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.
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.
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.
Fair enough! Thanks for elaborating.
For the record, see the guy’s response below for exactly what I’m talking about.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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
Really cool. Thanks for the share. Also quite depressing, most countries (even rich ones who have like triple responsibility) are barely even trying.
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.
I love that chart you can’t read.
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…
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
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder
Step 1 shut down nuclear, and switch to gas
Step 2 get hired by gazprom
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.
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?
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.
Yes it’s imports. Norway / France and Netherlands mainly.
That’s an incredible amount of wind power.
Remember Berlin has a latitude of 52.5°. That puts it far north of the 49th parallel border.
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?
Meanwhile, the USA is 24%-ish renewables and 60%-ish fossil fuels. Damn fossil fuel industry and anti-progress politicians.
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.
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“.
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.
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
They’re getting poorer and deindustrializing at a rapid pace.
The ironworks in Ruhrgebiet died a century ago, in case you didn’t notice.
Germany has the EU’s highest energy prices. Just saying.
Norway has one of the lowest. And they don’t have only 62.7%.
99% of their energy comes from renewables.And in the USA, some of the states with lowest prices have the highest % of renewables.
To be fair, Norway and those states rely heavily on hydro, which is great if you have the geography for it, but it’s not a route that can work for every region.
Excluding hydro renewable sources tend to cost more if you include storage currently, though that premium has been and is coming down.
Exactly. I grew up in WA, USA, and power was always quite cheap due to how much comes from hydro. Now I’m in Utah, and it’s only cheap because we use coal and natural gas (and produce a ton of the latter), though we’re replacing a lot of that w/ solar (turns out deserts get lots of sun) and prices are remaining pretty low.
Renewable energy will certainly look different in each region. I don’t know what would work best for Germany since I don’t know the geography very well, but comparing Norway to Germany isn’t going to be a productive conversation.
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“This single thing is more expensive in this country” is a stupid way to compare prices from countries.
Norway has some of the lowest in Europe. Less than a third of Germany’s prices. Norway is producing more (hydro) energy than it’s able to use.
That’s why it’s exporting some of it to other countries today. Before Norway did this their prices were even lower.
Norway has thermal energy sources and lots of oil they can sell to subsidize other things.
Why is that?
IIRC it’s because there is a pseudo monopoly for the power lines which can increase prices for using them and the price for electricity orients itself on the most expensive form of electricity (coal I think), so the price benefits of renewables only benefit the seller and not the buyer
Same in the US… I don’t have any choice on where my power comes from. Though the government tries to go after them for price fixing/gouging, it’s always way late and a smaller penalty that nut should have been while they’re currently making money hand over fist.
Because the price we pay is determined by the most expensive source, that’s to ensure low costing energy like wind and solar make the biggest profit and get expanded further and faster.
Because Germany is not at 100% renewable yet. Soon.
I wish I knew.
It does seem awfully like you’re implying a connection to the topic at hand.
Yet, you spout innuendos as if you’re knowing what you’re talking about.
It’s the coal they’re burning.
Sure just saying, not trolling at all.
Solar drives energy prices down, not up. In the summer the energy price regularly goes negative because there is so much solar available.
And it isn’t even remotely true, other countries have higher energy prices than Germany within the EU. The Netherlands for example has crazy high energy prices. And that’s in absolute numbers, not even corrected for things like GDP.
