Comment by cyberax

Comment by cyberax 9 hours ago

Germany will come around when their Green ship comes aground.

Probably within the next ~5 years. The coal phaseout will happen, but only by replacing it with natural gas. It will result in the last easily achievable reduction in CO2, but it will also increase the already sky-high energy prices in Germany.

After that? There's nothing. There are no credible plans that will result in further CO2 reductions. The noises about "hydrogen" or "power to gas" will quiet rapidly once it becomes clear that they are financially not feasible.

_aavaa_ 9 hours ago

The data does not back up this narrative: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun...

The share of electricity production that coal lost is primarily take up by wind and solar, not gas.

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cyberax 8 hours ago

The devil is in the details. The easy part is now done, and further significant increases in solar/wind in Germany are not going to happen.
Renewables now dominate generation during the optimal periods, but there's nothing on the horizon for other times.
Your graph also ignores energy used for heating and for industrial processes. Their electrification is now stalled by high energy prices.

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- _aavaa_ 8 hours ago
  
  > not going to happen … nothing on the horizon for other times
  Batteries and storage.
  > heating and for industrial
  That’s moving to goal posts. The discussion is about electricity.
  
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  cyberax 8 hours ago
  
  > Batteries and storage.
  Nearly useless for Germany. Some intraday storage will be helpful, but it will not strongly affect the wintertime fossil fuel consumption and the overall CO2 emissions.
  > That’s moving to goal posts. The discussion is about electricity.
  No. It's not moving goalposts. Switching from gas to electric heat pumps for heating is absolutely relevant here. It's now inhibited by the high _electricity_ prices ( https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-transition-cle... ). Ditto for the ICE to EV transition.
  The German government is now directly planning to pay around $20B in direct subsidies ( https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-pushes-17-billi... ) to build _gas_ power plants to alleviate some of that. I expect the final bill will be around $50B just for the new natural gas generation.
  Germany is also quietly reassuring investors that it's safe to build natural gas by extending the subsidies: https://www.energyconnects.com/news/renewables/2025/january/...
  As usual, actions speak louder than words.
  If you're willing, we can place long-term bets on that. I'd be delighted to lose, but I don't expect it.
  
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fundatus 8 hours ago

Coal phaseout is already 3+ years ahead of schedule in Germany without any government intervention because coal plants simply can't compete against renewables anymore.

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cyberax 6 hours ago

Yeah. It's so great that Germany has to directly pay for gas power plants.

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GLdRH 9 hours ago

Yeah, but we're Germans. We don't stop when it's reasonable, not when we want to follow an idea.

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