Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo… then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo… then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
The criticism is extraordinarily simple and justified.
Which is better, Renewables and Nuclear or Renewables and Fossil Fuels?
Germany could have had an almost entirely fossil free grid by now, but instead they chose renewables & fossil fuels.
Please provide a source for your claim that 100% renewable energy is not possible.
Actually you can save yourself the time, because here’s two sources which show it is possible.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920316639?via%3Dihub
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-05843-2
Or (as this is in the context of Germany) one of the studies even modeling different acceptance levels of renewable energy in the transitioning until 2050:
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/paths-to-a-climate-neutral-energy-system.html
I think you replied to the wrong comment by accident lol
No, I didn’t. You claimed that the choice was between either renewables and coal or renewables and nuclear. I am asking you to prove your claim that renewables are not a stand-alone option.
I did not claim that, I suspect that you misunderstood something.
I’ll clarify what I meant for your benefit. Germany has constructed a lot of new renewable power in the past two decades, which is great, but they prioritized shutting down nuclear power plants instead of fossil fuelled power. Because of this, they still get ~50% of their electricity from fossil fuels, which is not so great.
If they instead had prioritized phasing out fossil fuelled power plants, that number would’ve been more like 20-30%, and more crucially, they could’ve phased out their entire fleet of coal power plants. Ergo, criticism of German energy policy is entirely justified.
You replied to my comment. My comment simply stated that investing in building nuclear power plants is a waste of money that is better spent on renewables. You said that criticism of my comment was justified because Germany could choose between either renewables and coal, or renewables in Nuclear. I am asking you to support your claim. I am not inviting you to move the goalposts. If you replied to my comment and said criticism of my comment was justified and then started talking about something else unrelated to my comment then I don’t really know what to tell you?
…and your comment replied to one criticising German energy policy, hence the context of “the criticism being justified”. The bad policy decisions have already been made (from 2005-current) and it does seem like Germany will be stuck with coal power for quite some time because of their poor policymaking.
The question was not about the price of building new nuclear power, but of maintaining old plants, and existing nuclear) power provides incredibly cheap, green energy. Simply put, my “claim” as you want to put it, Germany could have rid themselves of coal power with the help of the VRE they invested ln, but instead shut down their old nucler plants. The “proof” is no more difficult than studying their energy profile for the past 20 yrs.
In hindsight, the OC was somewhat rude towards you in particular, which I don’t agree with, but alas.
Anyway, you seem to want to discuss future electricity solutions rather than the existing one, and I’d happily have a separate discussion on what mix of green energy sources ought to be used, if you’d like.
IMO based on what I have read over the years, optimal green energy mixes land on 40-70% VRE depending on regional climate factors, with the rest filled out by dispatchable sources such as hydropower, geothermal, biomass and nuclear power plants.
My comment was a response to someone calling me stupid for saying that nuclear power spending was a waste of money. Because it is a waste of money.
What you’ve read over the years is almost right, if you take “nuclear” out of the sentence you’ve pretty much got it.
The reason they were annoyed is that they were referring to keeping old nuclear plants running, and you are pointing to the costs of new nuclear.
-and the reason that nuclear is in the sentence is that access to the energy sources within it depends on geography. Filling up those last 30-60% of the energy mix with hydropower, geothermal and biomass is simply not possible in some areas, which is where nuclear comes in, regardless of whether we look at the most pessimistic cost estimates (which you are doing).