6 ms·
Quote from "The myth of the dark side of Germany’s Energiewende" [1] : The narrative of Germany’s dirty Energiewende rests on the idea that renewables could no
by oska 8y ago
Quote from "The myth of the dark side of Germany’s Energiewende" [1] :
The narrative of Germany’s dirty Energiewende rests on the idea that renewables could not live up to their promise to fill the gap of retiring nuclear reactors. Consequently, that gap needed to be closed by power generation from coal.
But if we look at the figures we get quite a different picture. The yellow line in Figure 2 above depicts how the amount of electricity from nuclear declined from 2000 to 2014. Due to the decommissioning of old plants, nuclear power had been declining steadily. When the German government decided on the phase-out, in 2011, some nuclear power stations were shut down immediately and the output went down more quickly. Afterwards, the steady decline continued once more.
The green line shows the steady rise of renewable energy in the same period. In 2011, more electric energy was provided from renewable sources than from all nuclear facilities. In 2014, renewables achieved a share of approximately 29% in total electricity generation. So renewables have substituted the falling nuclear production in terms of total annual power generation and are very likely to continue doing so until 2022 when the last nuclear plant will be shut down.
[1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-myth-of-the-dark-side-of-germanys-energiewende-94542/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-myth-of-the-dark-side-of-ger...
(I would encourage you to read the whole thing).
- reitzensteinm 8y agoI would encourage one to not read this link. I was waiting to get to the place in the article where they acknowledge that Germany could have kept their 50 TWh of nuclear online and cut coal by the same amount - a reduction of 20% - but I guess that wouldn't fit in to the narrative they're trying to spin, because they completely ignored der Elefant in das Zimmer.
- oska 8y agoThe point well made later in the article is that even if they had kept their nuclear plants running, coal would still have increased in 2012 and 2013 because in those years energy production from coal was very profitable and Germany has a ready export market to sell it to. Irregardless that domestic energy consumption actually trended down in those years. > Both effects – the drop in coal and CO2 allowance prices – have made coal an extremely profitable fuel for power generation. Notably, both developments happened in 2011, the year of the nuclear phase-out.
- reitzensteinm 8y agoYes, I read the whole thing, hopefully so others can avoid wasting their time. Germany could easily have counteracted this with public policy. You can't take a post mortem of the effects of government heavily influencing energy policy, then throw up your hands and say "ah, capitalism, what can we do" when it's convenient.
- oska 8y agoSorry, but I'm having trouble finding the cogency in this comment. If your point is that Germany could have cut exports of power generated by coal through public policy then yes, I would agree. But how is that a defence of keeping nuclear running?
- reitzensteinm 8y agoMe: Article posted is intellectually dishonest because it doesn't mention the possibility of keeping nuclear but shutting down coal You: Article in fact states that if nuclear were kept online, coal would still be profitable to export Me: This could have been prevented by public policy You: Yes, it could have. I don't understand your point, perhaps because English is not your first language (Edit: now deleted)
- oska 8y agoThe point is that the shut-down in nuclear did not increase the use of coal (the reduction in nuclear production was more than ameliorated by increased renewables supply). That was my initial point of rebuttal from the top-level comment. The use of coal increased for reasons independent of the shut-down of nuclear and mainly because export of cheap coal energy became more profitable, as argued in the linked article. So the public policy failure was in letting CO2 price allowances fall. The linked article also states the aim of the Energiewende has always been to transition away from both coal and nuclear (fission at least) to 100% sustainable energy production.
- zeroname 8y agoThis is highly misleading information from the usual suspects. The total output in kWh of heavily subsidized solar/wind energy is not the issue. The problem of the "Energiewende" is that the highly volatile wind/solar output can not supply the base load without massive buffer storage. The technology for that storage does not exist. Only nuclear, coal or the more expensive natural gas can supply the base load. What actually makes the whole charade work is that Germany dumps surplus electricity (at a loss) during peak times and then imports what's missing during down times from other countries (for example the highly nuclearized France). If all the neighboring countries did what Germany does, it couldn't work.
- lispm 8y ago> for example the highly nuclearized France Which does the same. France imports electricity in high demand times (winter) or low production times (hot summer weeks, maintenance, ...). France dumps cheap nuclear on its neighbor countries in times of surplus production because of low demand. https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/france-supply-risk-as-nuclear-output-to-hit-10-yr-low--tso/953933 https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/france-supply-risk-as-nu...
- oska 8y agoA very good point and one which brings up the misunderstanding of what base-load power is. Base-load power is the power that continues to be generated even when there is low demand for it. Base-load is generated by energy production plants that are extremely expensive to shut down / run up again. Base-load does not have much relevance in the energy environment we're heading to where excess supply can be stored and then excess demand can be delivered from storage.
- zeroname 8y ago> Base-load power is the power that continues to be generated even when there is low demand for it. That is wrong. Base load is the minimum demand of electricity at any given moment over a time span. The base load that a wind turbine without buffer storage can supply is zero. The same goes for solar, obviously. The vast majority of renewable energy in Germany happens to be wind, its storage and transport remains the biggest (and unsolved) challenge.
- woodpanel 8y agoSide note: the author of said piece is a member of Germany‘s communist party’s think tank [1]. So I‘d take his data-collection with a grain of salt or two. [1] https://www.rosalux.de/profil/es_detail/KWR6NOICIU/conrad-kunze/ https://www.rosalux.de/profil/es_detail/KWR6NOICIU/conrad-ku...
- oska 8y agoYou're welcome to actually challenge his figures and the conclusions he draws from them, rather than just making a tawdry ad hominem.
- woodpanel 8y agoSo you suggest that I, by pointing out what the author in his pieces doesn't (!) – that he is politically heavily aligned on this issue – am making an fallacious argument? Doesn't that count as ad hominem too?
- oska 8y agoPerhaps you would like every article he writes to be marked with an inverted red triangle?
- luroc 8y agoOh wow is that the famous american 'anything slightly left is communist'? Last time I checked he Rosa Luxembourg Foundation was affiliated with the leftist Party and not the DKP.
- woodpanel 8y agoThat you are deliberately picking a fringe party like DKP and not even mentioning Die Linke to which Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung belongs a bit odd to say the least. As a German, I can assure you, when someone (outside of universities or leftist circles) talks here about the „Communist party“ no one thinks DKP or MLPD or whatever. They think die Linke. Lest not for the fact that it is the direct descendant of Eastern Germany‘s communist ruling party.