6 ms·

Well said, but as the article goes on, it seems even with no technical hurdles this innovation seems dead in the water with policy. At least they're not doing w

Well said, but as the article goes on, it seems even with no technical hurdles this innovation seems dead in the water with policy. At least they're not doing what the Germans have done, shutting down coal power plants and buying Polish electrical generation... made with coal power plants.

Symbiote 2y ago
Germany is a net exporter of power to Poland.
- mahkeiro 2y ago
  Exactly, Germany in 2024 mainly import electricity from France, Denmark, Switzerland and Norway, which are all low carbon producers.
  - jabpattern7 2y ago
    It's strange to see Germany so against nuclear, but happily buying all that clean nuclear energy from it's neighbour. Nuclear accidents don't care about borders, you'd think if they really meant what they preached they'd boycott their closest nuclear plants aswell
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      It's "not in my backyard" politics, but Europe is full of that.
    - Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
      In bavaria, chernobyl was an event my parents generation fully experienced. It was very clear (especially when you watch the old reports, i did a presentation about this in school) people didn't know a lot about nuclear and how to act upon an accident. Kids were not allowed to play on playgrounds, food had to be washed etc. Even today if you shoot a dear, you have to check it for radiation! its not strange. And another reason why politics are stupid: Bavaria is reigned by the CSU. They have the majority for a very long time and the partner CDU was in power for over 16 years. None of them made any long term nuclear power strategy ever. No one cared to plan longterm enough at all. Building nuclear is not easy and its a lot harder in a country like germany were we want to be extra save. Even the newest europeon nuclear power plants take very long time. The last one took i think 18 years instead of 10?
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
Poland imports slightly more from Germany than it exports to it, and isn't in the top 5 countries that Germany imports electricity from.
- cocok 2y ago
  > Poland imports slightly more from Germany than it exports to it Why do they import/export the same product between each other? Honest question. In general, not just about Poland and Germany.
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    Because electricity is difficult to store, but because of how the grid works you always have to generate exactly as much as is used. Not electricity generation fluctuates (obvious with wind and solar; all plants need maintenance; nuclear often has to shut down in the summer either because rivers don't carry enough water or are so hot that feeding warm cooling water back into them endangers fish). Demand also heavily fluctuates both over the course of a day and with the seasons. Trading electricity over geographically large areas smoothes out some of these fluctuations and gives you more options to deal with planned outages
    - pyrale 2y ago
      > nuclear often has to shut down in the summer either because rivers don't carry enough water or are so hot that feeding warm cooling water back into them endangers fish). I don't believe this has much impact on Germany's export patterns: in fact, summer is usually the time scheduled maintenance is planned in France, because electricity usage is much lower during summer than during winter. So there's still a lot of wiggle room before France ends up being forced to import in the summer because of that phenomenon. The main driver for import/export patterns are different consumer patterns (not all countries have the same daily load curve - for instance, France and Spain both benefit a lot from trading because France's peak use time is an hour ahead of Spain's) and renewables availability.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
therealrootuser 2y ago
Oh this is the oldest trick in the book. If you need to greenwash, then just burn the coal somewhere else. Easy. Los Angeles has been doing this for decades - for years the largest single energy source for LAPW has been an 1800MW coal burning plant that they operated in Utah, which has very loose environmental regulations.
- bigiain 2y ago
  I sometimes wonder how directly some of the big flashy renewable energy projects in Australia are funded by coal exports to China...
  - adrianN 2y ago
    I was under the impression that China had large coal deposits of its own. Do they really import a lot of coal?
    - shakna 2y ago
      Yes, but not for power generation. The majority of Australia's coal exports are metallurgical coal, for manufacturing. Australia owns about 58% of the global trade for metallurgical coal, which means everyone imports it from us.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    But it's offset by Australia being able to validate approaches e.g. South Australia's battery.
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      Yeah, unlike e.g. European countries or US states, Australia is an island and they can't import / export electricity or connect grids easily.
- onedognight 2y ago
  Interesting. It is as bad as you say (21% coal), but after a decade of planning, coal is about to be phased out next year[0]. > The Agency planned to build the third unit of 900 MW capacity. This unit was expected to go online in 2012; however, the project was cancelled after its major purchaser, the city of Los Angeles, decided to become coal-free by 2020. [0] > The plant includes a HVDC converter. It is scheduled in 2025 for replacement with an 840 MW natural gas plant, designed to also burn "green hydrogen."[0] (released by the electrolysis of water, using renewably generated electricity) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Power_Plant [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Water_and_Power https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Wa...
dyauspitr 2y ago
It’s short term measures while it transitions to a heavily renewable based energy system. Aren’t they currently at 60%+ renewable and are aiming to be 80% by 2030? Claims of greenwashing with those stats is disingenuous.
- mahkeiro 2y ago
  A part of the increasing of the renewable share in Germany electricity production is also the result of a decrease in total electricity production. In 2017 Germany was producing 560 TWh (with 138TWh solar + wind) vs 430TWh (with 192TWh solar + wind) in 2023 and probably even less this year. That's why Germany is importing electricity.
  - Loic 2y ago
    These are very informative numbers one reads nowhere in the news. From destatis[0], we go from 608 in 2019 to 514TWh in 2023. So not the same absolute values, but same trend. Thank you. [0]: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Erzeugung/Tabellen/bruttostromerzeugung.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ...
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      We often read equivalent figures in the British news, as it shows the energy efficiency push of the last 30 years has reduced power use, leaving space for charging electric vehicles.
      - pyrale 2y ago
        Efficiency, sure, but also industry getting wiped out.
        Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
        Industry which didn't care for investing into energy at all. For a car its btw. 1%
fransje26 2y ago
> At least they're not doing what the Germans have done, shutting down coal power plants and buying Polish electrical generation... made with coal power plants. And shutting down nuclear power plants and buying French electricity.. ..made with nuclear power plants. Strong the hypocrisy is with this one.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  But hey they're doing their part, right? This is the flaw in European and international agreements, they're still done on a per-country basis instead of EU or a continental basis.
Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
You simplify the state of german power import/export. We did reduce the coal burning from 45% to 23% and not by 'just importing it from poland'. We importet AND exportet 3 tWh 2023. And the overall renewable energy part has increased to 25%

Symbiote 2y ago

Germany is a net exporter of power to Poland.

mahkeiro 2y ago
Exactly, Germany in 2024 mainly import electricity from France, Denmark, Switzerland and Norway, which are all low carbon producers.
- jabpattern7 2y ago
  It's strange to see Germany so against nuclear, but happily buying all that clean nuclear energy from it's neighbour. Nuclear accidents don't care about borders, you'd think if they really meant what they preached they'd boycott their closest nuclear plants aswell
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    It's "not in my backyard" politics, but Europe is full of that.
  - Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
    In bavaria, chernobyl was an event my parents generation fully experienced. It was very clear (especially when you watch the old reports, i did a presentation about this in school) people didn't know a lot about nuclear and how to act upon an accident. Kids were not allowed to play on playgrounds, food had to be washed etc. Even today if you shoot a dear, you have to check it for radiation! its not strange. And another reason why politics are stupid: Bavaria is reigned by the CSU. They have the majority for a very long time and the partner CDU was in power for over 16 years. None of them made any long term nuclear power strategy ever. No one cared to plan longterm enough at all. Building nuclear is not easy and its a lot harder in a country like germany were we want to be extra save. Even the newest europeon nuclear power plants take very long time. The last one took i think 18 years instead of 10?

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

Poland imports slightly more from Germany than it exports to it, and isn't in the top 5 countries that Germany imports electricity from.

cocok 2y ago
> Poland imports slightly more from Germany than it exports to it Why do they import/export the same product between each other? Honest question. In general, not just about Poland and Germany.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Because electricity is difficult to store, but because of how the grid works you always have to generate exactly as much as is used. Not electricity generation fluctuates (obvious with wind and solar; all plants need maintenance; nuclear often has to shut down in the summer either because rivers don't carry enough water or are so hot that feeding warm cooling water back into them endangers fish). Demand also heavily fluctuates both over the course of a day and with the seasons. Trading electricity over geographically large areas smoothes out some of these fluctuations and gives you more options to deal with planned outages
  - pyrale 2y ago
    > nuclear often has to shut down in the summer either because rivers don't carry enough water or are so hot that feeding warm cooling water back into them endangers fish). I don't believe this has much impact on Germany's export patterns: in fact, summer is usually the time scheduled maintenance is planned in France, because electricity usage is much lower during summer than during winter. So there's still a lot of wiggle room before France ends up being forced to import in the summer because of that phenomenon. The main driver for import/export patterns are different consumer patterns (not all countries have the same daily load curve - for instance, France and Spain both benefit a lot from trading because France's peak use time is an hour ahead of Spain's) and renewables availability.
- Symbiote 2y ago

therealrootuser 2y ago

Oh this is the oldest trick in the book. If you need to greenwash, then just burn the coal somewhere else. Easy. Los Angeles has been doing this for decades - for years the largest single energy source for LAPW has been an 1800MW coal burning plant that they operated in Utah, which has very loose environmental regulations.

bigiain 2y ago
I sometimes wonder how directly some of the big flashy renewable energy projects in Australia are funded by coal exports to China...
- adrianN 2y ago
  I was under the impression that China had large coal deposits of its own. Do they really import a lot of coal?
  - shakna 2y ago
    Yes, but not for power generation. The majority of Australia's coal exports are metallurgical coal, for manufacturing. Australia owns about 58% of the global trade for metallurgical coal, which means everyone imports it from us.
- threeseed 2y ago
  But it's offset by Australia being able to validate approaches e.g. South Australia's battery.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Yeah, unlike e.g. European countries or US states, Australia is an island and they can't import / export electricity or connect grids easily.
onedognight 2y ago
Interesting. It is as bad as you say (21% coal), but after a decade of planning, coal is about to be phased out next year[0]. > The Agency planned to build the third unit of 900 MW capacity. This unit was expected to go online in 2012; however, the project was cancelled after its major purchaser, the city of Los Angeles, decided to become coal-free by 2020. [0] > The plant includes a HVDC converter. It is scheduled in 2025 for replacement with an 840 MW natural gas plant, designed to also burn "green hydrogen."[0] (released by the electrolysis of water, using renewably generated electricity) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Power_Plant [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Water_and_Power https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Wa...

dyauspitr 2y ago

It’s short term measures while it transitions to a heavily renewable based energy system. Aren’t they currently at 60%+ renewable and are aiming to be 80% by 2030? Claims of greenwashing with those stats is disingenuous.

mahkeiro 2y ago
A part of the increasing of the renewable share in Germany electricity production is also the result of a decrease in total electricity production. In 2017 Germany was producing 560 TWh (with 138TWh solar + wind) vs 430TWh (with 192TWh solar + wind) in 2023 and probably even less this year. That's why Germany is importing electricity.
- Loic 2y ago
  These are very informative numbers one reads nowhere in the news. From destatis[0], we go from 608 in 2019 to 514TWh in 2023. So not the same absolute values, but same trend. Thank you. [0]: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Erzeugung/Tabellen/bruttostromerzeugung.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ...
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    We often read equivalent figures in the British news, as it shows the energy efficiency push of the last 30 years has reduced power use, leaving space for charging electric vehicles.
    - pyrale 2y ago
      Efficiency, sure, but also industry getting wiped out.
      - Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
        Industry which didn't care for investing into energy at all. For a car its btw. 1%

fransje26 2y ago

> At least they're not doing what the Germans have done, shutting down coal power plants and buying Polish electrical generation... made with coal power plants. And shutting down nuclear power plants and buying French electricity.. ..made with nuclear power plants. Strong the hypocrisy is with this one.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
But hey they're doing their part, right? This is the flaw in European and international agreements, they're still done on a per-country basis instead of EU or a continental basis.

Ghaenergyyy 2y ago

You simplify the state of german power import/export. We did reduce the coal burning from 45% to 23% and not by 'just importing it from poland'. We importet AND exportet 3 tWh 2023. And the overall renewable energy part has increased to 25%