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

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

#281

Post by JanSt »

ceving wrote: post #233
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 am not pro-nuclear! It is the worst energy ever! The earth receives 5000 times more energy from the sun than mankind needs! It is free. Just use it.

lignite coal is the worst one, literally bringing us climate change, extremely bad air and pollution.

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

#282

Post by ZeroGravitas »

jskrablin wrote: post #161
Taig wrote: 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…

Zoom out one more time and you see that the world gained a solution to climate change that is actually competitive economically.

Competitive even without a strong government regulation to enforce people paying for externalities, and even working against the entrenched intests of fossil fuels.

A solution which is rolling out at a truly astonishing rate.

What happens in Germany is irrelevant compared with what has happened globally due, in large part, to Germany.

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

#283

Post by JanSt »

iSnow wrote: post #261
JanSt wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason does not really matter for the math. The record is due to lower production and not a rapid build-up of renewable energy production.

It matters a lot. First, if demand is not there, installed capacity isn't fully utilized. Since production costs of existing renewable installations is lower than carbon-based plants, a lull in demand will automatically increase the renewable percentage, that's neither good nor bad. But in fact, installed capacity is rising: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/bild/installierte-leistung-zu... , so no, the record is not on…

I did not claim it is only to lower production - it's mainly due to it. Which is exactly my point.

Renewables were not actively hindered, Germany just decided to stop paying 30-50 cent per kwh in subsidies because it's stupid. Also, this is a seperate discussion.

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

#284

Post by maigret »

WA wrote: post #196
roenxi wrote: post #123

Germany's energy consumption per capita has dropped about 20% since its 1980s peak and has been trending down fairly sharply since 2007 [0]. AfD is polling extremely well on the back of a "stop this madness" environmental platform. German renewable energy policies have been a failure at securing human prosperity. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

> German renewable energy policies have been a failure at securing human prosperity. Bullshit. That chart looks the same for many developed nations. A strong downtrend. Just a few examples: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

Some people have a hard time understanding the concept of efficiency.

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

#285

Post by Gwypaas »

TomK32 wrote: post #93
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…

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…

> transportation which uses up 27.1% of energy in German

There is a difference between primary energy and usable energy. An ICE car is 20-30% efficient while BEVs are +90%. Electrifying all transports will vastly lower the primary energy use.

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

#286

Post by [deleted] »

JanSt wrote: post #176
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heating is one thing we have tackle we have _to_ tackle or we have tackle_d_? duh ... -- i am german and i find sloppy use of language annoying especially if it invites orthogonal interpretation. people should reread what they write publicly and then fix it if necessary.

eagerly waiting for you to respond in German

[deleted]

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

#287

Post by cubefox »

danhor wrote: post #275
cubefox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 renewable…

> 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.

Investment in renewable energy is not a value in itself. France has much lower CO2 emissions because they invested in nuclear energy which can replace both coal and renewable energy.

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

But an expansion of nuclear could have happened, replacing coal. Wind and solar themselves are highly volatile and require an additional stable energy source like coal or nuclear.

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

#288

Post by malermeister »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #267
malermeister wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With individual transport, you move ~2 tons of metal for a payload of one person, a weight/person ratio of 2. With high-speed rail, you move ~400 tons of metal for ~450 people, a ratio of ~0.9. [0] This does not even account for factors such as inherently more efficient transmission from steel to steel vs rubber/concrete and the more efficient electric engines of a modern train compared to the combustion engine. Neit…

You forget that most people don't live or work next to the rail station. That makes rail inefficient in the only way that matters to most people - their time. (I say that as someone who takes trains to work most days.)

I think trains going twice as fast as cars and not being impacted by traffic goes a long way in making up for the last mile problem - even if you take a bike for that piece, overall you're gonna be much faster than if you're stuck in rush hour traffic.

Plus, in the context of the looming climate catastrophe and the energy crisis caused by a war of aggression by our former primary energy supplier, that concern seems really petty anyways.

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

#289

Post by iSnow »

JanSt wrote: post #283
iSnow wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters a lot. First, if demand is not there, installed capacity isn't fully utilized. Since production costs of existing renewable installations is lower than carbon-based plants, a lull in demand will automatically increase the renewable percentage, that's neither good nor bad. But in fact, installed capacity is rising: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/bild/installierte-leistung-zu... , so no, the record is not on…

I did not claim it is only to lower production - it's mainly due to it. Which is exactly my point. Renewables were not actively hindered, Germany just decided to stop paying 30-50 cent per kwh in subsidies because it's stupid. Also, this is a seperate discussion.

It's not a separate discussion, in fact it's at the core of the current problems. The original idea was to get rid of nuclear and coal and use gas as an intermediate step till renewables would be competitive. Then Merkel happened and all of a sudden, renewables were neutered and complacency set in: gas would be "good enough", and Russia a reliable supplier.

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

#290

Post by _ph_ »

JanSt wrote: post #278
_ph_ wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

It is dishonest to claim the decision could have been reverted in the last 3 months. They were in no shape to be kept running. First of all, the fuel rods were spent and would have to be ordered and would have had long delivery times. But the biggest concern would have been maintenance. The maintenance schedule was of course planned with the scheduled shut-down in mind. So a lot of maintenance and refurbishment would have had to be done. So we are talking about a possible several-year downtime at least. Which makes the whole idea very questionable.

If a prolonging the life-time of the reactors would have been desired, the previous government should have done it. Then the necessary steps could have been done without a long downtime. And mind you: they were shut down so early because the previous government hat decided to do so. The initial plan allowed for much longer run times.

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