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Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

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Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway gets most of its wealth from fossil fuel. While it's not Saudi Arabia nor Venezuela, and they invested in long term sustainability, it's not fair to everyone else to say that they are at 80%EV because they are forward thinkers, but because they have the money to do that.

100 % agree. They somehow figured out early that its better to sell to the others and stay renewable themselves.

Yes, but you have to somehow insinuate that this is a bad thing without ever clearly stating a thesis of why it's a bad thing.

Otherwise people might think investing in green energy, EVs and heat pumps is a good idea with good return on investment and positive externalities and should be done by any competent government.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#352
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Thats a lot of historical revision if you blame a dude who was minister for 3.5 years about decisions made 20-30 years ago. Same for your last paragraph. Nothing even close to that happened in the years he governed. Maybe you should start showing recipes because it looks like your grievances are personal in nature and everything but factual.

> it looks like your grievances are personal

Given the changing voting behavior in Germany, these personal complaints seem to be quite widespread.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

I'm not German nor do I live there, but I would have thought the legacy of Habeck would be more negative due to his opposition to nuclear.

[flagged]

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#355
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Thats a lot of historical revision if you blame a dude who was minister for 3.5 years about decisions made 20-30 years ago. Same for your last paragraph. Nothing even close to that happened in the years he governed. Maybe you should start showing recipes because it looks like your grievances are personal in nature and everything but factual.

More like 3.5 years, right? December 2021 through May 2025.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#356
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well of course but the manufacturers of the micro inverters sure try to cheat: https://www.heise.de/news/RelayGate-Deye-Solar-Microinverter...

From what I remember, it turned out that the electronics were sufficient. Though the chance of issues (e.g. in case of a software but) were/are increased.

Well, it turned out that the micro inverter in question did not contain the necessary physical relay to show conformity with the claimed norms on electric safety (related to disconnect from the grid in case of grid failure).

They only had a software implementation and were forced to send all customers in Germany a free relay dongle to ensure safety.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#357
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

[flagged]

That post is some dangerous half-knowledge and simplifications stated as fact.

Yes, Habeck is an interventionist, but his biggest interventions were a direct response to... you know, the war in Ukraine. What did anyone expect? When Putin turned off the gas, was Habeck supposed to just let the free market sort it out while factories shut down and people froze? Those price caps and the Uniper buyout weren't pre-planned. I'm sure he would have preferred to have never been in that situation in the first place.

And the reactor shutdown argument never gets old, does it? The decision to ditch nuclear power was made in 2011 by Angela Merkel. Habeck was just the guy who had to turn off the lights at a party that ended a decade earlier. Remember all those predictions of nationwide blackouts in April 23? Funny how the lights are still on.

The claim about coal usage was true for about five minutes in the winter of 22. It was a temporary panic move to save gas, and since then, coal consumption has dropped to a historic low. It's also funny how renewables—the actual backbone of our energy system, which were on the rise long before Habeck, are framed as a "gamble." The upsides and downsides are very well understood by now. There was never any gambling involved but I guess let's just frame a strategic, well understood, decade long move to renewables as a snap decision gamble.

Look, no one's saying his term was perfect. And yes, the man has charisma, which is apparently a bad thing now?

But calling his term a "disaster" while ignoring the reality of the crises he faced—coming out of COVID, the energy war, is just strange.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#358
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

[flagged]

There was no strong push way from nuclear energy, just a continuation of Germany's general nuclear energy path.

Studies also showed that this had no negative effect on electricity prices.

Core voters of the green party are mostly highly educated people[1]. There are not many more women than men in their voters[2]. I hear the first time about public employmemt, and haven't seen any statistics about that.

Regarding energy he certainly didn't gamble on energy. He gave everything for a transition away from gas and coal and invested in renewable storage systems (short and long term storage) backed by scientific institutions continuously evaluating, planning and simulating the transition of Germanys energy system including related sectors until 2045/2050 [3]. Thanks to storage a renewable energy system can be reliable while highly dynamic. He reduced the time needed to create wind turbines massively as well.

He also prevented a complete crash of the economy and infrastructure caused by the dependency on gas of Putin which greens have not been a fan of, because of ecological issues as well as the danger of Putin which only the greens recognized before Putin started the war on Ukraine.

Rising debt to invest into the future and infrastructure was then plan of the greens, but they got blocked (and medially attacked for it - claiming it was not needed) by the current government which then realized this plan (at least from a high level perspective) with the help of the greens in the opposition, because a simple majority isn't enough for increasing debt.

I am not aware of active acceleration of a decline of the industry beyond the decline which was already in the system for years and the situation we were in due to COVID and the war.

[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/chart...

[2] https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2021-09-26-BT-DE/chart...

[3] https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-de/index.php

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#359
post #286
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your take on the gas policy failure. It was hard to prevent because Russian gas was so cheap. How could the German government have forced companies to buy more expensive gas elsewhere?

> How could the German government have forced companies to buy more expensive gas elsewhere? By not building the gas pipelines.

You mean by not letting private companies build the pipelines?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#360

> German regulations limit balcony solar systems to 800 watts, enough to power a small fridge or charge a laptop. That gotta be a big laptop!

Better be safe for future AI GPUs

800 W. In a laptop. The heat output of a hot air gun or two.
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