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One of my favourite pages on the internet is https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany . It suggests G

by roenxi 2y ago

One of my favourite pages on the internet is https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany . It suggests Germany's electricity production was at a 40 year low last year. And I've seen elsewhere that Germany is competing to have the highest cost electricity in the EU (possibly globally? I don't recall how they stack up globally). That tinges the interpretation of this press release. It isn't all smiles and sunshine in the German electricity market. EDIT In fact, you can add China to the graphs and note that OWID thinks China generates more electricity per-capita than Germany does as of last year. Who'd have thought that was possible 40 years ago!

wiz21c 2y ago
Reducing fossil fuel is a good thing for the climate, hence for humanity. This will help to avoid very costly consequences. So the fact that germans pay their electricity costlier should be seen as an investment. And electricity is now sold by private companies. Let's change that to make prices lower.
- roenxi 2y ago
  25% of humanity lives in China and India. They've benefted more from increasing fossil fuels than they've suffered from poor climate. The sky over China sounded like a scene from a Tolkien novel for a while there (which, well, such scenes were probably what he drew inspiration from). And they've made more meaningful progress on renewable and nuclear tech than Germany managed. Between Germany and China, I feel I'd rather be copying China's policies.
eigenspace 2y ago
1) Looking at Germany's domestic electricity production without accounting for cross border trading is not meaningful. Germany is in the centre of the biggest international electricity grid in the world. There's an insane amount of electrical connectors between Germany and all of its neighbours. In particular, Germany has gone from being a net exporter of electricity to a net importer, particularly from France, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden (through Denmark). Total electricity used in Germany has barely decreased. 2) Germany's electricity prices have come down and stabilized. They're actually lower than before the war now. No longer the highest in the EU, though there is still room for it to come down more, but it'll take time as more renewables, batteries, and long-distance grid connectors are built out.
- roenxi 2y ago
  If we're going to assess Germany's energy policy - and the title of the article suggests we are - then their domestic energy generation is quite meaningful. It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. Although in the case of Germany I'll be impressed if their QoL stays high. The trends are bad.
  - eigenspace 2y ago
    The reason I brought that up is that often the implication people are hinting at when they suggest that total electricity production is significantly down, would be that Germans are using significantly less energy which has some quite worrying implications. The thing I wanted to point out though is that the amount of energy used by Germans hasn't actually changed very much, it's decreased a little, but nothing like what would be suggested by the generation figures. This is just because mainland europe actually has a more integrated and interconnected electrical grid than the USA does, and Germany is importing a lot of energy. > It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. In this case, it'd be like if a country decided to do something about the fact that some manufactured good they were producing was toxic, and so they lowered the amount they produce of that good, and substitute it with imports while they also rapidly ramp up their ability to produce a non-toxic alternative.

by roenxi 2y ago

wiz21c 2y ago

Reducing fossil fuel is a good thing for the climate, hence for humanity. This will help to avoid very costly consequences. So the fact that germans pay their electricity costlier should be seen as an investment. And electricity is now sold by private companies. Let's change that to make prices lower.

roenxi 2y ago
25% of humanity lives in China and India. They've benefted more from increasing fossil fuels than they've suffered from poor climate. The sky over China sounded like a scene from a Tolkien novel for a while there (which, well, such scenes were probably what he drew inspiration from). And they've made more meaningful progress on renewable and nuclear tech than Germany managed. Between Germany and China, I feel I'd rather be copying China's policies.

eigenspace 2y ago

1) Looking at Germany's domestic electricity production without accounting for cross border trading is not meaningful. Germany is in the centre of the biggest international electricity grid in the world. There's an insane amount of electrical connectors between Germany and all of its neighbours. In particular, Germany has gone from being a net exporter of electricity to a net importer, particularly from France, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden (through Denmark). Total electricity used in Germany has barely decreased. 2) Germany's electricity prices have come down and stabilized. They're actually lower than before the war now. No longer the highest in the EU, though there is still room for it to come down more, but it'll take time as more renewables, batteries, and long-distance grid connectors are built out.

roenxi 2y ago
If we're going to assess Germany's energy policy - and the title of the article suggests we are - then their domestic energy generation is quite meaningful. It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. Although in the case of Germany I'll be impressed if their QoL stays high. The trends are bad.
- eigenspace 2y ago
  The reason I brought that up is that often the implication people are hinting at when they suggest that total electricity production is significantly down, would be that Germans are using significantly less energy which has some quite worrying implications. The thing I wanted to point out though is that the amount of energy used by Germans hasn't actually changed very much, it's decreased a little, but nothing like what would be suggested by the generation figures. This is just because mainland europe actually has a more integrated and interconnected electrical grid than the USA does, and Germany is importing a lot of energy. > It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. In this case, it'd be like if a country decided to do something about the fact that some manufactured good they were producing was toxic, and so they lowered the amount they produce of that good, and substitute it with imports while they also rapidly ramp up their ability to produce a non-toxic alternative.