Feel free to point out inacuracies.

Ho Ho Ho




And I'll give you a point that I read over the surcharges and only saw grid fees the first time I read it. Renewable surcharges are the main reason for the price to have increased. And ironically the Vat increase that comes with it.
Transitioning isn't free.

This post was edited by Knoppie on Dec 3 2018 10:07am

French Police Remove Helmets in Solidarity With ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

Video footage out of two different areas shows cops taking off their helmets to cheers from the protesters.

1 https://twitter.com/BreakingNLive/status/1069340718844522496
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FyLeHl_K3A

https://www.infowars.com/video-french-police-remove-helmets-in-solidarity-with-yellow-vest-protesters/



This post was edited by HeLiCaL on Dec 3 2018 10:58am

i rather work with the federal statistics, these websites look somewhat biased in my opinion, of course a site with the label "the global energiewende" will come to that conclusion
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/klima/treibhausgas-emissionen-in-deutschland#textpart-2

CO2 emissions only decreased between 2013 and 2014, the 2017 numbers are still estimates and they will be more or less stable compared to 2016
so not much happened in that regard and we will utterly fail to reach the goals our government had for 2020

since 1990 is the benchmark in most of these discussions let me add the following
a big part of the declining emissions is the deindustrialisation in the former eastern german state after reunification until ~2000-2001
thousands of production plants were closed during that time as well as coal power plants etc.

that "bonus" is exhausted and we are at a somewhat stable level
thats why i think that germany acting as if we accomplished a lot is simply not correct

closing coal plants could help, but we are replacing them with gas
merkel seems to have remembered the basic physics lessons from 2. or 3. semester back in the day, we need plants that can provide the base load at all times and renewables can not do that
thats a fact and the reason we are getting the new pipeline in the baltic sea

stability is indeed in danger, that article is highly misleading and i will add some sources below that refer to our federal network agency and transmission system operators

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article161831272/Die-Dunkelflaute-bringt-Deutschlands-Stromversorgung-ans-Limit.html
https://rp-online.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/deutsches-stromnetz-schrammt-am-blackout-vorbei_aid-19315473
during periods of the winter 2017 the renewable output was close to zero
on the 24th january coal, gas and nuclear power produced over 90% of of our energy
all remaining reserve power plants had to start up + extra reserves from austria and italy (btw the summer 2018 produced some atrocious numbers for wind energy production as well)

basically we barely avoided a collapse

https://www.welt.de/newsticker/dpa_nt/infoline_nt/wirtschaft_nt/article177757248/Stromnetze-unter-Druck-Rekordkosten-fuer-Noteingriffe.html
record number of emergency interventions to stabilise the supply

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article111549626/Deutsche-Stromnetze-erreichen-kritischen-Zustand.html
in 2012 the situation of our network was reported as critical already
to be clear, both lack of production and too much energy that cant be transported are a problem

again, what you post is highly misleading, yes we overproduce at times, but that also leads to shutdowns since we lack the infrastructure for electricity transport from north to south
at the same time southern germany might need their reserves to keep up the supply, what an outright stupid situation

did i already mention that we still have to pay for the electricity not produced during a shutdown? thanks to the borderline socialist subsidy system the income for the owners is guaranteed at all times

"Prices going up because investing in renewable costs money."

false, that industry wouldnt survive on the open market or this wouldnt be necessary in the first place



i took the time and looked at two "think tanks" your sources refer to and clicked through the staff on their websites
the number of actual scientists with a qualified opinion was 2, physicists, and zero engineers out of ~40-50 people that are mentioned there

thats the main problem we have, energy policy is currently done by people who have no clue, but lots of green ideology instead
i wont have people studying political "science" or economy lecture me about energy, electricity or climate

I agree with the rest of your post, but this part is a bit unfair. with a growing and thriving economy, like the one germany had for the last couple of years, keeping emissions stable is a success. not a huge one, but it is an achievement.
of course it came at a too high price, and ofc we could have done more for the climate if we had invested the money that went to our "energiewende" in other places where the investment has more effect.

With me agreeing to nearly everything said in the articles, as they are hurdles in an engery transition to overcome. This specific selections is mainly where our opinions differ...
I'm willing to pay a bit more in moving towards a more durable energy system and overcome those hurdles. While trying to achieve a better reduction of CO2 emissions in the near future.
It seems like Germany is aiming at the 30% at 2020, since 1990 with their rate of nuclear phase out.

/e: ow and replacing coal with gas turbines is not ideal, but prioritizes a CO2 reduction and needed flexibility.

This post was edited by Knoppie on Dec 3 2018 12:10pm

well, thats fair i guess, we can thank our amazing engineers for that (economy growth is slowly coming to an end it seems btw)

i always cringe, when i hear phrases like "do more for the climate"



thats the thing, we cant overcome them in the foreseeable future and maybe even beyond with this kind of technology
solar energy is a ecological catastrophe and makes only sense in certain areas
in northern germany you can call yourself lucky, if you get the energy back that was used to manufacture the panels

the wind is the wind and will always be volatile (and also has concerns that certain people like to forget)
seriously, thats a stone age technology for me

which leads to the next "big thing", electromobility
that term makes every single climate discussion by now and even if i put aside the massive drawbacks we will encounter another problem
with more electric vehicles we will have a massive increase in electricity demand, so as a matter of fact we will need to overcompensate in the future
will be interesting (impossible) when a few million people plug in their cars after work at 6pm

no matter how i look at it, i cant put that together in a way that could possibly work

"why is replacing coal with gas turbines bad for CO2 emission reduction?"

gas is better, without a doubt, higher efficiency with lower emissions, but if you stick the current climate "goals" (ridiculous imo, btw, but thats another discussion) its not the solution
if i remember correctly the EU and especially germany want to reach -90+% emissions by 2050

its the year 2018 already and 30 years isnt that much time when talking about power plants
so a major investment there does not make any sense, if you want to reach that goal

Macaron began to murder French citizens

Amid the chaos, an 80-year-old woman was killed in Marseille when a police tear-gas canister was launched into her apartment window while she was trying to close the shutters. She was taken to a nearby hospital but died during an operation after suffering shock, according to a local media report. She has become the third casualty in the demonstrations which began three weeks ago.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-03/80-year-old-woman-killed-paris-home-police-gas-canister-yellow-vests-reject-macrons

Unlikely imo.

If right wing voters split their vote between C's (they can appeal to the more moderate and centrist right wingers), PP (the standard pro status quo right wing party) and VOX (the more nationalist and conservative voters, as well as young protest and anti-establishment voters) then that will strongly benefit the left, as the electoral system (which favors parties that receive a lot of votes, especially in the small 3-4 seat rural constituencies) will likely punish the right. But even if that happens, I doubt Pedro Sánchez will win a majority. Right now, people aren't happy with what he's doing, and the fact his party will likely lose the government of the biggest leftist stronghold in the country, makes you wonder how poorly PSOE would perform in national elections right now.

I believe that the only way Sánchez could hold on to the government after elections would be if they could form a majority with C's. A PSOE+UP majority is definitely not happening, and in their best case scenario they'd need to throw pretty much every single regionalist/nationalist/separatist party into the mix, making government virtually impossible.

Energy payback point in north Germany is <5 years on a product life of 30 years, unless you have a better source ofc.
Prioritizing international recycling/manufacturing standards in the future is a good idea to reduce current and avoid future ecological catastophies.
We can also think about a carbon tax placed on the production of solar panels based on a circular life cycle assessment (including recycling).
This will actually benefit solar panels produced in Europe at this time, compared to those made in China.


Maintenace, sound pollution, even horizon pollution, bird strikes, doesn't run all the time andddd... an energy payback at 1 year.. Making the shitty thing pretty effective:
"The emissions of greenhouse gases amounted to less than 7 g CO2-eq/kWh for onshore and 11 g CO2-eq/kWh for offshore."



Make plug in points at work as well, spread out the loading peaks. My pertrol car doesn't need to be completely full all the time, neither do electric cars for most ppl, even given that their "tank" is half the size. Spreading the charging load seems doable. (Plans even go as far as cooling refigirators before peak power consumption, or use it as a storage during surpluses). It does still mean that you need to increase possible electricity production from other sources than sun and wind produced locally, (inter)national infrastructure and/or storage. Thermal, bio, hydro, nuclear, fossil (with or without carbon capture). But that seems positive: combustion engines for vehicles are highly inefficient compared to power produced at electric plants. There is admittedly a loss due to transporting, converting and storing it. But it doesn't outweigh the energy loss of a piston going back and forth.



Think when announced Germany raised the bar to 40% in 2020 and 80-85% in 2050. Just before fukushima iirc. Theoretically possible, but a bit over ambitious indeed.

This post was edited by Knoppie on Dec 3 2018 07:46pm

Saucy's house prolly got looted.