
Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption - corradio
https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=country&countryCode=DE
======
ralfd
Great, but this is the other side of the coin:

[https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-
sources&we...](https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-
sources&week=51&year=2017)

Look at the beginning of the week on 18.December and Wind+Solar are only 5% to
electricity production. Over 50% now. 5% then.

What is the end game here? Duplicate the whole infrastructure and have backup
coal/gas/nuclear plants for half the time? That is why Germanys electricity
prices are so high.

France: 17 cent per kwh vs Germany: 29 cent per kwh

~~~
morsch
Briefly:

\- distribute regenerative sources geographically to have a better average
production; there's always wind somewhere in Europe

\- increase storage capacity through various means; e.g. pumped storage,
chemical batteries

\- make electricity consumption match production through various means; e.g.
have (industrial) cooling and heating work in excess if there is an excess of
"free" energy, charge electrical car batteries

\- reduce electrical capacity requirements through gains in efficiency; e.g.
improve home insulation

It's also not just a matter of production capacities: we're throwing away huge
amounts of regenerative energy because we don't have the technology to a)
adjust other production sources fast enough, b) store excess production and c)
we don't have the infrastructure to transport it.

~~~
PoachedSausage
Don't forget dynamic pricing.

I know it is due to historic energy markets and old metering technology, but
the fact that a kWh costs the same no matter the time of day is a situation
that cannot continue.

------
dx034
Shocking to see Australia's carbon emissions from electricity production.
Australia has abundant space for wind and solar (and a lot of solar potential)
and still gets most of the electricity from coal..

~~~
Maarten88
Together with the Netherlands. We don't even show as a data point on this map,
but it's bad. Lots of NIMBY here with wind energy, new government has just
started talking about shutting down a few coal plants, we are far behind our
promises.

~~~
Fnoord
When you travel from The Netherlands to Germany, the sure way to recognise the
border is all the wind mills.

FWIW here's a Wikipedia entry on the Dutch situation [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_Nether...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_Netherlands)

------
adrianN
Despite a huge proportion of wind Germany still produces nearly twice as much
CO2 per kWh than France :(

~~~
dx034
But that's due to nuclear. I don't support coal plants but Germany is on the
right trajectory to lower emissions in a sustainable way. France will still
have to go through that process at some point, it's not as if they'd figured
out what to do with nuclear waste.

~~~
dfee
Bury it in the ocean? Is nuclear not considered renewable anymore?

~~~
matt4077
No, nuclear was never considered a renewable source of energy. It’s low-
carbon, maybe.

Look, HN loves nuclear. You’ll find people here who propose running an actual
nuclear reactor in every backyard. You’ll find excuses why the Sowjets were
obviously incapable of securely running a nuclear plant, but capitalist
societies can do it without a hitch. Then, two years later, you’ll have people
telling you the Japanese were obviously incapable of running a nuclear plant,
but France is obviously different. Plus, the Green conspiracy has somehow
thwarted the breakthrough of cold fusion pebble bed thorium reactors, but now
it’s just around the corner.

Meanwhile, in reality, it has simply become economically unfeasable to build
nuclear reactors. Solar and wind are doing their version of Moore’s law.
Batteries, and other storage technologies, are taking a bite out of the
storage problem. Smart grids, combining load variability and harnessing end-
user storage capacity for grid storage are basically there.

Your suggestion of throwing nuclear waste into the most corrosive substance
available in quantity (sea water) nicely demonstrates this naïveté. There’s a
post on the front page right now that shows that low-grade radioactive
exposure has literally killed hundreds of thousands. Just because you can’t
see it, and it was once the darling of science fiction, does not mean it won’t
kill you.

~~~
kalleboo
Nuclear plants are only economically unfeasable to build because coal plants
still are. The world is still building lots of coal plants all over the place
(lots in my backyard - China is building lots, and now Japan is planning on
replacing their nuclear with coal). If coal plants had to pay for the
externalities of their generation you would see more interest in nuclear.

~~~
soundwave106
I've always thought the negatives of nuclear were less economic than other
factors (though the high fixed capital costs might be an unattractive model in
some cases). The worst case scenario for a nuclear accident is pretty
frightening to a lot of people. While it may be true that overall fossil fuels
are more dangerous in the long run, people tend to overvalue spectacular, high
profile failures.

In addition, one negative of nuclear I don't see come up on HN very often, is
that nuclear power plants pose an extra risk in regards to nuclear
proliferation and terrorism concerns. I do think that some of the recent
decline of nuclear is, in part, geopolitical. You don't see groups of nations
banding together to stop another nation from building a coal plant.

------
nabla9
Too bad that Germany uses coal to regulate wind power output fluctuations.

These record production peaks are sold as good things, but they are negative
aspect of wind power. Only 20 percent or less of installed wind power capacity
is available 90 percent of time.

~~~
CraigJPerry
So if most of the time you cut usage of finite resources by 20% - what is the
down side? They can afford it so what is the harm?

~~~
nabla9
Co reductions are critical but it's very capital intensive prosess. We don't
have time to waste resources for inefficiencies and marginal improvements.

------
zeristor
This is the website I've been looking for!

Gathering together power generation and CO2 emissions for the whole world,
albeit those that are publishing the data.

Strange that the data for Netherlands, Italy, and Texas are missing. Is this
charged for, confidential, or just not collected?

~~~
brunolaj
Italy is temporarily missing (IT problem), will be back soon. Netherlands is
not yet disclosing real-time figure for fossil-thermal power plant output.
Texas has not yet been investigated for addition to the map. Will hopefully
happen soon! feel free to contribute by adding the parser to the open source
github repo
[https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap](https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap)

------
foreigner
Misleading headline! The Germans aren't producing wind - except those who are
too much sauerkraut.

~~~
bad_alloc
At christmas we're all sitting on our asses at home and farting. So a lot of
wind is actually being produced!

------
phoobot
I don't understand how these electricity production numbers are to be
understood. Neither net nor gross energy production seem to match the numbers
depicted for Germany. Why does it say, that Germany is producing 61% of its
power from wind energy, when most other sources only report around 40%?

[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/l...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/lightbox_image/public/images/factsheet/fig2-gross-
power-production-germany-1990-2017-1.png?itok=klV3qdJ3)
[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/l...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/lightbox_image/public/images/factsheet/fig1-installed-
net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2016.png?itok=CA958Qku)

~~~
Strom
The key to understanding is time. Those charts your linked show averages for
whole years. However the original link in question here is live data. Based on
the charts it seems the percentage is updated every 15 minutes.

------
DamonHD
Shame it's still higher intensity than the UK at the moment (just)!

(And indeed my calcs don't quite match yours
[http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html](http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html)
anyway!)

~~~
jasoncartwright
They don't match mine either -
[https://electricityproduction.uk](https://electricityproduction.uk)

Or [http://www.gridcarbon.uk](http://www.gridcarbon.uk)

~~~
patall
For Germany as well: [https://www.agora-
energiewende.de/en/topics/-agothem-/Produk...](https://www.agora-
energiewende.de/en/topics/-agothem-/Produkt/produkt/76/Agorameter/)

Its very likely because they only use projected production and use.

~~~
corradio
Calculations details are here:
[https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap#carbon-
intensity-c...](https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap#carbon-intensity-
calculation-and-data-source) We use IPCC LCA data for the production mix, and
use a coupled linear system of equations to take into account imports in a
dynamic manner.

Generation data is realtime and comes from ENTSOE
([https://transparency.entsoe.eu](https://transparency.entsoe.eu))

~~~
jasoncartwright
Very cool.

I'm using UK-specific carbon intensity values, and breaking down different
uses of the same fuel (OCGT & CCGT). I've not baked in transmission loss yet.
Our results are surprisingly similar though.

~~~
corradio
Feel free to submit a pull request to update our numbers!

------
rurban
And look at Guatemala:
[https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&countryCode=GT](https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&countryCode=GT)

46% biomass! More than hydro, wind or anything else. This should be a role
model.

~~~
yorwba
What kind of biomass though? If they are just burning wood, then I guess it's
better than direct deforestation by fire, but unless they replant those trees,
it isn't long-term sustainable either.

~~~
rurban
Proper biogas. Mostly from their sugar mills, the biggest in central america.

------
jsingleton
For the UK (and France) this has a lot of geeky detail:
[http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

UK data (inc. solar) with CO2 emissions in app form:
[http://gridcarbon.uk/](http://gridcarbon.uk/)

------
rurban
And also more biomass than coal! Still, those dirty coal cancer producers need
to close down.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_least_carbon_efficient...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_least_carbon_efficient_power_stations)

------
agumonkey
Let's put wind farm on climate change amplified tornados and profit.

------
tomtomistaken
Do you know any other open/free live datasets like they used for the map?

~~~
jasoncartwright
[https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap#real-time-
electric...](https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap#real-time-electricity-
data-sources)

------
PeterStuer
While I appreciate the effort, the map is misleading as the scoring/coloring
is purely focused on Carbon emissions.

This means things like Nuclear power, ecologically disastrous in the long
term, get a nice thumbs up (see France e.g.) because of their short term
'benefits'.

~~~
static_noise
What is the problem with nuclear energy? It is very safe and very clean and
provides near limitless power. Our technology has been much advanced in the
last decades. Now we would only need to build next generation (Thorium)
reactors. At least that's what the hivemind here told me.

~~~
byroot
French here. Besides the advantages you mentioned, the downsides the opposants
talk about are:

\- aging power plants, we haven't build any in a long time and many are now
passed the initial lifetime expetency, but can't be shutdown as they should
since there is no replacement ready

\- price not taking plants destruction into account. None have been fully
destructed yet, so we don't know how much it coat exactly but it's far from
cheap since you have tons of midly radioactive material to treat

\- still no proper way to dispose of the waste. There research etc, but right
bow we're basically storing lots of materials that will be radioactive for
millennias

\- new generation plants project (EPR) is many years late and many times over
budget because of critical defects in components.

\- probably other arguments I forgot

I am personally undecided on the matter, but what is certain is that nuclear
might be the best solution we have, but it certainly isn't without downsides.

~~~
static_noise
Why don't we just dump the radioactive material into the ocean to dilute it
sufficiently? Apparently that's what solved most of the Fukushima problem.

~~~
acidburnNSA
That would contaminate the ocean. It's easier to "dump" it (carefully and
deliberately) into crystalline bedrock or salt deposits where it will remain
for millions of years, well beyond the time that it is dangerous. People
spreading fear about storing nuclear waste in repositories are generally lying
to you or repeating lies someone else told them. It's a fairly solved problem
from the technical side.

------
waytogo
And record high nuclear production in France...

Anyone knows why?

~~~
philipkglass
France's 2017 nuclear generation is well below record levels:

[https://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-
power/london/fra...](https://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-
power/london/france-on-track-for-record-low-nuclear-in-2017-26858435)

 _According to S &P Global Platts calculations based on reactor availability,
output is unlikely to reach 380 TWh this year._

 _Based on cumulative output of 361 TWh by December 17, output would need to
average 56.5 GW over the final two weeks in 2017 to even reach 380 TWh, the
TSO data-based calculations shows._

 _Nuclear output averaged just below 50 GW so far this December, up from 42 GW
in November, the data shows._

...

 _EDF operates France 's 58 nuclear reactors. But following record production
years in 2014 and 2015 at 416 TWh, it has struggled with extended outages and
lower nuclear production._

------
tbarbugli
Yet the primary source of energy for Germany is coal.

------
tunichtgut
Electricity from wind is nice, but on the other hand there are mass layoffs in
the fossil fuel industry, like siemens and general electric owned plants in
germany are shutting down. Whole cities, like Görlitz, are drowning now. The
nuclear industry was butchered, too.

All in all, the EEG is causing massive losses to germany and the environment
(dont forget the outsourced damage to nature in china inflicted by solar panel
production!).

Deutschland has the highest CO2 emissions of all times and the highest cost of
electricity of all times now. This is a severe warning to the world! Never use
a socialist approach!

