Consumers In Germany Were Paid To Use Electricity This Holiday Season (inhabitat.com) 262
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inhabitat: The cost of electricity in Germany has decreased so dramatically in the past few days that major consumers have actually been paid to use power from the grid. While "negative pricing" is not an everyday occurrence in the country, it does occur from time to time, as it did this holiday weekend. This gift to energy consumers is the result of hundreds of billions of dollars invested in renewable energy over the past two decades. This most recent period of negative pricing was a result from warm weather, strong breezes, and the low demand typical of people gathering together to celebrate. Germany's temporary energy surpluses are a result of both low demand and variably high supply. Wind power typically makes up 12 percent of Germany's power consumption on a daily basis. However, on windy days, that percentage can easily multiply several times the average. The older segment of Germany's energy portfolio, such as coal plants, are not able to lower output quickly enough. Thus, there is a glut of electricity. On Sunday, Christmas Eve, major energy consumers, such as factory owners, were being paid more than 50 euros (~$60) per megawatt-hour consumed. Further reading: The New York Times
Not a single consumer was paid anything (Score:2, Insightful)
The title is misleading and typical greenwash propaganda.
Germany has one of the highest energy price on the world and even in times when the wind blows consumers pay a premium. Prices here only have one direction - upwards and the sky is the limit.
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Prices here only have one direction - upwards and the sky is the limit.
Maybe you could create an energy marketplace where brokers would buy electricity in one region and sell it at a premium in another region. You could call it Einron.
Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West (Score:4, Informative)
Germans pay more [worldatlas.com] for power than almost every other Western country. That fact was conveniently left out of the push piece in the submitted story.
Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West (Score:5, Informative)
The wholesale price of electricity in Germany is about the same as the rest of Europe. Residential electric bills are mostly taxes and fees. You conveniently left that fact out.
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You're not helping your case by mentioning taxes and fees. Roughly half of those taxes and fees directly subsidizes [cleanenergywire.org] green energy. Much of Europe is heading down a similar path as you mentioned.
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Actually a part of it is just greed of the energy companies. The wholesale prices went down, the taxes will also go a bit down in 2018, but the end user prices are still going up - simply because most Germans can afford it.
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The taxes being absolute sums (and VAT isn't absolute, by the way) has nothing to do whatsoever with end user prices going up despite wholesale prices and the renewable energy surcharge going down.
Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only a failure of you selectively compare it to France, a country with a lot of really expensive and extremely heavily subsidised nuclear power. In fact it's so expensive that the French don't want it any more, leaving their energy companies to start leaching off other countries like the UK.
Germany started in a poor position. It's half way through its transition, so any proclamation of failure is premature. It's reduced its coal consumption, massively increased renewables, and built up a huge new industry with jobs and wealth.
Oh, and done something good for the planet too.
What is the alternative? Throw even more money at a dying technology like nuclear?
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How about rather than throwing money at it you attack the root cause of the costs. Nuclear power is actually incredibly cheap once you cut project overheads and investment risk out. Why do you think it was the great saviour of the 80s? Hint: it is cheap, and safer designs do not cost appreciably more.
Re: Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West (Score:5, Informative)
Bingo. French bills look low, but actually when you factor in the tax diverted to EDF and the other French energy companies, it's insanely expensive.
The French got fed up with it and it nearly bankrupted EDF. They were saved by ripping off other countries, e.g. the UK where they are getting all the usual subsidies plus a guaranteed ultra high price per MWh and Chinese investment. Yeah, a critical part of the UK power supply is owned by the French and Chinese, and we are paying them handsomely for the privilege.
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French bills look low, but actually when you factor in the tax diverted to EDF and the other French energy companies, it's insanely expensive.
Please cite your source. This is just a fabricated rationalization. Frances nuclear plants have been paid for for quite some time. Not only is Germany subsidizing power at higher rates than anyone else, they are trying to figure out how to pay for it outside of the rate structure, including added taxes;
https://www.cleanenergywire.or... [cleanenergywire.org]
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Germany does not pollute more. Germany uses close to half as much electricity as the US per capita (7.1MWh vs 12.96MWh per year). Germany produces almost a third of the electricity from renewable sources. A little over half is from fossil fuels (including natural gas). The rest is nuclear. The US gets close to two thirds of its electricity from fossil fuels and only 15% from renewables. The remaining 20% are nuclear. The Per capita, the US consumes far more electricity from fossil fuels than Germany consume
Re:Germany 2nd Most Expensive Power in the West (Score:5, Informative)
You are right that Germany pollutes more than France (but don't judge too quickly: CO2 per capita is still far lower than for the US). It was a mistake to first shut down existing nuclear plants instead of coal. But this does not imply that the energy transition with its push towards renewables has failed. Only the effect on coal and CO2 has been delayed. But in 2017 you can already clearly see how renewables start to cut also into lignite and coal:
lignite 155.1 (2007) 148.0 (2017)
coal 142.0 (2007) 94.2 (2017)
nuclear 140.5 (2007) 75.9 (2017)
renewables 88.3 (2007) 216.6 (2017)
net exports 19.1 (2007) 54.0 (2017)
numbers in TWh, source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen... [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
Just by looking at the actual numbers, one can easily see how many statements about the energy transition you can find in the internet a completely wrong. I can only recommend to look at actual numbers and build your own opinion.
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Not sure where those numbers come from, and what amount of taxes it includes, but the 0.19€ that sites lists for 2017 is WAY OFF ... typical prices are in the range of 0.25 and 0.28 per kWh with all the taxes etc ... plus additional fees on that (meters, etc.)
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Which has nothing much to do with the actual cost of renewables, German residential consumers pay:
For the electricity (under 1/5th of the total)
Grid Fee (excessively high)
VAT (value added tax, VALUE?!??!)
Concession fee (WTF?)
Renewables Surcharge (excessively high)
Electricity tax (would you like some tax to go with you're taxed tax)
CHP surcharge (they're just making shit up now)
Other Surcharges (Yes, more surcharges, plural)
composition-average-german-household-power-price-2006-2017.png (PNG Image, 1132 x 800 [cleanenergywire.org]
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Rubbish, we have a high percentage renewables here in the UK and our electricity costs very close to half of that. Wind is cheap. Solar is getting cheap.
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Rubbish, we have a high percentage renewables here in the UK and our electricity costs very close to half of that. Wind is cheap. Solar is getting cheap.
In 2016, renewables made up about 8.9% total UK energy consumption. That includes hydro and biomass. Wind was about 4%, Solar about 1%. Conversely, in Germany , Wind was about 15% and solar about 5% annual generation. So that puts Germany about 4 times UK in terms of solar and wind percentage, plus Germany is a bigger producer and user.
Systemic cost goes up significantly with higher penetration, which is why Germany is struggling to pay for Energiewinde. Transmission upgrades along with backup asset cost
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UK:
"Despite a recent rise in wholesale prices, which were blamed for one small energy supplier going bust last month, the average household energy bill was down 4.6% in 2016, to £1,237."
Germany:
"Germans respond by saving energy
Monthly energy costs, which include heating, electricity and petrol, amounted to almost 280 euros in 2014 for an average German 3-person household, according to the Renewable Energies Agency (AEE). Petrol had the biggest share, followed by heating. Costs for power amounted
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What is your point? My statements still stand. Why are you conflating other energy costs when we are talking about the high electricity cost in Germany?
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You're the one who said something about renewables being 9% of *energy* usage - it's certainly not 9% of electricity usage, renewables accounts for well over double that.
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The numbers are even higher this year - wind power in Germany was the #2 electrical power source at 18.3%. Total renewables are at 38%. Let's see whether we can reach 45% next year.
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"Germans pay more [worldatlas.com] for power than almost every other Western country. That fact was conveniently left out of the push piece in the submitted story."
Indeed, But in a few years that will lead to no more nukes nor coal plants, saving thousands of lives each year because of emissions alone.
While other countries 'take the coal and clean it'.
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I really start to be annoyed by the stupidity of this argument, because you conveniniently left out a couple of facts:
- This high price is not only due to the energy transition. In fact, the price increase due to the renewables levy is 6.74 Euro Cents in 2017. There are other reasons, why the price of electricity is high in Germany: For example, it maintains one of the most reliable grids.
- Other power sources got (and still get) a huge a mount of subsides paid from general taxes. While this did not affect
Misleading (Score:3, Interesting)
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Doubled, really?
https://www.cleanenergywire.or... [cleanenergywire.org]
Doesn't seem like double the 2007 price.
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Since when is +50% the same as x2?
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Since when is +50% the same as x2?
Well, it depends on your point of view if the price in 2007 was 50% of what it is now then it has doubled, if the price is now what it was in 2007 plus 50% of what it was then the price has gone up by 34%. The actual electricity price increase in Germany since 2007 is more like 27-8%. This is not wildly different from what has happened to energy prices in the US since 2005. The difference being that Germany built renewables while the USA built coal and gas and blamed price hikes due to rising extraction cos
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The ultimate test will be of energy prices in the US fall dramatically due to Trump's anti-environmental polices.
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
The ultimate test will be of energy prices in the US fall dramatically due to Trump's anti-environmental polices.
The real test of all of this has actually happened in the Gulf. The Arabs are actually pumping oil and gas around with solar power because it is cheaper than generating electricity by burning gas, so they stopped burning gas, sold it off and pocketed the difference... that's writing on a wall, ... large amounts of wall street money moving into renewables is writing on a wall. You'll know renewables are winning when the average price of solar & wind per kWh dips below that of gas in Europe and N-America and it is about to do that (according to Bloomberg it already is [bloomberg.com]). What you are seeing in those graphs is the natural gas and coal industries with their ever increasing extraction costs at war with renewables and their ever decreasing production prices due to ever increasing economy of scale and it was Germany who played a large part in setting that off with it's Energiewende. Form the point of view of a renewables enthusiast the fun is only beginning now. Germany and China are going to be the biggest players in the renewables techology scene and from their point of view Donald Trump and his presidency is a 4-8 year grace period to leave their American competitors behind as they struggle to defend themselves against Trump's efforts to put them out of business. Just watching the US delegations show up at these energy technology and climate conferences and giving presentations about how coal and gas are the future are regarded as comedy performances, people are actually laughing at these people.
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Except, the US energy prices in the US will fall despite Trump's anti-environmental polices. This because the deployment of renewables will continue regardless of Trump. Nevertheless, Trump will claim it as a victory.
No, clearly +50% is percentage of OLD amount (Score:2)
I would beg to differ on your attempted "it depends on what you mean"-type excuse for misinterpreting what is generally a socially accepted translation of those words into a mathematically expressible meaning.
While your statement that "if the price in 2007 was 50% of what it is now then it has doubled" is, by itself, correct, this is not at all what GGP said. Saying that
This is in continental Europe (Score:2)
Can't they sell the surplus to bordering countries? Seems like they could get some sort of rebate from the extra power generation.
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They want to export too.
The good power deals that got done was for West Germany and communist eastern Europe.
Poor nations sold their power to West Germany at a low price while their own people did without energy.
A lot of the heavy energy use domestically has also been lost by the EU to exporting nations like China, South Korea, Japan.
Re: This is in continental Europe (Score:2, Informative)
The grid most certainly is interconnected as Germany usually gets a substantial amount of electricity from the French. But France was probably also consuming little electricity on Christmas Eve. And the grid can only transfer so much electricity anyway.
How does anyone even find this out at the time? (Score:2)
Re: How does anyone even find this out at the time (Score:3, Informative)
Re: How does anyone even find this out at the time (Score:2)
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Computers are pretty good at that sort of thing.
It is still early days, but as the car fleet goes electric you can imagine people keeping only charging a couple of commutes worth as a minimum, and topping up only when rates are low. If house batteries take off, they would also enable market-driven demand smoothing. Every household would be a power trading bot.
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That is terrifying.
And they overpaid at that. (Score:3, Insightful)
We want and need cheap and dependable power, not expensive and erratic power.
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Now only if we had dependable, constant power demand, not erratic demand!
Much unlike "regular" consumers ... (Score:2)
Unlike large companies, the regular consumer in Germany doesn't profit from the ever decreasing cost of electricity ... prices keep going up, despite the falling prices on the energy market. Thanks to guaranteed prices for producers of renewable energy, the EEG-Umlage (Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz, renewable energy law) - which is something like an additional tax - has increased from about 0.02€/kWh to almost 0.07€/kWh between 2010 and 2017. Interestingly, this tax doesn't have to be paid by "energ
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Slight correction, typical prices are in the range of 0.25-0.28€/kWh ... still high enough ...
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An article to piss just about everyone off (Score:3)
If your a libertarian you'll hate this:
composition-average-german-household-power-price-2006-2017.png (PNG Image, 1132 x 800 pixels) [cleanenergywire.org]
If you're left wing you'll hate that too.
If you're right wing you'll hate all of the renewables stuff.
German is doing a remarkable job of making renewables look bad, their public pay insane amounts whilst electricity gets offered for free or less to factories when they're all closed for Christmas.
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https://www.lp.org/issues/taxe... [lp.org]
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The solution is BitCoin (Score:2)
All excess power generation should be used to mine BC. What's not to like?
German Consumers were NOT paid to use electricity (Score:2)
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Hey, coal is also a renewable!
... given a long-enough timeframe.
Re:Nothing to do with renewables (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the conditions for coal cannot be repeated naturally. Coal formed before microbes evolved the ability to break down the hard cellulose of trees. This is long before terminates as well, which broke down trees in forests. Theoretically some coal can still form in the existing peat bogs, but new peat bogs cannot be formed either.
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Actually the conditions for coal cannot be repeated naturally. Coal formed before microbes evolved the ability to break down the hard cellulose of trees. This is long before terminates as well, which broke down trees in forests. Theoretically some coal can still form in the existing peat bogs, but new peat bogs cannot be formed either.
There appears to be a fungus that also breaks down lignum developing and essentially ending the carboniferous age - or at least the coal forming part of it.
We have what would be a peat bog a bit north of where I live, in a lake. But instead of forming peat, it's a fine source of methane gas.
Re:Nothing to do with renewables (Score:5, Interesting)
There appears to be a fungus that also breaks down lignum developing and essentially ending the carboniferous age - or at least the coal forming part of it.
The carboniferous age lasted about 60 million years, from 360 Mya to 300 Mya, and during that time a lot of undigested wood turned into coal. Enough CO2 was sucked out of the atmosphere to trigger a major ice age.
A fungus finally figured out how to digest lignin, in a process described by biochemists as "untying a knot with a flamethrower". The same process is still used by fungi today, pretty much unaltered. By stopping the carbon-and-ice death spiral, these little fungi saved the planet. Without them, even the dinosaurs would have never existed. If you want to show your gratitude, go to a Chinese restaurant and order some "mu er" (wood ear). Some people think they are slimy and don't care for the taste, while others (including me) love'em. But while you are chewing, remember that you wouldn't even exist without the little critters.
Evolution and cellulosic ethanol production (Score:4, Insightful)
A fungus finally figured out how to digest lignin, in a process described by biochemists as "untying a knot with a flamethrower". The same process is still used by fungi today, pretty much unaltered.
To add to this description, the way the knot is "tied" is that wood is a cellulose-in-lignin composite, in which the lignin is a combinatorial polymer -- the plant uses several different monomers that are sort-of randomly put together, giving you a very large number of possible products, making it impossible for any reasonably-sized set of enzymes to tackle. As Shanghai Bill described it, the eventual fungal solution was to start by pumping a blast of free radicals into the lignin, breaking it up into fragments that were more amendable to further processing.
This also points to a fundamental problem with the development of cellulosic ethanol [wikipedia.org] -- we haven't managed to speed up the fermentation process much, because wood and other plant structural materials are the end result of a eons-long evolutionary stalemate between plants and microbes. There simply aren't any easy molecular biology shortcuts for digesting it; all approaches appear to have been well-balanced between biological costs incurred by the defender and the attacker.
Of course, maybe we can get around the problem by circumventing the rules of the game. For instance, bulk physical treatment process can pre-degrade plant material (physical conditions aren't accessible to microbes because of scale or biological compatibility, but engineers will still need to make the cost and energy consumption of the process economically worthwhile). Or, genetically engineering plants to produce easily degraded lignins (but this means your biomass crops have unilaterally disarmed one of their defense mechanisms).
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I don't quite understand, why can't new peat bogs be formed nowadays?
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I don't quite understand, why can't new peat bogs be formed nowadays?
Peat is considered a very slowly renewable energy source. It is formed in wet acidic and anaerobic conditions, which slow down the decay process. The peat forming waters that I refer to are in a lake, at the shallow areas, just deep enough to canoe through. The plant material is mostly the remains of various water lilies, some of which have substantial plant mass. Every year, new mass is formed. The water has a lot of tannin in it, and is acidic. So the biomass at the bottom decomposes very slowly. This is
Re:Nothing to do with renewables (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is where Tesla's coming in with their massive battery installations.. and likely other companies soon enough given Tesla's success with them (though I don't know the economics yet but that will come..) The batteries can balance out the unpredictability in near real-time, and compensate for the biggest drawback of renewables.
Of course its not all upsides. There's extra space required to house all of those batteries, you have to account for the manufacturing of the batteries when determining the relative cost of renewables vs traditional power generation, and of course they're very new so its possible that we haven't yet discovered all of the potential failure modes that could arise when we start relying on them to large extents like that.
Re:Nothing to do with renewables (Score:5, Informative)
Which is where Tesla's coming in with their massive battery installations.
Batteries are very expensive for grid storage. A better option is to widen the grid, so a peak in one area can fill in a trough in other areas.
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That's exactly what Europe has done, except now people are saying "hurrrr Germany needs France to keep the lights on!!1"
Yeah, they do. By design.
On a related note, the UK government's assessment of the interconnection with the EU post Brexit basically amounts to "electricity is important in modern Britain." Great insight.
Re:Nothing to do with renewables (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Conversely, France needs Germany to keep the lights on when their nukes cannot reliably provide (too hot, too cold, too much load - their availability is on average less than 80% and their installed capacity is just 2/3 of the peak demand). One hand washes the other.
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Not really. Germany has so many plants, it exports still even when it is dark and there is no wind (Dunkelflaute). One could easily shut down some coal plants.
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I am talking about the worst case scenario with no light and wind. As for example, in January this year there were several days where this was the case. This is not unusual. But even then - in contrast to what many slashdotters seem to believe - Germany was still able to export (net exports) electricity at all times during January. At no time - even during high demand - was the amount of imports bigger than the exports. The idea that Germany would somehow depend on nuclear power from France is simply a myth
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There are times, like France, when they import more than they export. Those are not very often but they happen.
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You are kidding, right? France had historically lots of issues with plants being off line (planned and unplanned). Most famously, during the major health crisis caused by the heat wave of 2003. Most recently, this year in January and November. It deals with this problems by importing power from elsewhere (e.g. from Germany) but it is generally considered a major issue, especially because it has an aging nuclear fleet and also because heat wave are expected to become more common. If other neighboring countr
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Germany emits almost twice as much [wikipedia.org] CO2 per capita as France. Hard to call that a success.
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France still plans to reduce nuclear to 50% - just not already by 2025 as planned by the old government.
http://www.mining-journal.com/... [mining-journal.com]
While France exports a huge amount of electricity, this is mostly cheap surplus electricity at times of low demand. At times of high demand or many plants are down (e.g. during heat wave), it often critically depends on imports. In contrast, in the last years this was never the case for Germany.
http://energypost.eu/france-ca... [energypost.eu]
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
But even in
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"Batteries are very expensive for grid storage. A better option is to widen the grid, so a peak in one area can fill in a trough in other areas."
They already do that, they export power to Austria and Switzerland (for free or negative prices) their nuke owners have already complained multiple times of the 'unfair competition'.
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They could make even more money if they could do cryptocurrency mining while the car was idle.
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Battery storage facilities are currently outside and not in buildings so access is not an issue.
You mean GWh (Gigawatt-hours) of storage. Gigawatts is a term meaning power (Joules per second). Scientifically speaking, energy should use the term Joules but the non-standard term kWh was used by the energy generating sector and has stuck in daily usage which causes confusion of GWh versus GW. You could say GWh is a marketing term.
Just like the confusion over calories (Cal) versus kilo-calories kcal). 1 Cal = 1
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The same way you deal with a fire in a building with several hundred tons of coal, or a warehouse filled with oil barrels?
Nice FUD. It turns out that energy-dense materials are energetic, no matter what form.
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Re:Nothing to do with renewables (Score:4, Interesting)
"A huge amount of subsidized renewables."
The latest batch of offshore wind turbines are not subsidized at all, the companies didn't want the money.
"Offshore Wind Farms Offer Subsidy-Free Power for First Time"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
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The latest batch of offshore wind turbines are not subsidized at all, the companies didn't want the money.
Not true. That Bloomberg article is quite poor analysis for an alleged financial services company.
The approved projects for offshore wind turbines in the North Sea will not enjoy any construction subsidies, but they will enjoy plenty of operating subsidies in the form of Germany's absurdly high energy taxes that go to operators of renewables. If they weren't going to be selling in to Germany's energy market, these projects would still not be viable.
Presumably economies of scale and efficiencies of install
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Answer: on-demand bitcoin mining! Use up all the extra generation and get paid twice to do it!
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Okay. Tell that to the eastern provinces of Germany. Or really any part of Germany, when they realize that CNG in their part of the world will come from Gazprom.
The renewables aren't just about getting off coal. They're about getting off Russian energy supplies, and away from Russian price manipulation.
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Nations in free Europe and the Soviet Union worked on a gas network. The network was built and nations in free Europe could then buy gas if they wanted.
The Soviet Union delivered a set amount of gas for a set price. No changes to the price after the contract by the Soviet Union.
Russia now delivers a set amount of gas at a price nations in free Europe want to pay for.
The gas flows from Russia as agreed and then new contracts are agreed on.
Russia cannot do retroactiv
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The renewables aren't just about getting off coal. They're about getting off Russian energy supplies, and away from Russian price manipulation.
If the price was going to be too much for nations in free Europe they are free to not sign the next contract and consider the costs of new gas imports with ships.
Firstly, you just confirmed what the said, the Russians set prices at what they want and tell people they can always freeze in the cold over the winter becaue as you know full well gas consumption would be hard to cover by sea routes. Russia uses gas as a political blackmail instrument so it's about more than just the gas prices, it's about politics and blackmail. Secondly, renewables are now getting cheaper than even natural gas, renewables are simply shaping up to be less expensive in every way so investi
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So if that was the case then why don't they build new pipelines to somewhere else?
Because gas in general is getting too expensive and you'd be better off spending your money on renewables, even the Wall Street banksters and the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf States are beginning to figure that out.
Or invest in other types of energy-production? Or start building houses with better insulation to reduce the heating-requirements >90%.
I think you'll find that this is what many N-European countries are doing. Both of these trends translate into bad news for Russia though since Putin relies on oil and gas money to pay for his war machine and buy popularity with the people.
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It is still a production problem... it just depends on what kind of production.
Wind, solar and hydro are all great, in theory. For all three, you can rather quickly turn down the level of generation by disabling some turbines, closing some water outlets/inlets, or pointing solar panels in other directions... but they come with their own problems: requiring the wind to be blowing, the sun to be shining and the water levels to be high enough... they are good for peak & ideal times, but less so for base lo
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The problem in Germany here is regulation to make things very simply for consumers that also produce power with a wind-mill. They are paid standard prices, so they can't be punished for producing power when the net is overloaded, so the wind-mills owned by consumers are never put into free-wheeling mode.
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"requiring the wind to be blowing, the sun to be shining and the water levels to be high enough."
While nukes need high enough levels of water in the cooling water river they use, which isn't' the case sometimes in summer so they have to shut down, or the water is already hooter than the law allows for using it as cooling and so they have to shut it down, while in winter it's frozen, so they have to shut it down...not to mention all those security inspections.
Ditto for the coal ones.
And remember, Germany us
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While nukes need high enough levels of water in the cooling water river they use, which isn't' the case sometimes in summer so they have to shut down,
This is a very rare occasion. For example, during summer heat waves in the US Northeast, it is nuclear plants that keep the lights one while almost no wind is producing. One plant out of many reducing output is very different than the entire wind output of Germany falling because of low wind conditions.
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Nuclear is not as straight forward as you say. You also want your fuel to be used evenly, have to take into account the level of fission products in the reactor, etc. Nuclear is also less reliable than solar and wind, so you also have to plan for sudden unplanned loss of power sources. There is also a weather factor for nuclear as nuclear plants depend on water for cooling, so if water levels are too low or it becomes too hot, it does not work. The later is the reason France depends on Germany for power an
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Coal and Gas plants have to be powered up and down slowly, in order to all the components to heat up and cool down gradually and avoid any heat stress that could cause metal fatigue.
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Would it not make more sense to say, make it "Free electricity night" and instead of sending out rebates, buy batteries to solve the problem once and for all? Don't dump the energy, save it for lower production days.
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Nuclear is pretty straight forward... rods go in or out and affect the amount of heat generated.
Well, maybe your uncle should go back to university or get some remedial courses in nuclear engineering. Yes, nuclear reactors are controlled with control rods. And yes, if all goes according to plan, you can quickly shut the chain reaction down. But you cannot quickly vary the output of the reactor. First, because this leads to the build-up of undesirable fission products ("neutron poisons"), and secondly, because there is a large amount of residual decay heat. Nuclear powerplants typically provide base lo
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The rate goes negative because the energy supplier needs to pay someone to consume the surplus energy otherwise it costs the energy supplier even more money in trying to manage the surplus. Therefore, the rate goes below zero to make it attractive to someone to consume the energy, having free cost energy is not attractive enough.