5 ms·

But they all agree on where to put the leftovers of burning coal until 2038... It makes absolutely no sense to me.

by sgu999 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
They're aiming for 2030 now. Their biggest power producer has already signed up for this. Think there's still some plants in Eastern Germany that don't have finalized plans but they'll probably get there. https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villages-and-three-farmsteads-to-remain-former-settlement-of-luetzerath-to-be-demolished/ https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villa...
- belorn 4y ago
  In the mean time they intend to build fresh new natural gas power plants by 2030 in order to reach 50 GW, up from current capacity of 21 GW. That will be a doubling of natural gas power plants from today.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    That's a perfectly sensible thing to do as part of a decarbonization plan. You seem to be suggesting it's a bad thing, but you don't say why. Here's a 100% renewables plan for Germany that involves building gas capacity of 60% of peak demand and using it and synthetic gas made with renewables as "storage": https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... They also provide numbers for doing it just with batteries, and suggest it would only be 2x as expensive. The numbers are a few years old now, so prices and tech have moved on since. Other people now suggest massive oversupply of wind and solar combined with mass EV rollout will make it cheaper to just use batteries, which I generally lean towards: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... But either way, it's not unexpected or weird to build gas capacity when trying to wean yourself of fossil fuels and energy imports. What's important is details like how much you use, whether you capture the carbon, and how you source the gas and whether you are rolling out renewables, heat pumps and EVs sufficiently fast.
    - belorn 4y ago
      Increasing burning of natural gas might have been sensible before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Today it makes the German energy grid one of Europe most expensive grid, and the amount of subsidizes the German government is spending makes practically everything else cheap in comparison. The German government are paying their citizens bills, lower taxes and subsidize most of the construction and operational cost of fossil fuel power plants. Just because the government is paying the bill does not make it cheap. How many more winters with government bailouts can people take before enough is enough? Germany is not going to reach the European climate goals if they continue with building new natural gas power plants. They will also not reach the Paris agreement. It is "a bad thing" to continue burning fossil fuels! There is a lot of technology that exists and future tech that they could be using. The German has instead chosen to use fossil fuels. If we are discussing what they could be doing, what they could make a political decision that when they ban production of new fossil fuel cars they also ban the construction of new fossil fuel power plants. This would be much more real than politician talking about solar and wind while at the same time building tons of natural gas power plants in the backyard.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        You seem to be intentionally missing the point that 'gas plant' and 'burning fossil fuels' are two seperate, though related concepts. https://www.equinor.com/news/20230105-equinor-rwe-cooperation https://www.equinor.com/news/20230105-equinor-rwe-cooperatio... > Construction of new gas power plants (CCGTs), contributing to Germany’s phase-out roadmap for coal. Equinor and RWE will jointly own the CCGTs which initially will be fueled with natural gas and then gradually use hydrogen as fuel with the ambition of fully to be run on hydrogen when volumes and technology are available. > Building production facilities in Norway to produce low carbon hydrogen from natural gas with CCS. More than 95 percent of the CO2 will be captured and stored safely and permanently under the seabed offshore Norway. > Export of hydrogen by pipeline from Norway to Germany. > Joint development of offshore wind farms that will enable production of renewable hydrogen as fuel for power and other industrial customers in the future.
        4y ago

But they all agree on where to put the leftovers of burning coal until 2038... It makes absolutely no sense to me.

by sgu999 4y ago

But they all agree on where to put the leftovers of burning coal until 2038... It makes absolutely no sense to me.

They're aiming for 2030 now. Their biggest power producer has already signed up for this. Think there's still some plants in Eastern Germany that don't have finalized plans but they'll probably get there. https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villages-and-three-farmsteads-to-remain-former-settlement-of-luetzerath-to-be-demolished/ https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villa...

belorn 4y ago
In the mean time they intend to build fresh new natural gas power plants by 2030 in order to reach 50 GW, up from current capacity of 21 GW. That will be a doubling of natural gas power plants from today.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  That's a perfectly sensible thing to do as part of a decarbonization plan. You seem to be suggesting it's a bad thing, but you don't say why. Here's a 100% renewables plan for Germany that involves building gas capacity of 60% of peak demand and using it and synthetic gas made with renewables as "storage": https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... They also provide numbers for doing it just with batteries, and suggest it would only be 2x as expensive. The numbers are a few years old now, so prices and tech have moved on since. Other people now suggest massive oversupply of wind and solar combined with mass EV rollout will make it cheaper to just use batteries, which I generally lean towards: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... But either way, it's not unexpected or weird to build gas capacity when trying to wean yourself of fossil fuels and energy imports. What's important is details like how much you use, whether you capture the carbon, and how you source the gas and whether you are rolling out renewables, heat pumps and EVs sufficiently fast.
  - belorn 4y ago
    Increasing burning of natural gas might have been sensible before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Today it makes the German energy grid one of Europe most expensive grid, and the amount of subsidizes the German government is spending makes practically everything else cheap in comparison. The German government are paying their citizens bills, lower taxes and subsidize most of the construction and operational cost of fossil fuel power plants. Just because the government is paying the bill does not make it cheap. How many more winters with government bailouts can people take before enough is enough? Germany is not going to reach the European climate goals if they continue with building new natural gas power plants. They will also not reach the Paris agreement. It is "a bad thing" to continue burning fossil fuels! There is a lot of technology that exists and future tech that they could be using. The German has instead chosen to use fossil fuels. If we are discussing what they could be doing, what they could make a political decision that when they ban production of new fossil fuel cars they also ban the construction of new fossil fuel power plants. This would be much more real than politician talking about solar and wind while at the same time building tons of natural gas power plants in the backyard.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      You seem to be intentionally missing the point that 'gas plant' and 'burning fossil fuels' are two seperate, though related concepts. https://www.equinor.com/news/20230105-equinor-rwe-cooperation https://www.equinor.com/news/20230105-equinor-rwe-cooperatio... > Construction of new gas power plants (CCGTs), contributing to Germany’s phase-out roadmap for coal. Equinor and RWE will jointly own the CCGTs which initially will be fueled with natural gas and then gradually use hydrogen as fuel with the ambition of fully to be run on hydrogen when volumes and technology are available. > Building production facilities in Norway to produce low carbon hydrogen from natural gas with CCS. More than 95 percent of the CO2 will be captured and stored safely and permanently under the seabed offshore Norway. > Export of hydrogen by pipeline from Norway to Germany. > Joint development of offshore wind farms that will enable production of renewable hydrogen as fuel for power and other industrial customers in the future.
      - 4y ago