 in Europe and it will not do anything about it for 10-20 years because it wants to build nuclear plants.

Electricity generation is decreasing year over year in Germany since 2015… but the fact is that it should be increasing to electrify heating and transportation. What is really happening is that industries are moving out of Germany to help pretend that the country CO2 emissions are better as no one really count imported CO2 in finished product.

Perhaps, but it was until now not electrifying heating and transportation, so reduction is obviously a positive thing. Nothing beats emissions of a kWh you saved. The question might be, was there something sacrificed to do that, e.g. did economy suffer? This would be bad, but it's not the case, the GDP is still going up. The savings are related to energy efficiency and this will reap benefits basically forever.

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

#186

Post by locallost »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #183
locallost wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your resources are infinite you can. But they are not so you can't.

Grids in Europe are interconnected. So you can build nuclear and and import wind/solar from the surrounding countries which would effectively be the same.

Or you can build solar and wind, which is what Germany is doing to replace coal. Successfully. Don't really see your point.

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

#187

Post by locallost »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #112
locallost wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not, there is even less coal used since nuclear plants were shut down than before. Nuclear and coal are getting continuously replaced by renewables. Coal end date is set to either 2030 or 2038 (I forget). The country people should be complaining about is Poland. It's the worst emitter of co2 in Europe and it will not do anything about it for 10-20 years because it wants to build nuclear plants.

> The country people should be complaining about is Poland. It's the worst emitter of co2 in Europe I don't have the numbers with me so I cannot check this right now, but I believe your comment to be incorrect. Germany must have more CO2 emissions than Poland from Coal alone since Germany is the largest user of energy from coal burning in Europe.

Sorry, no. Check the data.

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

#188

Post by fsflover »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #63
Garvi wrote: 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.

Are you disagreeing with the numbers cited in some way?

No.

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

#189

Post by ffgjgf1 »

locallost wrote: post #128
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coal use Should be at zero before anyone even starts thinking about closing nuclear power plants.

Strong disagree. That would imply that Germany should be criticized more than the US, but this cannot be. The US did not close its nuclear plants, but is still at 60% fossil fuels. I don't think this is a coincidence because when Diablo Canyon was extended, the first thing that happened is that they asked for a billion dollars so they are able to even run. Nuclear is an expensive distraction and a hog of resources (t…

Is it that more expensive if you take into account all the externalities from burning coal? Increased cancer risk due to high radiation, other pollution etc. CO2 is just the cherry on top..

> That would imply that Germany should be criticized more than the US, but this cannot be.

This is tangential and there is also no need to resort to whataboutism for no reason.

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

#190

Post by Taig »

mahkeiro wrote: post #146
Taig wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what conclusion do you draw from this, or rather, how is this relevant to this thread?

That this is a big pretend game to make the people responsible of the closing of nuclear power look not that bad in regard of the climate issue. Electricity generation should be increasing as we electrify transportation and heating. If this not what is happening then it means that globally the problem is just displaced. (Which doesn’t work at the planet scale)

Germany has more energy generation capacity installed than it had last year. I certainly wish there would be a push for even more renewable and storage capacity, though. The fact that Germany is generating less energy has nothing to do with the phase out of nuclear though.
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