Meanwhile in Germany:
But that doesn’t matter. The real issue is that people heat their homes with oil or gas. Luckily our great leaders are fighting the actual problems! /s
It “doesn’t matter” ?! I mean electricity is still a pretty massive chunk of the energy used in day to day life. I would certainly not say it doesn’t matter.
Also, a lot of people heat their homes with electricity, and sometimes even with heat pumps.
And I say that as someone still convinced we will not win against climate change.
Over here we got government help to replace our gas heater for a heat pump.
Note: here is not in Germany.
But still.
I would not discount the utility of creating a culture of sustainability. If your entire populace engages in more environmentally friendly behavior, they are going to demand the same of their government and regulations on businesses. The Nordic countries didn’t accidentally become relatively environmentally friendly. There is pressure on all sides there.
People mocked Obama for saying to fill our car tires, but that’s what he was driving at. If we are more cognizant of our waste and inefficiencies, it creates a culture that is more environmentally friendly.
Also landfills ain’t gonna stop filling themselves!
I agree that creating a culture of sustainability is a good thing, but the example I gave does the exact opposite. It alienates people, especially the ones who now live in fear of going bankrupt when their heating breaks and they aren’t allowed to repair it anymore.
Jesus fucking Christ, why can’t people listen or read anymore? You’re allowed to repair your stone age heating devices. They give you 13 fucking years until that’s not possible anymore. The government throws money at you to transition to technologies that will benefit you from day one. Germans are just fucking bad at using the internet and believe all the far right bullshit that is spread by CxU and AfD.
Edit: people will go broke once the CO2 tax kicks in in the coming few years. Im not shedding a single tear for all those idiots.
Rational governments get that fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere, coal and oil will stay just where they like they have for longer than humans have been a thing.
Capitalist societies tho… private companies own those fossil fuels rights and they want to sell as much as they can for as long as they can.
We should be planning centuries in advance, not a financial quarter at a time.
You are aware that this is over 5 years old data (2017!) for the German electricity mix, right?
Please don’t get me wrong, the scale up of renewable energy sources is certainly not going fast enough in Germany (thanks to our conservative government that ruled the country for 16 years until 2021!), but please argue this position using the real data for 2023 (57.7% renewables in the German electricity mix)!
Good for providing up to date data.
But damn, Germany could have been 65% fossil free if they hadn’t closed the nuclear plants prematurely.
Such a waste of carbon budget.
Anyway, you’re probably going to have a conservative government again after this one. Hope you don’t become the big laggards.
Noooooooo… The decision to get out of nuclear was made over ten years ago. It is done. The last three nuclear plants that shut down this and last year were not serviced, not licensed, had no fuel and no newly trained operators. Stop reviving this debate. What is the real crime here is that the conservative government did next to nothing to push renewables as an alternative. They were bought/lulled by cheap russian gas. Even now, conservative governments in the south and the east of the country refuse to build up renewable energy production for purely ideological reasons. Even if those decisions hurt their own economy.
Sorry I still don’t get it: why not reviving this debate? It’s never too late to kick-off construction of new nuclear plants.
The decision to get out of nuclear was made over ten years ago.
Nope, at least over 20, in 2000. Quick overview:
- Starting approximately with the 68 movement anti-nuclear sentiment began to become common, also tied up with opposition to stationing of nuclear warheads, the general peace movement, etc. Every single new nuclear plant was protested heavily, as such
- By the 90s, it was clear that no new plants would be built: It was political suicide.
- That then was made law in 2000, alongside with giving all existing reactors expiry dates, based on age and security record
- Then a Merkel came along and gave extensions to the remaining reactors. She didn’t touch the ban on new construction.
- Then Fukushima happened and she took back that extension.
- Then Ukraine happened and the three last remaining reactors got a 4 1/2 month extension to help tiding over the whole no gas from Russia situation: Originally (as planned in 2000) they should have shut down on the 31st of December last year, they actually shut down 15th of April this year. Some politicians wanted more but the operators themselves were opposed as they were already winding down the plants, would have to do another round of maintenance and inspections, procure more fuel etc. It was an “either at least five more years or forget it” type of attitude.
If the approval process continues as it currently does and solar installations do not slow down massivly, by the end of the term the approved renewbales projects should bring Gemany above 80% renewables. Practically speaking that would be the coal exit done. Maybe not fully, but they would not matter much.
As for the rest, the current plan for hydrogen power plants is currently being negotiated with the EU. The good news it looks like a deal has been reached and if the plans shown by the current government are implemented, that would basicly mean a full coal exit and the starategic storage question being answered.
Basicly the current German government has passed laws for an estimated 64% redcution of emissions by 2030 compared to 1990. The current target is 65%. So with a bit of luck it will work out.
Not true. One big problem in Germany is that the grid can’t handle all the electricity generated by renewables so they often shut them down. Something you can’t do with nuclear l. Since nuclear got of the grid it got more capacity for renewables hence the share jumped this year.
That’s not how that works, mate. Nuclear is the highest priority of energy generation because it’s ultra cheap to produce and completely stable (once you have the reactors built, that is). If Germany still had those power plants, they could’ve dumped fossil and kept renewables, all while investing in energy storage.
You can shut down or scale back energy/electricity produced from nuclear power plants as well by controlling the reaction rate. What would have been ideal was if nuclear had remained and the renewables took the production capacity share from fossil fuels
Yes, I see the advantage of CO2 neutrality, but:
The amount of active Nuclear repository sites for spent nuclear fuel and high level waste is… underwhelming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository
60 years time to find a suitable hole to drop the waste into and very limited success so far. Nobody wants it in the own backyard (even if it would be suited.).
The other end of the chain (mining and enrichment) doesn’t look like an environmental success story either, or does it? Poisoned groundwater looks like an issue to me… also if it happens in Canada or Kazakhstan.
The dots in between… One meltdown around every 20 years (worldwide) ? - the area here is just too densely populated to risk one here. They started to dismantle the first plant in Germany in 89 - still not done.
Edit: in my eyes the cons (I just named a few of them) outweigh the advantages. I mean the co2- neutrality is a big plus, but is it enough to justify the risks and damages? Aren’t there better alternatives? Am I wrong? Please bring facts.
Edit again: thinking further, for me the question to answer is not, either add more CO2 to the atmosphere or have (more) nuclear fission plants. It is the question, how to remove fossils from the energy mix without having to use nuclear fission. With the one extreme to only use what you have and its many backdraws.
our conservative government that ruled the country for 16 years
and the next 16 years, if everything works well Ü
!please kill me!<
The past 16 years have been conservative. The next 16 are for the far-right populists. There’s a difference.
This year is an anomaly because nuclear production was low because some power plants had to shut down for maintenance. Germany typically imports power from France.
You keep repeating this point but renewable energy HAS to be exported when production is over the grid absorption rate. And coal plants have to be on continuously to guarantee baseload due to you moronic energy policies. You can’t bring up a (cherripicked for a single extraordinary year) graph you don’t understand and think it’s a gotcha. Not even mentioning the fact that France exports its energy too.
Do the Swedish still use peat as fuel for fossil-free energy? They did a few years ago, but I can’t find recent data on this.
Peat is referred to as a fossil fuel in most circumstances [1] and it’s usage for energy is declining rapidly. [2]
You’re right, it turns out that since 2018 peat is not reffered as fossil free in the EU anymore.
https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/renewable-energy/bioenergy/biomass_en
I’m going to assume that those numbers only represent electric power generation. I wonder how much international import/export of power might change them.
