4 ms·

> And yet Germany, after two decades and close to a trillion dollar in renewable energies, has one of the most expensive Do you have any sources? Last time I c

> And yet Germany, after two decades and close to a trillion dollar in renewable energies, has one of the most expensive Do you have any sources? Last time I checked, Germany and France weren't that far apart, if you remove taxes out of the costs. The thing is that Germany has a lot of Taxes that have nothing todo with how we generate the electricity. I.e. 90% of the electricity tax (Stromsteuer) goes into the government pension fund.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Technically, you're still not removing taxes from the equation, because the state owned nuclear plants in France are also funded by taxes, it's just not taxes that are added to the cost of units of electricity. Which actually makes sense, if you have a high upfront cost, constant output source iike nuclear, taxing each individual unit makes no sense since the marginal cost is effectively zero up till you need to build a new plant. Whereas if you burn coal or gas, you want to incentivise people to cut back for cost, carbon and pollution reasons. An even more sensible approach would be to tax the carbon directly and charge more for peak electricity since that contributes more to the infrastructure requirements, which I guess both countries will already be moving towards as is the current trend in most places.
- littlecranky67 4y ago
  Yes, taxes and subsidies distort the actual costs of energy production. But if you look at my example, 90% of the Stromsteuer (tax on your energy bill as a household) don't go into funding of energy production, but to stabilize the (very broken) german mandatory pension/retirment system. But yes, one could argue that it is just moving around taxes in the government spending household.
  - derrasterpunkt 4y ago
    This is because taxes in Germany can’t be tied to a specified purpose. This is intentional.
JanSt 4y ago
The Stromsteuer ist only 5% of the price. It depends on your definition of taxes. The EEG-Umlage alone reached 6.5ct/kwh and directly paid for renewables. It‘s now taken out of the price, so the real price of energy is higher than what is paid by the consumer. The EEG Umlage is now hidden in and paid for by a special fund („Energie- und Klimafonds“)
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  You're saying that there is a transfer from nuclear to renewables of 6.5 cents/kWh for every kWh nuclear generates, or a net market distortion of 13c/kWh between the two (using the tenuous assumption of roughly equivalent capacities between the two sectors)? That's more than I pay in the US in total per kWh for electricity, generated, distributed, and taxed.
  - JanSt 4y ago
    6.5ct is added to the cost of every used kwh (no matter where it comes from) and paid to the producers of renewable energy
    - Retric 4y ago
      Germany jumped into solar really early and it's very far north so it’s not that relevant when considering todays tradeoffs. 41.3 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2016 was frankly excessive though it helped PV get much cheaper. Unfortunately, Germany now stuck with these huge agreed upon subsides for another decade.
      - rjzzleep 4y ago
        They also "pulled out" of solar early. I have idea how anyone can make sense of German policies. They seem to be working solely on the basis of emotion. The outcome is a disastrous policy that created one of the highest energy prices for consumers for no good reason. The Greens in Germany seem to be hell bent on de-industrializing Germany. They hate nuclear power and they hate all fossil fuels, but want to buy fracking LNG from the USA and fire up brown coal plants that were previously shut down to shove it to Putin. The outcome seems to be mass bankruptcies in what seems to be the social fabric of Germany, while getting a lot less energy for the same price.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Technically, you're still not removing taxes from the equation, because the state owned nuclear plants in France are also funded by taxes, it's just not taxes that are added to the cost of units of electricity. Which actually makes sense, if you have a high upfront cost, constant output source iike nuclear, taxing each individual unit makes no sense since the marginal cost is effectively zero up till you need to build a new plant. Whereas if you burn coal or gas, you want to incentivise people to cut back for cost, carbon and pollution reasons. An even more sensible approach would be to tax the carbon directly and charge more for peak electricity since that contributes more to the infrastructure requirements, which I guess both countries will already be moving towards as is the current trend in most places.

littlecranky67 4y ago
Yes, taxes and subsidies distort the actual costs of energy production. But if you look at my example, 90% of the Stromsteuer (tax on your energy bill as a household) don't go into funding of energy production, but to stabilize the (very broken) german mandatory pension/retirment system. But yes, one could argue that it is just moving around taxes in the government spending household.
- derrasterpunkt 4y ago
  This is because taxes in Germany can’t be tied to a specified purpose. This is intentional.

JanSt 4y ago

The Stromsteuer ist only 5% of the price. It depends on your definition of taxes. The EEG-Umlage alone reached 6.5ct/kwh and directly paid for renewables. It‘s now taken out of the price, so the real price of energy is higher than what is paid by the consumer. The EEG Umlage is now hidden in and paid for by a special fund („Energie- und Klimafonds“)

QuarterReptile 4y ago
You're saying that there is a transfer from nuclear to renewables of 6.5 cents/kWh for every kWh nuclear generates, or a net market distortion of 13c/kWh between the two (using the tenuous assumption of roughly equivalent capacities between the two sectors)? That's more than I pay in the US in total per kWh for electricity, generated, distributed, and taxed.
- JanSt 4y ago
  6.5ct is added to the cost of every used kwh (no matter where it comes from) and paid to the producers of renewable energy
  - Retric 4y ago
    Germany jumped into solar really early and it's very far north so it’s not that relevant when considering todays tradeoffs. 41.3 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2016 was frankly excessive though it helped PV get much cheaper. Unfortunately, Germany now stuck with these huge agreed upon subsides for another decade.
    - rjzzleep 4y ago
      They also "pulled out" of solar early. I have idea how anyone can make sense of German policies. They seem to be working solely on the basis of emotion. The outcome is a disastrous policy that created one of the highest energy prices for consumers for no good reason. The Greens in Germany seem to be hell bent on de-industrializing Germany. They hate nuclear power and they hate all fossil fuels, but want to buy fracking LNG from the USA and fire up brown coal plants that were previously shut down to shove it to Putin. The outcome seems to be mass bankruptcies in what seems to be the social fabric of Germany, while getting a lot less energy for the same price.