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

The Great German Energy Experiment

technologyreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 209 posts

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#21

Post by maxerickson »

rumcajz wrote: post #18

> [They] decided to build a polysilicon plant in Tennessee, partly because energy costs in Germany were so high. This makes USA look like a 3rd world country being used as a haven for environmentally harmful industry installations.

Not really. Undeveloped countries tend not to have cheap abundant electricity and are generally less politically stable than the U.S. (both of those things are part of a desirable context for billion dollar investments).

I suppose if you decide that U.S. environmental standards are useless you might have a point.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#22

Post by arethuza »

macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

"has there ever been a large-scale public investment program into science and engineering (that ISN'T based on destroying things in new and exciting ways) that has not proved to be a good investment in the long run"

Having been on large EU funded projects (all part of the ESPRIT II program), I honestly can't believe that they provided good value for money. Now there might have been a lot of indirect benefits, but I'm not aware of the results of the projects I worked on being directly used by anyone.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#23

Post by toemetoch »

onli wrote: post #20

The article has a heavily biased view. Some points it gets wrong: >"If you close eight nuclear plants, which were carbon-free, overnight, you will increase carbon emissions," Nuclear plants are not carbon free. Getting the uranium, transporting the nuclear waste, transporting the people who run the plant costs a lot of carbon emissions. You need to look at the whole picture. >Inevitably, some hot July week will come…

>Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air conditioners

The summer in Germany isn't that hot. Middle europe, not california. Accordingly, we don#t have air conditioners (in general)

These scenarios do happen. They're not always as straight-forward as the one suggested (low production/high demand). A few weeks ago there was a sunny/windy holiday in Belgium (May 28th). Due to overproduction and low demand they had to avert a national blackout by paying France to sink the surplus energy. In Belgium, renewables account for 7% of energy. That weekend it was 3 times as much.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#24

Post by macavity23 »

kfk wrote: post #16
kfk wrote: post #3

I don't like this. Instead of heavily subsidizing some technologies, they should tax externalities (i.e. pollution) and let the markets do the rest. It's annoying having to pay 15% more energy bills because somebody has decided that wind and solar are the hot thing of the moment. Bad, really bad. Same way of thinking that brought us to the debt crisi in Europe.

Just some quick answers. * It is difficult, no doubt. But it is also difficult to find a way to efficienlty store solar and wind power. It is difficult is not a good excuse not to do it. * It does not help innovation. Not true. It does. Taxes will lower the margins of the businesses with externalities and capital holders will look for more efficient technologies. Less cost and/or more profit are the only way you ince…

Politics. Don't know, don't care.

Fair enough - but not caring about this will leave you unable to fix serious problems, and incurably unhappy with the state of the world. Every problem, every issue, every project of non-trivial size is critically dependent upon politics of some stripe or other. History is riddled with excellent ideas that failed because they didn't consider politics (and for that matter, terrible ideas that succeeded because they did).

I agree with you that the public revulsion over nuclear power is unwarranted - but that battle is lost. No reasoned argument can hope to win over emotive shots of Chernobyl and Fukushima. We have to look forward.

Engineering is about achieving goals within constraints. Good engineering takes political constraints into account as well as technical and budgetary ones.

Addendum

Whoever is downvoting this guy, STOP. You might disagree with him, but he is promoting a debate in a civilised manner, and that's how we move forward.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#25

Post by barkingllama »

adventureful wrote: post #13
pcrh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wonder how much benefit is to be had by not paying other countries for your energy compared to paying yourself...

In the case of the US, a shockingly massive benefit. We import between $350b and $500b per year worth of petroleum products (depending on the price of oil).

How much (in $) refined product do we then export? Crude is not gasoline or plastic.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#26

Post by loceng »

macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

The economics are easy. Money on war 'invests' your resources into other countries (no return, negative return likely), vs. money on innovation and infrastructure in your own country (positive return, long-term; potential for making other things more efficient, more cost-efficient become higher).

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#27

Post by DasIch »

I find the criticism torwards the Energiewende quite hard to understand, sure it is a very difficult problem but unless we find a fundamentally new energy source or nuclear fusion becomes viable the path Germany is on is without alternative. It's better to work on the problem now, developing knowledge that helps our economy and makes us a worldwide leader than holding it off unless we are near collapse due to oil prices or worse have to engage in a war about resources, especially since the latter is something Germany must not engage in.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#28

Post by adventureful »

pcrh wrote: post #19
adventureful wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the US, a shockingly massive benefit. We import between $350b and $500b per year worth of petroleum products (depending on the price of oil).

There is, however, the rule of comparative advantage, which means that it is better to import energy than to produce the same amount domestically, if the import is cheaper. How that is balanced against the benefit for domestic producers, I wouldn't know...

Only if the calculation includes the vast benefits of domestic energy production, properly sourced, and not just the basic price of energy.

Such as keeping First Solar and SunPower in business (FSLR has lost 95% of its value).

The jobs created through installation, maintainence, R&D, manufacturing, and so on.

For example: let's say your import cost is $250 billion, but your domestic cost is $300 billion. I'd argue that you're radically better off spending the $300 billion domestically, than losing the jobs likely involved and exporting $250 billion off shore to benefit some other nation/s. There's no doubt some inflection point on that benefit, but I think it's a wide margin.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#29

Post by adventureful »

barkingllama wrote: post #25
adventureful wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the US, a shockingly massive benefit. We import between $350b and $500b per year worth of petroleum products (depending on the price of oil).

How much (in $) refined product do we then export? Crude is not gasoline or plastic.

Some misc data on that:

"America is still the world's largest importer of crude oil. From January to October, the country imported 2.7 billion barrels of oil worth roughly $280 billion."

"Fuel exports, worth an estimated $88 billion in 2011 ..."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-1...

From what I could find, we export around $30x billion worth of plastic per year, and import around $12 to $15 billion worth of plastics.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#30

Post by onli »

toemetoch wrote: post #23
onli wrote: post #20

The article has a heavily biased view. Some points it gets wrong: >"If you close eight nuclear plants, which were carbon-free, overnight, you will increase carbon emissions," Nuclear plants are not carbon free. Getting the uranium, transporting the nuclear waste, transporting the people who run the plant costs a lot of carbon emissions. You need to look at the whole picture. >Inevitably, some hot July week will come…

>Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air conditioners The summer in Germany isn't that hot. Middle europe, not california. Accordingly, we don#t have air conditioners (in general) These scenarios do happen. They're not always as straight-forward as the one suggested (low production/high demand). A few we…

I don't know about Belgium. Maybe air conditioners there are more common? In Germany, it is said that cold winters are more dangerous for the energy balance, as the cold also increases energy demand and the photovoltaik-cells aren't as useful as in a hot (and sunny) summer.
Post reply on HN