In 2017, Germany generated 37 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources.[1] In pursuing the Energiewende, Germany will have invested $580 billion in renewable energy and storage by 2025.
If Germany had invested in nuclear instead, it could have built 46 1.6 GW EPR reactors at the $12.5 billion per reactor cost of the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C. German companies assisted with the design of the EPR and the reactor was explicitly planned to meet the strictest European regulations.
With 46 EPRs operating at 90 percent capacity factor, Germany could first eliminate all coal, gas, and biomass electricity, then make up for today’s 150 terawatt-hours per year of wind and solar from its renewables investment, all while exporting 100 terawatt-hours of electricity to its neighbors (double 2017’s actual exports). Finally, with the remaining 133 terawatt-hours, Germany could decarbonize its entire light vehicle fleet including all 45 million of its passenger vehicles.[2]
"The plant, which has a projected lifetime of sixty years, has an estimated construction cost of between £19.6 billion and £20.3 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under the "strike price" will be £50 billion, which "will continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts"."
What if it built the nuclear plants but kept the coal plants running anyway? That's basically the current situation except with renewables. Before you tell me that those coal plants are necessary because renewables are intermittent... let me tell you that we already have more than enough natural gas plants to replace all our coal plants today....
Why would do they do that? The grand-parent post shows that those nuclear plants would be generating electricity in massive excess of what Germany needs (see the part about exporting). In addition, unlike renewables, the generation is stable not depending on weather or time of year. In that scenario, coal plants would be completely uneconomical to run.
Power plants bid for supplying energy at specific time and dates and for specific amount. With renewables you have cheap wind and solar that can outbid everything else in good weather conditions, but in bad conditions you have fossil fuels that will outbid renewables. With nuclear the bids are always the same regardless of weather, and thus if the price is lower than fossil fuels at one date it will most likely be lower at other dates (with exceptions for maintenance windows).
Since natural gas has the currently lowest operational cost of all other fossil fuels on the average, they are usually able to outbid other fossil fuels. However as with any other market, the one that can produce a product cheapest is not always the one that gives the lowest bid and thus different fossil fueled plants get used at different times. Some plants can also produce heat as well as energy and thus artificially lower their bid. Over time however the one who can more cheaply produce a good of the same quality and reliability tend to make more costly production extinct.
The anti-nuclear greens share a lot of the responsible for the current mess we are in with regards to climate change with Big Oil.
Big Oil told us there was nothing to worry about and produced oil, anti-nuclear greens made sure there was no viable alternative for fossil fuels for decades.
Thankfully, we are now developing the solar power and battery tech that can provide an alternative, but we lost several decades.
Germany is not France in the 60s when it comes to overwhelmingly accepting nuclear in the population. 46 EPRs is crazy considering that currently 446 run world wide, and Germany is only running 28.
Also just betting on one technology doesn’t make too much sense, especially considering that uranium is currently not mined in Germany (hasn’t been since the wall came down because it is not economically viable). So Germany would become dependent on other suppliers.
(I am not against nuclear per se, just wanted to provide some thoughts to the counterfactual)
Not even joking, if The Green New Deal is passed in any form I honestly expect a civil war to happen. The Green New Deal (yes, the one that literally received 0 votes in the senate [0]) is the economic equivalent of falling on a sword and being so tone deaf that you don't hear your own scream once you bleed out. Not to mention that the US cutting emissions would basically have an insignificant effect globally, destroy energy independence, just "offset" emissions and pollution to china in order to produce solar panels, while also ignoring the fact that China and India have been building dirty coal power plants almost monthly as of late...
I wouldn't read anything into that zero votes thing. Bills come up in the Senate for all sorts of reasons. Lobbyists run the bidding process. If they pork it up enough (like, say, CARES act) it will pass. In the end it may not have any of the horrible features that radio show has you worrying about. Besides there's nothing wrong with solar and wind power. They're less centralized than the competition, they're at least as economical, and they cause less pollution. Throwing a few subsidies their way (especially if they're focused on domestic manufacture) isn't going to seriously hurt anyone, although it might make Elon even more smug. Haven't you heard? Subsidies are free. We can print as many dollars as we need. That's how they fight all these ridiculous wars.
If I thought, as you seem to think, that we're going to get a "green dictatorship" I would be more worried. After all, as TFA has it, top-down control isn't required:
Meanwhile, during the same 20-year period, the United States reduced the share of fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption from 85.7 percent to 80 percent, cutting almost exactly as much as Germany did. The conclusion is as surprising as it is indisputable. Without anything like the expensive, target-mandated Energiewende, the United States has decarbonized at least as fast as Germany, the supposed poster child of emerging greenness.
(The "civil war" is going to come when Mike Pence gets a constitutional amendment passed about who is allowed in what public bathroom.)
> the US cutting emissions would basically have an insignificant effect globally
The US accounts for 15% of global emissions while containing only 4% of the population. 15% isn't insignificant. The US also has the bulk of historical emissions - you know the stuff that's already in the environment causing problems. Maybe the US should step up and accept some responsibility for this mess instead of complaining about India and China.
Much easier to make large cuts when you're on a completely different level to to begin with. Replacing coal with natural gas and patting yourself your back because you made such a contribution while locking in another 30 years of fossil energy use is beyond me.
I think what's missing is the difficulty. The US did a purely economic side step led by the fracking boom with a coincidental effect being less emissions.
The next step following is where it becomes interesting, because now it's not easy, you can't just burn oil better and be done with it.
Germany took a lot of the cost of the early investment enabling large scale manufacturing of PV and wind power. Sure that is inefficient compared to doing nothing, but this investment is what we're riding on today when LCOE of renewables are lower than both nuclear and fossil energy.
"Much easier to make large cuts when you're on a completely different level to to begin with"
The author uses percentages. Both countries starting and endpoints are relatively close. How is it mathematically possible to call that "completely different level to to begin with"?
Look at the graph I linked. Burning oil more efficiently is easy when you start from coal and emit tons more, real change is hard.
Compare to Sweden, less than 1/4 the CO2 emissions compared to the US, and an almost completely carbon free electric infrastructure. Getting another 10% is extremely hard, because all the easy options have already been exercised. Three glass windows, district heating, energy requirements for new builds, high gas taxes, car ownership taxes depending on CO2 emissions. All done.
The final emissions are much harder questions, electric cars and public transport is the next. My town is converting over 30 bus lines to electric just this month, that is a hard change with large investments. Pilot programs started in 2013, now it's workable at a larger scale. They're starting a pilot program on steel manufacturing using green hydrogen from electrolysis where electrical ovens isn't possible, that is a hard change with completely new challenges.
As said, real change is hard. Converting coal to gas and locking in another 30-40 years of fossil fuel is not real change.
The graphs on this article do not appear to show that the U.S. has decarbonized as much as Germany. I guess I’m missing something?
Also, as I understand it, Germany’s government did pay a higher upfront cost for solar panels, but in doing so, single-handedly enabled economies of scale in solar panel manufacturing that didn’t exist before, spurring the dramatic reduction in solar panel prices we’ve seen over the last decade.
> The graphs on this article do not appear to show that the U.S. has decarbonized as much as Germany. I guess I’m missing something?
No, I don't think you are. Unless I'm missing something, too.
Here's another curious thing: The article says
> Meanwhile, during the same 20-year period, the United States reduced the share of fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption from 85.7 percent to 80 percent, cutting almost exactly as much as Germany did.
…but looking at the graphs, they didn't actually cut anything. It's only the relative share in the States' primary energy consumption that decreased but it only did that because the total consumption increased. The absolute amount of fossil energy consumption in the US hasn't really changed since 2000.
but in doing so, single-handedly enabled economies of scale in solar panel manufacturing ... in China and the US.
The economic boon the German Greens sold us the Energiewende with never came to fruition. The RENIXX stock index lost most of its German companies to be largely comprised by Chinese or American ones.
Just a few once household names in German renewables that went bust in the last ten years:
So first, the headline seems to be based on "primary energy supply" - I assume that includes transportation, vehicles, heating and so on. Even if Germany went 100% renewable/nuclear for electricity they'd still be at ~60% fossil fuels in "primary energy shares" (from spit-balling the figures). I think that comparison was chosen to make the German "Energiewende" look worse, it does better when just looking at energy production.
If we look at electricity shares, then Germany did better albeit still at an undeniably high cost.
And second, as has been discussed in another article shared on HN - Germany bank-rolled a lot of the solar "virtuous cycle" and China's solar industry. Now any following country can just follow suit and achieve the same carbon goals much cheaper, even if they 100% follow what Germans did, because the technology is more familiar and manufacturing is more efficient. Kind of a "first-mover disadvantage". Though I think many Germans are ok with financing many of the advances in renewables.
Edit: I forgot to add, this time period also coincides with Germany's prompt/hasty nuclear exit after Fukushima which was expensive but quite popular.
The two very last graphs on energy production mix show that the US mostly increased natural gas for coal and Germany renewables for nuclear, and then the last few years finally renewables for coal.
There seems to be an acceleration of renewables adoption in the last 3 years and Germany decreed to exit coal-based energy production by 2038 afaik.
"Germany did better albeit still at an undeniably high cost … bank-rolled China's solar industry" Can echo that.
The RENIXX global stock index, comprised of 30 companies in the renewables sector, shed one German company after another (only two are left in it today), while most of the index's points come from Chinese and US companies.
Renewables in Germany are reaching a glass ceiling in their electricity share, as renewables aren't capable of providing base load. Embracing nuclear could untie that gordian knot.
"Though I think many Germans are ok with financing many of the advances in renewables."
Yes, many are. And then there are those, that are a bit more cash strapped (like the 300k households cut off from electricity each year) or work in energy intensive industries fearing for their jobs.
"Yes, many are. And then there are those, that are a bit more cash strapped (like the 300k households cut off from electricity each year) or work in energy intensive industries fearing for their jobs."
I don't think the US collects national stats but it sounds like Germany is pretty average in terms of "energy cost burden" amongst European countries. [1]
I found stats for CA AND TX, 700k/40M disconnected in CA in 2016 and 900k/30M in Texas vs Germany 330k/81M - for whatever it's worth, didn't check methodologies. [2]
Germany has a pretty comfy welfare state, compared to the US and still 300k are cut off from electricity.
Regarding energy cost burden: Germans pay the world’s highest price for electricity, whether it is in nominal dollars/mWh or in relative purchasing power parity/mWh [1]
Agree on the high prices, don't agree that "Energiewende" was necessarily bad for the poorest Germans, exactly because it's a "comfy welfare state". Society decided it was worth the cost and they're paying it.
Just want to point out that, if I'm not mistaken, at that point only heating was covered by welfare but not electricity. In case anyone assumed it should have been covered by welfare and ppl somehow still got cut off.
The point was that high energy prices do not necessarily mean that more people are without power or that the poor are necessarily worse off - like everything it's a broader societal issue.
Btw, I do agree on the disadvantage for energy intensive industries. Industry power prices there are ~3x US prices afaict.
Germany was supposed to be running on natural gas imported from Russia, but then the Ukraine conveniently happened while the US was trying very hard to convince Germany to buy natural gas from them instead. Germany is still going to import natural gas from Russia though.
If I ran the numbers right, only about 15% of the energy consumed in the US is produced in the form of electricity (4,127 billion kWh vs 100.2 quadrillion Btu consumed, 1kWh ~ 3400 Btu).
So going 100% renewable or nuclear for electricity production wouldnt' even make more than 15% difference.
I wonder what causes all that additional energy consumption from fossil fuel sources then? I always blindly assumed ~50% of our energy consumption is in the form of electricity. Cars and transportation, heating are obvious but I wouldn't expect that to account for such a large share. Does industry use so much fossil fuel for energy?
The US accounts for 15% of all emissions. Going 100% renewable or nuclear for all US electricity would reduce emissions by 1.5%. That's a hell of a big deal.
As always, there are many ways one can arrange facts until they fit one's world view. Particulary in the polarized field of energy policy, where the urge to win the argument often leads to brushing-over of details (like the difference between primary and secondary energy).
But the author is right: Germans pay the highest price globally per kWh. This results in 289.000 households being cut off from electricity in 2019 alone [1]. Grewing up poor in Germany, I still remember winter's incredibly cold showers…
33 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 81.1 ms ] threadIt's been examined here :
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2018/9/11/califor...
Quotes of notes:
In 2017, Germany generated 37 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources.[1] In pursuing the Energiewende, Germany will have invested $580 billion in renewable energy and storage by 2025.
If Germany had invested in nuclear instead, it could have built 46 1.6 GW EPR reactors at the $12.5 billion per reactor cost of the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C. German companies assisted with the design of the EPR and the reactor was explicitly planned to meet the strictest European regulations.
With 46 EPRs operating at 90 percent capacity factor, Germany could first eliminate all coal, gas, and biomass electricity, then make up for today’s 150 terawatt-hours per year of wind and solar from its renewables investment, all while exporting 100 terawatt-hours of electricity to its neighbors (double 2017’s actual exports). Finally, with the remaining 133 terawatt-hours, Germany could decarbonize its entire light vehicle fleet including all 45 million of its passenger vehicles.[2]
"The plant, which has a projected lifetime of sixty years, has an estimated construction cost of between £19.6 billion and £20.3 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under the "strike price" will be £50 billion, which "will continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts"."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
Since natural gas has the currently lowest operational cost of all other fossil fuels on the average, they are usually able to outbid other fossil fuels. However as with any other market, the one that can produce a product cheapest is not always the one that gives the lowest bid and thus different fossil fueled plants get used at different times. Some plants can also produce heat as well as energy and thus artificially lower their bid. Over time however the one who can more cheaply produce a good of the same quality and reliability tend to make more costly production extinct.
Big Oil told us there was nothing to worry about and produced oil, anti-nuclear greens made sure there was no viable alternative for fossil fuels for decades.
Thankfully, we are now developing the solar power and battery tech that can provide an alternative, but we lost several decades.
Also just betting on one technology doesn’t make too much sense, especially considering that uranium is currently not mined in Germany (hasn’t been since the wall came down because it is not economically viable). So Germany would become dependent on other suppliers.
(I am not against nuclear per se, just wanted to provide some thoughts to the counterfactual)
[0] - https://nypost.com/2019/03/26/senate-rejects-ocasio-cortezs-...
If I thought, as you seem to think, that we're going to get a "green dictatorship" I would be more worried. After all, as TFA has it, top-down control isn't required:
Meanwhile, during the same 20-year period, the United States reduced the share of fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption from 85.7 percent to 80 percent, cutting almost exactly as much as Germany did. The conclusion is as surprising as it is indisputable. Without anything like the expensive, target-mandated Energiewende, the United States has decarbonized at least as fast as Germany, the supposed poster child of emerging greenness.
(The "civil war" is going to come when Mike Pence gets a constitutional amendment passed about who is allowed in what public bathroom.)
The US accounts for 15% of global emissions while containing only 4% of the population. 15% isn't insignificant. The US also has the bulk of historical emissions - you know the stuff that's already in the environment causing problems. Maybe the US should step up and accept some responsibility for this mess instead of complaining about India and China.
1. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emi...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
I would summarize the argument as the German effort was so misguided it had a proportionally similar effect as the US non-effort.
Edit: and therefore Germany is not an example for the US to emulate.
As for me, I've been against shutting down working nuclear reactors, but I don't feel qualified to decide on the other components of the plan.
The next step following is where it becomes interesting, because now it's not easy, you can't just burn oil better and be done with it.
Germany took a lot of the cost of the early investment enabling large scale manufacturing of PV and wind power. Sure that is inefficient compared to doing nothing, but this investment is what we're riding on today when LCOE of renewables are lower than both nuclear and fossil energy.
The author uses percentages. Both countries starting and endpoints are relatively close. How is it mathematically possible to call that "completely different level to to begin with"?
Compare to Sweden, less than 1/4 the CO2 emissions compared to the US, and an almost completely carbon free electric infrastructure. Getting another 10% is extremely hard, because all the easy options have already been exercised. Three glass windows, district heating, energy requirements for new builds, high gas taxes, car ownership taxes depending on CO2 emissions. All done.
The final emissions are much harder questions, electric cars and public transport is the next. My town is converting over 30 bus lines to electric just this month, that is a hard change with large investments. Pilot programs started in 2013, now it's workable at a larger scale. They're starting a pilot program on steel manufacturing using green hydrogen from electrolysis where electrical ovens isn't possible, that is a hard change with completely new challenges.
As said, real change is hard. Converting coal to gas and locking in another 30-40 years of fossil fuel is not real change.
Also, as I understand it, Germany’s government did pay a higher upfront cost for solar panels, but in doing so, single-handedly enabled economies of scale in solar panel manufacturing that didn’t exist before, spurring the dramatic reduction in solar panel prices we’ve seen over the last decade.
No, I don't think you are. Unless I'm missing something, too.
Here's another curious thing: The article says
> Meanwhile, during the same 20-year period, the United States reduced the share of fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption from 85.7 percent to 80 percent, cutting almost exactly as much as Germany did.
…but looking at the graphs, they didn't actually cut anything. It's only the relative share in the States' primary energy consumption that decreased but it only did that because the total consumption increased. The absolute amount of fossil energy consumption in the US hasn't really changed since 2000.
The economic boon the German Greens sold us the Energiewende with never came to fruition. The RENIXX stock index lost most of its German companies to be largely comprised by Chinese or American ones.
Just a few once household names in German renewables that went bust in the last ten years:
- Solaworld
- Q-Cells
- Solibro
- Sovello
- Phoenix Solar
- Centrosolar
- Solarhybrid
- Solarmillennium
and of course financial scam of Prokon AG.
If we look at electricity shares, then Germany did better albeit still at an undeniably high cost.
And second, as has been discussed in another article shared on HN - Germany bank-rolled a lot of the solar "virtuous cycle" and China's solar industry. Now any following country can just follow suit and achieve the same carbon goals much cheaper, even if they 100% follow what Germans did, because the technology is more familiar and manufacturing is more efficient. Kind of a "first-mover disadvantage". Though I think many Germans are ok with financing many of the advances in renewables.
Edit: I forgot to add, this time period also coincides with Germany's prompt/hasty nuclear exit after Fukushima which was expensive but quite popular.
The two very last graphs on energy production mix show that the US mostly increased natural gas for coal and Germany renewables for nuclear, and then the last few years finally renewables for coal.
There seems to be an acceleration of renewables adoption in the last 3 years and Germany decreed to exit coal-based energy production by 2038 afaik.
The RENIXX global stock index, comprised of 30 companies in the renewables sector, shed one German company after another (only two are left in it today), while most of the index's points come from Chinese and US companies.
Renewables in Germany are reaching a glass ceiling in their electricity share, as renewables aren't capable of providing base load. Embracing nuclear could untie that gordian knot.
"Though I think many Germans are ok with financing many of the advances in renewables."
Yes, many are. And then there are those, that are a bit more cash strapped (like the 300k households cut off from electricity each year) or work in energy intensive industries fearing for their jobs.
I don't think the US collects national stats but it sounds like Germany is pretty average in terms of "energy cost burden" amongst European countries. [1]
I found stats for CA AND TX, 700k/40M disconnected in CA in 2016 and 900k/30M in Texas vs Germany 330k/81M - for whatever it's worth, didn't check methodologies. [2]
[1] https://energytransition.org/2017/11/is-33000-german-househo...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-13/in-great-....
Germany has a pretty comfy welfare state, compared to the US and still 300k are cut off from electricity.
Regarding energy cost burden: Germans pay the world’s highest price for electricity, whether it is in nominal dollars/mWh or in relative purchasing power parity/mWh [1]
[1] https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ea2f7700-2b1e-4611-... figure 7
Just want to point out that, if I'm not mistaken, at that point only heating was covered by welfare but not electricity. In case anyone assumed it should have been covered by welfare and ppl somehow still got cut off.
The point was that high energy prices do not necessarily mean that more people are without power or that the poor are necessarily worse off - like everything it's a broader societal issue.
Btw, I do agree on the disadvantage for energy intensive industries. Industry power prices there are ~3x US prices afaict.
So going 100% renewable or nuclear for electricity production wouldnt' even make more than 15% difference.
I wonder what causes all that additional energy consumption from fossil fuel sources then? I always blindly assumed ~50% of our energy consumption is in the form of electricity. Cars and transportation, heating are obvious but I wouldn't expect that to account for such a large share. Does industry use so much fossil fuel for energy?
As always, there are many ways one can arrange facts until they fit one's world view. Particulary in the polarized field of energy policy, where the urge to win the argument often leads to brushing-over of details (like the difference between primary and secondary energy).
But the author is right: Germans pay the highest price globally per kWh. This results in 289.000 households being cut off from electricity in 2019 alone [1]. Grewing up poor in Germany, I still remember winter's incredibly cold showers…
[1] https://www.hartziv.org/news/20201008-soziale-katastrophe-st...