3 ms·

Well besides being 20 years too late. Germany's energy policy was basically do nothing to build renewables, close all nuclear plants and blindly trust Russia fo

by pqtyw 7mo ago

Well besides being 20 years too late. Germany's energy policy was basically do nothing to build renewables, close all nuclear plants and blindly trust Russia for decades... Besides being a great friend of Putin one of Germany's previous chancellors was literally an openly paid Russian agent who didn't even try hiding it until 2022 (and who knows what "arrangements" he had before he left office...)

vrganj 7mo ago
That is just straight up not true: https://www.techeblog.com/europe-balcony-solar-system/ https://www.techeblog.com/europe-balcony-solar-system/ Germany's been a pioneer in incentivizing personal solar installations.
- pqtyw 7mo ago
  In what way exactly anything I said was not true? It was too little and too late and Germany only got serious about it when there were no longer any other options. > personal solar installations It was entirely insignificant back then and growth pretty much entirely stopped between 2012 and 2018.
  - ben_w 7mo ago
    You said "basically do nothing to build renewables", this is what they did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende The country looks pretty on-schedule to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_transition_scenario_in_Germany.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_transition_scenari... vs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschland.sv...
    - pqtyw 7mo ago
      Again.. too little and too late and that plan was built around the assumption that they will continue having access to "cheap" Russian gas.
      - ben_w 7mo ago
        The planned graph is an almost straight line from 2005 to 2050, which it is following very closely in the best of German stereotypes. A decade or so ago, this was described as: while the German approach is not unique worldwide, the speed and scope of the Energiewende are exceptional While they could've done better in a magical alternate universe where the population was not terrified of nuclear power, the transition has in fact been very fast. For a more detailed graph showing the scale of nuclear vs. renewable, including the period you're criticising in particular, page 12: https://web.archive.org/web/20160602074457/https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2015/Understanding_the_EW/Agora_Understanding_the_Energiewende.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160602074457/https://www.agora...
        pqtyw 7mo ago
        So you are implying the current economic mess Germany is in was planned? i.e. they understood the risks of relying on Russia and made a conscience decision to build their plan for transitioning into renewables around it.
        ben_w 7mo ago
        > So you are implying the current economic mess Germany is in was planned? Just the energy transition. The economic mess isn't even mostly about the energy, it's a grandfathered (literally) fear of hyperinflation that means the state is terrified of borrowing even when that's a good thing, plus the infamous bureaucracy which they now plan to solve with a 200-step plan: https://www.dw.com/en/german-leaders-plan-to-cut-red-tape-in-just-200-steps/a-75023367 https://www.dw.com/en/german-leaders-plan-to-cut-red-tape-in... This is also fairly easy to spot with the GDP graph, which is a long term trend of "line go up", just never quite as fast as the US's line, and the recent dip is quite small compared to that growth: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=line&country=USA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... > i.e. they understood the risks of relying on Russia and made a conscience decision to build their plan for transitioning into renewables around it. This was more due to the incorrect belief that nations which have an important trade relationship can use diplomacy to avoid conflict, i.e. Germany being an important customer of Russian oil means that Germany can make a credible threat to cause economic harm to Russia by ceasing to buy Russian oil if Russia does something dumb like invade Ukraine. Germany did in fact cause economic harm to Russia by ceasing (or massively reducing, I'm not clear) purchase of Russian oil, however it turned out that Russian leadership didn't care about economic harm to Russia.

by pqtyw 7mo ago

vrganj 7mo ago

That is just straight up not true: https://www.techeblog.com/europe-balcony-solar-system/ https://www.techeblog.com/europe-balcony-solar-system/ Germany's been a pioneer in incentivizing personal solar installations.

pqtyw 7mo ago
In what way exactly anything I said was not true? It was too little and too late and Germany only got serious about it when there were no longer any other options. > personal solar installations It was entirely insignificant back then and growth pretty much entirely stopped between 2012 and 2018.
- ben_w 7mo ago
  You said "basically do nothing to build renewables", this is what they did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende The country looks pretty on-schedule to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_transition_scenario_in_Germany.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_transition_scenari... vs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschland.sv...
  - pqtyw 7mo ago
    Again.. too little and too late and that plan was built around the assumption that they will continue having access to "cheap" Russian gas.
    - ben_w 7mo ago
      The planned graph is an almost straight line from 2005 to 2050, which it is following very closely in the best of German stereotypes. A decade or so ago, this was described as: while the German approach is not unique worldwide, the speed and scope of the Energiewende are exceptional While they could've done better in a magical alternate universe where the population was not terrified of nuclear power, the transition has in fact been very fast. For a more detailed graph showing the scale of nuclear vs. renewable, including the period you're criticising in particular, page 12: https://web.archive.org/web/20160602074457/https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2015/Understanding_the_EW/Agora_Understanding_the_Energiewende.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160602074457/https://www.agora...
      - pqtyw 7mo ago
        So you are implying the current economic mess Germany is in was planned? i.e. they understood the risks of relying on Russia and made a conscience decision to build their plan for transitioning into renewables around it.
        ben_w 7mo ago
        > So you are implying the current economic mess Germany is in was planned? Just the energy transition. The economic mess isn't even mostly about the energy, it's a grandfathered (literally) fear of hyperinflation that means the state is terrified of borrowing even when that's a good thing, plus the infamous bureaucracy which they now plan to solve with a 200-step plan: https://www.dw.com/en/german-leaders-plan-to-cut-red-tape-in-just-200-steps/a-75023367 https://www.dw.com/en/german-leaders-plan-to-cut-red-tape-in... This is also fairly easy to spot with the GDP graph, which is a long term trend of "line go up", just never quite as fast as the US's line, and the recent dip is quite small compared to that growth: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=line&country=USA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... > i.e. they understood the risks of relying on Russia and made a conscience decision to build their plan for transitioning into renewables around it. This was more due to the incorrect belief that nations which have an important trade relationship can use diplomacy to avoid conflict, i.e. Germany being an important customer of Russian oil means that Germany can make a credible threat to cause economic harm to Russia by ceasing to buy Russian oil if Russia does something dumb like invade Ukraine. Germany did in fact cause economic harm to Russia by ceasing (or massively reducing, I'm not clear) purchase of Russian oil, however it turned out that Russian leadership didn't care about economic harm to Russia.