22 ms·

Germany boosts renewables with “biggest energy policy reform in decades”

267 points by martin_a 5y ago

screenbreakout 5y ago
I don't know where to add this question without it seeming off subject, but seeing as we're heading into spring, seeing Germany has quite a wealthy economy with a good QOL, that many if not most workers get 5 weeks of holiday, the chip shortage is leading to slowdowns in the automotive industry etc etc... why doesn't the government just go cold turkey, give people a month or 2 free holidays while drastically reducing public lighting, telling businesses to stop heating their premises at night etc ... I mean we had a dress rehearsal 2 years ago with the onset of Covid, this would be easier as people can still go outside it'd befor a good cause and probably give a boost to domestic spending .... also curious I heard a lot of gas is used to make fertiliser... of course it's over-simplification but maybe a lot of that fertiliser is used to grow grain, corn to feed the meat industry....so maybe eating fewer bratwurst would be a healthy, ecological and ethical step which would send a f...U to the rest of the world saying we too can think outside of the box :-)
jansen555 5y ago
martin_a 5y ago
For context: The FDP is a German liberal party, part of the ruling coalition, which is traditionally (with the CDU - "christian democratic union", now in the opposition) very close to the industry with all its lobbyism. For that reason they _must_ be against some of the industry-relating "cuts" but even they have realized that times are changing. --- translation via DeepL The FDP parliamentary group demands significant improvements in the planned legislative package to accelerate the expansion of green electricity in Germany. "With the Easter package, Federal Minister of Economics Habeck is taking a first step in the right direction. However, due to time constraints, all important reform steps could not yet be included in the package," FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr told the dpa news agency in Berlin. FDP parliamentary group vice-president Lukas Köhler said: "We have to use the upcoming consultations to substantially improve the current draft in line with the joint coalition agreement of SPD, Greens and FDP." Shortly afterwards, the federal cabinet approved the comprehensive legislative package for the faster expansion of green electricity from wind and sun. According to the plans of Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck (Greens), the measures are intended to help Germany achieve its climate goals more quickly - but also to make the country less dependent on Russian energy supplies as quickly as possible. It is called the "Easter Package" because the cabinet is expected to adopt the planned legislative changes before Easter. Renewable energy has become a "matter of national security", according to the core content of the energy emergency measures. Several laws are to be amended. The main point is the amendment of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), in which the expansion target for 2030 is raised to 80 percent. The Wind Energy at Sea Act is also to be amended and now also provides for higher expansion targets. FDP calls for "a more realistic target". In general, the electricity supply is to be based almost entirely on renewable energies as early as 2035, and industry is to be supported in entering climate-neutral production processes. Even before Dürr's official statements, the dpa had reported that the FDP only wanted to approve the comprehensive legislative package with reservations. There was talk of a "special procedure" because important issues had not yet been decided by consensus. However, the way should be cleared so that no time is lost. After the cabinet's decision, the FDP parliamentary group called the new EEG an "important building block" to accelerate renewables and make Germany less dependent on Russian energy supplies. However, the draft was still "far from finding a majority in the Bundestag", it said. Central aspects still had to be clarified in the parliamentary procedure, said parliamentary group deputy Lukas Köhler. Earlier, he had said that the cabinet would decide this Wednesday on an "initial basis for discussion" in order to move forward quickly. "A climate-neutral electricity system by 2035 is desirable, but practically impossible to achieve in Germany." Environmental organisations are also calling for improvements - albeit towards an even faster and broader expansion. Greenpeace, for example, called for citizens to be more involved in the expansion of renewables. For Deutsche Umwelthilfe, the lack of land available for the expansion of wind energy remains a shortcoming. At least two percent of the state's land "must be reserved for the expansion of wind energy alone", the organisation demanded. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
- solarkraft 5y ago
  > The FDP is a German liberal party "Liberal" in this case means economically liberal, going in a libertarian direction (though they're more moderate about it).
martin_a 5y ago
@dang: Could you fix the link, please? Should be: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-04/habeck-gesetzespaket-erneuerbare-energie https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-04/habeck-geset...
detaro 5y ago
Headline here doesn't match the article headline and is contradicted by the article. There is no passed law.
- martin_a 5y ago
  While it does not match the article headline, that's the core aspect of the passed law. The FDP will surely want some (more) help for the industry but the point made by the parliament stands.
  - detaro 5y ago
    There is no passed law. There is a proposal for a new law that has not been presented to parliament yet, so "German parliament passes law" is just flat out wrong. The only mention of parliament in the article is one of the government parties stating that it in its current shape won't be able to pass parliament. Flagging this, you can't distort content like that, especially if the majority of readers has to rely on machine translation. But congrats, you now have a clear falsehood top of the front page, well done.
    - _3u10 5y ago
      The important thing is that it says something HN users agree with therefore it’s true.
- capableweb 5y ago
  Not to mention that the title here on HN is in English while the article itself is in German, so you're right, not matching at all.
  - detaro 5y ago
    That too, but I'm not 100% sure if there is an explicit rule about foreign language content or not. But especially if most readers need to rely on machine translation it has to be precise. EDIT: per dang 23 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30663877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30663877 > We have deep respect for languages, but HN is an English-language site, so posts here need to be in English. > That may require waiting until a good English-language article appears, but the more significant the topic is, the more (and sooner) this is likely to happen.
outside1234 5y ago
… and turn the nuclear power plants back on until then?
- moooo99 5y ago
  Not a feasible option by any means. Fuel supply is not secured and takes a long time to prepare (apparently fuel rods a custom made for reactors and have a lead time of 2+ years). On many plants, demolition has already started to an extent. Also many operators apparently skipped certifications that would be necessary to operate beyond the timeline that was set 10 years ago.
- dathinab 5y ago
  The problem is not that they did switch perfectly fine nuclear power plants of, the problem is that they didn't build replacements for old power plants which have to go out of service normally. Many(all?) of the remaining nuclear power plants are already operating well beyond the time they have been designed for.
  - lawn 5y ago
    Same situation as in Sweden.
- BSVogler 5y ago
  You cannot simply do that. This was planned for years and there is no training for staff, contracts like insurance, a location to put the additional waste etc. to prolong the usage of nuclear power plants.
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    The nuclear plants in Germany are not insured, because the estimated 10 Trillion Euro a catastrophic failure would cause is out of question for any insurer. Therfore the German state takes the risk.
otoburb 5y ago
I applaud such efforts, but the fly in the ointment is that the acceleration of renewable energy sources will not only require more capital, sooner, but also different energy sources to be built more quickly. Accelerated timelines for such capital-intensive projects almost always require intense short(er)-term demand for energy which will likely need to come from fossil fuels.
- zamalek 5y ago
  I completely agree that we need to be vastly more aggressive in terms of ditching fossil fuels: fossil fuels are just plain stupid even when you ignore the climate catastrophe that we are causing by using them. However, At this point, assuming we make no more improvements, we have successfully avoided turning Earth into Venus. > require intense short(er)-term demand for energy which will likely need to come from fossil fuels. We're actually starting to trend away from this[1][2]. [1]: https://www.gem.wiki/Category:Proposed_coal_plants_in_the_United_States https://www.gem.wiki/Category:Proposed_coal_plants_in_the_Un... [2]: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/new-coal-plants-dwindle-amid-wave-of-cancelled-projects https://e360.yale.edu/digest/new-coal-plants-dwindle-amid-wa...
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  Can this be avoided/mitigated at all?
BurningFrog 5y ago
In general, when politicians promise something will be done by the different set of politicians in office 10+ years in the future, it mostly means "we're not going to do anything right now".
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  In Germany, post-war there were three chancellors (prime ministers) that were over 10 years in office - Adenauer with 14 years, Kohl and Merkel with 16 years.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  This. Kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with is politics 1-0-1.
  - swarnie 5y ago
    Got to start somewhere. At least Germany is reasonably stable politically, not quite on the level of China but far better then the revolving door style governments seen in southern Europe.
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    Yeah, but this is actually not at all what is happing right now in the German government. Instead of kicking it down the road (and systematically destroying renewables) like 16 years of Merkel did, they actually started to accellerate and do immediate packages, this article talks about one that will be accepted before easter.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  The article describes a proposed law that has significant concrete effects. That's what you judge.
- chess_buster 5y ago
meatsauce 5y ago
aadvark69 5y ago
- sitic 5y ago
  Why? Renewal energy production was at 42.7% in Q1 2021. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2021/nettostromerzeugung-im-1-quartal-2021-anteil-der-erneuerbaren-energien-im-jahresvergleich-gesunken.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2021...
- chess_buster 5y ago
  50% renewables for electricity in Germany this year. So doable.
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    - chess_buster 5y ago
exabrial 5y ago
Probably shouldn't have closed all those nuclear plants.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- martin_a 5y ago
  Germany hasn't build new nuclear plants for ages, even under the conservative governments that were ruling before last year. The plants still running are very old and have become hard to maintain as they have reached EOL. It's not like we are shutting down perfectly good new plants. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
  - recuter 5y ago
    You're shutting down perfectly good old plants, ahead of schedule for no engineering derived reason. InderRealitätbleiben.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      If Japan had shut down all of its plants, decommissioned them and built new plants it would have spent less money than cleaning up Fukushima. The fact that nuclear advocates keep saying newer generation power plants are safe is basically useless because they also advocate for keeping all the unsafe ones online. Tanks have modular power plants that can be replaced and serviced outside the tank. Why isn't the same true for nuclear power plants? Why not just update to the latest version instead of keeping old versions with vulnerabilities? Oh right, because they are monoliths that are a pain in the ass to upgrade. You need to rewrite them from scratch.
    - martin_a 5y ago
      > Most nuclear power plants have operating life-times of between 20 and 40 years. > The main ageing effects of concern are changes in physical properties (e.g., electric conductivity); irradiation embrittlement; thermal embrittlement; creep; fatigue; corrosion (including erosion and cracking assisted by corrosion); > Ageing is certainly a significant factor in determining the limits of nuclear plant lifetime or life extensions. No nuclear plant, including those still under construction or being mothballed, should be considered immune from its effects. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf If we have not, by accident, built some super long-lasting nuclear power plants, they are at EOL as the remaining plants were built in 1982. Which is exactly 40 years ago. Would you take the responsibility for running those things any longer?
nixass 5y ago
Germany becoming laughing stock with ignoring and shutting down nuclear plants
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- solarkraft 5y ago
  This has sadly been decided about a decade ago. Reversing course would (apparently) be more expensive and take longer than building out renewables, especially considering that nuclear power arguably presents more problems than it's worth longer term.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  I don't think so. Here in France, we have our share of troubles. 27 of our 56 nuclear plants are offline and we were asked to reduce heating and electric consumption earlier this week to avoid power cut and keep the grid on. We have lots of difficulties keeping our plants on, due to badly designed and/or maintained plants, and this won't improve with global warming (e.g warmer river and sea in hot summer will make reactors more difficult to cool). Our failure to build our EPR in time and within budget is not reassuring either (from EUR 3.3 to 19.1 billion! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...) I'd much prefer than we switch to solar and wind as fast as possible and as nuclear energy becomes less needed, we retire the big, old plant as safely and cheaply as possible (mmh). Of course, we'd better focus on retiring the most polluting plants first (coal ones in Central / East Europe) but the faster the transition, the better.
TheGigaChad 5y ago
photochemsyn 5y ago
Here's a more accessible link on the same story: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-boosts-renewables-biggest-energy-policy-reform-decades https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-boosts-renewabl... > "By 2030, installed onshore wind capacity should reach 115 gigawatts (GW), the government says. Annual capacity additions therefore have to reach 10 GW as of 2025. Solar PV installations will amount to 22 GW per year as of 2026 to achieve a total capacity of 215 GW by the end of the decade. Offshore wind additions are increased as well to reach a minimum of 30 GW per 2030 and 40 GW by 2035, and 70 GW by 2045. While the government wants to incentivise the production and use of biomethane in highly flexible plants by increasing tender volumes, the use of biomass for power production will be superseded by its use in transport and industry." In particular there's an anti-NIMBYism provision in there that makes a lot of sense. This has been a huge problem for rolling out renewables in the USA from California to New York: > "To ensure that these ambitious growth scenarios are not hampered by lengthy planning procedures, local opposition and contradictions with other protected goals, the government establishes the principle that the use of renewable energies is of overriding public interest and will be given priority over other concerns until greenhouse gas neutrality is achieved." The benefits are obvious: Germany will be able to escape the need to import Russian gas and oil - although the American fracked LNG exporters who hoped to simply seize that market from Russia are doubtless disappointed.
- radicalbyte 5y ago
  > American fracked LNG exporters who hoped to simply seize that market from Russia are doubtless disappointed. Germany has a huge industry which won't be able to switch away from gas that easily so I'm sure that the LNG suppliers will have a market for the next 20 years.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    A much smaller market than expected if Germany manages to reduce demand for gas for electricity and heating.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
j00 5y ago
If one assumes the current trend [1] of the last 13 years, Germany should be at 84% in 2035 by simply not slowing down the transition. So honestly not overly ambitious [1] https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?...
- chess_buster 5y ago
  The target as mentioned in the article is 100%, which the FDP (libertarians) want to water down to 80%. Given your projection, I don't wonder why
  - allendoerfer 5y ago
    The FDP is not libertarian by any measure. Much like the CDU they claim the social market economy of Germany as one of their achievements, which would be called outright socialist in some American circles. From an American perspective they can be compared with the Democrats in the US. Of course the whole political spectrum of America is further right than that of Germany.
  - bally0241 5y ago
    I would hardly call the FDP libertarian.
    - chess_buster 5y ago
      So neither liberals nor libertarian. What are they then?
      - imtringued 5y ago
        Conservatives for the rich with a modicum of backbone to appeal to people who wouldn't vote for corruption scandal parties like CDU but Christian Linder seems to be losing his backbone as well.
- Sol- 5y ago
Faelian2 5y ago
For those interested, here is the primary energy use of Germany. There is still a long way to get rid of coal. https://jancovici.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/chiffres_energie_graph120.jpg https://jancovici.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/chiffres_en...
- martin_a 5y ago
  That is totally outdated, here are more current numbers: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterprises/Energy/Production/Tables/gross-electricity-production.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...
  - m_eiman 5y ago
    Looks like there's a lot of opportunity to install geothermal heating systems.
    - martin_a 5y ago
      Using geothermal energy is surely a niche thing in Germany, yet. I've heard about two or three people who used it for their homes, but nothing large at all. Here's a German article from two months ago on that: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/geothermie-in-deutschland-roadmap-zeigt-entwicklungspotenzial-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/geothermie-in-deutschland-roa... 440.000 installations so far, mostly surface-near (around 100 m depth).
      - m_eiman 5y ago
        It's very common in Sweden to heat single family houses this way (300k installations). It costs about 15k EUR to install, and according to ads can lower you heating costs by "up to 80%".
  - WithinReason 5y ago
    You're right, coal has really jumped in 2021
  - 5y ago
zhte415 5y ago
Like a lot of articles about power or energy as related to 'green' or renewables, this article is about electricity and not total power. Only a fraction of energy consumption is from electricity. From [1], total energy consumption in Germany in 2021 was 3364 TWh. Total electricity consumption was 581 TWh. That's quite a difference. Electricity at around 20-30% of total energy consumption is in the ball park for developed/industrial economies. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany
- chess_buster 5y ago
  That's why Germany is planning to do Sektorenkopplung. Don't know the english word. Basically everything is switched over to electric. Transportation, Heating, …
  - dangerlibrary 5y ago
    I could be wrong, but I thought the point of the GP comment was that there are many industrial processes like smelting that don't have good electric replacements. For example, it's nigh-impossible to maintain the temperatures required to run a steel plant with no combustion and only resistive heating elements.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      There are steelmaking processes using hydrogen for reducing the ore and arc furnaces for heat. They are currently a bit more expensive than using coke.
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      For those, one would use H2 or methane created with the use of electricity.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Arc blast furnaces are a thing - just more expensive. The electrode (typically graphite) is consumed, so technically not zero carbon, but the gas could be captured.
gklap 5y ago
- adrianN 5y ago
  Wind and solar is all you need. Power2Gas is a viable technology for seasonal storage.
  - pydry 5y ago
    It's ~50% efficient as compared to ~80% for pumped storage. Synthetic kerosene for making jet fuel or using syngas to make green fertilizer might make sense as a decarbonization strategy but as a means of "storing" electricity it's kind of pointless.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      Pumped storage doesn't scale though. And in the end, efficiency doesn't matter, only cost does. Fossil fuel power plants are 40% efficient, but they're still profitable.
      - pydry 5y ago
        It scales just fine. There are thousands of viable locations. Far more than we need.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  It's suspicious that you link this together to create a narrative. Sorry, don't want to offend. Just pointing this out. Only asking questions.
- alex_duf 5y ago
  It turns out if you link a large enough area, a local lack of wind doesn't really matter. If you inter-connect the whole of Europe you get a pretty stable source of energy with just solar and wind: https://twitter.com/ntsafos/status/1480560060044652546 https://twitter.com/ntsafos/status/1480560060044652546 Now add secondary sources like nuclear, hydro and storage and nothing's impossible. It does mean keeping good relations with your neighbours, which I think isn't a bad idea anyway.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fbarkerx 5y ago
ho_schi 5y ago
Title is wrong. The parliament doesn't have passed anything. And the article states that immediately at top! The administration (Bundeskabinett) formed by SPD, GREEN, and FDP has decided they want to follow the draft plans worked out the ministry of economy and need to request the parliament to pass it. Furthermore Die Zeit is a recognized newspaper but with strong bounds into the SPD.
smm11 5y ago
Germany did some crazy energy re-work during WWII, I recall.
throw93232 5y ago
EU has common energy market. In reality it means Germany can be VERY grean, while importing atomic energy from France and coal from Poland and Balkans. Who will loose in this are poor EU nations, 10x higher energy cost compared to local production cost. Germany is basically outsourcing negative impacts of its energy policy to its neighbors.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  We also export our Energy to the other countries when we have a surplus and France Nuclear plants cannot run because the river's are to warm again.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    I am surprised that someone mentions this. I think thermal power plants are quite amusing. You build this huge monolithic power plant and then the rivers can't cool it because it's too big. So you instead place it near the ocean and then get hit by a tsunami instead. Wonderful.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
No one sees the obvious solution here. Nuclear energy and Crimea gas and more fierce support for Ukraine in the east. Pipelines are existent and building LNG terminals probably take longer. Renewables won't cut it. Reverse the halvening of domestic energy production from the last 10 years ( https://www.acer.europa.eu/gas-factsheet https://www.acer.europa.eu/gas-factsheet )
irrational 5y ago
Conspiracy theory - the Russian attack on Ukraine is actually a ploy to help combat climate change by moving people off of Oil faster.
- imtringued 5y ago
  That's how the west is behaving but that would go against Putin's interests. He would be slaughtering his proverbial golden goose. It would be more appropriate to think that he is monopolizing fossil fuels in Ukraine and benefiting from higher oil prices during the chaos.
  - irrational 5y ago
    Under the conspiracy theory there would be a secret cabal of people (insert Illuminati, lizard people, etc.) that are (in some unspecified manner) influencing the people that surround Putin to convince him to go to war, despite it not being in his best interest.
truthwhisperer 5y ago
mlindner 5y ago
Or they could start fracking the tremendous amounts of oil and gas reserves that exist in Europe that they just refuse to use as a holdover until all this green tech actually finishes becoming available. Do both.

267 points by martin_a 5y ago

I don't know where to add this question without it seeming off subject, but seeing as we're heading into spring, seeing Germany has quite a wealthy economy with a good QOL, that many if not most workers get 5 weeks of holiday, the chip shortage is leading to slowdowns in the automotive industry etc etc... why doesn't the government just go cold turkey, give people a month or 2 free holidays while drastically reducing public lighting, telling businesses to stop heating their premises at night etc ... I mean we had a dress rehearsal 2 years ago with the onset of Covid, this would be easier as people can still go outside it'd befor a good cause and probably give a boost to domestic spending .... also curious I heard a lot of gas is used to make fertiliser... of course it's over-simplification but maybe a lot of that fertiliser is used to grow grain, corn to feed the meat industry....so maybe eating fewer bratwurst would be a healthy, ecological and ethical step which would send a f...U to the rest of the world saying we too can think outside of the box :-)

jansen555 5y ago

martin_a 5y ago

For context: The FDP is a German liberal party, part of the ruling coalition, which is traditionally (with the CDU - "christian democratic union", now in the opposition) very close to the industry with all its lobbyism. For that reason they _must_ be against some of the industry-relating "cuts" but even they have realized that times are changing. --- translation via DeepL The FDP parliamentary group demands significant improvements in the planned legislative package to accelerate the expansion of green electricity in Germany. "With the Easter package, Federal Minister of Economics Habeck is taking a first step in the right direction. However, due to time constraints, all important reform steps could not yet be included in the package," FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr told the dpa news agency in Berlin. FDP parliamentary group vice-president Lukas Köhler said: "We have to use the upcoming consultations to substantially improve the current draft in line with the joint coalition agreement of SPD, Greens and FDP." Shortly afterwards, the federal cabinet approved the comprehensive legislative package for the faster expansion of green electricity from wind and sun. According to the plans of Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck (Greens), the measures are intended to help Germany achieve its climate goals more quickly - but also to make the country less dependent on Russian energy supplies as quickly as possible. It is called the "Easter Package" because the cabinet is expected to adopt the planned legislative changes before Easter. Renewable energy has become a "matter of national security", according to the core content of the energy emergency measures. Several laws are to be amended. The main point is the amendment of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), in which the expansion target for 2030 is raised to 80 percent. The Wind Energy at Sea Act is also to be amended and now also provides for higher expansion targets. FDP calls for "a more realistic target". In general, the electricity supply is to be based almost entirely on renewable energies as early as 2035, and industry is to be supported in entering climate-neutral production processes. Even before Dürr's official statements, the dpa had reported that the FDP only wanted to approve the comprehensive legislative package with reservations. There was talk of a "special procedure" because important issues had not yet been decided by consensus. However, the way should be cleared so that no time is lost. After the cabinet's decision, the FDP parliamentary group called the new EEG an "important building block" to accelerate renewables and make Germany less dependent on Russian energy supplies. However, the draft was still "far from finding a majority in the Bundestag", it said. Central aspects still had to be clarified in the parliamentary procedure, said parliamentary group deputy Lukas Köhler. Earlier, he had said that the cabinet would decide this Wednesday on an "initial basis for discussion" in order to move forward quickly. "A climate-neutral electricity system by 2035 is desirable, but practically impossible to achieve in Germany." Environmental organisations are also calling for improvements - albeit towards an even faster and broader expansion. Greenpeace, for example, called for citizens to be more involved in the expansion of renewables. For Deutsche Umwelthilfe, the lack of land available for the expansion of wind energy remains a shortcoming. At least two percent of the state's land "must be reserved for the expansion of wind energy alone", the organisation demanded. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

solarkraft 5y ago
> The FDP is a German liberal party "Liberal" in this case means economically liberal, going in a libertarian direction (though they're more moderate about it).

martin_a 5y ago

@dang: Could you fix the link, please? Should be: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-04/habeck-gesetzespaket-erneuerbare-energie https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-04/habeck-geset...

detaro 5y ago

Headline here doesn't match the article headline and is contradicted by the article. There is no passed law.

martin_a 5y ago
While it does not match the article headline, that's the core aspect of the passed law. The FDP will surely want some (more) help for the industry but the point made by the parliament stands.
- detaro 5y ago
  There is no passed law. There is a proposal for a new law that has not been presented to parliament yet, so "German parliament passes law" is just flat out wrong. The only mention of parliament in the article is one of the government parties stating that it in its current shape won't be able to pass parliament. Flagging this, you can't distort content like that, especially if the majority of readers has to rely on machine translation. But congrats, you now have a clear falsehood top of the front page, well done.
  - _3u10 5y ago
    The important thing is that it says something HN users agree with therefore it’s true.
capableweb 5y ago
Not to mention that the title here on HN is in English while the article itself is in German, so you're right, not matching at all.
- detaro 5y ago
  That too, but I'm not 100% sure if there is an explicit rule about foreign language content or not. But especially if most readers need to rely on machine translation it has to be precise. EDIT: per dang 23 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30663877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30663877 > We have deep respect for languages, but HN is an English-language site, so posts here need to be in English. > That may require waiting until a good English-language article appears, but the more significant the topic is, the more (and sooner) this is likely to happen.

outside1234 5y ago

… and turn the nuclear power plants back on until then?

moooo99 5y ago
Not a feasible option by any means. Fuel supply is not secured and takes a long time to prepare (apparently fuel rods a custom made for reactors and have a lead time of 2+ years). On many plants, demolition has already started to an extent. Also many operators apparently skipped certifications that would be necessary to operate beyond the timeline that was set 10 years ago.
dathinab 5y ago
The problem is not that they did switch perfectly fine nuclear power plants of, the problem is that they didn't build replacements for old power plants which have to go out of service normally. Many(all?) of the remaining nuclear power plants are already operating well beyond the time they have been designed for.
- lawn 5y ago
  Same situation as in Sweden.
BSVogler 5y ago
You cannot simply do that. This was planned for years and there is no training for staff, contracts like insurance, a location to put the additional waste etc. to prolong the usage of nuclear power plants.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  The nuclear plants in Germany are not insured, because the estimated 10 Trillion Euro a catastrophic failure would cause is out of question for any insurer. Therfore the German state takes the risk.

otoburb 5y ago

I applaud such efforts, but the fly in the ointment is that the acceleration of renewable energy sources will not only require more capital, sooner, but also different energy sources to be built more quickly. Accelerated timelines for such capital-intensive projects almost always require intense short(er)-term demand for energy which will likely need to come from fossil fuels.

zamalek 5y ago
I completely agree that we need to be vastly more aggressive in terms of ditching fossil fuels: fossil fuels are just plain stupid even when you ignore the climate catastrophe that we are causing by using them. However, At this point, assuming we make no more improvements, we have successfully avoided turning Earth into Venus. > require intense short(er)-term demand for energy which will likely need to come from fossil fuels. We're actually starting to trend away from this[1][2]. [1]: https://www.gem.wiki/Category:Proposed_coal_plants_in_the_United_States https://www.gem.wiki/Category:Proposed_coal_plants_in_the_Un... [2]: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/new-coal-plants-dwindle-amid-wave-of-cancelled-projects https://e360.yale.edu/digest/new-coal-plants-dwindle-amid-wa...
rhn_mk1 5y ago
Can this be avoided/mitigated at all?

BurningFrog 5y ago

In general, when politicians promise something will be done by the different set of politicians in office 10+ years in the future, it mostly means "we're not going to do anything right now".

KptMarchewa 5y ago
In Germany, post-war there were three chancellors (prime ministers) that were over 10 years in office - Adenauer with 14 years, Kohl and Merkel with 16 years.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
This. Kicking the can down the road for the next generation to deal with is politics 1-0-1.
- swarnie 5y ago
  Got to start somewhere. At least Germany is reasonably stable politically, not quite on the level of China but far better then the revolving door style governments seen in southern Europe.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  Yeah, but this is actually not at all what is happing right now in the German government. Instead of kicking it down the road (and systematically destroying renewables) like 16 years of Merkel did, they actually started to accellerate and do immediate packages, this article talks about one that will be accepted before easter.
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bryanlarsen 5y ago
The article describes a proposed law that has significant concrete effects. That's what you judge.
chess_buster 5y ago

meatsauce 5y ago

aadvark69 5y ago

sitic 5y ago
Why? Renewal energy production was at 42.7% in Q1 2021. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2021/nettostromerzeugung-im-1-quartal-2021-anteil-der-erneuerbaren-energien-im-jahresvergleich-gesunken.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2021...
chess_buster 5y ago
50% renewables for electricity in Germany this year. So doable.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  - chess_buster 5y ago

exabrial 5y ago

Probably shouldn't have closed all those nuclear plants.

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martin_a 5y ago
Germany hasn't build new nuclear plants for ages, even under the conservative governments that were ruling before last year. The plants still running are very old and have become hard to maintain as they have reached EOL. It's not like we are shutting down perfectly good new plants. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
- recuter 5y ago
  You're shutting down perfectly good old plants, ahead of schedule for no engineering derived reason. InderRealitätbleiben.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    If Japan had shut down all of its plants, decommissioned them and built new plants it would have spent less money than cleaning up Fukushima. The fact that nuclear advocates keep saying newer generation power plants are safe is basically useless because they also advocate for keeping all the unsafe ones online. Tanks have modular power plants that can be replaced and serviced outside the tank. Why isn't the same true for nuclear power plants? Why not just update to the latest version instead of keeping old versions with vulnerabilities? Oh right, because they are monoliths that are a pain in the ass to upgrade. You need to rewrite them from scratch.
  - martin_a 5y ago
    > Most nuclear power plants have operating life-times of between 20 and 40 years. > The main ageing effects of concern are changes in physical properties (e.g., electric conductivity); irradiation embrittlement; thermal embrittlement; creep; fatigue; corrosion (including erosion and cracking assisted by corrosion); > Ageing is certainly a significant factor in determining the limits of nuclear plant lifetime or life extensions. No nuclear plant, including those still under construction or being mothballed, should be considered immune from its effects. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf If we have not, by accident, built some super long-lasting nuclear power plants, they are at EOL as the remaining plants were built in 1982. Which is exactly 40 years ago. Would you take the responsibility for running those things any longer?

nixass 5y ago

Germany becoming laughing stock with ignoring and shutting down nuclear plants

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solarkraft 5y ago
This has sadly been decided about a decade ago. Reversing course would (apparently) be more expensive and take longer than building out renewables, especially considering that nuclear power arguably presents more problems than it's worth longer term.
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
I don't think so. Here in France, we have our share of troubles. 27 of our 56 nuclear plants are offline and we were asked to reduce heating and electric consumption earlier this week to avoid power cut and keep the grid on. We have lots of difficulties keeping our plants on, due to badly designed and/or maintained plants, and this won't improve with global warming (e.g warmer river and sea in hot summer will make reactors more difficult to cool). Our failure to build our EPR in time and within budget is not reassuring either (from EUR 3.3 to 19.1 billion! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...) I'd much prefer than we switch to solar and wind as fast as possible and as nuclear energy becomes less needed, we retire the big, old plant as safely and cheaply as possible (mmh). Of course, we'd better focus on retiring the most polluting plants first (coal ones in Central / East Europe) but the faster the transition, the better.

TheGigaChad 5y ago

photochemsyn 5y ago

Here's a more accessible link on the same story: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-boosts-renewables-biggest-energy-policy-reform-decades https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-boosts-renewabl... > "By 2030, installed onshore wind capacity should reach 115 gigawatts (GW), the government says. Annual capacity additions therefore have to reach 10 GW as of 2025. Solar PV installations will amount to 22 GW per year as of 2026 to achieve a total capacity of 215 GW by the end of the decade. Offshore wind additions are increased as well to reach a minimum of 30 GW per 2030 and 40 GW by 2035, and 70 GW by 2045. While the government wants to incentivise the production and use of biomethane in highly flexible plants by increasing tender volumes, the use of biomass for power production will be superseded by its use in transport and industry." In particular there's an anti-NIMBYism provision in there that makes a lot of sense. This has been a huge problem for rolling out renewables in the USA from California to New York: > "To ensure that these ambitious growth scenarios are not hampered by lengthy planning procedures, local opposition and contradictions with other protected goals, the government establishes the principle that the use of renewable energies is of overriding public interest and will be given priority over other concerns until greenhouse gas neutrality is achieved." The benefits are obvious: Germany will be able to escape the need to import Russian gas and oil - although the American fracked LNG exporters who hoped to simply seize that market from Russia are doubtless disappointed.

radicalbyte 5y ago
> American fracked LNG exporters who hoped to simply seize that market from Russia are doubtless disappointed. Germany has a huge industry which won't be able to switch away from gas that easily so I'm sure that the LNG suppliers will have a market for the next 20 years.
- adrianN 5y ago
  A much smaller market than expected if Germany manages to reduce demand for gas for electricity and heating.
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j00 5y ago

If one assumes the current trend [1] of the last 13 years, Germany should be at 84% in 2035 by simply not slowing down the transition. So honestly not overly ambitious [1] https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?...

chess_buster 5y ago
The target as mentioned in the article is 100%, which the FDP (libertarians) want to water down to 80%. Given your projection, I don't wonder why
- allendoerfer 5y ago
  The FDP is not libertarian by any measure. Much like the CDU they claim the social market economy of Germany as one of their achievements, which would be called outright socialist in some American circles. From an American perspective they can be compared with the Democrats in the US. Of course the whole political spectrum of America is further right than that of Germany.
- bally0241 5y ago
  I would hardly call the FDP libertarian.
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    So neither liberals nor libertarian. What are they then?
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Conservatives for the rich with a modicum of backbone to appeal to people who wouldn't vote for corruption scandal parties like CDU but Christian Linder seems to be losing his backbone as well.
Sol- 5y ago

Faelian2 5y ago

For those interested, here is the primary energy use of Germany. There is still a long way to get rid of coal. https://jancovici.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/chiffres_energie_graph120.jpg https://jancovici.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/chiffres_en...

martin_a 5y ago
That is totally outdated, here are more current numbers: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterprises/Energy/Production/Tables/gross-electricity-production.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...
- m_eiman 5y ago
  Looks like there's a lot of opportunity to install geothermal heating systems.
  - martin_a 5y ago
    Using geothermal energy is surely a niche thing in Germany, yet. I've heard about two or three people who used it for their homes, but nothing large at all. Here's a German article from two months ago on that: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/geothermie-in-deutschland-roadmap-zeigt-entwicklungspotenzial-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/geothermie-in-deutschland-roa... 440.000 installations so far, mostly surface-near (around 100 m depth).
    - m_eiman 5y ago
      It's very common in Sweden to heat single family houses this way (300k installations). It costs about 15k EUR to install, and according to ads can lower you heating costs by "up to 80%".
- WithinReason 5y ago
  You're right, coal has really jumped in 2021
- 5y ago

zhte415 5y ago

Like a lot of articles about power or energy as related to 'green' or renewables, this article is about electricity and not total power. Only a fraction of energy consumption is from electricity. From [1], total energy consumption in Germany in 2021 was 3364 TWh. Total electricity consumption was 581 TWh. That's quite a difference. Electricity at around 20-30% of total energy consumption is in the ball park for developed/industrial economies. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany

chess_buster 5y ago
That's why Germany is planning to do Sektorenkopplung. Don't know the english word. Basically everything is switched over to electric. Transportation, Heating, …
- dangerlibrary 5y ago
  I could be wrong, but I thought the point of the GP comment was that there are many industrial processes like smelting that don't have good electric replacements. For example, it's nigh-impossible to maintain the temperatures required to run a steel plant with no combustion and only resistive heating elements.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    There are steelmaking processes using hydrogen for reducing the ore and arc furnaces for heat. They are currently a bit more expensive than using coke.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    For those, one would use H2 or methane created with the use of electricity.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Arc blast furnaces are a thing - just more expensive. The electrode (typically graphite) is consumed, so technically not zero carbon, but the gas could be captured.

gklap 5y ago

adrianN 5y ago
Wind and solar is all you need. Power2Gas is a viable technology for seasonal storage.
- pydry 5y ago
  It's ~50% efficient as compared to ~80% for pumped storage. Synthetic kerosene for making jet fuel or using syngas to make green fertilizer might make sense as a decarbonization strategy but as a means of "storing" electricity it's kind of pointless.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    Pumped storage doesn't scale though. And in the end, efficiency doesn't matter, only cost does. Fossil fuel power plants are 40% efficient, but they're still profitable.
    - pydry 5y ago
      It scales just fine. There are thousands of viable locations. Far more than we need.
chess_buster 5y ago
It's suspicious that you link this together to create a narrative. Sorry, don't want to offend. Just pointing this out. Only asking questions.
alex_duf 5y ago
It turns out if you link a large enough area, a local lack of wind doesn't really matter. If you inter-connect the whole of Europe you get a pretty stable source of energy with just solar and wind: https://twitter.com/ntsafos/status/1480560060044652546 https://twitter.com/ntsafos/status/1480560060044652546 Now add secondary sources like nuclear, hydro and storage and nothing's impossible. It does mean keeping good relations with your neighbours, which I think isn't a bad idea anyway.

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fbarkerx 5y ago

ho_schi 5y ago

Title is wrong. The parliament doesn't have passed anything. And the article states that immediately at top! The administration (Bundeskabinett) formed by SPD, GREEN, and FDP has decided they want to follow the draft plans worked out the ministry of economy and need to request the parliament to pass it. Furthermore Die Zeit is a recognized newspaper but with strong bounds into the SPD.

smm11 5y ago

Germany did some crazy energy re-work during WWII, I recall.

throw93232 5y ago

EU has common energy market. In reality it means Germany can be VERY grean, while importing atomic energy from France and coal from Poland and Balkans. Who will loose in this are poor EU nations, 10x higher energy cost compared to local production cost. Germany is basically outsourcing negative impacts of its energy policy to its neighbors.

chess_buster 5y ago
We also export our Energy to the other countries when we have a surplus and France Nuclear plants cannot run because the river's are to warm again.
- imtringued 5y ago
  I am surprised that someone mentions this. I think thermal power plants are quite amusing. You build this huge monolithic power plant and then the rivers can't cool it because it's too big. So you instead place it near the ocean and then get hit by a tsunami instead. Wonderful.

NicoJuicy 5y ago

No one sees the obvious solution here. Nuclear energy and Crimea gas and more fierce support for Ukraine in the east. Pipelines are existent and building LNG terminals probably take longer. Renewables won't cut it. Reverse the halvening of domestic energy production from the last 10 years ( https://www.acer.europa.eu/gas-factsheet https://www.acer.europa.eu/gas-factsheet )

irrational 5y ago

Conspiracy theory - the Russian attack on Ukraine is actually a ploy to help combat climate change by moving people off of Oil faster.

imtringued 5y ago
That's how the west is behaving but that would go against Putin's interests. He would be slaughtering his proverbial golden goose. It would be more appropriate to think that he is monopolizing fossil fuels in Ukraine and benefiting from higher oil prices during the chaos.
- irrational 5y ago
  Under the conspiracy theory there would be a secret cabal of people (insert Illuminati, lizard people, etc.) that are (in some unspecified manner) influencing the people that surround Putin to convince him to go to war, despite it not being in his best interest.

truthwhisperer 5y ago

mlindner 5y ago

Or they could start fracking the tremendous amounts of oil and gas reserves that exist in Europe that they just refuse to use as a holdover until all this green tech actually finishes becoming available. Do both.