Like I said, let’s see the actual lifecycle numbers that include the total energy consumption per year, the energy costs of producing and maintaining the renewables, as well as the cost of energy storage for days when it’s not sunny or windy. The compare these totals with the renewable infrastructure outputs. You’re doing a lot of hand waving here.
I’m not changing any topics here. Let me try use simpler language to help you understand what’s being said. I challenge your claim that renewables alone are able to match Germany’s electricity production coming from fossil fuels today when you look at the totality of electricity consumption, the operating cost of renewable infrastructure, and the cost of energy storage.
I asked you to provide supporting sources for that claims you’re making. Now you’re weaseling as you always do. Please try for once to read and understand what others are writing :(
It truly pointless discussing with you if you do not even try to read what others are saying. I didn’t say anything of what you claim I did. I understand perfectly well what you are saying, but you are responding to things I never claimed, so how am I supposed to react to that?
This conveniently leaves out that the former & regional governments have been intentionally sabotaging wind and solar energy installations (and energy transfer capacity) on a massive scale in the last 15+ years.
The implication you’re making here is that the actual reason coal mines are being reopened is due to sabotage of wind and solar energy installations. Then you proceed to argue the following:
In the early 2000 they were on a good track to replace a large percentage of the coal electricity production with solar and wind energy, but then the new conservative government under Merkel took power and deliberately killed that off to please their big business energy producers.
And this is where I’m asking you to provide hard numbers for the claim that the plans from 2000, that Merkel derailed, would actually produce sustainable renewable infrastructure that would replace large percentage of fossils. I’m not sure why you keep weaseling here instead of actually substantiating your claims.
So despite yearly investments being halved after 2011, the percentage of renewable electricity production in Germany has reached more than 50%, replacing hard-coal and nuclear electricity production almost completely.
The second chart says “public electricity generation”, what does that refer to and what percentage of total electricity consumption does that account for. For example, does this include the share of electricity used in the industry or is this public usage in homes?
Net generation of power plants for public power supply.
Says the description. As far as I can tell this means all electricity supplied to the public grid, which includes industry unless they have their own private power-plant.
Ok, so assuming that’s what that means as it stands, renewables produce around half of electricity. The jump to 65% seems pretty ambitious given prior data.
However, as I’ve already noted, the real question is around the lifecycle costs of the renewable infrastructure. For example, wind turbine blades need to be regularly replaced. This means blades have to be manufactured, and delivered, and installed, while old blades need to be disposed of. All of this requires energy to do. If you just externalize these costs that creates a skewed picture.
Like I said, let’s see the actual lifecycle numbers that include the total energy consumption per year, the energy costs of producing and maintaining the renewables, as well as the cost of energy storage for days when it’s not sunny or windy. The compare these totals with the renewable infrastructure outputs. You’re doing a lot of hand waving here.
No, you are trying to change the topic and arguing against a strawman again. Please try for once to read and understand what others are writing :(
I’m not changing any topics here. Let me try use simpler language to help you understand what’s being said. I challenge your claim that renewables alone are able to match Germany’s electricity production coming from fossil fuels today when you look at the totality of electricity consumption, the operating cost of renewable infrastructure, and the cost of energy storage.
I asked you to provide supporting sources for that claims you’re making. Now you’re weaseling as you always do. Please try for once to read and understand what others are writing :(
It truly pointless discussing with you if you do not even try to read what others are saying. I didn’t say anything of what you claim I did. I understand perfectly well what you are saying, but you are responding to things I never claimed, so how am I supposed to react to that?
Let’s look back at what you actually said then:
The implication you’re making here is that the actual reason coal mines are being reopened is due to sabotage of wind and solar energy installations. Then you proceed to argue the following:
And this is where I’m asking you to provide hard numbers for the claim that the plans from 2000, that Merkel derailed, would actually produce sustainable renewable infrastructure that would replace large percentage of fossils. I’m not sure why you keep weaseling here instead of actually substantiating your claims.
Hard to find good English sources, but this presentation has a lot of graphs: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/news/2019/Stromerzeugung_2019_2.pdf (For example it shows that renewables have replaced hard-coal electricity production to a significant extend between 2002-2019)
They are mostly based on this interactive data platform, for example showing that the percentage of renewables has reached more than 50% of the total electricity production and keeps growing: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year&share=ren_share&legendItems=10 (during the first weeks of 2023 it was almost 65% !)
This article outlines that investments into renewables plummeted after 2010/11 due to changes of the Merkel government: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/share-citizen-energy-projects-decline-funding-runs-out-and-big-investors-take-over
So despite yearly investments being halved after 2011, the percentage of renewable electricity production in Germany has reached more than 50%, replacing hard-coal and nuclear electricity production almost completely.
The second chart says “public electricity generation”, what does that refer to and what percentage of total electricity consumption does that account for. For example, does this include the share of electricity used in the industry or is this public usage in homes?
Says the description. As far as I can tell this means all electricity supplied to the public grid, which includes industry unless they have their own private power-plant.
Ok, so assuming that’s what that means as it stands, renewables produce around half of electricity. The jump to 65% seems pretty ambitious given prior data.
However, as I’ve already noted, the real question is around the lifecycle costs of the renewable infrastructure. For example, wind turbine blades need to be regularly replaced. This means blades have to be manufactured, and delivered, and installed, while old blades need to be disposed of. All of this requires energy to do. If you just externalize these costs that creates a skewed picture.
Furthermore, as you yourself have noted, electricity production is only a small portion of the overall picture. Renewable share in gross final energy consumption reached only 19.2% in 2021: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/climate-energy/renewable-energies/renewable-energies-in-figures
So, overall picture is far less impressive.