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The good news is, that for this year so far, 38% of the electricity in Germany comes from renewable sources. Solar and Wind generation capacity is still growing
by _ph_ 9y ago
The good news is, that for this year so far, 38% of the electricity in Germany comes from renewable sources. Solar and Wind generation capacity is still growing. But the big energy companies like to use their paid-off coal plants, as it is profitable, and politics isn't currently putting much pressure onto them to stop it. As coal plants cannot be quickly switched on or off, Germany is exporting a lot of electricity into the neighbor countries - whenever the sum out of the renewable sources and the coal produces an electricity surplus. From time to time we even have negative rates at the electricity exchanges.
There is a very quick way to reduce the carbon footprint: use more gas plant. They exist, but they are mostly idle, as gas costs more than coal. Using them rather than the coal plants would have several instant effects: gas produces less pollution, and produces less CO2 than coal for the same amount of energy. Also, much less electricity would be produced, as gas plants can be throttled fast enough to avoid overproduction.
So the carbon could be down quickly, only requiring to be less protective to the coal jobs and the energy companies revenues.
- bmcusick 9y agoI didn't know that gas was more expensive than coal in Germany. It's cheaper in the USA; a lot cheaper. But then we have chosen to implement fracking and Europe does not. I'm very supporting of Germany's carbon tax and renewable goals, but the fracking bans and the shutting down of nuclear plants seem to be doing themselves more harm than good in the medium term.
- _ph_ 9y agoGermany is importing gas, while we have our own brown coal - huge power plants are sitting close to the mines. The imported gas comes to large parts from Russia - the US is also trying to increase gas sales to Europe.
- makomk 9y agoGermany has multiple square miles of open-cast lignite mines feeding straight into their coal-fired power plants. Incredibly cheap, far more environmentally destructive than coal in general. (A German YouTube user I follow posted a really good video of the endless barren wasteland where German countryside and villages used to be, but he seems to have taken it down.) I believe they've shut down essentially all of their traditional underground black coal mines for cost reasons.
- nickik 9y agoIts funny when I talk to people. I'm like lets buy modern nuclear from china. We can fix this whole energy emission problem in a couple of years. "Balbab nuclear waste balbal". Ok. Fine. Whatever. Lets build gas plants, we can do it quickly and we will massive reduce CO2 and lots of other bad stuff until it can actually be done with renewables. "Balbalbab CO2 Blabalba" Ok so you will only accept money being invested in renewable energy even if they will not be able to replace coal in many, many years. "Balbabla more solar blablaba" That conversation is so infuriating to me because the very same people are to ones who basically want to go all Manhattan project on global warming. I just don't understand that mindset.
- _ph_ 9y agoI don't know how this is an answer to my comment. Care to clarify?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cisanti 9y agoAnd in the end: are you willing to pay for the electricity more? - - no way!! It's like a religion but without knowing the holy book. Nuclear is the answer or someone better find out how to store big amounts of energy if we want to have it all solar.
- zmb_ 9y agoAbout 40% of energy production in Germany is still coal, and 15% nuclear. Nuclear will be shut down by 2022 and coal will be shut down more or less quickly depending on politics. This means that Germany will be looking for a replacement for over half of their energy production within the few next decades. There is not enough hydroelectric capacity in Germany, so the only viable solution is gas -- in addition to lots of solar and wind. Hence Nord Stream 2. Germany wants to have multiple options for gas providers in order to negotiate good deals. So yes, gas is definitely the future of German energy production, unless something completely unexpected happens.
- jojoo 9y ago> There is not enough hydroelectric capacity in Germany Build pumped storage plants in 1km succession along all the high Fall lines of the Mittelgebirge. Ideally right next to the Wind Turbines that are already there. Sure, it's only 50-300m of height, but in sum it will be enough. Voith and Siemens will be more than happy to produce those Turbines.
- namlem 9y agoMaybe France will build more nuclear plants and sell the power to Germany.
- _ph_ 9y agoIt currently looks rather that France is not going to build any more nuclear power plants but rather wants to extend their use of renewable energies - which are cheaper than new nuclear power plants.
- selectodude 9y agoClimate change is wreaking havoc on existing plants, too. The rivers they use to cool them are getting too warm and they're having to shut plants down over the summer (when they actually need the power).
- 9y ago
- elihu 9y agoThere's geopolitics involved as well: I believe Europe gets most of its natural gas from Russia, and they would rather move away from that if they could for strategic reasons.