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Comment by abelsson | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that Germany, with its focus on wind and solar, is paying twice as much as for electricity compared to France - also a country with higher density in the middle of Europe - while also emitting more carbon dioxide per capita (9.6 vs 6.1 tons per capita). The difference is that France made the right decision 30 years ago when they transitioned from oil and coal to nuclear power for power generation. Solar and Wind are a much more expensive way of accomplishing the same thing. Der Energiewende is both expensive and inefficient.

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> Der Energiewende

Off topic: I'm always a bit mystified as to why people try to use German articles in English texts when they obviously don't know the gender of the word. "Wende" (turn) is female and you thus use "die" as an article. The third possible article is "das" and used for neutral nouns like "Auto". Given it is easy to look up [1], I guess you didn't know there are several?

On topic: I won't state my opinion about the short term cost efficiency of nuclear power, because I don't have the references or raw data at hand to back it up (I wish a lot of others in this thread in the same situation wouldn't either). But IMHO the strongest argument against nuclear power is the uncertainty of long term waste disposal, given that we (currently) can't realistically predict storage conditions on a geological time frame. A month ago there was an article on HN about how we fail to come up with a way to communicate the danger of long term storage to future generations in a reliable way [2].

Even from an economic point of view the danger of a cost explosion of the nuclear waste disposal purely because of political struggles is daunting. In Germany we have a small disposal facility, the Asse, build to test long term storage in salt mines. Because of the usual combination of human error, incompetence and cover ups, waste was dumped there even while it was slowly becoming unstable [3]. Getting it all back out will cost somewhere around 5 billion euros. Guess who's paying for it.

[1] https://www.google.de/search?q=dictionary+energiewende

[2] http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/ , corresponding hacker news thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8090759

[3] I'm oversimplifying. See http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-weighs-o... for more background and http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/07/photogalleri... for pictures.

There's also the economic cost of decommissioning a nuclear facility. The decommissioning happening at Sellafield is estimated at over £70bn [1]

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/01/sellafiel...

In reality you find that the German industry is in much better shape, even though we pay more for electricity - much of that is tax, btw..

France's electricity is all state-run and the price of electricity is a political one. No French president survives raising electricity prices, even though the companies would need that money...

> Der Energiewende is both expensive and inefficient.

Expensive is not a problem for us on that level. Nuclear is as expensive as renewable and more. We have a lot of money. Let's say the Energiewende will cost us around a trillion dollar over 50 years. Maybe more? So what? The positive effects will be much larger. We actually have the money.

> inefficient

If you look at nuclear power plants, they use around 30% of the energy for electricity. With the rest they heat the rivers in France. That's inefficient.

German industry may indeed be in better shape, but that is inspite of German energy policies, not because of them. What you're really arguing for here is a poorer, less prosperous, Germany because of anti-nuclear-ideology. There's an opportunity cost of that trillion dollars, it could have been spent on health care, research, fighting climate change and thousands of hings other that actually improve people's lives instead. I mean, if you accept that - that's fine - there's no mandate that people must choose the most efficient solutions at all times. But the reality of technical merits doesn't change based on your ideology.

Nonsense. The prices at the energy exchanges for energy have been fallen while the prices for consumers have risen. The divident goes to the companies and the Energiewende is blamed as the reason for the higher prices. It is a shame, really.

Btw the billions poured into nuclear energy as direct and indirect subsidizes could have been and could be spend better.

> But the reality of technical merits doesn't change based on your ideology.

So your thinking is not shaped on ideology?

> German industry may indeed be in better shape, but that is inspite of German energy policies, not because of them.

Well, it's the opposite.

The renewable energy industry is growing and is already earning lots of money.

> What you're really arguing for here is a poorer, less prosperous,

That's what the big utilities told us twenty years ago. The opposite happened.

> actually improve people's lives instead

That's not even good propaganda. After the Energiewende has started in 2000 we now have the lowest unemployment for decades.

I don't think this discussion is getting us anywhere. You are simply claiming the opposite of the GP, without any facts.

Facts are that electricity in Germany is much more expensive compared to countries without an Energiewende. This is not a positive for German industry, plain and simple.

Germany currently has low unemployment and high prosperity because it's executing it's own Marshallplan. Lending trillions to other EU states, and getting that money back through selling cars to them. German cars are known for many good things, but their price is not one of them. The same goes for many other German products. German industrial automation. No complaints about the quality (well, a little, but certainly much better than the competition. Though it would be great if German engineering firms met this little thing called "English", and gave manuals in more than one language with their things). The price, however, WTF.

> Facts are that electricity in Germany is much more expensive compared to countries without an Energiewende. This is not a positive for German industry, plain and simple.

The economic data of the last decade says EXACTLY the opposite. Record unemployment, record exports, very competitive industry ... - all despite the financial crisis. We are talking about FACTS.

Fact is that the energy intensive industry has lower energy prices. Fact is, Germany has more industry than France, much more and it is also more efficient. Fact is Germany exports a lot of energy technology. Fact is: German industry has very efficient tools and processes - due to energy prices and the large amount of research and development in this area. Exactly this stuff sells excellent on the world market.

Fact is German's industry is in much better shape than France. A simple look at the economic data should make that clear for you.

> Germany currently has low unemployment and high prosperity because it's executing it's own Marshallplan. Lending trillions to other EU states, and getting that money back through selling cars to them.

Fact is: Germany is selling world wide. Fact is: Germany is selling much more than cars.

> German cars are known for many good things, but their price is not one of them.

Okay?

> The price, however, WTF.

Last year Germany sold goods and services for 1.09 trillion Euros. All time record. Fact.

Despite energy prices.

If the Energiewende, which started in 2000, has had any effects on German economic performance, we want more of that.

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but here goes. Germany has made loans to many countries. Loans that come with conditions : you buy mostly from us and make others' life difficult. (say the Japanese and US cars)

Then Germany lent out $XX trillion and in return received sales of $X trillion. Germany lent out money they didn't have (ie. vast majority freshly printed money), and lent it out at record low interest rates, because it's sales were dropping. The "Energiewende" was just one more of those loans, which Germany made out to itself.

Those results, while they provided quite a bit of economic improvement, are not exactly impressive. Using these techniques, a company called "anthrax diarrhoea and coffees" can sell for billions to the medical establishment.

I'm not saying Germany doesn't have impressive engineering, and research (though not as impressive as the US has, and it's not like it matters, cost dominates everything and copying is much more efficient than research). I would argue Germany does not have impressive efficiency. However no sane person believes that's what's made the difference in the last 10 years.

> I feel like I'm repeating myself, but here goes.

I feel you are living in a parallel world.

> Then Germany lent out $XX trillion and in return received sales of $X trillion.

Ah, the funny smell of 'zero facts'.

> Those results, while they provided quite a bit of economic improvement, are not exactly impressive. Using these techniques, a company called "anthrax diarrhoea and coffees" can sell for billions to the medical establishment.

You are hallucinating.

> The "Energiewende" was just one more of those loans, which Germany made out to itself.

Everybody does something like that when investing in new energy infrastructure.

> I'm not saying Germany doesn't have impressive engineering, and research (though not as impressive as the US has, and it's not like it matters, cost dominates everything and copying is much more efficient than research).

I'm not sure Germany will care whether you'll find its engineering impressive or not. Fact Germany sells much more engineering products to the world market per capita than the US.

The US has wonderful engineering products. Though I doubt a Boeing is more impressive than an Airbus...

> I would argue Germany does not have impressive efficiency. However no sane person believes that's what's made the difference in the last 10 years.

Well, many German engineering companies are targeting this market.

Example: Siemens, http://www.industry.siemens.com/topics/global/en/energy-effi...

Anything that is that heavily subsidized with tax money is cheaper than Solar and Wind. We see sinking Energy prices since the Energiewende at the european energy exchange and other trade platforms. The difference just does not reach the consumers.

Solar power is improving fast enough that by the time nuclear power plants are built, let alone pay themselves off, it may no longer matter. However it was arguably the correct decision years ago.

Solar, Wind and Demand side management work in tandem, really.

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