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https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?country=~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

• tpm 1y ago
  Plenty of people are heating their homes with electricity already, that's what heat pumps are for.
  • inglor_cz 1y ago
    North of the Alps, using solar to heat your home in the winter is unrealistic. In Czechia, winter is already dark enough to make solar in the coldest months a rounding error. Further north, uh.
    • tpm 1y ago
      I'm sorry but this thread does not talk about using PV to heat your home in the winter. But it is absolutely possible to use electricity to heat homes, it's widely used in northern countries. And the nice thing about electricity is that it can be generated in one place and used in another.
      • inglor_cz 1y ago
        This thread is talking about reduction of dependence on oil&gas supplied by various nefarious regimes, though. Still quite a challenge in the winter, with barely any sun out there. "it can be generated in one place and used in another." It can, but we are far from having such a robust grid all across the continent. I am not even sure if we are getting closer. Both economic and political aspects come into play, which might be harder to address than the purely technical ones. For example, France really does not want cheap Spanish solar energy to flood the French market, hence the inadequate connection over the Pyrenees. Everyone knows that, including the European Commission, but France is one of the two really big continental players who can do anything they want and cannot be effectively punished. The "everyone is equal, but some are more equal" principle.
        • tpm 1y ago
          Yes, there are and will be issues. We should have started much sooner. But we absolutely have to do this.
          • inglor_cz 1y ago
            "But we absolutely have to do this." This = what precisely? If you mean getting rid of oil and gas on a short scale, there won't be majority for that. By 2040 or 2050 maybe, with some significant exceptions (I don't believe in large electric jets; small aircraft maybe).
            • tpm 1y ago
              2055, if we manage to replace most of heating, transport and industrial use, the rest is manageable. But it's still lots of work for 30 years.
              • ben_w 1y ago
                I think >95% of global electricity will be renewables or nuclear by 2032[0], >85% road vehicles green by 2035[1]; for everything else, limits are *at a minimum* 50% of the MTBF for the equipment but may be even harder, e.g. hydrogen jet fuel is theoretically possible but there's no obvious path to it. [0] just extrapolate growth curves for PV and wind and you get 100% by then even without nuclear, but in practice last 5% of anything is hard [1] needs new electricity not yet on the various grids, but not as much as the thermal power of the fuel burned as EVs are more efficient; mainly limited by production of batteries, and that itself is accelerating
    • uniqueuid 1y ago
      Heat pumps account for 2/3 of new heating installations in Germany [1]. Modern buildings with effective insulation seem to make them quite viable, but that hinges on the availability of attractive electricity prices. The second factor is that carbon-based fuels may become more expensive over time, so perhaps electricity costs “just” needs to remain stable to become attractive. [1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gaspreis-erneuerbare-energien-ausbau https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gas...
      • ExpertAdvisor01 1y ago
        You forgot to mention the subsidies on Heat pumps
        • crote 1y ago
          Those are primarily needed for retrofitting existing poorly-insulated housing. They say nothing about the suitability of heat pumps in general.
          • ExpertAdvisor01 1y ago
            Neubauförderung KfW 297/298. And Gemeinden and Bundesländer also offer subsidies.