[HN Gopher] How messed up was Germany's energy policy?
___________________________________________________________________
How messed up was Germany's energy policy?
Author : guerby
Score : 90 points
Date : 2022-08-22 19:33 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jeromeaparis.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jeromeaparis.substack.com)
| btilly wrote:
| This article says, "Germany did a bunch of reasonable looking
| things."
|
| But after Russia invaded Georgia (2008) then Ukraine (2014),
| Germany worked to increase dependence on Russia for both
| electricity and heating. They failed to take even the most basic
| steps to diversify. Such as building LNG terminals to give them
| the option of importing gas from countries like the USA.
|
| And it wasn't like there wasn't some history demonstrating the
| Russia wasn't always a reliable supplier. For example in 2009
| they shut off gas for 10 days. As it happens they had a good
| reason (dispute with Ukraine over Ukraine stealing gas - which
| Ukraine had been). But fundamentally all of Europe, Germany
| included, should have been on notice that a single man could take
| out their gas supply. A man whose capriciousness was demonstrated
| in 2008 by his invasion of Georgia.
|
| Why on Earth did Germany not work to diversify? And why, given
| the current consequences of that past failure, are people trying
| to defend Germany's past bad decisions?
| cheriot wrote:
| We can add Chechnya (1999) to that list.
|
| https://www.historyonthenet.com/putins-first-invasion-the-19...
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| It's different.
| cheriot wrote:
| How is that?
|
| https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/chechnya-war
| btilly wrote:
| Chechnya was inside of Russia's national boundaries. And
| therefore was not a violation of international law.
| cheriot wrote:
| The question is whether it was ever reasonable to see
| Putin as a reliable partner. The first thing he did in
| office was launch a brutal invasion, stifle the press,
| and ignore war crimes committed by the Russian army.
|
| Is that the track record of someone a democratic country
| can trust?
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Why on Earth did Germany not work to diversify?
|
| As I understand it, the general thrust of Germany's Russia
| policy (until several months ago) was a kind of energy-politik
| [1]: bind Russia into the world economy via the need to
| maintain stable energy links, and it will be less likely to be
| a capricious bully to its neighbors. Which doesn't make a lot
| of sense to me, but I guess the relevant figures somehow
| figured that Russia was acting like a petulant child only
| because people were treating it as a petulant child?
|
| [1] Sorry, I don't know the German word for "energy" to write
| the proper German compound word.
| xxpor wrote:
| Die Energie, pronounced basically like "en-er-gee", where the
| g is like gulp, not like jump (or... energy), and ee is long
| e ([i])
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > I guess the relevant figures somehow figured that Russia
| was acting like a petulant child only because people were
| treating it as a petulant child?
|
| You are trying to post-rationalize this with some 4d chess
| realpolitik. Just follow the money. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-ex-
| chancellor-sc...
| IfOnlyYouKnew wrote:
| Many of the decisions were made my Merkel who, despite lots
| of flaws, is with absolute certainty immune from the allure
| of money. She's never shown any interest in it, had any
| income other than her government salary, and spend 16 years
| while in power living in a modest apartment within walking
| distance from the office.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Why on Earth did Germany not work to diversify?
|
| So they could benefit financially by being the natural gas hub
| for Europe. As you said, the reasons not to work with Russia
| were plainly obvious.
| piva00 wrote:
| What's even more egregious is that Germany has ran multiple
| years with a massive budget surplus (2018 + 2019 alone amass to
| 100biEUR). Imagine if that could be used to be invested in ways
| to have a diversified grid...
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Because in the past that also would have likely forced a
| rethinking/reexamination of Germany's defense setup and that
| would have been impossible to sell domestically.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I can't make the argument a previous head of state should be
| mandated from working where the free market takes them.
|
| I also can't argue that the decisions of Germany's leadership
| make a ton of sense. Or rather I can, the economic argument and
| Germany not likely to deal with a Russia near home it isn't
| able to easily deal with (outside of MAD.) That calculus makes
| sense to me I get and even still agree with the principle.
|
| But you also have to look out for your national security and it
| really seems like Germany wasn't looking out for anyone but
| it's self here. Germany faces no serious conventional threat
| from Russia nor does it currently have competing spheres of
| influence. However as part of NATO and the EU does.
|
| So it looks to be pretty clear that the Germans do not consider
| that they and, say, Lithuania share the same goals.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| germans and russians have been fighting for 1000 years. Take
| the calendar and mark the times when they were _not_
| fighting. Constructive engagement is sane; endless war from
| all sides is not sane
| enaaem wrote:
| Russia's expansion is definitely a national security thread
| to Germany. The thing is that Germany didn't believed that
| Russia would expand. It was a gross miscalculation on
| Germany's side. Believing promises and neglecting
| capabilities.
|
| If Russia takes Ukraine their population grows to 180
| Million. With the Baltics and Belarus they will be near near
| 200 million. Expecting Poland (at 40 Mln) to hold the
| Russians of is ridiculous.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I think this may be a mischaracterization. Germany believed
| that, knows really, that it is richer economically and has
| a tech gap thanks to NATO over them.
|
| Germanys stance was that Russia will piss and moan as it's
| elite slowly lose their autocratic regime to a Republican
| one (similar to South Korea and Taiwan.)
|
| I'm not convinced this has changed and it is my opinion
| that German policy is a pretty obvious open secret that
| Ukraine and Russia is there problem.
|
| You can see this in their reaction to the invasion where
| they stalled with hold off rhetoric because they couldn't
| believe we're taking this seriously.
|
| So it wasn't ignorance that Russia would bully the two
| smaller "Russians" it was a calculated risk and an accepted
| cost of doing business.
| pmayrgundter wrote:
| Cui bono?
|
| Kissinger noted in Diplomacy (1994) that Germany's key role in
| European history has been main defender of Central Europe
| against Russia. To me, there's no way Germany missed the point
| of Russian moves of the past decade.
|
| So assume for a moment that they knew this day was coming.
|
| If they have energy independence, they might also be called to
| task to play their traditional role and their natural role now
| as the powerhouse of the EU and NATO, to lead the fight against
| Russia.
|
| But if they're hobbled by energy dependence, they can shrug and
| say "sorry, it's simply not a feasible option for us. We're
| sitting this one out." Which seems to be what they have done.
|
| Add they get cover from their domestic green problems as well.
| Alles ist gut.
| jltsiren wrote:
| For the same reason the world didn't take climate change
| seriously already in the 90s. It didn't align with short-term
| economic interests. As mentioned in the article, the prevailing
| political climate had made energy imports less political and
| more a matter of economics. Increasing energy imports from
| Russia made sense in that climate.
|
| The Russian invasion of Georgia wasn't a big deal in West
| Europe. It was like the US invasion of Iraq. An empire invaded
| a faraway country because its leaders had some personal issues.
| That's what empires do. Political leaders condemned it, but
| there were limited practical consequences, because everything
| happened far away. And because the EU was not trying to be an
| empire shaping the world in its image.
|
| East European countries took things more seriously, because
| they are closer to Russia and more vulnerable to its whims.
|
| Even the 2014 invasion of Ukraine wasn't a major issue. Until
| then, Ukraine was seen as one of the corrupt post-Soviet states
| that didn't know whether they wanted to align with Russia or
| Europe. As long as Putin's ambitions were limited, they were
| not a West European concern. Leaders again condemned Putin's
| actions and some sanctions were issued, but that's it. Putin's
| Russia was still seen as a fact of life West Europe had to
| learn to coexist with.
|
| Things changed after 2014. Ukraine aligned with the West. When
| Putin invaded the next time, it was a full-scale invasion of an
| unambigously European country. That did concern West Europe,
| because it was dangerously close.
|
| The whole situation looks like a mutual misunderstanding of the
| motives on the other side. Putin seems to have counted for a
| limited European reaction, because he didn't understand that
| non-empires tend to make pragmatic rather than ideologically
| motivated decisions. He assumed that West European complacency
| was an ideological rather than a pragmatic position. Similarly,
| West European leaders didn't see that the threat of the
| invasion was real, because they assumed empires would also make
| pragmatic rather than ideological decisions.
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| > Why on Earth did Germany not work to diversify?
|
| Diversify towards what? The biggest consumers of gas is heating
| homes and the chemical industry. Most houses have gas or oil
| heating. Do you convert from gas back to oil? Or to coal?
| Because most urban housing in Germany cannot be easily
| transferred to heat pumps, you know. The cost for conversion is
| prohibitive. In most cases you would have to cancel rental
| contracts to free the flat for conversion. How do you convince
| house owners and tenants to go with such a mad stunt that will
| mutliply their heating costs? All for a hunch of "someone might
| do something crazy in the east".
|
| How do you convert a chemical industry that cannot subsitute
| gas for any other product? Push them abroad?
|
| Please have reasonable and informed answers to these questions
| before asking question like
|
| > And why, given the current consequences of that past failure,
| are people trying to defend Germany's past bad decisions?
| btilly wrote:
| Your lecture would have been more reasonable if I had not
| already given a specific example of diversification. Namely
| the construction of a LNG terminal.
|
| Here are numbers for you. The Sabine Pass LNG project in
| Louisiana, USA, was constructed for about $5 billion. Its
| capacity is almost exactly the same as the Nord Stream 1
| pipeline, which was constructed for approximately EUR15.7
| billion. Thus for 1/3 of the cost of the pipeline, Germany
| could have provided themselves a backup plan for Russian gas,
| while requiring zero changes from industry and consumers.
|
| This one time investment would have been a fraction of what
| Germany spends each year subsidizing renewable energy, and a
| drop compared to the cost of shutting down nuclear. Therefore
| the cost of making sure that there was a second supplier of
| gas available would have been quite reasonable to do some
| years ago.
|
| Given that it hasn't been done, it is impossible to do on
| short notice. But Germany could have done it, should have
| done it, and was repeatedly advised by allies to do exactly
| that. And failed to.
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| > Your lecture would have been more reasonable if I had not
| already given a specific example of diversification. Namely
| the construction of a LNG terminal.
|
| > Here are numbers for you. The Sabine Pass LNG project in
| Louisiana, USA, was constructed for about $5 billion. Its
| capacity is almost exactly the same as the Nord Stream 1
| pipeline, which was constructed for approximately EUR15.7
| billion. Thus for 1/3 of the cost of the pipeline, Germany
| could have provided themselves a backup plan for Russian
| gas, while requiring zero changes from industry and
| consumers.
|
| LNG isn't even in the ballpark of what would be needed to
| replace Russian gas in volume. About 40 LNG terminals are
| currently operational in the EU. Even if you could use
| their full capacity, it wouldn't be enough to replace
| Russian gas. And it wouldn't affect prices positively
| aswell. LNG is only good for preventing actual shortages,
| not replacing the source. Even if Germany had built 5 LNG
| terminals in the last decade, it would be a drop in the
| bucket.
| seydor wrote:
| Germany has lignite to use for electricity and oil for
| heating, as you said. That should be enough to reduce demand
| and thus prices.
|
| Long-term there are gas reserves in Netherlands , in the
| mediterranean etc. The EU has options.
|
| I have to also ask why? Germany obviously has options but why
| is it taboo to ask them to change their policies abruptly and
| temporarily? We have a war in europe
| glogla wrote:
| > Germany obviously has choices but why is it taboo to ask
| them to change their policies abruptly and temporarily? We
| have a war in europe
|
| I think the problem here is that the Germans would rather
| have war in Eastern Europe (people of which they probably
| don't consider important) than more expensive heating.
| fkall wrote:
| Germany has taken 900,000 refugees. Why not send them to
| a similarly sized U.S. state and watch the reactions?
|
| U.S. citizens already complain about gas prices (which
| are still much lower than in Europe). How about raising
| them the European prices and see if they still virtue
| signal?
|
| As usual, the U.S. supports a war and Europe pays for it.
| [deleted]
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| The oil for heating has been phased out in favour of gas
| because of emissions. So for most homes this would mean to
| convert back to bulky oil tanks. It's probably cheaper than
| heat pumps and you can keep the plumbing. The plumbing and
| use of radiators is a big problem for heat pumps because of
| the higher temperatures that are needed to heat radiators
| on the 4th floor etc.
|
| Other houses never had oil. They switched from coal
| straight to gas in the 60s and 70s. But here the furnace is
| usually on the same floor as the radiators. But conversion
| is still expensive.
|
| > Germany obviously has options but why is it taboo to ask
| them to change their policies abruptly and temporarily?
|
| It's not taboo to ask to change policies. Actually a lot of
| policies _are_ changing. Even support for nuclear is on the
| rise.
|
| But one of these changes in policies might have to be
| abandoning some goals of emission reduction. One of the
| reasons why gas was on the move up is because it burns much
| cleaner than oil or coal. So converting all that oil
| heating to gas was incentivised by the government. Also gas
| is much better in filling in the gaps for renewables than
| nuclear or coal which can't be switchted off again so
| easily.
|
| The plan was to move from coal to renewables. The path
| there was via gas. A very reasonable bridge technology.
|
| Putin's war came too early for that conversion but luckily
| not too late to stop switching coal to gas.
|
| BTW, Germany never had enough nuclear plants to provide
| more than about a quarter of today's electric demand
| anyway. Most was coal. Even if Germany never decided to
| phase out nuclear, the problems would have pretty much the
| same magnitude.
| yks wrote:
| Ukraine has been a pain in Germany's neck, Nord Streams are the
| most visible result of that but then there are also anecdotes
| of Merkel ignoring Yushchenko, German delegations not attending
| Ukrainian independence parades and so on. Even now Merkel is
| openly saying "no regrets" in the face of the bona fide
| genocide, that's how little empathy German leadership has for
| Ukraine.
|
| I think the calculus was that Ukraine is never going to be in
| NATO and so its future is at best irrelevant for Germany, and
| at worst they'd prefer it absorbed by Russia who Germans enjoy
| dealing with. But in the meantime Eastern European countries
| gained power, and they are really not okay with Russian
| imperial project (Hungary aside). So now Germany, being an ally
| with Eastern Europe on paper, has to do something, so they are
| reluctantly doing the bare minimum.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Interesting. Not a single mention of the impact of foreign policy
| precipitating this potential energy crisis. Foreign policy cannot
| be untangled from domestic policy.
|
| There is now this idea that the only reasonable thing to do was
| to completely cut off Russia from international trade, _prior to
| the unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine_. Why? Because that made
| you dependent on Russia and that 's just ontologically bad.
| That's not a reasonable position to have. I mean people trade
| with China in spite of Tibet, the Uyghurs, Hong Kong and
| Tiananmen Square, Saudi Arabia in spite of providing material
| support to al-Qaeda (and being the country probably most
| responsible for 9/11), an unjustifable genocide in Yemen and
| Khashoggi or even the United States despite many sins that can
| reasonbly be listed.
|
| Trade in particular and engagement in general is the only
| reasonable path towards Russia or really any other power we may
| not like.
|
| The problem was that Germany and the US through NATO expected
| Putin to swallow something the US never would ie a hostile major
| power in your backyard. I mean the US almost started World War 3
| when the USSR tried this in Cuba (after the US had already done
| it to Turkey).
|
| But instead people like the frame this debate as you should never
| have traded with Russia and/or to support the narrative that
| nuclear power is good.
| locallost wrote:
| The author here makes a great point that Germany kickstarted the
| renewable industry for the whole world, by basically investing in
| it before it made economic sense. But they managed to invent the
| future here because now it makes economic sense for everybody.
| The overall effect of this on the global situation is worth
| pondering, the numbers in renewables vs everything else in the
| world are quite staggering in the last years. I think a lot of
| people didn't catch up on it.
|
| It's pretty clear that investments in renewables will continue to
| accelerate, especially considering the war. And because they are
| so fast to deploy, the renewable share has no other option but to
| go up. The one unanswered question is how high can it go.
| Realistically until somebody does 100%, there will always be
| questions. But in my life I've heard "you can't do 10%/20%/30%"
| etc. and now plenty of countries run on majority renewables and
| don't have issues.
|
| The issue is very divisive, but I'm glad more and more articles
| like these are popping up, with some hard numbers that paint a
| very different picture than "Germany replaced nuclear with coal,
| madness".
| glogla wrote:
| > The issue is very divisive, but I'm glad more and more
| articles like these are popping up, with some hard numbers that
| paint a very different picture than "Germany replaced nuclear
| with coal, madness".
|
| The picture is not all that different sadly. Renewables are
| intermittent, so renewables without storage or low-carbon
| baseload (= nuclear) will need fossil fuels.
|
| Germany's policy is to remove as much low-carbon baseload as
| possible both inside and outside its borders (by pushing anti-
| nuclear policies). They are doing nothing in storage.
|
| It was basically greenwashing Russian natural gas, combined
| with typical German attitude of "we are the enlightened us, we
| know better" that makes it impossible for them to learn from
| this mistake.
| empiricus wrote:
| I feel like the focus should be on cheaper energy (Is 10x cheaper
| possible?) than focus on green energy. Cheap energy would open a
| lot of opportunities (carbon sequestration?) and solve a lot of
| economic tensions. But it looks like the energy markets are going
| towards bigger prices and probably more profit that way.
| perlgeek wrote:
| If we made natural gas 10x cheaper, using it for carbon
| sequestration wouldn't work at all...
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of energy, they just
| happen to also be green. But this is a recent development-
| fossil fuels were cheaper in the recent past.
|
| The transition to them would be a lot cheaper if the opposition
| from the incumbent energy suppliers was not so stiff.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
| google234123 wrote:
| Solar and wind are very expensive when it's dark or not
| windy.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| you quoted Lazard. I always warn anyone quoting that study to
| be careful with the prices claimed there. There are two major
| issues - one that the current prices of wind and solar are
| primarily driven by zero fuel cost. Meanwhile, the rest of
| the grid continues to exist. Second - because the grid
| exists, energy for when the wind isn't blowing at night can
| come from somewhere and your lights stay on. Wind and solar
| introduce volatility into the mix, volatility on the
| generation side. That has a cost that is not currently borne
| by them but by us - the consumers.
|
| Lazard and co conveniently ignore this aspect when claiming
| that wind and solar are as cheap as they make them out to be.
| To be clear, wind and solar _are_ cheap but that may or may
| not hold true in the future.
|
| There is currently no gigawatt scale power grid anywhere that
| runs on renewable energy for more than minutes at a time.
| Renewables are very far from being able to provide energy
| 24/7 and cheaply.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I don't get your criticism.
|
| Why should there not be zero fuel cost?
|
| Your second argument is supposed to be a variable? Since
| with a wider grid, the volatility falls ("there is always
| wind somewhere"). I also don't think the size of the whole
| grid should be priced into a single power source. Why not
| price that into other non-green sources too if the local
| grid doesn't support the whole country?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I think the point is that the cost of solar is actually
| the cost of solar + the cost of whatever other source
| required to supplement it.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The issue is that intermittent sources are really working
| to subtract the emissions of fossil fuel plants.
| Generating electricity completely, or even partially from
| intermittent sources is a totally different ball game.
|
| Put this in practice: Solar costs $5 per watt hour, and
| comprises 25% of the grid. Fossil fuels cost $10 per watt
| hour and comprise 100% of the grid. Solar is cheaper than
| fossil fuels in a zero fuel cost model. But you can't
| just change the remaining 75% of the grid to solar and
| save a bunch of money. Solar produces energy in a sine
| wave (in the short term, there's also weather
| fluctuations in the longer term). You'd end up with a
| huge energy surplus at noon, and energy shortages from
| dusk to dawn.
|
| In this sense the actual price of renewables is heavily
| dependent on the price of fossil fuels. Because wind and
| solar are really "gas supplemented by wind and solar".
| You can't have the latter without the former. Hence why
| Germany is in such a bind right now.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| They have it right on the first page: look for the little
| diamond that represents the marginal cost to produce power
| at a fully depreciated gas plant, $24/MWh. [This price is
| certainly no longer true thanks to Russia].
|
| But it's unfair: what is the marginal cost of solar or wind
| at a fully depreciated solar or wind plant?
|
| Also: they have the cost of PV+storage on the last page.
| bjourne wrote:
| That's like saying supermarkets "introduce volatility"
| because they aren't open 24/7 like some convenience stores.
| Of course prices will increase when the number of vendor
| decreases (e.g not sunny and not windy), like it always
| does in liquid markets. What you are saying is that
| electricity shouldn't be treated as a commodity sold on an
| open market and instead should be regulated and subsidized
| by states. But that's what got us into this mess. If things
| like CO2 pollution had been accurately factored into
| prices, more people would have biked to work, installed
| solar panels, and invested in better home insulation.
|
| I live in a small apartment with district heating and my
| electricity bill is consequently low. I don't want to
| subsidize nuclear power just so that those who live in
| large electricity-heated villas should get lower
| electricity bills.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| How much money do I need to pay to make my house hot using
| solar panels? And natural gas?
|
| Perhaps you meant to contextualize your claim a bit.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| >How much money do I need to pay to make my house hot using
| solar panels?
|
| It might possible depending on how much land you have, but
| is certainly impractical. I mean you could theoretically do
| it with a large enough area and your own storage system,
| but it would sure cost a lot.
|
| >And natural gas?
|
| It's completely impossible without the natural gas grid
| (and electric grid). Unless.. do you have a natural gas
| well on your property?
| knodi123 wrote:
| Cheap energy _has_ been the focus- almost the sole focus, above
| everything else. That leads to eased tensions and tons of
| opportunities, and most importantly, _absolute shitloads_ of
| carbon in the atmosphere.
|
| Are you under the impressions that we haven't been working
| towards cheaper energy over the last several decades?
| baq wrote:
| The whole EU is setting up for a more interesting winter than...
| 1989? Not sure since I've been barely alive then but certainly it
| hasn't been this dire since quite a while
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Was a hot summer too.
| standardUser wrote:
| "The share of renewables in actually generation has gone from
| essentially nothing in 2000 (a bit of hydro), to 40-50% of the
| total (depending on how you count biomass and waste-to-energy)"
|
| Based on that, it's one of the only sane energy policies on the
| planet! Minus the premature closure of nuclear plants.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| And yet, Germany produces more CO2 than any other European
| nation, and much more CO2 per capita than India.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Germany has 15 million people more than France, the next most
| populous European country. It is hardly surprising they
| produce more carbon dioxide. India will surpass Germany
| unless the degrowthers get their way and condemn Indians to
| permanent poverty which doesn't look likely.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Where are you getting that number from? Couldn't this just mean
| they stopped producing as much nuclear, for example? I'm sure
| they have increased their green energy, but we can't tell from
| this figure. In fact, the total output could have actually
| decreased but increased relative to others.
|
| Especially if they traded domestic energy produciton for piping
| in more natural gas straight to homes for heating.
| waschl wrote:
| For sure growth at renewables is great. However the overall
| percentages you gave are all-year averages. It goes down to
| single digit % on dark windstill winter days.
|
| Considering this and the fact that nuclear energy (Fukushima),
| coal (climate change) and now gas (Putin) are effectively
| ,,banned", it's really quite a mess.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Those percentages are just shares of _electricity_.
|
| Their share of energy is more dire.
|
| Natural gas is just 15% of German electricity production, but
| nearly half of residential heating. Then there's gas-obligatory
| fertilizer production, on-premise electricity generation
| (campuses), cooking fuel, etc.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/how-much-does-germany-n...
| olau wrote:
| Storing heat is actually much easier than storing
| electricity. In relatively dense areas with district heating,
| you can even establish storage that retains heat from the
| summer.
|
| Yes, it requires investments and scaling up of the production
| of these solutions - the reason these investments haven't
| been made yet, is plainly that it wasn't deemed necessary
| yet. Continuing burning fossil fuels was cheaper.
|
| Why would gas be obligatory for fertilizer production? I've
| dug into some industrial uses in my country (bakeries for
| instance), and in all the cases I looked into, gas was not
| actually required, just a bit cheaper or more convenient. If
| you put a tax on gas, all of them would switch within a few
| years. It looks like you need hydrogen for fertilizer, so I
| guess switching to (more expensive) hydrolysis would be the
| solution there.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Gas is needed for fertilizer production because it's one of
| the input resources - Haber-Bosch capture of ammonia
| (nitrogen) requires a source of hydrogen and that's usually
| natural gas since it's rich in hydrogen.
|
| As such, lumping in the gas that's used for fertilizer
| production in with gas used for energy production makes
| limited sense - it's not fungible and can't just replaced
| with nuclear (or any other) energy. In the future, it would
| be possible to use hydrogen generated via hydrolysis, but
| we're pretty far off doing that on industrial scale.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| There are hydrogen and methane generation processes that
| also do some small carbon capture, to manufacture ammonia
| ultimately.
|
| The problem is that they require too much heat and
| electricity and currently are not yet viable. They would
| be viable in a slightly oversized grid with at least 75%
| renewables.
| wahern wrote:
| Relatedly, Russia is a top exporter of fertilizers:
| https://thehill.com/policy/3513855-why-the-fertilizer-
| market...
|
| Interestingly, while over the past 10-15 years the U.S.
| condemned Germany for importing natural gas from Russia,
| the U.S. was methodically displacing some of its domestic
| fertilizer production with imports, a substantial
| fraction coming from Russia and Belarus--in particular,
| 12% of U.S. potash consumption comes from Russia, and 93%
| imported overall. See
| https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/03/war-in-ukraine-
| and.... It seems small but it turned out to be a
| significant direct short-term lever, and presumably a
| much bigger lever with many other countries; and that's
| not even considering indirect leverage from Russia's
| ability to manipulate global market prices and thus U.S.
| domestic prices.
|
| Perhaps the only thing that hits harder than an increase
| in energy prices is an increase in food prices.
|
| (OTOH, for all I know the USDA, etc, may have actually
| been diligently working to minimize foreign dependence
| without being too disruptive--politically or economically
| --and the current percentages and source country
| distributions were the best they could accomplish.)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| More likely your domestic fertilizer production will
| shutdown and you'll import it from places that don't tax
| natural gas as highly, unless you have ultra-cheap
| electricity.
|
| This isn't a horrid idea if you don't have access to piped
| gas (LNG = hard to ship, nitrogen salts = easy).
|
| Having said that, I am all for replacing income taxes with
| carbon taxes.
|
| Taxing people's work, skill and effort should be avoided at
| all costs.
| filoleg wrote:
| This. The situation here seems like the inverse of investment
| rounds for startups, where "the pie gets larger, and the
| value of your share gets larger, despite you share of the pie
| itself becoming smaller." Their share of renewables got
| larger, but the overall energy pie itself got smaller, and
| that's a problem.
| paganel wrote:
| Using gas for residential heating is saner compared to using
| electricity (what the French are using, for example). Afaik
| it also makes it easier to use centralised heating systems,
| which are more efficient than "outsourcing" the heating to
| each building or even to each apartment.
| standardUser wrote:
| I measure sanity on a simple scale of "this produces carbon
| emissions that will accelerate climate change and its
| catastrophic consequences" to "it doesn't do that".
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Heat pumps have gotten much better over the last decade.
| They don't work as well in sub 10 degree Fahrenheit
| weather, but in the 20-40 range are more efficient than
| furnaces from what I understand.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| That's not true, even if you produce electricity from gas,
| using a heat pump to heat your home rather than a gas-
| powered central heating is more efficient.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Generally correct, except they now have people running
| air conditioning in summer now that they have it.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Which will hopefully be running from solar then, when the
| sun's out. ;-)
| standardUser wrote:
| We should be so lucky to live in a world where most nations
| had achieved even a third of electricity generation from
| renewables. We'd be vastly better off than we are now! So I
| am happy to give credit in those few cases where credit is
| due.
| morning_gelato wrote:
| I think carbon-intensity (gCO2eq/kWh) is a much more
| important metric than the use of specific generating
| technologies. Looking at the data [1], Germany has one of
| the dirtiest electrical grids in western Europe.
|
| [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
| standardUser wrote:
| We all know that electricity can be utilized for purposes
| currently monopolized by fossil fuels, including heating
| and automobiles. Which means that the end game
| _necessarily_ includes a rapid transition towards
| electricity generation from renewables. Germany has gone
| much father down that road than most nations, even if
| they have an unfortunately massive amount of electricity
| still being produced from coal.
| guerby wrote:
| You can also be more efficient with heat pump than with
| direct gas heating, including when producing electricity from
| gas, eg:
|
| https://twitter.com/DrSimEvans/status/1560556804051968000
|
| "Thought experiment:
|
| 1 UK replaces 24m gas boilers with electric heat pumps
|
| 2 UK builds new gas plants to supply the electricity
|
| => Overall UK gas demand falls by 120TWh (15%)"
| janef0421 wrote:
| It's worth noting in such discussions that nuclear is also
| capable of displacing gas in many of these use-cases. Surplus
| heat from nuclear reactors can be used for district heating,
| and dedicated reactors can be used to provide heat for
| industrial processes.
| klanhx wrote:
| lesuorac wrote:
| > If one criticized Schroeder for his involvement with Gazprom
| on social media in 2019, comments would get deleted.
|
| [citation needed]
|
| Even NPR criticized him [1].
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/18/601825131/...
| kllqp wrote:
| V__ wrote:
| > Now his missteps are "common knowledge". The whole Nordstream
| situation is way more nuanced. Nordstream-1 was built before
| the Crimea invasion after Ukraine stole gas in transit.
|
| However, after the invasion of Georgia. It's not like Russian
| foreign policy suddenly surprised everyone. It was as bad a
| decision then as it is now in retrospect.
| Faelian2 wrote:
| Pretty messed up : https://jancovici.com/en/energy-
| transition/societal-choices/...
|
| 250 to 300 billion euros, which is more than the cost of
| rebuilding from scratch all the French nuclear power plants, is
| what Germany has invested from 1996 to 2014 to increase by 22%
| the fraction of renewable electricity into the gross production
| of the country (that went from 4% to 27%).
|
| For this price tag our neighbors did not decrease their energy
| imports, did not accelerate the decrease of their CO2 emissions
| per capita, that remain 80% higher to those of a French,
| increased the stress on the European grid.
| btilly wrote:
| That's a great analysis, but unfortunately ends at around when
| Ukraine was first invaded. It doesn't show what has happened in
| the last several years.
| jakewins wrote:
| For 250B EUR, Germany paid for the learning curve movement that
| now enables the rest of the world to deploy solar and
| batteries. If it was not for German investment to drive that
| 90% drop in price, bills like the IRA would not even be
| possible to contemplate.
|
| The "that would pay for the entire French fleet" thing is
| nonsense. Just google the cost of the most recent plants built
| anywhere in EU and multiply it by how many you'd need to meet
| France's 61GW capacity. (example: Hinkley Point C, 75B EUR for
| 3.26GWe, 61GW/3.26GW = 18, 18*75 = 1,350B EUR, Olkiluoto Unit
| 3, 11B EUR for 1.6GWe, 61GW/1.6=~38, 38*11=418B EUR).
|
| Yes, Germany paid a huge price for their solar. We should be
| thankful they did.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| Or, you know, one could just take the cost of the French
| fleet and inflation-adjust it? Technology wasn't that
| different when they were built. And building scores of
| reactors has tremendous efficiencies of scale.
| jakewins wrote:
| It is no longer legal to build the kinds of Gen 2 plants
| France built their fleet out of, so I don't see how
| inflation-adjusting that cost would be more accurate than
| looking at the current market cost.
|
| As an example, today plants are required to not suffer
| meltdowns if primary power is lost to cooling systems. Many
| similar sets of rules (see EU Nuclear Safety Directives
| from 2009 and 2014, for example), add up to much more plant
| complexity, which increases capex.
| merb wrote:
| btw. his pricing is completly off and you can't build all
| french nuclear plants from scratch with 250 to 300 billion
| euros.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| France could.
| landofredwater wrote:
| The plan to shut down all the nuclear plants was misguided at
| best.
|
| Seventeen plants were able to supply almost a quarter of
| Germany's total power [1] for their lifetimes, and then the cost
| from reimbursing investors into nuclear power is added onto those
| of having to build more wind and solar.
|
| [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
| pr...
| [deleted]
| guerby wrote:
| "It's not as bad as a lot of people are saying"
| asguy wrote:
| Enough for Trump to call them on it 3 years ago?
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwg
| t6jvcereio wrote:
| Wait, is this the same Trump who said he was getting the USA
| out of NATO, or is this a different Trump?
| glogla wrote:
| Broken clock, twice a day?
| asguy wrote:
| Why are you bringing up something unrelated as a gotcha for
| something nobody is commenting about?
|
| This is related to Germany energy policy. Trump brought up
| the danger of depending on Putin's Russia to the Germans, and
| they laughed at him.
|
| They aren't laughing much now.
|
| What you should be asking is: How was Germany so dumb that
| Trump saw it, but they didn't?
| t6jvcereio wrote:
| > What you should be asking is: How was Germany so dumb
| that Trump saw it, but they didn't?
|
| I would be asking that, if we were talking about someone
| who's reliably correct. But since we're talking about
| someone who's held every position and it's opposite on any
| given subject, I think it's quite obvious what's going on.
| It's called survivorship bias.
| glogla wrote:
| > What you should be asking is: How was Germany so dumb
| that Trump saw it, but they didn't?
|
| They weren't dumb. They were probably ok with helping Putin
| invade few more countries in Easter Europe - after all, the
| Germans themselves are quite far and safe, and possibly
| also care about money more than human lives.
| t6jvcereio wrote:
| They're not unrelated, there's both the exact opposite bet
| on the same issue: should the west take Russia at face
| value?
|
| Saying "Germany needs to look after it's energy
| independence" is synonym with "the west cant trust Russia",
| and saying "I'm taking the USA out of NATO" is synonym with
| "the west can trust Russia".
|
| So he just claimed two opposite views and his fan it's pick
| and choose.
| rnk wrote:
| Because it's a good, realistic comparison. Pointing out
| Germany was too dependent on Russia for natural gas - good
| point. Saying the US would drop out of NATO - not a good
| strategy for stability. If you wanted to point out a Trump
| comment that everyone saw as a mistake at the time (but
| that doesn't add to the conversation), give the examples
| where he made dangerous suggestions to treat covid. Talking
| about nato seems fairly relevant.
|
| Tons of people saw Germany was putting itself in a bad
| position. Every US administration since the initial
| direction was set said that.
| nradov wrote:
| President Trump talked about dropping out of NATO
| specifically because Germany (along with several other
| European countries) had broken their treaty obligations
| and had failed to spend the required 2% of GDP on
| defense. They were essentially getting free protection
| from the USA, France, and the UK without doing anything
| in return. And the threat worked! Germany did
| significantly boost defense spending (although still not
| quite to the 2% target).
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| The 2% was and is not a treaty obligation.
| google234123 wrote:
| All NATO countries agreed in 2006 to 2%. It's an
| indicator of a country's will to actually contribute to
| NATO
| nradov wrote:
| All NATO members agreed to a 2% minimum with the context
| of the existing treaty.
|
| https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm
|
| If Germany or any other country is unwilling to meet that
| treaty obligation then they should simply withdraw from
| the alliance rather than freeloading on more responsible
| countries.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| I don't think Trump is an authoritative source on
| _anything._
| golemiprague wrote:
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Enough for Obama to call them on it 4 years before that;
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells...
|
| And many US Government officials and their proxies have been
| sounding the alarms for years;
|
| https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/interview/senior-oba...
|
| And Biden temporarily waived sanctions on the pipeline as a
| bargaining chip to help prevent the invasion of Ukraine, they
| were snapped back once Russia invaded;
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/if-russia-invades-uk...
|
| Nobody in American politics thought it was a good idea, because
| it clearly wasn't, but the allure of dirt-cheap energy was too
| much to pass up.
| durnygbur wrote:
| ohh... these smug corrupted smirking faces. Now Ukrainians are
| paying for your gas, you cunts. The Three Seas Initiative was
| the way to go at that time, energy policy wise.
| jsight wrote:
| What policies was he referring to there? From what I recall, a
| big part of the German focus at the time was the shift to
| renewables, with the goal of reducing dependence on Russian gas
| imports.
|
| Were those the policies that he wanted them to end? Or was it
| something else?
| Krasnol wrote:
| It was missing LNG imports to Germany.
| leonroy wrote:
| The video is literally Trump in 2018 calling out Germany on
| their dependence on Russian gas whilst they smirk at him. His
| words:
|
| > "Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if
| it does not immediately change course. Here in the Western
| Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence
| from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers."
|
| Even the Washington Post wrote about it at the time:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accuse...
| rvz wrote:
| Tells you how brainless the media was and were just after
| headline clickbait despite Trump echoing the same warnings
| that Obama said in 2014.
|
| Now everyone can see how silly Germany is looking after not
| listening to what both Obama and Trump already saw on their
| dependency on Russian gas.
|
| I guess Trump had the last laugh on that one.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > His words: > ... "independence from the encroachment of
| expansionist foreign powers."
|
| Well, maybe not "his" words. But they are definitely words
| that came out of his mouth.
| [deleted]
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| You can sugar coat this any way you want but the fact of the
| matter is, they cut energy production in lieu of renewables
| without actually having enough renewables up and running to
| offset the difference. And now they are in the predicament of not
| having enough energy because the gas taps have been turned down.
| The path to hell is paved with good (but not well formulated)
| intentions. Just wait until you see the environmental devastation
| of a continent that turns to cutting down all the trees and
| burning anything they can find to stay warm.
| timmg wrote:
| My biggest worry is that they are going to open NordStream 2 this
| winter "just to fill the emergency gap" -- and then it never gets
| closed.
|
| I honestly don't know how likely that would be.
| okr wrote:
| Why is it a worry? That would reduce the cost of living
| dramatically again.
| google234123 wrote:
| Honestly, they should open NordStream 2 now and at the same
| time focus on getting the alternatives online ASAP.
| dubbel wrote:
| Opening NS2 doesn't make any sense from a German perspective.
| NS1 is far from being at capacity, the only reason there
| isn't more gas flowing from Russia to Germany (and
| subsequently to for example Poland), is Russian state policy.
| It would only weaken NATOs/EUs strance against the Russian
| attack against Ukraine.
|
| This isn't some supply and demand free market problem, it's
| political policy on both sides.
| Vespasian wrote:
| It seems unlikely that Russia would send any meaningful amount
| of gas anytime soon.
|
| Nord Stream 1 is operating at 10% (with a bunch of nonsense
| given as reasons) and while they wanted NS2 in the beginning,
| they are now asking for the sanctions to be lifted (which again
| doesn't make sense from a technical perspective).
|
| So opening NS2 would do nothing but give Putin a political win
| and maybe(!) a trickle of gas
| gumby wrote:
| The author ignores another important part: betting on Russia was
| a bet on domestic security. Tying European countries together
| through commercial interdependence had a demonstrated track
| record of causing the longest period of peace in Europe in over a
| millenium. Well, why shouldn't that work in the case of Russia as
| well?
|
| Well we all know why is didn't work in the case of Russia. As
| this article well shows, Germany made a number of mistakes that
| amounted to not hedging this bet.
|
| But given the philosophies of Europe and the USA in the late
| 90s-mid 2010s, this approach can't be called utterly foolish.
| seydor wrote:
| And now EU is betting its future on the dictator of Azerbaijan
| (who is known to bribe German and european politicians) for gas
| and Saudi arabia for oil. Couldn't think of more iconic duo
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/the-eu-azerbaijan-gas-deal-i...
| klausjensen wrote:
| It sort of makes sense - until 2008 (invasion of Georgia). Or
| at least 2014 (first invasion of Ukraine).
|
| Top German politicians were/are tied closely to Russian
| interests. Like former Bundeskanzler (chancellor) Gerhard
| Schroder, who still to this day refuses to distance himself
| from Putin/Russia. He was literally paid by Putin-controlled
| entities to lobby Russian interests in Germany/Europe.
|
| The amount of money that flowed from Russia to Germany in
| corruption and sweet-heart deals is staggering - and I am sure
| much more will be revealed in the coming years, of what really
| went on behind the scenes.
| _jal wrote:
| Interdependence does tend to promote peace, but only up to a
| point. Past that point it becomes a weapon, as anyone who has
| been anywhere near a messy divorce has seen.
|
| Imperialist Russians clearly knew this, but apparently only saw
| the offensive angle. (At least, they either didn't see or
| discounted the risks to their own exposure, or they would have
| held reserves elsewhere.)
| fkarg wrote:
| Not was. Is.
| UKR_anon wrote:
| The FSB [0] is financing western NGOs and political parties to
| fight against Nuclear Power and to promote energy policy and
| solutions. [1] This Discussion is pointless without acknowledging
| that fact. This is also just the tip of the Iceberg where the KGB
| (Gazprom) was caught, it would be naive to believe that thats all
| they did.
|
| This influence imo explains ignorance of German politicians
| regarding Energy Politics. We have to balance two goals here. 1.
| Stay energy diversified for national security. 2. Reduce use of
| fossil fuels to combat climate change.
|
| The figures that are often presented of germanys high Renewable
| electricity production are so misleading they could be straight
| from a KGB office. If we really want to tackle point 1. and 2. We
| can't just magically ignore heating, transportation, heavy
| Industry and fertilisers. All these run on fossile fuels right
| now. The Longterm goal has to be transition to EVs, Use synthetic
| fuels for aviation, heat with heat exchangers (60% of new build
| homes in germany are equipped with them). So just conveniently
| ignoring these massive energy demands and talking about
| sustainability is delusional.
|
| With all these energy requirements it becomes pretty obvious that
| germany can not produce all that energy with just Solar and Wind.
| It can also not store enough of this energy for 82 millions
| people for periods of low sun and low wind.
|
| The best time to start building nuclear plants was 10 years ago,
| the second best time is today. Fusion will not be on time here.
| Sweden and Finland solved the end storage problem. Which is imo a
| talking point purposefully propagated by foreign adverse
| Intelligence Agencies. After all noone give a f** where and how
| all the Highly toxic chemicals are stored. (The are stored in the
| same way, deep down in Salt mines).
|
| I think a cold and painful winter will be good for the german
| people. I compare them to the Antiwaxxers for child vaccines.
| They lived in such a good period of time and never saw a child
| with chickenpox or measles, so they think its not an issue
| anymore. You can talk to them and explain the danger they are in
| as much as possible. They will laugh and scream at you. They have
| to suffer for one winter to understand the importance of national
| security and energy independence. Even right now, so close to the
| disaster winter, many germans are ignorant and think they will
| solve it with 20kg of burning wood.
|
| The Winter is comming.
|
| [0] further called KGB [1]
| https://twitter.com/ziontree/status/1497998920739274757?s=20...
| nickdothutton wrote:
| We'll find out this winter.
| daneel_w wrote:
| How messed up was it that Trump warned about the exact current
| situation years ago, and was promptly ignored? Didn't Obama, too?
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Yes, we absolutely fucked up here, there is no doubt. The
| dependency wasn't a topic at all, neither in politics nor "on
| the street". A cushy situation for decades lead to naivety, I
| guess.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It wasn't exactly a controversial take either. What was Biden
| thinking by green-lighting NS2?
| google234123 wrote:
| Biden has done a lot of bad things just to do the opposite of
| what ever trump was doing.
| seydor wrote:
| The problem is that Germany is taking everyone down with them
|
| The countries that follow the EU wholesale energy price rules are
| royally screwed, because the price of power is set by the
| exorbitant price of gas even if they only use 5% gas in their
| energy mix. In addition to carbon mandatory limits this leads to
| soaring electricity prices which do not correspond to real supply
| and demand, but religious adherence to inflexible regulations
| that have not been changed despite the war. This is madness at
| multi-state level
| dagss wrote:
| It is not also gas, also less hydropower available than usual
| in Norway, Switzerland etc. due to unfortunate climate/weather
| past year. There is genuine energy shortage not only an issue
| of setting the right price.
| smsm42 wrote:
| They talk about dependency on Russia being a "mistake". But with
| so many high-rank people (including former Chancellor) being paid
| by Russia openly (and who knows how many secretly beyond that) -
| does it look like a "mistake" or a deliberate policy on Russia's
| side and widespread corruption being ignored on Germany's side?
| okr wrote:
| There is no proof of corruption. What do you know? Bring it to
| the press.
| durnygbur wrote:
| There are no proofs. Those with proofs have suicide waiting
| at their doorsteps.
| smsm42 wrote:
| I think the standard formula is "no evidence". Incidentally,
| check out https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-
| no-evidence...
|
| But I think that the position of "until we have a court
| decision proving corruption, one could not reasonably talk of
| a possibility of corruption, and discuss appearance of
| conflict of interest" is naive at best, and completely
| boneheaded at the usual case. Corruption is notoriously hard
| to prove, especially "soft" corruption where there's no
| direct bribery but more like alignment of interests diverting
| the interests of corrupt functionaries from serving the
| people (who even knows that that means?) to serving their
| private wallet and/or ideology (well, that one is much
| clearer).
|
| And there's tons of the press talking about German
| politicians being too cozy with Russia, even pre-dating the
| war. So what? It's not like German voters cared.
| dreinhardt wrote:
| That has already happened. Try looking for Schwesig and her
| Klimastiftung, and that's just a tiny part of the picture.
| belorn wrote:
| _" As the numbers from the past 20 years show, renewables do not
| require more volumes of gas (MWh) for the system to be balanced
| (they may require more gas-fired capacity (MW), but that's not
| the same thing - gas turbines are manufactured in Europe)."_
|
| This is a fact noted, but it includes an additional aspect. If
| there is a need for more gas-fired capacity, that burn less
| volumes of gas, then that operation still need to be paid. The
| way that works in Sweden is called reserve energy, which mean the
| plant get paid twice. First they get paid through subsidies in
| order to keep the plant operational and staffed, and then they
| get paid a second time when the plant is burning gas and the spot
| price is at the highest point. This is quite expensive.
|
| Sadly I rarely see people actually account for this cost, and the
| article does not.
| guerby wrote:
| Gas turbine are the cheapest electricity generator to build,
| only expensive to operate due to fuel cost.
|
| That's why people don't mention overbuilding gas2power
| capacity.
|
| Data from:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...
| throwaways85989 wrote:
| The disaster is already preprogrammed. Lots of germans bought
| electric heaters to heat flats through the winter, as the heat
| provided by the house central heating will be reduced. Which will
| result in large increases of base load on the network, which
| already will be under strain.
|
| Which means rolling black outs as soon as it gets cold. Perma-
| black outs if the people do not see reasons and unplug their
| heaters. No solution has been proposed for this. The clever ones
| went for wood for heating.
|
| Still preferable to shiver one winter through, then have it warm
| in putins prison.
| dreinhardt wrote:
| People also bought toilet paper against covid.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| It is not clear at all that people will behave that way. The
| buying of electric heaters for now just reflects huge
| uncertainty about any sources of heat.
| fdomig wrote:
| Living in Germany I can add: Yes, shutting down nuclear power
| plants "so early" was naive, however, even the now horrible war
| in Ukraine boosts the process to migrate to (more) sustainable
| energy even faster. Also, pretty soon energy prices in Germany
| might be so much lower and this will be a key advantage.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Also: The war in Ukraine shows what a security liability
| nuclear plants are in wartime.
| jsight wrote:
| Which, in what is surely a coincidence, is good for Russia.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| ...with the Russian state-owned Rosatom being the biggest
| (and cheapest) builder of nuclear plants abroad? Occam's
| razor applies here, I think; no need for conspiracy
| theories.
| seydor wrote:
| or gas pipelines
|
| or food imports
|
| can't go back to the age of empires, sorry
| tmikaeld wrote:
| As long as most of the wind-mill and solar components are
| manufactured in China, it's difficult to call it "sustainable".
| dubbel wrote:
| You are right about solar panels being built in China, but
| windmill components are usually built in local factories,
| because they are very hard to transport.
|
| You might call the dominance of the Chinese solar
| manufacturers a national security risk, but as long as we
| have the knowledge and resources to theoretically build them
| in the West (albeit more expensively), they are easier to
| replace than for example Saudi-Arabian oil or Russian natural
| gas.
| the_cramer wrote:
| I am not sure if these lower costs are ever projected onto the
| end users. the energy prices weren't lowered since ~2000
| mbeex wrote:
| > Also, pretty soon energy prices in Germany might be so much
| lower
|
| Jurgen Trittin (2004): Eine Kugel Eis... (costs for
| "Energiewende" )
|
| There is the infamous saying, "Fusion is always twenty years
| ahead." But renewables seem to be trying hard to live up to
| that saying (AND getting more expensive along the way)
|
| https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/13020/umfrage...
| [deleted]
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