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Comment by floo | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any sources for the coal burning rate?

Germany's rate of coal burning went up after Fukushima and the accelerated nuclear retirements, but it is now back below the rate of 2010. See chart "Gross power production in Germany 1990-2017, by source":

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

There will probably be another (hopefully temporary) increase in coal consumption following the shuttering of the remaining German reactors in 2022.

It's fair to say that Germany has surrendered several years of progress on CO2 cuts with its move away from nuclear power. It's not accurate to say that Germany is burning more coal now than before Fukushima, or is currently increasing its rate of coal burning.

The energy needs didn't magically reduced with nuclear reactors getting phased out. Whatever is not compensated by increase in domestic burning must be bought abroad, which means all Germany did is essentially export their emissions elsewhere.

Germany has continued to increase renewable generation. If you look at the "German power export balance" chart in the same source, net German exports in 2017 were the highest they've ever been despite less coal consumption. The growth has been mostly from renewables, and secondarily from gas. German renewable generation in 2017 was 100 TWh above 2010.

There is also a lot of pressure in Germany to end brown coal based production in the same way that nuclear was shut down. Brown coal is Germany's dirty little secret: it's the most polluting form of energy production. It also involves strip mining huge parts of landscape, which is not popular with the locals.

Either way, a result has been that the electricity prices are currently quite high here. Many people are reacting by deploying solar on their roofs. However, the pressure on electricity producers to deliver clean power is yielding results. It is likely that

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