German electricity prices are so high because renewables need backup power plants and German law mandates that these plants (mostly coal and gas) are not allowed to operate unless wind and solar are unable to provide sufficient electricity.
Also, Germany‘s energy sector still accounts to 350 million tons CO2 emissions annually while France only accounts for 50 million tons CO2 p.a.
That’s the result of phasing out nuclear in Germany and over 70% nuclear in France in the electricity sector.
Unless you‘re Norway or Austria or any country with lots of hydropower, renewables are neither cheap nor do they significantly help to decarbonize the electricity sector.
> The Germans paid for it creating the market/industry. Vast amounts. [...] If the Germans keep voting green [...]
Your reply:
> That’s rather inaccurate. [...] German electricity prices are so high because [...] German law mandates that these plants are not allowed to operate unless wind and solar are unable to provide sufficient electricity
So what you're saying is, German lawmakers mandated the Germans pay for it...
Your comment seems to be making some odd argument about the expense, as if it should be cheap? The original commenter was pointing out exactly that: it costs. "The Germans paid..."
Germany spent a lot of money on renewables and they still ended up as one of the countries with the highest levels of CO2 in Europe. That said, it's not for nothing because while this is was a combination of a lot of mistakes, everyone else gets to learn from these mistakes. Other countries could simply cut emissions by replacing coal with gas, cheaply. Now they can switch to renewables at a much better price too since they've waited while Germany did a lot of the learning the hard way.
That is because renewables are cheap to make now and in the future. In the past they were not, and as a result we do not have the capacity to make them at the moment (and might not before it collapses).
I agree that currently nuclear makes sense as if there is political will it could be scaled up quickly and at the very least provide base power.
You can't directly compare Germany to France, as Germany largely privatised their grid whereas France's grid is largely government-run and -subsidised.
German electricity prices are so high because renewables need backup power plants and German law mandates that these plants (mostly coal and gas) are not allowed to operate unless wind and solar are unable to provide sufficient electricity.
Also, Germany‘s energy sector still accounts to 350 million tons CO2 emissions annually while France only accounts for 50 million tons CO2 p.a.
That’s the result of phasing out nuclear in Germany and over 70% nuclear in France in the electricity sector.
Unless you‘re Norway or Austria or any country with lots of hydropower, renewables are neither cheap nor do they significantly help to decarbonize the electricity sector.