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The sky-high energy prices are not because the end of coal and nuclear, but because the conservative government that ruled for the past 16 years streamlined the
by Gasp0de 3y ago
The sky-high energy prices are not because the end of coal and nuclear, but because the conservative government that ruled for the past 16 years streamlined the entire energy system so that it depended on cheap russian gas. However, prices are already down to normal again.
- c4mpute 3y ago> not because the end of coal and nuclear, but [...] it depended on cheap russian gas. Those events aren't independent, they are strongly connected. Coal and nuclear have provided baseload power, with gas and renewables filling in the peaks in the demand curve (e.g. solar for the day-peak). Ending coal and nuclear has ended baseload power, so not only do you have to fill the demand curve, you also have a far more variable supply curve. The only elements in that supply curve you can control are pumped-hydro storage and gas plants. Pumped-hydro is available but rare in Germany due to topography and the green movement. Which left gas plants, strongly increasing the reliance on gas imports. Edit: And Germany is still dependent on the goodwill and market prices of gas suppliers. It is just that the cheaper and easy-to-transport Russian pipelined gas has been replaced by overseas ship-supplied gas.