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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

I love that, you know? You have some good news regarding electricity and renewables, and instead of being happy, people start to look for problems.

But let's role with it for second. Renewables are, unfortunately, not at a point yet where they can cover 100% of demand. We cannot change the current mix neither. So, what would be your proposed way forward to "solve" climate change? I am really curious, because most of the time people just ignore the time schedule behind those transitions (power plants have to be built, grids to be extended...).

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I'm the kind of "I'll believe it when I see it" type of person. The transition is clearly not going well and they even wanted to build more gas pipes, the russian war lessons have not been learned. Renewables in the EU overpromissed and underdelivered for a long time.

Timeline, again... The additional gas pipes, used for heating and industrial use primarily and not electricity (no idea why people fail to understand the difference) have been built before (!) the war in Ukraine. And never been used. To the point Germany increased coal consumption. So, when those pipelines, Nordstream 2 I assume you mean, was built, there was no war in Ukriane or elsewhere involving Russia, and hence no lessons to be drwan from it! I know, social media resulted in attention spans zrending to zero, but time for us humans still moves im one direction, and things happened whek they did, and not when peiole learn about them...

People don't make the difference because it's exactly the same thing. Neighbouring France has 40% electric heating whereas it's something like 5% in Germany.

> assume you mean, was built, there was no war in Ukriane or elsewhere involving Russia, and hence no lessons to be drwan from it!

And what about the talks with Azerbaijan and the increase imports from Algeria then? (both great countries aligned with the EU I'm sure). More pipelines are planning to be built following the war.

Yes, because any transition takes time. And since people still want heating during said transition we still need gas. And since gas is the cleanest fossil fuel we have, yes, let's built pipelines. Which can be reporposed for green hydrogen in a potential future.

Unless of course, you want to go pre-industrial that is.

Or maybe just maybe we can say that it doesn't work and it failed?

Building more gas pipes after the Russian war is pure insanity, even if you don't care about the environment

How exactly is importing gas from Algeria (which delivered to the yet to connected to the German gas grid in Spain for decades) related with anything Russia does?

Algeria is just a second Russia with sunny weather. Dictatorship, most of the money is going to the military complex (and buying russian gear even), in conflict with their neighbors, most of the money comes from fossil fuel, politically opposed to the EU...

There's not many places you can get gas even if you don't care about the environment.

And yes, getting gas from Algeria was a problem before the war as well.

Realistically,the only good choice in the EU is Norway.

I missed the part where Algeria has a nuclear arsenal and wants to invade some place (don't mention West-Sahara please, that thing is worthy of it's own series of books).

So, no fossil fuels from oppressive regimes then (I'm all for it, really, the sooner the Saudi can no longer pay the way into everything the better). Which leaves us with what exactly?

Renewables, meaning sourcing from China. And nuclear, just remind me, where does the reactor fuel come from again?

You are getting the issue now. Energy reliance on political enemies is a big problem. I'd also be happy the day the Saudis are gone.

So yeah solar panels imports are also a big issue, I'm worried that China will close off the exports at some point.

As for nuclear, it's not as big of an issue as you think, most of the value is in the plant, there's lots of countries exporting the raw material which are not much related and storage is pretty easy. (Conditions may apply of course, some nuclear grids are much more dependent than others but it's possible to be relatively independent with it)

Fossil fuels are a diplomatic, environmental and economic issue, even if you don't care about the environment, three's lots of other downsides.

Share of nuclear and renewables:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-renewables-electr...

Too bad that doesn't materialize in reality as seen in the EU

Those are the share of nuclear and renewables in total electricity production, therefore this is quite real. In which way 'electricity production' isn't real, or not helping to reduce greenhouse-gas effect emissions?

In the real world, the grid got almost shut down by the Russian war and the salvation came from even dirtier gas from the US

What are you even talking about? The electricity grid? The gas grid? If so, whoms? Germany's? The French?

The only grid that got shot up was the Ukrainian one. And even then gas still flowed through to Eastern Europe...

The electricity grid would have been dead without dirty gas import from the US

Again, in which country? Because Germany for sure only mostly uses gas for heating and industrial purposes, not electricity generation (hard to disguish I know, but primary and secondary energy are well explained on wiki).

It's both, it's true that the german industry is the least transitioned but the grid is also using gas as power generation

No, in Europe one of the main importers of this dirtier US gas is... nuclear-hero France! Source: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/open-sourc...

Yes I know, those gas plants were built by Total and Engie as a part of their renewable strategy. The irony is insane here.

Before 2010 and the privatisation of the grid, France only had a single working gas plant on the whole grid and not even connected to the pipelines, it was a plant reusing factory gas. Those gas plants are brand new and there to support the new wind and solar installs.

Check the construction dates here, it's really obvious: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_centrales_thermiqu...

And these undersell it as they combine hydro (which has been broadly flat for decades) with solar and wind, which have been growing exponentially.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time...

Note that the bulk of those renewables is hydropower, which is geographically dependent.

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