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Comment by fundatus | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> 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.

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