4 ms·

This is what the oil and nuclear industry propaganda says. The reality is that solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think, demand shifting (e.g. charging

by pydry 4mo ago

This is what the oil and nuclear industry propaganda says. The reality is that solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think, demand shifting (e.g. charging the car when it's sunny) is easier than you think, batteries and pumped storage and power2gas are cheaper than you think and nuclear power is way, way, way, way more expensive than you think. Weather based models with actual data say that in Australia you'd need 5 hours of storage to get to ~97% renewable: https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... In Europe or America you might need 7-8 while in carbon industry PR models (the same people who denied global warming) seem to think you need 300+.

coryrc 4mo ago
In January 2025, solar generated 1.5TWh of electricity in Germany (in June it generated 10TWh): https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/electricity_generation_germany_2025.pdf https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/electricity_generat... In January 2025, Germany burned about 236 TWh of fossil fuels. You cannot even mostly replace fossil fuels with solar.
- tfourb 4mo ago
  Germany will need a total of 1,867 TWh per year in 2030, so an average of 155 TWh/month. fossil fuels are very inefficient when used in most applications (especially ICE and oil for heating). As countries use more and more electricity instead of fossil fuels to generate motion and heat, total energy demand will decrease accordingly. Currently, Germany imports almost all of its fossil fuel from abroad. Mainly Norway, USA, Gulf countries, etc. Russia used to play an important role and we paid dearly for that. As we are for the reliance on the US, I guess. We could actually bring our energy dependence closer to home and make it cheaper by substituting fossil fuel imports with solar + battery with the PV part being distributed across northern African countries. But most likely it will be more convenient (if less efficient) and politically desirable to create a mix of domestic and souther European sources, with specialized stuff like H2/Green NG imports from Iceland and other energy rich places being mixed in. Also, Germany will (and does) a large share of it energy requirement not from solar, but from wind. Already, renewable energy has very much softened the effects of the Iran war on electricity prices. They never exceeded the highest levels of 2025, while fossil fuels jumped to levels last seen immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and are still elevated over 2025 levels.
  - coryrc 4mo ago
    > we paid dearly for that And if you had invested in Drake Landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community solar setup instead of PV, then neither the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor Hormuz blockade would have been a huge deal. The cost of energy is destroying your industrial base. > Also, Germany will (and does) a large share of it energy requirement ... from wind 15TWh in January 2025. Again, you burned about 230 TWh of fossil fuels. Nearly every heating system is over 80%, electricity closer to 50%, so lets say 150TWh. Do you have an order of magnitude more land and water you're able to put wind generation on? And are you willing to base your life and economy on not having Dunkelflaute?
    - tfourb 4mo ago
      > Do you have an order of magnitude more land and water you're able to put wind generation on? Actually yes. We currently use less than 0.5% of our agricultural land for PV (and some agricultural use is technically possible below PV). We could of course dedicate 5% or even 10% of land use to PV, if we really needed to (which we don't). We also could still expand PV to large swathes of build-up area (car parks and the like). And Wind turbines actually don't need much space at all, the main issue is distance to settlements because of noise/shadow concerns. > And are you willing to base your life and economy on not having Dunkelflaute? I think there is an interesting discussion to be had. If we could i.e. half the cost of energy but have to live with drastically reducing energy consumption every few years for a couple of weeks in winter, would that be worth it? We actually did so in the first winter after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because energy prices rose dramatically and people and businesses reacted accordingly. That was painful (and had no upside whatsoever), but I think if it didn't come completely by surprise but would be a designed part of the system, it might be worth it.
      - coryrc 4mo ago
        > We also could still expand PV to large swathes of build-up area (car parks and the like). That doesn't solve your problems in the slightest. You get less than half the return on investment for PV that most other countries in the world get, and does nothing for when your peak energy load is. Every dollar spent on PV requires another dollar on natural gas for the winter and locks you into fossil fuel dependency. Spend the money on something which gives you winter power! > the main issue is distance to settlements because of noise/shadow concerns. That's exactly what I mean. Where can you actually build it? And is that enough? And why spend a dime on solar until you've maximized wind? > If we could i.e. half the cost of energy but have to live with drastically reducing energy consumption every few years for a couple of weeks in winter, would that be worth it? See, exactly, that's the kind of national conversation you (and here in the USA) should be having. But we don't do that kind of thing any more. The politicians make money lying about the costs of things -- Gerhard Schröder being, I guess, a Russian stooge at best, a great example of downplaying the full costs.
Tuna-Fish 4mo ago
> solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think They anticorrelate in some locations. In others, they don't. Here in Finland in the winter you get effectively zero sun. We also get persistent stationary anticyclones. That means potentially over a month of temps in the -30°C region, and zero wind. Australia is extremely sunny. California is even better, they are modeling that assuming they keep their current hydro capacity, they only need to add ~3h in batteries. Hot places also do better than cold places, because the usage peaks track the sun. > In Europe or America you might need 7-8 while in carbon industry PR models (the same people who denied global warming) seem to think you need 300+. How on earth do you expect 7-8 to be enough? 300 isn't enough either. The real number for a fully renewable-based grid here is somewhere north of 2000. Renewables are great in some situations. There are places in the world that should go for 100% renewables as quickly as possible. It also makes sense to locate a lot of the high-consuming industry in such places. But before you hawk your solution everywhere, you need to actually study the local conditions, and not try to extrapolate anything from Australia.
- pepperoni_pizza 4mo ago
  I think it also depends on other stuff. Spain gets bunch of sun even when there's the deepest winter in Finland but even if they are technically part of the same grid, the challenge is getting the energy there.
  - Tuna-Fish 4mo ago
    Spain and Finland are not part of the same grid. Spain is in the CESA, Finland is in the NSA.
    - laurencerowe 4mo ago
      Being part of the same grid doesn't matter so much as the amount of interconnection available. Finland has a higher proportion than Spain since France has stalled on building more interconnection capacity as this will likely reduce the amount they can sell their excess nuclear generation to Germany.
- 4mo ago
UltraSane 4mo ago
It isn't propaganda. No country gets 100% of its electricity from wind and solar 100% of the time for a reason.

by pydry 4mo ago

coryrc 4mo ago

In January 2025, solar generated 1.5TWh of electricity in Germany (in June it generated 10TWh): https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/electricity_generation_germany_2025.pdf https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/electricity_generat... In January 2025, Germany burned about 236 TWh of fossil fuels. You cannot even mostly replace fossil fuels with solar.

tfourb 4mo ago
Germany will need a total of 1,867 TWh per year in 2030, so an average of 155 TWh/month. fossil fuels are very inefficient when used in most applications (especially ICE and oil for heating). As countries use more and more electricity instead of fossil fuels to generate motion and heat, total energy demand will decrease accordingly. Currently, Germany imports almost all of its fossil fuel from abroad. Mainly Norway, USA, Gulf countries, etc. Russia used to play an important role and we paid dearly for that. As we are for the reliance on the US, I guess. We could actually bring our energy dependence closer to home and make it cheaper by substituting fossil fuel imports with solar + battery with the PV part being distributed across northern African countries. But most likely it will be more convenient (if less efficient) and politically desirable to create a mix of domestic and souther European sources, with specialized stuff like H2/Green NG imports from Iceland and other energy rich places being mixed in. Also, Germany will (and does) a large share of it energy requirement not from solar, but from wind. Already, renewable energy has very much softened the effects of the Iran war on electricity prices. They never exceeded the highest levels of 2025, while fossil fuels jumped to levels last seen immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and are still elevated over 2025 levels.
- coryrc 4mo ago
  > we paid dearly for that And if you had invested in Drake Landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Landing_Solar_Community solar setup instead of PV, then neither the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor Hormuz blockade would have been a huge deal. The cost of energy is destroying your industrial base. > Also, Germany will (and does) a large share of it energy requirement ... from wind 15TWh in January 2025. Again, you burned about 230 TWh of fossil fuels. Nearly every heating system is over 80%, electricity closer to 50%, so lets say 150TWh. Do you have an order of magnitude more land and water you're able to put wind generation on? And are you willing to base your life and economy on not having Dunkelflaute?
  - tfourb 4mo ago
    > Do you have an order of magnitude more land and water you're able to put wind generation on? Actually yes. We currently use less than 0.5% of our agricultural land for PV (and some agricultural use is technically possible below PV). We could of course dedicate 5% or even 10% of land use to PV, if we really needed to (which we don't). We also could still expand PV to large swathes of build-up area (car parks and the like). And Wind turbines actually don't need much space at all, the main issue is distance to settlements because of noise/shadow concerns. > And are you willing to base your life and economy on not having Dunkelflaute? I think there is an interesting discussion to be had. If we could i.e. half the cost of energy but have to live with drastically reducing energy consumption every few years for a couple of weeks in winter, would that be worth it? We actually did so in the first winter after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because energy prices rose dramatically and people and businesses reacted accordingly. That was painful (and had no upside whatsoever), but I think if it didn't come completely by surprise but would be a designed part of the system, it might be worth it.
    - coryrc 4mo ago
      > We also could still expand PV to large swathes of build-up area (car parks and the like). That doesn't solve your problems in the slightest. You get less than half the return on investment for PV that most other countries in the world get, and does nothing for when your peak energy load is. Every dollar spent on PV requires another dollar on natural gas for the winter and locks you into fossil fuel dependency. Spend the money on something which gives you winter power! > the main issue is distance to settlements because of noise/shadow concerns. That's exactly what I mean. Where can you actually build it? And is that enough? And why spend a dime on solar until you've maximized wind? > If we could i.e. half the cost of energy but have to live with drastically reducing energy consumption every few years for a couple of weeks in winter, would that be worth it? See, exactly, that's the kind of national conversation you (and here in the USA) should be having. But we don't do that kind of thing any more. The politicians make money lying about the costs of things -- Gerhard Schröder being, I guess, a Russian stooge at best, a great example of downplaying the full costs.

Tuna-Fish 4mo ago

> solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think They anticorrelate in some locations. In others, they don't. Here in Finland in the winter you get effectively zero sun. We also get persistent stationary anticyclones. That means potentially over a month of temps in the -30°C region, and zero wind. Australia is extremely sunny. California is even better, they are modeling that assuming they keep their current hydro capacity, they only need to add ~3h in batteries. Hot places also do better than cold places, because the usage peaks track the sun. > In Europe or America you might need 7-8 while in carbon industry PR models (the same people who denied global warming) seem to think you need 300+. How on earth do you expect 7-8 to be enough? 300 isn't enough either. The real number for a fully renewable-based grid here is somewhere north of 2000. Renewables are great in some situations. There are places in the world that should go for 100% renewables as quickly as possible. It also makes sense to locate a lot of the high-consuming industry in such places. But before you hawk your solution everywhere, you need to actually study the local conditions, and not try to extrapolate anything from Australia.

pepperoni_pizza 4mo ago
I think it also depends on other stuff. Spain gets bunch of sun even when there's the deepest winter in Finland but even if they are technically part of the same grid, the challenge is getting the energy there.
- Tuna-Fish 4mo ago
  Spain and Finland are not part of the same grid. Spain is in the CESA, Finland is in the NSA.
  - laurencerowe 4mo ago
    Being part of the same grid doesn't matter so much as the amount of interconnection available. Finland has a higher proportion than Spain since France has stalled on building more interconnection capacity as this will likely reduce the amount they can sell their excess nuclear generation to Germany.
4mo ago

UltraSane 4mo ago

It isn't propaganda. No country gets 100% of its electricity from wind and solar 100% of the time for a reason.