next up: zero teslas.
if germans chose a route, they, walk. (ww2, manufacturing cars, end of nuclear power…)
so fuck you elon. we hate you so much.
One of the nicer upshots of cutting the cord with Russia is the sky high price of electricity incentivizing big investments in renewable energy.
Biomass may well be renewable, but I still don’t think it counts as green.
Why not? Doesn’t creating the biomass require sequestering carbon?
I just feel that if you’re growing a load of trees, it’s slightly more environmentally friendly to just let them carry on growing rather than chopping them into bits and burning them.
I mean I get it, it’s a way to use those old coal power stations for something, but it should be something else we need to phase out.
Coal is sequestered carbon.
Difference is timescale. Coal “sequestered carbon” over millions of years, and released over a few decades.
Biomass gathers and realeases on the same timescale
Then you’re saying biomass is not really sequestering carbon, essentially.
Neither is solar or wind. But they’re all net-zero or near-zero carbon emissions when considering the entire lifestyle of the energy and machinery production.
Original chart source: https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2024.pdf
Slide 17
I wish people would stop conflating energy with electricity.
So Germany had ⅔ of it’s electricity from renewables, but still has gas for warming homes, petrol for cars, diesel for trucks, and so on.
You’re right, but if you read beyond the title it’s clearly stated that it’s about electricity generation.
That’s fair, but it’s still a very relevant metric. It shows the automatic transition made in electrification when people switch over to heat pumps, electric stoves or EVs.
Exactly. Both numbers are interesting, because electricity will likely be scaled up in the same proportions. If we’re comparing countries, we should use total energy, but if we’re just looking at progress within a country, looking at electricity generation is totally valid.
Well, from where I stand it’s a useful number to understand the value of electrification. You hear a lot of misinformation along the lines of “why move to EV/heat pumps/whatever if the electricity they use is made by burning gas”.
Which is a big “if”, and knowing what the energy mix is in your country/area is an important rebuttal and answer to that particular question.
It skews the metrics though. By the title you’d think Germany is already more than halfway through to become carbon neutral, when it is obviously still extremely far away from that goal. People read this and think we’re actually doing okay.
The hell is “doing okay”?
I am so frustrated by the discourse around renewables and climate change. Everybody online seems to be treating it like a puzzle or a board game, where you “win” at climate change when you find the “right” solution.
That’s not how it works. I don’t care about the “carbon neutrality” of Germany any more than I care about the “carbon neutrality” of a patch of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a global process that is never going to end. We’re always going to need energy, it’s always going to come from a mix of sources and we need to eventually find a global equilibrium we can strive to maintain.
Data is data, but taking issue with news, and particularly positive news, as if they were propaganda in a campaign where eventually people will have to elect the one source of energy they consume is kind of absurd. Yes, renewables are gaining ground, solar is moving faster than expected and no, that doesn’t make the issue go away and we still need to accelerate the process and remove additional blockers to that acceleration. There are no silver bullets and there never will be.
[edit] don’t upvote me, read their reply. They clarified their argument and I was wrong
I feel like you agree with the person you’re replying to but don’t see it.
You hate when people/media describes it as a winnable scenario. They are saying that the chart misrepresenting energy gives people the impression that the “fight” is almost “won” and the government has it covered - no need to keep it part of the conversation.
Kinda, but I’m frustrated with both sides of the argument. There is a cohort of very online people at the ready to clarify how whatever initiative or proposal is “not it” or “greenwashing” and will not “fix” things.
The activist argument is not so much that this is an ongoing thing we’re going to be considering forever, it’s that this or that solution is a corporate trap or a fake solution or whatever else. Often there isn’t even an agreement on what the “real” answer is supposed to be, just a willingness to be the savvy, jaded one that calls out the latest snake oil handwavy solution.
So yeah, we probably don’t disagree on the first part, but that post really tickled my sensitivity to the second part.
t’s that this or that solution is a corporate trap or a fake solution or whatever else.
Or on the other hand “the ultimate solution to all problems”. There are a number of solutions to cut emissions, giving people options is what makes the difference. Also, simply cutting emissions isn’t enough in many cases but get’s painted as “the solution”.
Fair enough! Thanks for elaborating.
For the record, see the guy’s response below for exactly what I’m talking about.
positive news
The point is that it’s not positive, not more than an article telling you that tomorrow it will be sunny.
It’s at best mild.
Now who is confusing weather with climate?
It’s an article telling you that inflation wasn’t as high as intitially expected. Doesn’t mean prices went down, but it’s still good news against the alternative.
We’ve looped back around to arguing about the meaning of “positive”, which mostly tells me this is entirely a discussion about vibes, and maybe that’s the best takeaway anybody can get from it.
Not doing nearly enough isn’t “positive news”. But thanks for proving my point. This is literally not going to do anything for us as a species with the current trajectory we’re on, because, again, it’s not enough, not even close to it.
Okay, so beyond nihilism, what’s your point?
I mean, obviously this is at least an intermediate state towards whatever survivable endgame we want to reach. We need to be at this stage at some point to get to where we want to go.
Should this stage have happened sooner? Probably. Was it possible? Maybe.
But we’re here now, so… what’s your take? Because you seem concerned about good news discouraging people from something, but you also seem to be claiming there is no valid path forward, which seems way less productive to me.
Nihilism isn’t the same as realism. We need to make great leaps, not babysteps. We were on our way to a catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius globally already, and that was before the result of the US election. Do you seriously believe the rest of the world, who already failed to do their own part, is going to now also compensate for the addition of the US emissions under Trump? That’s not happening, especially not if we continue to delude us with misleading headlines like this. Toxic positivity is absolutely not helpful when the world needs a serious reality check.
No toxic positivity here.
I will note, though, you haven’t met the brief. The closest thing to a target I see there is “great leaps, not baby steps”. I’m gonna need something slightly more specific than that.
carbon neutral
That’s a propaganda term by people who promote bullshit like e-fuels because “the only CO2 emissions are what was already out of the air, so bottom line it’s neutral”.
Please stop spewing climate denial propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net-zero_emissions https://unfccc.int/news/a-beginner-s-guide-to-climate-neutrality https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-carbon-neutrality https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20190926STO62270/what-is-carbon-neutrality-and-how-can-it-be-achieved-by-2050
Please stop spewing climate denial propaganda.
The only one spewing propaganda is you. The world needs “net negative” to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere that was already blasted into it since the industrial revolution, not “net zero”/“carbon neutral”.
Get a clue.
Those are stepping stones on the same path you dingus. Calling literal climate scientists & institutions propaganda just proves my point about your climate change denial.
Removed by mod
The world needs “net negative”
Of course.
And carbon neutral is a major step in that direction. Carbon neutral not the end goal, and most people don’t claim that it is.
Removed by mod
Exactly. As the amount of renewable zero carbon electricity increases, it will become less expensive than fossil fuels, which will naturally drive energy usage away from the more polluting sources.
Nice graph with no freaking labels.
Original chart source: https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2024.pdf
Slide 17
Meanwhile, the USA is 24%-ish renewables and 60%-ish fossil fuels. Damn fossil fuel industry and anti-progress politicians.
*state dependent. ;)
For anyone who is interested in a detailed view of these stats worldwide in real time and cross-border with carbon intensities and individual breakdowns by electricity source: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h
WTF is Australia doing? Aren’t they aware they have plenty of sunshine and an insanely long shoreline?
Australia is just an oil company, a coal company, and a mining company disguised as a trench coat. The Liberal party (essentially just American Republicans opposed to guns) spent 2 decades killing any green energy initiatives in favor of fracking the Outback
IIRC Australia mines a huge amount of coal
Shame, innit? They could be the n1 Solar panel producers per capita and panel exporters…oh well. This is why the charge against fossil fuels has to be led by net consumers (in the name of defense against geopolitical risk) and the producers will inevitably reduce extraction for export…but local consumption of coal probably will never disappear completely unless locals complain about air pollution and lag in exportable tech.
Australia likes its coal like america its guns.
The sun doesn’t shine at night. Have a look when it is daytime there and you’ll see upwards of 60% of their electricity is solar.
Or use the EM site and check for past statistics.
The sun doesn’t shine at night.
Wind blows at night at the shoreline.
Have a look when it is daytime there and you’ll see upwards of 60% of their electricity is solar.
Well, over 12 months it’s not that rosy, except for Tasmania:
I thought you’d at least have a chuckle when you realised that it was night time when you made your dumb comment.
Over the last 12 months it is 25% solar and 13% wind. The population centres on the east coast are worse than WA, SA and TAS in that regard.
Yes, 45% of coal generated electricity is awful, but you were still incorrect in saying Australia is doing nothing.
A collosal solar farm and transmission cable to Singapore is under construction which is will be a great achievement when complete.
you were still incorrect in saying Australia is doing nothing.
Except I did not say that. I asked what’s going on and that things aren’t that rosy. You must me have confused with someone else.
Really cool. Thanks for the share. Also quite depressing, most countries (even rich ones who have like triple responsibility) are barely even trying.
They used to have nuclear too
Yeah, what’s up with that? Nuclear works well for France, so why did it fall out of favor in Germany?
It’s not perfect, but it does a fantastic job at providing a base load alternative to batteries, which could significantly reduce rollout costs if they had existing plants. It’s probably not worth switching now, unless they have some dormant plants that could be fired up quickly (like we’re doing in the US).
Nuclear works well for France
Apart from that the plants don’t work in summer and the prices have to be capped/subsidized to keep power affordable…
All the plants still work in summer during heatwaves. When they stop it’s because they are not essential at the time (electricity consumption is lower in summer than winter) and to protect the river ecosystem. Since the water is already very hot and stressing the ecosystem they don’t want to add more heat into the river.
In the mean time the carbon intensity of France was 31CO2/kWh in 2024, Germany was at 364gCO2/kWh. 12 times more.
But it is going down for both countries, so it’s a good point.
Prices capped have nothing to do with nuclear energy and everything to do with stupid EU price policy.
France used to have a monopoly by a state owned company on electrIcity: EDF. But everyone knows that’s terrible, and private market is the way to go. At the time, electricity in France was the cheapest across Europe, but it’s still terrible because… well that HAD to change!
In order to introduce some competition, generation, network and “distribution” (billing…) activities were separated.
Then private distributors (again: billing companies with 0 generation capabilites and 0 grid network) were allocated some quota of electricity from the nuclear electricity generated by EDF at low cost.
In addition, and that’s the European policy: electricity price on the market would be set at the cost of the most expensive generator at a given time. Example: 100% nuclear today: cost is set at cost of nuclear. 95% of electricity from nuclear, 5% from gas: 100% of the electricity that day is billed at cost of gas! 80% nuclear, 15% gas, 5% coal: 100% of the electricity billed at cost of coal!
Why? So that the priate newcomer would get huge benefits and be able to invest in electricity generation. But: there was 0 constrain in doing so, so they just rack up benefits at the expense of EDF and clients! Even better: since they get such low prices from their quota, they’re cheaper than the EDF split distributor company. So at some point, their quota was insufficient for their client’s demand. Time to invest… hahaha! No I’m kidding: time to ask for a bigger quota, of course granted by Macron and his team.
Then came Ukraine invasion. Uh oooh! Gas price exploses, even the “distributors” start to feel the pain. What to do? Well, kick out their clients! Refure to renew contracts, or ask for such a ridicuously high price to make sure they just go! EDF’s hisorical distribution company is legally obligated to take them back. And that’s where the 2nd joke kicks in: EDF gave s much quota of nuclear electricity that they no longer have enough for these clients they have to take. No worries: the “distributors” sold back the electricity quota… at market price, ie mostly gas price!
With the price of gas multiplied n times determining the cost of the whole production, it became unbearable for clients. That’s where genius Macron and Lemaire (Minister of Economy) set a “shield” (cap) on the bills. It’s no shield nor cap. It’s actually the state of France paying the difference in the bills between the actual bill and the cap they set. That’s public money!
And again, that money didn’t go to resources. It went straight to “distributors” (rather call them parasites).
For sure, the heavy maintenance work on the nuclear power plant done at the time didn’t help. They decided to do it on all plants at once (another bad call) and it lasted longer than planned.
But the price issue has nothing to do with nuclear and everything to do with stupid policies.
And now, lesson learned (not): Spain and Portugal got out of that absurd elecricity market. Germany and France (and many other countries) made a few changes and keep going. Because competition with multiple private actors in electricity is good. Can’t you see it??
Oh noes, subsidising a greener energy source than coal, how terrible, that’s not what governments are supposed to do!
(Let’s ignore the fact that the subsidies were done half a century ago, and that energy is way more expensive in Germany)
Why don’t they work in the summer?
They do. But you need to reduce the generation to make sure you don’t heat up too much the water for the ecosystem that lives in. Less water means the temperature difference before and after the plant is higher. That’s the constrain.
The rivers used for cooling are either too warm or too low
Interesting… I would have thought they would have steam generators that pull out the heat, and also have some control over the power output.
All thermal power plants use steam generators. And they need lots of water for that.
Rivers are free and renewable. Electrical energy from nuclear is already the most expensive as it is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder
Step 1 shut down nuclear, and switch to gas
Step 2 get hired by gazprom
Sorry but the German people and not Schroder were the ones who chose anti-nuclear. And the reliance on Russian gas may have backfired, but at the time it enabled perhaps the most efficient economy Europe had ever known.
Germany was once the star of Europe for having so much nuclear energy. Completely independent from russian gas.
Ehh no. Germany never had that much nuclear in its energy mix. At most it was 10-15%. Compare that to France with their around 30-40% nuclear energy in the mix.
There has always been quite a noticeable anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany, especially in the 70s/80s and after Fukushima political pressure rose to get rid of nuclear power. Some also say that the SPD was very friendly with Putin and that’s why they were happy to increasingly rely on Russian gas imports. Not sure if that’s true though
Not sure if that’s true though
It’s an aspect, but not the whole Picture. Germans are relatively tech savvy on the one hand, but on the other hand, we also don’t like change. A consequence of combining both things is that we calculate risk different. With all the issues surrounding Nuclear Fission and how much safeguarding a potential “BDBE” (Super-GAU in German or Beyond-design-basis events, like Fukushima and Chornobyl) needs, they also became pretty damn expensive to run. The fact of the matter is, German Power Companies never made money with Nuclear Fission, most of them broke even and covered the running costs, but actual profits weren’t that great. Russia - with help of the SPD - made Gas so cheap, it simply made no sense to invest in Nuclear Fission reactors…even with high subsidies. With most of them being over 25-30 years old and most of them needing general overhauls due to new safety regulations and general technology improvements, the Power Companies also pushed the Lobby behind the scenes to either change regulation or phase out Nuclear Fission. The Krümmel NPP also had a serious incident in 2009 that confirmed suspicions of many Germans, that the Power Companies cut corners to make profits. It resulted in a partial meltdown, after a very serious Fire in 2007. Also, Geesthacht - the community where the NPP was located - has had a significantly higher rate of leukaemia and chromosome defects. Then came Fukushima and that was the final nail in the coffin, as popular opinion shifted. Even before actually deciding on the phase out of NPP, Krümmel was shut down in 2011 for good.
Krümmel wasn’t the only reactor that has had issues. Then there’s been issues with finding a suitable waste repository - turns out, encasing nuclear waste in concrete in old mine shafts is a very bad idea in most of Germany, as deep groundwater seeps in through the layers and wreaks havoc with a supposed “final and safe” resting place. And as i mentioned, most of Germans were (it has changed a bit in the last 10-25 years, sadly) relatively tech savvy and most, if not all Germans understood the basic principles of nuclear fission, as well as the dangers (some maybe blown out of proportion), because they were taught in even “Hauptschule” (Lower Secondary Education) Physics, Chemical and Biology. Considering Germany is relatively densely populated, many, many people would have been directly affected by a BDBE/Super-GAU. Either through non usable ground water, loosing their livelihood, jobs or actually losing their lives gradually. (Nodding back at not liking change…)
Granted, the way the phase out was done has been a total disaster or utter shitshow and in my personal opinion, it should have been done gradually, because a few NPPs still had runtimes for over 15 years. But yeah - general anti-fission stance, cheap Gas from Russia with the help/enablement of the SPD, negligence from the operators/loosing confidence in the operators to actually run the plants safely and different risk evaluation in the German populace all played their part. Maybe also a bit of irrational fear as well, due to the history and being right in the middle of two seemingly mad Nuclear Powers.
In any case, it isn’t as cut and dry as some people think it is - IMHO. But despite what i said about letting the runtime on the plants run it’s course, I’m against Nuclear Fission (or rather Boiling Water / Pressure Water Reactors) as well. Now if we get Molten Salt Reactors working properly and maybe Transmutation as well, things would be different because the equation changed…
Yeah, what’s up with that? Nuclear works well for France, so why did it fall out of favor in Germany?
Lobbying (corruption).
Nuclear power is much more expensive than renewable power. Also nuclear ist not that good to regulate to compensate for swings in renewable power. And if you downregulate the nuclear power it gets even more expensive. Building new nuclear plants takes ages so renewable can be much easier scaled up. Combined with batteries the unsteady renewable power will be a lesser problem.
The outphasing of nuclear power was a bit early but in the Ende needed.
Also france Bad massive problems with their nuclear power in the summer because of a lack of cooling water.
Don’t forget the propaganda. Thanks, Green party.
I love that chart you can’t read.
Original chart source: https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2024.pdf
Slide 17
Ty
Yeah that sucks, they haven’t shared the source, only what site it’s from.
This is the closest I could find: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year&year=-1&source=public
But this includes all sources, where the chart shown only includes renewable sources. I can’t find it on the site, but I’m kinda dumb so maybe somebody else can find it.
UK for comparison (Average over year)
GW % Coal 0.18 0.6 Gas 8.31 27.7 Solar 1.52 5.1 Wind 9.36 31.1 Hydroelectric 0.41 1.4 Nuclear 4.36 14.5 Biomass 2.15 7.1 Edit: Imports are the remainder
The sum of those percentages is 87.5%. So what’s the rest, maybe import from France or Norway?
Yes it’s imports. Norway / France and Netherlands mainly.
There’s a joke in there about the power of hot air but I’m not confident enough in my knowledge of British politics to make it
Well, we’ve a single cable coming over from France that makes up about 3% (I think) of our total electricity supply. So “French Nuclear” should be a bigger entry in that table than coal, solar, hydro or bio. That’s not the only import, either, so it’s not completely impractical for the missing percentages to be imports.
There are other cables as well. One of them runs through the chunnel. The UK regularly gets upto 10% of its supply from France (seasonal, time, cost dependant)
That’s an incredible amount of wind power.
I love it, I like it like my new contract they send me with new prices for electricity (44% up)
Like others have mentioned, change your provider. Prices are going down again, as there have been advancements on installing renewables. Energy prices at the end of 2024 were 30,5% cheaper than at the start of 2023 (Source. This is the case even though we are paying more for the modernization of the grid, because renewables are that much cheaper than other sources.
You should change your provider. I do it every year because thats how you can save lots of money.
Frustrating that these private energy companies can charge whatever they want (cough market rate is a scam cough) and you need to chase teaser rates year to year if you want to keep your electricity prices down.
Shame Western Europe lacks state owned municipalities obligated to sell at cost, rather than a colidascope of private firms looking to maximize the margin on every kWh sold.
Sounds off, because renewbles are typically cheaper than the alternatives.
Any chance you got a ‘fossil only’ contract?renewbles are typically cheaper than the alternatives
But firms will charge market rate regardless of the source of energy. This is a problem we have in Texas under ERCOT.
Green power can come in at such high rates that local power is practically free. But because the energy is bundled and auctioned with coal and gas across the grid at large, and because electricity is priced at the maximum auction rate, a shortage in one municipality that’s filled with high priced fossil fuel power raises the retail price of energy into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars a MWh.
I wonder how long it takes to bundle renawables only with batteries and sell that without subsidising fossil based electric energy.
May the fossil burners go bankrupt rather sooner than later as it’s a more reliable way to get them out of the mix than regulation is.bundle renawables only with batteries and sell that
Significantly less efficient than a green grid. Roof solar isn’t going to practically compete with industrial scale solar or wind, much less state subsidized gas.
May the fossil burners go bankrupt rather sooner than later
The demand for energy is only increasing. I don’t think anyone is going to go bankrupt selling electricity into this market.
It sounds strange, but that’s how it is, and it’s Ökostrom. Luckily, I can change my provider when they raise the price, so it won’t increase that much for me, but it will still go up, and I’m not the only one in my area because some friends of mine received the same ‘greeting.’ (To those who give dislikes, that won’t change the facts no matter how much you would like it to.)
Buy a Balkonkraftwerk. It’s cheap right now in Wintertime. If you take one without battery, it has a return of invest of 1-2 years. Just 2-4 solar panels for your balcony or somewhere else and you plug it into your power plug (schuko stecker). It‘s worth, easy to install and allowed without applying the landlord in Germany.
Are you sure that the investment will be recouped so quickly? I’m not a local here and I’m not familiar with all the rules, but I’ve been told that I can’t put anything on the balcony that will change the appearance of the building until I get permission from the Rathaus.
That was until 2023. In 2024 the regulations were changed and kow it can’t be stopped. Neither stopped by your landlord, by the city, nor the local power company. Just buy it for around 400€ and install it (no Deye inverter though). You’ll get 2 or 4 solar panels, an inverter and a cable with schuko plug to connect inverter to your flats power network.
You plug it into your power plug and as soon as the sun glares, your little power net in your flat gets cheap power. If you adapt your behavior accordingly - start laundry, dryer, ironing at noon - you can save some bucks.
I have no quick start guide in englisch. May be you google around a bit. If you live in an older building, you should read about old power cables as well and start with low wattage- 600w inverter. It’s really that easy now 😋
why would market electricity prices have any relation to what you pay on your power bill? turns out that companies will charge whatever they know they can, regardless of the cost of acquiring something to sell, should the cost of something be more than they know they can sell it for, they just won’t sell it.
The idea that market prices influence what you pay for something is basically one of the main lies of supply side economics.
In Germany, from 1st of January each local power provider has to offer a flexible contract that gives through the market price. But I think it’s too early right know as it has some peaks. Otherwise choose Tibber, Voltego or others. Once you can load your car at night, it’s worth to take a flex tariff
Are you sure its the actual cost of the electricity or the fact that many other costs are often bundled into your bill?
Obviously, you don’t live in Germany or the EU, and it’s questionable whether you’ve ever paid a single bill. Because the electricity bill is always separate from other bills and is a special contract.
Prices mainly go up due to things like transmission fees.
lol. well I dont live in the EU thats true. seems like you’re the misinformed one. its pretty common for ‘electricity usage’ and ‘delivery’ to be separated. hence my question. dont worry if you struggle understanding your bill we can help if you want.
Remember Berlin has a latitude of 52.5°. That puts it far north of the 49th parallel border.
My friend is dumb and doesn’t know the significance of the 49th parallel. Can you explain it to them?
US/Canadian border from roughly Vancouver to Winnipeg. Berlin is further north than Saskatoon, Karlsruhe is on the 49th parallel. The lot of mainland Europe is north of Albuquerque. In fact much of Tunesia is north of Albuquerque. Miami is on about the same parallel as Bahrain, Orlando on the same as New Delhi.
True, but climate in Central Europe is different to the US-Canada border.
I’m thinking solar is hard.
Yeah, you get even more clouds.
Sure, but Munich is south of the 49th parallel. I’m not sure how amenable it is to solar down there, but surely there are some areas that would work, no?
If baveria wasn’t one of the worst NIMBY hell holes in the (known by me) world.
Wasn’t Germany that weird one where ‘gas’ was labeled as ‘renewable’? Or was that something diffrent?
Wasn’t Germany that weird one where ‘gas’ was labeled as ‘renewable’?
Biogas from decomposition is renewable. That definition is accepted internationally.
Doesn’t mean it’s ecological. There’s a difference.
Depends on whether you grow crops specifically to turn into fuel or ferment waste that would otherwise ferment in the open.
The main point on the European level revolved around whether construction of gas plants should get access to some green fund or the other, to which the answer is yes because they’ll always carry some on-demand load, and seasonal storage is bound to include syngas because we’ll need that stuff anyway as chemical feedstock.
No, that was France labeling Nuclear as Renewable. Because, because it doesn’t emit CO2, I guess. Don’t know what „Re-New“ translates into French and I‘d be surprised if it is „Split Atoms“.
Fuck off, France did this in reaction to Germany trying to pass gas as green (not renewable!)
No, worse, they labeled it as green. Naziland never fails to be on the wrong side of history
Yes it was, but I can’t find the sources now. It was some time after the recent invasion of Ukraine by the eastern hordes; titles were something like "Germany reclasified natural gas as renewable’. My memory fails me, so it may have been different gas and different purpose than electricity. Anyway, it came as a very poor taste.
In other news, Germany imports quite some percentage of its electricity from other countries, like nuclear-produced electricity from France. So, in a sense and to a degree, it outsources the emissions to other countries.
Edit: sources of both claims below.
In other news, Germany imports quite some percentage of its electricity from other countries, like nuclear-produced electricity from France. So, in a sense and to a degree, it outsources the emissions to other countries.
That is simply not true. You might get an update of the actual state of energy production AND imports vs exports here: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-renewables-in-2024-energy-mix-with-solar-contributing-14/
My memory fails me, so it may have been different gas and different purpose than electricity. Anyway, it came as a very poor taste.
Even this is not true or just blabla at least. It’s Biogas, gas made out of animals poo, plants and other degradable things.
I strongly suggest that you either check sources before posting a comment. Or just stay quite instead „there was something I heard somewhere…“
Found the source (if wiki can be considered):
It was NOT bio gas, it was Natural gas (i.e. russian gas).
Natural gas is seen by some countries as the bridge between coal and renewable energy, and those countries argue for natural gas to be considered sustainable under a set of conditions.[47] Germany in particular was a strong supporter towards its inclusion in the taxonomy, moreover advancing a request to the Commission to further ease environmental restrictions on its use.
Now piss off with the revisionism.
Electricity imports also rose to 24.9 TWh, driven by lower generation costs in neighboring countries during summer. France (12.9 TWh), Denmark (12.0 TWh),…
True.
Electricity imports also rose to 24.9 TWh, driven by lower generation costs in neighboring countries during summer.
For the love of God, please just build nuclear instead of virtue signaling with solar panels while you import your energy needs.
All our nuclear plants are shut down and weren’t maintained for further usage, than that few years ago when they were shut down, for decades. They are basically trash. Now just take a look at UK or France how cheap and easy it is to build new ones (when you can’t sacrifice workers and environment like China). And then take a look at France’s nuclear power production in recent heat summers. And finally take a look where that sweet little uranium is coming from when imported (Germany has none). And now give me a single good reason why investing in nuclear is better than investing in dirt cheap, decentralizeable renewables to cover future electricity needs.
Btw French Nuclear Power Company went bankrupt last years. Because of this cheap Nuclear. It’s owned by the Government now. In South Corea the Nuclear company is due 150 Billion dollars. Bankrupt very soon. Sellafield the British nuclear dump expects costs of 136 Billion pounds until 2050. Already owned by the Government.
It’s so fucking cheap this nuclear.
Just imagine how ‘cheap’ it’d be, had they included all calculatory costs for severe incidents (typically not possible to get insurance for them, so the public has to bear the costs of those incidents) and long-term storage in their operating costs and energy prices, repectively.
Economically it makes no sense to prefer nuclear to renawables.
Only the transformation is somewhat strenuous.
The “just use nuclear” crowd is so dumb. They make it so obvious they have no idea what they are talking about. Which I would not mind on its own, but they always think they are the smartest people in the room and that’s infuriating.
There’s no sense in spending limited public funding on nuclear now - renewables and storage is winning on all fronts.
Shutting down what nuclear existed was a costly mistake, but going down that path again is an even worse one
