Common misconceptions about Germany's energy transition | Hacker News Reader

Common misconceptions about Germany's energy transition

chadvesting.substack.com

4 pointsguerby9 comments

"From 2002, German nuclear production declined from 156.3 TWh to 65.4 TWh in 2021. During this time wind and solar increased from 19 TWh to 161.5 TWh. Or the 90.9 TWh decrease in nuclear power was offset by a growth of 142.5 TWh in solar + onshore +offshore wind. At the same time coal, both hard and lignite decreased from 251.9 TWh to 146.5 TWh for a reduction of 109.4 TWh. So Germany reduced both coal and nuclear at the same time, coal did not grow, and the coal reduction was actually larger than the nuclear reduction. "

Germany has tripled its electricity generation from natural gas since 1990 from ~30 to 95 TWh.

Also, Germany is bringing more and more coal-fired power stations back online despite a combined 120 GW of wind and solar installations.

Neither wind nor solar provide dispatchable electricity and therefore cannot replace conventional power plants.

Saying that electricity generation from natural gas has tripled is misleading because it is starting from a small base. It's more meaningful to compare the absolute amounts of generation added and subtracted from the various sources.

I would be interested to know how many coal-fired power stations you mean by "more and more", but the more relevant number is how much extra energy is being generated by them this year, compared to last year.

Another interesting question is "How much extra low-carbon energy would they have if they had taken the investment in renewables over the past 11 years (since the Fukushima nuclear disaster) and spent it on a new nuclear power plant?". If Flamanville unit 3 is anything to go by, the answer to that question would be "zero" (or negative, if you subtract the amount that renewables have been generating in that time).

As for "dispatchable" electricity, I think you are trying to perpetuate a variant of the baseload power myth[0]. Maybe in Germany right now it might not be possible to 100% replace fuel-based power plants, but keeping a few gas plants around to cover the 10% of annual hours that are too cold/calm/dark to be powered by (over-provisioned) wind and solar still leaves a lot of room for increasing renewable production.

Anyway, if you care about dispatchability, then you really need to look at annual capacity factors. Offshore wind was roughly equivalent to gas[1] back in 2018, but the latest offshore models now offer[2] capacity factors "ranging between 60% and 64%".

[0] https://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-in...

[1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annua...

[2] https://www.power-technology.com/projects/dogger-bank-c-offs...

that s strawmanning, it ignores the gas story which is what "people talk about"

Many industrial processes use gas as feedstock as well as for thermal energy. You can replace for thermal energy, but as feedstock, you have to use electricity to process some other matter into feedstock.

People don't seem to realise natural gas, like oil, is used as input to make petrochemicals, despite petro being a big clue.

Can't speak to the strawmaning. I observe German industry includes pharmaceutical, plastics and fertiliser. These need feedstock.

"So what about gas? This did very slightly increase from 40 TWh in 2002 to 52.2 TWh in 2021. A growth of 12.2 TWh, vs the 109.4 TWh reduction in coal. So Germany reduced coal by almost 10x as much as gas grew.

Did this increase reliance on Russia? No, it decreased it.

Of the coal that is burned in Germany, the lignite is domestically produced. Hard coal is imported for use in the electricity sector as German hard coal is economically unfavorable. "

Germany produced about 30 TWh electricity in 1990 from natural gas. In 2021, it was about 95 TWh.

Even the current government in Germany was planning to build more natural gas power stations to replace coal plants.

Wind and solar do not provide dispatchable power and therefore cannot replace any conventional plants.

Gas is the complement to the intermittency of renewables. This has made it indispensable, even if it is not the largest source

https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...

Are you defining intermittency in a way that isn't captured by capacity factor (where offshore wind looks as good as gas)?

Also, what do you mean by "indispensable"? Surely when coal was the source for most of Germany's electricity, you could say that coal was "indispensable". Just as coal has been replaced by natural gas and renewables, it's possible to replace natural gas with over-provisioning of renewables (and using the excess electricity to produce synthetic gas).

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