5 ms·

This isn't very ambitious. Ontario, which was pretty dependent on coal, managed to end it in less than a decade. https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal https://w

This isn't very ambitious. Ontario, which was pretty dependent on coal, managed to end it in less than a decade. https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal

drpgq 8y ago
At a pretty ridiculous cost all things considered.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bparsons 8y ago
  Every year you wait, the more expensive it becomes to do stuff like this. Solving hard problems is usually unpopular.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > Every year you wait, the more expensive it becomes to do stuff like this. It seems like the opposite is true: Every year you wait, the upfront and recurring costs drop. Unless you have a serious near-term problem arising from the status quo (e.g. stagnant air filled with coal exhaust), and that problem can be solved altogether at a tolerable cost, there is no advantage to moving first or early.
    - onli 8y ago
      Not necessarily, if during the time you wait the energy companies build more coal power stations. Which they planned to do, despite it being obvious how bad at an idea that was. Happened over the last years often in cooperation with cities, which now have the problem of being stuck with polluting coal power stations that are not even profitable anymore. Contracts are often laid out in a manner that the cities have to shoulder the load. My sympathy is limited, they could have listened to the advocates of green energy who predicted that. Anyway, deconstructing those new coal power stations and trying to help the affected cities and regions would raise the price of moving to green energy later. I'm not sure that would be completely offset by the lower prices and technological improvements one can expect to see each year.
- iamlucaswolf 8y ago
  I loosely followed the work of the "Kohlekommission" (i.e. the panel that was responsible for negotiating the exit plan) through various German news outlets. The strategy agreed upon today was a revision of an earlier plan that would have cost a "mere" 5bn euro. This deal was however opposed by the individual federal states of Germany, which demanded 60bn – just to put the final 40bn in perspective. 40bn is still a huge sum of money (about 1/3 Jeff Bezos, for scale), but as a German voter and tax payer I have to say that I am entirely fine with this. Germany is a very prosperous country, and we have to get away from coal, the sooner the better. True, it probably could have been done with less money, but to me 40bn is still a favorable deal over no deal at all.
jseliger 8y ago
Indeed. And Germany blew one chance to substantially decrease fossil fuel usage: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/bit-context-trump-nato.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/bi...: 2. It was Schröder who made the decision to take Germany off nuclear power and also to make the country energy-dependent on Russia: As Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project, which aims to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, thereby bypassing transit countries. The agreement to build the pipeline was signed two weeks before the German parliamentary election. On 24 October 2005, just a few weeks before Schröder stepped down as Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover 1 billion euros of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan…Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted Gazprom’s nomination for the post of the head of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream AG, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest. Russia now provides 35% of Germany’s oil imports and 39% of the natural gas imports.
- zuzun 8y ago
  Schröder and his government kick-started the German renewable energy sector. The nuclear exit was a long term plan that was eventually undone by Merkel, which slowed down Germany's progress in this regard. It's like the current coal exit: 20 years is enough time to replace coal with renewable energies. If, however, the next government decides to rely on coal for many more years and then hastily ditches it from one day to the next, the alternatives won't be environmental friendly either. That said, the percentage that nuclear energy contributed to Germany's electricity production has been completely replaced by renewable energies. Gas plays a negligible role there, although it's usage has been growing slightly over the past 20 years. Lastly, people who claim that Germany relies too much on Russian oil and gas imports like to ignore just how much the Russian economy relies on oil and gas exports.
Tharkun 8y ago
Seems like an unfair comparison, given how much of a massive industrial powerhouse Germany is.
microcolonel 8y ago
I think it is pretty unreasonable to compare Ontario's coal industry to Germany's. [0] Ontario went from about 20% coal based electricity, whereas as recently as 2013 Germany relied on coal for nearly half of all of its electric power. Furthermore, Ontario's economy has been effectively stagnant over that period, and the cost of energy clearly played some role in that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288 (though German-extracted coal is largely too expensive to bother with now)
aphextron 8y ago
You have to understand where Germany is at. They have probably the most precarious energy situation of any industrialized nation in the world. No oil or gas deposits of any note, almost entirely landlocked so there's no possibility of offshore drilling or tidal energy, no geothermal, no hydro, terrible solar efficiency, and almost non-existent wind. After coal they are basically left with Russian gas and domestic nuclear, neither of which are extremely appetizing in the long term. It's honestly mindblowing that they are even close to leading the pack here, and I applaud the German people for that. It's not even a close comparison to Canada's unlimited reserves of LNG, hydro power, geothermal, and wind.
- lispm 8y ago
  > alsmot entirely landlocked so there's no possibility of offshor or tidal energy, no geothermal, terrible solar efficiency, almost non-existent wind Electricity production share of those in Germany: 35%. Consumption share: 38%. https://www.bayerische-staatszeitung.de/staatszeitung/wirtschaft/detailansicht-wirtschaft/artikel/erneuerbare-energien-weiter-auf-dem-vormarsch.html https://www.bayerische-staatszeitung.de/staatszeitung/wirtsc...
  - aphextron 8y ago
    >Electricity production share of those in Germany: 35%. Consumption share: 38%. In certain areas during peak generation times, sure. But overall, renewables like wind and solar are simply not viable as a complete replacement to fossil fuels (in Germany at least) until storage of excess capacity has been solved. Until then, Germans will be burning coal or Russian gas all winter long. [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-ag...
    - lispm 8y ago
      > In certain areas at peak generation times, sure These numbers are the average share for the whole year 2018 for all of Germany. > But overall these technologies are simply not viable as a complete replacement to fossil fuels That's not a goal. A communicated goal is to increase the share of renewable electricity to around 85% by 2050.
snowwindwaves 8y ago
I would like to know how many dollars a month people in Ontario pay for electricity before they even use a single kWh. When I lived there the network connection fees, debt retirement charges, etc were way more than the tiny amount of energy I was using. I am sure it has got worse now given the 'hourly Ontario energy price' has not gone up but they are paying renewables 800 $/MWH and they need to hide that in some uplift charge or other.

This isn't very ambitious. Ontario, which was pretty dependent on coal, managed to end it in less than a decade. https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal

drpgq 8y ago

At a pretty ridiculous cost all things considered.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bparsons 8y ago
Every year you wait, the more expensive it becomes to do stuff like this. Solving hard problems is usually unpopular.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > Every year you wait, the more expensive it becomes to do stuff like this. It seems like the opposite is true: Every year you wait, the upfront and recurring costs drop. Unless you have a serious near-term problem arising from the status quo (e.g. stagnant air filled with coal exhaust), and that problem can be solved altogether at a tolerable cost, there is no advantage to moving first or early.
  - onli 8y ago
    Not necessarily, if during the time you wait the energy companies build more coal power stations. Which they planned to do, despite it being obvious how bad at an idea that was. Happened over the last years often in cooperation with cities, which now have the problem of being stuck with polluting coal power stations that are not even profitable anymore. Contracts are often laid out in a manner that the cities have to shoulder the load. My sympathy is limited, they could have listened to the advocates of green energy who predicted that. Anyway, deconstructing those new coal power stations and trying to help the affected cities and regions would raise the price of moving to green energy later. I'm not sure that would be completely offset by the lower prices and technological improvements one can expect to see each year.
iamlucaswolf 8y ago
I loosely followed the work of the "Kohlekommission" (i.e. the panel that was responsible for negotiating the exit plan) through various German news outlets. The strategy agreed upon today was a revision of an earlier plan that would have cost a "mere" 5bn euro. This deal was however opposed by the individual federal states of Germany, which demanded 60bn – just to put the final 40bn in perspective. 40bn is still a huge sum of money (about 1/3 Jeff Bezos, for scale), but as a German voter and tax payer I have to say that I am entirely fine with this. Germany is a very prosperous country, and we have to get away from coal, the sooner the better. True, it probably could have been done with less money, but to me 40bn is still a favorable deal over no deal at all.

jseliger 8y ago

Indeed. And Germany blew one chance to substantially decrease fossil fuel usage: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/bit-context-trump-nato.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/bi...: 2. It was Schröder who made the decision to take Germany off nuclear power and also to make the country energy-dependent on Russia: As Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project, which aims to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, thereby bypassing transit countries. The agreement to build the pipeline was signed two weeks before the German parliamentary election. On 24 October 2005, just a few weeks before Schröder stepped down as Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover 1 billion euros of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan…Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted Gazprom’s nomination for the post of the head of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream AG, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest. Russia now provides 35% of Germany’s oil imports and 39% of the natural gas imports.

zuzun 8y ago
Schröder and his government kick-started the German renewable energy sector. The nuclear exit was a long term plan that was eventually undone by Merkel, which slowed down Germany's progress in this regard. It's like the current coal exit: 20 years is enough time to replace coal with renewable energies. If, however, the next government decides to rely on coal for many more years and then hastily ditches it from one day to the next, the alternatives won't be environmental friendly either. That said, the percentage that nuclear energy contributed to Germany's electricity production has been completely replaced by renewable energies. Gas plays a negligible role there, although it's usage has been growing slightly over the past 20 years. Lastly, people who claim that Germany relies too much on Russian oil and gas imports like to ignore just how much the Russian economy relies on oil and gas exports.

Tharkun 8y ago

Seems like an unfair comparison, given how much of a massive industrial powerhouse Germany is.

microcolonel 8y ago

I think it is pretty unreasonable to compare Ontario's coal industry to Germany's. [0] Ontario went from about 20% coal based electricity, whereas as recently as 2013 Germany relied on coal for nearly half of all of its electric power. Furthermore, Ontario's economy has been effectively stagnant over that period, and the cost of energy clearly played some role in that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288 (though German-extracted coal is largely too expensive to bother with now)

aphextron 8y ago

You have to understand where Germany is at. They have probably the most precarious energy situation of any industrialized nation in the world. No oil or gas deposits of any note, almost entirely landlocked so there's no possibility of offshore drilling or tidal energy, no geothermal, no hydro, terrible solar efficiency, and almost non-existent wind. After coal they are basically left with Russian gas and domestic nuclear, neither of which are extremely appetizing in the long term. It's honestly mindblowing that they are even close to leading the pack here, and I applaud the German people for that. It's not even a close comparison to Canada's unlimited reserves of LNG, hydro power, geothermal, and wind.

lispm 8y ago
> alsmot entirely landlocked so there's no possibility of offshor or tidal energy, no geothermal, terrible solar efficiency, almost non-existent wind Electricity production share of those in Germany: 35%. Consumption share: 38%. https://www.bayerische-staatszeitung.de/staatszeitung/wirtschaft/detailansicht-wirtschaft/artikel/erneuerbare-energien-weiter-auf-dem-vormarsch.html https://www.bayerische-staatszeitung.de/staatszeitung/wirtsc...
- aphextron 8y ago
  >Electricity production share of those in Germany: 35%. Consumption share: 38%. In certain areas during peak generation times, sure. But overall, renewables like wind and solar are simply not viable as a complete replacement to fossil fuels (in Germany at least) until storage of excess capacity has been solved. Until then, Germans will be burning coal or Russian gas all winter long. [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-ag...
  - lispm 8y ago
    > In certain areas at peak generation times, sure These numbers are the average share for the whole year 2018 for all of Germany. > But overall these technologies are simply not viable as a complete replacement to fossil fuels That's not a goal. A communicated goal is to increase the share of renewable electricity to around 85% by 2050.

snowwindwaves 8y ago

I would like to know how many dollars a month people in Ontario pay for electricity before they even use a single kWh. When I lived there the network connection fees, debt retirement charges, etc were way more than the tiny amount of energy I was using. I am sure it has got worse now given the 'hourly Ontario energy price' has not gone up but they are paying renewables 800 $/MWH and they need to hide that in some uplift charge or other.