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German digital signage ban prompts confusion

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Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#81
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot power a country with wind power alone. Even if you want to build wind turbines, you need nuclear, gas, or coal to back them up.

If you build enough renewables, then there comes a point when at times you're generating more than is needed immediately. That surplus electricity can be used to make hydrogen gas by electrolysing water. The gas can be stored indefinitely and burned to generate electricity when needed. So with enough renewables, no fossil fuels are needed.

This is not false, but the economics are not good for the full round trip. There are efficiency losses in the conversion both ways and hydrogen storage is not fun as it is very low density and due to small molecule size, prone to leaking through almost anything. Probably a lot of hydrogen will be produced this way during renewable peaks, but mainly it would be for industrial processes that need it.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#82
post #6

Quoted post unavailable.

Also Germany: repoens , I believe approx. 8 GW, coal plants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliecoleman/2022/07/08/germany... I'm sorry, but this is hearfelt: the German greens are climate criminals . And they were fully warned of exactly this situation decades ago, so no, they have zero "circumstances forced our hand" defence. You knew , and you chose to burn coal anyway .

what blame do the Christian Democrats have for this?

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#83
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is getting rid of annoying ads at night "normalizing poverty"?

Because it's done in the name of energy savings and the only reason that we all have to save energy is so the political elites of the West can play Risk against Russia.

We have to save energy to soften the blow of the climate catastrophe. The Russian imperialist aggression is just an additional selling point.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#84
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homes are heated with gas, not with nuclear power. Industrial processes run on gas, not on nuclear power.

Problem is, without nuclear power, they will have to resort to generating power from natural gas instead of using that gas for heating, which will in turn have problems compound.

Right now gas plants are running to stabilize the grid in France...

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#86
post #46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real, when they installed some of these ultra bright billboards by the street, I'd get blinded by them as I waited at the traffic light, especially on shorter winter days. The operator claimed they don't run them in the dark, but that was definitely a lie.

> The operator claimed they don't run them in the dark I think the following progression of events leads to many of those blindingly bright digital signs at night: Original sign conforms with regulations and comes with a light sensor to dynamically adjust brightness. It's bright during the day, dim during the night. After a few months the light sensors gets gunked up with dirt. Display now thinks its night all the ti…

It's not only a gunked up light sensor, it is buggy software as well that is running those panels. At least that is what I heard from a friend working in the industry maintaining those displays.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite sure brand advertisers will not concur.

Of course. Same with tobacco and oil companies working against transparency for smoke health risks and climate change.

A large portion of the advertising is to get people to switch brands. A smaller portion is to get new customers. Banning advertisement increases the profits for the already established brands (for at least the short term).

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Germany: repoens , I believe approx. 8 GW, coal plants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliecoleman/2022/07/08/germany... I'm sorry, but this is hearfelt: the German greens are climate criminals . And they were fully warned of exactly this situation decades ago, so no, they have zero "circumstances forced our hand" defence. You knew , and you chose to burn coal anyway .

> I'm sorry, but this is hearfelt: the German greens are climate criminals. And they were fully warned of exactly this situation decades ago, so no, they have zero "circumstances forced our hand" defence. The Greens have not been in government for the last sixteen years . It was the conservative governments under Merkel and particularly the environment and later economy minister Altmaier who openly celebrated reducin…

I'd say it's the fault of neoliberalism (which certainly has a foothold in parts of the CDU/CSU and all major parties really, not just the FDP) that most infrastructure projects of the past decades have been limited to a few failed prestige projects (powerlines just aren't as sexy as a massive airport nobody can use) but it's the fault of the Greens (not specifically the party but the general political movement it stems from) that we're at a point where we are stuck with coal because nuclear is no longer an option.

I'm not saying it's bad they protested nuclear. Nuclear needs to go, too. It's just bad that they hyperfixated on nuclear because it's easier to scare people about it and that they didn't ensure we get rid of coal first. Scaring people about nuclear was child's play after Chernobyl if the threat of the Cold War wasn't enough (as the public already conflated nuclear power and nuclear weapons). The coal industry's political power is much greater in Germany tho and taking it on would have meant finding a way to bridge the cultural gap between blue collar Kumpels and the more college educated Birkenstock crowd.

Hopefully FFF and XR are finally doing some of the work now but sadly the opposition has also gotten better at its game and that Kumpel at his Stammtisch beer will most likely make bad jokes about "Greta" despite not batting an eye if you ask him to sign a petition to shut down all nuclear plants.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#89
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power issues in Europe will be big enough going into the winter that the few German nuclear power plants will likely the least of our issues.

"We are going to have a severe lack of energy, so shutting down nuclear power plants is likely the least of our issues"? I'm afraid I don't follow the logic here.

Shutting down the German nuclear power plants does not help the situation obviously but right even turning them on now is not going to help us at all over the winter. First of all not enough energy gets generated from there in the grand scheme of things, secondly they would not be operational in time.

If you want to look for more nuclear to turn on, have a look at France where less than 50% of nuclear power plants are currently generating energy.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much electricity can plausibly be saved this way? About third of what was used before. > And how does that compare to the energy required to reprogram and possibly renew all these signs? That's cost of doing business and a one-time thing.

> About third of what was used before. How much is that as a fraction of the total electricity consumption?

According to the source linked in the top comment, we are looking at a total consumption of 113.000 MWh per year for those displays. One third of that is at least around 30.000 MWh of saved energy.
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