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Coal's contribution to German electricity is not flat. It declined markedly in 2019: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-germany-closer-2

Coal's contribution to German electricity is not flat. It declined markedly in 2019: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-germany-closer-2020-climate-target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-ge... German electricity from coal is down 35% since 2010 and 46% since 2000: https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/20191212-BRD_Stromerzeugung1991-2019.pdf https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/20191212-BRD_Stromerzeug...

looping__lui 7y ago
You are correct. I looked up the energy sources after I read the article on CO2 and added up the fossil fuel ones for the past 10 years: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrage/brutto-stromerzeugung-in-deutschland-nach-energietraegern-seit-2007/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrag... I remembered the “very steep decline in nuclear energy whilst fossil fuel kind a went down less” So, yes: we are way down on coal.
renaudg 7y ago
These percentages are largely irrelevant because coal remains the only non-intermittent source that Germany can rely on (in the absence of nuclear), and it's so much more carbon-intensive than the rest that the average figures are still terrible. Because of the intermittence problem, there is simply no chance that Germany can catch up with the best gCO2/kWh results (France and Nordic countries) without an hypothetical breakthrough in battery storage for renewables. Its electricity's carbon intensity is currently 5-10 times higher. Pretty much only Poland is doing worse.
- xxgreg 7y ago
  It's worth noting that none of Germany's reactors were ever run in load following mode (1). So the nuclear reactors also didn't/don't contribute to stabilising the German grid. Also note a 1GW nuclear plant also needs to be backed up to a certain degree by load following plants in-case it trips. The unflexibility of the nuclear reactors is also a problem to network operators, as is the intermittency of wind and solar. 1) Brokdorf was run in loading following mode as an experiment, but the reactor failed, and begun decommissioning early.

looping__lui 7y ago

You are correct. I looked up the energy sources after I read the article on CO2 and added up the fossil fuel ones for the past 10 years: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrage/brutto-stromerzeugung-in-deutschland-nach-energietraegern-seit-2007/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrag... I remembered the “very steep decline in nuclear energy whilst fossil fuel kind a went down less” So, yes: we are way down on coal.

renaudg 7y ago

These percentages are largely irrelevant because coal remains the only non-intermittent source that Germany can rely on (in the absence of nuclear), and it's so much more carbon-intensive than the rest that the average figures are still terrible. Because of the intermittence problem, there is simply no chance that Germany can catch up with the best gCO2/kWh results (France and Nordic countries) without an hypothetical breakthrough in battery storage for renewables. Its electricity's carbon intensity is currently 5-10 times higher. Pretty much only Poland is doing worse.

xxgreg 7y ago
It's worth noting that none of Germany's reactors were ever run in load following mode (1). So the nuclear reactors also didn't/don't contribute to stabilising the German grid. Also note a 1GW nuclear plant also needs to be backed up to a certain degree by load following plants in-case it trips. The unflexibility of the nuclear reactors is also a problem to network operators, as is the intermittency of wind and solar. 1) Brokdorf was run in loading following mode as an experiment, but the reactor failed, and begun decommissioning early.