9 ms·

EU coal and gas collapse as wind and solar ascend

139 points by imartin2k 3y ago

eru 3y ago
Interestingly, in the years before the US managed to do more about their CO2 emissions than Europe. That's because thanks to fracking the US move a large share of their energy generation towards natural gas, which burns 'cleaner' than oil and coal. The EU has (almost?) no fracking. And in an even greater tragedy: the Germans had turned their back on almost emission free nuclear power, and in practice had turned towards very dirty coal.
- trilbyglens 3y ago
  I honestly do not fault Europe for not pursuing fracking. If you haven't spent much time over here it's not easy as an American to appreciate just how little "empty space" there is on the continent. There is really no where that doesn't impact communities of people. The us can easily afford to basically throw a few little towns in Oklahoma under the bus and no one really notices or cares. That's just possible here. Too many damned humans, and too many teetering systems. Could you imagine the outcry if a fracking induced earthquake took down a 13th century church someplace? No one wants that.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    Plenty of empty space to do fracking in Europe. This is a case of ideology over strategic thinking for Europe, IMHO, and we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      We just care more about pollution in Europe. Greenhouse emissions aren't the only environmental problems (and those are also worsened by fracking of course as it's still a means of producing fossil fuels) I totally support our stance against fracking. And the dependency on Russia was a bit of an issue for the first winter of the war but prices are back to normal now.
      - mytailorisrich 3y ago
        Dependency has not gone away. We still import plenty but now from US and Qatar (I.e US are again winning while we are again losing). It's not even about pollution. To say banalities like "we care more about pollution" means nothing and is not aligned with reality. Again, the issue is ideology. This is failing Europe in many areas, not just this.
        wkat4242 3y ago
        We do care a hell of a lot more about pollution that most of the world. In the Netherlands half the country is at a standstill because some Nitrogen levels are too high. Building projects are stopped, farmers have to reduce fertilising etc. Even the maximum speed was reduced nationwide, not because of CO2 emissions but because of nitrogen messing with local ecosystems. I support that, but it's very important to realise that this is pretty unique in the world. "Green parties" are a huge thing and often even part of governments, is there even one in the US? :) And yeah we still import but you can't change things from one day to another.
        bigfudge 3y ago
        You are wrong. Paris literally this week voted to tax SUVs from the city, in part because of pollution. It also speaks to a wider concern here not to allow commerce to dominate other public goods.
        mytailorisrich 3y ago
        The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is.
        wkat4242 3y ago
        > "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is. Yeah but that's a good thing in my book. The US tends to be very unbalanced in this regard, commerce all the way and not much attention to externalities, both environmental and societal (e.g. welfare and labour rights) Europe is substantially different from an ideological perspective and that provides us with a much better quality of life (much lower violent crime, much better public transport, no crazy healthcare prices, greener cities etc). Of course the US does better economically but economy isn't everything. And it's a self-defeating goal anyway, the more money people have, the more they spend on scarce housing and other goods which means the housing crisis is just as bad in the US as it is here despite the higher salaries there. > The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. Paris is far from the only city in Europe banning the most polluting vehicles. Almost every major city does this now. And the air quality really did improve due to this. And our cities are just a lot more smaller scale due to the longer history - there's a reason the smart was invented here :)
    - mk89 3y ago
      > we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead. In my opinion, you're confusing bad political choices (=let's get addicted to Russian gas, then we will see about it in 10 years) with everything else. Germany could have done more in the past 10 years to not get to the point in 2022 to be threatened by a country - they didn't, now they have to brute-force innovation/renovation. I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news.
      - mytailorisrich 3y ago
        Germany's energy policy is the best example in Europe of ideology over pragmatism. The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. Ban of fracking is not pragmatic, either. If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative.
        mk89 3y ago
        > The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. > If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative. It's different in the sense that you don't depend entirely on a single country for your gas (like it was before), so that particular country cannot threaten you like they did. The goal of this governement is to drastically reduce energy consumption and use renewables, while at the same time "buying" gas from wherever else. This was for a political reason, otherwise they would have kept on buying gas from Russia and implemented slowly their green/eco program. The issue is not fracking yes or no, but the fact that in the previous 10-15 years it wasn't done enough to avoid what happened in 2022.
  - imp0cat 3y ago
    They put their churches on rails and move them out of the way as required instead. No, seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJwbhos9eM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJwbhos9eM The heaviest building ever moved on wheels Between September 30 and October 27, 1975, the church was moved a distance of 841.1 meters at a velocity of 13 centimeters per minute to the vicinity of the old hospital, and it was set on an iron-concrete two-storied foundation. A small church of St. Ghost was also moved during October. After the move was completed, restoration work went on until 1988, and the church was solemnly blessed again in 1993.
  - eru 3y ago
    > Could you imagine the outcry if a fracking induced earthquake took down a 13th century church someplace? No one wants that. Seems like an straightforward case of externalities? Coasian bargaining and/or Pigovian taxes can deal with them. Yes, 13th century churches have value, but so do a lot of other things, like convenience or reducing CO2 emissions. You can fix teetering systems with money. Politically, you'd want to be careful to align who benefits from fracking (eg via taxes) and who bears the burden (eg from minor earthquakes). So if the dangers of fracking extent to about, say, 30km from the side of where the well sits, you'd want to make sure that the tax revenues and authority to decide on whether to allow fracking and what obligations to put on frackers should also roughly occur on that level of 30km. Eg within a county perhaps. This way the voters in different counties can make up their mind about what they want to allow, and what they ask for in return. Perhaps they want the frackers to post a billion dollar bond underwritten by a major re-insurance company as insurance for that 13th century church, before they allow fracking. Write the contract in such a way that any earthquake damage to that church would be covered, without need for proof that fracking was to blame.
    - bigfudge 3y ago
      This is so wonderfully naive to the realities of contract negotiations between large corporates and governments. There is an asymmetry here which works agains the public good. Corporations tend to only have to corrupt an offici or capture a regulatory body once to extract long term concessions, which rarely if ever get rolled back. The same is not true in reverse. In practice this means governments aren’t able to effectively exert democratic mandates over policy areas like this.
      - eru 3y ago
        The government is vastly more powerful than companies. The government can make arbitrary rules (= laws) that the company has to abide by. The company has no such power. > In practice this means governments aren’t able to effectively exert democratic mandates over policy areas like this. How did the Germans ever shut down their nuclear power plants? They were already up and running, so they were literally printing money for their corporate owners? How did GDPR pass in Europe? Why can't Google build housing for their employees in Mountain View? I would like to live in your utopia where companies are all powerful!
  - nehal3m 3y ago
    I happen to live in a very old European village that is being damaged by fracking to the point where homes became uninhabitable. I’ve been fighting the government for the money to replace the house they’ve forced me out of for the past 5 years. There are some who respond to you by saying this can be solved with money but that ignores a significant humanitarian cost. Responsible parties will do whatever they can to shirk responsibility and affected parties will have to waste years of their lives trying to regain safe shelter through bureaucracy. Sometimes it feels hopeless.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That's just the local version of the resource curse. Imagine living in a whole country like that. The world economy is when you look at it rationally completely bonkers, we dig stuff up in one place to burn it elsewhere, we make stuff here to use it thousands of km away. Without all that cheap transportation, which in itself is a big contributor to the emissions we'd be forced to solve our problems locally. All that we do today is to destroy the planet whilst pretend externalizing the costs. But it is one planet, and there is no externalization happening so in the end it all goes down, the only thing we are doing is to lower the lows and to raise the peaks temporarily at the expense of the future.
  - amatecha 3y ago
    Well, Europe isn't exactly saintly, unfortunately. Germany is literally tearing down entire towns to make way for lignite ("brown coal") mining: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/635911260/germany-turns-to-brown-coal-to-fill-its-energy-gap https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/635911260/germany-turns-to-br... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine "Nearly 50 villages in this region have been evacuated and destroyed for the ever-expanding mines, and Winzen's village of Keyenberg — more than a thousand years old — is set to be next.": https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-monster-is-threatening-to-swallow-a-small-town-in-germany https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-mons... Just as an aside, apparently the company doing this, RWE, was the #1 producer of CO2 emissions in Europe in 2018 ( https://archive.is/Qe9KJ https://archive.is/Qe9KJ ). All I can say is, the sooner renewable energy takes over, the better.
- oezi 3y ago
  The 4 last old nuclear plants which were switched off last year wouldn't have been switched to coal if it wasn't for Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine. Coal in Germany will end in 2030 anyway and the renewables are built at a pace to support that.
  - eru 3y ago
    With nuclear power (especially with new plants) Germany could transition off CO2 producing fuels faster. Remember: renewables are not actively good for reducing CO2. They don't suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, they are at best neutral. Renewable are good insofar as they allow us to move away from fossil fuels.
    - lysium 3y ago
      It takes decades to build new nuclear plants. This won’t solve anything until they are built. Renewables /are/ good for reducing CO2, as every kW produced by renewable is not produced by CO2-emitting alternative. Plus, they make you independent from foreign energy sources.
      - timthorn 3y ago
        Germany didn't need to build new plants, it already had some. The "it takes decades" argument was used as the reason for not significantly renewing nuclear in the UK - over a decade ago.
        mk89 3y ago
        You need energy now. Nuclear was phased out. That's it. That was the decision. And in 2021 was "barely" producing 13% of electric energy with the last 6 reactors. So either you follow one approach (= mix between imports and solar/wind) or the other (=import until 2032, then import and produce with nuclear energy), with the first approach being oriented to the long run (=independent from other countries, less co2 emissions, etc.).
      - eru 3y ago
- xeyownt 3y ago
  Natural gas is not "clean". Moreover, it is well known that the biggest problem with gas is the production of methane during extraction that is MUCH more dangerous than CO2. Regarding Germany, the switch is temporary (geopolitical), and they still produce less CO2 every year as planned and have a strong CO2 phase-out plan.
  - dtech 3y ago
    > methane ... MUCH more dangerous than CO2 Eh, it's a more powerful greenhouse gas, but it's also gone after ~10 years.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - XorNot 3y ago
      It's still CO2 emissions at the end of the day. The issue is nuclear power is right there as the better option. At the end of the day natural gas is still liberating carbon which was locked away and won't be put back anytime soon.
    - Scarblac 3y ago
      Its half life is about 9 years says Google, so "gone" takes a lot longer than that.
    - danans 3y ago
      > but it's also gone after ~10 years It breaks down to CO2, so as a GHG, it's not gone at all.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      Methane has approximately 28x the warming effect of CO2 in those 10 years, and ultimately it breaks down... To CO2 and water. So every ton of CH4 is like 28 tons of CO2 in the medium term, and like 1+ tons of CO2 in the long term (since water vapor is also a GHG).
- sampo 3y ago
  > US managed to do more about their CO2 emissions than Europe. That's because thanks to fracking the US move a large share of their energy generation towards natural gas, which burns 'cleaner' than oil and coal The climate benefits of the lower CO2 emissions from burning gas, instead of coal and oil, are partially offset be the greater methane emissions. Then again, you can't compare natural gas CO2 + CH4 emissions to only CO2 from coal, as coal production also releases CH4. As long as methane leaks from the natural gas supply are below 4% or 5%, gas is better than coal. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90839-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90839-7
  - antupis 3y ago
    Methane stays only 12 years in the atmosphere versus CO2 which stays 300 to 1,000 years.
    - danans 3y ago
      However, it has 28x the global warming potential of CO2.
    - cesnja 3y ago
      Methane breaks down into CO2.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      Over those 12 years, methane "decays" to CO2 and water vapor, both greenhouse gases in their own right. And before it decays, it has a much stronger warming effect than either. So a ton of methane is strictly worse than a ton of CO2 in absolutely every way.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      Sure but in those 12 years it does an incredible amount of damage(and then it decays into CO2 anyway). Methane is a huge problem.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Fracking is bad not only because it generates CO2 but it's very polluting as well. This is why it's not popular here. Emissions aren't the only thing. The Netherlands just shut down their gas fields because it's causing too many earthquakes. And I really applaud Germany's decision, the coal is temporary and will be replaced by renewable too. Nuclear is just too expensive, long-term dangerous and sensitive to mess with. Again, emissions aren't the only thing that counts. And this also plays into the nuclear discussion because nuclear advocates often claim very low death tolls from nuclear, but ignore environmental pollution problems.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > but ignore environmental pollution problems. What “environmental pollution” are you talking about here?
    - stephen_g 3y ago
      Fugitive emissions of methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) [1], other gasses which are presumably the reason that people who live near gas fields have higher incidence of cancer, asthma, etc. [2,3], and various chemicals being released into groundwater [4,5], which could also be the causes of the cancer instead of the atmospheric emissions, I don't think there is a strong consensus yet as to which one is responsible and in what proportions. 1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-boom-tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/frack... 2. https://www.publicsource.org/fracking-proximity-cancer-asthma-southwestern-pa-pitt-wolf/ https://www.publicsource.org/fracking-proximity-cancer-asthm... 3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/children-born-near-fracking-sites-have-an-increased-risk-for-leukemia-180980641/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/children-born-near... 4. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-contaminate-drinking-water/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cont... 5. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/study-links-fracking-drinking-water-pollution-and-infant-heath https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/study-links-fracki...
      - 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
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- photochemsyn 3y ago
  Regarding the US switch to natural gas electricity and the closing of coal plants - it seems that a good fraction of the US-produced thermal coal is still being shipped overseas, particularly to India(36%) but also The Netherlands(13%), Egypt(9%), Morocco(7%), Japan(6%) and China(5%): https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-thermal-coal- https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-thermal-coal-... > "The thermal coal export earnings were the second-highest since 2017, following 2022's $5.7 billion. The total volumes were the highest since 2018 and came as U.S. power producers cut the amount of coal used in electricity generation to the lowest this century." Someone probably needs to explain to the green clean energy enthusiasts setting policy these days that it really doesn't matter where you burn the coal, at least from a global atmospheric standpoint (though not for local pollution fallout of sulfur and mercury and arsenic). However, hindering fossil fuel exports appears unlikely for any US government, see the LNG exports to Asia and Europe over 2023: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-was-top-lng-exporter-2023-hit-record-levels-2024-01-02/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-was-top-lng-expor...
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    > Someone probably needs to explain to the green clean energy enthusiasts setting policy these days that it really doesn't matter where you burn the coal, at least from a global atmospheric standpoint (though not for local pollution fallout of sulfur and mercury and arsenic). True but sadly these things are measured by country. Which is unfortunate because if you're going to burn the stuff anyway, shipping it across the world does add significantly to its emissions of course.
  - FrojoS 3y ago
    The US government has now paused approval for new LNG exports [1]. This was big news in Germany because their government is betting on US LNG to replace Russian gas imports and wants to expand natural gas use to complement renewables (peaker plants) and phase out coal. [1] "Biden pauses LNG export approvals after pressure from climate activists" Reuters, January 26, 2024 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-pauses-approval-new-lng-export-projects-win-climate-activists-2024-01-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-pauses-approva...
- nextlevelwizard 3y ago
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- postepowanieadm 3y ago
  Germany tried to do the same using russian gas, but then the war happened. Europe really needs nuclear.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    It always pizzles me, when people seem to think German gas imports from Russia are a recent thing. They are not, they date back to the 70s, the hight of the Cold War, when the imports came from the USSR (!). Reliably and cheap, I might add. And none of that had anything to do with climate change back then.
- deleted 3y ago
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- fulafel 3y ago
  Comparing 1980 to current according to https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re... : Europe had ~8 billion tons of emissions vs vs 5.5 for North America, and the recent numbers are 5 for Europe and 6.3 for NA. I think they managed to do more in the wrong direction.
  - skrause 3y ago
    North America's population has grown since 1980 though while Europe's hasn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg A per capita comparison would be more fair.
    - RamblingCTO 3y ago
      Yeah, not sure about this graph, it hides convenient facts. Germany is growing ever steadily and is the biggest country people-wise, and also the one with one of the biggest climate/energy impacts in Europe. No one cares about Montenegro shrinking in population size. Or Norway, Iceland with their water-powered energy grid. It depends on the countries shrinking or growing, doesn't it?
      - eru 3y ago
        > Germany is growing ever steadily and is the biggest country people-wise, [...] Interesting, I was under the impression that the German population is declining. But you are right, it is slowly growing. In eg 1990 they had 73 million people, and nowadays it's 83 million (according to Google). Apparently that's all driven by net migration, because the birth rate is so low.
        RamblingCTO 3y ago
        There were a few pretty big migration waves. Kosovo/ex Yugoslavia in the 90s, Ukraine, 2015 (middle east) etc. Where each brought > 1 million new people. So Germans are on the decline, but we're adding a lot of migration via the asylum system in. edit: data here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany
- staunton 3y ago
  The Germans had very little nuclear power (and would probably have taken decades to build a single new one even if they had wanted to). The German decision to quit nuclear had basically no impact on EU energy generation. (It had an effect on German emissions, but even that effect is small).
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    It had on grid stability though. Our neighbours still hate us for that ;) the grid has to capture our instability due to renewables and it's a point of debate.
    - adrianN 3y ago
      Our neighbors love selling us energy.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Isn't that just catching up? The EU moved to natural gas decades ago. The gas reserves in Europe mostly don't require fracking to extract, neither do those in Russia. Click the larger countries on the electricity map. All but Germany have significantly more gas capacity than coal. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  This myth keeps on perpetuating. But if you look at the numbers, coal generation in Germany has basically been in a slow decline since it peaked about fifteen years ago, which is also when they started getting rid of nuclear, which was never a big part of their energy generation. Coal usage could have been declining faster of course without that. And recent events have made Russian gas a bit less attractive and they burned a bit more coal. But now that the gas crisis is contained, they'll get back on track cleaning up the energy economy. Winter is coming to an end here and absolutely nobody is talking about cold showers and lowering the heating here anymore like last year. LNG is expensive so they have some incentive to get rid of their dependency on that. It doesn't really make sense to use that for electricity generation. I'm not super hopeful they will be able to completely get rid of coal by the 2030s like they have been insisting they will. But it will eventually get done. And it's one of those things where the more coal gets shut down, the more attractive it gets to get rid of the rest as well. That's also why they got rid of their last three nuclear plants. I agree, not their wisest move, but on the other hand it kind of focused them on a future without nuclear. Which, like it or not, seems what they've committed to. I don't see that change anytime soon. Those three plants disappearing is in the past. It's done. Next up is shutting down brown coal. That's something some parties are still resisting. But they are under a lot of pressure to get rid of this embarrassingly dirty industry.
  - eru 3y ago
    > That's also why they got rid of their last three nuclear plants. I agree, not their wisest move, but on the other hand it kind of focused them on a future without nuclear. Which, like it or not, seems what they've committed to. And I don't even blame politics: it's what voters want.
- timeon 3y ago
  That's good US has lot catching up producing 14.8t CO2 per capita in 2022 while for Germany it was 8t.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  > the Germans had turned their back on almost emission free nuclear power, and in practice had turned towards very dirty coal. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, coal was shrinking even faster than nuclear in Germany. Coal usage only temporarily went up in 2022 as emergency measure.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  America has 2x the German per capita CO2 and 3x the UK per capita. All have reduced this stat over the last few decades so the US might have reduced more absolutely, because they were so high in the first place, but the EU appears to be outpacing them and extending their lead. So it's weird, but unsurprising to see this painted as a triumph for fracked gas, and used to attack Germany's progress.
- kakaz 3y ago
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Twisell 3y ago
I would love a good new but the use of percentages everywhere in the post smell fishy... "Annual change (%)" for different generations mode: Huzzza significant low from 2022 while this year we have a hot winter and 2022 was especially cold. Later "Share by source (%)" but no indication of the overall trend do we produce more or less overall? I don't say it's false, but should someone want to dress some data point and bend reality a little to prove a point this would be a "good" strategy.
- riffraff 3y ago
  2022 was really hot, where did you get the "especially cold"? It was a constant refrain that Europe got a lucky break from the weather right when we needed it due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- kieranmaine 3y ago
  The original report is more comprehensive and may answer some of your questions https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri...
hulitu 3y ago
> EU coal and gas collapse as wind and solar ascend Ascend to heaven. Yes, people have started to install solar panels on old houses. And preparing to cut old, (renewable), forests to install wind, but at the same time they are promoting gas as the next energy source.
JanSt 3y ago
Germany plans to build dozens of new gas peaker plants. That's a big problem of renewables: you have to keep a huge backup infrastructure. So while your usage of gas and coal goes down, you still have to spend huge sums on the infrastructure - grid, backup, etc. The generation is very cheap, but trying to go 100% renewables is very expensive. No one wanted to build the gas plants so now Germany decided to pay not for generated electricity but for available capacity. Sadly, the final nuclear reactors where shut down last year.
- mjamesaustin 3y ago
  Grid-scale energy storage is lower cost per kwh than many fossil fuel peaker plants. The solution to the intermittent energy problem doesn't have to be fossil fuels.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    I'm going to need a source for this, because the mechanics of storage aren't the same as generation sources which can be switched on and off (power plants "running out of fuel" essentially doesn't happen - no one finding "cheap" grid scale storage though is showing weeks of banked energy).
- bboygravity 3y ago
  I'd like to mention the role of corruption in Germany in all this: Gerard Schroder who was essentially bought by the Russians the way I see it. He initiated the push to close German nuclear reactors and push for renewables + Russian gas for base load to replace clean nuclear. After which he got a nice job with Gazprom in exchange for his "good work". Russia won, Germany (and by extension all of the EU) lost IMO. EU essentially funded part of the war against Ukraine in the early days, because Germany had made itself (temporarily) dependent on Russian gas. The only country in Europe who was immune to all of this outside influence and even benefittted: nuclear country France (the biggest net exporter of electricity in the EU last time I checked).
- audunw 3y ago
  > but trying to go 100% renewables is very expensive. Any source for that claim? I mean, yes it’s not exactly cheap. But neither are the alternatives. Expensive compared to what? I’ve seen several studies that indicate that going 100% renewable will be cheaper than the energy infrastructure we have today. Either in a 2050-perspective with the technology/prices we have today (Marc Z Jacobsen). Or on a shorter timeline assuming continues technology and price improvements (Tony Seba). > Sadly, the final nuclear reactors were shut down last year. I think it remains to be seen which path was the right decision. France has recently had some very expensive and long outages. They had to import power from Germany for long stretches during the energy crisis. France has also had some downtime due to hot weather, something we’ll be seeing more of. Most of these nuclear power plants are old. And if they can’t be relied upon as actual base load, what’s the point? I think going 100% renewables could have some major benefits in focus (no need for government to spend resources on regulating nuclear power) and synergies (you get lots of excess cheap electricity that can be used to make hydrogen which can be used to decarbonise steel and fertiliser production, and you invest more in battery R&D which also benefits cars and off-grid applications). We’re also starting to see that advanced geothermal could become a viable alternative to nuclear. I believe that would be a huge Hail Mary to the energy transition because it’ll be easier to get people from the oil and gas section aboard. That will give a lot more political willpower for the transition.
defrost 3y ago
Coal usage is on the downturn in almost all countries, India aside. Global Coal demand appears to have peaked and will decline from this point forward. From the International Energy Agency: Global coal supply likely peaked in 2023 and then to decline https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply International Energy Agency Global Coal Report December 2023 (released Friday 15th December 2023) Global coal production is forecast to have risen by 1.8% in 2023, with continued growth in India, China and Indonesia more than offsetting declines in the United States and the European Union. Thus, 2023 marks another all-time high in global coal production, totalling 8 741 Mt. [...] For the forecast period, we expect a net reduction in global coal production starting in 2024, which would mean global coal production peaking in 2023 in line with global coal demand. Ongoing declines in the United States and the European Union are likely to be complemented by reduced production volumes in Indonesia, as Chinese demand for seaborne thermal coal is likely to decrease. The last bastion of remarkable growth in production is India, serving the growing demand from its power sector. Our model suggests that declines in other countries will more than offset this growth, resulting in global production of 8 394 Mt in 2026.
- deleted 3y ago
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xbmcuser 3y ago
In 2023 China added more solar and wind power production to its grid than its annual consumption growth. People just see that they are still adding coal but they are reaching the tipping point where coal for electricity has started being replaced with renewables. With all the battery and solar production being added in the next few years I think they will also rapidly remove coal from their grid.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  The Chinese are not adding coal and nuclear because it is cheap (it isn't, even for them) but because they can't yet produce enough renewables to completely cover their needs. They have a very rational plan for eventually transitioning away from coal. But it's a long term plan. However renewables are covering most of the new generation at this point and certainly much more than they were expecting even a few years ago. What happened there is that price performance improved much more rapidly than expected; so world + dog, the Chinese included, are rolling out wind, solar, and batteries as fast as they can. A second thing that they probably weren't expecting is that they just became the top car manufacturer in the world. And most of that success is based on Chinese battery companies being extremely successful. So, they are churning out a lot of batteries. And of course grid and domestic batteries are also booming. Batteries are important because they help improve the capacity factor of existing solar and wind. So, they are deploying more capacity than planned and it's performing better than expected. At this point things are actually looking pretty good for renewables and we can expect some of the coal to start disappearing from their grid pretty soon. Coal plant pollution is a big issue in China and they'll want to get rid of coal as soon as they can afford to. Coal is at this point a stop gap solution for them a necessary and costly evil. Getting rid of nuclear is less important to them but I would not be surprised to see a few of their planned construction being postponed or cancelled as they might simply not need the capacity and nuclear plants are expensive. A complicating factor is the bursting real estate bubble in China. That's going to impact funding for all sorts of things. Including new electricity generation (renewable and non renewable). But they'll likely focus on reducing the expensive stuff; which would be nuclear plants. And they'll double down on the parts of their economy that actually do work; which would be renewable energy, EVs, etc. Their export market is looking very strong. So, investing in renewables boosts those exports too.
wkat4242 3y ago
Good news from the climate though of course a little late. And it isn't driven by climate concerns alone, our dependency on Russia has taken its toll and probably helped a lot to drive this change home.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  It's too late to prevent all climate catastrophes. It's not too late to prevent most climate catastrophes. Late is better than never.
mjburgess 3y ago
What goes missing in the analysis of energy sources is their geostrategic impact. The vast majority of government motivations for 'green energy' is geostrategic. Oil/coal/etc. is distributed 'unhelpfully' for western and asian interests, and it's use once. So the countries which have it must be permanently available for oil trade. Whereas with green energy, barring the provision of somewhat renewable metal supply, states do not need particularly complex diplomatic relationships. The reason for the world's attention now being drawn to the middle east isn't as simple as Hamas. Europe needs trade open from the middle east, and it needs oil. This is at the heart of trying to balance interests in the region wrt israel. Both china, us and europe are overwhelmingly against any disruption in the region which is why it hasnt spiraled into a full-blown regional conflict yet. Issues such as these play strongly on the minds of states as they try to transition. China's "going green" because its a net importer, and very worried about its dependence on russia and the middle east. This, I think, should give us hope. Whilst going green is an economic hit, it's a massive security boost. And states almost always trade wealth for security (, since, in the end, without secrutiy your wealth will disappear).
- a321neo 3y ago
  The Houthis/Iran blockading cheap Chinese things from reaching Europe might even be an environmental blessing in disguise.
  - seydor 3y ago
    They are not blockaded, just delayed. I don't see why this is a good thing. Among these goods are solar panels
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Besides three weeks longer transportation leas times and higher trabsportation costs, there won't be much of an impact either way so. That the US and the UKndecide to bomb the Houthis over this, and escalate the whole already FUBAR situation is not the best idea of you ask me.
  - 3y ago
roenxi 3y ago
> People and businesses used less electricity overall, with demand dropping by 3.4% compared to 2022. The EU isn't even managing to tread water with this transition. Over the last 20 years they've shed ~15% [0] of their energy per capita and more than that in places like Germany or France. This policy might look sensible if we hit peak oil sometimes soon, but realistically this is an indictment of the anti-nuclear movement who caused a lot of unnecessary harm. We didn't have to do this by squeezing people's living standards. That energy is needed to promote high living standards. Frankly I'm surprised that the body politic are taking it (although I'll cough a few times and mention Brexit, AfD and apparently the French are unhappy). [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab=chart&country=~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...
- andyferris 3y ago
  Energy efficiency had improved - especially lighting. Wouldn’t this explain the numbers more than a decreased standard of living?
  - dangus 3y ago
    It sure does. One bulb used to suck down up to 100 watts. Now you get the same light out of less than 20 watts.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Technically that was co-generation, you got 80 watts of heat to go with it which was lost during the summer (or caused your AC to have to work even harder!) and in the winter you now you have to generate that 80 watts using some other method. But if you drive a heatpump with it you can come out ahead net+.
- piva00 3y ago
  > We didn't have to do this by squeezing people's living standards. That energy is needed to promote high living standards. What exactly has been the impact in living standards?
seydor 3y ago
This is good, more so we can stop supporting every dictator on earth
NotGMan 3y ago
Another thing that is collapsing in the EU are the wallets of citizens due to high electricity price.
sschueller 3y ago
Exactly one year ago Seymour Hersh wrote about the pipeline being blown up by the US. Today he posted this follow up: https://open.substack.com/pub/seymourhersh/p/the-nord-stream-pipelines-and-the https://open.substack.com/pub/seymourhersh/p/the-nord-stream... Also today the Swedish investigators suspended their investigation. "The conclusion of the investigation is that Swedish jurisdiction does not apply and that the investigation therefore should be closed," the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-ends-investigation-into-nord-stream-pipeline-blasts-2024-02-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-ends-investigati...
- pxeger1 3y ago
  Some context from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage#Involvement_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...): > On 8 February 2023, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article on his Substack page in which he alleged that the attack was ordered by the White House and carried out utilizing American and Norwegian assets by mining the pipelines in June during BALTOPS 2022 with a subsequent remote controlled detonation. The post relied on a single anonymous source, whom Hersh described as having "direct knowledge of the operational planning." The White House responded to the story by calling it "utterly false and complete fiction". Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that those allegations are "nonsense". Norwegian commentator Harald S. Klungtveit challenged the accuracy of Hersh's claims, such as the notion that Alta-class minesweepers had participated in BALTOPS 2022, or that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had been cooperating with US intelligence since the Vietnam War, when he was a teenager and fervently opposed to NATO. Subsequently, Hersh stated that the trail the German investigators were following on the "pro-Ukrainian group" that used a rented yacht was a false flag fabrication created by the CIA and fed to US and German outlets.
neonsunset 3y ago
It is a crime that it's not nuclear that is ascending (and whichever group is responsible for this should get jail time without parole).
- Vecr 3y ago
  Is Jane Fonda still alive?
misja111 3y ago
I'm sorry but this article is full of nonsense. I'm a firm proponent of renewable energy so I'd like it to be true, but there is no way in the world that the drop in gas- and coal energy generation in the EU last year was caused by the uptake of wind and solar. The article states: > Europe’s coal electricity generation tanked by 26% and gas by 15% in 2023 According to links below, EU's solar generation went up 25% in 2023, wind energy by 15%. But to put the numbers in perspective: total solar generated energy accounted for 259.99 GW in 2023, wind energy for 221 GW. In 2022, total energy consumption in the EU was 3300 GW (I couldn't find the numbers for 2023). With other words, the increase of renewable energy accounted for only 2% of the EU's total consumption. So the drop in coal and gas production must have had other reasons, such as e.g. the soft winter. Sources for EU wind and solar production: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/solar-energy_en#:~:text=The%20EU%20solar%20generation%20capacity,the%20spread%20of%20solar%20energy https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/solar-en.... https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/eu-wind-energy_en https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/eu-wind-...
- kieranmaine 3y ago
  The linked article is poor. The original report covers all the different aspects to the reduction in fossil electricity generation. See https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri... For a summary look at the "What drove the record fall in EU fossil fuel electricity generation in 2023?" graphic. The reductions are as follows: * -90 TWh - Rising wind and solar generation * -50 TWh - Rebound in hydro and nuclear generation * -94 TWh - Electricity demand fall The area graph "How the EU's electricity mix has evolved over time" gives you a good idea of the impact renewables have made on electricity generation.
sharpshadow 3y ago
Unfortunately this transition comes at a price. Average household power prices for 2023 are 45,73ct/kWh in Germany[1] even after a tax reduction in 2022. Leaving nuclear energy behind while committing to exit coal as well in addition to being cut out cheap gas places Germany in a very difficult position. Especially to maintain their industry. For main European countries the kWh prices are rising as well[2]. 1. https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompreisanalyse/ https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompre... 2. (PDF) 5.8.2 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Wirtschaft/Preise/Publikationen/Energiepreise/energiepreisentwicklung-pdf-5619001.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Wirtschaft/Preise/Publikat...
- fransje26 3y ago
  > Average household power prices for 2023 are 45,73ct/kWh in Germany And they are set to increase this year.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  About half of that price is taxes. One idea that is catching on is shifting taxes and green levies from electricity to gas as the grid gets cleaner. You can also sometimes make exceptions for specific use cases, e.g. stop charging the extra fees on electric trains or EV charging or any other use of electricity that is directly displacing fossil fuels.
  - misja111 3y ago
    Sure but that's just shifting the burden from one place to another. It doesn't take away the fact that cost of living in Germany has increased due to the shift to renewable energy. (disclaimer: I'm not against renewable energy, I just think we should not look away from reality)
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      "Shifting the burden" to the places with externalities is perhaps the key idea driving the renewable revolution and is a tool aimed at increasing theoretical efficiency, literally making us all wealthier.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
This is a brief summary of this report: https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri... That page also links out to other coverage at Reuters and others.

139 points by imartin2k 3y ago

eru 3y ago

Interestingly, in the years before the US managed to do more about their CO2 emissions than Europe. That's because thanks to fracking the US move a large share of their energy generation towards natural gas, which burns 'cleaner' than oil and coal. The EU has (almost?) no fracking. And in an even greater tragedy: the Germans had turned their back on almost emission free nuclear power, and in practice had turned towards very dirty coal.

trilbyglens 3y ago
I honestly do not fault Europe for not pursuing fracking. If you haven't spent much time over here it's not easy as an American to appreciate just how little "empty space" there is on the continent. There is really no where that doesn't impact communities of people. The us can easily afford to basically throw a few little towns in Oklahoma under the bus and no one really notices or cares. That's just possible here. Too many damned humans, and too many teetering systems. Could you imagine the outcry if a fracking induced earthquake took down a 13th century church someplace? No one wants that.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Plenty of empty space to do fracking in Europe. This is a case of ideology over strategic thinking for Europe, IMHO, and we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    We just care more about pollution in Europe. Greenhouse emissions aren't the only environmental problems (and those are also worsened by fracking of course as it's still a means of producing fossil fuels) I totally support our stance against fracking. And the dependency on Russia was a bit of an issue for the first winter of the war but prices are back to normal now.
    - mytailorisrich 3y ago
      Dependency has not gone away. We still import plenty but now from US and Qatar (I.e US are again winning while we are again losing). It's not even about pollution. To say banalities like "we care more about pollution" means nothing and is not aligned with reality. Again, the issue is ideology. This is failing Europe in many areas, not just this.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        We do care a hell of a lot more about pollution that most of the world. In the Netherlands half the country is at a standstill because some Nitrogen levels are too high. Building projects are stopped, farmers have to reduce fertilising etc. Even the maximum speed was reduced nationwide, not because of CO2 emissions but because of nitrogen messing with local ecosystems. I support that, but it's very important to realise that this is pretty unique in the world. "Green parties" are a huge thing and often even part of governments, is there even one in the US? :) And yeah we still import but you can't change things from one day to another.
      - bigfudge 3y ago
        You are wrong. Paris literally this week voted to tax SUVs from the city, in part because of pollution. It also speaks to a wider concern here not to allow commerce to dominate other public goods.
        mytailorisrich 3y ago
        The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is.
        wkat4242 3y ago
        > "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is. Yeah but that's a good thing in my book. The US tends to be very unbalanced in this regard, commerce all the way and not much attention to externalities, both environmental and societal (e.g. welfare and labour rights) Europe is substantially different from an ideological perspective and that provides us with a much better quality of life (much lower violent crime, much better public transport, no crazy healthcare prices, greener cities etc). Of course the US does better economically but economy isn't everything. And it's a self-defeating goal anyway, the more money people have, the more they spend on scarce housing and other goods which means the housing crisis is just as bad in the US as it is here despite the higher salaries there. > The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. Paris is far from the only city in Europe banning the most polluting vehicles. Almost every major city does this now. And the air quality really did improve due to this. And our cities are just a lot more smaller scale due to the longer history - there's a reason the smart was invented here :)
  - mk89 3y ago
    > we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead. In my opinion, you're confusing bad political choices (=let's get addicted to Russian gas, then we will see about it in 10 years) with everything else. Germany could have done more in the past 10 years to not get to the point in 2022 to be threatened by a country - they didn't, now they have to brute-force innovation/renovation. I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news.
    - mytailorisrich 3y ago
      Germany's energy policy is the best example in Europe of ideology over pragmatism. The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. Ban of fracking is not pragmatic, either. If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative.
      - mk89 3y ago
        > The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. > If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative. It's different in the sense that you don't depend entirely on a single country for your gas (like it was before), so that particular country cannot threaten you like they did. The goal of this governement is to drastically reduce energy consumption and use renewables, while at the same time "buying" gas from wherever else. This was for a political reason, otherwise they would have kept on buying gas from Russia and implemented slowly their green/eco program. The issue is not fracking yes or no, but the fact that in the previous 10-15 years it wasn't done enough to avoid what happened in 2022.
- imp0cat 3y ago
  They put their churches on rails and move them out of the way as required instead. No, seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJwbhos9eM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJwbhos9eM The heaviest building ever moved on wheels Between September 30 and October 27, 1975, the church was moved a distance of 841.1 meters at a velocity of 13 centimeters per minute to the vicinity of the old hospital, and it was set on an iron-concrete two-storied foundation. A small church of St. Ghost was also moved during October. After the move was completed, restoration work went on until 1988, and the church was solemnly blessed again in 1993.
- eru 3y ago
  > Could you imagine the outcry if a fracking induced earthquake took down a 13th century church someplace? No one wants that. Seems like an straightforward case of externalities? Coasian bargaining and/or Pigovian taxes can deal with them. Yes, 13th century churches have value, but so do a lot of other things, like convenience or reducing CO2 emissions. You can fix teetering systems with money. Politically, you'd want to be careful to align who benefits from fracking (eg via taxes) and who bears the burden (eg from minor earthquakes). So if the dangers of fracking extent to about, say, 30km from the side of where the well sits, you'd want to make sure that the tax revenues and authority to decide on whether to allow fracking and what obligations to put on frackers should also roughly occur on that level of 30km. Eg within a county perhaps. This way the voters in different counties can make up their mind about what they want to allow, and what they ask for in return. Perhaps they want the frackers to post a billion dollar bond underwritten by a major re-insurance company as insurance for that 13th century church, before they allow fracking. Write the contract in such a way that any earthquake damage to that church would be covered, without need for proof that fracking was to blame.
  - bigfudge 3y ago
    This is so wonderfully naive to the realities of contract negotiations between large corporates and governments. There is an asymmetry here which works agains the public good. Corporations tend to only have to corrupt an offici or capture a regulatory body once to extract long term concessions, which rarely if ever get rolled back. The same is not true in reverse. In practice this means governments aren’t able to effectively exert democratic mandates over policy areas like this.
    - eru 3y ago
      The government is vastly more powerful than companies. The government can make arbitrary rules (= laws) that the company has to abide by. The company has no such power. > In practice this means governments aren’t able to effectively exert democratic mandates over policy areas like this. How did the Germans ever shut down their nuclear power plants? They were already up and running, so they were literally printing money for their corporate owners? How did GDPR pass in Europe? Why can't Google build housing for their employees in Mountain View? I would like to live in your utopia where companies are all powerful!
- nehal3m 3y ago
  I happen to live in a very old European village that is being damaged by fracking to the point where homes became uninhabitable. I’ve been fighting the government for the money to replace the house they’ve forced me out of for the past 5 years. There are some who respond to you by saying this can be solved with money but that ignores a significant humanitarian cost. Responsible parties will do whatever they can to shirk responsibility and affected parties will have to waste years of their lives trying to regain safe shelter through bureaucracy. Sometimes it feels hopeless.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's just the local version of the resource curse. Imagine living in a whole country like that. The world economy is when you look at it rationally completely bonkers, we dig stuff up in one place to burn it elsewhere, we make stuff here to use it thousands of km away. Without all that cheap transportation, which in itself is a big contributor to the emissions we'd be forced to solve our problems locally. All that we do today is to destroy the planet whilst pretend externalizing the costs. But it is one planet, and there is no externalization happening so in the end it all goes down, the only thing we are doing is to lower the lows and to raise the peaks temporarily at the expense of the future.
- amatecha 3y ago
  Well, Europe isn't exactly saintly, unfortunately. Germany is literally tearing down entire towns to make way for lignite ("brown coal") mining: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/635911260/germany-turns-to-brown-coal-to-fill-its-energy-gap https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/635911260/germany-turns-to-br... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine "Nearly 50 villages in this region have been evacuated and destroyed for the ever-expanding mines, and Winzen's village of Keyenberg — more than a thousand years old — is set to be next.": https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-monster-is-threatening-to-swallow-a-small-town-in-germany https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-mons... Just as an aside, apparently the company doing this, RWE, was the #1 producer of CO2 emissions in Europe in 2018 ( https://archive.is/Qe9KJ https://archive.is/Qe9KJ ). All I can say is, the sooner renewable energy takes over, the better.
oezi 3y ago
The 4 last old nuclear plants which were switched off last year wouldn't have been switched to coal if it wasn't for Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine. Coal in Germany will end in 2030 anyway and the renewables are built at a pace to support that.
- eru 3y ago
  With nuclear power (especially with new plants) Germany could transition off CO2 producing fuels faster. Remember: renewables are not actively good for reducing CO2. They don't suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, they are at best neutral. Renewable are good insofar as they allow us to move away from fossil fuels.
  - lysium 3y ago
    It takes decades to build new nuclear plants. This won’t solve anything until they are built. Renewables /are/ good for reducing CO2, as every kW produced by renewable is not produced by CO2-emitting alternative. Plus, they make you independent from foreign energy sources.
    - timthorn 3y ago
      Germany didn't need to build new plants, it already had some. The "it takes decades" argument was used as the reason for not significantly renewing nuclear in the UK - over a decade ago.
      - mk89 3y ago
        You need energy now. Nuclear was phased out. That's it. That was the decision. And in 2021 was "barely" producing 13% of electric energy with the last 6 reactors. So either you follow one approach (= mix between imports and solar/wind) or the other (=import until 2032, then import and produce with nuclear energy), with the first approach being oriented to the long run (=independent from other countries, less co2 emissions, etc.).
    - eru 3y ago
xeyownt 3y ago
Natural gas is not "clean". Moreover, it is well known that the biggest problem with gas is the production of methane during extraction that is MUCH more dangerous than CO2. Regarding Germany, the switch is temporary (geopolitical), and they still produce less CO2 every year as planned and have a strong CO2 phase-out plan.
- dtech 3y ago
  > methane ... MUCH more dangerous than CO2 Eh, it's a more powerful greenhouse gas, but it's also gone after ~10 years.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 3y ago
    It's still CO2 emissions at the end of the day. The issue is nuclear power is right there as the better option. At the end of the day natural gas is still liberating carbon which was locked away and won't be put back anytime soon.
  - Scarblac 3y ago
    Its half life is about 9 years says Google, so "gone" takes a lot longer than that.
  - danans 3y ago
    > but it's also gone after ~10 years It breaks down to CO2, so as a GHG, it's not gone at all.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Methane has approximately 28x the warming effect of CO2 in those 10 years, and ultimately it breaks down... To CO2 and water. So every ton of CH4 is like 28 tons of CO2 in the medium term, and like 1+ tons of CO2 in the long term (since water vapor is also a GHG).
sampo 3y ago
> US managed to do more about their CO2 emissions than Europe. That's because thanks to fracking the US move a large share of their energy generation towards natural gas, which burns 'cleaner' than oil and coal The climate benefits of the lower CO2 emissions from burning gas, instead of coal and oil, are partially offset be the greater methane emissions. Then again, you can't compare natural gas CO2 + CH4 emissions to only CO2 from coal, as coal production also releases CH4. As long as methane leaks from the natural gas supply are below 4% or 5%, gas is better than coal. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90839-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90839-7
- antupis 3y ago
  Methane stays only 12 years in the atmosphere versus CO2 which stays 300 to 1,000 years.
  - danans 3y ago
    However, it has 28x the global warming potential of CO2.
  - cesnja 3y ago
    Methane breaks down into CO2.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Over those 12 years, methane "decays" to CO2 and water vapor, both greenhouse gases in their own right. And before it decays, it has a much stronger warming effect than either. So a ton of methane is strictly worse than a ton of CO2 in absolutely every way.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    Sure but in those 12 years it does an incredible amount of damage(and then it decays into CO2 anyway). Methane is a huge problem.
wkat4242 3y ago
Fracking is bad not only because it generates CO2 but it's very polluting as well. This is why it's not popular here. Emissions aren't the only thing. The Netherlands just shut down their gas fields because it's causing too many earthquakes. And I really applaud Germany's decision, the coal is temporary and will be replaced by renewable too. Nuclear is just too expensive, long-term dangerous and sensitive to mess with. Again, emissions aren't the only thing that counts. And this also plays into the nuclear discussion because nuclear advocates often claim very low death tolls from nuclear, but ignore environmental pollution problems.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > but ignore environmental pollution problems. What “environmental pollution” are you talking about here?
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    Fugitive emissions of methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) [1], other gasses which are presumably the reason that people who live near gas fields have higher incidence of cancer, asthma, etc. [2,3], and various chemicals being released into groundwater [4,5], which could also be the causes of the cancer instead of the atmospheric emissions, I don't think there is a strong consensus yet as to which one is responsible and in what proportions. 1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-boom-tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/frack... 2. https://www.publicsource.org/fracking-proximity-cancer-asthma-southwestern-pa-pitt-wolf/ https://www.publicsource.org/fracking-proximity-cancer-asthm... 3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/children-born-near-fracking-sites-have-an-increased-risk-for-leukemia-180980641/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/children-born-near... 4. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-contaminate-drinking-water/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cont... 5. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/study-links-fracking-drinking-water-pollution-and-infant-heath https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/study-links-fracki...
    - 3y ago
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photochemsyn 3y ago
Regarding the US switch to natural gas electricity and the closing of coal plants - it seems that a good fraction of the US-produced thermal coal is still being shipped overseas, particularly to India(36%) but also The Netherlands(13%), Egypt(9%), Morocco(7%), Japan(6%) and China(5%): https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-thermal-coal- https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-thermal-coal-... > "The thermal coal export earnings were the second-highest since 2017, following 2022's $5.7 billion. The total volumes were the highest since 2018 and came as U.S. power producers cut the amount of coal used in electricity generation to the lowest this century." Someone probably needs to explain to the green clean energy enthusiasts setting policy these days that it really doesn't matter where you burn the coal, at least from a global atmospheric standpoint (though not for local pollution fallout of sulfur and mercury and arsenic). However, hindering fossil fuel exports appears unlikely for any US government, see the LNG exports to Asia and Europe over 2023: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-was-top-lng-exporter-2023-hit-record-levels-2024-01-02/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-was-top-lng-expor...
- wkat4242 3y ago
  > Someone probably needs to explain to the green clean energy enthusiasts setting policy these days that it really doesn't matter where you burn the coal, at least from a global atmospheric standpoint (though not for local pollution fallout of sulfur and mercury and arsenic). True but sadly these things are measured by country. Which is unfortunate because if you're going to burn the stuff anyway, shipping it across the world does add significantly to its emissions of course.
- FrojoS 3y ago
  The US government has now paused approval for new LNG exports [1]. This was big news in Germany because their government is betting on US LNG to replace Russian gas imports and wants to expand natural gas use to complement renewables (peaker plants) and phase out coal. [1] "Biden pauses LNG export approvals after pressure from climate activists" Reuters, January 26, 2024 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-pauses-approval-new-lng-export-projects-win-climate-activists-2024-01-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-pauses-approva...
nextlevelwizard 3y ago
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postepowanieadm 3y ago
Germany tried to do the same using russian gas, but then the war happened. Europe really needs nuclear.
- hef19898 3y ago
  It always pizzles me, when people seem to think German gas imports from Russia are a recent thing. They are not, they date back to the 70s, the hight of the Cold War, when the imports came from the USSR (!). Reliably and cheap, I might add. And none of that had anything to do with climate change back then.
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fulafel 3y ago
Comparing 1980 to current according to https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re... : Europe had ~8 billion tons of emissions vs vs 5.5 for North America, and the recent numbers are 5 for Europe and 6.3 for NA. I think they managed to do more in the wrong direction.
- skrause 3y ago
  North America's population has grown since 1980 though while Europe's hasn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_(UN).svg A per capita comparison would be more fair.
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    Yeah, not sure about this graph, it hides convenient facts. Germany is growing ever steadily and is the biggest country people-wise, and also the one with one of the biggest climate/energy impacts in Europe. No one cares about Montenegro shrinking in population size. Or Norway, Iceland with their water-powered energy grid. It depends on the countries shrinking or growing, doesn't it?
    - eru 3y ago
      > Germany is growing ever steadily and is the biggest country people-wise, [...] Interesting, I was under the impression that the German population is declining. But you are right, it is slowly growing. In eg 1990 they had 73 million people, and nowadays it's 83 million (according to Google). Apparently that's all driven by net migration, because the birth rate is so low.
      - RamblingCTO 3y ago
        There were a few pretty big migration waves. Kosovo/ex Yugoslavia in the 90s, Ukraine, 2015 (middle east) etc. Where each brought > 1 million new people. So Germans are on the decline, but we're adding a lot of migration via the asylum system in. edit: data here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany
staunton 3y ago
The Germans had very little nuclear power (and would probably have taken decades to build a single new one even if they had wanted to). The German decision to quit nuclear had basically no impact on EU energy generation. (It had an effect on German emissions, but even that effect is small).
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  It had on grid stability though. Our neighbours still hate us for that ;) the grid has to capture our instability due to renewables and it's a point of debate.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Our neighbors love selling us energy.
Symbiote 3y ago
Isn't that just catching up? The EU moved to natural gas decades ago. The gas reserves in Europe mostly don't require fracking to extract, neither do those in Russia. Click the larger countries on the electricity map. All but Germany have significantly more gas capacity than coal. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
jillesvangurp 3y ago
This myth keeps on perpetuating. But if you look at the numbers, coal generation in Germany has basically been in a slow decline since it peaked about fifteen years ago, which is also when they started getting rid of nuclear, which was never a big part of their energy generation. Coal usage could have been declining faster of course without that. And recent events have made Russian gas a bit less attractive and they burned a bit more coal. But now that the gas crisis is contained, they'll get back on track cleaning up the energy economy. Winter is coming to an end here and absolutely nobody is talking about cold showers and lowering the heating here anymore like last year. LNG is expensive so they have some incentive to get rid of their dependency on that. It doesn't really make sense to use that for electricity generation. I'm not super hopeful they will be able to completely get rid of coal by the 2030s like they have been insisting they will. But it will eventually get done. And it's one of those things where the more coal gets shut down, the more attractive it gets to get rid of the rest as well. That's also why they got rid of their last three nuclear plants. I agree, not their wisest move, but on the other hand it kind of focused them on a future without nuclear. Which, like it or not, seems what they've committed to. I don't see that change anytime soon. Those three plants disappearing is in the past. It's done. Next up is shutting down brown coal. That's something some parties are still resisting. But they are under a lot of pressure to get rid of this embarrassingly dirty industry.
- eru 3y ago
  > That's also why they got rid of their last three nuclear plants. I agree, not their wisest move, but on the other hand it kind of focused them on a future without nuclear. Which, like it or not, seems what they've committed to. And I don't even blame politics: it's what voters want.
timeon 3y ago
That's good US has lot catching up producing 14.8t CO2 per capita in 2022 while for Germany it was 8t.
flohofwoe 3y ago
> the Germans had turned their back on almost emission free nuclear power, and in practice had turned towards very dirty coal. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, coal was shrinking even faster than nuclear in Germany. Coal usage only temporarily went up in 2022 as emergency measure.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
America has 2x the German per capita CO2 and 3x the UK per capita. All have reduced this stat over the last few decades so the US might have reduced more absolutely, because they were so high in the first place, but the EU appears to be outpacing them and extending their lead. So it's weird, but unsurprising to see this painted as a triumph for fracked gas, and used to attack Germany's progress.
kakaz 3y ago
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Twisell 3y ago

I would love a good new but the use of percentages everywhere in the post smell fishy... "Annual change (%)" for different generations mode: Huzzza significant low from 2022 while this year we have a hot winter and 2022 was especially cold. Later "Share by source (%)" but no indication of the overall trend do we produce more or less overall? I don't say it's false, but should someone want to dress some data point and bend reality a little to prove a point this would be a "good" strategy.

riffraff 3y ago
2022 was really hot, where did you get the "especially cold"? It was a constant refrain that Europe got a lucky break from the weather right when we needed it due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
kieranmaine 3y ago
The original report is more comprehensive and may answer some of your questions https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri...

hulitu 3y ago

> EU coal and gas collapse as wind and solar ascend Ascend to heaven. Yes, people have started to install solar panels on old houses. And preparing to cut old, (renewable), forests to install wind, but at the same time they are promoting gas as the next energy source.

JanSt 3y ago

Germany plans to build dozens of new gas peaker plants. That's a big problem of renewables: you have to keep a huge backup infrastructure. So while your usage of gas and coal goes down, you still have to spend huge sums on the infrastructure - grid, backup, etc. The generation is very cheap, but trying to go 100% renewables is very expensive. No one wanted to build the gas plants so now Germany decided to pay not for generated electricity but for available capacity. Sadly, the final nuclear reactors where shut down last year.

mjamesaustin 3y ago
Grid-scale energy storage is lower cost per kwh than many fossil fuel peaker plants. The solution to the intermittent energy problem doesn't have to be fossil fuels.
- XorNot 3y ago
  I'm going to need a source for this, because the mechanics of storage aren't the same as generation sources which can be switched on and off (power plants "running out of fuel" essentially doesn't happen - no one finding "cheap" grid scale storage though is showing weeks of banked energy).
bboygravity 3y ago
I'd like to mention the role of corruption in Germany in all this: Gerard Schroder who was essentially bought by the Russians the way I see it. He initiated the push to close German nuclear reactors and push for renewables + Russian gas for base load to replace clean nuclear. After which he got a nice job with Gazprom in exchange for his "good work". Russia won, Germany (and by extension all of the EU) lost IMO. EU essentially funded part of the war against Ukraine in the early days, because Germany had made itself (temporarily) dependent on Russian gas. The only country in Europe who was immune to all of this outside influence and even benefittted: nuclear country France (the biggest net exporter of electricity in the EU last time I checked).
audunw 3y ago
> but trying to go 100% renewables is very expensive. Any source for that claim? I mean, yes it’s not exactly cheap. But neither are the alternatives. Expensive compared to what? I’ve seen several studies that indicate that going 100% renewable will be cheaper than the energy infrastructure we have today. Either in a 2050-perspective with the technology/prices we have today (Marc Z Jacobsen). Or on a shorter timeline assuming continues technology and price improvements (Tony Seba). > Sadly, the final nuclear reactors were shut down last year. I think it remains to be seen which path was the right decision. France has recently had some very expensive and long outages. They had to import power from Germany for long stretches during the energy crisis. France has also had some downtime due to hot weather, something we’ll be seeing more of. Most of these nuclear power plants are old. And if they can’t be relied upon as actual base load, what’s the point? I think going 100% renewables could have some major benefits in focus (no need for government to spend resources on regulating nuclear power) and synergies (you get lots of excess cheap electricity that can be used to make hydrogen which can be used to decarbonise steel and fertiliser production, and you invest more in battery R&D which also benefits cars and off-grid applications). We’re also starting to see that advanced geothermal could become a viable alternative to nuclear. I believe that would be a huge Hail Mary to the energy transition because it’ll be easier to get people from the oil and gas section aboard. That will give a lot more political willpower for the transition.

defrost 3y ago

Coal usage is on the downturn in almost all countries, India aside. Global Coal demand appears to have peaked and will decline from this point forward. From the International Energy Agency: Global coal supply likely peaked in 2023 and then to decline https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply International Energy Agency Global Coal Report December 2023 (released Friday 15th December 2023) Global coal production is forecast to have risen by 1.8% in 2023, with continued growth in India, China and Indonesia more than offsetting declines in the United States and the European Union. Thus, 2023 marks another all-time high in global coal production, totalling 8 741 Mt. [...] For the forecast period, we expect a net reduction in global coal production starting in 2024, which would mean global coal production peaking in 2023 in line with global coal demand. Ongoing declines in the United States and the European Union are likely to be complemented by reduced production volumes in Indonesia, as Chinese demand for seaborne thermal coal is likely to decrease. The last bastion of remarkable growth in production is India, serving the growing demand from its power sector. Our model suggests that declines in other countries will more than offset this growth, resulting in global production of 8 394 Mt in 2026.

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xbmcuser 3y ago

In 2023 China added more solar and wind power production to its grid than its annual consumption growth. People just see that they are still adding coal but they are reaching the tipping point where coal for electricity has started being replaced with renewables. With all the battery and solar production being added in the next few years I think they will also rapidly remove coal from their grid.

jillesvangurp 3y ago
The Chinese are not adding coal and nuclear because it is cheap (it isn't, even for them) but because they can't yet produce enough renewables to completely cover their needs. They have a very rational plan for eventually transitioning away from coal. But it's a long term plan. However renewables are covering most of the new generation at this point and certainly much more than they were expecting even a few years ago. What happened there is that price performance improved much more rapidly than expected; so world + dog, the Chinese included, are rolling out wind, solar, and batteries as fast as they can. A second thing that they probably weren't expecting is that they just became the top car manufacturer in the world. And most of that success is based on Chinese battery companies being extremely successful. So, they are churning out a lot of batteries. And of course grid and domestic batteries are also booming. Batteries are important because they help improve the capacity factor of existing solar and wind. So, they are deploying more capacity than planned and it's performing better than expected. At this point things are actually looking pretty good for renewables and we can expect some of the coal to start disappearing from their grid pretty soon. Coal plant pollution is a big issue in China and they'll want to get rid of coal as soon as they can afford to. Coal is at this point a stop gap solution for them a necessary and costly evil. Getting rid of nuclear is less important to them but I would not be surprised to see a few of their planned construction being postponed or cancelled as they might simply not need the capacity and nuclear plants are expensive. A complicating factor is the bursting real estate bubble in China. That's going to impact funding for all sorts of things. Including new electricity generation (renewable and non renewable). But they'll likely focus on reducing the expensive stuff; which would be nuclear plants. And they'll double down on the parts of their economy that actually do work; which would be renewable energy, EVs, etc. Their export market is looking very strong. So, investing in renewables boosts those exports too.

wkat4242 3y ago

Good news from the climate though of course a little late. And it isn't driven by climate concerns alone, our dependency on Russia has taken its toll and probably helped a lot to drive this change home.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
It's too late to prevent all climate catastrophes. It's not too late to prevent most climate catastrophes. Late is better than never.

mjburgess 3y ago

What goes missing in the analysis of energy sources is their geostrategic impact. The vast majority of government motivations for 'green energy' is geostrategic. Oil/coal/etc. is distributed 'unhelpfully' for western and asian interests, and it's use once. So the countries which have it must be permanently available for oil trade. Whereas with green energy, barring the provision of somewhat renewable metal supply, states do not need particularly complex diplomatic relationships. The reason for the world's attention now being drawn to the middle east isn't as simple as Hamas. Europe needs trade open from the middle east, and it needs oil. This is at the heart of trying to balance interests in the region wrt israel. Both china, us and europe are overwhelmingly against any disruption in the region which is why it hasnt spiraled into a full-blown regional conflict yet. Issues such as these play strongly on the minds of states as they try to transition. China's "going green" because its a net importer, and very worried about its dependence on russia and the middle east. This, I think, should give us hope. Whilst going green is an economic hit, it's a massive security boost. And states almost always trade wealth for security (, since, in the end, without secrutiy your wealth will disappear).

a321neo 3y ago
The Houthis/Iran blockading cheap Chinese things from reaching Europe might even be an environmental blessing in disguise.
- seydor 3y ago
  They are not blockaded, just delayed. I don't see why this is a good thing. Among these goods are solar panels
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Besides three weeks longer transportation leas times and higher trabsportation costs, there won't be much of an impact either way so. That the US and the UKndecide to bomb the Houthis over this, and escalate the whole already FUBAR situation is not the best idea of you ask me.
- 3y ago

roenxi 3y ago

> People and businesses used less electricity overall, with demand dropping by 3.4% compared to 2022. The EU isn't even managing to tread water with this transition. Over the last 20 years they've shed ~15% [0] of their energy per capita and more than that in places like Germany or France. This policy might look sensible if we hit peak oil sometimes soon, but realistically this is an indictment of the anti-nuclear movement who caused a lot of unnecessary harm. We didn't have to do this by squeezing people's living standards. That energy is needed to promote high living standards. Frankly I'm surprised that the body politic are taking it (although I'll cough a few times and mention Brexit, AfD and apparently the French are unhappy). [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab=chart&country=~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

andyferris 3y ago
Energy efficiency had improved - especially lighting. Wouldn’t this explain the numbers more than a decreased standard of living?
- dangus 3y ago
  It sure does. One bulb used to suck down up to 100 watts. Now you get the same light out of less than 20 watts.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Technically that was co-generation, you got 80 watts of heat to go with it which was lost during the summer (or caused your AC to have to work even harder!) and in the winter you now you have to generate that 80 watts using some other method. But if you drive a heatpump with it you can come out ahead net+.
piva00 3y ago
> We didn't have to do this by squeezing people's living standards. That energy is needed to promote high living standards. What exactly has been the impact in living standards?

seydor 3y ago

This is good, more so we can stop supporting every dictator on earth

NotGMan 3y ago

Another thing that is collapsing in the EU are the wallets of citizens due to high electricity price.

sschueller 3y ago

Exactly one year ago Seymour Hersh wrote about the pipeline being blown up by the US. Today he posted this follow up: https://open.substack.com/pub/seymourhersh/p/the-nord-stream-pipelines-and-the https://open.substack.com/pub/seymourhersh/p/the-nord-stream... Also today the Swedish investigators suspended their investigation. "The conclusion of the investigation is that Swedish jurisdiction does not apply and that the investigation therefore should be closed," the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-ends-investigation-into-nord-stream-pipeline-blasts-2024-02-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-ends-investigati...

pxeger1 3y ago
Some context from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage#Involvement_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...): > On 8 February 2023, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article on his Substack page in which he alleged that the attack was ordered by the White House and carried out utilizing American and Norwegian assets by mining the pipelines in June during BALTOPS 2022 with a subsequent remote controlled detonation. The post relied on a single anonymous source, whom Hersh described as having "direct knowledge of the operational planning." The White House responded to the story by calling it "utterly false and complete fiction". Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that those allegations are "nonsense". Norwegian commentator Harald S. Klungtveit challenged the accuracy of Hersh's claims, such as the notion that Alta-class minesweepers had participated in BALTOPS 2022, or that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had been cooperating with US intelligence since the Vietnam War, when he was a teenager and fervently opposed to NATO. Subsequently, Hersh stated that the trail the German investigators were following on the "pro-Ukrainian group" that used a rented yacht was a false flag fabrication created by the CIA and fed to US and German outlets.

neonsunset 3y ago

It is a crime that it's not nuclear that is ascending (and whichever group is responsible for this should get jail time without parole).

Vecr 3y ago
Is Jane Fonda still alive?

misja111 3y ago

I'm sorry but this article is full of nonsense. I'm a firm proponent of renewable energy so I'd like it to be true, but there is no way in the world that the drop in gas- and coal energy generation in the EU last year was caused by the uptake of wind and solar. The article states: > Europe’s coal electricity generation tanked by 26% and gas by 15% in 2023 According to links below, EU's solar generation went up 25% in 2023, wind energy by 15%. But to put the numbers in perspective: total solar generated energy accounted for 259.99 GW in 2023, wind energy for 221 GW. In 2022, total energy consumption in the EU was 3300 GW (I couldn't find the numbers for 2023). With other words, the increase of renewable energy accounted for only 2% of the EU's total consumption. So the drop in coal and gas production must have had other reasons, such as e.g. the soft winter. Sources for EU wind and solar production: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/solar-energy_en#:~:text=The%20EU%20solar%20generation%20capacity,the%20spread%20of%20solar%20energy https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/solar-en.... https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/eu-wind-energy_en https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/eu-wind-...

kieranmaine 3y ago
The linked article is poor. The original report covers all the different aspects to the reduction in fossil electricity generation. See https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri... For a summary look at the "What drove the record fall in EU fossil fuel electricity generation in 2023?" graphic. The reductions are as follows: * -90 TWh - Rising wind and solar generation * -50 TWh - Rebound in hydro and nuclear generation * -94 TWh - Electricity demand fall The area graph "How the EU's electricity mix has evolved over time" gives you a good idea of the impact renewables have made on electricity generation.

sharpshadow 3y ago

Unfortunately this transition comes at a price. Average household power prices for 2023 are 45,73ct/kWh in Germany[1] even after a tax reduction in 2022. Leaving nuclear energy behind while committing to exit coal as well in addition to being cut out cheap gas places Germany in a very difficult position. Especially to maintain their industry. For main European countries the kWh prices are rising as well[2]. 1. https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompreisanalyse/ https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompre... 2. (PDF) 5.8.2 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Wirtschaft/Preise/Publikationen/Energiepreise/energiepreisentwicklung-pdf-5619001.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Wirtschaft/Preise/Publikat...

fransje26 3y ago
> Average household power prices for 2023 are 45,73ct/kWh in Germany And they are set to increase this year.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
About half of that price is taxes. One idea that is catching on is shifting taxes and green levies from electricity to gas as the grid gets cleaner. You can also sometimes make exceptions for specific use cases, e.g. stop charging the extra fees on electric trains or EV charging or any other use of electricity that is directly displacing fossil fuels.
- misja111 3y ago
  Sure but that's just shifting the burden from one place to another. It doesn't take away the fact that cost of living in Germany has increased due to the shift to renewable energy. (disclaimer: I'm not against renewable energy, I just think we should not look away from reality)
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    "Shifting the burden" to the places with externalities is perhaps the key idea driving the renewable revolution and is a tool aimed at increasing theoretical efficiency, literally making us all wealthier.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

This is a brief summary of this report: https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electricity-review-2024/ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri... That page also links out to other coverage at Reuters and others.