4 ms·

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

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.”
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    The article is saying that we can't expand biogas to replace all our current gas usage. Which is fine, as electricity meets most of those needs better anyway (e.g. heat pumps for home or industrial heating/cooling, renewables for the majority of electricity). But the article also states that non-food based manure biogas could be expanded to 3x current with no impact on food (well, except to make German meat and dairy more GHG friendly). Food waste is another source that doesn't compete for land. Coal mines and landfills leak methane. New satelitte tech can pinpoint small sources and fine people that don't capture it, providing both a stick and a carrot. So, the small amount of unavoidable gas usage, can be met by capturing stuff that would otherwise be released as methane. We already have gas storage and gas turbines. We can mix in green hydrogen too if need be. 50% is the capacity we need, not the amount of energy that needs to be supplied. Here's a Wartsila projection for Germany suggesting 8% "flexible gas" is what's required, with 59% of peak capacity. That is, a very small amount of the year, it's used a lot. Luckily we already have large amounts of gas storage built. (Also, we've done a complete loop on this thread: "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.") https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy/atlas-of-100-percent-renewable-energy#/country/DE https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy...
    - looping__lui 3y ago
      You need to provide >100% installed capacity with gas as you phase out coal and nuclear. Because renewables aren’t reliable and you kind of need a conventional backup today. We are missing 50% in gas plant capacity. Your happy collection of “nice happy ideas” isn’t gonna cut it at the scale we need it to happen within 7 years. I’m so tired of this nonsense by people like you. This isn’t some elementary science fair project. It’s people gambling away the economic foundation of Germany over some “would be nice” ideas.

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.”
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  The article is saying that we can't expand biogas to replace all our current gas usage. Which is fine, as electricity meets most of those needs better anyway (e.g. heat pumps for home or industrial heating/cooling, renewables for the majority of electricity). But the article also states that non-food based manure biogas could be expanded to 3x current with no impact on food (well, except to make German meat and dairy more GHG friendly). Food waste is another source that doesn't compete for land. Coal mines and landfills leak methane. New satelitte tech can pinpoint small sources and fine people that don't capture it, providing both a stick and a carrot. So, the small amount of unavoidable gas usage, can be met by capturing stuff that would otherwise be released as methane. We already have gas storage and gas turbines. We can mix in green hydrogen too if need be. 50% is the capacity we need, not the amount of energy that needs to be supplied. Here's a Wartsila projection for Germany suggesting 8% "flexible gas" is what's required, with 59% of peak capacity. That is, a very small amount of the year, it's used a lot. Luckily we already have large amounts of gas storage built. (Also, we've done a complete loop on this thread: "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.") https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy/atlas-of-100-percent-renewable-energy#/country/DE https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy...
  - looping__lui 3y ago
    You need to provide >100% installed capacity with gas as you phase out coal and nuclear. Because renewables aren’t reliable and you kind of need a conventional backup today. We are missing 50% in gas plant capacity. Your happy collection of “nice happy ideas” isn’t gonna cut it at the scale we need it to happen within 7 years. I’m so tired of this nonsense by people like you. This isn’t some elementary science fair project. It’s people gambling away the economic foundation of Germany over some “would be nice” ideas.