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

#241

Post by bluGill » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

emsign wrote: post #222

inigyou wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People don't seem to understand hypotheticals. Of course it was never considered by anyone. There was no possibility anyone sane would consider it.

However we can still discuss what would have happened if they did.

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

#242

Post by kachnuv_ocasek » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #120

jillesvangurp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries paired with the right inverters solve this fully. Buys you enough time for powering up backup power in the form of a good old steam turbine (gas or coal powered). No need to keep spinning if they aren't needed. The good news is that batteries are deployed at almost the same scale as solar now on grids world wide. They can respond in more or less real-time to huge fluctuations in supply and demand and smooth…

The other thing that massive synchronous machines provide is fault current handling. A turbine hall can eat 10x rated current for several cycles. Semiconductor junctions cannot tolerate anything remotely close to this.

Thankfully, synchronous condensers, flywheels and other fossil-free technologies exist.

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

#243

Post by hunter-gatherer » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

quantumwannabe wrote: post #183

jmyeet wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the methodology of that 100kg (per kg) figure for beef, for several reasons: 1. It's not the true Carbon or CO2 figure. It's weighted for other greenhouse gases. That's kind of an issue because methane naturally breaks down (into CO2 and water) over time. The methane issue comes up all the time in such estimates (eg leaks in natural gas pipelines) where methane is a worse greenhouse gas but temporary (7-12…

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.

I'm not an expert here, but I see what you're saying. Is the carbon calculation from the meat _processing_??? Every year I hunt a buck and carry it off the mountain. So the carbon footprint for getting that meat for my family is really the drive up to and from wherever I'm hunting from, plus a few other small things that probably amount to almost nothing.

I live close to a large meat processing facility, and it appears to be quite an energy intensive operation from the outside. Never been inside though, so I can't say for sure. But transporting live cattle, feed, water, slaughter, freeze, freeze+transport all might be pretty carbon heavy.

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

#244

Post by perpetuallunch » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #230

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.

Is cost of electricity to the commercial, industrial, and retail residential customer an important factor?

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

#245

Post by hamper653 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #58

throw0101d wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

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

This is just plain false. In the 1990s and early 2000s, EDF was generating a whole lot of profit, which it wanted to reinvest. The governments of the time (both left and right) said: "Nope! We’ll take that, thank you." As a result EDF stopped making new nuclear plants and, most importantly, new nuclear engineers and technicians. When the government suddenly decided to have EDF build a new plant 15 years later, the 1980s generation was all but gone, the industrial know-how had vanished, and thi construction costs very logically skyrocketed. Oh, and in the meantime EDF had been (and still is) forced to sell electricity to its competitors under production cost.

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

#246

Post by teamonkey » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #81

I'm confused by the US conservatives' full court press for fossil fuels and against wind/solar. I believe it's mostly about protecting existing money/power structures, but I don't really know. I mean, where does all Trump's energy on this topic come from? Is it owning the libs or courting donors or the Heritage Foundation/AEI? If it's really about protecting fossil fuel wealth, is there a long-term plan or are they j…

My favourite theory is that the climate crisis is stressful to think about, reducing its impact requires everyone to make sacrifices, and there’s a lack of control over the situation.

People will be inclined to latch on to anyone making an alternative suggestion: it’s a hoax, it will all be fine, the real problem is those people making you make sacrifices. It’s a relief to think that way, because the alternative is harrowing. It’s an easy sell for populists who are willing to say anything to get votes.

See also Covid: it’s easier to think of it as some kind of hoax than parse the true horror of the situation. Someone comes along and says it’s far less bad than the news is reporting, that these solutions aren’t necessary. You don’t need to feel guilty that you want to break isolation, find masking uncomfortable and find the jab unpleasant, because it’s all made up.

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

#247

Post by sir_brickalot » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #200

alpineman wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, plus the ethical angle. It's a bit ridiculous that we have people researching the 'theoretical ethical treatment of LLMs' when we are doing such awful things to animals on a massive scale. We have dogs and cats as pets and we eat cows and pigs (in Western countries). As if cows and pigs didn't also have personalities, memories, parental bonds, the ability to feel pain. It's a mass wilful ignorance. What's the d…

Where do you draw the line though? Because plants themselves (DNA-beings) are also alive . Unless you decide to go on a full mineral diet.

Your argument sounds like the nirvana fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

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

#248

Post by alpineman » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #237

alpineman wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being alive, it's about having emotions and the ability to feel pain. Plants don't cry out for days when their children are taken away from them. Plants don't remember your face, come up to you and want attention. Plants don't scream when they are killed (no matter what some edgy research shows). Or to put it more simply, would you feel bad pulling a plant out the ground? I would imagine probably not.…

> it's about having emotions and the ability to feel pain That's just a random line you have drawn. > Plants don't cry out for days when their children are taken away from them. Plants do feel pain and react to their surrounding. They are more primitive creatures though. > would you feel bad pulling a plant out the ground? Yes, I wouldn't do it and I am from a country where pulling an olive tree is illegal (with a ja…

Plants don't feel pain as pain is generally understood. They don't have neural circuits, nociceptors, or brains. We have all those things. Cats, cows, and pigs have all those things.

That said, plants do have defense mechanisms, of course. But that's not the same thing as pain or emotions.

In any case, generally strawberry pickers aren't traumatised in the same way as slaughterhouse workers.

Even if one were to view animal and plant lives as equivalent, around 40% of all crops are grown to feed animals.

Needless to say, it's a lossy conversion. Calorie-wise it's far less efficient for an animal to eat the food and for us to eat the animal, than for us to just eat the plant directly.

So if you really want to reduce un-necessary plant deaths/suffering, then ultimately eating less meat is the way to do it.

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

#249

Post by hamper653 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:16 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.

> by shutting them down you free up resources (including human expertise) that can be used elsewhere.

To buy coal?

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

#250

Post by anon48293 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

RandomLensman wrote: post #51

throw0101d wrote: post #48

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. 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.

Actually no, or unlikely, since it’s a massive escalation. Even in Ukraine Russia does not strike the nuclear plants. They strike all the other power plants though.

So it’d actually be the safer option.