Hacker News Reader

It would be more efficient for Germans to pay for new energy production in their neighbors. Poland for example has lots of coal that makes it untenable to do green energy.

[edit] though frankly it’s probably even easier for Germans to just pay their domestic coal producers not to produce.

You'd have to do the math, but it might be because the surplus doesn't last long enough to pay for the equipment. Even if the prices were low enough for half the year, this means the equipment sits idle half the time. Most energy surpluses are shorter than that.

Yes, probably it would not be making enough money to sustain operation.

But I still think that we (as a world) should start capture carbon actively during this decade. Last summer in Europe was hottest yet and with such hot winter we are for even hotter summer this year. Keeping energy prices up would be just added benefit.

For the coming decades it must be far far cheaper to start emitting less.

There isn't a industrial scale process for doing it and there isn't enough surplus energy either.

Because this is pure greenwashing.