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> They wanted to be super green so lets go with sun and wind This is a complete mischaracterization of why Germany invested so much into renewables. Like... 2

> They wanted to be super green so lets go with sun and wind This is a complete mischaracterization of why Germany invested so much into renewables. Like... 20 years ago? Germany saw the writing on the wall when it comes to how they were getting their energy which at the time was mostly coming from coal. They didn't want to go Nuclear for whatever reason so that left renewables and natural gas which wasn't preferred but it was still significantly better. They didn't do it just to "be super green". They did it because coal is all around bad and wasn't the future that Germany wanted--and they were right. They absolutely made the right decision back then and investments by the German government are a big reason why solar is the cheapest form of energy right now (thanks Germany!). If anything they didn't invest enough in renewables. They obviously didn't expect the effects of global warming to come this quickly. A big reason why electricity is so expensive is because the rivers in France that supply water to their nuclear reactors dried up. I mean, how do you predict something like that happening even 10 years ago? Even if that was a possibility included in some climate change report how seriously would politicians take such a prediction?

doikor 4y ago
I would say the big mistake was to only use pipelines to Russia for gas. They should have built LNG terminals as redundancy. And maybe push for another pipeline to Algeria either through France and Spain or Austria/Switzerland and Italy. They basically left the door open to abusive trade partners by not building any redundancy on such a critical resource. And it is not just electricity Germany needs gas for as it is also a very important resource for lots of industrial processes (and used for heating a lot but that should be replaced by heat air pumps) Obviously such redundancy would have pushed up the price of gas in the short term at least. Easy to say this stuff in hindsight.
- dasv 4y ago
  https://www.gem.wiki/Midi-Catalonia_Pipeline https://www.gem.wiki/Midi-Catalonia_Pipeline
- Auracle 4y ago
  I’m just going to point out that Trump said this exact thing and was ridiculed for it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accused-germany-becoming-totally-dependent-russian-energy-un-germans-just-smirked/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accuse...
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    I'm quite sick of that "reverse ad-hominen" attack on politics of discrediting ideas just because somebody stupid agrees with them.
samsk 4y ago
I don't say that that being super green is bad, the problem was to rely almost solely on natural gas (from those we don't name) to stabilize the grid. Well, and now using that bad coal to fix that... I don't know, that also doesn't seem to be very wise, although I know, its only the consequence of the first mistake, but it completely negates what they tried to achieve.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Every single country relies on either natural gas or hydro power to stabilize the grid. What alternative did you expect? If there is a problem, it's either on the share of the generation that they decided to let for those "stabilizing" sources (it is much larger than the short term instabilities on their grid) or on the lack of diversity of their supply.

doikor 4y ago

I would say the big mistake was to only use pipelines to Russia for gas. They should have built LNG terminals as redundancy. And maybe push for another pipeline to Algeria either through France and Spain or Austria/Switzerland and Italy. They basically left the door open to abusive trade partners by not building any redundancy on such a critical resource. And it is not just electricity Germany needs gas for as it is also a very important resource for lots of industrial processes (and used for heating a lot but that should be replaced by heat air pumps) Obviously such redundancy would have pushed up the price of gas in the short term at least. Easy to say this stuff in hindsight.

dasv 4y ago
https://www.gem.wiki/Midi-Catalonia_Pipeline https://www.gem.wiki/Midi-Catalonia_Pipeline
Auracle 4y ago
I’m just going to point out that Trump said this exact thing and was ridiculed for it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accused-germany-becoming-totally-dependent-russian-energy-un-germans-just-smirked/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accuse...
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  I'm quite sick of that "reverse ad-hominen" attack on politics of discrediting ideas just because somebody stupid agrees with them.

samsk 4y ago

I don't say that that being super green is bad, the problem was to rely almost solely on natural gas (from those we don't name) to stabilize the grid. Well, and now using that bad coal to fix that... I don't know, that also doesn't seem to be very wise, although I know, its only the consequence of the first mistake, but it completely negates what they tried to achieve.

marcosdumay 4y ago
Every single country relies on either natural gas or hydro power to stabilize the grid. What alternative did you expect? If there is a problem, it's either on the share of the generation that they decided to let for those "stabilizing" sources (it is much larger than the short term instabilities on their grid) or on the lack of diversity of their supply.