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> Yes, Germany is slow to adapt to new tech Like renewable energy? 1st quarter 2024: 58,4% electricity from renewable energy. Up from 48.5% last year.
by lispm 2y ago
> Yes, Germany is slow to adapt to new tech
Like renewable energy? 1st quarter 2024: 58,4% electricity from renewable energy. Up from 48.5% last year.
- leononame 2y agoSure, renewable _electricity_ is up. But up alone is not enough. When talking energy, you should use gross energy, including e.g. transport. Take this chart [0] from wikipedia [1]. Doesn't look too amazing. Now, being a gross exporter, the numbers are obviously skewed, but I didn't really mean EVs or electrical production specifically. German bureaucracy famously still runs on fax and emails are printed, there are lots of small-ish villages to small cities with _really_ bad internet connection among other things. It's a big country where politicians seem to be really afraid of change. It's not that the country is stuck in the 70s, but some things just take more time to arrive in Germany, or at least in parts of it. [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/8v6gc06xadw6eqpesjligw0l8tr6g4f.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/8v6gc06xa... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_European_Union#Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_Europe...
- lispm 2y agoI live in Germany and I can't even remember where and when I have seen a fax. I was flying back from munich to hamburg last week, with a passenger jet, which is produced in my hometown, with internet in the plane - not a fax.
- polycaster 2y agoI'm not sure where this fax myth originates. I've been living in Germany for most of my life, and I'm no longer in my thirties. During this time, I have sent a total of zero faxes. I can't even remember anyone ever asking me to send one.
- jangxx 2y agoThen you clearly don't work in healthcare or law.
- ant6n 2y agoLawyers, administrations and corporations still send each other faxes because it is a way to provably deliver documents instantly. At scale it’s cheaper and quicker than a registered letter.
- infecto 2y agoI don't live in Germany and this is all based on accounts I have seen posted in HN. Everytime there is a post that journals the process to setup a startup in Germany or do other business functions, it always included something that needed to be faxed.
- hef19898 2y agoFAX is still a leaglly accepted way to send official papers, e.g. to courts. As is paper mail. True. One can so easily set-up a company without it so. 90% of what you read about companies and how to run and set them up im Germany on HN is wrong.
- ttyyzz 2y agoI work for a large German company and some of our suppliers and business partners have had a fax machine for a long time that they used exclusively for our purposes. Fortunately, these times are over, and the company has celebrated the long overdue abolition of the fax machine ;-)
- leononame 2y ago
- hervem 2y agoLike digitalization? Like Solar Panel building (in 2022 like 80% where imported)? Or like in the past about credit cards? ("we don't want plastic money" moment) > Like renewable energy? 1st quarter 2024: 58,4% electricity from renewable energy. Up from 48.5% last year. Generation, not consumption* (but still great!!)
- mytailorisrich 2y agoElectricity generation is still 25% coal. Germany's emissions per capita are very high compared to, say, France, because their electricity production is still actually very dirty. France's electricity production has been very low-emissions for decades because of nuclear and hydro. There's a lot of spin about renewables in Germany but overall this is a failed energy policy. (Edited)
- lispm 2y ago23% coal, 28.2% less than last year. Renewable energy is hugely increasing world wide.
- Herz 2y agoIt would be even less and even faster decline of coal with nuclear But for Germany the priorities were other than decarbonization.
- lispm 2y agoBut then we would have to deal with expensive and problematic nuclear. It's much more efficient to scale renewable energy, then deploy old technology like current nuclear powerplants, which are extremely costly with lots of unsolved problems. If you look at the countries which deploy nuclear, they have/use mostly government run industries. That's not our goal. Germany also has no nuclear weapons, where other countries use their nuclear industry to have that option.
- Herz 2y agoThe cost of nuclear energy is reflected in the electricity bill, not the initial investment. If you look at countries like France or Finland, the cost is very low. And in Finland, it's not "old technology." In contrast, German bills, heavily reliant on renewables, are among the highest and most unstable in Europe. > "unsolved problems" Do you mean the intermittency of renewables? > they have/use mostly government run industries. I don't think in French nuclear is mostly used for gov industries. So I dont understand this point. It's amusing how your arguments against nuclear are purely ideological and filled with intellectual dishonesty. I don't understand your connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.
- oblio 2y agoGermany FUBARed this like you wouldn't believe, those responsible will probably be branded traitors decades after the fact, primarily Schroeder (now a Gazprom shill) but probably also Merkel for not doing anything to change the status quo. Up until 2011 or so Germany was a leader in solar and wind power equipment production. Then they cut off subsidies and it took AN ENTIRE DECADE to get back where they were, in terms of adding additional capacity, by which point China absolutely towered over everyone else. Europe has also missed the battery production train. Oil and gas are considered geostrategic priorities and almost every country tried to secure its supply. Solar and wind power equipment production as well as battery production, for some reason, were treated as second class citizens in a world where they will replace oil and gas for 80% of uses.
- madspindel 2y agoAnd they are sabotaging the power production in Sweden too: "Germany begs for electricity from Sweden – while simultaneously blocking nuclear power" https://www.tn.se/naringsliv/37243/tyskland-tigger-el-fran-sverige-blockerar-samtidigt-karnkraft/ https://www.tn.se/naringsliv/37243/tyskland-tigger-el-fran-s...
- lispm 2y agoI would prefer to move to cheaper new tech.
- madspindel 2y agoWell, stop importing from Sweden then. And let us deal with our own preferred solutions.
- hef19898 2y agoTell that you uave no idea how electricity grids work and why a connected one across a whole region is better than isolated ones without tellong you know shit about that topic...
- somedude895 2y agoThis is what happens when you shut down nuclear (which is carbon-neutral by the way), and start importing more. Total energy usage in Germany is down which is terrible news for your economy. The narrative that German energy policy under the current government has been anything but a failure is ridiculous, but some people just love to believe any garbage that comes out of Habeck's mouth.
- TheRoque 2y agoIt's great to shift on renewable energy, but the end goal is to reduce greenhouse gazes, and mostly Co2. Regarding this, they are still doing really bad [1], compared to countries like France who kept nuclear plants. I think that shutting down their nuclear plants and shifting on coal is a weird move. In the end, they couldn't prove that shifting to renewables was efficient. They also still buy some nuclear power to other countries. [1]: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
- lispm 2y agoThe goal is to use the technology which brings us world-wide fastest and cheapest forward. That's not nuclear, which stagnates mostly in building&deployment and is getting more expensive quickly.
- TheRoque 2y ago"forward" doesn't mean anything, please specify ? But I'll complete for you, by "forward" you meant producing energy free of greenhouse gases (and ideally pollution), all-year round, and all-day round, and unless there are breakthrough in electricity storage, that's not solar, not wind power either.
- Moldoteck 2y agoone thing is to build, another thing is to keep what you have. The beauty of nuclear is the longer it works, the cheaper the avg energy gets since most of the cost is actually building the infra
- lispm 2y agoThat's not true. There are huge investments needed to upgrade nuclear power plants over their lifetime, which typically will need to be run long past its estimated lifetimes. A lot of upgrades are even not possible. The powerplant also ages. The steel ages. The pipes age. The software and computers are no longer in production. France now needs billions just to keep their old fleet running, which is based on outdated technology and designs. "Grand Carénage" is estimated to cost 50 billion Euros. EDF, the owner would be bankrupt, if the French government hadn't taken over the whole industry, where the tax payer now finances the losses. Plus most nuclear powerplants don't cover the costs after a shutdown, incl. dealing with the materials and their radiation. We have often seen that the money available is not covering the costs of dealing with waste, spent fuel, etc. -> tax payer covers it -> the French government can't increase the state controlled electricity prices, without huge public protests.