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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

#271

Post by triceratops »

rdevsrex wrote: post #193
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…

This is the most Euro commie thing I've heard in a long while. Sure, get rid of factory farms and CAFO's, but I see nothing wrong with raising animals on family farms where they eat a nutritious diet in line with what they evolved to eat. Grass for cows, pasture and bugs for poultry, silvopasture for pigs. Anyone who wants to go vegan for ethical or environmental reasons is fine, but I hate this idea that all of us h…

> I see nothing wrong with raising animals on family farms where they eat a nutritious diet in line with what they evolved to eat.

Me either. It just means beef will become about 10x more expensive in places that don't have so much grassland or pastureland. Which is almost all of the places. You cool with that?

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

#272

Post by triceratops »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #5

Imagine how much better carbon emissions would be in Germany if they hadn't dismantled nuclear! https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/live/fifteen_min... Anyone is free to compare France and Germany here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292341 I should call this Triceratops' law or something.

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

#273

Post by triceratops »

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…

Average German industrial electricity prices spiked in 2021, 2022, and 2023. 3 years. That's it. By 2024, they were back to the same level as 2017.

https://www.dw.com/en/high-electricity-prices-a-threat-to-ge...

In other words it's been approximately 2.5 years since prices recovered. If Germany industry can be irrecoverably damaged by 3 years of high power bills, maybe there were deeper issues.

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

#274

Post by bijowo1676 »

themaninthedark wrote: post #207
marcosdumay wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't like factory work. Given options, they will choose to do some less physically wearing work that pays more, and pay somebody else to do it. Robots are the answer to reindustrialize the developed world, but that necessarily keeps industry smaller than services.

I don't think you have set foot in a factory recently. Factory work isn't generally physically demanding, more tedious & repetitive than anything. It's air conditioned, generally pays a lot more than minimum wage and has benefits.

modern factory work is really not much different from fast-food chains.

You have a job description, the standard operations manual, and you operate the machine that does most of the work.

All complicated work is either outsourced to machines, enterprise systems, or architects/chief engineers that setup the whole system on day 1.

all day 2 operations are mundane blue collar work, just like warehouse work or fast-food work with no viable path for career growth

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

#275

Post by frm88 »

anon48293 wrote: post #250
RandomLensman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday expressed "serious concern" after Moscow accused Ukrainian forces of launching a drone attack on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine

May 31st,2026 https://abcnews.com/International/iaea-issues-ukraine-nuclea...

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

#276

Post by ragebol »

foota wrote: post #70
ragebol wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When looking at hat kind of graphs, it's good to keep in mind that burning hydrocarbons is relatively inefficient: only ~20-30% of the energy in the fuel turns into useful work, while electricity is much, much more efficient. So, we need much less of it. Still a long ways to go regardless, but much less bleak. And also, exponentially growing deployments of wind and solar are harder to spot on this 2-year old graph wh…

> only ~20-30% of the energy in the fuel turns into useful work, while electricity is much, much more efficient. So, we need much less of it. Isn't a lot of energy used for heating, not work?

True. For residential heating, heat pumps make for a similar ratio as they make 3-5 units of hear for 1 unit of electric energy, depending on conditions.

The challenge in heating is industrial heat, which is much hotter. Can't do that with heat pumps (yet?)

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

#277

Post by realusername »

purerandomness wrote: post #265
realusername wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely do, they are debating to remove it or not at the moment. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/government-agrees-phase...

You didn't read your own article. They're debating to end feed-in tariffs for solar panel electricity. Germany does not have set electricity prices like France does with the EDF.

"cut compensation payments for electricity", that's called set electricity prices, the state is buying higher than the market

And by the way, France also only has set electricity prices above market for renewables as well, same as Germany.

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

#278

Post by hamper653 »

themaninthedark wrote: post #270
hamper653 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mine is re-shore all industry "The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new indus…

Not sure exactly what the point of quoting Marx at me was supposed to be... People need jobs and a functioning economy to live. This thread started with the GGGP talking about the decline of Germany's economy contrasted by the meteoric rise of China. GGP states it's capitalism's fault. GP says even if Germany disappeared from the face of the earth the current emission levels wouldn't even notice. My parent asked why…

> Not sure exactly what the point of quoting Marx at me was supposed to be...

You’re 178 years too late. "Reshoring" was a pipe dream then, it is even more of a pipe dream now.

> What is your solution?

What makes you think there is a solution?

Except for really really really wanting there to be one?

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

#279

Post by whateverboat »

perpetuallunch wrote: post #244
rootusrootus wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. Thanks for bringing it up. Something that is not emphasized enough is how much of the dampening effect has the renewable energy has had on the electricity prices. It is estimated that without the renewables, the electricity prices would have easily been 8ct/kWh higher and may be even upto 10 ct/kWh.

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

#280

Post by atoav »

raphinou wrote: post #90
atoav wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use it directly, see my silbling comment.

so all such 'energy' storage are to be used as heat and no other form of energy? The name energy storage is somewhat confusing then, even if not incorrect? Heat storage would be more accurate iiuc.

No of course not. But using the heat directly is of course favourable, since you don't have conversion losses. But that doesn't mean you can't use it also to power turbines as you wish to.

The advantage of that type of storage is that it scales very well. Batteries are cool when space is an issue. But when it is not, digging out a hole and insulating it is surprisingly effective per unit of work stored there.

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