21–30 of 86 posts
Seems like a misleading headline. Total energy used is at a record low: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... Much of the decline came from gas, presumably because they stopped buying so much from Russia.
And by "record low", we mean "nearly six times that of neighboring France." Compare: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&...
Pencil out what it would cost to replace all current French nuclear generation at today’s nuclear build costs. It’s astronomical.
Seems like a misleading headline. Total energy used is at a record low: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... Much of the decline came from gas, presumably because they stopped buying so much from Russia.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't a fair comparison as Germany has terrible geography in comparison to the US for energy generation, and certain energy sources like hydropower are very efficient, but not possible to replicate given the environmental impact. Hell, even solar generation in Germany isn't anywhere as good as the US, where it can build solar parks in the south, meanwhile most of Germany has what, 6 hours of daylight during winter…
The US also has got enormous and inexhaustible (all together) coal mines, and oil fields of course. The price of natural gas is negative in some parts of Texas.
But coal? Yikes. As you've said it, as gas is so cheap, perhaps use lots of gas and invest in renewables. But go coal-free.
Wait, what? Whatever happened to all the coal fired power plants Germany is going to spin up to keep us all warm and toasty?
A huge problem with the German coal phase-out by 2038 ("ideally by 2030") is that the law doesn't prohibit exporting coal. So with every coal plant that's shut down, coal becomes cheaper and will be burned by someone else. We're doomed.
> That's despite the fact that much of the world is getting off coal, says Flora Champenois, coal research analyst at Global Energy Monitor and one of the co-authors of the report.
> "Everybody else is moving away from coal and China seems to be stepping on the gas," she says. "We saw that China has six times as much plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined."
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...
Germany is killing it. Since I've moved here I've been following renewable energy numbers and also what the government commits to, and it's incredible how they've managed to meet consistently the solar and wind generation goals. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to meet other goals such as amount of housing built etc. But coming from a third-world country where I wouldn't trust any kind of plans coming from the g…
The huge issue I see is that they fail to implement enough social balancing, which leads to more and more people voting for the extreme right wing party AfD, which will cause a lot of trouble after the next elections.
2022: 491,8 TWh 2023: 436,8 TWh
So Germany is not replacing fossil fuels with renewables, it just produces less electricity overall. Which might be caused by the fact that electricity is so expensive nowadays, that especially energy-intensive industries are getting less and less economical, so they lower their production or even shut down completely and move elsewhere.
The document says "generation". I though Germany imported a lot of their electricity. I can't tell if these numbers include the source of the imported power.
I'm assuming that's still the case for last year or it would be bigger news. I did see one article fretting that they might turn into a net importer later in the decade.
Technically true, but still misleading, as the total production has gone down significantly: 2022: 491,8 TWh 2023: 436,8 TWh So Germany is not replacing fossil fuels with renewables, it just produces less electricity overall. Which might be caused by the fact that electricity is so expensive nowadays, that especially energy-intensive industries are getting less and less economical, so they lower their production or e…
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...
The document says "generation". I though Germany imported a lot of their electricity. I can't tell if these numbers include the source of the imported power.