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I’m so confused. I always thought Germany was at the forefront of green technology and sustainable resource management. Was I mistaken all this time?

MattGaiser 4y ago
Kind of, but nobody is that far with green technology unless they have hydro and they have a lot fewer resources than other countries.
- proudeu 4y ago
  I think we used to be at the forefront but since 2-3 years China gained a lot of ground in terms of high tech Green energy products. They might as well have surpassed us in few fields.
  - robocat 4y ago
    They might be building some green energy, however meanwhile “China has six times as much [coal powered] plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined.” (March 2023) https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...
anonporridge 4y ago
Germany has one of the most carbon heavy electric grids in western Europe, https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE Compare them to nuclear heavy, clean France. Your perception has been deceived by marketing. Stop following the news. Follow the data instead.
- legulere 4y ago
  Electricitymaps is not a reliable source. For instance they calculate PV being produced with 100% coal
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > Compare them to nuclear heavy, clean France. France is heavily importing German electricity, so that does not work out. Sources are many, but here [0] is a random one from January "German Power Exports to France Surge to Highest in 30 Years" [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-04/how-much-power-does-germany-export-to-france https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-04/how-much-... edit: Edited to remove snark, add source
  - dang 4y ago
    Can you please make your substantive points without snark? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It looks like you've got an important and relevant point there but if you lead with snark, you'll probably just provoke more flamewar and make the thread more predictable. A better version of this comment would drop the first couple words and then add information to explain what you're talking about and/or how you know it.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Noted and edited, reading the same propaganda over and over again is just exhausting.
      - dang 4y ago
        Thanks! That's much better.
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    These imports are in part due to Macron's exceptionally foolish decision to close the Fessenheim nuclear reactor in northeast France (near German border). The reactor had had all the needed upgrades and could have kept working for many years, but instead Macron decided to follow through on an old campaign promise of his universally reviled predecessor.
sigmoid10 4y ago
Their energy policy has been one big clusterfuck after another ever since they made a rash decision to exit nuclear power.
franciscop 4y ago
They are really advanced for renewable relatively speaking, but also just got rid of the last nuclear so they ran out of options since green tech doesn't cover 100% yet in Germany. IMHO and in many external observers opinion they did it the wrong way, the sane way would be as renewable adoption grows to first phase out carbon, then gas, then nuclear. Gas was forced to phase out (Russia->Ukraine war), and for some reason they are closing nuclear before renewable is common enough, so the only remaining option is carbon.
- jacooper 4y ago
  The reason is dumb politics and antinuclear movements in the green party. This government is going to get obliterated in the next election there.
  - ulfw 4y ago
    Merkel wasn't any better. She tried to be greener than the Greens. It was under her government that nuclear was decided to get phased out. Fukishima did a panic on her government, even though German nuclear plants are neither on earthquake faults nor on tsunami-prone coasts. Her way of drifting more and more in that direction has propagated a new right wing extremest party (AfD) to come up as well. A ton of things she did wrong domestically.
renewiltord 4y ago
In some of their regions, a wind turbine must be 10 times its height away from a nearby settlement. Interesting, eh?
phire 4y ago
They made a lot of progress, but compared to a lot of other countries, they started from a poor position with almost zero hydro and a lot of coal. Much of their progress was replacing coal with cleaner natural gas imported from Russia, which they had to reverse. They also had to make up for the old nuclear power plants that were retired without replacements.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
German engineering has a very good marketing department.
- xenospn 4y ago
  If by marketing department you mean Audi, Porsche, BMW and VW, the yes. Probably the best in the world.
hackeraccount 4y ago
People describe foreign countries for a lot of reasons. One of them is to describe the foreign country. Another is to explain how the country the person doing the the describing is from either should or should not be doing things. The second reason is very popular because the alternative is saying "If we keep or start doing X in 10 years this country will be heaven on earth or a hellscape!" When people hear that even true believers will be a tiny bit skeptical. On the other hand "Country Y does X and it's a hellscape or maybe heaven on earth!" In that case - there's no "maybe" on the table. The result is right now.

MattGaiser 4y ago

Kind of, but nobody is that far with green technology unless they have hydro and they have a lot fewer resources than other countries.

proudeu 4y ago
I think we used to be at the forefront but since 2-3 years China gained a lot of ground in terms of high tech Green energy products. They might as well have surpassed us in few fields.
- robocat 4y ago
  They might be building some green energy, however meanwhile “China has six times as much [coal powered] plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined.” (March 2023) https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...

anonporridge 4y ago

Germany has one of the most carbon heavy electric grids in western Europe, https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE Compare them to nuclear heavy, clean France. Your perception has been deceived by marketing. Stop following the news. Follow the data instead.

legulere 4y ago
Electricitymaps is not a reliable source. For instance they calculate PV being produced with 100% coal
Semaphor 4y ago
> Compare them to nuclear heavy, clean France. France is heavily importing German electricity, so that does not work out. Sources are many, but here [0] is a random one from January "German Power Exports to France Surge to Highest in 30 Years" [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-04/how-much-power-does-germany-export-to-france https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-04/how-much-... edit: Edited to remove snark, add source
- dang 4y ago
  Can you please make your substantive points without snark? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It looks like you've got an important and relevant point there but if you lead with snark, you'll probably just provoke more flamewar and make the thread more predictable. A better version of this comment would drop the first couple words and then add information to explain what you're talking about and/or how you know it.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Noted and edited, reading the same propaganda over and over again is just exhausting.
    - dang 4y ago
      Thanks! That's much better.
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  These imports are in part due to Macron's exceptionally foolish decision to close the Fessenheim nuclear reactor in northeast France (near German border). The reactor had had all the needed upgrades and could have kept working for many years, but instead Macron decided to follow through on an old campaign promise of his universally reviled predecessor.

sigmoid10 4y ago

Their energy policy has been one big clusterfuck after another ever since they made a rash decision to exit nuclear power.

franciscop 4y ago

They are really advanced for renewable relatively speaking, but also just got rid of the last nuclear so they ran out of options since green tech doesn't cover 100% yet in Germany. IMHO and in many external observers opinion they did it the wrong way, the sane way would be as renewable adoption grows to first phase out carbon, then gas, then nuclear. Gas was forced to phase out (Russia->Ukraine war), and for some reason they are closing nuclear before renewable is common enough, so the only remaining option is carbon.

jacooper 4y ago
The reason is dumb politics and antinuclear movements in the green party. This government is going to get obliterated in the next election there.
- ulfw 4y ago
  Merkel wasn't any better. She tried to be greener than the Greens. It was under her government that nuclear was decided to get phased out. Fukishima did a panic on her government, even though German nuclear plants are neither on earthquake faults nor on tsunami-prone coasts. Her way of drifting more and more in that direction has propagated a new right wing extremest party (AfD) to come up as well. A ton of things she did wrong domestically.

renewiltord 4y ago

In some of their regions, a wind turbine must be 10 times its height away from a nearby settlement. Interesting, eh?

phire 4y ago

They made a lot of progress, but compared to a lot of other countries, they started from a poor position with almost zero hydro and a lot of coal. Much of their progress was replacing coal with cleaner natural gas imported from Russia, which they had to reverse. They also had to make up for the old nuclear power plants that were retired without replacements.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

German engineering has a very good marketing department.

xenospn 4y ago
If by marketing department you mean Audi, Porsche, BMW and VW, the yes. Probably the best in the world.

hackeraccount 4y ago

People describe foreign countries for a lot of reasons. One of them is to describe the foreign country. Another is to explain how the country the person doing the the describing is from either should or should not be doing things. The second reason is very popular because the alternative is saying "If we keep or start doing X in 10 years this country will be heaven on earth or a hellscape!" When people hear that even true believers will be a tiny bit skeptical. On the other hand "Country Y does X and it's a hellscape or maybe heaven on earth!" In that case - there's no "maybe" on the table. The result is right now.