7 ms·

Very misguided opinion piece... in my opinion. It's hard to think and reason clearly about these issues, it seems. Especially for the German public.

by Luc 3y ago

Enimesnas 3y ago
The commentator is French
- oaiey 3y ago
  Right. And in reality discussing French energy politics by reflecting on the German politics.
- Luc 3y ago
  Yes I know, I was referring to the debate in Germany itself. I think it's genuinely hard for most Germans, due to the anti-nuclear culture.
  - skrause 3y ago
    As someone who is mostly neutral on nuclear power: The pro-nuclear fanboyism I see on Hacker News and large parts of Reddit is mostly as irrational as the anti-nuclear culture in parts of Germany. Any thread that mentions "energy" and "Germany" here is full of completely full of incorrect facts about Germany energy infrastructure.
    - bayesian_horse 3y ago
      [flagged]
cies 3y ago
Very hard to reason about. I got that wind turbines do not actually produce more energy than was needed to build them. This is not shown in these charts, i.e. the energy needed to build the wind turbines was largely used outside of Germany, it was part of the price buy them. edit: thanks commenters, i stand corrected
- bkor 3y ago
  > I got that wind turbines do not actually produce more energy than was needed to build them. Wind turbines generate way more power than what is needed to produce them. Loads of wind turbines will be installed in the North Sea by various countries to generate a huge amount of electricity. I really don't get how you'd think that creating a wind turbine requires way more energy than the electricity it'll produce.
- dgorges 3y ago
  Not true. > A 2014 study which looked at the same issue found that 2-megawatt wind turbines installed in Northwest USA paid for themselves in 5-6 months. > A 2010 analysis of fifty separate studies found that the average wind turbine, over the course of its operational life, generated 20 times more energy than it took to produce. This level was “favourable” in comparison to fossil fuels, nuclear and solar power. https://fullfact.org/online/wind-turbines-energy/ https://fullfact.org/online/wind-turbines-energy/
  - bkor 3y ago
    > A 2014 study which looked at the same issue found that 2-megawatt wind turbines And such wind turbines are nowadays tiny. If you look at https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_windmolenparken_in_de_Noordzee https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_windmolenparken_in_d... (Dutch) the column "Turbine vermogen" shows the (average?) megawatt (MW) of the windturbines. The ones planned for 2023 are 11 MW. The ones delivered in 2021 are 9.5 MW. There's a planned windpark with 14 MW turbines for delivery in 2026.
sundvor 3y ago
It boggles my mind that they would turn off the cleanest, most consistent power supply that exists, now. "Focus is renewables, not baseload" - that doesn't even make sense, you still need the latter to heat a country through winter (or cool it down during summer, in case of Australia). So I guess on the flat, overcast days they'll burn coal instead, which has its own horrible mix of emissions. Or gas. Bravo, genius. I'm all for green energy etc, but the focus must be on reducing total emissions. As someone who likes charging their EV from the sun I have experienced how bleak it gets during the Melbournian winter - I'll get 3-4 kWh in a day at worst/too often - maybe up to 8 more normally, compared to closer to 40-50 kWh on my 6.6/5 kWh PV system (rarely less than 30) during summer.
- pydry 3y ago
  It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast and so cheaply over 10 years and yet the story it is routinely spun into is that it is a shameful abject failure because in the process of doing that they switched off an aging, overpriced source of green energy that comprised just 6% of their usage. I think the respective attitudes pro nuclear advocates have to Poland (80% coal->80% coal) and Germany (10%->50% renewables) kind of underscores that nobody is shaming Germany for climate reasons.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast Compare it to France which didn't have to decarbonize to begin with. Because of those bad-bad-bad no-good reactors.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      France needs to and is decarbonising. Electricity is perhaps the most important (because of electrification) but it's not the only sector. Plus France's electricity has always had the last 20% to deal with.
      - illiarian 3y ago

Very misguided opinion piece... in my opinion. It's hard to think and reason clearly about these issues, it seems. Especially for the German public.

by Luc 3y ago

Very misguided opinion piece... in my opinion. It's hard to think and reason clearly about these issues, it seems. Especially for the German public.

Enimesnas 3y ago

The commentator is French

oaiey 3y ago
Right. And in reality discussing French energy politics by reflecting on the German politics.
Luc 3y ago
Yes I know, I was referring to the debate in Germany itself. I think it's genuinely hard for most Germans, due to the anti-nuclear culture.
- skrause 3y ago
  As someone who is mostly neutral on nuclear power: The pro-nuclear fanboyism I see on Hacker News and large parts of Reddit is mostly as irrational as the anti-nuclear culture in parts of Germany. Any thread that mentions "energy" and "Germany" here is full of completely full of incorrect facts about Germany energy infrastructure.
  - bayesian_horse 3y ago
    [flagged]

cies 3y ago

Very hard to reason about. I got that wind turbines do not actually produce more energy than was needed to build them. This is not shown in these charts, i.e. the energy needed to build the wind turbines was largely used outside of Germany, it was part of the price buy them. edit: thanks commenters, i stand corrected

bkor 3y ago
> I got that wind turbines do not actually produce more energy than was needed to build them. Wind turbines generate way more power than what is needed to produce them. Loads of wind turbines will be installed in the North Sea by various countries to generate a huge amount of electricity. I really don't get how you'd think that creating a wind turbine requires way more energy than the electricity it'll produce.
dgorges 3y ago
Not true. > A 2014 study which looked at the same issue found that 2-megawatt wind turbines installed in Northwest USA paid for themselves in 5-6 months. > A 2010 analysis of fifty separate studies found that the average wind turbine, over the course of its operational life, generated 20 times more energy than it took to produce. This level was “favourable” in comparison to fossil fuels, nuclear and solar power. https://fullfact.org/online/wind-turbines-energy/ https://fullfact.org/online/wind-turbines-energy/
- bkor 3y ago
  > A 2014 study which looked at the same issue found that 2-megawatt wind turbines And such wind turbines are nowadays tiny. If you look at https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_windmolenparken_in_de_Noordzee https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_windmolenparken_in_d... (Dutch) the column "Turbine vermogen" shows the (average?) megawatt (MW) of the windturbines. The ones planned for 2023 are 11 MW. The ones delivered in 2021 are 9.5 MW. There's a planned windpark with 14 MW turbines for delivery in 2026.

sundvor 3y ago

It boggles my mind that they would turn off the cleanest, most consistent power supply that exists, now. "Focus is renewables, not baseload" - that doesn't even make sense, you still need the latter to heat a country through winter (or cool it down during summer, in case of Australia). So I guess on the flat, overcast days they'll burn coal instead, which has its own horrible mix of emissions. Or gas. Bravo, genius. I'm all for green energy etc, but the focus must be on reducing total emissions. As someone who likes charging their EV from the sun I have experienced how bleak it gets during the Melbournian winter - I'll get 3-4 kWh in a day at worst/too often - maybe up to 8 more normally, compared to closer to 40-50 kWh on my 6.6/5 kWh PV system (rarely less than 30) during summer.

pydry 3y ago
It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast and so cheaply over 10 years and yet the story it is routinely spun into is that it is a shameful abject failure because in the process of doing that they switched off an aging, overpriced source of green energy that comprised just 6% of their usage. I think the respective attitudes pro nuclear advocates have to Poland (80% coal->80% coal) and Germany (10%->50% renewables) kind of underscores that nobody is shaming Germany for climate reasons.
- illiarian 3y ago
  > It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast Compare it to France which didn't have to decarbonize to begin with. Because of those bad-bad-bad no-good reactors.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    France needs to and is decarbonising. Electricity is perhaps the most important (because of electrification) but it's not the only sector. Plus France's electricity has always had the last 20% to deal with.
    - illiarian 3y ago