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Comment by s_dev | Hacker News Reader

What's more mental you talk to any Germans about deprecating their Nuclear power stations they will bang on about their plan for renewables and then you read these sorts of headlines.

What the hell is happening over there? Why can't they get 'energy' despite being a scientifically literate nation. France has a far superior energy policy so it's not like you even have to travel beyond a few miles to see a wildly different price for electricity. At this rate French electricity will be half the price in a few years compared to German electricity. Germany is making mistake after mistake on energy. From Russian dependence to Nuclear scepticism to now accepting money to not build renewables.

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Germany is already way ahead of the US in switching away from fossil electricity (also ahead of China).

Sure, keeping the entire nuclear fleet from ~2000 would have maybe helped, but would have required very costly (economically and politically!) investments over the last few decades, and those basically went into renewables instead which turned out fine.

See: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...

Is all of their energy consumption met by domestic production?

Yes

No, Germany imports massive amounts of fossil fuels. Renewables and electrification help reduce that. Electricity-wise Germany is a net exporter again

What is the cost balance from being that net exporter? Are they selling energy for more than they buy?

Its funny that the term "net exporter" is about the volume of energy, not the value of energy.

> What is the cost balance from being that net exporter? Are they selling energy for more than they buy?

Electricity production is a subset of energy production. A lot of factories use natural gas directly, they don't produce electricity first. ICE cars also use petrol directly, they don't first generate electricity.

That’s not how electricity works. The electrons don’t really care about borders, and neither do the suppliers and consumers.

I definitely wouldn't say that it turned out fine. The push against nuclear transcended into a larger push against electricity, making Germany a laggard in electrification. The car sector certainly isn't doing fine.

It's also funny how air conditioning powered by electricity is discouraged, while air conditioning in ICE cars or gas heating in buildings are at the very least tolerated. It's crazy if you think about it.

This is about a German company that was going to make a renewable project in the US.

Germany itself has a huge offshore wind industry, which is probably how they have companies that planned to do the same in the US.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292341 and now outside Europe too

Nuclear scepticism… did you know that nuclear power plants need cooling? Germany is learning that lesson the hard way right now, just check the news, it really speaks for reducing their dependency on nuclear as having been a very very good idea.

No wait, they’re not learning it the hard way because they’ve already got rid of them. Phew…

There is no french or german electricity price. Its a common market. Price difference is only different taxation

There are indeed bidding zones in Europe. France is one bidding zone and Germany and Luxembourg is another one. Market prices are indeed pretty comparable.

Taxation and cost for the net are very different with a higher price for the connection in France and a higher price per kWh in Germany. In the end for a normal use of electricity the prices are very comparable.

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