Hacker News Reader

Comment by copx | Hacker News Reader

Just like our power bills - the highest in the world. Electricy has turned into a luxury good here thanks to our focus on "renewables".

Germany's energy policy is the worst in the world by any standard.

Not only has it lead to extremely high energy prices, it does not even have a good CO2 footprint.

Thing is, wind and solar do not provide sufficient power 24/7, especially not in a German winter - when Germany needs the most power - so what does happend? We fire up the coal plants because "nuclear power bad".

Last winter wind and solar only provided 10% of Germany's energy, and that number is not going to go up by much, because there is little sun and wind in Germany during winter.

View on HN

Agree with you on nuclear, but Germany isn’t the most expensive. While US per kwh is lower, there are so many surcharges and various schemes that the effect rate when you actually need it (day for air conditioning, evening for everything else because that’s when people are back from work) is really high: https://www.sce.com/residential/rates/Time-Of-Use-Residentia...

And remember, CA has no harsh winters and inland is usually all sunshine and good amount of wind too. Still, we are not doing all that much better and still burn fossil fuels (and of course shutting down nuclear).

Of course California is not different; the high prices are a consequence of their "100% renewables or bust but 0% nuclear first" approach to energy policy. California hasn't even increased their hydro/resovoir capacity for half a century despite massive industry and population growth and consistently worsening dry spells.

Your claims are wildy misleading. Last winter, renewables contributed almost 50% to the German electricity mix. You're using the value for overall _energy_ though, which includes heating which is of course still using fossil fuels for the most part in Germany.

Also, Germany does not have the highest power bills in the world.

Solar and wind don't provide energy 24/7 which is why you need storage. Which Germany adds at a breathtaking speed (1+ GWh of storage added just in the first quarter of this year).

I am not against nuclear, but this bs is also completely unnecessary.

> Also, Germany does not have the highest power bills in the world.

While I agree with everything else you said, this is only technically true, last I checked. Only small island nations had more expensive electricity.

> While I agree with everything else you said, this is only technically true, last I checked. Only small island nations had more expensive electricity.

That's probably right if you take last year's prices (these were insane, that's correct). But right now you can buy electricity again for 2X ct/kwh, which is still on the more expensive side but certainly not the highest price in the world.

Nah, that’s where I see us on "cost of electricity by country" lists for consumer prices. The first time I looked was a few years ago. FWIW, I currently pay the (government capped) max, 0.4€/kWh

Germany is middle of the pack for electricity production cost in the EU. They have more taxes/less subsidies than others though so the consumer price is higher.

The power bill is not related to production cost, though, so taxes and subsidies count for that comparison.

If you want to achieve a meaningful coverage with renewables, you need to install excessive capacity (e.g., imagine 5-6x the required capacity) AND install 100% in coal/gas/nuclear. Thats pretty expensive and pretty wasteful in terms of resources. Even with twice the renewables (and twice the gas capacity due to phasing out of coal and nuclear), we will emit twice the carbon emissions of France (today) in 2030.

“Flexible grid and storage” are just nonsense that is thrown in to mask the ugly truth: 1) Deindustrialization, 2) Global Warming or 3) Going Nuclear.

Overprovision yes, install 100% as fossil backup no... scale fixes your fav-renewable cannot produce enough, because somewhere they will produce, and the different techs combine also well, and then storage a lot, yes, and some backup sure, but even worst pessimists go not with 100%.

> Thats pretty expensive

Longterm the other alternatives are more expensive.. and that's not even calculating in that they are less sustainable. You keep repeating dogmas.

Fraunhofer provisions 100% fossil because your industry needs juice when there aint no wind or sun…

There is the dogma again.. did you once had a look for how long whole Europe had neither sun or wind? Despite them being not the only renewables.. and why are you ignoring storage as backup completely?

Anyway, reference for Frauenhofer claim please, didn't know they are now heavy industry or a grid player? Confused..

“Dunkelflaute” (weeks without PV or wind) in Germany are a reality: https://amp.zdf.de/nachrichten/zdfheute-live/dunkelflaute-wi...

Fraunhofer is a leading (independent) research institute: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/daten-zu-erneuerbaren-energ...

I know what Frauenhofer is.. so we agree Frauenhofer does not "provision" 100% fossil, or what sense should this sentence have made then?? If anything (I mean they have very different branches, with different stances, I worked with one back then in partnership student time) they are generally an advocate of renewables? At least the ISE, IBP, IEE.. which not please???

Also think big for the future, I asked about Europe... it is about scale. Sure if I limit it down, I can also claim: Sun never shines in my backyard.

The Fraunhofer acknowledges in their simulations that doubling gas by 100% and having 100% covered by gas plants is necessary. That is if we double the renewables and install 500-600% of the required capacity by 2030.

You cannot run Germany solely on renewables. It has one of the highest carbon footprints per kWh in Europe and will continue to have twice the carbon footprint of France by 2030 IF all the expansion plans for renewables work out.

Oh come on, you make up new limits and constraints each time on each response.. You can run the world solely on renewables given enough effort and time, is a similar ridiculous counter to you now bringing up 2030..... pathetic really.

Building new nuclear plants, or just recertifying the old ones accordingly to current standards and supplying them with enough fuel would have been possible til 2030, right?

Again, Frauenhofer is a diverse large body with multiple branches, they have also studies about cost and way to Germany on fully renewables 2050, without 100% gas backup - which study are you citing please?

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...

Page 25 (page number not PDF page) They also have some comprehensive tools for simulation - but I’m a bit too lazy to dig up all the explanation.

Nuclear power isn't bad, they buy loads of it from France. They're being NIMBY, but if France actually had a bad meltdown, Germany would probably be heavily impacted anyway.

You mean France buys loads of coal power from Germany?

Yes, that's the typical hypocrisy of Germany's green-left ruling class. They closed down our own nuclear power plants only to import more nuclear power from France (and coal power from Poland).

Again, our energy policy is horrible.

People should look to nations like Finland instead if they want a good example of a climate friendly energy policy. They just finished the most powerful nuclear reactor in Europe, it alone will provide about 1/3 of the energy Finland needs, cheap and climate friendly.

Last year France imported more electricity from Germany than it exported.

And yet we import nuclear electricity when the sun doesn’t shine or there is no wind in Germany…

> They just finished the most powerful nuclear reactor in Europe, it alone will provide about 1/3 of the energy Finland needs, cheap and climate friendly.

OL3 does not provide anywhere near to 1/3 of Finnish needs. It's producing 1600 MW.

Finland's average production this year has been 9187 MWh/h, and average consumption 9435 MWh/h.

https://www.fingrid.fi/sahkomarkkinainformaatio/kulutus-ja-t...

Great thing the ex-ex-chancelor sold Germany's electricity to Russia. The pension must be good. The citizens aren't complaining.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com