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> Germany's attempts to move to renewable power have largely failed, but it does show large scale economic measures are possible. I keep reading this, yet nobo

• simonh 8y ago
  The problem in Germany is that energy costs have spiralled out of control. They have greatly expanded renewable energy sources, but have not been able to decommission a lot of fossil fuel plants because they still need them to serve peak demand at times when renewable sources are not on-line. However lack of investment in fossil plants, which they hoped to decommission, means they are ageing and prone to outages. It's only buying nuclear power from France to plug the gaps that's keeping them operational. It's unfortunate, but such mistakes are far from inevitable in the policies of other countries. The will was there, but hard lessons had to be learned. Yes France's nuclear power is going to be expensive long term, but French per capita greenhouse gas emissions are incredibly low. About 2/3 of the EU average and a bit over a quarter of the US. Factor in any kind of reasonable carbon tax cost, then combine it with an increased contribution from renewable, and French nuclear starts to look quite viable.
  • _ph_ 8y ago
    Energy costs in Germany haven't spiralled "out of control". Yes, electricity is quite expensive for private and small business customers, but that is, because large industry does not bear any of the transitioning costs. The coal plants are kept operating, because it is profitable to the power companies and so far no one has stopped them. This has somewhat improved in 2018. There are no "power outages" because of lacking energy supply. Equally wrong (but often told by certain people) is the story of French nuclear power supporting the grid. It is actually the opposite, when for example in warm summers German solar power delivers critical support to the French grid. Due to the lack of cooling water, nuclear energy often is challenged to match the requirements. On top of that, Germany is a net exporter of electricity (mostly due to the too high coal production, but that hopefully stops soon).
    • hokkos 8y ago
      And again some wrong claims, there is 3 nuclear power plants over 19 that uses the water of rivers to cool down, in the summer there is temperature limits on the outputted water (25°c) for the aquatic life on the rivers. It is a variation of a few GW on about 60GW, that are blip on the daily consumption, and do not impact the grid. Source : https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1025396660615237638 https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1025396660615237638 France is a net exporter to Germany since at least 2011 : https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm?source=de_pf&year=2011 https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm?source=de_pf&year=... France as Germany are the 2 world top exporter : http://www.worldstopexports.com/electricity-exports-country/ http://www.worldstopexports.com/electricity-exports-country/ You can see here in last july and august that france mostly export to germany : https://i.imgur.com/99f8stA.png https://i.imgur.com/99f8stA.png Source : https://www.rte-france.com/fr/eco2mix/eco2mix-echanges-commerciaux https://www.rte-france.com/fr/eco2mix/eco2mix-echanges-comme...
      • _ph_ 8y ago
        Forgive me, when I wrote "lack of cooling water", while there might be water, but you cannot use it for cooling because of the temperatures of the river. But the consequence is the same. Yes, France exports power, but not TO Germany. It exports ACROSS Germany to other countries. The power gets there using the German grid, but not consume in Germany. The French power isn't needed in the German grid - the only time French power is used in the German grid might be short times when there is surplus production which needs to be absorbed in Europe.