I wish people would stop conflating energy with electricity.
So Germany had ⅔ of it's electricity from renewables, but still has gas for warming homes, petrol for cars, diesel for trucks, and so on.
That's fair, but it's still a very relevant metric. It shows the automatic transition made in electrification when people switch over to heat pumps, electric stoves or EVs.
It skews the metrics though. By the title you'd think Germany is already more than halfway through to become carbon neutral, when it is obviously still extremely far away from that goal. People read this and think we're actually doing okay.
The hell is "doing okay"?
I am so frustrated by the discourse around renewables and climate change. Everybody online seems to be treating it like a puzzle or a board game, where you "win" at climate change when you find the "right" solution.
That's not how it works. I don't care about the "carbon neutrality" of Germany any more than I care about the "carbon neutrality" of a patch of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a global process that is never going to end. We're always going to need energy, it's always going to come from a mix of sources and we need to eventually find a global equilibrium we can strive to maintain.
Data is data, but taking issue with news, and particularly positive news, as if they were propaganda in a campaign where eventually people will have to elect the one source of energy they consume is kind of absurd. Yes, renewables are gaining ground, solar is moving faster than expected and no, that doesn't make the issue go away and we still need to accelerate the process and remove additional blockers to that acceleration. There are no silver bullets and there never will be.
carbon neutral
That's a propaganda term by people who promote bullshit like e-fuels because "the only CO2 emissions are what was already out of the air, so bottom line it's neutral".
Please stop spewing climate denial propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net-zero_emissions https://unfccc.int/news/a-beginner-s-guide-to-climate-neutrality https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-carbon-neutrality https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20190926STO62270/what-is-carbon-neutrality-and-how-can-it-be-achieved-by-2050
Please stop spewing climate denial propaganda.
The only one spewing propaganda is you. The world needs "net negative" to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere that was already blasted into it since the industrial revolution, not "net zero"/"carbon neutral".
Get a clue.
Exactly. As the amount of renewable zero carbon electricity increases, it will become less expensive than fossil fuels, which will naturally drive energy usage away from the more polluting sources.
I love it, I like it like my new contract they send me with new prices for electricity (44% up)
Sounds off, because renewbles are typically cheaper than the alternatives.
Any chance you got a 'fossil only' contract?
why would market electricity prices have any relation to what you pay on your power bill? turns out that companies will charge whatever they know they can, regardless of the cost of acquiring something to sell, should the cost of something be more than they know they can sell it for, they just won't sell it.
The idea that market prices influence what you pay for something is basically one of the main lies of supply side economics.
In Germany, from 1st of January each local power provider has to offer a flexible contract that gives through the market price. But I think it’s too early right know as it has some peaks. Otherwise choose Tibber, Voltego or others. Once you can load your car at night, it’s worth to take a flex tariff
I mean, that's assuming you can afford an electric car, being poor is expensive
In general an electric car is cheaper than a combustion car. Being it the petrol vs electricity or purchase price. Today, western car companies produce high end electric cars only. That’s why the costs are high. Wait for the Chinese low end cars.
You should change your provider. I do it every year because thats how you can save lots of money.
Frustrating that these private energy companies can charge whatever they want (cough market rate is a scam cough) and you need to chase teaser rates year to year if you want to keep your electricity prices down.
Shame Western Europe lacks state owned municipalities obligated to sell at cost, rather than a colidascope of private firms looking to maximize the margin on every kWh sold.
Meanwhile, the USA is 24%-ish renewables and 60%-ish fossil fuels. Damn fossil fuel industry and anti-progress politicians.
next up: zero teslas.
if germans chose a route, they, walk. (ww2, manufacturing cars, end of nuclear power..)
so fuck you elon. we hate you so much.
Electricity imports also rose to 24.9 TWh, driven by lower generation costs in neighboring countries during summer.
For the love of God, please just build nuclear instead of virtue signaling with solar panels while you import your energy needs.
All our nuclear plants are shut down and weren't maintained for further usage, than that few years ago when they were shut down, for decades. They are basically trash. Now just take a look at UK or France how cheap and easy it is to build new ones (when you can't sacrifice workers and environment like China). And then take a look at France's nuclear power production in recent heat summers. And finally take a look where that sweet little uranium is coming from when imported (Germany has none). And now give me a single good reason why investing in nuclear is better than investing in dirt cheap, decentralizeable renewables to cover future electricity needs.
Btw French Nuclear Power Company went bankrupt last years. Because of this cheap Nuclear. It’s owned by the Government now. In South Corea the Nuclear company is due 150 Billion dollars. Bankrupt very soon. Sellafield the British nuclear dump expects costs of 136 Billion pounds until 2050. Already owned by the Government.
It’s so fucking cheap this nuclear.
Just imagine how 'cheap' it'd be, had they included all calculatory costs for severe incidents (typically not possible to get insurance for them, so the public has to bear the costs of those incidents) and long-term storage in their operating costs and energy prices, repectively.
Economically it makes no sense to prefer nuclear to renawables.
Only the transformation is somewhat strenuous.
There's no sense in spending limited public funding on nuclear now - renewables and storage is winning on all fronts.
Shutting down what nuclear existed was a costly mistake, but going down that path again is an even worse one
For anyone who is interested in a detailed view of these stats worldwide in real time and cross-border with carbon intensities and individual breakdowns by electricity source: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h
WTF is Australia doing? Aren't they aware they have plenty of sunshine and an insanely long shoreline?
Australia is just an oil company, a coal company, and a mining company disguised as a trench coat. The Liberal party (essentially just American Republicans opposed to guns) spent 2 decades killing any green energy initiatives in favor of fracking the Outback
Remember Berlin has a latitude of 52.5°. That puts it far north of the 49th parallel border.
True, but climate in Central Europe is different to the US-Canada border.
Yeah, you get even more clouds.
Wasn't Germany that weird one where 'gas' was labeled as 'renewable'? Or was that something diffrent?
No, worse, they labeled it as green. Naziland never fails to be on the wrong side of history
No, that was France labeling Nuclear as Renewable. Because, because it doesn’t emit CO2, I guess. Don’t know what „Re-New“ translates into French and I‘d be surprised if it is „Split Atoms“.
Fuck off, France did this in reaction to Germany trying to pass gas as green (not renewable!)
Germany has the EU's highest energy prices. Just saying.
Norway has one of the lowest. And they don't have only 62.7%.
99% of their energy comes from renewables.
And in the USA, some of the states with lowest prices have the highest % of renewables.
Norway regularly has very high energy prices.. in fact, they're so high they want to cut exports.
The reason they're high is because of the grid in other countries being hit by low wind or grey sky days, pushing up the minimum pricing that they're also subjected to by being part of the same grid.
Seems to be a recent thing, as I was looking at data from Feb 2023, and unrelated to Norway's use of renewables.
Interesting article nonetheless.
They should definitely cone to a different pricing agreement with Norway as to not negatively affect them.
And it will be even less of a problem once those countries properly ramp up their installation of more renewables and storage.
Upgrading the grid infrastucture is a massive undertaking in some countries.
The UK grid is built around coal generation. With the shift to offshore wind away from population centres, new tranmission cables are required. Sadly there is excessive wind generation and suppliers are paid to shutdown. It is laughable.
But yes, with more renewables it will improve.
To be fair, Norway and those states rely heavily on hydro, which is great if you have the geography for it, but it's not a route that can work for every region.
Excluding hydro renewable sources tend to cost more if you include storage currently, though that premium has been and is coming down.
Iowa and South Dakota rely mostly on wind and are amongst the states that have the cheapest electricity in the USA - https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/24-08-Letter-Vance.pdf
List of countries and states and their % of renewables: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/Countries100Pct.pdf
It's certainly true it's easier when you have hydro though.
They're getting poorer and deindustrializing at a rapid pace.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
