8 ms·

Well, somebody has to help Germany accomplish its "Energiewende"

hunterb123 5y ago
Nah it's cool they got Nord Stream 2, so they good. Russia will provide them all the energy they need, and the US will provide them defense against Russia. Perfect! - edit - Is it still morally sound if you outsource the immorality elsewhere?
- president 5y ago
  I imagine adversaries of the West are having the biggest laugh at us voluntarily giving up key commodity production abilities in the name of combatting climate change.
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    The historical problem of Russia is inability of exporting any produce other than raw materials, on account of having Europe as neighbour which can produce anything easier and often cheaper. But now, with the carbon tax and gas prices in EU, I wonder if Russian mfg capacity will suddently become competitive. The funniest thing would be Europe pricing itself out of Russian oil due to carbon tax, and then buying now-cheap goods from Russia made based on affordable oil.
    - makerofspoons 5y ago
      Carbon tariffs would be a good way to even the playing field in that scenario.
    - jabl 5y ago
      There's been serious talks about carbon border adjustments, that is, levying an extra import tax on products from countries that don't have a sufficiently ambitious domestic climate change policy, so probably not.
      - g_sch 5y ago
        This strikes me as pretty optimistic given that exactly this kind of carbon dodge has been going on for years (e.g. Europe and the US importing goods from East Asia and other countries running on dirtier fuels)
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    They may be relieved, being the people who suffer most from climate change. It's not much of a laugh.
- woodpanel 5y ago
  Hehe, Russia's just for heating. France for everything else. Poland, Hungary and Greece do our border checks. America does our defense. China is our only customer left and all our "dirty jobs" are done by Eastern Europeans. If that's what it takes to be morally sound - then bring it on destiny, I say, bring it on! Edit: This a German's attempt at sarcasm, please indugle me!
  - selectodude 5y ago
    I laughed :)
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I'm sure we could beat Russia, and China.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Is there a German version of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" [0]? I get German Greens have a very specific agenda for historical reasons, but sheesh. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_spite_one%27s_face https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_...
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    > I get German Greens have a very specific agenda for historical reasons, but sheesh. Germany has been ruled by the CDU for the last 16 years so I'm not sure what exactly the Greens have to do with the current energy policies of Germany?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      My knowledge is as a foreigner, but I was under the impression that the Greens and FDP have both been prospective kingmakers in the last several federal elections, given the math and split between the CDU/CSU and SPD? And I'd assume that as the center, courting interests important to their voters is of outsized importance to the larger parties, in an attempt to peel off votes? But maybe I'm poorly informed?
      - formerly_proven 5y ago
        I see how you can get that impression from the outside. But for the first three Merkel administrations the CDU/CSU very firmly ruled out any coalition with the Greens, which were somewhat left-ish at the time. In that timeframe they undid most of the energy policies ("Ausstieg aus dem Atomausstieg") enacted by the SPD-Greens coalition of 1998-2005, and then later reversed parts of that because public support for nuclear energy collapsed even in the center-right part (CDU, CSU, FDP) of the political spectrum in 2011 due to Fukushima. Some call it "Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg aus dem Atomausstieg". It's far more expensive than the original nuclear exit plan - pretty much a golden parachute for nuclear plant operators, and also caused a significant ramp-up in coal. You're right though that before the final Merkel administration the Greens, the CDU/CSU and the FDP had talks, which ultimately failed because the FDP passed the CSU (the right-wing regional appendix to the CDU) on the right, which was a bit too much for the Greens, which at the time largely occupied the same center-ish position they hold today, having shifted right considerably in the time between 2005 and 2017. Overall the impact of the Greens party has been very small on the Merkel administrations, however, some parts of the green movement (which is not closely tied to the Greens party) in Germany are the majority opinion in Germany (especially when it comes to a heavy anti nuclear stance) and that's sufficient to drive Merkel policy making. It's also important to note here that Germany has a very strong NIMBY attitude, so while the majority "wants" green energy, they don't want any of the infrastructure in sight. I'd also like to point out a fundamental difference between Bundestag culture and US Capitol culture. There are bi-partisan bills in the Capitol, but in the Bundestag it is customary for the ruling parties to unconditionally veto drafts introduced by other parties - exceptions are rare. Almost all votes in the Bundestag are under Fraktionszwang i.e. MPs deviating from the party line won't get on the election list next time around, so don't have a safe seat any more (because parties in Germany can't literally force their MPs to vote their way, they can only "incentivize" it).
_ph_ 5y ago
In recent years, the collaboration between France and Germany in energy production was very beneficial. There are times, when Germany does import electricity from France, this is increasing the profitability of the nuclear reactors, as they can be run at a higher percentage of their capacity, which generally is larger than the French requirements. To be able to follow the varying requirements of the grid, they usually run at 75% load on average. Selling surplus capacity is very attractive then. On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on cooling capacity due to low waters. Germany is still a net electricity exporter.
- woodpanel 5y ago
  Germany "exports" as much as in "dumping excess energy onto it's neighbouring countries grids to keep its own grid from melting" – which is why we run the worst electricity export business in the world, having to pay our neighbours money as they aren't taking it for free.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    It’s cool for the neighbours though, especially france which is a historical exporter (owing to its stable and relatively efficient nukes). When germany pays you 5c to take a kWh off their grid and italy 30 to get one there's good money to be made if your grid can cope.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on cooling capacity due to low waters. That’s usually not true fwiw, germany tends to export when nobody needs the electricity e.g. fair weather with high winds, especially week-ends. And it’s not so much exporting as dumping, german electricity prices regularly go negative because winds crush the grid and they need to shift it so they don’t melt. The “collaborative” aspect is that france has a large and resilient grid well connected to less provisioned southern neighbors (wholesale prices in spain and italy tend to be quite high), so they can arbitrate and profit some. But they also must, because continental europe is a synchronous grid so if germany melts down it fucks up the entire continent.
sva_ 5y ago
I interpret your sarcasm with amusement, but also depression. it's really sad to see how Germany turned away from nuclear evergy. It seems like the 3 main soures are now: 1. Coal, 2. Renewables (Solar, wind, perhaps ocean currents), 3. imported oil. Coal should be deprecated already. Renewables are dependent on environmental effects, in particular solar doesn't work in emergency situations such as volcano eruptions rendering the sky dark. For oil, we depend on third parties, of which we know that they do not have our best interests at heart. It is depressing to see the political situations on these metrics, especially the idea which gets pushed now, which claims that everything will be alright if we just optimize our energy consumption. It ain't gonna happen. People won't meaningfully reduce their energy-consumption, at least not in a way that would justify the use of fossil fuels. So what are we left with? Nuclear is the only good bet you could make right now, while waiting out on fusion. edit: I often think of this meme which goes around, talking about the fact that people are much more willing to donate to a single child in need, rather than a group of children who equally need help. People are prone to take action when they feel like their individual action makes an impact. I feel like this is similar to the fossil fuels - vs - nuclear debate. We know, that about 20mil ppl die every single year due to air pollution. We also know, that a very small, countable number of people died of nuclear accidents, in the complete history of humanity, ever, in total. Yet we seem to think that the few nuclear accident's fatalities are worse than the ones caused by air pollution. Why? Because we are in some way biased to give more meaning to individual events, rather than rates of change that are around us. And it'll break our backs if we don't carefully examine the problem at hand.
- pilsetnieks 5y ago
  > in particular solar doesn't work in emergency situations such as volcano eruptions rendering the sky dark. I'm not familiar with this. Is this a common problem in Germany? Are southern states like Baden-Württemberg more afflicted or less compared to more northern ones like Schleswig-Holstein?
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    No, but winter is. Inclination of the earth means solar produces considerably less energy in winter and this is even more prevalent in far northern/southern latitudes. Also cloud coverage can drastically reduce solar output.
DavidKarlas 5y ago
I have been watching https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE?wind=true&solar=false https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE?wind=true&solar=false for past 2 days... Winds weak, yet even when electricity was expensive yesterday around 6PM, Germany was pushing to France, mostly coal generated electricity... Someone cares to explain?
jaimehrubiks 5y ago
Please someone help Spain as well

Nah it's cool they got Nord Stream 2, so they good. Russia will provide them all the energy they need, and the US will provide them defense against Russia. Perfect! - edit - Is it still morally sound if you outsource the immorality elsewhere?

president 5y ago
I imagine adversaries of the West are having the biggest laugh at us voluntarily giving up key commodity production abilities in the name of combatting climate change.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  The historical problem of Russia is inability of exporting any produce other than raw materials, on account of having Europe as neighbour which can produce anything easier and often cheaper. But now, with the carbon tax and gas prices in EU, I wonder if Russian mfg capacity will suddently become competitive. The funniest thing would be Europe pricing itself out of Russian oil due to carbon tax, and then buying now-cheap goods from Russia made based on affordable oil.
  - makerofspoons 5y ago
    Carbon tariffs would be a good way to even the playing field in that scenario.
  - jabl 5y ago
    There's been serious talks about carbon border adjustments, that is, levying an extra import tax on products from countries that don't have a sufficiently ambitious domestic climate change policy, so probably not.
    - g_sch 5y ago
      This strikes me as pretty optimistic given that exactly this kind of carbon dodge has been going on for years (e.g. Europe and the US importing goods from East Asia and other countries running on dirtier fuels)
- wolverine876 5y ago
  They may be relieved, being the people who suffer most from climate change. It's not much of a laugh.
woodpanel 5y ago
Hehe, Russia's just for heating. France for everything else. Poland, Hungary and Greece do our border checks. America does our defense. China is our only customer left and all our "dirty jobs" are done by Eastern Europeans. If that's what it takes to be morally sound - then bring it on destiny, I say, bring it on! Edit: This a German's attempt at sarcasm, please indugle me!
- selectodude 5y ago
  I laughed :)
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I'm sure we could beat Russia, and China.
ethbr0 5y ago
Is there a German version of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" [0]? I get German Greens have a very specific agenda for historical reasons, but sheesh. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_spite_one%27s_face https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_...
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  > I get German Greens have a very specific agenda for historical reasons, but sheesh. Germany has been ruled by the CDU for the last 16 years so I'm not sure what exactly the Greens have to do with the current energy policies of Germany?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    My knowledge is as a foreigner, but I was under the impression that the Greens and FDP have both been prospective kingmakers in the last several federal elections, given the math and split between the CDU/CSU and SPD? And I'd assume that as the center, courting interests important to their voters is of outsized importance to the larger parties, in an attempt to peel off votes? But maybe I'm poorly informed?
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      I see how you can get that impression from the outside. But for the first three Merkel administrations the CDU/CSU very firmly ruled out any coalition with the Greens, which were somewhat left-ish at the time. In that timeframe they undid most of the energy policies ("Ausstieg aus dem Atomausstieg") enacted by the SPD-Greens coalition of 1998-2005, and then later reversed parts of that because public support for nuclear energy collapsed even in the center-right part (CDU, CSU, FDP) of the political spectrum in 2011 due to Fukushima. Some call it "Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg aus dem Atomausstieg". It's far more expensive than the original nuclear exit plan - pretty much a golden parachute for nuclear plant operators, and also caused a significant ramp-up in coal. You're right though that before the final Merkel administration the Greens, the CDU/CSU and the FDP had talks, which ultimately failed because the FDP passed the CSU (the right-wing regional appendix to the CDU) on the right, which was a bit too much for the Greens, which at the time largely occupied the same center-ish position they hold today, having shifted right considerably in the time between 2005 and 2017. Overall the impact of the Greens party has been very small on the Merkel administrations, however, some parts of the green movement (which is not closely tied to the Greens party) in Germany are the majority opinion in Germany (especially when it comes to a heavy anti nuclear stance) and that's sufficient to drive Merkel policy making. It's also important to note here that Germany has a very strong NIMBY attitude, so while the majority "wants" green energy, they don't want any of the infrastructure in sight. I'd also like to point out a fundamental difference between Bundestag culture and US Capitol culture. There are bi-partisan bills in the Capitol, but in the Bundestag it is customary for the ruling parties to unconditionally veto drafts introduced by other parties - exceptions are rare. Almost all votes in the Bundestag are under Fraktionszwang i.e. MPs deviating from the party line won't get on the election list next time around, so don't have a safe seat any more (because parties in Germany can't literally force their MPs to vote their way, they can only "incentivize" it).

_ph_ 5y ago

In recent years, the collaboration between France and Germany in energy production was very beneficial. There are times, when Germany does import electricity from France, this is increasing the profitability of the nuclear reactors, as they can be run at a higher percentage of their capacity, which generally is larger than the French requirements. To be able to follow the varying requirements of the grid, they usually run at 75% load on average. Selling surplus capacity is very attractive then. On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on cooling capacity due to low waters. Germany is still a net electricity exporter.

woodpanel 5y ago
Germany "exports" as much as in "dumping excess energy onto it's neighbouring countries grids to keep its own grid from melting" – which is why we run the worst electricity export business in the world, having to pay our neighbours money as they aren't taking it for free.
- masklinn 5y ago
  It’s cool for the neighbours though, especially france which is a historical exporter (owing to its stable and relatively efficient nukes). When germany pays you 5c to take a kWh off their grid and italy 30 to get one there's good money to be made if your grid can cope.
masklinn 5y ago
> On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on cooling capacity due to low waters. That’s usually not true fwiw, germany tends to export when nobody needs the electricity e.g. fair weather with high winds, especially week-ends. And it’s not so much exporting as dumping, german electricity prices regularly go negative because winds crush the grid and they need to shift it so they don’t melt. The “collaborative” aspect is that france has a large and resilient grid well connected to less provisioned southern neighbors (wholesale prices in spain and italy tend to be quite high), so they can arbitrate and profit some. But they also must, because continental europe is a synchronous grid so if germany melts down it fucks up the entire continent.

sva_ 5y ago

I interpret your sarcasm with amusement, but also depression. it's really sad to see how Germany turned away from nuclear evergy. It seems like the 3 main soures are now: 1. Coal, 2. Renewables (Solar, wind, perhaps ocean currents), 3. imported oil. Coal should be deprecated already. Renewables are dependent on environmental effects, in particular solar doesn't work in emergency situations such as volcano eruptions rendering the sky dark. For oil, we depend on third parties, of which we know that they do not have our best interests at heart. It is depressing to see the political situations on these metrics, especially the idea which gets pushed now, which claims that everything will be alright if we just optimize our energy consumption. It ain't gonna happen. People won't meaningfully reduce their energy-consumption, at least not in a way that would justify the use of fossil fuels. So what are we left with? Nuclear is the only good bet you could make right now, while waiting out on fusion. edit: I often think of this meme which goes around, talking about the fact that people are much more willing to donate to a single child in need, rather than a group of children who equally need help. People are prone to take action when they feel like their individual action makes an impact. I feel like this is similar to the fossil fuels - vs - nuclear debate. We know, that about 20mil ppl die every single year due to air pollution. We also know, that a very small, countable number of people died of nuclear accidents, in the complete history of humanity, ever, in total. Yet we seem to think that the few nuclear accident's fatalities are worse than the ones caused by air pollution. Why? Because we are in some way biased to give more meaning to individual events, rather than rates of change that are around us. And it'll break our backs if we don't carefully examine the problem at hand.

pilsetnieks 5y ago
> in particular solar doesn't work in emergency situations such as volcano eruptions rendering the sky dark. I'm not familiar with this. Is this a common problem in Germany? Are southern states like Baden-Württemberg more afflicted or less compared to more northern ones like Schleswig-Holstein?
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  No, but winter is. Inclination of the earth means solar produces considerably less energy in winter and this is even more prevalent in far northern/southern latitudes. Also cloud coverage can drastically reduce solar output.

DavidKarlas 5y ago

I have been watching https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE?wind=true&solar=false https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE?wind=true&solar=false for past 2 days... Winds weak, yet even when electricity was expensive yesterday around 6PM, Germany was pushing to France, mostly coal generated electricity... Someone cares to explain?

jaimehrubiks 5y ago

Please someone help Spain as well