Swing by https://app.electricitymap.org for the detailed capacity and generation info.
Edit: I wrote a reply to a deleted comment, so enumerating the comment and reply here.
> France and Germany are also industrial powerhouses. They require a lot more power and a lot more natural gas specifically for chemical precursors to produce stuff like fertilizer and silicone.
Until suitable alternatives are found, there will always be a minimum amount of fossil gas required for industrial processes. But, BUT, that doesn’t mean you can’t lean into renewables, storage, and transmission to offset as much fossil generation as possible (prioritizing fossil gas for industry, and staying within your fossil gas infrastructure and LNG import constraints).
which is highly ridiculous because during my stay in Spain around the 2000s I was definitely paying significantly more for electricity than I _ever_ have in France. Someone would really need to explain that to me...
[0] https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q1-2021/when-the-wind...
You've never seen anyone credible worry about how we'll cope with that terrible excess of cheap power because it's not a problem, merely an opportunity.
You've probably mostly been reading complaints of the operators of non-renewable plants that can't do this and are annoyed they're being asked to do it when renewables are plentiful as it costs then money to do so, even on top of the lost electricity.
Yeah, tell that to people who's devices and houses you have burnt down because voltage in the outlet was not 230V but 300V.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD0sq5GN7xc
Zeihan is a bit US-centric overall, but his energy talks are sound (or I'm too biased to realize they're just confirming my own views.)
If you genuinely care, this is the real answer.
Lignite is a poor fuel for many reasons, but that handwavey part about solar and lignite being worse than lignite and it's all a big scam that the silly greens are too stupid to notice is just totally wrong.
As is the bit about green collapse he predicts when it is discovered to "not work" in Europe.
It's a very weird argument, since he's admitting it works (sort of) in California and Texas but still has a weirdly negative tone about it and Greens.
Basically, it's just yet another fallback position for people who have been consistently wrong about energy policy for decades and still feel able to poke fun at Greens for being unrealistic, because their audience is so misinformed.
California imports 90% of its natural gas from other states. If that was somehow threatened to be cut off, California would struggle too. It would tell us nothing about renewables, and tell us everything about how your neighbours being dicks to you can be a hassle. Which is actually a selling point for renewables and helps drive Chinese interest, since they don't won't to rely on others for fuel.