
Renewables overtake coal as Germany's main energy source - philipkglass
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-power-renewables/renewables-overtake-coal-as-germanys-main-energy-source-idUSKCN1OX0U2
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philipkglass
I agree with the commenters saying that Germany should have prioritized coal
for retirement before nuclear. Nonetheless, I'm impressed with what Germany
has achieved within its self-imposed constraints.

Germany's trying to decarbonize its electricity sector via renewables while
having poorer onshore wind resources than the US. And much poorer solar
resources. And much higher population density. _And_ it's retiring nuclear
power at the same time. Finally, it started deploying solar PV by the gigawatt
in 2007 (!), when the equipment was very expensive compared to now[1]. Germany
is attempting decarbonization on Nightmare Mode difficulty, so I find it
impressive that they're actually making progress. It's also frustrating
because they're giving up several years of forward progress on emissions by
shutting down working nuclear reactors.

It's doubly annoying that Germany's determination to pioneer solar has
provided a canned "bad example" for solar foes elsewhere. "Look how expensive
solar made German electricity. I don't want that disaster in Texas." Of course
new Texan solar plants will never cost as much as German plants built last
decade, and they'll get far more sunlight. But that's not as pithy as "just
look at Germany!"

[1] Germany's pioneering large-scale PV deployment may well have been a driver
for the much larger, much more economical PV manufacturing base that exists
today. It's still surprising to me that solar didn't first grow big in
somewhere much sunnier like Australia.

~~~
GuB-42
> I agree with the commenters saying that Germany should have prioritized coal
> for retirement before nuclear.

Coal (actually lignite) is a major part of Germany's plan. I don't expect them
to abandon it anytime soon. Solar and wind power are inherently variable, they
can't really work by themselves, they need to be backed by hydro (which is
limited), storage (still not viable on a large scale) or easily adjustable
power plants.

And that's where coal comes in. Germany is actually building new throttlable
coal plants in order to complement their renewables. It is a good economic
choice: they have a lot of locally available lignite, and it has little export
value, so they might as well use it for themselves. It is also good for
national sovereignty because they don't depend on imports. Unfortunately, it
is also the worst possible fuel when it comes to CO2 emissions, that's why
they fare rather poorly despite all their renversables.

Nuclear has no place in their strategy. With their renewables+coal, they don't
really need the base load capabilities nuclear powers. Nuclear plants can be
throttled to some extent but in order for them to be economically viable, they
need to be as close to 100% as possible due to their high capital costs.

~~~
xxgreg
A commission has been set up to plan for the phase-out of coal in Germany.
Seems like all agree coal will be phased out, the debate is more around the
timescale, and compensation for those affected.

[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-coal-
exi...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-coal-exit-
commission)

"Today, the Federal Cabinet decided to establish the Commission on Growth,
Structural Change and Employment. By December 2018, the Commission will
prepare a roadmap for the phase-out of coal, which will ensure that the
short-, medium- and long-term climate targets are achieved. The Commission
will also submit proposals for structural development in the affected regions
that will serve to strengthen growth and employment."

[https://www.bmu.de/en/report/kommission-wachstum-
strukturwan...](https://www.bmu.de/en/report/kommission-wachstum-
strukturwandel-und-beschaeftigung-nimmt-arbeit-auf/)

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not2b
While nuclear power has its problems (particularly for waste disposal), they
should slow down the phasing out of nuclear and speed up the phasing out of
coal: coal burning is much more of an environmental threat than nuclear power
is.

~~~
nicodjimenez
This is the common dogma but I'm not so sure. Assume it takes 50 years to
figure out how to get infinite solar power in space. In the meantime, would
you prefer higher temperatures and more fires, or a lot more nuclear waste?
C02 levels and global temperatures will be easily reversible once we have
infinite energy. However even in a world with infinite energy, nuclear waste
will still be extremely dangerous, for basically an indefinite amount of time.

~~~
FreakyT
Nuclear waste can be buried away (relatively) harmlessly, while higher global
temperatures and the extreme weather + fire they cause represent a large-scale
potentially irreversible environmental alteration. I know which I'd pick.

~~~
melling
Does Bill Gates’ TerraPower use nuclear waste?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower)

~~~
justin66
Depleted uranium is waste or otherwise a byproduct of production of enriched
uranium, yes.

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gok
This is kind of goofy accounting. They clump all hydroelectric, solar, and
wind together into one category, then split up brown coal, black coal, and gas
into individual categories.

Still, well done, Germany.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Yeah, it's really difficult for people to understand how much fossil fuel is
still used today with all the headlines of 100% renewable here and there. Even
that almost always means 100% of electricity, which is generally 40% of total
energy, the rest being heating and transportation (very fossil dominated).

This is great progress but we're not out of the woods. We need all the low-
carbon energy we can get, and quite urgently. This leaves no room to rule
unpopular but quantifiably safe and clean sources like nuclear.

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rossdavidh
For Germany, renewables is not just an environmental issue, it's a national
security issue. Being dependent on, say, Russia and Ukraine agreeing on how to
send natural gas to Germany, is not something you want to rely on.

~~~
llukas
Nordstream pipe fixed that issue few years ago.

~~~
indemnity
Not if you regard Russia as an unreliable energy supplier.

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_rpd
*main electrical energy source. Like other developed nations, electricity is < 15% of Germany's primary energy consumption.

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Lurkars
Problem here is, that it is 40% of German customers using renewable energy,
but the overflow in energy produced in Germany is simply exported, so you can
not calculate that less non-renewable energy is produced. It's the same with
diesel cars, you can sell your old car with bonuses etc in Germany, but the
car don't get off the road, it gets sold to other countries and drives there
with same pollution. So Germany is lowering it's own emissions by just export
them. Globally seen, nothing improves.

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xupybd
How are they dealing with energy storage and peak demand. I don't see how they
are going to get there with solar and wind. Without some kind of big buffer in
the system to smooth out the peaks in demand and the lows in production.

~~~
wsy
Hydroelectric power stations are already used as environment-friendly energy
storage: if there is a surplus of energy, water is pumped into the reservoir.
During peak demand, the power station provides additional electric energy.

There are long-term considerations to increase this capacity significantly by
including hydroelectric power stations in Scandinavia, as part of a European
grid.

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xvilka
They should have invested in new nuclear research too. Too bad that populism
efficiently killed any future of nuclear power in Germany. I hope that France
will be wiser.

