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

intellinews.com

291–300 of 341 posts

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

#291
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For renewables (solar, wind) to work reliably you have to provide on-demand backup, invest in energy storage systems and increase investments in electric as renewables are often far away from consumers. (German offshore wind in north, major industrial consumers in south). So direct comparison of isolated costs of renewables and nuclear is misleading. You have compare the whole system.

People who did this found renewables to be cost effective.

"Germany has one of the most ambitious energy transition policies dubbed ‘Die Energiewende’ to replace nuclear- and fossil power with renewables such as wind-, solar- and biopower. The climate gas emissions are reduced by 25% in the study period of 2002 through 2022. By triangulating available information sources, the total nominal expenditures are estimated at EUR 387 bn, and the associated subsidies are some EUR 310 bn giving a total nominal expenditures of EUR 696 bn. Alternatively, Germany could have kept the existing nuclear power in 2002 and possibly invest in new nuclear capacity. The analysis of these two alternatives shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende. Thus, Germany should have adopted an energy policy based on keeping and expanding nuclear power."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2...

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would that estimate include other hypotheticals like what would be the price if they kept building Nuclear?

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

#293
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who did this found renewables to be cost effective.

"Germany has one of the most ambitious energy transition policies dubbed ‘Die Energiewende’ to replace nuclear- and fossil power with renewables such as wind-, solar- and biopower. The climate gas emissions are reduced by 25% in the study period of 2002 through 2022. By triangulating available information sources, the total nominal expenditures are estimated at EUR 387 bn, and the associated subsidies are some EUR 31…

Isn't this the guy that double counted everything? Because he counted when something got bought and then counted the subsidy used to buy and added then together?

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

#294
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who did this found renewables to be cost effective.

"Germany has one of the most ambitious energy transition policies dubbed ‘Die Energiewende’ to replace nuclear- and fossil power with renewables such as wind-, solar- and biopower. The climate gas emissions are reduced by 25% in the study period of 2002 through 2022. By triangulating available information sources, the total nominal expenditures are estimated at EUR 387 bn, and the associated subsidies are some EUR 31…

Germany invested in renewables already at a time when they were very expensive. This created an economy of scale that brought prices down to everybody. Nuclear was never economical anywhere, so no, Germany should not have expanded nuclear. I think it could have kept them running a bit longer, but those decisions were made a long time ago and changing them also has a cost.

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

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Germany has one of the most ambitious energy transition policies dubbed ‘Die Energiewende’ to replace nuclear- and fossil power with renewables such as wind-, solar- and biopower. The climate gas emissions are reduced by 25% in the study period of 2002 through 2022. By triangulating available information sources, the total nominal expenditures are estimated at EUR 387 bn, and the associated subsidies are some EUR 31…

Isn't this the guy that double counted everything? Because he counted when something got bought and then counted the subsidy used to buy and added then together?

Double-counting was criticism from Fraunhofer ISI. Jan Emblemsvåg has responded to the criticism with follow on article:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2026.2...

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

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is of course not something any sane person will believe once he looks at the overwhelming volume of evidence to the contrary from countries that have not committed energy suicide.

Please provide us with a sane explanation.

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

#297
post #147
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.

It's the sporadic good news item in a sea of bad? Moving away from fossil fuels is a big task, these are the first signs that things are happening.

there is far more good news than bad news, but unfortunately the human mind reacts much more intensely to the latter.

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

#298
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…

You should get your facts right, this is a propaganda myth.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(it's not a coincidence, it's the exact opposite formula. You can only get 20% out of a certain heat engine because running it in reverse would be a 500% efficient heat pump, and the closed loop can't be more than 100%. This still applies even if the engine isn't built to be able to act as a heat pump, because some other engine could.)

I don't see why that would be the case. Why is the 20% of eg. an internal combustion engine coupled to the 500% COP of a heat pump? I see a vague connection as an ICE also uses expanding gasses etc, but that's about it. What am I missing?

An ICE is not an ideal heat engine. But if you did have an ideal heat engine, it could either produce work by reducing a temperature difference, or increase a temperature difference when provided with work. No physical device can do better than an ideal heat engine.

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

#300
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?

More often that not I think this is a cheap excuse. When you look at struggling companies (take the car industry for example), I think the issue is more about missing innovation and building things that people don't want or can't afford anymore in Germany.

Given how European car companies, German in particular, are sticking their heads in the sand and lobbying the commission to delay the EV transition, I suspect the end game will be that the manufacturers will be bought by the Chinese car companies. The future VW, BMW, Mercedes etc will be Chinese cars with the traditional marque on the hood.

Maybe Porsche can survive by going independent, downsizing drastically, and selling 911's to the nostalgic faithful.

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