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Comment by oblio | Hacker News Reader

Germany FUBARed this like you wouldn't believe, those responsible will probably be branded traitors decades after the fact, primarily Schroeder (now a Gazprom shill) but probably also Merkel for not doing anything to change the status quo.

Up until 2011 or so Germany was a leader in solar and wind power equipment production. Then they cut off subsidies and it took AN ENTIRE DECADE to get back where they were, in terms of adding additional capacity, by which point China absolutely towered over everyone else.

Europe has also missed the battery production train.

Oil and gas are considered geostrategic priorities and almost every country tried to secure its supply. Solar and wind power equipment production as well as battery production, for some reason, were treated as second class citizens in a world where they will replace oil and gas for 80% of uses.

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> Then they cut off subsidies

And now they're back: https://www.cardino.de/en/blog-posts/subsidy-for-electric-ca...

'In Germany, the government has introduced various incentives to accelerate this shift. Among these are substantial subsidies for electric cars, which have been updated for 2023 and will be updated again for 2024. This article provides a detailed overview of these subsidies, their application process, and eligibility criteria.'

This is outdated. Subsidies were cut in December 2023 on a very short notice. The reason were unexpected budget-problems of missing 60(?) billion Euro, which forced the administration to cut several things very fast.

And they are sabotaging the power production in Sweden too:

"Germany begs for electricity from Sweden – while simultaneously blocking nuclear power"

https://www.tn.se/naringsliv/37243/tyskland-tigger-el-fran-s...

I would prefer to move to cheaper new tech.

Well, stop importing from Sweden then. And let us deal with our own preferred solutions.

Tell that you uave no idea how electricity grids work and why a connected one across a whole region is better than isolated ones without tellong you know shit about that topic...

It's better for Germany since the Swedish power production is cleaner and cheaper. The demand from Germany makes it more expensive for Swedish customers.

I guess it's fine that they want to import but don't block nuclear in Sweden then.

Sweden is perfectly energy independent as long they don't export. Existing nuclear and wind production is perfectly able to produce the wast majority of energy that get consumed, and national hydro power has so far capacity to last through any periods of low production. There are also additional thermal power plants that operates on gas, oil and garbage to balance the grid.

What Sweden do not have is hydro capacity to also power nearby countries while maintaining low prices and energy independence. From a national perspective, the natural resources that is hydro power would results in lower energy prices in Sweden if they did not share the market prices of the European grid (Multiple energy experts has voiced this in the last few years of energy debates).

However, Sweden has agreements to allow free trade of energy as part of the EU membership. Many of the stakes holder in the hydro power is also non-state owned, which means they are legally allowed to export the energy at the highest bid even if that results in higher costs for Swedish citizens. In theory the government could issue tariffs to recover some of the value from the natural resources that is hydro power, but that would lead to rather severe geo political consequences. Denmark is for example one of the largest importer of Swedish energy, and energy tariffs would basically target the Swedish-Danish relationship in a rather major negative way.

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