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

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

#211

Post by markvdb »

logicchains wrote: post #168
softwaredoug wrote: post #107

The next frontier will be meat consumption. Particularly red meat. A single 1/4 beef hamburger emits 7-12 kg of carbon[1]. Compared to ~1.5kg of carbon driving your car 3 miles[2]. Not telling you to go full vegetarian, but I'm personally far less interested in a beef product unless you're going to guarantee its an extremely expert prepared steak. Most beef is mediocre. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-im…

There's tens of millions of well-armed Americans who'd rather die fighting then let anyone take away their right to eat red meat, so good luck trying.

To state the obvious, it's not about taking away the right to eat red meat, right? It's about trying to convince people to adopt a diet that is:

- healthier

- tasty

- cheaper

- a small contribution to keeping the planet livable for their children

- as a sign of respect for $DEITY/the planet/...

Many people will see some sense in at least one of the above arguments at one point in life.

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

#212

Post by themaninthedark »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #152
inigyou wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Producing nothing only works as long as there's someone else to produce things for you who wants to produce things for you. It's been China, but only by accident. China is not far away from deindustrializing and then we all suffer. It's a political choice by our own politicians.

> China is not far away from deindustrializing and then we all suffer. How? China is actively moving up the value chain, into EVs, batteries, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, etc. China is not abandoning industry. > It's a political choice by our own politicians. No, it's mostly how our economic system, how capitalism works. Production goes where production is cheap. You’ll never be able to produce goods in Ge…

Or you know, you could demand that the goods being imported are made to the same quality, environmental, health & safety standards as your home country.

But that would turn off the spigot of cheap goods.....

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

#213

Post by frollogaston »

detritus wrote: post #156
alpineman wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The continent is literally on fire due to global warming. Europe does not produce any fossil fuels and needs energy independence. It's because politicians dragged their feet for so long on net zero that we are even in this mess in the first place. Better now than never.

Europe doesn't produce any fossil fuels?

Russia and Norway do. Most of that is Russia, which other countries in Europe still import from. Germany doesn't directly anymore, but there are indirect routes like through Azerbaijan.

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

#214

Post by Gud »

dbspin wrote: post #170
grunder_advice wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef is already too expensive for most people. Americans are probably the exception but I can assure you that most Europeans do not have beef heavy diets. Even culturally, pork (and now chicken) were the proteins of choice.

'Europe' is a big place. Here in Ireland good quality beef is readily affordable, and not particularly more expensive than chicken or pork.

Sweden as well.

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

#215

Post by quantumwannabe »

anticorporate wrote: post #202
quantumwannabe wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s completely made up. All meat is carbon neutral because animals don’t produce carbon atoms from nothing. They get them from the plants they eat which in turn get their carbon from the atmosphere. The carbon cycle is basic scientific fact yet confidently ignored by people who hate things like logging and meat.

By that same logic, fossil fuels are carbon neutral because they come from living things. The problem is we have too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not too much of various assorted carbon-based compounds on the planet.

But the supply of herd animals is essentially fixed. There isn’t infinite growth. Eating meat therefore does not increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, no matter what vegans who want to ban meat for personal moral reasons assert.

If humans stopped eating meat, the only way to reduce the amount of carbon that animals “emit” would be to kill all of them and bury their carcasses underground where they can’t decompose (as that would turn them into CO2).

Burning oil introduces new carbon into the cycle, animals existing does not.

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

#216

Post by tuatoru »

freehorse wrote: post #45
novaRom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But so is German industry - every day in the news either insolvency or workforce reduction and moving production to Eastern Europe - main reason often stated "expensive Energy". I wonder what are the stats for industrial production in 2025 or total energy consumption in Germany?

Discussion about nuclear reactors aside, energy in germany became expensive when they cut off russian gas and they had no good alternative. There was no other source of cheap fossil fuels for electricity production. If anything, renewables are promoted as a solution to that energy problem. The discussion about fossil fuels vs renewables is a bit different within countries which produce fossil fuels than within those…

Germany had no good alternative because its politicians deliberately put it in the position of having no good alternative.

Something is wrong with Germany. Go to Our World InData's Electricity Production per Capita page and have a look at Germany, Vietnam, and say Israel.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-ge...

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

#217

Post by leonidasrup »

softwaredoug wrote: post #107

The next frontier will be meat consumption. Particularly red meat. A single 1/4 beef hamburger emits 7-12 kg of carbon[1]. Compared to ~1.5kg of carbon driving your car 3 miles[2]. Not telling you to go full vegetarian, but I'm personally far less interested in a beef product unless you're going to guarantee its an extremely expert prepared steak. Most beef is mediocre. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-im…

There was a German article comparing different traveled distances between German cities with CO2 impact of meat production.

https://www.merkur.de/reise/reduzieren-sollte-besser-reisen-...

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

#218

Post by nxm »

zingar wrote: post #130
greenleafone7 wrote: post #128

Breaking news: "Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in for the first time" for the 10th time this year. Also on other unrelated news German economy is rocketing to the bottom, their industry is dying with thousands of layoffs, closing factories, and complains on energy prices and they can't even maintain their rail and road networks for the first time since forever. The signs of decline are not even signs anymore th…

What’s your point in relation to this article?

While achieving renewable "success", the domestic manufacturing industry has been decimated/made uncompetitive. Great news for China on the green success!

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

#219

Post by softwaredoug »

logicchains wrote: post #168
softwaredoug wrote: post #107

The next frontier will be meat consumption. Particularly red meat. A single 1/4 beef hamburger emits 7-12 kg of carbon[1]. Compared to ~1.5kg of carbon driving your car 3 miles[2]. Not telling you to go full vegetarian, but I'm personally far less interested in a beef product unless you're going to guarantee its an extremely expert prepared steak. Most beef is mediocre. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-im…

There's tens of millions of well-armed Americans who'd rather die fighting then let anyone take away their right to eat red meat, so good luck trying.

It’s more effective to convince people 95% of beef is very mid. So you’re not missing anything

I would never argue for banning red meat as it will certainly backfire and end up counterproductive.

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

#220

Post by troupo »

freehorse wrote: post #45
novaRom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But so is German industry - every day in the news either insolvency or workforce reduction and moving production to Eastern Europe - main reason often stated "expensive Energy". I wonder what are the stats for industrial production in 2025 or total energy consumption in Germany?

Discussion about nuclear reactors aside, energy in germany became expensive when they cut off russian gas and they had no good alternative. There was no other source of cheap fossil fuels for electricity production. If anything, renewables are promoted as a solution to that energy problem. The discussion about fossil fuels vs renewables is a bit different within countries which produce fossil fuels than within those…

> Discussion about nuclear reactors aside, energy in germany became expensive when they cut off russian gas and they had no good alternative.

Why aside? Germany had to burn gas and coal to compensate for the nuclear reactors they shut down, (and to import electricity from France which didn't shut down the reactors). Germany could've weathered the transition much better, and suffered without Russian gas much less had they not shut down their reactors.

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