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Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

ise.fraunhofer.de

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Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#201

Post by eldaisfish »

Taig wrote: post #141
martinald wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard for renewables to replace coal or nuclear though, because coal and nuclear provide baseload power, whereas wind and solar are very intermittent and require basically 100% gas backup (as there will be circumstances with very low wind and solar, which tends to happen in europe on very cold, still, winter nights when demand is the highest). There is absolutely no reason the (ex-west) German nuclear power plant…

> It's hard for renewables to replace coal or nuclear though, because coal and nuclear provide baseload power, whereas wind and solar are very intermittent and require basically 100% gas backup (as there will be circumstances with very low wind and solar, which tends to happen in europe on very cold, still, winter nights when demand is the highest). I absolutely agree with you that we need the coal plants and imports…

How is energy storage a solved problem? All the battery storage in the world today would power half of Germany's minimum electrical load for minutes.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#202

Post by ulfw »

TomK32 wrote: post #93
Aachen wrote: post #8

Electricity, maybe. Energy? I wish. This headline would be more true if we had transportation fully electrified and all buildings heated with heat pumps, but last I heard the proposed law to require the latter transition to be started in 2024 was dropped again, and they're also still debating about starting to require transitioning the combustion engine fleets to electric by, what was it, 2030? I also still see stick…

Heating is one thing we have tackle, but also transportation which uses up 27.1% of energy in German. Individual transportation should be a main target, we would all shift from cars to public transport or bicycles. About 40% of distances driven with cars are shorter than 5 kilometers, a distance that's perfect for a bicycle. On top of that, car owners tend to underestimate the cost of their cars[1] [0] https://www.um…

This is why so many are fed up with Germany and especially Germany's current government. You know, maybe people don't want to bike in a country where it's too hot in the summer, too icey/cold/snowy in the winter and where it rains constantly in the other two seasons?

This whole attitude of "I tell you how to live your life because reasons" is preposterous.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#203

Post by frnkng »

jskrablin wrote: post #161
Taig wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany actually replaced the nuclear energy with wind & solar. The argument that remains is that instead of phasing out nuclear, reducing coal would have been preferred. The decision to phase out nuclear has long been made (for good reasons). Keeping them active or even building new reactors of that kind is not an economically viable solution. The price Germany pays for this is higher carbon emissions for the time b…

What Germany gained is more pollution, higher CO2 emissions and a lot of hopium that current energy fubar will somehow be resolved sometimes in the unspecified future using semi specified technology (there is no large scale energy storage solution available for renewables and it will stay like this for some years to come). Shutting down nuclear was a political decision, fueled by pure ideology (and some Russian help…

The grid in Europe is so stable that you can literally use it to synchronise a clock by counting the oscillations.

Error over time: 0

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#204

Post by ulfw »

lopis wrote: post #73
Aachen wrote: post #8

Electricity, maybe. Energy? I wish. This headline would be more true if we had transportation fully electrified and all buildings heated with heat pumps, but last I heard the proposed law to require the latter transition to be started in 2024 was dropped again, and they're also still debating about starting to require transitioning the combustion engine fleets to electric by, what was it, 2030? I also still see stick…

In the meantime, Switzerland is installing solar panels on train tracks [0] instead of, I don't know, people's roofs. There is so much promising tech coming out in terms of energy storage and we're seeing almost zero investment from governments. Everything's backwards. [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/98944-switzerland-installing-s...

"The pilot project, which is expected to be completed this summer at a cost of $560,000, will see Sun-Ways use a regular train to lay down 60 solar panels on a 140-foot stretch of railway track near the city of Neuchâtel"

it's not like all of Switzerland is doing this on all rail tracks. It's 60 small panels. A tiny experiment, nothing more. Who says they are "instead of, I don't know, people's roofs"?

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#205

Post by KptMarchewa »

neuronic wrote: post #109
KptMarchewa wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could leave nuclear, and "replace" lignite with wind and solar instead, you actually replaced nuclear with lignite. >The decision to phase out nuclear has long been made (for good reasons). No, it was made for bad reasons. >Keeping them active or even building new reactors of that kind is not an economically viable solution. The price Germany pays for this is higher carbon emissions for the time being until re…

Your comment is wrong and malicious and looking at the data proves you wrong. Using lignite only slowed the reduction of coal, nuclear was almost completely replaced by renewables. https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...

This only shows that you could remove more coal keeping nuclear... https://i.imgur.com/4dH6osj.png

Not to mention all the previously closed plants.

Every MW of nuclear shut down while coal is still running is coal displacing nuclear.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#206

Post by ffgjgf1 »

locallost wrote: post #186
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grids in Europe are interconnected. So you can build nuclear and and import wind/solar from the surrounding countries which would effectively be the same.

Or you can build solar and wind, which is what Germany is doing to replace coal. Successfully. Don't really see your point.

Solar and wind alone can’t provide 100%. Not yet anyway..

> Successfully

Yet the amount of energy generated by burning coal has only increased.

*https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#207

Post by maigret »

ulfw wrote: post #202
TomK32 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is one thing we have tackle, but also transportation which uses up 27.1% of energy in German. Individual transportation should be a main target, we would all shift from cars to public transport or bicycles. About 40% of distances driven with cars are shorter than 5 kilometers, a distance that's perfect for a bicycle. On top of that, car owners tend to underestimate the cost of their cars[1] [0] https://www.um…

This is why so many are fed up with Germany and especially Germany's current government. You know, maybe people don't want to bike in a country where it's too hot in the summer, too icey/cold/snowy in the winter and where it rains constantly in the other two seasons? This whole attitude of "I tell you how to live your life because reasons" is preposterous.

Biking all year is perfectly possible in most of Germany. There are enough good clothes to counter bad weather, snow and especially ice keeps getting rarer. Biking adoption depends most of the infrastructure and also whether your peers do it too. It has also many positive health side effects.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#208

Post by eldaisfish »

Taig wrote: post #170
jskrablin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Germany gained is more pollution, higher CO2 emissions and a lot of hopium that current energy fubar will somehow be resolved sometimes in the unspecified future using semi specified technology (there is no large scale energy storage solution available for renewables and it will stay like this for some years to come). Shutting down nuclear was a political decision, fueled by pure ideology (and some Russian help…

The European electricity market is working quite well, imports and exports are expected to happen. Countries prefer to import electricity when it is cheaper than producing it themselves. Germany has more than enough capacity installed to handle its energy needs (even if a lot of this is still fossil). Germany does not have an "often unstable electricity grid", not at all. That information is simply wrong.

Many of your comments are misleading and are often renewable energy propaganda.

"In 2023, Germany lacks 15 to 20 gigawatt of secured power output”. This comment was from Harald Schwarz, Professor for energy distribution and high voltage technology at the Brandenburg University of Technology. EU Fact check rates this as mostly true.

The claim that germany has sufficient capacity for its energy needs is just wrong.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#209

Post by locallost »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #189
locallost wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree. That would imply that Germany should be criticized more than the US, but this cannot be. The US did not close its nuclear plants, but is still at 60% fossil fuels. I don't think this is a coincidence because when Diablo Canyon was extended, the first thing that happened is that they asked for a billion dollars so they are able to even run. Nuclear is an expensive distraction and a hog of resources (t…

Is it that more expensive if you take into account all the externalities from burning coal? Increased cancer risk due to high radiation, other pollution etc. CO2 is just the cherry on top.. > That would imply that Germany should be criticized more than the US, but this cannot be. This is tangential and there is also no need to resort to whataboutism for no reason.

There's no whataboutism, I wasn't saying Germany might be bad, but look at someone else. I'm asking a question about the logical conclusion of what you're saying: the most important thing is to keep nuclear plants alive before coal is removed. Sure, but it can't be right. Many countries are doing that, e.g. the US, and failing to decarbonize as quickly as Germany. So it's illogical and irrational.

Furthermore there can't be whataboutism because Germany is a leader in fossil fuel reduction this century. So there's nothing "bad" to accept and to do whataboutism about.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#210

Post by ffgjgf1 »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #195
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have no relation to each other. How? Surely you wouldn’t need to burn as much coal if nuclear plants were still running?

Nuclear plants in Germany only deliver electricity, and only where the grid is connected. But coal is used also used for heat and chemical processes, and outside the grid. No source of electricity can cover that yet in a short timeframe. And even if we are just talking about electricity in grid-connected locations, with the high cost of nuclear plants, it makes more sense to just buy it from others, and wait until ne…

isn’t coal more expensive if you take all the negative externalities into account? Specifically increased rates of cancer and other diseases caused by pollution on top of CO2 emission?
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