Comment by eigenspace | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eigenspace | Hacker News Reader

The nuclear exit was a stupid idea, but how bad it was its also overstated a lot by pro-nuclear types and understated a lot by anti-nuclear types.

Germany has built a tremendous amount of solar and wind in the past few years, but the amount of energy they're generating is exaggerated a lot when one talks about percentages.

In reality, over the past 5 or so years as the last of the nuclear reactors were decommissioned and solar/wind installations have ramped up, the total amount of electricity produced in Germany has decreased, and Germany has moved from on average being an electricity exporter to being an electricity importer.

The reduction in total electrical power generated in Germany is about equal to the power lost from nuclear reactors, while the reductions in fossil fuels was more or less balanced by the increase in renewables.

This is pretty promising, and in my opinion, it's actually somewhat good that Germany is a net electricity importer rather than exporter. They shouldn't be selling power generated with coal when they could be buying power generated with nuclear (France) or hydroelectric (Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Austria).

> it's actually somewhat good that Germany is a net electricity importer rather than exporter.

Not from a national security perspective.

Post WWII, interdependence between European nations has generally been considered good for national security.

> Post WWII, interdependence between European nations has generally been considered good for national security.

Except that Germany was importing energy from the Soviet Union since (at least) the 1980s:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod_pipeli...

and then Russia. Was that good for national security?

That's actually false. Germany increasing their ability to import electricity from their neighbouring european countries is good for their national security, because it reduces their dependence on fossil fuels from Russia, the USA and the middle east, shifting those dependencies from rivals to their closest allies, and members of the same super-state union.

The more electrified Europe becomes, the less reliant they are on fuels imported from rivals outside the EU.

Besides, climate change is *also* a gigantic national security risk, more pressing than any regional rivalry.

> climate change is also a gigantic national security risk, more pressing than any regional rivalry.

Then, they should not have gotten rid of Nuclear because it's way more efficient than Wind and Solar. No need to give up arable land either to put in giant solar and wind farms.

As I said, the decommissioning of the Nuclear reactors was a stupid idea. My point above was that people who feel they must be "team nuclear" often like to overstate how stupid it was with comments like yours.

> how stupid it was with comments like yours

Why ad hominem attacks? I didn't do it to you.

I didn't call you or your comment stupid.

I said that you are making Germany's stupid decision to decommission their nuclear reactors sound worse than it actually is.

> Germany increasing their ability to import electricity from their neighbouring european countries is good for their national security, because it reduces their dependence on fossil fuels from Russia

National security != Europe security. There is no European Military. It's a loose confederation each with their own borders. Its not like the US.

There is no German national security without European national security. Everything revolves around NATO and deepening military partnerships with neighbours (e.g. Germany and the Netherlands have a bunch of shared, integrated units).

There is no EU military, but there are mutual defense pacts, and the development of a real EU military is something that is being pushed for by Germany.

"Everything revolves around NATO and deepening military partnerships with neighbours (e.g. Germany and the Netherlands have a bunch of shared, integrated units). here is no EU military, but there are mutual defense pacts, and the development of a real EU military is something that is being pushed for by Germany."

That sounds counter to what you said above

"reduces their dependence on fossil fuels from Russia, the USA and the middle east, shifting those dependencies from rivals to their closest allies"

The US is one of their closest allies. It appears you are conflicting yourself.

Yes, the USA is one of Germany's closest allies, but the reliablity of that partnership is now being put into question due to the USA's increasing protectionism (on both the left and right), and people's concerns about the potential of a second Donald Trump term (or someone Trump-like).

Because of this, EU countries are working rather hard to try and insulate themselves from potential changes in their relationship with the USA (hence the big focus on an EU military and strategic autonomy).

I mean, you put the US in the list with Russia and the Middle East. I suspect it was either unintentional or a bit of rhetorical flair, but that’s not a list we belong in, haha.

I get it, as I responded in the other comment the Germany and their EU partners share a fate. It’s definitely closer than EU/US. But the US/EU relationship is more like friendly competition than rivalry.

The reason I put the USA in that bucket is not because I thought the USA is some enemy of Germany or the EU. I put it in that list because the USA *is* a country that the EU needs to worry about withholding vital trade for its own political gain.

Because of that, it is a national security risk for EU countries to rely on the USA for critical energy inputs, in the same way as it is a national security risk for the EU to rely on Russia or the Middle East for energy inputs, in a way that just isn't true of fellow EU or EEA countries.

The EU isn’t a country but they are basically a unit of national security, if they don’t defend each other the whole project will fail.

Putting the US in the list of rivals is a bit of a silly rhetorical flair I think. We aren’t rivals. We are close allies. But the EU as a whole is a friendly competitor to the US. Germany has a shared destiny with their EU partners. The US, we’re very close allies to Germany and the EU. But we aren’t conjoined.

Germany has I think around 80GW of capacity in coal plants so it can cover its own needs just from that if push came to shove. In terms of national security, nuclear plants are their own security risk, as evidenced in the Ukraine now.

> In terms of national security, nuclear plants are their own security risk, as evidenced in the Ukraine now.

Non-diverse, import leaning energy is a security risk.

Depends on where from. Importing from other EU countries just reinforces their union, which includes mutual self defense.

Importing isn't bad in of itself. When a country leans towards relying on another country for energy, then that is generally accepted to be negative towards national security.

I don’t think general observations apply in the usual case of extremely close and geographically nearby alliances like the EU. Importing from other EU members has no national security implication because their national security fate is conjoined anyway. Similarly trade between the US and Canada, there’s no future in which we fight each other or don’t fight together in any serious war (Canada even comes along for our bullshit bad idea wars most of the time).

> it's actually somewhat good that Germany is a net electricity importer rather than exporter.

Considering the enormous variability and unpredictability of the German market, this doesn't seem like a big deal. In this regard, Sweden has refused to build a new energy connection.

"We can't connect southern Sweden, which has a large deficit in electricity production, with Germany, where the electricity market today does not function efficiently," Energy Minister Ebba Busch said in a statement.

"That would risk leading to higher prices and a more unstable electricity market in Sweden," she said.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/swedish-government-s...

https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data?market_area=DE-LU&au...

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