11 ms·

The main problem with renewable energies, at least in Germany, is that they're not replacing anything, they're just added on top of existing fossil sources, so

The main problem with renewable energies, at least in Germany, is that they're not replacing anything, they're just added on top of existing fossil sources, so in the end we still pollute as much and we're still as far as ever from our end goal. The fact that we consume so much more just hides the truth behind nice percentages. The reality is that Germany burns as much fossil fuel as they were 20 years ago, and on top of that they offer the most expensive end user kwh price of Europe https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2023.png?itok=FaxUA7uM https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/app/uploads/cheap-electricity-prices-europe.png https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/app/uploads/cheap-electric...

sdk16420 3y ago
You are confusing installed capacity with power used. The consumed power is going down since the early 2000s, but since the generated power by most renewables depends on the weather and season, more reserve capacity needs to be installed. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
- asdefghyk 3y ago
  The reserve capacity , would need to be 100% - to be able to supply the country for at least several days if/when renables are not able to produce , most likely due to weather.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The capacity doesn't have to be constantly burning fuel 365 days a year in order to solve weather issues, just for however long the combination of startup/shutdown time and adverse weather duration. Adverse weather conditions can be predicted sufficiently well in advance that this matters.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    My understanding is that Germany has interlinkings with other EU members with substantially different climates and power mixtures, so this isn't true.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      Yes, there is such a thing as the european energy grid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... And yes, they know of the concept of getting electricity from south to north or vice versa - and there are already High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines in place and more on the way (much more efficient, to transport electricity long distances).
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Portugal is within a stones throw of 100% renewables due to its pumped hydro storage and Spain interconnector. Extrapolate through Europe accordingly. Don’t stop building renewables, transmission, and storage.
  - sveme 3y ago
    The contribution of renewables has never dropped below 30% over a full day in Germany in the last year. Good thing is that wind and PV are often complementary. https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gaspreis-erneuerbare-energien-ausbau https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gas...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - skrause 3y ago
    That's why Germany is building a lot of new gas power plants. They're cheap to build and can be turned of and off really quickly, so it's okay if they're only really needed for a few weeks a year. The new power plants are also planned to be able to handle hydrogen which can be produced with electrolysis (during an oversupply of renewables) and then stored underground.
    - orangepurple 3y ago
      From where are they obtaining gas for these plants?
      - skrause 3y ago
        https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30706.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30706.jpeg Currently about half of the gas in Germany comes through pipelines from Norway, the other half is mostly from the the Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot of LNG to ship to Germany).
        namaria 3y ago
        > Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot of ___ to ship to Germany). Ah yes, NL's raison d'etre
      - TheHiddenSun 3y ago
        LNG is mostly imported from Qatar and Russia Russia - is now (thanks to Germany) one of the top exporters of LNG. With some creative accounting (rewriting labels) of where the oil/gas/lng came from (Russia) -> even India is now a Net exporter of oil. Please note that LNG is even more environmentally damaging than burning coal. LNG: Schmutziges Flüssiggas | Doku | NDR | 45 Min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Vsee3WYqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Vsee3WYqE
        ponector 3y ago
        How so? How many toxins and heave metals are emitted by burning LNG?
GaggiX 3y ago
That was the peak of 2022, today it's 30.74EUR/MWh, not 670EUR/MWh: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/electricity-price https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/electricity-price Compared to the rest of Europe 0.03€/kWh is quite cheap. The price so low does not surprise me as Germany is producing 46GW of energy with wind alone right now: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  I just wish this was the price on my bill. But it’s not. It’s 13x more and we are waiting for: the VAT on electricity to go up to 19%, co2 taxes (aka the budget filler money) to go up, and the removal of the price cap for end consumers. 2024 will be wild in Germany. But energy companies will make a killing.
  - patall 3y ago
    I live in Sweden and my electricity bill would be cheaper in Germany. Why? Because in Germany, base fees are so low. 5ct per kWh doesn't help you when you pay 24€ per month to be connected to the grid.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      Hence I always simply chuckle when people say „the electricity is so cheap as never, 0.03€/kWh”. Yeah, to manufacture. No end customer ever sees that price.
      - Gibbon1 3y ago
        Same thing with water. For residential. Most of the cost is the capital costs of the distribution network. You'll always pay way more than the water district pays. Example. A friend lives in a tiny water district. Used to not be metered. Then they installed meters and usage went down. They had to increase the rates to make up the difference and people were really mad. And usage went down even more. It was kinda brain dead because their water comes from a huge spring so it's free as in beer.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> in the end we still pollute as much and we're still as far as ever from our end goal. Well there is no need to burn coal/gas while the wind/solar plants are working.
- rapsey 3y ago
  Unfortunately you can't just turn on/off coal at will. Gas is easier but still takes some time. This is why renewables solve very few problems. They are not really a replacement for anything.
  - patall 3y ago
    I know facts do not matter in this debate, but both types of coal have significantly decrease since 2016. 2023 will end as a record low for decades. Source: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year&year=-1&legendItems=00000011111000000100000 https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Nothing at grid scale is as easy as flipping a lightbulb on or off, but even so grids can and do switch coal plants on and off. At least the UK coal plants do this, so there's no reason German ones can't.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    I don’t think that’s true: https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/ https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/ Of course of we look at yearly figures getting rid of nuclear and increasing coal usage after the start of the war didn’t really help.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      Greens (the world over) aggressively attacking nuclear is quintessentially that meme of the cyclist shoving a stick between his own spokes. In 25 years, when we still have to keep coal plants turned on because we couldn’t magic enough battery capacity into existence to compensate for base load, those coal plants should have giant billboards next to them with this generation’s green politicians. Thanks for tying a concrete block to our feet.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pantalaimon 3y ago
They are replacing nuclear
- mpweiher 3y ago
  Yep. Which is about the dumbest thing you could do. Yay us!
  - lispm 3y ago
    Sure not. The dumbest thing we did was to slow down the expansion into renewable. Similar dumb was to make us (Germany and Europe in general) depend on Russian energy (gas, nuclear fuel&technology, ...), which the Russian regime then used as a weapon against us.
    - oezi 3y ago
      It wasn't a dumb idea. It was the most rational choice to use Gas. But rationality didn't work with a madman in the Kremlin.
      - lispm 3y ago
        It's not about a 'single madman', which surprised us. There were many warnings that the Russian regime was going in this direction and the German government ignored it. Even shortly before the Russian attack on the Ukraine, when the gas storage in Germany was (almost) empty and gas delivery was going down, our German government did not believe the warnings. There is nothing rational about increasing dependency on an authoritarian Russian regime, which for example invaded Crimea almost ten years ago. The aggressive Russian politics was on display. It is also not rational to, at the same time, sell critical energy infrastructure to Russian companies, like Germany did with its gas network and storage systems. Similar it was not rational to build a gas pipeline together with the Russians to even further increase the Russian potential to blackmail us.
      - p1mrx 3y ago
        Burning methane is not rational if you value living in a stable climate. The atmosphere doesn't care whether it came from a democratic or autocratic country.
wewxjfq 3y ago
You're looking at consumer prices of electricity two weeks after Gazprom stopped its gas deliveries to Germany indefinitely, which lead to a heavy price shock. The graphic also ignores that some countries like France simply prohibited companies from raising prices in 2022. Lastly, the consumer price comparisons are flawed because they include taxes and levies and Germany adds plenty of these. German electricity production is not nearly as expensive as the consumer prices suggest. The claim that Germany's electricity is as dirty as ever is also not true, the CO2 per KWh decreased by 350g over the past 30 years.
mildchalupa 3y ago
I would argue that median energy consumed per capita is a useful metric to measure standard of living.
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  not really passive houses, electric cars and cycling reduce energy consumption extremely while having no (negative) effects on the standard of living
Shalle135 3y ago
You’re also importing tons of renewable energy from scandinavia. Sweden for example exported 39TWh in 2022 alone - which of a majority is renewable energy. And in addition to this, if you’d build the new energy sources based on coal, things would of course just get worse while implementing renewables doesn’t increase emissions in the same fashion.
blablabla123 3y ago
If PV prices continue to plummet like this, it'll become feasible to just produce hydrogen. It's not optimal that there isn't a grand plan but there are various ways how even base load can be covered through storage once it's set up
- ricw 3y ago
  This is a gas industry falsehood that has to stop being spread. Hydrogen efficiency would have to improve ~350% to be competitive with current battery electric stored power. That’s just never going to happen, particularly as battery electric is dropping ~15% in price / becoming more efficient every year. Battery electric is to power storage what silicon has been to chip manufacturing.
  - la_fayette 3y ago
    Where did you get this number from for battery? All research shows that there is no such thing as moors law for batteries. Also the advancement of battery technology is highly challenging.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Figures 1, 2, 6, and 10 disagree with you. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D0EE02681F https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D0EE0...
  - tcfhgj 3y ago
    no idea how you arrive at 350%. Anyways, batteries don't scale easily to dozens of TWh while hydrogen storage is mostly possible in gas caverns Germany already has (and provide Germany with energy in the winter)
  - hnaccount_rng 3y ago
    But the point isn’t that it’s “better” it’s just that gas (really only H2) provides the volume of storage to meaningfully transfer energy between seasons. It’s mostly about capacity not about efficiency
uecker 3y ago
Nonsense: coal 1990: 141 TWh, 2000: 143 TWh, 2010: 117 TWh, 2020: 41 TWh lignite 1990: 171 TWh, 2000: 148 TWh, 2010: 146 TWh, 2020: 91 TWh Official numbers: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/STRERZ_Abgabe-12-2023.pdf https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/STR...

sdk16420 3y ago

You are confusing installed capacity with power used. The consumed power is going down since the early 2000s, but since the generated power by most renewables depends on the weather and season, more reserve capacity needs to be installed. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

asdefghyk 3y ago
The reserve capacity , would need to be 100% - to be able to supply the country for at least several days if/when renables are not able to produce , most likely due to weather.
- ben_w 3y ago
  The capacity doesn't have to be constantly burning fuel 365 days a year in order to solve weather issues, just for however long the combination of startup/shutdown time and adverse weather duration. Adverse weather conditions can be predicted sufficiently well in advance that this matters.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  My understanding is that Germany has interlinkings with other EU members with substantially different climates and power mixtures, so this isn't true.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Yes, there is such a thing as the european energy grid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... And yes, they know of the concept of getting electricity from south to north or vice versa - and there are already High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines in place and more on the way (much more efficient, to transport electricity long distances).
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Portugal is within a stones throw of 100% renewables due to its pumped hydro storage and Spain interconnector. Extrapolate through Europe accordingly. Don’t stop building renewables, transmission, and storage.
- sveme 3y ago
  The contribution of renewables has never dropped below 30% over a full day in Germany in the last year. Good thing is that wind and PV are often complementary. https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gaspreis-erneuerbare-energien-ausbau https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gas...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- skrause 3y ago
  That's why Germany is building a lot of new gas power plants. They're cheap to build and can be turned of and off really quickly, so it's okay if they're only really needed for a few weeks a year. The new power plants are also planned to be able to handle hydrogen which can be produced with electrolysis (during an oversupply of renewables) and then stored underground.
  - orangepurple 3y ago
    From where are they obtaining gas for these plants?
    - skrause 3y ago
      https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30706.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30706.jpeg Currently about half of the gas in Germany comes through pipelines from Norway, the other half is mostly from the the Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot of LNG to ship to Germany).
      - namaria 3y ago
        > Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot of ___ to ship to Germany). Ah yes, NL's raison d'etre
    - TheHiddenSun 3y ago
      LNG is mostly imported from Qatar and Russia Russia - is now (thanks to Germany) one of the top exporters of LNG. With some creative accounting (rewriting labels) of where the oil/gas/lng came from (Russia) -> even India is now a Net exporter of oil. Please note that LNG is even more environmentally damaging than burning coal. LNG: Schmutziges Flüssiggas | Doku | NDR | 45 Min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Vsee3WYqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Vsee3WYqE
      - ponector 3y ago
        How so? How many toxins and heave metals are emitted by burning LNG?

GaggiX 3y ago

That was the peak of 2022, today it's 30.74EUR/MWh, not 670EUR/MWh: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/electricity-price https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/electricity-price Compared to the rest of Europe 0.03€/kWh is quite cheap. The price so low does not surprise me as Germany is producing 46GW of energy with wind alone right now: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
I just wish this was the price on my bill. But it’s not. It’s 13x more and we are waiting for: the VAT on electricity to go up to 19%, co2 taxes (aka the budget filler money) to go up, and the removal of the price cap for end consumers. 2024 will be wild in Germany. But energy companies will make a killing.
- patall 3y ago
  I live in Sweden and my electricity bill would be cheaper in Germany. Why? Because in Germany, base fees are so low. 5ct per kWh doesn't help you when you pay 24€ per month to be connected to the grid.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    Hence I always simply chuckle when people say „the electricity is so cheap as never, 0.03€/kWh”. Yeah, to manufacture. No end customer ever sees that price.
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      Same thing with water. For residential. Most of the cost is the capital costs of the distribution network. You'll always pay way more than the water district pays. Example. A friend lives in a tiny water district. Used to not be metered. Then they installed meters and usage went down. They had to increase the rates to make up the difference and people were really mad. And usage went down even more. It was kinda brain dead because their water comes from a huge spring so it's free as in beer.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

> in the end we still pollute as much and we're still as far as ever from our end goal. Well there is no need to burn coal/gas while the wind/solar plants are working.

rapsey 3y ago
Unfortunately you can't just turn on/off coal at will. Gas is easier but still takes some time. This is why renewables solve very few problems. They are not really a replacement for anything.
- patall 3y ago
  I know facts do not matter in this debate, but both types of coal have significantly decrease since 2016. 2023 will end as a record low for decades. Source: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year&year=-1&legendItems=00000011111000000100000 https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...
- ben_w 3y ago
  Nothing at grid scale is as easy as flipping a lightbulb on or off, but even so grids can and do switch coal plants on and off. At least the UK coal plants do this, so there's no reason German ones can't.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  I don’t think that’s true: https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/ https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/ Of course of we look at yearly figures getting rid of nuclear and increasing coal usage after the start of the war didn’t really help.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    Greens (the world over) aggressively attacking nuclear is quintessentially that meme of the cyclist shoving a stick between his own spokes. In 25 years, when we still have to keep coal plants turned on because we couldn’t magic enough battery capacity into existence to compensate for base load, those coal plants should have giant billboards next to them with this generation’s green politicians. Thanks for tying a concrete block to our feet.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pantalaimon 3y ago

They are replacing nuclear

mpweiher 3y ago
Yep. Which is about the dumbest thing you could do. Yay us!
- lispm 3y ago
  Sure not. The dumbest thing we did was to slow down the expansion into renewable. Similar dumb was to make us (Germany and Europe in general) depend on Russian energy (gas, nuclear fuel&technology, ...), which the Russian regime then used as a weapon against us.
  - oezi 3y ago
    It wasn't a dumb idea. It was the most rational choice to use Gas. But rationality didn't work with a madman in the Kremlin.
    - lispm 3y ago
      It's not about a 'single madman', which surprised us. There were many warnings that the Russian regime was going in this direction and the German government ignored it. Even shortly before the Russian attack on the Ukraine, when the gas storage in Germany was (almost) empty and gas delivery was going down, our German government did not believe the warnings. There is nothing rational about increasing dependency on an authoritarian Russian regime, which for example invaded Crimea almost ten years ago. The aggressive Russian politics was on display. It is also not rational to, at the same time, sell critical energy infrastructure to Russian companies, like Germany did with its gas network and storage systems. Similar it was not rational to build a gas pipeline together with the Russians to even further increase the Russian potential to blackmail us.
    - p1mrx 3y ago
      Burning methane is not rational if you value living in a stable climate. The atmosphere doesn't care whether it came from a democratic or autocratic country.

wewxjfq 3y ago

You're looking at consumer prices of electricity two weeks after Gazprom stopped its gas deliveries to Germany indefinitely, which lead to a heavy price shock. The graphic also ignores that some countries like France simply prohibited companies from raising prices in 2022. Lastly, the consumer price comparisons are flawed because they include taxes and levies and Germany adds plenty of these. German electricity production is not nearly as expensive as the consumer prices suggest. The claim that Germany's electricity is as dirty as ever is also not true, the CO2 per KWh decreased by 350g over the past 30 years.

mildchalupa 3y ago

I would argue that median energy consumed per capita is a useful metric to measure standard of living.

tcfhgj 3y ago
not really passive houses, electric cars and cycling reduce energy consumption extremely while having no (negative) effects on the standard of living

Shalle135 3y ago

You’re also importing tons of renewable energy from scandinavia. Sweden for example exported 39TWh in 2022 alone - which of a majority is renewable energy. And in addition to this, if you’d build the new energy sources based on coal, things would of course just get worse while implementing renewables doesn’t increase emissions in the same fashion.

blablabla123 3y ago

If PV prices continue to plummet like this, it'll become feasible to just produce hydrogen. It's not optimal that there isn't a grand plan but there are various ways how even base load can be covered through storage once it's set up

ricw 3y ago
This is a gas industry falsehood that has to stop being spread. Hydrogen efficiency would have to improve ~350% to be competitive with current battery electric stored power. That’s just never going to happen, particularly as battery electric is dropping ~15% in price / becoming more efficient every year. Battery electric is to power storage what silicon has been to chip manufacturing.
- la_fayette 3y ago
  Where did you get this number from for battery? All research shows that there is no such thing as moors law for batteries. Also the advancement of battery technology is highly challenging.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Figures 1, 2, 6, and 10 disagree with you. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D0EE02681F https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D0EE0...
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  no idea how you arrive at 350%. Anyways, batteries don't scale easily to dozens of TWh while hydrogen storage is mostly possible in gas caverns Germany already has (and provide Germany with energy in the winter)
- hnaccount_rng 3y ago
  But the point isn’t that it’s “better” it’s just that gas (really only H2) provides the volume of storage to meaningfully transfer energy between seasons. It’s mostly about capacity not about efficiency

uecker 3y ago

Nonsense: coal 1990: 141 TWh, 2000: 143 TWh, 2010: 117 TWh, 2020: 41 TWh lignite 1990: 171 TWh, 2000: 148 TWh, 2010: 146 TWh, 2020: 91 TWh Official numbers: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/STRERZ_Abgabe-12-2023.pdf https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/STR...