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Comment by sdk16420 | Hacker News Reader

You are confusing installed capacity with power used. The consumed power is going down since the early 2000s, but since the generated power by most renewables depends on the weather and season, more reserve capacity needs to be installed.

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

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The reserve capacity , would need to be 100% - to be able to supply the country for at least several days if/when renables are not able to produce , most likely due to weather.

The capacity doesn't have to be constantly burning fuel 365 days a year in order to solve weather issues, just for however long the combination of startup/shutdown time and adverse weather duration.

Adverse weather conditions can be predicted sufficiently well in advance that this matters.

My understanding is that Germany has interlinkings with other EU members with substantially different climates and power mixtures, so this isn't true.

Yes, there is such a thing as the european energy grid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...

And yes, they know of the concept of getting electricity from south to north or vice versa - and there are already High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines in place and more on the way (much more efficient, to transport electricity long distances).

Portugal is within a stones throw of 100% renewables due to its pumped hydro storage and Spain interconnector. Extrapolate through Europe accordingly. Don’t stop building renewables, transmission, and storage.

The contribution of renewables has never dropped below 30% over a full day in Germany in the last year. Good thing is that wind and PV are often complementary.

https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gas...

That's why Germany is building a lot of new gas power plants. They're cheap to build and can be turned of and off really quickly, so it's okay if they're only really needed for a few weeks a year. The new power plants are also planned to be able to handle hydrogen which can be produced with electrolysis (during an oversupply of renewables) and then stored underground.

From where are they obtaining gas for these plants?

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30706.jpeg

Currently about half of the gas in Germany comes through pipelines from Norway, the other half is mostly from the the Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot of LNG to ship to Germany).

> Netherlands and Belgium (which I think import a lot of ___ to ship to Germany).

Ah yes, NL's raison d'etre

LNG is mostly imported from Qatar and Russia

Russia - is now (thanks to Germany) one of the top exporters of LNG. With some creative accounting (rewriting labels) of where the oil/gas/lng came from (Russia) -> even India is now a Net exporter of oil.

Please note that LNG is even more environmentally damaging than burning coal.

LNG: Schmutziges Flüssiggas | Doku | NDR | 45 Min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Vsee3WYqE

How so? How many toxins and heave metals are emitted by burning LNG?

Australia is a big exporter of LNG...they even need to liquify it to use it themselves (where gas is available is often too far away from where people are to use just pipelines).

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