Wind, Solar Fulfill 10% of Global Electricity Demand For First Time (theregister.com) 270
In a global first, wind and solar energy combined to generate more than 10 percent of the world's electricity in 2021 -- though coal-fired power plant generation and emissions jumped to new highs in the same period, too. The Register reports: The 2022 Power Transition Trends report by Bloomberg New Energy Fund (BNEF) found that power generation emissions in general leapt up in 2021 as the global economy rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of that new power generation came from renewable sources, with wind and solar accounting for three quarters of capacity added in 2021. When accounting for hydro, nuclear, and other zero-carbon power sources, that number rises to 85 percent of 2021's new capacity.
Those gains were spoiled by a resurgence in coal-fired power plants, use of which BNEF said was up by a record 8.5 percent between 2020 and 2021. BNEF cites rapidly rebounding energy demand (which rose 5.6 percent year-on-year in 2021), reduced hydro generation due to droughts, and high natural gas prices in Europe as primary drivers of the coal surge. [...] For the first time since 2013, BNEF said in the report (PDF), "coal-fired power plants were the top contributor to top-line power generation growth." The report said that coal accounted for the majority of additional generation in 2021 -- not to be confused with newly added generation, of which coal was a small component.
Still, coal continues to occupy the largest single share of global electricity generation at 27 percent, and it may continue to rise in 2022 "as European nations seek short-term solutions to compensate for droughts and extremely high gas prices," BNEF said. While European coal plants might be earning the blame, they aren't responsible for most of the coal generation, BNEF said. That honor belongs to three countries that account for 63 percent of burned coal: China, India, and the United States. China holds the crown for coal-fired power generation, accounting for 52 percent of total coal usage in the world. India accounts for 11 percent of coal, while the US burns approximately 9 percent. The US could see itself slip out of the top three, however, as BNEF said it's the only country in the top 10 coal burners to reduce its coal generation since the beginning of the decade.
Those gains were spoiled by a resurgence in coal-fired power plants, use of which BNEF said was up by a record 8.5 percent between 2020 and 2021. BNEF cites rapidly rebounding energy demand (which rose 5.6 percent year-on-year in 2021), reduced hydro generation due to droughts, and high natural gas prices in Europe as primary drivers of the coal surge. [...] For the first time since 2013, BNEF said in the report (PDF), "coal-fired power plants were the top contributor to top-line power generation growth." The report said that coal accounted for the majority of additional generation in 2021 -- not to be confused with newly added generation, of which coal was a small component.
Still, coal continues to occupy the largest single share of global electricity generation at 27 percent, and it may continue to rise in 2022 "as European nations seek short-term solutions to compensate for droughts and extremely high gas prices," BNEF said. While European coal plants might be earning the blame, they aren't responsible for most of the coal generation, BNEF said. That honor belongs to three countries that account for 63 percent of burned coal: China, India, and the United States. China holds the crown for coal-fired power generation, accounting for 52 percent of total coal usage in the world. India accounts for 11 percent of coal, while the US burns approximately 9 percent. The US could see itself slip out of the top three, however, as BNEF said it's the only country in the top 10 coal burners to reduce its coal generation since the beginning of the decade.
What Percentage (Score:2, Interesting)
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What total percentage of our electricity production can renewables achieve?
By when?
If we can't achieve 100% renewable energy,
The only question is whether we will make it that far, not whether that's physically possible.
If the goal is zero carbon
No, it's negative carbon. We have to remove some ~150 PPM CO2 from the atmosphere.
what will the additional production come from? Nuclear?
Nuclear is not zero-carbon. It's not even literally zero-carbon while operating, though it's close. Over its lifecycle, it is responsible for more emissions than solar, let alone wind. Implementing nuclear has been responsible for a certain amount of decarbonization because it has replaced (or eliminated the need for additiona
Re:What Percentage (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for having more patience with that level of ignorance than I can deal with anymore. One missing element (because it's beyond the scope of the comment you replied to) is subsidies. I would dearly love to see all current renewable energy subsidies discontinued, then replaced by every dollar currently paid by taxpayers as fossil fuel subsidies. The fossil fuel and nuclear energy sectors have had more than enough taxpayer assistance. They should stand or fall on their own.
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Both onshore and offshore wind are no subsidy free in Europe. In fact they are trying to out-bid each other with the lowest prices for their energy now.
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You're right, but you might be overlooking something. In Europe, the model for successful wind farms often includes significant benefits to the community hosting the wind farm and its support network. I was around 'way back at the start, when there were several European pilot projects focussing on ways to ensure that the locals would be allies rather than enemies. It wasn't about handouts. It was about providing well paid jobs, dealing responsibly with environmental impacts, ensuring that people who wer
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You're not seeing anyone demanding handouts for nuclear? ROFL. You are truly hilarious. Nuclear power currently provides less energy in Canada than firewood. Nevertheless, it receives about twice as much each year in federal subsidies as all other energy options combined -- including coal, oil, natural gas, conservation and renewables.
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You're not seeing anyone demanding handouts for nuclear? ROFL. You are truly hilarious. Nuclear power currently provides less energy in Canada than firewood. Nevertheless, it receives about twice as much each year in federal subsidies as all other energy options combined -- including coal, oil, natural gas, conservation and renewables.
Canada gets 17% of its power from nuclear, 60% from hydro, and 6% from wind. That is 83% clean sources. I'm fine with building out more nuclear to fill in the other 17%. If it is supposedly an emergency, cost should be far down the consideration list.
Re:What Percentage (Score:4, Informative)
Each kilowatt hour of electricity generated over the lifetime of a nuclear plant has an emissions footprint of 4 grammes of CO2 equivalent (gCO2e/kWh). The footprint of solar comes in at 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also 4gCO2e/kWh.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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If you cite the full paper I'll read it, otherwise I'll dismiss it. I'm not judging it by an abstract.
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Someone cites actual research and you dismiss because you don't know how to access a paper, while providing no references for the claims you pulled out of your ass?
Here, if anyone's never heard of sci-hub:
https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41... [sci-hub.se]
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You mean the "Buy or subscribe" button? It's not free (except maybe for you if you have a company/institution subscription).
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Drinkypoo pretended to have real data. I quoted real data, which I do have access to, because you know, some of us are real scientists.
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I did cite the full paper you moron. Look to the right of the screen, you'll see the full index of the content or fucking click Download PDF.
1) Scroll down the page.
2) Take a gander at the gray box where it says:
Buy article
Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.
$32.00
[Buy]
3) Ponder good and hard who is the moron here, you or drinkypoo (Hint: It's you)
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So now you admit you don't even have access to any actual data to backup your opinion which you parrot from a random blog post. You quoted numbers, where did you get your data? From a real journal? Or from a CNN opinion writer?
Re:What Percentage (Score:5, Informative)
No, in fact I see "access through your institution" and "buy or subscribe"
One of the things that a website can do is offer different content to different users. HTH, HAND. On our next episode: everyone gets different Google results
Jeez, this is Slashdot folks. Maybe you need an episode on how to use Scihub?
https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41... [sci-hub.se]
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Bullshit. Post the text behind your paywall link.
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AmiMojo's source says:
The median for nuclear is 12g (as if that disproved my statement)
His source says onshore and offshore wind 11 and 12g respectively.
The same source said the median for utility solar is 48g. That source also said 740g for co-firing and 230g for dedicated biomass (which is what wood etc is).
Ergo, solar is 4x worse than nuclear and wind is barely on par, besides the fact that both of the other technologies are not at all stable.
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That depends very much where the nuclear fuel comes from. If it's being mined, as most of it is, then the type of mining has a huge effect.
The IPCC's last report on climate change gave nuclear a range of lifetime emissions per kWh of electrical energy produced in the range of 3.7g to 110g CO2. The median being 12g.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/asset... [www.ipcc.ch]
Re:What Percentage (Score:4, Informative)
The data you quote indicates 18/48/180 for solar, the median being 48 or 4x higher than nuclear.
Stop being dishonest.
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>"Nuclear is not zero-carbon."
No energy production (or distribution) is zero carbon unless all the materials and devices to make the materials and methods for installing and maintaining the devices/materials are being powered by zero-carbon. Worse if you throw in removal/decommission/recycling of everything that wears out. And that is not likely to change in OUR lifetime, at least.
For example, China is using tons and tons of coal to produce the materials to make solar panels- to manufacture them, and t
Re: What Percentage (Score:3)
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That is true but the anti nuke kooks are trying to make it like carbon emissions are apart of the nuclear process. Which they are not. It is just another attempt to spread misinformation about nuclear energy.
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reading comprehension should be prerequisite for posting.
The processing of and creating of any form of energy building infrastructure will always produce carbon for the foreseeable future.
What the anti nuke kooks are trying skew the data to show that nuclear produces more carbon while running or mining. Which it does not.
Re:What Percentage (Score:5, Informative)
You are a fucking liar. The IPCC rates nuclear at 12 g CO2 per kWh. That is comparable to wind(11-12) and much better than solar(41). That includes its entire lifecycle.
There is not one example of wind and solar deep decarbonize a country. Not one. Germany failed to decarbonize after spending 500 billion euros.
If the goal is negative carbon we need nuclear
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Looks like they failed to decarbonize. Failed! If they spent it on new nuclear they would be 100% clean right now.
PS - Earthquakes and tsunamis are nonexistent in Germany.
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What did they accomplish? Four times higher carbon emissions than France per kwh?
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If we need nuclear we are screwed, because we can't wait 20 years for it and we can't afford it.
To give you an idea, new nuclear in the UK is currently around the £150/MWh mark. Last month offshore wind auctions came in around £25/MWh. And the cost of wind energy is falling.
There is no example of a country that decarbonized with nuclear either. France's per capita emissions aren't much lower than the UK's, despite France being further south and so enjoying a better climate.
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We need nuclear, and we are screwed. JFC you antinukers have opposed nuclear energy for longer than I have been alive. France and Sweden deep decarbonized with nuclear. French average emissions are really low. Even in a bad year they are much better than UK and especially Germany
Wind is intermittent. So being cheap does not mean jack squat when you have to keep burning fossil fuels to overcome intermittency.
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Emissions per capita, in tons:
France 5.13
UK 5.55
Clearly France has not has a "deep decarbonization" with nuclear, it's pretty close to the UK in fact.
The other thing I forgot to mention about your figure is that 12g is the median. The IPCC report gives a minimum of 3.7g and a maximum of 110g for nuclear, so while it is possible for nuclear to be low emission it does require the right circumstances and rules. Of course nuclear fans hate rules because they push up the cost even further.
Re:What Percentage (Score:4, Informative)
In terms of electricity generation, UK is right now at 290g/kWh and France at 83g [electricitymaps.com]. So whatever differences exist, it's in the rest of the economy.
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And since construction began almost 15 years ago, France failed to get their Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor online. Failed!
At least Germany has something to show for their efforts. [cleanenergywire.org]
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The only question is whether we will make it that far, not whether that's physically possible.
If whether or not we have enough rare earths and lithium to achieve this isn't ALSO a question...we're asking the wrong questions.
Re: What Percentage (Score:2, Insightful)
Wind is not predictable in any meaningful sense for the purpose of generating energy.
And renewables are definitely not load following, and therefore if that is a strike against nuclear, it is doubly so for wind and solar as they add unpredictability to the mix.
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IIRC solar and wind produce little in absolute value and density so their infrastructure and production costs are actually not that great compared to nuclear. Nuclear is extremely dense and manageable compared to large fields of wind or solar. One no-brainer is solar on roofs as that space is already claimed, but for the other cases, it's not that clear of a benefit.
Also, I'd like more information on "we're past the point at which you can reasonably add more nuclear to the mix anyway". Aside from a few cou
Re:What Percentage (Score:4, Informative)
I just did a quick web search and found this report(from 2011) https://www.oecd-nea.org/uploa... [oecd-nea.org]
One quote from the report:-
Today, some reactors in France and Germany operate in the load-following mode with large daily power variations of about 50% of rated power. In these countries, and also in some others, nuclear power plants participate in the frequency control on the grid.
Some other types of power generation/storage are better(faster/more efficient) at load following than nuclear but that does not mean that nuclear power plants don't do load following. It may be that in some countries, or parts of the grid(s) in some countries, there has been no need for nuclear plants to do load following but that does not mean they can't.
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Electricity is the focus because it's both the easiest and the most universal. You can use electricity to generate heat whenever and wherever you need it very efficiently. It's also easy to transport, which is important because many places where people live don't have sufficient access to renewable energy at the point of use. Instead you can capture that energy elsewhere and bring it in over relatively inexpensive and efficient wires.
By focusing everything on electricity generation we also get economies of
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I didn't say anything about using how the energy is produced, but where the focus on consumption should be. Consider a medium to large city with 100 or 200 thousand inhabits in a somewhat windy area. If you already have a district heating system or are wil
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> If you already have a district heating system or are willing to build one
Parts of NYC have district heating, and it's a fucking nightmare. District heat is one of those ideas that really sound amazing but are not all they're cracked up to be in practice. Worse, the vast majority of that heat comes from fossil fuel
For the cost and efficiency, you're MUCH better off swapping all heat energy needs to electric sources, especially now that heat pumps are a thing. Doubly so if your source of energy is someth
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"Large parts of the world" also produce a small portion of global CO2 emissions.
https://www.ucsusa.org/resourc... [ucsusa.org]
It's basically China, US, EU, India, Russia responsible for 3/4 emissions, and are pretty well electrified. If you look at it by sector, energy generation is the first or second largest contributor, the other being transportation, which we also want to electrify.
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Without much better battery technology, I'm not sure that we can achieve 100% renewable energy. That's the primary problem with getting your power from the wind and the sun... neither are all that reliable.
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Well, mentally betting that is.
Re:What Percentage (Score:4)
Without much better battery technology, I'm not sure that we can achieve 100% renewable energy. That's the primary problem with getting your power from the wind and the sun... neither are all that reliable.
Well you pretty much nailed the issue on the head. It doesn't matter how you spin it solar and wind are not, and will never be 100% reliable. That is not to dismiss them as source of energy, that is just the nature of the beast. But we still have plenty of other renewable power that we can tap, wind and solar are just low hanging fruit.
Personally, I'm more of a fan of geothermal. Of all the renewal options geothermal has the potential to be most reliable, scalable, as well as environmentally friendly. It also is probably the most difficult to develop an bring to market.
The way the current plans forward seem to be shaping out is wind and solar when feasible, with a strong nuclear base to fill in the gaps using SRMs as they become available. There are attempts to store excess energy production using battery and other storage systems but those are not really working out as expected. Current data is still trending to a load as demand system as we currently have now. Which will not be the optimum system.
Fortunately, there is still plenty of research going on in alternative energy sources, and storage technologies. Who knows what might happen in the next few yeas. There has been some rattling over in the fusion camp that looks promising.... in 20 years.
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What total percentage of our electricity production can renewables achieve? If we can't achieve 100% renewable energy, where will the additional electricity production come from? If the goal is zero carbon, what will the additional production come from? Nuclear?
Someone explain why this is a Troll. These are legitimate questions.
Coal (Score:5, Informative)
>"China, India, and the United States"
Lets put that in perspective:
China 4631 ************
India 947 **
USA 774 *
China is 600% more than the USA, and RISING, already accounting for more than 50% of all coal burning in the whole world combined. They increased this by 15% in just the last year. In the USA it has been dropping every year over the last decade.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-s... [iea.org]
Re:Coal (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Coal (Score:4, Informative)
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It may be a reasonable explanation for why their emissions are higher, and a fair defense for why it may be harder but it indicates that more bang for the buck can be had in China than other places when it comes to big investments for change.
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Imagine you construct a single nuclear plant.
You can either do so in a manner that reasonably covers X population with 1.5X current pollution, or 3X population with 3X current pollution.
The former is more 'fair' on a per-capita, the latter is more effective at reducing pollution. Some things don't scale with population, a nuclear site covering 3X population in an area need not be 3X as expensive to pull off.
Further, per-capita doesn't capture the whole picture. A lot of the world has dumped inconvenient e
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Re:Coal (Score:5, Informative)
Then you should add up total emissions:
USA: 400 billion tonnes
China: 200 billion tonnes
Tuvalu: 280 thousand tonnes
https://ourworldindata.org/con... [ourworldindata.org]
Or quit with the toddler logic.
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oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo China 4631
oooooo India 947
ooooo USA 774
Also worth noting is that the accumulated amount and the per capita amount aren't nearly as favorable for the USA, to put it mildly.
Not enough. Transition still too damn slow. (Score:2)
We're 5 decades too late already. While 10% is a nice milestone, it should've been reached in the 1970ies. We have a lot of catching up to do and time is running out, fast. We have to close the gap from two ends: radical saving and energy efficiency and radical solar and wind. And we need to make it happen yesterday, there is not much time left.
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We're 5 decades too late already. While 10% is a nice milestone, it should've been reached in the 1970ies. We have a lot of catching up to do and time is running out, fast. We have to close the gap from two ends: radical saving and energy efficiency and radical solar and wind. And we need to make it happen yesterday, there is not much time left.
What technology would we have used in the 1970's that would be even remotely affordable then?
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Wind power would have been more affordable back then if we had built and installed wind turbines in large volumes in order to "harness" economies of scale.
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Nuclear [wikipedia.org]
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To the extent that may be a problem, it's because of too much reliance on fossil fuels rather than too much renewable. With their supply chain disrupted for fossil fuels, they are suffering.
If hypothetically they were pretty much all wind and solar and grid storage, they would have energy independence, since those sources also don't require importing fuel to keep going.
It's actually quite impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually quite impressive given that most countries (including the US) have really not taken the transition seriously and fossil fuels keep being directly or indirectly subsidized. Imagine how easy it would be to go towards 100% if governments actually cared...
nuclear power (Score:2)
And nuclear power could fulfill the other 110% of demand.
Can do better (Score:2)
We can do better by blowing up more pipelines, the strategy currently adopted, apparently.
Yep (Score:2)
and it may continue to rise in 2022 "as European nations seek short-term solutions to compensate for droughts and extremely high gas prices," BNEF said.
Time to get serious and go nuclear. It turns out that the real world doesn't care that you'd prefer to power everything with moonbeams and unicorn farts.
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Re: Meanwhile, here in the UK.... (Score:2)
There is 4 million acres of green belt in England. 320 is a rounding error.
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The land consumed is a rounding error but I suspect so would be the amount of energy produced.
I hate this argument because most any single project that produces energy is a "rounding error" but if we don't allow anything to be built because it makes up a rounding error then the accumulation is no longer lost in the rounding.
England should not be sacrificing green space to solar power because they have better options, options that don't require near the same green space but produce far more power. The UK de
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How 'green' do you think solar really is?
Extremely. Start placing it on rooftops and over parking lots. All wasted space.
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Nuclear also doesn't need solar panels and only needs about 1/10 that space and can produce 1GW, not 40MW in that same area.
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To put this in perspective, there are 126 billion acres of land on Earth. This is an _extraordinarily_ small land area compared to the amount land required to say, mine coal, for an equivalent amount of energy.
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So 52% for China and 9% for the US. China uses 5.8 times as much as a country. But with 4.2 x as many people, it's not that much more per person.
What a non-story, biggest country does the most of something. Sure is good clickbait though.
... but per capita those 4,2 x as many Chinese people use about a third of the energy the average American does:
China, 2020, 28072 Kwh
United States, 2020, 73677 Kwh
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Gotta love the brainless boosters who don't bother to actually get their facts straight before spewing booster bullshit...
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Germany is going to freeze in the dark this winter because they got their gas supply cut off.
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You are not going to take your economies anywhere by relying on unreliable, intermittent and colossally expensive power sources other than back into caves.
Just to be clear, are you talking about about renewables or fossil fuels when you talk about unreliable, intermittent and colossally expensive power sources? What's going on with Russia lately certainly makes fossil fuels look kind of unreliable, intermittent and colossally expensive.
Re: No, They Haven't (Score:2)
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That's what Germany said, they're now paying 35c/kWh retail.
The average wholesale electricity price in Germany surpassed 469 euros per megawatt-hour, more than five times the price recorded a year earlier.
And I wonder what happened during that year, ... something about a war? ... in ... Ukraine ... What is happening to electricity prices in Germany is in no way unusual compared to the rest of Europe. The UK government just announced per kWh price caps at 34.0p/kWh for electricity including VAT, from 1 October, that's about 38 Euro cents per kWh. Everybody's electricity prices went haywire in late 2021 to early 2022.
https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/a... [nimblefins.co.uk]
Germany: https://tradingeconomics.com/g... [tradingeconomics.com]
Britain: h [tradingeconomics.com]
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Really? I didn't know Russian pipelines could affect Canadian Hydro-Electricity! You learn something new every day!
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Really? I didn't know Russian pipelines could affect Canadian Hydro-Electricity! You learn something new every day!
Germany, UK, France .... nobody's talking about Canada.
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Really? I didn't know Russian pipelines could affect Canadian Hydro-Electricity!
The way this works is that hydroelectric producers charge what the market will bear, and that goes *up* when other competing sources of electricity become more expensive. So if electricity from gas and coal become more expensive, hydroelectric producers will charge more even if their costs haven't gone up. This is how the free market works.
Currently the direct impact of Russian gas deliveries being curtailed is limited by Europe's limited gas de-liquifying capacity. While Europe can import a *little* mor
Re:why u so ignorant? (Score:4, Informative)
Really? I didn't know Russian pipelines could affect Canadian Hydro-Electricity! You learn something new every day!
When Canada is shipping natural gas to Europe because a Russian pipeline was destroyed then that means higher natural gas prices in Canada. When people are using more electricity for heat because natural gas heating costs went up then that means more demand for electricity from hydro. More demand from the same supply means prices go up.
So, yes, Russian pipelines can impact the price of hydroelectricity in Canada.
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However, the spike in German electric prices does not coincide with growth of solar and wind. Solar and wind still represent about 25% of their power generation. The German energy prices spiked during a period in which the solar and wind slowed down. German power is 40% coal and gas.
So this energy cost crisis is more the fault of fossil fuel energy than anything. Hardly a counter to a sentiment that wind and solar can be cheap energy.
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For the amount of money they pumped into green energy, they could've purchased 43 EPRs, each with a nameplate capacity of 1.65 GW.
Currently they have 48GW of solar capacity and 115GW of wind which should account for more than 100% of their current energy consumption.
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I don't understand where the myth of the high investment in green energy comes from. There is this other person running around here quot
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I'm not forgetting, I'm pointing out. And it's not 0.4 (that is idealized offshore spread out over a large area), in Germany it's 0.2-0.3.
There is also a difference between actual investments (what they build) and how much it costs overall to the public (including maintenance, transmission lines, storage, payoffs for politicians and union leadership...). Yes, I can put up a small turbine for $50k, let the government do it, it would shock me if it wasn't at least $300k.
Not sure where you get the $100B from,
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From the 1st of September the price of electricity in the UK will be over 0.38Euro/kWh, and it's only that low because the government has put a cap in place and is paying the difference with borrowing.
The UK is currently building two new nuclear plants, both extremely expensive. Neither will be available this decade. Maybe around 2040.
Meanwhile offshore wind is subsidy free and by far the cheapest form of generation. If the UK had more of it the price of electricity would be a lot lower, and we can have it
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According to worldometers, Germany has 0.021% of the world's gas reserves. Exactly how are they supposed to meet even a fraction of their own energy needs with that? That's one of the big problems with relying on just one or a couple of natural resources for your power - most countries just don't have enough, so they have to buy it from a subset of other countries. So, whenever there are geopolitical issues, prices go crazy and availability may drop through the floor while prices skyrocket. If there are $30
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Re: No, They Haven't (Score:2)
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Go back to Russia comrade, they need the meat for the Ukrainian grinder.
For the non-asset readers watching IQ dropping Faux News, Russia has been making excuses for "problems" with the pipeline as a veiled threat until September when they then said it was broken "indefinitely" in a blatant legal loophole that now does not have to be tested because "somebody" bombed it. It also was not paid for by Russia and any repairs would not be either.
If you want to blame the USA, talk about how the USA is doing to Ven
Re: That is absolutely terrible (Score:3)