Comment by _aavaa_
16 hours ago
The data does not back up this narrative: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun...
The share of electricity production that coal lost is primarily take up by wind and solar, not gas.
16 hours ago
The data does not back up this narrative: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun...
The share of electricity production that coal lost is primarily take up by wind and solar, not gas.
electricity is only one power source - you not gonna use it for e.g. heating because its expensive. When you look at graph with energy consumption by source german situation is bad and solar provides less than 6% and wind less than 11% [1]. Now go compare with france where nuclear provides 37% of energy.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
The devil is in the details. The easy part is now done, and further significant increases in solar/wind in Germany are not going to happen.
Renewables now dominate generation during the optimal periods, but there's nothing on the horizon for other times.
Your graph also ignores energy used for heating and for industrial processes. Their electrification is now stalled by high energy prices.
> not going to happen … nothing on the horizon for other times
Batteries and storage.
> heating and for industrial
That’s moving to goal posts. The discussion is about electricity.
> Batteries and storage.
Nearly useless for Germany. Some intraday storage will be helpful, but it will not strongly affect the wintertime fossil fuel consumption and the overall CO2 emissions.
> That’s moving to goal posts. The discussion is about electricity.
No. It's not moving goalposts. Switching from gas to electric heat pumps for heating is absolutely relevant here. It's now inhibited by the high _electricity_ prices ( https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-transition-cle... ). Ditto for the ICE to EV transition.
The German government is now directly planning to pay around $20B in direct subsidies ( https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-pushes-17-billi... ) to build _gas_ power plants to alleviate some of that. I expect the final bill will be around $50B just for the new natural gas generation.
Germany is also quietly reassuring investors that it's safe to build natural gas by extending the subsidies: https://www.energyconnects.com/news/renewables/2025/january/...
As usual, actions speak louder than words.
If you're willing, we can place long-term bets on that. I'd be delighted to lose, but I don't expect it.
2 replies →