3 ms·

Bit not in the way people would anticipate. According to the modeling of the Fraunhofer (base assumption), we will need to double our capacity from gas (yay),

Bit not in the way people would anticipate. According to the modeling of the Fraunhofer (base assumption), we will need to double our capacity from gas (yay), double renewables to eventually achieve twice the carbon footprint of France by 2030. The base load is so high in Germany and renewables are so unreliable, that we need >100% installed capacity from “conventional” sources. The storage and “smart grid” is not really feasible or likely to happen imho. More info: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Fraunhofer-ISE-Studie-Wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-Energiesystem.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p... Disclaimer: I have PV, use ground heat in my house; I’m totally pro zero emission but Germany’s ideological decision making makes it impossible whilst pumping up prices beyond affordable.

Tade0 3y ago
> we need >100% installed capacity from “conventional” sources. You already need that really. A grid going at 70% generation capacity is already considered overloaded.
- looping__lui 3y ago
  I’m talking about non-renewables. I think (and I might be wrong, but the ballpark should be right), we will have 600% capacity installed in renewables and 100-150% installed in conventional capacity by 2030. So shifting to renewables means like 700+% installer capacity, which means that when sun shines and wind blows, you will only be able to use 1/7 of the electricity produced during the day whilst also potentially running the gas turbines full steam at night. We have observed this a lot this year in Germany (e.g. wind was taken off grid because solar produced too much whilst gas and coal only delivered a minimal (?) operational load).
iSnow 3y ago
>we will need to double our capacity from gas (yay) Notably, green gas, not fossil gas. You can call that conventional, but it's not adding CO2 emissions. According to their study, the CO2 factor would fall from 460g/kWh in 2020 to 150 in 2030 and between 3 and 9 in 2050. You can't just go "meh, twice as much as France" and ignore that the scenario starts at 15x France.
- looping__lui 3y ago
  Well, is that notably really possible? https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-russisches-gas-ersetzen--32667834.html https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-ru...
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Gas generation capacity is different from GHG and other pollutants caused by actually burning fossil gas. Don't be fooled by people implying they are the same. And Germany is actually a world leader in capturing biogas, which has negative GHG emissions even after being burnt. Having said that, Germany still burns black and brown coal so a switch to more gas instead would be a positive for them. They'd have plenty of supply if they shift to heat pumps for heating and decarbonise industry currently using the rest.
- looping__lui 3y ago
  Well, don’t be fooled by “you can just replace gas by biogas”: https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-russisches-gas-ersetzen--32667834.html https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-ru...
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Well a) you can indeed literally replace gas by biogas, b) your article suggests that we can't quickly replace Russian gas with biogas, which is true. But there's nothing that can quickly replace Russian gas, we can do a whole bunch of things (imported gas, imported electricity, imported chemicals, renewables, efficiency, heat pumps) but even that isn't a perfect short term fix. But it's already at 5% of the electricity grid, and that's about what would be needed in a mostly renewable grid. That's the only use of gas we want long term, the rest should be phased out anyway. It's a big, epensive engineering project, but not as big and expensive as building lots of nuclear. As your article says, think of it as a way to get rid of methane emissions from farming, with storable energy as a bonus.
    - looping__lui 3y ago
      You need to support 50% of the grid with new gas plants. You *CANNOT* phase out gas plants , coal plants and nuclear and solely rely on renewables as of today (and the next 30, 50???) years in an industrialized nation like Germany. And maybe don’t paraphrase the article like “hey its a challenge but possible”. We don’t have enough agricultural space to cover our demand. The number of (ethical,infrastructure,price) problems is so long that the idea defies reality. But you are talking about IDEOLOGY and in Germany, if you have the right IDEOLOGY, reality doesn’t matter any longer. That’s other people’s problem. Jan Seven rechnet damit nicht. „Aus volkswirtschaftlichen Gründen ist es nicht darstellbar und auch nicht zu rechtfertigen, Biogas in dem Maße weiter zu fördern oder bestimmten Umbauszenarien zu folgen.“ Biogas sei verglichen mit den anderen erneuerbaren Energien die mit Abstand teuerste Energieform. Auch, weil Lebensmittel, die in Biogasanlagen zum großen Teil genutzt würden, teurer geworden seien. „Deswegen sehen wir beim Biogas eigentlich überhaupt keine Kostenreduktion, die wir bei Solarstrom und Wind massiv gesehen haben im letzten Jahr.“ … “ Diese Energiepflanzen belegen 15 Prozent der deutschen Ackerflächen. Insgesamt 1,5 Millionen Hektar, die eigentlich dringend benötigt werden, um dort Lebensmittel und Futter anzubauen, sagt Jan Seven. „Auf diesen Flächen wachsen keine Lebensmittel, es wachsen keine Futtermittel für die Tiere, die wir in großer Stückzahl halten. Die Futtermittel importieren wir aus Brasilien. Wir haben eine direkte Konkurrenz zwischen Teller und Fermenter.“ In einem Fermenter werden in einer Biogasanlage die Rohstoffe erwärmt und zersetzt, sodass Biogas entstehen kann.”

Tade0 3y ago

> we need >100% installed capacity from “conventional” sources. You already need that really. A grid going at 70% generation capacity is already considered overloaded.

looping__lui 3y ago
I’m talking about non-renewables. I think (and I might be wrong, but the ballpark should be right), we will have 600% capacity installed in renewables and 100-150% installed in conventional capacity by 2030. So shifting to renewables means like 700+% installer capacity, which means that when sun shines and wind blows, you will only be able to use 1/7 of the electricity produced during the day whilst also potentially running the gas turbines full steam at night. We have observed this a lot this year in Germany (e.g. wind was taken off grid because solar produced too much whilst gas and coal only delivered a minimal (?) operational load).

iSnow 3y ago

>we will need to double our capacity from gas (yay) Notably, green gas, not fossil gas. You can call that conventional, but it's not adding CO2 emissions. According to their study, the CO2 factor would fall from 460g/kWh in 2020 to 150 in 2030 and between 3 and 9 in 2050. You can't just go "meh, twice as much as France" and ignore that the scenario starts at 15x France.

looping__lui 3y ago
Well, is that notably really possible? https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-russisches-gas-ersetzen--32667834.html https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-ru...

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Gas generation capacity is different from GHG and other pollutants caused by actually burning fossil gas. Don't be fooled by people implying they are the same. And Germany is actually a world leader in capturing biogas, which has negative GHG emissions even after being burnt. Having said that, Germany still burns black and brown coal so a switch to more gas instead would be a positive for them. They'd have plenty of supply if they shift to heat pumps for heating and decarbonise industry currently using the rest.

looping__lui 3y ago
Well, don’t be fooled by “you can just replace gas by biogas”: https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-russisches-gas-ersetzen--32667834.html https://www.capital.de/amp/wirtschaft-politik/kann-biogas-ru...
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Well a) you can indeed literally replace gas by biogas, b) your article suggests that we can't quickly replace Russian gas with biogas, which is true. But there's nothing that can quickly replace Russian gas, we can do a whole bunch of things (imported gas, imported electricity, imported chemicals, renewables, efficiency, heat pumps) but even that isn't a perfect short term fix. But it's already at 5% of the electricity grid, and that's about what would be needed in a mostly renewable grid. That's the only use of gas we want long term, the rest should be phased out anyway. It's a big, epensive engineering project, but not as big and expensive as building lots of nuclear. As your article says, think of it as a way to get rid of methane emissions from farming, with storable energy as a bonus.
  - looping__lui 3y ago
    You need to support 50% of the grid with new gas plants. You *CANNOT* phase out gas plants , coal plants and nuclear and solely rely on renewables as of today (and the next 30, 50???) years in an industrialized nation like Germany. And maybe don’t paraphrase the article like “hey its a challenge but possible”. We don’t have enough agricultural space to cover our demand. The number of (ethical,infrastructure,price) problems is so long that the idea defies reality. But you are talking about IDEOLOGY and in Germany, if you have the right IDEOLOGY, reality doesn’t matter any longer. That’s other people’s problem. Jan Seven rechnet damit nicht. „Aus volkswirtschaftlichen Gründen ist es nicht darstellbar und auch nicht zu rechtfertigen, Biogas in dem Maße weiter zu fördern oder bestimmten Umbauszenarien zu folgen.“ Biogas sei verglichen mit den anderen erneuerbaren Energien die mit Abstand teuerste Energieform. Auch, weil Lebensmittel, die in Biogasanlagen zum großen Teil genutzt würden, teurer geworden seien. „Deswegen sehen wir beim Biogas eigentlich überhaupt keine Kostenreduktion, die wir bei Solarstrom und Wind massiv gesehen haben im letzten Jahr.“ … “ Diese Energiepflanzen belegen 15 Prozent der deutschen Ackerflächen. Insgesamt 1,5 Millionen Hektar, die eigentlich dringend benötigt werden, um dort Lebensmittel und Futter anzubauen, sagt Jan Seven. „Auf diesen Flächen wachsen keine Lebensmittel, es wachsen keine Futtermittel für die Tiere, die wir in großer Stückzahl halten. Die Futtermittel importieren wir aus Brasilien. Wir haben eine direkte Konkurrenz zwischen Teller und Fermenter.“ In einem Fermenter werden in einer Biogasanlage die Rohstoffe erwärmt und zersetzt, sodass Biogas entstehen kann.”