Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time • Hacker News Board

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#51

Post by RandomLensman » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

throw0101d wrote: post #48

RandomLensman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politically that would have been done how? I think in restropect removing nuclear powerplants that make awful targets in a conflict doesn't strike me as a bad choice either.

> Politically that would have been done how? I think in restropect removing nuclear powerplants that make awful targets in a conflict doesn't strike me as a bad choice either. The only people causing conflict is Russia, and Germany had to be dragged kicking and screaming in shutting down Russian supply pipelines, so don't go talking about "security" when the actions from Berlin showed there was zero consideration for…

An adversary could not strike a nuclear powerplant? I said in retrospect in my view, didn't I, not that it was a consideration then (or now).

Gazprom suspended supply via NS1 indefinitely before it was destroyed.

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#52

Post by RandomLensman » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

freehorse wrote: post #50

RandomLensman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany cut off Russian gas? Gazprom suspended supply indefinitely via NS1 before it was destroyed.

When we are talking about countries, what matters is the political decisions, not the technical details imo.

What German political decision back then do you mean that cut off supply via NS1?

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#53

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

throw0101d wrote: post #24

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romania blasts rock to divert water from drought-hit Danube to nuclear reactor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49158035 - August 2026 (0 comments) What's happening in Hungary's power grid? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154001 - August 2026 (0 comments) Hungary to shut down sole nuclear plant as Danube falls to record low - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49145531 - August 2026 [dupe] EU conside…

> France powers down several nuclear reactors due to extreme heat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899232 - July 2026 (19 comments) There's no technical reason why the reactors in question could not have kept running: > "Due to the weather conditions and to comply with regulations on [cooling water] discharges, and thus to protect the environment," reactors at the Golfech, Bugey and Chooz plants, located on t…

There's no physics reason of course, but not using the natural river source for cooling like this further hurts the economics of nuclear power, which is already it's primary weakness.

Similarly, all industrial processes of heat rejection, including data centers, could use closed cycle cooling, but they don't, because it's more expensive to install and operate.

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#54

Post by looperhacks » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

purerandomness wrote: post #25

throw0101d wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine how much better carbon emissions would be in Germany if they hadn't dismantled nuclear! Germany has 15.4 GW of hard coal generation, and 14.7 GW of lignite, for a total of 30.1 GW: * https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... In 2010, before the shutdowns started, it had 21.5 GW of nuclear. So if all the other rollouts (renewables, etc ) had stayed the same, but the shutdown of nuclear…

The Greens were not in Office when the nuclear exit was decided 2011. The Greens actually prolonged their life time during Covid, after RWE, EON and EnBW argued that it does not make sense economically to let them run longer. No insurer wanted to insure nuclear, and no energy company wanted to keep losing money on nuclear. Since nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation, it makes sense to switch it off…

I agree with everything you say, but the initial "Atomausstieg" was decided in 2000/put into law in 2002, when the Greens were in office. The exit was delayed in 2010 (and then accelerated again in 2011) by the CDU/CSU/FDP, but the initial decision for the exit was very with involvement of the Green party

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#55

Post by opo » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #21

suddenlybananas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have done all this without dismantling nuclear power and emitting more carbon than they otherwise would have.

I’m not sure it is that simple. Nuclear is expensive infrastructure to maintain, by shutting them down you free up resources (including human expertise) that can be used elsewhere. I wonder if they had maintained their nuclear infrastructure, if that would have held back renewable build-out, because of economics.

If the building costs for the nuclear plants are paid for, nuclear costs are comparable to the costs for utility solar today (and much less than solar 10 years ago).

Closing down nuclear plants while you keep burning coal is not a good decision, no matter how you look at it: deaths due to pollution (in Germany and downwind countries), deaths due to mining, economic costs, etc. We will also see in the future what affect all the extra CO2 that is being emitted. Even now, I just read that Germany ranks 8th globally for the amount of coal they burn. The people who made the decisions to close nuclear plants while they still burn coal are responsible for all that.

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#56

Post by belorn » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

purerandomness wrote: post #25

throw0101d wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine how much better carbon emissions would be in Germany if they hadn't dismantled nuclear! Germany has 15.4 GW of hard coal generation, and 14.7 GW of lignite, for a total of 30.1 GW: * https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... In 2010, before the shutdowns started, it had 21.5 GW of nuclear. So if all the other rollouts (renewables, etc ) had stayed the same, but the shutdown of nuclear…

The Greens were not in Office when the nuclear exit was decided 2011. The Greens actually prolonged their life time during Covid, after RWE, EON and EnBW argued that it does not make sense economically to let them run longer. No insurer wanted to insure nuclear, and no energy company wanted to keep losing money on nuclear. Since nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation, it makes sense to switch it off…

Can coal plants buy insurance against global warming? Can a hydroelectric dam buy insurance against downstream flooding?

Very few things in the power grid has insurance against major accidents. It is even doubtful for example if a forest fires caused by transmission lines will be repaid in full by the insurance of the power company, and to the degree that will pay all costs to property and land owners

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#57

Post by eigenspace » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

citrin_ru wrote: post #3

It's a good news and a milestone to celebrate but if we count all energy and not only electricity and not only developed world then the progress is not as fast unfortunately [1]. Not a long time ago I've seen a post arguing based on the data [1] that renewables are irrelevant and should not be taken seriously and fossils will the main source for the lifetime. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-subst…

This is such a misleading comparison. The energy used that comes from a solar panel is already in an extremely low-entropy, highly usable form. The energy used from a fossil fuel is highly inefficient and hard to harness.

For instance, if you just go by the number of joules in an electric car's battery versus the number of joules in a gasoline car's tank with the same range, you'll see that a 'normal' electric car gets around 15 kWh/100km whereas even a rather efficient gas car needs something more like 50kWh/100km. That's because gas combusion loses gigantic amounts of energy to heat and sound.

If you want to talk about 'total energy consumption' and compare solar/wind against fossil fuels, you should count the amount of energy in the sunlight that hits the surface of the solar panel, or the amount of wind energy hitting the turbine blade, rather than the amount of energy they deliver to the grid.

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#58

Post by Krasnol » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

throw0101d wrote: post #38

purerandomness wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Greens were not in Office when the nuclear exit was decided 2011. The Greens actually prolonged their life time during Covid, after RWE, EON and EnBW argued that it does not make sense economically to let them run longer. No insurer wanted to insure nuclear, and no energy company wanted to keep losing money on nuclear. Since nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation, it makes sense to switch it off…

> The Greens were not in Office when the nuclear exit was decided 2011. Schröder was talking about it in 2000: * https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/15/johnhooper * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder#Domestic_poli... Oh, and he was appointed to Gazprom (and other Russian energy companies) after leaving politics: * https://www.dw.com/en/former-chancellor-schröder-sworn-in-at... (He did encourage ren…

> It's so expensive that prices in France, which generates >60% of power with nuclear, are at the same levels (or lower) as Germany, while producing less carbon per kWh than Germany (a quarter from some articles I've found).

Maybe you should take a closer look how those prices come to be.

Every single nuclear watt is being subsidised and has been for decades.

Last time they wanted to play the free market game, they had to bring the company back into the forgiving hands of the French taxpayer.

I have rather Germany invest into future tech then waste it on rotting reactors which are obviously unfit for the current state of global warming already.

Nuclear was clogging up the grid with it's expensive energy. It is gone now and the grid is diversifying while it follows the path of complete decarbonisation.

There is absolutely no reason to look back for Germany and only those whose ideology is "looking back" seriously do that currently.

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#59

Post by SoftTalker » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC

raphinou wrote: post #36

QuercusMax wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heat can't be converted losslessly to useful energy, but converting to heat to other forms of energy is extremely common. What do you think a steam turbine, boiler, internal combustion engine, etc. do ?

But all the examples you give have a heat source of high temperature and dense energy, and a lot of energy is lost in it's transformation, as illustrated by the combustion engine. How can heat be a good energy storage if so much is lost when you want to use it?

If it's free to collect (solar) then efficiency matters a lot less.

Re: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

#60

Post by freehorse » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 6:02 PM UTC

RandomLensman wrote: post #52

freehorse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we are talking about countries, what matters is the political decisions, not the technical details imo.

What German political decision back then do you mean that cut off supply via NS1?

Political decisions that lead to that point and geopolitical situation. The russians cut the gas on their terms because it would have happened anyway and they were not stupid. Then somebody else blew the pipe up and the whole discussion conveniently ended. The divestment from russian economy and blocking imports was already established, but germany and others could not phase out the gas that fast.