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

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

intellinews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 341 posts

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

#221

Post by uecker »

RandomLensman wrote: post #114
uecker wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it did exactly this. The pipeline was not the only way to import Russian gas.

What exactly did Germany do when? You mean after a huge supply cut by Russia, Germany moved to reduce/end use of Russian gas?

Russia did not completely cut gas exports to Europa, but reduced in substantially, but this was a reaction to sanctions and the decision in Europa to reduce imports from Russia (but more slowly). In fact, Russia still exports to countries in Europa (to be ended in 2027), but Germany stopped gas imports from Russia in September 2022. So the order of things was that Germany decided to reduce imports from Russia, Russian then gradually reduced and then stopped exporting via pipelines to Germany, and Germany then started to import LNT gas as a replacement but - in contrast to others - not from Russia.

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

#222

Post by emsign »

inigyou wrote: post #124
RandomLensman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany joining the Russian invasion was never anything even remotely in the option space at all - utterly inconceivable in 2022. (Not aware of Russia seeking any such support there either.)

Probably not directly invading, but there was a strong possibility of Germany supporting the Russian invasion, just as they're doing with the invasion of Iran.

That was never considered by anyone in German politics. It's the first time I'm hearing about this here in these posts.

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

#223

Post by themaninthedark »

hamboomger wrote: post #157
bad_username wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the entire Germany stopped existing overnight, this would barely make a dent in global carbon emissions and planet destruction rate.

Okay. What is your solution, then? Except for giving up or downplaying the problem.

What is your solution to: >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.

Except for downplaying the problems or saying they have to suffer?

Mine is re-shore all industry so that products are made according to environmental, health & safety standards. Deploy a mix of renewable and also nuclear power.

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

#224

Post by frollogaston »

tomasphan wrote: post #91

I love renewables, but the problem with solar is the lack of inertia (literally). Big spinning masses like steam turbines have an easier time staying on network frequency. Wind turbines better than solar of course so I hope we continue to have diversity there.

This is interesting. They can't make AC inverters more reliable than spinning motors? I thought the problem was more about supply not matching demand quickly enough.

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

#225

Post by emsign »

bluGill wrote: post #131
RandomLensman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I think it is absurd to say there was a Russian reaction because Germany did not join their invasion of Ukraine,

The absurdity is intentional. However it is still correct. If Germany had joined Russia (and got away with it!), there is every reason to think the pipeline would still be flowing.

Ukraine would have blown up the pipeline anyway. And the land pipelines would have been cut off to Germany by the Eastern Europeans. So no, the gas would not still be flowing with a high probability. That's so absurd.

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

#226

Post by volkl48 »

sleepyguy wrote: post #191
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…

The next frontier should be preventing forest fires. This is just Canada, imagine if we could prevent them around the world. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-... >Stoked by Canada’s warmest and driest conditions in decades, extreme forest fires in 2023 released about 640 million metric tons of carbon

We tried "preventing forest fires" for about a century, and it's a large part of why they're burning so intensely and destructively now.

Forest fires are a natural part of the life cycle of many forested regions - particularly in Canada and the Western US.

Suppressing all fires as soon as possible means that dead, dry plant matter continues to build up for decades longer than it naturally would, creating a "tinderbox" effect where eventually you have vastly more intense and destructive forest fires than would typically have occurred if you'd just left nature alone in the first place. And because these fires have so much more concentrated fuel they also burn hotter and can make the recovery of the forest in the area take far longer to come back.

The correct answer is to regularly perform controlled burns in areas near human settlement and to mostly leave things alone in areas away from it. Much of Canada's land area is literally uninhabited and dozens if not hundreds of miles from the nearest road, much less actual settlement.

--------

Additionally: Strongly discourage new construction in the Wildland-Urban Interface (aka: low density settlement in a wooded setting, your typical picture-esque rural mountain home - that wood is meant to burn one day, taking your cute house with it). Beyond that, strict building codes for whatever does get built there + ordinances for maintaining the space around the home to reduce risk.

Although to a significant extent, property insurers are basically already taking on this role in recent years. I have family out in the hills in CO, their insurance rates are multiple times that of their property taxes and they are now quite strict on evaluating properties in terms of risk-mitigation. And failure to adhere to all of what they want to see means you're getting dropped by the insurer and you will have a very hard time getting a different company to pick you up.

------

Anyway, as another poster noted: The forest grows back and recaptures all that carbon in a few decades, making those fires basically carbon-neutral.

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

#227

Post by emsign »

stefan_ wrote: post #141
pydry wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They installed it and then they took the pipeline down for planned maintenance. it's a little rich to accuse them of playing games with gas after the stunt Canada pulled and most especially after a western partner subsequently blew up the pipeline and blamed it on Russia. Clearly certain western allies decided that Germany couldnt be trusted to make its own decisions about where Germany gets its energy.

Prices going up 1000%? Time for maintenance! If you want to see their approach to maintenance while prices and needs are high, watch them put oil refineries back in operation days after drone hits.

Exactly! All routine maintance in Russian oil refineries are currently on hold indefinitely. Suddenly the Russians are capable of being more lenient.

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

#228

Post by dopa42365 »

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?

Europe has a seemingly infinite amount of coal (same as everyone else), but obviously it's not exactly what anyone really wants (gas and even oil is more climate friendly than coal sadly).

North Sea oil and gas are long past its prime, Norwegian supply is already nearly as expensive as LNG shipped from half the world away. The ideal gas station is Siberia, but that is what it is currently.

So, dunno, what's left, the Arctic? Frack the polar bears?

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

#229

Post by belorn »

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…

Getting people to agree to the same cultural diet is about as easy as getting people to agree to the same religion.

If we could change culture and the global diet, there are many exciting low carbon foods being promoted, especially in aquaculture. Shellfish and seaweed do not rely on artificial fertilizer, fresh water, or people burning down the rain forest.

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

#230

Post by rootusrootus »

GuB-42 wrote: post #63

I have heard this news many times, technically not wrong, but each time with a different metric. This time it is production over a year. It reminds me of the Voyager probes that left the solar system half a dozen times, each time taking a different definition of what marks the edge of the solar system. Anyways, we are now getting to sensible metrics, which is good.

That doesn't seem like a problem as long as the metrics chosen are trending towards greater achievements and are not just attempts at moving the goalposts.
Post reply on HN