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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

#241

Post by ben_w »

ceving wrote: post #217
TomK32 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is one thing we have tackle, but also transportation which uses up 27.1% of energy in German. Individual transportation should be a main target, we would all shift from cars to public transport or bicycles. About 40% of distances driven with cars are shorter than 5 kilometers, a distance that's perfect for a bicycle. On top of that, car owners tend to underestimate the cost of their cars[1] [0] https://www.um…

I would like to see you cycling 5 km in the Alps against the wind in the rain. Cycling is fine. I do it 7 km to the work. But only because it is flat. And only when the weather is fine.

I'd love to see me cycling 5 km in the Alps, too.

The proper Alps, not the bit I went up when trying to take an ill-advised shortcut up a minor hill a thousand kilometres into EuroVelo 15.

Hardly any call for it in the context of "commuting", given the combination of low population density and low employment density.

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

#242

Post by phicoh »

Aachen wrote: post #65
a_bonobo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Maybe this is my tech bubble, but try to find a country with higher Linux/PGP/OpenStreetMap use. I am still trying to put my finger on what the culture difference is precisely, but also outside of tech there's more thinking about what the right/correct/fair thing to do is, even if that brings greater net harm in the end. Example: closing down nuclear because it's not a perfect solution and has risks and waste (ignori…

The funny thing is that the end result is not that different between Germany and The Netherlands. The Netherlands has only 500 MW of nuclear power, because for historical reasons, The Netherlands didn't bother much with nuclear power to begin with.

Germany has a higher percentage for electricity from renewables, because for a long time The Netherlands didn't really bother with that either.

(The Netherlands is now at around 40% renewable electricity production, unfortunately that is only 15% of total energy use)

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

#243

Post by _ph_ »

ceving wrote: post #217
TomK32 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is one thing we have tackle, but also transportation which uses up 27.1% of energy in German. Individual transportation should be a main target, we would all shift from cars to public transport or bicycles. About 40% of distances driven with cars are shorter than 5 kilometers, a distance that's perfect for a bicycle. On top of that, car owners tend to underestimate the cost of their cars[1] [0] https://www.um…

I would like to see you cycling 5 km in the Alps against the wind in the rain. Cycling is fine. I do it 7 km to the work. But only because it is flat. And only when the weather is fine.

Electrically assisted bicycles are a real game changer for the short to medium commute, especially when the wind or the terrain is against you. Note that biking in the Alps isn't really a problem in Germany, more so in Switzerland or Austria. But even in the Alps the single villages are rather flat because they are built in the mountain valleys.

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

#244

Post by ceving »

scbrg wrote: post #232
ceving wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see you cycling 5 km in the Alps against the wind in the rain. Cycling is fine. I do it 7 km to the work. But only because it is flat. And only when the weather is fine.

I've never really understood the point of comments like this. So, there are conditions where cycling isn't feasible. Sure. Does that mean people in general couldn't use bicycles more? No, of course not. Did GP suggest that everyone that lives within 5km of work must bike every day . No, not that either. For every solution it's easy to find a situation where that solution doesn't apply. So what? That doesn't mean the…

"Alps" was a pars pro toto. See here for a complete list of mountains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_and_hill_rang...

And this are the raining days: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1892/umfrage/... It is raining more than half of a year in many cities.

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

#245

Post by PurpleRamen »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #210
PurpleRamen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear plants in Germany only deliver electricity, and only where the grid is connected. But coal is used also used for heat and chemical processes, and outside the grid. No source of electricity can cover that yet in a short timeframe. And even if we are just talking about electricity in grid-connected locations, with the high cost of nuclear plants, it makes more sense to just buy it from others, and wait until ne…

isn’t coal more expensive if you take all the negative externalities into account? Specifically increased rates of cancer and other diseases caused by pollution on top of CO2 emission?

Maybe, but that's irrelevant today, the original plans were crushed by reality, and now we must accept the mess and move on. Germany could have been in a better situation, if politicians did a better job a decade or two ago. But complaining today about the mess from yesterday, because of the fails from 12 years ago is pointless.

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

#246

Post by locallost »

fsflover wrote: post #237
locallost wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should complain about emissions and the lack of emission reduction. If Germany is producing a lot more than France, and this concerns you, you should complain even more bitterly about Poland because their emissions are 1) 2x as bad as Germany 2) in contrast go Germany they are not going down since the country is dreaming of nuclear energy. Renewables can and do replace coal, as they obviously did in Germany. I…

> If Germany is producing a lot more than France, and this concerns you, you should complain even more bitterly about Poland Whataboutism. Upd: I see you also do it elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36599216 .

People should complain about emissions and emission reduction. Are emissions too high in Germany? Yes. Are they going down? Yes. Does it have a set date to remove coal from electricity production? Yes. So good things and a bright future, yet a lot of complaints.

In case of Poland neither is the case. I have yet to see an article complaining about Poland, despite it being neither good, nor it having a bright future. Why is that?

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

#247

Post by _ph_ »

JanSt wrote: post #169
pohuing wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

The current coalition did no such thing. They just came into power weeks before 3 of the 6 were switched off. At which point it wouldn't have been reasonable to reverse the decision to get rid of the last 6 reactors. A decision, which was taken by CDU/CSU and FDP. They decided on the switch off date and did nothing in the following 10 years to reconsider. They also did their best to not grow the renewables instead.

But if you look at the article we are commenting here, that doesn't matter as we now have record levels of renewables, quite compensating for the switched off reactors.

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

#249

Post by dermesser »

ceving wrote: post #217
TomK32 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is one thing we have tackle, but also transportation which uses up 27.1% of energy in German. Individual transportation should be a main target, we would all shift from cars to public transport or bicycles. About 40% of distances driven with cars are shorter than 5 kilometers, a distance that's perfect for a bicycle. On top of that, car owners tend to underestimate the cost of their cars[1] [0] https://www.um…

I would like to see you cycling 5 km in the Alps against the wind in the rain. Cycling is fine. I do it 7 km to the work. But only because it is flat. And only when the weather is fine.

I'd like to see you drive your sedan through just 4 miles of Colombian Amazonas Jungle. See: Cars are impractical!

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

#250

Post by makomk »

Archelaos wrote: post #137
nbuet wrote: post #6

... and yet Germany looks awful on https://app.electricitymaps.com/map . Is that a measurement problem, or something else that we should know?

For a fair judgement one must look at the bigger picture for example by looking at the CO2 emissions in general per capita. The latest data I could find is of 2021.[1] Germany is 8.09t, while Australia is 15.09t, USA is 14.86t, Canada is 14.30t. Germany is not so far away from countries which are very "green" on the map you linked, such as Iceland (9.11t -- more than Germany!) Norway (7.57t), Austria (7.24t) and Finl…

A lot of Iceland's CO2 emissions seem to be from tourism and metal production for export, particularly aluminium. It obviously doesn't make too much sense to think about this in per-capita terms since they're a tiny country population-wise and there's not really much relationship between their population and the amount of energy used for those things. Also, a large part of the reason that Iceland has so much aluminium smelting is that they have a lot of cheap, low-CO2 power that makes it both more viable and less polluting to do it there than elsewhere. (By comparison, China also has a lot of aluminium smelting these days, but it's so inefficient and high-CO2 compared to the alternatives that it shouldn't be viable - the general reckoning is that it's heavilty subsidised by the government there.)
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