
German voters would prefer a more ambitious timeline to phase out coal - ssijak
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0509-9
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manfredo
The crucial question that this article doesn't address is: replace coal with
what? Germany has been closing its nuclear plants, which has largely negated
the gains they've made in wind and solar. Once renewable generation during
peak production hours for solar and wind is saturated not much can be gained
from further increases in solar and wind capacity. The only alternative for
non-intermittent energy production (besides nuclear) is gas. And gas still
emits carbon, and creates energy dependency on Russia.

~~~
wffurr
Storage.

By building out storage, of which there is a plethora of possibilities, then
peak production from renewables can be stored and dispatched later.

Each unit of storage at that point can then displace some amount of baseline
generation like coal or nuclear.

~~~
izacus
What kind of storage though? Last I talked to some engineers at powerplants
here in EU, they said that pretty much all places where you can build high
efficiency storage (accumulation lakes / pumping powerplants) are already
taken and in use. Now they state of the art is considering even horribly
inefficient storage ( < 25% ) and that's going to require a lot of space and
resources.

~~~
cygx
Possibly power-to-gas. Methane production at 75% efficiency has been
demonstrated a while ago[1] and claims of potential round-trip efficencies of
up to 80% have been made[2].

This is relevant because Germany's existing gas infrastructure can store
several hundreds of TWh.

[1] [https://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2018_009_power-to-gas-
wit...](https://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2018_009_power-to-gas-with-high-
efficiency.php)

[2]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218320693)

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sddfd
The German voter is against coal (the young climate concious), against nuclear
(the old green party supporters), against wind (everyone when it appears in
their backyard), and the government killed solar in 2015 which resulted in
approximately 80000 lost jobs.

What the German voter doesn't want is to consume less and/or save energy.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

~~~
WA
Buy nuclear energy from France. That’s the reality.

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woodpanel
_although every €10 increase in annual household cost decreases voter support
by about seven percentage points._

The boldness of the article’s title doesn’t pair well with this hidden detail.

Phasing out coal, with nuclear already in the process of being phased out, is
going to be a multiple of those annual 10€.

------
sien
It's a pity the Russian propaganda against fracking has been so successful.

From an article over at an HN post :

The Russians also lobbied behind the scenes against shale gas, worried about
losing their grip on the world’s gas supplies. Unlike most conspiracy theories
about Russian meddling in Western politics, this one is out there in plain
sight. The head of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the Russians, as part of
a sophisticated disinformation operation, “engaged actively with so-called
non-governmental organisations — environmental organisations working against
shale gas — to maintain Europe’s dependence on imported Russian gas”.

The HN post is at:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21664593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21664593)

~~~
tauchunfall
If there is Russian propaganda against fracking is independent of the question
if there are health risks and environmental impacts associated with fracking.

------
narrator
Also, German voters want the bikeshed to be green.

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sydney6
Election Results don't appear to indicate this though.

~~~
cygx
The Greens nearly doubled their result in the European elections, coming in
second at 20.5% after the CDU at 28.9%.

They were up +4.6 points in Brandenburg and +2.9 points even in Saxony, making
them one of the very few parties that didn't massively lose voters to the
AfD...

~~~
sydney6
"very few parties that didn't massively lose voters to the AfD..."

I'm aware of the gains for the greens, but the simple truth is that there is
indeed also a more opposite and i fear more "long-ranging" effect that leads
to the rise of parties like the afd.

Similar to how many people are in favor of wind engery and at the same time
are against having a wind mill in their proximity.

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tomohawk
Has Nature come to this? Taking opinion polls and brandishing results?

Germans will get a more ambitious timeline by voting (or not). That's what
shows what they actually prefer.

