3 ms·

This story has been run for a long time now. The best refutation I know of appeared in 2015 in an essay called The myth of the dark side of the Energiewende [1]

by oska 7y ago

This story has been run for a long time now. The best refutation I know of appeared in 2015 in an essay called The myth of the dark side of the Energiewende [1]. I'd recommend reading it for critical balance. [1] https://energypost.eu/energiewende-dark-side/ https://energypost.eu/energiewende-dark-side/

sampo 7y ago
I don't think an essay from 2015 can refute a research paper published in 2019.
- yokaze 7y ago
  I could refute a 2030 study from the flat earth society with an essay from natural philosophers from ancient Greece, if the first doesn't address the established facts of the second. A more detailed rebuttal: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ehsekb/comment/fcldewm https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ehsekb/comment/f...
  - Danieru 7y ago
    Those rebuttals assume a causal relation between shutting down nuclear and an increase in renewables. Aka: shutting nuclear does not mean one gets to credit renewables as the replacement. Instead as the research paper properly accounts for, if nuclear remained in use then Germany would have reduced coal much further. Instead germany is treading water, shutting one carbon free source as it brings online another carbon free source. The net effect is no actual improvement, only a theoretical reduction in risk. Realized outcomes are the same. Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises. For as much as Japan is said to be a society of "saving face" they instead often focus on results over pr. The world would be better off if Germany followed suit.
    - fuckyah 7y ago
      It’s fine, because coal is more renewable than nuclear. Who is going to store the waste for millions of years? Does that cause emissions too? CO2 can be removed from the air. Nuclear will kill you and poison everything for millions of years.
    - lispm 7y ago
      The goal of the Energiewende was not just to replace Nuclear power with renewable, but to enable a new decentralized energy landscape. Is politically harder to replace coal in Germany, because it is a local form of energy - like fracked gas in the US or coal in the US. Germany does not have much oil, gas, hydro, ... resources compared to some other countries, Coal powered industry was what made the industrialization of Germany possible. In that sense the idea that coal kills people is seen in the context, where it actually ENABLED the industrialization and the big industrial areas (Ruhrgebiet, ...). In the same way nuclear before did not replace coal in Germany - instead the big four electricity giants monopolized both: nuclear and coal. Prior to the Energiewende, there was practically no renewable energy in Germany. Electricity production was in the hands of a few (four) big companies, having divided the country in four areas. A big goal was to break up this system and introduce markets for energy, where almost everyone can participate. Nuclear is a big state, top down, non-market industry. It works well with and creates those big authoritarian/centralized systems. It's also favorable in countries which either have nuclear weapons or want the option of nuclear weapons (like Japan, which has the technology, industry and could produce them within a few years, if they wanted -> Nuclear latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency ). That Japan is restarting nuclear, means that the country struggles to restart them in meaningful numbers in the same environment as before with the same old-design reactors... Countries like France or Japan did very little for renewable energy - which is now fast growing and well suited for large regions of the world - Germany helped jump start it...
    - danans 7y ago
      > Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises Japan's energy mix went from 81% fossil fuel in 2011 to 89% in 2016, with most of that coal and LNG [1]. Germany is at 40% of energy from renewables [2]. I'm not saying it's an easy problem for them to solve, but they are far from an example of renewable energy deployment. 1. https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japan_energy_2017.pdf https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japa... 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewables-beats-coal-in-germany-power-mix-for-first-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewable...
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    Funny ad hominem by assocation there on NBER. If I'm parsing that right, they claim the paper is wrong because the place it was published has funders that they don't like? https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-the-nber/ https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-t... Even Krugman, hardly someone that can be accused of conservative bias, agrees that NBER is basically neutral.

by oska 7y ago

sampo 7y ago

I don't think an essay from 2015 can refute a research paper published in 2019.

yokaze 7y ago
I could refute a 2030 study from the flat earth society with an essay from natural philosophers from ancient Greece, if the first doesn't address the established facts of the second. A more detailed rebuttal: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ehsekb/comment/fcldewm https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ehsekb/comment/f...
- Danieru 7y ago
  Those rebuttals assume a causal relation between shutting down nuclear and an increase in renewables. Aka: shutting nuclear does not mean one gets to credit renewables as the replacement. Instead as the research paper properly accounts for, if nuclear remained in use then Germany would have reduced coal much further. Instead germany is treading water, shutting one carbon free source as it brings online another carbon free source. The net effect is no actual improvement, only a theoretical reduction in risk. Realized outcomes are the same. Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises. For as much as Japan is said to be a society of "saving face" they instead often focus on results over pr. The world would be better off if Germany followed suit.
  - fuckyah 7y ago
    It’s fine, because coal is more renewable than nuclear. Who is going to store the waste for millions of years? Does that cause emissions too? CO2 can be removed from the air. Nuclear will kill you and poison everything for millions of years.
  - lispm 7y ago
    The goal of the Energiewende was not just to replace Nuclear power with renewable, but to enable a new decentralized energy landscape. Is politically harder to replace coal in Germany, because it is a local form of energy - like fracked gas in the US or coal in the US. Germany does not have much oil, gas, hydro, ... resources compared to some other countries, Coal powered industry was what made the industrialization of Germany possible. In that sense the idea that coal kills people is seen in the context, where it actually ENABLED the industrialization and the big industrial areas (Ruhrgebiet, ...). In the same way nuclear before did not replace coal in Germany - instead the big four electricity giants monopolized both: nuclear and coal. Prior to the Energiewende, there was practically no renewable energy in Germany. Electricity production was in the hands of a few (four) big companies, having divided the country in four areas. A big goal was to break up this system and introduce markets for energy, where almost everyone can participate. Nuclear is a big state, top down, non-market industry. It works well with and creates those big authoritarian/centralized systems. It's also favorable in countries which either have nuclear weapons or want the option of nuclear weapons (like Japan, which has the technology, industry and could produce them within a few years, if they wanted -> Nuclear latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency ). That Japan is restarting nuclear, means that the country struggles to restart them in meaningful numbers in the same environment as before with the same old-design reactors... Countries like France or Japan did very little for renewable energy - which is now fast growing and well suited for large regions of the world - Germany helped jump start it...
  - danans 7y ago
    > Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises Japan's energy mix went from 81% fossil fuel in 2011 to 89% in 2016, with most of that coal and LNG [1]. Germany is at 40% of energy from renewables [2]. I'm not saying it's an easy problem for them to solve, but they are far from an example of renewable energy deployment. 1. https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japan_energy_2017.pdf https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japa... 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewables-beats-coal-in-germany-power-mix-for-first-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewable...
- ikeboy 7y ago
  Funny ad hominem by assocation there on NBER. If I'm parsing that right, they claim the paper is wrong because the place it was published has funders that they don't like? https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-the-nber/ https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-t... Even Krugman, hardly someone that can be accused of conservative bias, agrees that NBER is basically neutral.