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You underestimate how making something illegal can stop the thing in that country. Look at a place like Germany, blocking fracking and nuclear power and now rel

You underestimate how making something illegal can stop the thing in that country. Look at a place like Germany, blocking fracking and nuclear power and now reliant on Russian gas.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Germany has historical low usage of gas for generation and is adding 14-17GW of solar per year. Germany will need ~57 GWh of batteries by 2030 to sunset coal generation, scaling to 271 GWh by 2050. Current storage is just ~19 GWh (mostly in homes). https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/germany/ https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/germany/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/eu-battery-storage-is-ready-for-its-moment-in-the-sun/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/eu-battery-storage-... https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-renewables-in-2024-energy-mix-with-solar-contributing-14/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-ren... https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/negative-power-prices-germany-renewables-solar-wind-energy-europe-2025-1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/negativ... https://www.heise.de/en/news/Power-generation-from-renewables-continues-to-rise-sharply-10190815.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Power-generation-from-renewable... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-27/how-germany-sped-up-its-deployment-of-solar-and-wind https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-27/how-germa... | https://archive.today/4Vk52 https://archive.today/4Vk52
- cyberax 1y ago
  Germany needs north of 10TWh of batteries to sunset _gas_ generation. If you're looking for a renewables success story, Germany ain't it.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    > Germany needs north of 10TWh of batteries to sunset _gas_ generation. Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. I'm not too concerned about Germany consuming non Russian LNG at this time as they continue to deploy renewables and batteries (GP said "and now reliant on Russian gas." in their comment above). Germany is now getting almost two-thirds of its power from renewables; if that isn't a success story, I don't know what is. EU plans ban on new Russian gas contracts using trade law - https://www.ft.com/content/8b005c13-2088-47cd-aa47-9163e36efa4a https://www.ft.com/content/8b005c13-2088-47cd-aa47-9163e36ef... | https://archive.today/INqOI https://archive.today/INqOI ("Russian gas makes up less than 19 per cent of the EU’s overall imports of the fossil fuel, down from around two-fifths when Moscow started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.") Import volume of natural gas from Russia in Germany from June 2021 to November 2024 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-imports-from-russia/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor... ("As of November 2024, Germany has imported no Russian natural gas since September 2022. To compare, in August 2022, the import volume of the named commodity stood at around 953 million cubic meters. Over the period observed, the highest figure was recorded at 5.2 billion cubic meters in December 2021.") Renewables Supplied Two-Thirds of Germany’s Power Last Year [2024] - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-renewable-power-2024 https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-renewable-power-2024 - January 8th, 2025 (edit: Supermancho wrote in a deleted comment about energy demand destruction due to German de-industrialization, but I'm unsure if that energy demand should be forecasted in the future without good data about potential re-industrialization in the future creating said energy demand)
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - cyberax 1y ago
      > Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. Yes, by replacing it with natgas from Azerbaijan, Qatar, and other wonderful countries. I'm kinda jaded about this whole topic because it exposes the utter hypocrisy of Germany's Greens. But long story short, Germany can get Dunkelflaute. Long periods of time in winter when renewable generation falls to about 10% of the _normal_ generation for that time period. A once-in-100-years event is a full month of sustained Dunkelflaute. And this is not a hand-wavy theory. For example, in 2019 there was a 10-day sustained Dunkelflaute: https://energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=2019&interval=month&month=01&legendItems=0x1c0 https://energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.ht... - look at the period from 17 to 26 Jan. And as you see, they also coincide with heightened energy consumption, which will become even _worse_ as Germany switches to heat pumps for heating. The current plan for these is to build more natgas powerplants (German government had to _subsidize_ them directly). With noises about magic "hydrogen".
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        What do you suggest? Spending 10x as much on nuclear power subsidies and hopefully getting some plants finished in the 2040s?
        cyberax 1y ago
        > Spending 10x as much on nuclear power subsidies and hopefully getting some plants finished in the 2040s? Here's the thing. If Germany had spent on nuclear the same amount of money it has spent (so far) on renewables, then it could have had 100% carbon-free electricity and heating. With lower energy prices than now. So yes. Nuclear all the way. Instead, we now face the reality where Germany will have to rely on imported natural gas as far as the eye can see. And certainly past 2040. While having one of the highest electricity rates in Europe, so high that they're now depressing the industry. And the plan to fix it is to keep repeating the word "hydrogen" until something happens. Meanwhile: > The coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD mentions the construction of up to 20 GW of gas-fired power plant capacity by 2030. In June, Reiche announced a first step with a tender volume of between five and ten gigawatts.
  - thinkcontext 1y ago
    Where are you getting that number? Germany produced 488 twh of electricity from all sources over the entire course of 2024. That's a bit over 1 twh per day.
    - cyberax 1y ago
      Yep. And Germany needs around 20-30 days of storage. Closer to 20, if some demand response is factored-in.
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        [flagged]
        cyberax 1y ago
        The study was from 2005. I can find it, if you want. > A few years ago ”even an hour” of storage was the impossible marker. Then it quickly became ”a day!!!” and now we are at a month without any solar or wind power. No. The problem has been known for decades, but governments simply ignored it. That's why there's so much noise about hydrogen in Geramny. It's used to whitewash the natural gas.
        ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        > The study was from 2005 LOL. Can't find any modern research can you? I love how the nuclear bro crowd never wants to step into 2025 and instead keeps living in the past. > That's why there's so much noise about hydrogen in Geramny. It's used to whitewash the natural gas. Nah. There's so much noise about hydrogen because the fossil and chemical industries in Germany rely on hydrocarbons. They want another complex gas based system to profit from. We will likely keep a fleet of gas turbines around for emergency reserve duties for the coming decades. But you are trying to paint the emergency reserves as if they would be the entire grid. When they very much are not.
        1y ago
wagwang 1y ago
Who's making anything illegal here

You underestimate how making something illegal can stop the thing in that country. Look at a place like Germany, blocking fracking and nuclear power and now reliant on Russian gas.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Germany has historical low usage of gas for generation and is adding 14-17GW of solar per year. Germany will need ~57 GWh of batteries by 2030 to sunset coal generation, scaling to 271 GWh by 2050. Current storage is just ~19 GWh (mostly in homes). https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/germany/ https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/germany/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/eu-battery-storage-is-ready-for-its-moment-in-the-sun/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/eu-battery-storage-... https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-renewables-in-2024-energy-mix-with-solar-contributing-14/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-ren... https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/negative-power-prices-germany-renewables-solar-wind-energy-europe-2025-1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/negativ... https://www.heise.de/en/news/Power-generation-from-renewables-continues-to-rise-sharply-10190815.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Power-generation-from-renewable... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-27/how-germany-sped-up-its-deployment-of-solar-and-wind https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-27/how-germa... | https://archive.today/4Vk52 https://archive.today/4Vk52

cyberax 1y ago
Germany needs north of 10TWh of batteries to sunset _gas_ generation. If you're looking for a renewables success story, Germany ain't it.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  > Germany needs north of 10TWh of batteries to sunset _gas_ generation. Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. I'm not too concerned about Germany consuming non Russian LNG at this time as they continue to deploy renewables and batteries (GP said "and now reliant on Russian gas." in their comment above). Germany is now getting almost two-thirds of its power from renewables; if that isn't a success story, I don't know what is. EU plans ban on new Russian gas contracts using trade law - https://www.ft.com/content/8b005c13-2088-47cd-aa47-9163e36efa4a https://www.ft.com/content/8b005c13-2088-47cd-aa47-9163e36ef... | https://archive.today/INqOI https://archive.today/INqOI ("Russian gas makes up less than 19 per cent of the EU’s overall imports of the fossil fuel, down from around two-fifths when Moscow started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.") Import volume of natural gas from Russia in Germany from June 2021 to November 2024 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-imports-from-russia/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor... ("As of November 2024, Germany has imported no Russian natural gas since September 2022. To compare, in August 2022, the import volume of the named commodity stood at around 953 million cubic meters. Over the period observed, the highest figure was recorded at 5.2 billion cubic meters in December 2021.") Renewables Supplied Two-Thirds of Germany’s Power Last Year [2024] - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-renewable-power-2024 https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-renewable-power-2024 - January 8th, 2025 (edit: Supermancho wrote in a deleted comment about energy demand destruction due to German de-industrialization, but I'm unsure if that energy demand should be forecasted in the future without good data about potential re-industrialization in the future creating said energy demand)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - cyberax 1y ago
    > Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. Yes, by replacing it with natgas from Azerbaijan, Qatar, and other wonderful countries. I'm kinda jaded about this whole topic because it exposes the utter hypocrisy of Germany's Greens. But long story short, Germany can get Dunkelflaute. Long periods of time in winter when renewable generation falls to about 10% of the _normal_ generation for that time period. A once-in-100-years event is a full month of sustained Dunkelflaute. And this is not a hand-wavy theory. For example, in 2019 there was a 10-day sustained Dunkelflaute: https://energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=2019&interval=month&month=01&legendItems=0x1c0 https://energy-charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.ht... - look at the period from 17 to 26 Jan. And as you see, they also coincide with heightened energy consumption, which will become even _worse_ as Germany switches to heat pumps for heating. The current plan for these is to build more natgas powerplants (German government had to _subsidize_ them directly). With noises about magic "hydrogen".
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      What do you suggest? Spending 10x as much on nuclear power subsidies and hopefully getting some plants finished in the 2040s?
      - cyberax 1y ago
        > Spending 10x as much on nuclear power subsidies and hopefully getting some plants finished in the 2040s? Here's the thing. If Germany had spent on nuclear the same amount of money it has spent (so far) on renewables, then it could have had 100% carbon-free electricity and heating. With lower energy prices than now. So yes. Nuclear all the way. Instead, we now face the reality where Germany will have to rely on imported natural gas as far as the eye can see. And certainly past 2040. While having one of the highest electricity rates in Europe, so high that they're now depressing the industry. And the plan to fix it is to keep repeating the word "hydrogen" until something happens. Meanwhile: > The coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD mentions the construction of up to 20 GW of gas-fired power plant capacity by 2030. In June, Reiche announced a first step with a tender volume of between five and ten gigawatts.
- thinkcontext 1y ago
  Where are you getting that number? Germany produced 488 twh of electricity from all sources over the entire course of 2024. That's a bit over 1 twh per day.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Yep. And Germany needs around 20-30 days of storage. Closer to 20, if some demand response is factored-in.
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - cyberax 1y ago
        The study was from 2005. I can find it, if you want. > A few years ago ”even an hour” of storage was the impossible marker. Then it quickly became ”a day!!!” and now we are at a month without any solar or wind power. No. The problem has been known for decades, but governments simply ignored it. That's why there's so much noise about hydrogen in Geramny. It's used to whitewash the natural gas.
        ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        > The study was from 2005 LOL. Can't find any modern research can you? I love how the nuclear bro crowd never wants to step into 2025 and instead keeps living in the past. > That's why there's so much noise about hydrogen in Geramny. It's used to whitewash the natural gas. Nah. There's so much noise about hydrogen because the fossil and chemical industries in Germany rely on hydrocarbons. They want another complex gas based system to profit from. We will likely keep a fleet of gas turbines around for emergency reserve duties for the coming decades. But you are trying to paint the emergency reserves as if they would be the entire grid. When they very much are not.
        1y ago

wagwang 1y ago

Who's making anything illegal here