22 ms·

One would think people would learn from the disastrous results of the German Energiewende, where this has already been tried, but no. The problem is that the i

One would think people would learn from the disastrous results of the German Energiewende, where this has already been tried, but no. The problem is that the issue of intermittent energy generation is unsolved. It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. Some day perhaps, but not yet. There was never a technically solid plan to solve this issue by the German Greens, just wishful thinking. They undertook this massive project without having the faintest clue about the underlying physics and financials, which is hard to believe but true. The overwhelming majority of green party members are from the humanities, not STEM. So you either have a lot of pumped hydro, in which case great, or you don’t, which is the case nearly everywhere but the nordics and perhaps Switzerland. Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. The math doesn’t add up.

energy123 1y ago
> It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. The CSIRO report says that nuclear is almost 2x more expensive than renewables even after factoring in all costs of storage and interconnects. > Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. That depends on the location. Insolation and seasonality vary depending on distance from the equator, among other factors. Also, solar and wind are negatively correlated on both seasonal scales and intraday scales, so it often makes sense to mix the two if you're in Europe, rather than pick a simple winner.
- MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
  Unlike solar, power wind makes very little sense even if storage improves. This is true even in first principles so technological progress is unlikely to overcome these limitations.
  - energy123 1y ago
    I mean, you didn't address what I said, you just looped back to what you originally said.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    What's with the utterly uninformed takes on energy on HN? Wind makes extremely good sense and has been making good sense for 30 years or more now depending on where on the globe you are looking. There is a ton of FUD about it but it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy. Moreover there is readily financing available to take care of the capex. There are 7 MW turbines deployed regularly https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 And there are 10 MW turbines and higher on the drawing board. Offshore and onshore options are available.
    - MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
      > it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy It is none of those things.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        Sorry, but you are not arguing in good faith. There 1.1+ TW of installed capacity producing approximately 30 to 35% of that installed capacity continuously. Turbine payback time is less than a decade. You are in the most literal sense tilting at windmills here.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      > What's with the utterly uninformed takes on energy on HN? Culture war, innit.
  - peterpost2 1y ago
    This is a very uneducated take. Wind absolutely makes sense in plenty of locations. I myself am located on the west coast of Scotland and we get most of our energy from wind. Solar panels make much less sense here we tend to get much less light than most places in the world.
myrmidon 1y ago
"Disastrous" by what metric? What are you even talking about? Germany went from >50% fossil fuel (mostly coal, not even gas!) to >60% renewables for electricity within the last two decades. This is a huge success already.
- hopw_roewur_ne 1y ago
  I don't think it's a huge success, considering they're unable to meet their own demands for electricity, instead driving up energy prices in neighboring countries as well.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    It's a huge success considering where they would have been if not for doing that, and then energy prices would have been higher still.
  - peterpost2 1y ago
    That is largely due to the war in Ukraine and Russian gas/oil being a big no-no in Europe right now. Continuing to burn fossil fuel is simply not an option. Not if we want to comfortable keep living on this planet.
  - jamil7 1y ago
    The problem of meeting demand is in industrial use and residential heating, both of which aren’t typically electrified in Germany. The problem has more to do with an active war and an industrial sector built on cheap Russian gas.
    - aldonius 1y ago
      Yes, and if they want to net-zero all their energy, not just their electricity, they will need to do some mix of: 1. electrify those applications currently served by gas 2. import or manufacture carbon-neutral synthetic gas 3. buy a heck of a lot of offsets
      - 1y ago
cycomanic 1y ago
In what way was the energiewwende disastrous, give actual numbers. German electricity production is increasingly dominated by renewables, in the first quarter of 2025 (which had unfavourable weather conditions) 46.9% of electricity was produced by renewables (mostly wind). Coal and gas has been declining steadily and Germany regularly exports electricity to nuclear focused France. Currently on average Germany is a net importer from France, but that does mean little because of the way cross border trade is an integral part of the European grid (note that Germany also is a net importer from Denmark whos grid is largely wind based). So to me that sounds like a success story.
- hollerith 1y ago
  The cost of electricity is very high or at least it was during the latest period for which I have data, namely the second half of 2023: 45.65 US cents per kilowatt-hour for households in Germany compared to 16.06 US cents per kilowatt-hour for US households.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    Which mostly comes from very high taxes to promote efficiency gains. The interesting question is: What is the wholesale cost + subsidies? Subsidies which now are being phased out for new production, or in some cases even lead to companies having to bid to get the privilege to build.
  - k_g_b_ 1y ago
    End consumer prices are utterly unusable to determine success or failure of the Energiewende. They are also utterly useless to compare across nations, as they are made up of very different components - e.g. in Germany only 40% is determined by market factors, in France the price is held artificially low by massive subsidies https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/04/21/france-to-continue-subsidizing-electricity-bills-until-2025_6023740_98.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/04/21/france... and so on.
    - hollerith 1y ago
seec 1y ago
Unsurprisingly you got downvoted. It is a very unpopular opinion on HN. But I agree with you, the math does not add up. I have looked at the data and it makes no sense. Germany still needs to build a shit ton of wind turbines (150GW) and they are already decommissioning the first install, which is costing them a lot of money and is requiring them to think about the recycling, which will cost a lot of money. At some point we will know the true cost of wind power at least, I hope. Germany's electricity price is almost twice of its "dirty" nuclear neighbor (France). Proof is in the pudding as they say. But most here seem to be unwilling to even look at the pudding, let alone eat it.

energy123 1y ago

> It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. The CSIRO report says that nuclear is almost 2x more expensive than renewables even after factoring in all costs of storage and interconnects. > Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. That depends on the location. Insolation and seasonality vary depending on distance from the equator, among other factors. Also, solar and wind are negatively correlated on both seasonal scales and intraday scales, so it often makes sense to mix the two if you're in Europe, rather than pick a simple winner.

MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
Unlike solar, power wind makes very little sense even if storage improves. This is true even in first principles so technological progress is unlikely to overcome these limitations.
- energy123 1y ago
  I mean, you didn't address what I said, you just looped back to what you originally said.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  What's with the utterly uninformed takes on energy on HN? Wind makes extremely good sense and has been making good sense for 30 years or more now depending on where on the globe you are looking. There is a ton of FUD about it but it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy. Moreover there is readily financing available to take care of the capex. There are 7 MW turbines deployed regularly https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 And there are 10 MW turbines and higher on the drawing board. Offshore and onshore options are available.
  - MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
    > it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy It is none of those things.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Sorry, but you are not arguing in good faith. There 1.1+ TW of installed capacity producing approximately 30 to 35% of that installed capacity continuously. Turbine payback time is less than a decade. You are in the most literal sense tilting at windmills here.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    > What's with the utterly uninformed takes on energy on HN? Culture war, innit.
- peterpost2 1y ago
  This is a very uneducated take. Wind absolutely makes sense in plenty of locations. I myself am located on the west coast of Scotland and we get most of our energy from wind. Solar panels make much less sense here we tend to get much less light than most places in the world.

myrmidon 1y ago

"Disastrous" by what metric? What are you even talking about? Germany went from >50% fossil fuel (mostly coal, not even gas!) to >60% renewables for electricity within the last two decades. This is a huge success already.

hopw_roewur_ne 1y ago
I don't think it's a huge success, considering they're unable to meet their own demands for electricity, instead driving up energy prices in neighboring countries as well.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  It's a huge success considering where they would have been if not for doing that, and then energy prices would have been higher still.
- peterpost2 1y ago
  That is largely due to the war in Ukraine and Russian gas/oil being a big no-no in Europe right now. Continuing to burn fossil fuel is simply not an option. Not if we want to comfortable keep living on this planet.
- jamil7 1y ago
  The problem of meeting demand is in industrial use and residential heating, both of which aren’t typically electrified in Germany. The problem has more to do with an active war and an industrial sector built on cheap Russian gas.
  - aldonius 1y ago
    Yes, and if they want to net-zero all their energy, not just their electricity, they will need to do some mix of: 1. electrify those applications currently served by gas 2. import or manufacture carbon-neutral synthetic gas 3. buy a heck of a lot of offsets
    - 1y ago

cycomanic 1y ago

In what way was the energiewwende disastrous, give actual numbers. German electricity production is increasingly dominated by renewables, in the first quarter of 2025 (which had unfavourable weather conditions) 46.9% of electricity was produced by renewables (mostly wind). Coal and gas has been declining steadily and Germany regularly exports electricity to nuclear focused France. Currently on average Germany is a net importer from France, but that does mean little because of the way cross border trade is an integral part of the European grid (note that Germany also is a net importer from Denmark whos grid is largely wind based). So to me that sounds like a success story.

hollerith 1y ago
The cost of electricity is very high or at least it was during the latest period for which I have data, namely the second half of 2023: 45.65 US cents per kilowatt-hour for households in Germany compared to 16.06 US cents per kilowatt-hour for US households.
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  Which mostly comes from very high taxes to promote efficiency gains. The interesting question is: What is the wholesale cost + subsidies? Subsidies which now are being phased out for new production, or in some cases even lead to companies having to bid to get the privilege to build.
- k_g_b_ 1y ago
  End consumer prices are utterly unusable to determine success or failure of the Energiewende. They are also utterly useless to compare across nations, as they are made up of very different components - e.g. in Germany only 40% is determined by market factors, in France the price is held artificially low by massive subsidies https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/04/21/france-to-continue-subsidizing-electricity-bills-until-2025_6023740_98.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/04/21/france... and so on.
  - hollerith 1y ago

seec 1y ago

Unsurprisingly you got downvoted. It is a very unpopular opinion on HN. But I agree with you, the math does not add up. I have looked at the data and it makes no sense. Germany still needs to build a shit ton of wind turbines (150GW) and they are already decommissioning the first install, which is costing them a lot of money and is requiring them to think about the recycling, which will cost a lot of money. At some point we will know the true cost of wind power at least, I hope. Germany's electricity price is almost twice of its "dirty" nuclear neighbor (France). Proof is in the pudding as they say. But most here seem to be unwilling to even look at the pudding, let alone eat it.