805 karma · joined January 17, 2021
The limiting factor right now is the fact that we have about 6GW of coal (and I think about 2GW of gas) production that's always on (those plants primarily provide heat, electricity is a by-product)
We decreased coal by 25% since pre-pandemic [0] and coal is responsible for 70-80% of the total emissions [1] (I'd rather use ourworldindata but they only have data up to 2023), which corresponds closely to the 25% reduction of CO2 intensity of electricity generation. So for the 60g/kWh we are 30% of the way there (starting at 400g/kWh). We are currently _not producing_ enough renewables to do significantly more than putting coal (and gas) temporarily to 0.
> German electricity imports rose by stunning 23% compared to 2023
That's correct but also irrelevant, as we always had the generation capacity to produce the shortfall ourselves. And yes, we absolutely will need to have some fossil backup capacity. As long as we don't need it often it produces not much CO2 (it's just expensive, hence the capacity market will be required). But that is fine, that is what regulators are there for.
> The last year, the maximum price rose to almost $1000 per MWh
It was for exactly one hour. And yes, that might still be a problem, if you are on a spot-market rate. But it's also only one of 8440 hours.
> The proof is in the pudding. The German "green energy" transition has reached its practical limits.
Again: We haven't even reached the point of renewable overproduction (which is the least one would need for any storage solution to even be an option!). This year might be the first one where we will have significant amounts of time where we will have "solar+wind > load" conditions. And this year is, coincidentally, also the one when we will have significant amounts of grid-level batteries installed. And even a one-hour capacity would move your 1000EUR/MWh to 700EUR/MWh. Beyond that it's much harder to estimate, but I would be shocked if 6 hours wouldn't be enough to push that whole day below 500. Still not sure how valuable that is, it's one of 365 days.
[0] https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/all/monthly
I did the calculation for another discussion yesterday. For larger battery systems you can get 10kWh for about 2.4kEUR and with that 240EUR/kWh the battery would amortise itself quite quickly (6 years, ignoring interest [0]). But the Balkonkraftwerk batteries are more 1.6kWh (+ 1000W panels) + transformer for 1kEUR. The solar generation changes the calculation a bit [1], but if I ignore that then we are at 625 EUR/kWh, which would at least double, maybe triple the payback period (and then ignoring interest becomes much more relevant).
However this is largely academic as for my calculation you'd need to use more than 20kWh per day (2 cycles @ 10kWh). The cheapest battery-only normal-outlet system I could find was 900 EUR (but the AC/DC transformer is already included) for 1.6kWh, so 562 EUR/kWh. I don't think I even use the 3 kWh/day for that system... And we are talking <100 EUR/year savings. In the end (residential) electricity is just not that expensive (in terms of household budget)
[0] With a dynamic price rate you could do two cycles per day (loading in the night and at midday with lack-of-demand-cheapness and solar-cheapness) on 250 days/year and a spread of 8ct/kWh (there is some variation, but that should be somewhat conservative) you can get 500 cycles/year and about 40EUR per battery-kWh installed. [1] In the calculations above I took a rough look at the pricing data in Germany https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c... and picked numbers for reasonably simple calculations. With solar you would essentially do the Midday charging for "free" from the panels, increasing the price spread in the evening. One could also take time-of-use rates for the calculation, which (currently) typically offer a structure of -6ct, -6ct and +4ct at night, midday and evening (vs morning prices)
Sure but we also don't have to care. The production capacity is already there, the CO2 to build it has already been spend. It's only running it, that's adding to the badness. And if we do that for 5% of the year. Then we have gotten 95% of the way there.
But what it does is: 1) it makes fossil fuel based electricity extremely expensive (about 20x except for the fuel) and 2) it endangers secondary uses of those plants. We currently use a significant fraction of the coal-fired power plants (at least 5GW) mainly for their heat. And _those_ needs will need to be covered before we can really turn coal off. Nevertheless: Reducing fossil's capacity factor is a good thing and buys time for other bridges (e.g. power-to-heat and storage) to arrive.
But yes in Germany I think even pure grid batteries should pay for themselves with variable price tariffs. If you would only pay for the battery. But that only holds if you need to have an electrician there anyhow. That also explains why every _new_ building gets solar (not sure about the frequency of batteries)
Agreed. And I didn't mean to imply, that there isn't a problem for "everyone gets electric". But that will fix itself with (probably) this year's new cars. So in 2-3 years there will be a fledgling 2nd hand market and in 10 it will be of similar volume as it is now (probably still a bit pricier, since there will be a non-car use for used car batteries)
> EVs are definitely not cheaper to construct, maintain or recycle end-of-life.
There I disagree. The EV price is (still) (mostly) the battery, which is _still_ coming down rapidly. I thought maintenance costs were already cheaper, but maybe not. And end-of-life is mostly a scale question, which will be fixed. Especially since we can reuse the batteries.
The same goes for energy cost and CO2 emissions. I think the EV construction numbers largely assume current (or even worst case) energy mixes, but yeah most of these comparison make at least one questionable assumption (like choosing low efficiency gas cars) and are therefore complicated. Still it's quite a fundamental property: EVs are more efficient and large combustion systems are more efficient. At least CO2-wise it will _always_ be more efficient to burn fuel in a large power plant and run an EV. And the electricity mix is significantly better than that^. Price-wise it's a more complicated story, but at least for Germany, we need to import the fuel anyways. So producing locally should work out better (both personally, where using your own solar is basically a tax break and system wide, where EVs provide a reasonably flexible dispatchable load, which has value)
I think the big question is the time scale here, but fundamentally: The biggest market in the world decided to go EV, that makes the position of any non-EV producer complicated to say the least. Everything downstream (second hand market, recycling, ...) hasn't had time to even develop yet.
^ Assuming we are not tearing down anything already installed..
But, if one digs a bit into the data then one finds that EV sales in nearly all countries had double digit increases. The two major exceptions are Germany and Italy. But on the other hand the Chinese market both grew substantially and there it is more or less a policy goal to boost local manufactures and those are ~all electric. And if China is not going back to gas-powered cars then the conclusion is a pretty safe bet, isn't it?
At least here in Germany we are rapidly approaching the point where we will require power sinks in order to absorb solar around noon. And EVs are extremely well-positioned for that. Typically the charging time can be shifted around a bit and charging stations will come with their own buffer stage. That means that most people won't pay anywhere near the normal sticker price for electricity for their cars.
All that being said: I agree that "green agenda items" will decrease in popularity (or really: they weren't that popular to begin with). But EVs in particular are just straight up cheaper. If not by construction, then definitely by the air pollution reduction interest of the Chinese government. I'd be highly surprised if incentive reduction has more than a delaying effect, if even that
If I can get something inherently valuable for essentially nothing but an empty promise? That's an extremely comfortable position to be in..
^which by-the-by is difficult to achieve on a practical level. Notifications of withdrawal have to be handed in to the US government
I'm aware that there have been significant amounts of armed conflict in the mean time, but the last conflict between states that ran similar to historic wars was the Korean war (which technically hasn't ended). Most wars the US was involved in where more similar to colonial expeditions (seizing local resources, defending local bases)
The question I’m having though is: How different are we from that? The nature of a Markov-Chain is that you can describe just about anything with it.
The following description is correct, isn’t it? Our “thoughts” are generated as some function of our integrated past sensory input (scare quotes because I don’t want to talk about what exactly a thought is)
> A developer without these skills will burn out.
And I think that's something that should be said more directly. If you want to do open source (as in become the provider of load bearing infrastructure): Then you really need to realise what you are getting yourself into. Would I like that to be different? Sure. Would I bet on that changing? Absolutely not.
And yes, that absolutely means you can either do open source as a hobby, then nobody should ever be willing to rely on the thing you are building (because you can just say "i've got better things to do than fixing the security bug you got") or you can attempt to get other people to use and rely on it, but then you have to find a way not to burn out.
No it isn't. You - fundamentally - don't get to control what people say to you. You need to filter how to take that. And that's incredibly hard. Especially in open source. You need to both be able to ignore (some version of "idiots, who can't be bothered to read") and be openminded enough to take weird requests, because they could be the starting point of a new major contributor. The second is optional, as long as you are happy just doing your thing, but then the former probably won't become a problem for you.
All the while: You are correct, being able to produce anything that solves a problem is much more valuable than being able to talk about it. But in order to unlock the value (beyond solving your own problem) absolutely requires communication