Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

ise.fraunhofer.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 430 posts

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

#271

Post by ZeroGravitas »

sparkling wrote: post #97
lopis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Why are people so obsessed with "solar roadways" or "solar train tracks"? This is a joke, a gimmick, it makes absolutely no sense. Well, except for the startups that are getting massive subsidies and grants for these clown projects. There are still millions of open-space square meters all over the country. Think of flat-roof warehouses, supermarkets, parking facilities and more. Those places are easy to access, easy…

You get ad impressions from people who read the headline and think "that's a great idea", or "that's a stupid idea" or "wait, is that actually possible?" or "that sounds neat" and they all count towards the algorithm in a way that "Let's put solar on the boring places" doesn't.

On a graph, the money spent or the capacity installed has never been more than a blip of a blip but it gets eyeballs.

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

#272

Post by dahfizz »

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 on roofs kinda sucks. It's way more expensive to install and rarely at an optimal orientation. And they will get covered in snow for months out of the year depending on climate.

Government money would be much better spent on a regular solar installation on the ground. Much cheaper to install and maintain.

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

#273

Post by Timon3 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #157
Timon3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that?

Rising energy prices, laws that make industrial products like cars reach prohibitive prices.

Energy prices are rising in all of the industrialized world, and cars are reaching "prohibitive prices" everywhere. Does that mean the whole world, not just Germany, is deindustrializing?

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

#274

Post by lyu07282 »

JanSt wrote: post #155
cubefox wrote: post #62

Grams of CO2 per kWh: France: 43 Germany: 398 https://abload.de/img/img_20230705_133511_84efdp.jpg The reason? Germans hate nuclear and prefer coal as a stable energy source.

Most of the population changed their mind and is pro-nuclear. But sadly the only party really supporting nuclear energy is the AfD, which is a far-right party most would never consider to vote for. Nuclear phase-out is part of the Green party identity; the CDU had Merkel going against nuclear after Fukushima and can't really go back, the FDP agreed, the SPD is also against it.

Yeah but they didnt shut it down because of some safety concerns, in truth nuclear is just too cheap for infinite growth of the German electricity corpos, and those pay all the politicians. Highest electricity prices on the planet, that's good old corruption that rotted Germany to the core.

And their politics is all neoliberal, of course they drive people to the right, it's the only alternative that doesn't threaten capital.

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

#275

Post by danhor »

cubefox wrote: post #76
locallost wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal use is at a historic low in Germany, thus it is not possible that nuclear plants were replaced with coal. Statistics are reflecting reality, your facts are actually just guesses and opinions.

They absolutely were counterfactually. If nuclear power hadn't been shut down, much less coal energy would have been needed.

The renewable push in germany came because the greens (and other parties) wanted to shut down nuclear and replace it. If the exit from nuclear was never started, germany would have been much less willing to invest in renewables. German invesments in the early 2000s were one of the steps towards renewables being viable.

If germany kept nuclear as-is the counterfactual might look worse due to the expansion of renewables not happening.

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

#276

Post by MagnumOpus »

Taig wrote: post #190
mahkeiro wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> more energy generation capacity installed than it had last year

Nameplate capacity of a new solar plant with a capacity factor of 15% (remember, a cloudy country north of the 50th latitude) is not comparable with nameplate capacity of a well maintained nuclear plant with around 90% capacity factor...

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

#277

Post by fsflover »

locallost wrote: post #246
fsflover wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. W…

We do complain about Poland. But this is a thread about Germany.

> Does it have a set date to remove coal from electricity production? Yes.

The date is simply ridiculous. 2030 or so AFAIK? We expect much more effort from such a developed country.

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

#278

Post by JanSt »

_ph_ wrote: post #247
JanSt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. B…

That's dishonest. They had three month to reverse the decision on the first three in time of an energy crisis but refused to do it; they took another year not to switch off the next three. The decision HAD to be revised because of the energy crisis and lack of gas. They didn't.

The production has NOT been compensated. We just produce less and import more. It will take years to compensate the six reactors - a lot of time and CO2 emitted.

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

#279

Post by JanSt »

kataklasm wrote: post #200
JanSt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the population changed their mind and is pro-nuclear. But sadly the only party really supporting nuclear energy is the AfD, which is a far-right party most would never consider to vote for. Nuclear phase-out is part of the Green party identity; the CDU had Merkel going against nuclear after Fukushima and can't really go back, the FDP agreed, the SPD is also against it.

I'm afraid you're not realizing the impact of your echo chamber. The bulk of german voting power lies in the age group of 40 to 70, measured by voter turnout per age group. People aged 45 and up felt the imoact of the Chernobyl disaster, whole forests in Germany are still not allowed to be foraged for mushrooms because of ground contamination. Those people have their fear of nuclear power ingrained in them and as usu…

It's not an echo chamber but statistics: https://www.tech-for-future.de/atomkraft-umfrage/#Wie_viel_P...

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

#280

Post by mahkeiro »

locallost wrote: post #266
mahkeiro wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no saving (or marginally) it’s just heavy industries and energy consuming process leaving Germany (BASF for instance). Overall just a displacement of the problem. We don’t care about GDP, what matters is global CO2 emission. In 2023 13.4% of new cars are electric in Germany but electricity production is the lowest in 15 years, go figure.

Sorry, but this is total nonsense. I realize it's not in the spirit of HN, but it's obvious you did not check any data at all.

Ok energy-charts.info is providing all info regarding installed power and electricity generation for Germany.

For heavy industries leaving Germany: * https://cen.acs.org/business/finance/BASF-cutting-back-main-... * https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/24/basf-cut-jo... * https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2022-10-20/germanys-glas... * https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-industry-europe-ener...

Here you can see that industrial part of the GDP is shrinking: * https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/manufacturing-value-add...

What are your sources?

Post reply on HN