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The last section in the article demonstrate the problem. Governments are held responsible for grid stability and making the energy costs economical reasonable,

by belorn 2y ago

The last section in the article demonstrate the problem. Governments are held responsible for grid stability and making the energy costs economical reasonable, and when the energy crisis happened it was governments that stepped in and paid the bill. What is not mentioned is that the political movement in EU that usually fight against climate change, that being the green movement, is also the one advocating for fossil fuel subsidies. It was the German green party that pushed EU to classify natural gas as green. In Sweden, it was the green party leader that argued during 2021 that oil power plants was a natural part of grid stability (they also prioritized the construct of new fossil fueled power plant to decrease energy prices). Fossil fuel was and still is the current strategy to address periods of bad weather when renewables can not fulfill demand. The more variable the grid become, the more the government need to spend on grid stability and managing the price, and the more subsidies is needed towards fossil fuels. Fossil fuels subsidies in EU directly correlate to how weather is impacting energy supply. There is a similar bad situation with hydropower, where current environmental impact is causing extinctions. Usually the green party would be the one arguing for change, but hydropower is needed to address the same problem as power stations running on fossil fuels, and one can generally not fix the environmental impact without decreasing outputs.

somedude895 2y ago
If it wasn't for the European Greens fighting against nuclear power for the past 50 years, carbon emissions would be a lot lower today than they are. So much R&D that could have been done, so many CO2-neutral power plants built. Especially after they shut down the last nuclear power plants in Germany it's pretty clear to me that if you're worried about climate change (and also don't want to end up as a third world country) you just don't vote for the Greens.
- fulafel 2y ago
  That's a oft repeated meme but not true. They haven't even been in power in cabinets, mostly in opposition, and in the exception cases haven't been the deciding faction in the coalition govenments. If you want to get into what could have been, greens have been boosting sustainable power since the 70s and we would be much further along if we had started seriously investing in those in time, 30+ years before we did. (And recent nuclear plants have 10-15 year construction times, which is way too slow, in addition to having inferior bang for the buck)
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
> It was the German green party that pushed EU to classify natural gas as green. Well that's not true. They were in a coalition and it was the other parties that pushed for it. > German ministers have criticised EU plans to label nuclear energy as a sustainable investment, but the government coalition is split on also including fossil gas in the taxonomy. Finance minister Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) welcomed the European Commission’s proposal to include gas as a transitional fuel towards climate neutrality, while Green Party ministers criticised the decision as “greenwashing”.
- belorn 2y ago
  To say that the greens are not involved in the environmental decisions, especially the National Hydrogen Strategy, would be very false. the National Hydrogen Strategy explicitly calls out natural gas as a central role, for which was the basis when Germany advocated to label natural gas as a sustainable investment. We can run around in circles looking for political disagreements within the coalition, but this is the German environmental policy for which the greens support and helped creating. Invest into (and subsidize) renewables to create cheap clean energy when the weather is optimal, and invest into (and subsidize) natural gas to create cheap grid stability for when the weather is suboptimal. When the technology is there, then shift towards green hydrogen. The strategy has been exceptional consistent and operated for at least 2 decades, with the result being exactly what the strategy planned. Increased use of renewables in both output and subsidizes, increased subsidizes in fossil fuels, and reduced use of nuclear power and coal. The only thing that did not go as plan was Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the natural gas pipeline to Russia that then got blown up.
  - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    The EU support was for the move from coal to gas. The EU had requirements on that in order for it to qualify as "green" that the Germans wanted tweaked to be more lenient. But the underlying goal is fine. Gas is better than coal in many ways. Supply from Russia and knowledge of what has happened since then complicates matters but in general I think support for replacing old coal with new gas is a good thing if you have access to both, it's been a big part of America's progress. Hydrogen is a big topic, a lot of which is BS but at the core there's a place for it as an industrial input which is relevant for Germany. And if you have that in place then also using it as a backup which you ideally don't need to use is a cheap way of hitting those last few percent of reliability. I can find plenty of things to criticise Germany over, but most of the criticism I see is frankly nonsense.

by belorn 2y ago

somedude895 2y ago

If it wasn't for the European Greens fighting against nuclear power for the past 50 years, carbon emissions would be a lot lower today than they are. So much R&D that could have been done, so many CO2-neutral power plants built. Especially after they shut down the last nuclear power plants in Germany it's pretty clear to me that if you're worried about climate change (and also don't want to end up as a third world country) you just don't vote for the Greens.

fulafel 2y ago
That's a oft repeated meme but not true. They haven't even been in power in cabinets, mostly in opposition, and in the exception cases haven't been the deciding faction in the coalition govenments. If you want to get into what could have been, greens have been boosting sustainable power since the 70s and we would be much further along if we had started seriously investing in those in time, 30+ years before we did. (And recent nuclear plants have 10-15 year construction times, which is way too slow, in addition to having inferior bang for the buck)

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

> It was the German green party that pushed EU to classify natural gas as green. Well that's not true. They were in a coalition and it was the other parties that pushed for it. > German ministers have criticised EU plans to label nuclear energy as a sustainable investment, but the government coalition is split on also including fossil gas in the taxonomy. Finance minister Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) welcomed the European Commission’s proposal to include gas as a transitional fuel towards climate neutrality, while Green Party ministers criticised the decision as “greenwashing”.

belorn 2y ago
To say that the greens are not involved in the environmental decisions, especially the National Hydrogen Strategy, would be very false. the National Hydrogen Strategy explicitly calls out natural gas as a central role, for which was the basis when Germany advocated to label natural gas as a sustainable investment. We can run around in circles looking for political disagreements within the coalition, but this is the German environmental policy for which the greens support and helped creating. Invest into (and subsidize) renewables to create cheap clean energy when the weather is optimal, and invest into (and subsidize) natural gas to create cheap grid stability for when the weather is suboptimal. When the technology is there, then shift towards green hydrogen. The strategy has been exceptional consistent and operated for at least 2 decades, with the result being exactly what the strategy planned. Increased use of renewables in both output and subsidizes, increased subsidizes in fossil fuels, and reduced use of nuclear power and coal. The only thing that did not go as plan was Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the natural gas pipeline to Russia that then got blown up.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  The EU support was for the move from coal to gas. The EU had requirements on that in order for it to qualify as "green" that the Germans wanted tweaked to be more lenient. But the underlying goal is fine. Gas is better than coal in many ways. Supply from Russia and knowledge of what has happened since then complicates matters but in general I think support for replacing old coal with new gas is a good thing if you have access to both, it's been a big part of America's progress. Hydrogen is a big topic, a lot of which is BS but at the core there's a place for it as an industrial input which is relevant for Germany. And if you have that in place then also using it as a backup which you ideally don't need to use is a cheap way of hitting those last few percent of reliability. I can find plenty of things to criticise Germany over, but most of the criticism I see is frankly nonsense.