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The Great German Energy Experiment

technologyreview.com

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Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#61

Post by anamax »

eru wrote: post #38
cturner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theere's a basic role of government that's widely agreed upon - that it keeps us from hurting one another and clarity on the use of roads and telecommunications channels and the like. And I realise that opinions diverge above that, but I'll put mine. Generally government is poor at picking winners, and inefficient, and seems like a bad place to look for inspiration in engineering. When governments set up things like…

> They could just not tax us, and then we could pursue our own projects. Or, if you agree that a low-carbon future would be a good thing: Tax carbon usage, and, since you don't like the government spending money, just distribute the proceeds equally among the population. This works out to a net impact, modulo transactions costs, on the average carbon-emitting person of zero, but rewards and punishes the outliers.

What if I don't agree that a low-carbon future would be a good thing? What if I think that the tax is too high? What if I have higher priorities?

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#62

Post by Tichy »

macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

Being German and having voted Green most of my life (until the pirate party came along), I still watch those energy subsidies with suspicion. I am just not certain the money is spent in an efficient way here. As for the jobs in the green energy sector, apparently China already (or still) is cheaper than Germany in producing solar power cells. So much for that investment.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#63

Post by Symmetry »

onli wrote: post #20

The article has a heavily biased view. Some points it gets wrong: >"If you close eight nuclear plants, which were carbon-free, overnight, you will increase carbon emissions," Nuclear plants are not carbon free. Getting the uranium, transporting the nuclear waste, transporting the people who run the plant costs a lot of carbon emissions. You need to look at the whole picture. >Inevitably, some hot July week will come…

Nuclear plants are not carbon free.

No, but of course solar power isn't carbon free either by the same logic. The problem is that in the short term the power that those nuclear plants were providing is being made up for by coal plants, which are much worse for the environment.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#64

Post by minikites »

cturner wrote: post #35
macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

Theere's a basic role of government that's widely agreed upon - that it keeps us from hurting one another and clarity on the use of roads and telecommunications channels and the like. And I realise that opinions diverge above that, but I'll put mine. Generally government is poor at picking winners, and inefficient, and seems like a bad place to look for inspiration in engineering. When governments set up things like…

Under this model, how would we end up with something like the Interstate Highway system?

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#65

Post by jorleif »

Xylakant wrote: post #58
jorleif wrote: post #45

One of the things that always surprises me when talking about lulls from wind and solar power, is that the assumption always is that we _have_ to provide continuous power. Would it not be possible to have industrial facilities that run in bursts when the energy is available (or more likely cheap), and then turn off again? Sure, this is not as easy as the old way to do things, but seriously, this is not impossible, na…

The problem with many large industrial processes is that they cannot be run that way. Think a steamcracker for example: Shutdown takes days, starting up as well. It's so (energy) hungry that its cost-efficient to leave all parts in the chain running if one fails and just burn the resulting light oil. (Makes for a spectacular flame on the skyline). Aluminum processing falls in the same category. There are other proces…

I know very little about heavy industrial processes, but probably in many cases there are alternative processes that are not optimal in the case of continuous power, but with fluctuating power supplies they might become viable.

A possible alternative would be running some process which produces some valuable output, which can be stockpiled. What I'm thinking about is that rather than trying to store energy, one could rather make e.g. PET bottles (probably a stupid idea). Then if there is too many PET bottles, they are burned for energy, but otherwise they are slowly consumed.

What about making a small piece of some ridiculously grand project, slowly, little by little. For instance, building a train tunnel across the Atlantic with robots that only run when power is available? The bad points with that is that it will only be useful when ready, but perhaps a similar kind of mining operation? Dig a little deeper every time energy is cheap enough.

Surely most industrial operation would not work, because the startup costs are large, making the returns convex in the size of investment. But maybe there are concave operations? Many human operated tasks are. It is easy to make a good meal for 4 people, but much more difficult for 40. With robotics at least, one would think that operations with similar properties would be available.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#66

Post by aqme28 »

adventureful wrote: post #28
pcrh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is, however, the rule of comparative advantage, which means that it is better to import energy than to produce the same amount domestically, if the import is cheaper. How that is balanced against the benefit for domestic producers, I wouldn't know...

Only if the calculation includes the vast benefits of domestic energy production, properly sourced, and not just the basic price of energy. Such as keeping First Solar and SunPower in business (FSLR has lost 95% of its value). The jobs created through installation, maintainence, R&D, manufacturing, and so on. For example: let's say your import cost is $250 billion, but your domestic cost is $300 billion. I'd argue th…

For solar, sure, but domestic oil and coal production can have far-reaching environmental consequences that aren't easy to calculate.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#67

Post by mbq »

macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

The problem is that this money is spent not on how to make usable "green" energy but how to be more efficient in consuming gov's subsidies to "green" technologies.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#68

Post by skore »

ars wrote: post #46
DasIch wrote: post #27

I find the criticism torwards the Energiewende quite hard to understand, sure it is a very difficult problem but unless we find a fundamentally new energy source or nuclear fusion becomes viable the path Germany is on is without alternative. It's better to work on the problem now, developing knowledge that helps our economy and makes us a worldwide leader than holding it off unless we are near collapse due to oil pri…

> I find the criticism torwards the Energiewende quite hard to understand It's not that complicated. Making a solar panel costs more energy than it produces for decades. So all Germany is doing is making China foot the CO2 bill. China makes the solar panel with all the associated CO2 costs, Germany installs it and claims no CO2. Globally they are doing nothing useful, except maybe pushing the costs down. I especially…

That's false on a number of levels.

A) It's not just solar.

B) A lot of the manufacturing actually happens in Germany. It's just that recently, China is spinning up the competition. Market at work.

C) "costs more energy than it produces for decades". Even if that were true, it would still be a better deal. You provide no source for proof because there is none - Particularly considering technological progress, this will soon be even more laughable.

D) It's not about frigging CO2. That's part of the deal, but reducing it to that is dangerously close to obfuscation.

E) "except maybe pushing the cost down" - there is a gold mine of discovery and realization being brushed away with crushing ignorance there. "pushing the cost down" is quite the magic thing in the history of mankind, you know?

F) "The one and only technology" - Yeah right. Tell you what, there is an article linked at the top which talks about the actual, one and only technology. It's already working and being implemented.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#69

Post by onli »

toemetoch wrote: post #40
onli wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Belgium. Maybe air conditioners there are more common? In Germany, it is said that cold winters are more dangerous for the energy balance, as the cold also increases energy demand and the photovoltaik-cells aren't as useful as in a hot (and sunny) summer.

Please read again. Energy demand was lower because it was a holiday, nothing to do with air conditioners.

Thanks. I didnt get that fully, because i saw that reply as phrased as a critic to my statement, whereas it supports my point (which was, that high demand/low availabality because of the summer is unlikely in that scenario). Or not, but it is not a real critic on my statement.

Of course such scenarios happen, especially the situation you described.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#70

Post by kokey »

DasIch wrote: post #27

I find the criticism torwards the Energiewende quite hard to understand, sure it is a very difficult problem but unless we find a fundamentally new energy source or nuclear fusion becomes viable the path Germany is on is without alternative. It's better to work on the problem now, developing knowledge that helps our economy and makes us a worldwide leader than holding it off unless we are near collapse due to oil pri…

I think you touch on a rather important point. Germany has to make these technologies work, because the alternative is having to rely on gas from Poland and Russia and nuclear energy from France, oil also from Russia and coal from somewhere not nice either. I'm not a big fan in government spending on less efficient technologies, except that in this case I believe the wars and uncomfortable partnerships that can be avoided this way will make it pay for itself.
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