3 ms·

> Varta lost its key customer in the spring: Apple plans to source the rechargeable "CoinPower" button cells for its AirPods headphones from China in the futu

by petcat 3mo ago

> Varta lost its key customer in the spring: Apple plans to source the rechargeable "CoinPower" button cells for its AirPods headphones from China in the future. It's another tough loss for German and European industry. Battery tech requires a lot of electricity and German energy prices are simply not competitive. And EU regulations limit how much the German government can subsidize industrial electricity costs. Lots of debt, expensive labor, expensive energy, and EU Battery Regulation and limits on subsidies all adds up to just losing the business completely to China.

philipwhiuk 3mo ago
The assumption that Europeans can just absorb high energy prices is crazy. Ought to be a national imperative to invest in infrastructure to lower prices.
- p-e-w 3mo ago
  Lol. Depending on the country and who the buyer is, 50-80% of energy prices are taxes and levies. Those prices have nothing to do with missing infrastructure.
- thyristan 3mo ago
  The problem there is the "national imperative" part imho. All EU politicians are hell-bent on ignoring any kind of market-based solutions, doing everything through regulations and picking winners. So there will never be a proper market equilibrium and therefore prices will always be higher than in places without all those regulatory interventions. Investment won't help there in any way, because if that investment were worth it, it would already happen because of market forces. If it doesn't happen on its own, then the state (doesn't matter which level) has to do it, which means using tax money, which means that prices will rise. So that state investment will further skew the market equilibrium, putting the EU further behind.
  - jojomodding 3mo ago
    I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say. There is currently a lot of demand for building out solar and wind in Germany. There is also large demand for building battery storage. The demand especially for the latter comes from the mismatch between supply and demand in electricity markets, so in a sense the battery operators hope to do arbitrage in a way that will also increase the efficiency of the market (by allowing the use of solar after dark). This is very much a market-based solution. What the state has to do is provide permits and stuff for getting the batteries etc. actually built; which the state is doing but not as fast as it could right now. (at least in Germany)
    - thyristan 3mo ago
      It would be a market-based solution if the state wouldn't interfere with the markets in major ways. E.g. many battery projects in Germany are nonviable due to the fact that some less-efficient but cheaper battery technologies are verboten. Meaning the market gets screwed again. There are also fees and taxes on power transit that are set up in such a way that energy storage is disadvantaged compared to energy production, especially gas-based energy production. Hydro storage e.g. is comparable to gas peaker plants in the quickness of powering up/down, but hydro storage pays transmission fees twice, once to charge, once to discharge...
      - namibj 3mo ago
        What battery technologies are banned??? While being good except for efficiency?
  - sajithdilshan 3mo ago
    Also all the regulations are based on hardcore ideologies. EU truly wants to be carbon neutral and that is applaudable, but at what cost is the question. Does is make sense to decimate most of the energy heavy industries in the continent to be carbon neutral? I guess only time will tell.
gbil 3mo ago
You forgot the new US tarrif because of "forced labor"! At least in China things are much better on labor side! Sorry couldn't resist....
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 3mo ago
  It's all kind of ridiculous, that stuff.
sajithdilshan 3mo ago
I think it's a self made crisis. They turned off their atomic power plants in the middle of an energy crisis (even the current German government admitted that it was a mistake: https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-nuclear-exit-was-strategic-mistake-fzdlkn37c16 https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-...) and now importing far expensive natural gas from middle east and USA
- k_g_b_ 3mo ago
  Germany's use of gas has basically nothing to do with nuclear energy. It's used for gas peakers (which are for now and were needed, whether some % of electricity is provided by nuclear plants or not), heating (which has/had nothing to do with nuclear plants) and heavy industry like steel (which wouldn't be able to replace their gas usage any easier with nuclear than with renewables). The current government is full of hardcore ideological incompetents captured by fossil fuel interests that wouldn't recognize a free market if it threw € bills in their face. Merz in particular can "admit" whatever he wants, it was an uninformed talking point to get a few points on media as a response to a small time-limited news wave on nuclear - nothing else to it. He's easily triggered. The previous government extended the runtime of the shutdown-ready plants because of the energy crisis. Shutting off the last few hasn't had any significant impact on industrial energy prices https://www.smard.de/page/en/topic-article/5892/216044/industrial-electricity-price-trends https://www.smard.de/page/en/topic-article/5892/216044/indus...
  - sajithdilshan 3mo ago
    You do know that the gap left by shutting off the nuclear power plants are now being filled by fossil fuel which makes the pricing quite volatile due to geo political situation in middle east. Also other not only Germans, but also other European countries had to pay a price as well for the shutdown of the power plant (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-red-over-germany-s-energy-policy https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-r...) > The current government is full of hardcore ideological incompetents captured by fossil fuel interests I could argue the same about the previous Green government, that it was an incompetent, eco terrorist extremist government where the shutdown of the power plants were spearheaded by an idiotic children book writer who has no idea about energy market.

by petcat 3mo ago

philipwhiuk 3mo ago

The assumption that Europeans can just absorb high energy prices is crazy. Ought to be a national imperative to invest in infrastructure to lower prices.

p-e-w 3mo ago
Lol. Depending on the country and who the buyer is, 50-80% of energy prices are taxes and levies. Those prices have nothing to do with missing infrastructure.
thyristan 3mo ago
The problem there is the "national imperative" part imho. All EU politicians are hell-bent on ignoring any kind of market-based solutions, doing everything through regulations and picking winners. So there will never be a proper market equilibrium and therefore prices will always be higher than in places without all those regulatory interventions. Investment won't help there in any way, because if that investment were worth it, it would already happen because of market forces. If it doesn't happen on its own, then the state (doesn't matter which level) has to do it, which means using tax money, which means that prices will rise. So that state investment will further skew the market equilibrium, putting the EU further behind.
- jojomodding 3mo ago
  I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say. There is currently a lot of demand for building out solar and wind in Germany. There is also large demand for building battery storage. The demand especially for the latter comes from the mismatch between supply and demand in electricity markets, so in a sense the battery operators hope to do arbitrage in a way that will also increase the efficiency of the market (by allowing the use of solar after dark). This is very much a market-based solution. What the state has to do is provide permits and stuff for getting the batteries etc. actually built; which the state is doing but not as fast as it could right now. (at least in Germany)
  - thyristan 3mo ago
    It would be a market-based solution if the state wouldn't interfere with the markets in major ways. E.g. many battery projects in Germany are nonviable due to the fact that some less-efficient but cheaper battery technologies are verboten. Meaning the market gets screwed again. There are also fees and taxes on power transit that are set up in such a way that energy storage is disadvantaged compared to energy production, especially gas-based energy production. Hydro storage e.g. is comparable to gas peaker plants in the quickness of powering up/down, but hydro storage pays transmission fees twice, once to charge, once to discharge...
    - namibj 3mo ago
      What battery technologies are banned??? While being good except for efficiency?
- sajithdilshan 3mo ago
  Also all the regulations are based on hardcore ideologies. EU truly wants to be carbon neutral and that is applaudable, but at what cost is the question. Does is make sense to decimate most of the energy heavy industries in the continent to be carbon neutral? I guess only time will tell.

gbil 3mo ago

You forgot the new US tarrif because of "forced labor"! At least in China things are much better on labor side! Sorry couldn't resist....

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
tim333 3mo ago
It's all kind of ridiculous, that stuff.

sajithdilshan 3mo ago

I think it's a self made crisis. They turned off their atomic power plants in the middle of an energy crisis (even the current German government admitted that it was a mistake: https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-nuclear-exit-was-strategic-mistake-fzdlkn37c16 https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-...) and now importing far expensive natural gas from middle east and USA

k_g_b_ 3mo ago
Germany's use of gas has basically nothing to do with nuclear energy. It's used for gas peakers (which are for now and were needed, whether some % of electricity is provided by nuclear plants or not), heating (which has/had nothing to do with nuclear plants) and heavy industry like steel (which wouldn't be able to replace their gas usage any easier with nuclear than with renewables). The current government is full of hardcore ideological incompetents captured by fossil fuel interests that wouldn't recognize a free market if it threw € bills in their face. Merz in particular can "admit" whatever he wants, it was an uninformed talking point to get a few points on media as a response to a small time-limited news wave on nuclear - nothing else to it. He's easily triggered. The previous government extended the runtime of the shutdown-ready plants because of the energy crisis. Shutting off the last few hasn't had any significant impact on industrial energy prices https://www.smard.de/page/en/topic-article/5892/216044/industrial-electricity-price-trends https://www.smard.de/page/en/topic-article/5892/216044/indus...
- sajithdilshan 3mo ago
  You do know that the gap left by shutting off the nuclear power plants are now being filled by fossil fuel which makes the pricing quite volatile due to geo political situation in middle east. Also other not only Germans, but also other European countries had to pay a price as well for the shutdown of the power plant (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-red-over-germany-s-energy-policy https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-r...) > The current government is full of hardcore ideological incompetents captured by fossil fuel interests I could argue the same about the previous Green government, that it was an incompetent, eco terrorist extremist government where the shutdown of the power plants were spearheaded by an idiotic children book writer who has no idea about energy market.