Germany To Phase Out Coal Use By 2038, Says Report (abs-cbn.com)

Germany has laid out a $91 billion plan to phase out its use of coal by 2038, a government-appointed commission said Saturday. "Under the plan, half of the up to $91 billion will go to the regions shuttering plants in the west and east of the country, while the other half will be spent on preventing electricity prices from rising," ABS-CBN News reports. From the report: The commission agreed to the deadline after months of bitter wrangling as pressure mounts on Europe's top economy to step up its commitment to battling climate change. The panel, consisting of politicians, climate experts, unions and industry figures from coal regions, announced the deal after a final marathon session ended on Saturday morning. The commission's findings will now be passed on to the government, which is expected -- barring a surprise -- to follow the recommendations of the panel it set up. The plan will be discussed at a meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Scholz and regional leaders on Thursday, national news agency DPA said.

Several plants using lignite or brown coal, which is more polluting than black coal, would be closed by 2022. Other plants will follow until 2030, when only 17 gigawatts of Germany's electricity will be supplied by coal, compared to today's 45 gigawatts. The last plant will close in 2038 at the latest, the commission said, but did not rule out moving this date forward to 2035 if conditions permit. The affected regions, where tens of thousands of jobs directly or indirectly linked to brown- and black-coal energy production, will receive 40 billion euros as compensation over the next two decades. Two billion euros will also be spent each year over the same period to stop customers from facing rising electricity prices.

Comments

Disaster in the making

[AlanObject]

The great Chinese Climate Change Hoax claims yet another victim.

Those poor German fools are going to clean up their environment, make more livable cities, have cleaner water and less smog and create tens of thousands of new jobs. All for nothing.

Re:Disaster in the making

[110010001000]

Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany is tearing down villages and forests in order to expand their mines. Lignite coal is the largest power source in Germany.

Re:Disaster in the making

[gnasher719]

Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany is tearing down villages and forests in order to expand their mines. Lignite coal is the largest power source in Germany.

Closedown is supposed to be in 2022. So they need three years worth of coal. And you could tell us which village exactly is being torn down right now. For example, Elsdorf, Esch, Angelsdorf, Niederzier and all the villages around Hambach Forest seem to be quite safe to me.

Re:Disaster in the making

[AlanObject]

If you are really look here or or maybe here.

If reading information-dense articles are too much for you here is one money-quote pulled from the second link above:

All told, nearly 1 million Americans are working near- or full-time in the energy efficiency, solar, wind, and alternative vehicles sectors. This is almost five times the current employment in the fossil fuel electric industry, which includes coal, gas, and oil workers.

Re:Disaster in the making

[doom]

You're telling him that it's actually happening, but not why it's happening.

At a guess: wind and solar being more diffuse energy sources end up being more labor intensive to set-up and manage.

Alternately, it could be a transient phenomena, a sign that the industry isn't mature yet.

Re:Disaster in the making

[jwhyche]

At least the Germans are setting a date that is realistic, 2038. An not some "feel good" date of 12 years as stated by some newly elected dingbat. Of course by setting that far out most of the politicians set this goal will be long retired or dead.

Re:Disaster in the making

[angel'o'sphere]

The original plan was 2030 ... but it was never put into "law" ... and for some reason we slowed down, well did not expand as fast as "assumed/planned" in renewables last decade.

And this "new 2038 thing" is not a law either ... it is just a result of many talks, so I doubt there ever will be an
"anti coal law".

Now we have an agreed plan, between "the state" the "federal states" and "the industry" and hopefully the society. Unfortunately for people living from mining it is still hard to sell ...

Problem is: they are stupid idiots. Even if they get unemployed they get more or less the same money as before from unemployment insurance and social aid ...

Re:Disaster in the making

[angel'o'sphere]

At a guess: wind and solar being more diffuse energy sources end up being more labor intensive to set-up and manage.
At a guess: all the coal plants are built 30 or 50 or 80 years ago and don't need any "set up" ...

Re:Disaster in the making

[rtb61]

The only thing holding up nuclear energy is a better reactor design, rather than pulling down lots of energy in a short time from the fuel, pulling down a much smaller amount of energy over a much longer time, many reactors fuelled once, rather than a high output unstable reactor needing to be constantly refuelled. Still more work to be done on vertical axis wind turbines, all it needs is a smarter design to really take off and not that hard to do.

Coal is fucked and oil will follow, natural gas will last much longer refuelled by methane use, stop letting that energy go to waste at sewerage plants. Some countries could do more to reduce methane outputs by putting down large areas of heavy, thick black plastic, to collect methane and burn it to create energy, cheap energy. The distributed over the burbs solar power plant is also becoming a thing, turning every home in the burbs into a tiny power station connected to the grid to supply high density residential populations and low density commercial. Industry and zero waste recycling need the energy, need nuclear to function more cleanly.

Re:Disaster in the making

[kriston]

Hold on. In 2011, Germany's citizens voted to eliminate all nuclear power by 2022. This makes it highly unlikely they will meet any clean energy goal without nuclear.

I predict Germany will just end up buying power from neighboring France who have such an embarrassing large surplus of nuclear energy that they are in an economic crisis over plants that can't be funded due to the glut.

Re:Disaster in the making

[hholzgra]

Well, so far we still have a net surplus to sell to our neighbors, even though we already managed to cut nuclear to less than half of its original production, and coal slowly on the decline for a decade already, too.

I don't see us becoming a net importer any time soon.

At the same time France sees the majority of their nuclear plants coming to an age where they eventually need to be shut down...

Re:Disaster in the making

[AmiMoJo]

Renewables are already up to about 30% of Germany's electricity production and continue to grow. For reference that's about the same percentage as coal. Meanwhile coal use continues to fall year on year.

France is slowly moving away from nuclear power. They got fed up of paying for it - the subsidies were basically corporate welfare or companies like EDF. Now those companies are floundering around, trying and failing to build nuclear plants in other countries and getting bailed out by the French government.

Re:Disaster in the making

[AmiMoJo]

In Europe our politics tends to be a bit more stable, with the new government not completely throwing out what the last one did. In particular voters often demand that they stick to environmental policies, and part of the pitch is usually a guarantee to do so.

Re:Disaster in the making

[Uecker]

France's embarrassing large surplus causes them to import power from Germany almost continuously in the last weeks:

https://www.energy-charts.de/p...

Prices

[registrations_suck]

while the other half will be spent on preventing electricity prices from rising

If you are spending money to prevent prices from rising, you need to include that money in the price you are trying to lower.

You can hide the true price of something by subsidizing it so that buyers see a lower price, but that does not mean you are actually lowering the price. You are just obscuring that true cost.

Re:Prices

[timeOday]

The point is that everybody benefits about equally from clean air and less global warming, whereas certain people are impacted disproportionately by shutting down the coal industry (those who produce and consume it), so using public funds to soften the blow for them creates an offramp. Sure, if the sustainable option also happened to be cheapest in the short run, there would be no need for any measures because it would just happen. Not the case unfortunately.

Re:Prices

[angel'o'sphere]

You are just obscuring that true cost.
And what is your point?

My power comes out of the plug in the corner of my room ... the price I pay for it matters. Well, not for me, but for some people.

Re:Prices

[AHuxley]

German exports and power users will have to pay the cost or pass the costs on.
The more Germany pay for its own power, the more it will cost to buy German products.
Not a good path to jobs and profits when all the money has to go on the cost of power.

Couldn't that money be better spent

[SuperKendall]

Although getting rid of coal is a nice effort from the standpoint of pollution, if you are truly serious about climate change, why is Germany getting rid of THIER use of coal.

I mean, whatever coal fired power plants they already have probably have really strict emission control equipment, right?

Meanwhile, what if you took 98 *billion* dollars and used that money all to improve the electrical power grid in India. From solar projects to simply putting CO2 and emission scrubbers on coal plants they have, would that not be a vastly more efficient use of money?

The whole point of the Paris accord was to shift money from rich to poor nations anyway. So why not make that shift a lot more direct, and actually focused on improving the worst emissions?

As it is the Germany effort just looks like virtue signaling that will have almost no real impact on worldwide CO2 levels.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[110010001000]

Germany's coal plants are among the dirtiest in Europe. Even if you disregard climate change, the pollution itself is enormous. And the coal mines are miles long (and aren't closing, but expanding)

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[ShanghaiBill]

Most German coal is lignite, which is filthy low-grade crap that generates even more CO2 per KwHr than bituminous coal.

If the Germans had any sense they would have kept their nukes running and shutdown these coal plants long ago. I can understand not building new nukes, but shutting down perfectly good reactors that were humming along, producing clean power at very low cost, made no sense.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[gnasher719]

Germany's coal plants are among the dirtiest in Europe.

Nonsense. The coal is low quality, the coal plants are top notch. You may not realise that, but the more efficient a coal plant is, the less pollution from incompletely burnt coal it will produce. Which means the plant makes more money by being less pollutant.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[ShanghaiBill]

There is no such thing as "low cost" nuclear power, derp. You're leaving the investment off the balance sheet dishonestly.

The nuke plants were already built and running. So the capital investment was a sunk cost, and irrelevant to the cost of ongoing operations.

Nukes are very expensive to build, but dirt cheap to operate.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[PolygamousRanchKid]

If the Germans had any sense they would have kept their nukes running and shutdown these coal plants long ago.

As an American living in Germany, I never understood that decision either. It was definitely not based on sense at all . . . it was more like fear, emotion and almost religious in nature. The Chernobyl experience also most certainly played a role. It was most certainly not based on logic or science.

I've always been curious if the crew of Markus Wolf - "The Man Without a Face" - had their fingers in this. The East German Stasi tried to stir up trouble and discontent in West Germany. Much like what the Russians are very successfully doing in the US right now.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[110010001000]

Total BS. Three out of the top 10 most polluting power plants in Europe are in Germany. Four of the ten most toxic companies have their main coal plants in Germany: RWE, EPH, Uniper and Steag. You don't know what you are talking out.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[dunkelfalke]

We don't even have a storages facility for all the spent fuel. The state with the most nukes strictly refuses to have a storage facility on their soil and the temporary storage is in a horrible state leaking brine.
Besides, the good reactors were the first ones to shut down because their operators considered them too expensive to run. The only low cost nukes were the shitty ones.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[Applehu Akbar]

Imagine what life would be like today if the first two major airline crashes had caused us to stop pursuing aviation.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[spth]

There are a lot more jobs in coal mining than in the nuclear industry. Closing open-pit lignite mines faces strong opposition from unions and local politicians.

The decision to close down nuclear power plants, while keeping coal plants running doesn't make sense from the perspective of helping the environment. But it makes a lot of sense from a political perspective.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[Ichijo]

Nukes are...dirt cheap to operate.

Southern California Edison disagrees with you.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[aaarrrgggh]

You are looking at a very small part of the problem. Increasing emissions in any combustion cycle increases NOx (higher combustion temperatures). Once you get beyond that, this is coal we are talking about, so the “trace elements” have to be dealt with.

About the only way to have “clean coal” is to gasify it, which still isn’t that clean (even if you are capturing the CO2). At least then most of the waste products can be used for something.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[AHuxley]

The reactors are getting old. Mid to late 1980's projects.

Re: Couldn't that money be better spent

[subie]

Could these coal plants be converted to natural gas like the US has been doing? Its cleaner and reduces CO2. Obviously its not perfect but natural gas is much cleaner and has helped the US reduce its CO2 emissions. From what i've read, not sure if its factual but its claimed that the US has steadily reducing its CO2 output by just converting to natural gas. Just wondering???

Re: Couldn't that money be better spent

[K. S. Kyosuke]

They could, but why? Natural gas is so expensive around here that doing anything else than running a CCGT in it is inadvisable. The CCGT plant, generating 50% extra electricity using the same amount of gas, would pay for itself very quickly.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[Trogre]

Southern California Edison learned a few valuable lessons with this failure, two of which were:

1. Don't employ muppets who lie about basic maintenance.
2. Always verify your supply chain.

"Don't build a nuclear power plant" is not one of them, despite it being shouted by a small, but quite vocal, misinformed minority.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[angel'o'sphere]

Most German coal is lignite, which is filthy low-grade crap that generates even more CO2 per KwHr than bituminous coal.
Wrong.

Nether is lignite 50% of our coal based power production, or "most" as you claim, nor does it produce more CO2.

CO2 is produced from burning carbon, the fucking power plant can not suddenly produce more CO2 just because the carbon comes from a different source. I really wonder how stupid people are getting in our times.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[angel'o'sphere]

As an American living in Germany, I never understood that decision either. It was definitely not based on sense at all
Probably you do not live in Germany long enough?

The population fought against nuclear power against the "establishment" since the mid 1960s. FINALLY 1998 the government was Greens and SPD and promptly they FINALLY abandoned nuclear power. Unfortunately their reign only lasted close to 10 years and Merkel prolonged the run time of nuclear plants. Until Fukushima, when she reverted their position.

To say it like an amercian: fuck the planet. Germany comes first. And the problem here is: nearly 100 year old nuclear reactors, built on fault lines, in earth quake ares in a country where a single plant would kill millions if it goes boom.

We did never produce much nuclear power anyway, at its peak it was 22% ... now it is 10%.

Now we produce over 40% power by renewables ... only dropped nuclear by ~10% and dropped coal by 30%

If we go back to nukes, we will have a civil war. And no: that is not an exaggeration or a joke.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[AHuxley]

Germany has to be sure of the "West" German workers that did the reactor welds.
Test done every year past 25 years?
30 years?
Not many nations had the skills needed to do reactor pressure vessel welding.

Re: Couldn't that money be better spent

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and it's not as expensive as you think which is why the US is converting many coal plants over to it.

But Germany is not the United States. It's utterly irrelevant what the US is doing when discussing Germany. A purpose-built natural gas plant is not expensive as you think either (it's in fact one of the cheapest things you can build on a large scale), so converting coal plants is near useless unless you can afford to waste lots of the gas on your inefficient plant. What do you think is the price of natural gas in Europe?

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[edtice1559]

Funny I commented earlier in this thread that it is silly to spend $91B to abandon perfectly good coal plants. It was also silly to abandon the nuclear plants. I'm glad somebody else sees some sense here. Infrastructure is a long-term investment and you can never have enough of it. When building new, do the best you can, but rarely do you want to shut down something that is still economical and not at end of life.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[GregMmm]

"Meanwhile, what if you took 98 *billion* dollars and used that money all to improve the electrical power grid in India."

Simply put, why is it Germany's problem to fix India's power grid?

Yes you are correct, the Paris accord was nothing more than a money grab from rich counties to poor countries, with no real return on the investment.

Oh, I'm sure the answer it the same to both: We're saving the planet for all of us!! Glory be and shoot fire!

If Germany wants to do this in Germany, then so be it. Last time I checked, India (poorer country) can do what they want to their country.

Seems a bit harsh, and yup.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[AmiMoJo]

The magnitude of an air disaster and a nuclear disaster are rather different.

If a German nuclear plant had a failure similar to Fukushima, a relatively small accident on the scale of possible outcomes, it could bankrupt Germany. Not only would the government be on the hook for all the losses its own citizens incurred, but it would have to compensate many other neighbouring Europeans that were affected by it.

Plus it's very expensive and they were fed up of subsidising it. They were reducing coal subsidies greatly at that time too.

Renewables offered a very desirable change for Germany. Take energy production away from big, welfare addicted companies and let smaller businesses and individuals participate in the energy market. It also created a lot of new jobs at a time when they were trying to power out of the global financial crisis. Nuclear creates relatively few jobs, especially compared to distributed renewables.

Re: Couldn't that money be better spent

[Myrdos]

It was called "The Hindenburg", and it completely killed the entire zeppelin industry. No surprise that Fukushima has had a similar effect, human nature hasn't changed in the last 100 years.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[SmilingBoy]

Of course there is a difference. It depends on the molecules the energy comes from. Some molecules contain more carbon atoms per J of energy stored, so will produce more CO2. Some specific CO2 emissions I googled (in kg CO2 per GJ):

Lignite: 100 to 115
Bituminous coal: 95
Diesel: 74
Petrol: 69
Natural gas (mostly Methane): 56

As you can see, it is much better to burn natural gas than coal or lignite if you want to minimise CO2 emissions per kWh electricity produced.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[SuperKendall]

Both those quotes are EXACTLY the reason why I think it makes more sense to spend money to try and fix the largest sources of CO2, before attempting a very marginal improvement in the home country.

That is, if you actually believe reducing CO2 helps. It sure seems like a lot of companies, countries and people that claim we need to reduce CO2, are not doing a damn thing about reducing CO2 themselves.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[Applehu Akbar]

The magnitude of an air disaster and a nuclear disaster are rather different.

This is a good point. If I avoid cherry-picking the largest air disaster, the collision of two 747s at Tenerife that killed 583, the run-of-the-mill plane crash that we get somewhere in the world about once a year that kills perhaps 100 or 200. but when we consider the vast number of daily flights in every country, we consider air travel a highly safe technology compared to any of the others, especially private manual driving.

Meanwhile, the nuclear accident death toll remains at 51, all in one incident. And no "devastation forever" either. The corium at Chernobyl and Fukushima will all end up disassembled by robots and chucked into Asian breeder reactors while Germany is still making excuses for keeping the lignite pits going as its baseload.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[kaatochacha]

Those don't sound expensive to achieve at all. they sound like common sense, actually--and less expensive in the long run.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[kaatochacha]

wait, you're saying if German went back to Nuclear power, people would literally begin shooting at each other in the streets?

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[AmiMoJo]

Why avoid cherry picking air disasters, but then cherry pick statistics? What is the highest ever cost of an aviation accident, including all the insurance and compensation claims paid out?

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[vipvop]

You do realize nuclear power plants don't blow up like a nuclear bomb when things go wrong, right? Killing millions is not going to happen

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[Skubman]

why is Germany getting rid of THIER use of coal.

As it is the Germany effort just looks like virtue signaling that will have almost no real impact on worldwide CO2 levels.

Perhaps instead of virtue signalling, it's called "leadership by example." Why would you imply that Germany should go after others instead of getting their house in order first?

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[angel'o'sphere]

Yes, that was what was I saying, or don't you grasp the concept of "civil war"?
We were close to one around 1989 ... main stream media seems to have missed it.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[angel'o'sphere]

Chernobyl killed about a million.
Not instantly, but over the course of 30 years.

And Chernobyl was close to the city of Chernobyl ... hence its name.

If something like Chernobyl (yes, I know it can't) would happen in Germany, e.g. in the Ruhr region: we had millions of death, in a course of a few weeks.

No idea why you like to talk about stuff you have no clue about.

Re:Couldn't that money be better spent

[angel'o'sphere]

We talked about brown coal versus hard coal.
There is no real difference.

Natural gas is CH4 ... obviously if you burn it you get less CO2 from it than from any kind of coal.

Re:2038 lol

[Freischutz]

The people making the decisions will be long gone by then, anything can happen.

If this was the US I'd agree with you since in the US you have a culture of electing Republicans who then tear down everything the Democrats did, them you elect the Democrats who tear down everything the Republicans did, then you elect the Republicans who tear down everything the Democrats did .... and repeat this ad infinitum in the expectation that eventually something will change for the better. However, this is German and here Liberals and conservatives can actually agree and work together on sensible policies. If the CDU (the conservatives) are willing to do this, the Social Democrats and Greens (aka. the evil liberals) will be even more willing to do it. Coal is a dead and uneconomical way of producing energy and it looks to me like the Germans have accepted that and moved on to technologies that have a future.

What will they do when subsidies run out

[guruevi]

If $90B is required to keep renewables cheaper than other options, what will happen at the end of that? $90B in taxpayer subsidized energy buys a lot of nuclear plants which they also shut down.

Energy in Germany (with all the subsidies) now costs over 30c/kWh while my small town supplier (primarily hydro/nuclear energy sourced) costs me 3c/kWh (without subsidies).

On the other hand, all this investment in renewables hasn't made nearly any dent in greenhouse gas emissions within Germany over the last 3 decades.

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[spth]

Annual German carbon dioxide emission per capita went from 12.93 tonnes in 1995 to 8.88 in 2016. That is a reduction of 32% (Wikipedia)

Population increased from 77.619 million to 82.5 million during that time, so the relative total reduction is a bit less.

Still I wouldn't call that "hasn't made nearly any dent". Still, in the face of global warming, more effort is required; and keeping some nuclear reactors running a bit longer to shut down lignite power plants a bit earlier would have helped. But doing so would probably have been hard given the political climate - there seems to be a strong anti-nuclear sentiment among the population; on the other hand opposition to open-pit mining of lignite is counterbalanced by the jobs it creates, and thus support from unions and local politicians.

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[guruevi]

Greenhouse gas emissions per capita has gone down significantly in the US as well, 40% per capita in the US and much more across the UK as well as the rest of the EU. Compared to the sources of energy and overall energy cost, the promised 'cheap and emission-free' solar/wind don't seem to be coming, we're just shifting the emissions.

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[AHuxley]

The full cost of power generation is then passed onto people who have to buy power in Germany.
Exports become more expensive.
A factory has to waste more of its profits on buying energy.
Thats money lost to investment, upgrades, jobs and production.
All to pay for virtue signalling power generation.

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[angel'o'sphere]

Energy prices in producing anything in Germany are completely irrelevant.

Call me when they have tripled or increased ten fold, then my bread from my bakery will cost 10cent more, that is really a concern for me ....

Worse would be beer ... I really dread the moment the beer in the pub costs 10 cent or 50 cents more ... oh the horrors!!!

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[AHuxley]

Re Energy prices in producing anything in Germany are completely irrelevant.
Except for the people who have to save up and spend their currency to buy more expensive German goods and services.
All that cost of wind and solar power is making German exports cost more.
Germany exporters have to pay "money" for the energy they use every night and day to run their production lines.
A cost that is passed on with the "cost" of the product that is sold.

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[angel'o'sphere]

Which part of "anything germany produces" has costs to produce and "the energy costs are below 1%" of the costs don't you grasp?
He?

Energy costs are completely irrelevant for stuff we export. They are "a little bit relevant" for a bakery, or a "brick manufacture". Bit for nothing else, except transportation.

We don't compete on price. We never did. We compete on quality, dumbass.

If energy prices increase ten fold, a product we export would increase in 9% of price ... and you can be sure even in socialist Germany, the factory will find a way to fire enough people to keep the price increase competitive. And: a stupid american does not care how much an Audi costs. He does not base his decision to buy one on the price ... he would be even more stupid if he did.

Re:What will they do when subsidies run out

[spth]

In the timeframe used above ("3 decades"), 1995 to 2016, the US reduced their carbon-dioxide emissions by 22% (same source as used before for Germany).

While in general, the US still has a long way to go, there is one quite impressive aspect: The reversal of the decline of rail freight following the deregulation in 1980 (through AFAIK in recent years it started to decline a bit again). In Germany, rail freight market share in 2015 by tonnes-kilometers is just 18 %. For the US, recent data seems hard to find; rail freight market share in 2008 by tonnes-kilometers was 44 %.

Considering that transport account for about a third of carbon-dioxide emissions, and that road emission per tonne-kilometre are about three times as much as for rail, that makes a big difference.

Rail freight market share in Germany is about the EU average. Some European countries are doing substantially worse (e.g. UK at 13% in 2013 and Ireland at 1% in 2013), others much better (e.g. Austria at 42%, Latvia at 60%).

Re:2038 lol

[Gabest]

The unix timestamp will roll over in 2038, too. The world ends anyway.

Way too late

[carlhaagen]

Burning coal at the scale involved for a population of 85 million, for another 20 years, just isn't going to cut it as a sincere environmental effort for our current situation. Yes, I know that coal makes up "only" about 30% of Germany's power sources.

Re:Way too late

[nojayuk]

Germany is increasing its consumption of imported natural gas, mostly from Russia. The Nord Stream II pipeline is under construction at the moment, to bypass/supplement the trans-Ukranian pipeline currently feeding Western Europe as well as increasing supply capacity generally by about 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year. It's pretty certain that capacity will find eager customers in various European countries that are nominally pro-renewable but don't want to freeze to death in the dark.

Re:Way too late

[dunkelfalke]

Germany generally does not heat with electricity hence the one has nothing to do with the other. The increased gas supply is a replacement for heating oil.

Re:Way too late

[spth]

Emissions-wise, natural gas (0.20 g CO2 per Wh) is a much better energy source than coal (0.34 to 0.41 g CO2 per Wh). Also, gas power plants can be adjusted very quickly, making them particularly suitable to balance the varying output from wind and solar energy (both of which Germany has a lot of).

Re:Way too late

[nojayuk]

Britain has vastly reduced its dependence on coal-burning to produce electricity by building out a lot of combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) generators which burn gas instead. Over the next couple of decades Germany's coal-fired power plants will be mostly replaced by similar CCGT plants which will continue to dump CO2 into the atmosphere. A quick Google suggests Germany already produces over 10% of its electricity from natural gas (83 TWh in 2018 from one source). Of course it also burns a lot of gas for domestic and industrial heating too since electricity is too expensive to use for home heating in Germany at nearly 30 Eu cents/kWh.

Re:Way too late

[dunkelfalke]

Highly unlikely. The most modern German combined cycle gas power plant was essentially closed a few years ago (the power plant operator wanted to shut it down completely because it is non competitive with renewables, but the network operator forced them to keep it running on standby as a reserve power plant for now). Generally the percentage of natural gas usage for electricity production has not changed much for the last 15 years varying between 10 and 15 percent without any clear tendency up or down.

Re:Way too late

[angel'o'sphere]

Over the next couple of decades Germany's coal-fired power plants will be mostly replaced by similar CCGT plants which will continue to dump CO2 into the atmosphere.
No it wont. Wind and Solar is cheaper ...

Of course it also burns a lot of gas for domestic and industrial heating too since electricity is too expensive to use for home heating in Germany at nearly 30 Eu cents/kWh.
Idiots idiots idiots everywhere ... why would anyone rebuild his house and remove the perfect working gas heating with electric heating in a country where you only need heating 1 or 2 months?
Electric heating, especially if electricity comes from CO2 producing power plants, make sense sense at all. Call me again about ti when we are full CO2 in producing electricity ... then it makes sense.

Actually one of the "storage ideas" is to store heat in hot water ... so everyone gets a 2000l water tank ...

Re:Way too late

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah, yawn ... and what is your message?

The balancing plants we already have ...
Changing relatively quick load adjusting coal plants to gas plants makes no sense. Building a new gas plant takes 10 years. An existing coal plant can not be converted easily (easy as in quick and cheap).

As coal is only about 30% - 40% of Germany's energy production, changing that to gas, or even combined cycle gas has only a minimal effect.

Re:Way too late

[hholzgra]

"As coal is only about 30% - 40% of Germany's energy production, changing that to gas, or even combined cycle gas has only a minimal effect."

It may have a rather small impact on CO2 emissions, but as a large part of it is domestic brown coal retrieved from open pit mines in a rather densely populated country, this also triggers repeated discussions about whole villages and small towns having to be relocated, and about the impact on local ecosystems.

Also its emission footprint of other substances than CO2 is bad compared to natural gas.

And last not least, gas plants can be much smaller than coal plants, and don't have to be close to the coal mines, so having the option to put then to a second use with
power-heat cogeneration

Re:Way too late

[angel'o'sphere]

It may have a rather small impact on CO2 emissions, but as a large part of it is domestic brown coal retrieved from open pit mines in a rather densely populated country, this also triggers repeated discussions about whole villages and small towns having to be relocated, and about the impact on local ecosystems.
Perhaps you want to look on a map of germany. The "open pits" are not in densely populated areas. And the "closed pits" are some of the best nature resorts germany has.

Also its emission footprint of other substances than CO2 is bad compared to natural gas.
Unlike to popular believe: the exhaust of lignite power plants is scrubbed at the same standards hard coal plants are ...

And last not least, gas plants can be much smaller than coal plants,
No, they aren't ... by what magic would they? Oh ... the area in total saves the areal for stored coal?

and don't have to be close to the coal mines,
They are not close to coal mines. By what magic would they? A steel factory is not moving when coal mining moves, nor does a power plant. Power plants are close to the place where power is used. Not close to the place where coal is mined. A no brainer if you would not rely on stupid gossip of your friends. What is more easy? Buying land, getting a permit to build up a power line, or transporting coal per ship or train on existing rivers, channels or rails? WTF ... what is wrong with people in our age?

so having the option to put then to a second use with power-heat cogeneration
Same as existing coal plants, see above.

Re:Way too late

[SmilingBoy]

Electric heating, especially if electricity comes from CO2 producing power plants, make [no] sense at all.

I presume you are not familiar with heat pumps? In many cases, they are much more efficient than burning gas for heating even if fossil fuels are used to produce the electricity.

Re:Way too late

[SmilingBoy]

Perhaps you want to look on a map of germany. The "open pits" are not in densely populated areas.

I'm sorry to say this but what are you smoking? Hambach is 15 km West of the city limits of Cologne (the fourth largest city in Germany). The other open pit mines in the Rhineland are also close to densely populated areas. This is a bit less the case in Eastern Germany.

Re:Way too late

[vipvop]

It's not often that someone stands out as impressively retarded on /., but you pulled it off!

Re:Way too late

[angel'o'sphere]

If you need a heat pump only 2 or 3 month a year, it is still a question if and why to switch.

And inside of a city, you hardly can ask the land lord: what about me digging up the yard to install a heat pump.

On the other hand: head pumps are heavily subsidized in Germany ...

Re:Way too late

[angel'o'sphere]

So you like to nitpick?

Look here: http://www.energiewelten.de/el...

Most still active mining areas are not in populated areas.

This is a (german :) ) video about renaturation .... but most of the pictures are self explanaiting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:unpossible!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Germany. I'm sure they can find something else to burn.

Just Coincidence?

[Mikkeles]

Just in time for 32 bit Unix time to fail!

Meh

[PeeAitchPee]

They're just going to buy most of their power from foreign nations -- namely oil from the Russians and nuclear power from the French. It's just feel-good bullshit that moves the externalities elsewhere but costs the German people a whole lot of money and does nothing to solve the underlying issues.

Re:Meh

[stooo]

Nope.
Germany phases out nuclear. Coal is next.
Renewables are at 40% now, growing every year.

Re:Meh

[spth]

Considering that both nuclear and oil have lower carbon-dioxide emissions per given amount of energy produced than coal, how would that do "nothing to solve the underlying issues"?

Re:Meh

[MS]

Germany exports more energy, than it imports. In 2018 the difference was about 50 Terawatthours.

In 2018 Germany exported a total of 70 TWh (mainly to the Netherlands: 19 TWh), while France exported about 68 TWh (in near equal parts to all neighbouring countries, 15 TWh to Spain)

Re:Meh

[Uecker]

It is a myth that Germany relies on nuclear power from French. In 2018, Germany net-exported 50 TWh of electricity. In fact, is quite the opposite as France regularly has to import electricity when nuclear plants are offline for various reasons.

Re:Meh

[110010001000]

Germany is importing huge amounts of coal, and is poised to import even more this year: http://www.mining.com/web/germ...

Germany is a mess.

Re:Meh

[110010001000]

Nope. Germany is expected to import more coal in 2019: http://www.mining.com/web/germ...

Reality is different from the delusional German fanboys.

Re:Meh

[dunkelfalke]

Because most coal mines in Germany have been closed, but coal is still required for primary steel making and Germany is number two in the world in making high quality steel.

Re:2038 lol

[gnasher719]

The unix timestamp will roll over in 2038, too. The world ends anyway.

I'm using a Mac. Timestamps are seconds in double precision. That will last for a few million years.

Re:2038 lol

[Zocalo]

Maybe the two are related? Chances are pretty high that many of those powerstations are running on Unix based SCADA systems that are susceptible to the bug and would need an overhaul. Given typical project costs for such sweeping system overhauls, maybe they've just worked out it would be cheaper to decommission them all rather than refurb them? Factor in the likelihood of an environmentalist outcry over building brand new coal-fired plants to replace them and committing to something else (note that they don't say what those powerstations will be though), is probably the only politically acceptable solution left.

Re:unpossible!

[MS]

You may repeat that another thousand times - but it' not true.

Germany already had two days, where energy was totally renewable: in the morning of 1. January 2018 (a day full of wind with low energy demand) and from 13 to 15 o'clock on 1. May 2018 (a sunny day with lots of solar and wind-power). in those hours the full demand in Germany was totally covered by eco-friendly power. On average renewables cover about 40% of the demand.

What Germany has to do now, is to invest in supply lines, as most offshore windfarms are in the north, and lines from north to south are often saturated. Coal- and nuclear-free ist definately doable in a few years.

Three card monte with public money

[mattb47]

So $90B is going to be spent here, with a good portion of that subsidizing renewable electricity prices.

So Germans won't be paying more in electricity, but they will in taxes.

That's just hiding the costs somewhere else.

Don't want dirty coal? OK. Unfortunately, renewable energy is expensive. Solar also works poorly in snowy, rainy, and cold Germany.

So do nuclear -- which is clean -- but they won't do it because they're phobic. Or hydro, but nobody seems to like hydro anymore.

So, yes, time to just buy it from the neighbors who don't base their electrical generation on unicorns and pixie dust.

Re:Three card monte with public money

[spth]

Or hydro, but nobody seems to like hydro anymore.

Unfortunately, further potential for hydroelectric energy in Germany is small. Places suitable for large-scale generation are already in use. Many places suitable for small-scale generation, such as former mills have already been reactivated (hydro power in Germany went from 17.4 GWh in 1990 to 19.3 in 2015). There is a little bit of further potential, which can and should be used, but looking at the big picture further hydroelectric power can only be a tiny part of the German energy supply.

Re:Three card monte with public money

[AHuxley]

Pumped hydro is fine but the easy to dam locations already have dams.

Re:Three card monte with public money

[angel'o'sphere]

Solar also works poorly in snowy, rainy, and cold Germany.
I took the liberty to highlight, aka mark, two of your mistakes.

Ever heard about global warming?

Germany is not snowy since minimum 30 years, and not cold either ... idiot.

Re:Three card monte with public money

[angel'o'sphere]

Pumped hydro does not produce power.
It costs power ...

It is only used for load balancing ... and could be used as large scale storage.

And no: the easy to dam regions are not all in use. There are thousands left. But as you see above: pumped storage traditionally only is used for load balancing ... and you do not need much of that.

Re:Three card monte with public money

[AHuxley]

Re "Pumped hydro does not produce power.".
When the water flows back down from the dam power is produced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
ie the "stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power" part.

Re:Three card monte with public money

[angel'o'sphere]

You have to pump the water up before, hence it is called "pumped storage" ... how braindead are you?
So it is a 10% loss bottom line.

Re:Will import electricity from neighbours.

[Powercntrl]

No matter the we have to use MORE fuel to produce the power for my car as long as it is not consumed where my car is.

It depends where you live. In many places in the USA, you'd probably be "greener" by skipping the EV, buying the cheapest (ICE powered) economy car instead, and putting the money you saved towards photovoltaics on the roof of your home. The photovoltaics will also yield a better ROI than the EV.

Sad fact is, we've still got a way to go before EVs are anything more than a way for the rich (and rich-ish) to feel smug about their vehicle choice.

Europe rejects technology, uses more coal

[drnb]

Coal is a dead and uneconomical way of producing energy and it looks to me like the Germans have accepted that and moved on to technologies that have a future.

Europe is forced to use more coal due to the *rejection* of technology. The hysterical and premature shutdown of nuclear power has forced the increased the use of coal. The US coal industry has been throw a lifeline not by Trump but by European greens. US coal exports to Europe have nearly doubled in recent years.

Another poster is correct. Europe is about talk, about virtue signaling gestures. The reality of their actions quite different.

Re:Europe rejects technology, uses more coal

[Uecker]

Actual numbers on coal use for electricity production in Germany in TWh from 2008-2018
lignite: 150.6 145.6 145.9 150.1 160.7 160.9 155.8 154.5 149.5 148.4 146.0
coal: 124.6 107.9 117.0 112.4 116.4 127.3 118.6 117.7 112.2 93.6 83.0
I know it is an annoying inconvenience to look at actual data before having an opinion, for those who want to learn, the source is here:https://www.ag-energiebilanzen.de/ (PDF below "STROMMIX")

Re:Europe rejects technology, uses more coal

[Cyberax]

So basically very little change, with some of the 2018 numbers explained by unusually mild weather. Yeah, success that.

Re:Europe rejects technology, uses more coal

[Uecker]

It may not be a huge reduction, but a reduction of 46 TWh is in no way a little change.

Re:Europe rejects technology, uses more coal

[umghhh]

Germans will switch it off no matter the cost if their masters decided that this is in their 'best' interests. When the little Austrian was in power they went with it till the ammunition ran out - they will do that with coal and anything else they get sold as cure for their Weltschmerz.
As for energy production - the levels of what wind and solar produced increased significantly over the years, yet w/o coal and nuclear their grid would have collapsed in January (for weather reasons - every year the same story) and regularly the emergency measures have to be taken (taking some big users off the grid for short time). Fact is that Germans have to import energy on regular basis while often enough they have to pay other countries to buy excess energy produced by their wind parks and solar panels. No wonder prices of energy for local customers are highest in EU. For similarly misguided policies you can look at California. I wonder what will happen to their industries when the energy delivery is not more guaranteed. I guess the architects and engineers Merkel imported of late will fix all that in no time.

Re:Europe rejects technology, uses more coal

[drnb]

Actual numbers on coal use for electricity production in Germany in TWh from 2008-2018 lignite: 150.6 145.6 145.9 150.1 160.7 160.9 155.8 154.5 149.5 148.4 146.0 coal: 124.6 107.9 117.0 112.4 116.4 127.3 118.6 117.7 112.2 93.6 83.0 I know it is an annoying inconvenience to look at actual data before having an opinion, for those who want to learn, the source is here:https://www.ag-energiebilanzen.de/ (PDF below "STROMMIX")

Actual numbers to *Europe* show a 12.4% increase. 11.7 million tons, up from 9.7
https://www.eia.gov/coal/produ...

With electric power being transferred around Europe you can't really look at one country in isolation. For example France used to export nuclear based power, nukes get shut down, countries have to find alternate sources.

The simple fact remains. Europe had to increase US coal imports.

Re:unpossible!

[Zocalo]

Just because they are mining it doesn't mean that they are going to burn it themselves; while related, one statement does not automatically negate the other. Still, given they're going to be burning coal until some date near 2038 (at least), it does seem likely that the cheapest source of that coal would be locally sourced with the rest going for export. Not necessarily though; you do get scenarios where countries both import and export the same materials depending on specific users' supply chains.

Not in America

[Powercntrl]

We're even expanding the use of coal for things like cooking pizzas. Seriously.
Not sure if the pizza delivery drivers roll coal while they deliver your coal-fired-pizza, but I wouldn't be surprised either.

Only in 'merica

Re:Not in America

[110010001000]

Nope. Germany is opening new mines and power plants: http://airclim.org/acidnews/ge...

Re:Not in America

[spth]

Nope. Germany is opening new mines and power plants: http://airclim.org/acidnews/ge...

However, the temperatures at which these power plants will operate make them unsuitable for use as pizza ovens.

Re: Not in America

[subie]

And how much of an impact do these little ovens have compared to real coal plants???

Re: 2038 lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. They don't even have Freedom of Speech in Germany.

Re:unpossible!

[110010001000]

Uuuuh, how does that contradict what I am saying? You can look it up yourself. New coal stations: http://airclim.org/acidnews/ge...

Expanding coal mines: https://qz.com/1389135/germany...

Complete idiot.

Re:unpossible!

[110010001000]

They are burning it. 30% of Germanys power comes from coal. They are opening new coal power stations: http://airclim.org/acidnews/ge...

Seriously, it is like you guys live on a different planet.

Re:unpossible!

[spth]

The agreement reached by the comission on phasing out coal yesterday mandates a gradual reduction in the use of coal. This might or might not save those forests that have become a symbol of the opposition to open-pit lignite mining: "Die Kommission hält es für wünschenswert, dass der Hambacher Forst erhalten bleibt."

While the compromise makes it likely that the coal under the forests won't be mined (the compromise mandates a gradual closing of plants and mines, but doesn't mandate, which mines should be closed first), the lowering of groundwater levels due to the nearby mining might still kill the forests.

Either way, those forests are mostly of symbolic value; they are tiny compared to the total of forests in Germany - 32% of the country. Looking at the big picture, what matters is that carbon emissions go down further.

Re:2038 lol

[Uecker]

Nonsense. Germany closed it's last hard coal mine in 2015 and electricity production from hard coal declined from 127 TWh in 2013 to 83 TWth in 2018. Lignite is still surface-mined and power production is more stable but also on decline (161 TWh in 2015 to 146 TWh in 2018).Source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen... With this just announced plan, it is clear it is on it's way out.

Re:unpossible!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

This is Germany. I'm sure they can find something else to burn.

. . . that would cause a Soylent Green shortage.

Re:unpossible!

[MS]

Interesting: that article mentions the coal plant Datteln: in Datteln 3 blocks were already shutoff in 2014. Construction of the fourth block began in 2007 but was haltet by court in 2013. Since then block 4 in Datteln is the only coal-plant "under construction" in whole western Europe! Uniper (the owner of the plant) is fighting to complete it, and maybe will be able to complete that plant - but it will be the only one.
Meanwhile Uniper shut off other plants in Shamrock (2013), Knepper (2014), Veltheim (2015) and Irsching (2016). New plants are not in sight!

Earth To Phase Out Human Life By 2038, Says Report

[mlawrence]

I doubt by 2038 one country removing a fossil fuel will have any effect on what will be happening.

Re:2038 lol

[mspohr]

Except Germany has already closed a lot of coal plants and they now have an agreement to close the rest.
The USA (we're number 1), OTOH, has promised to make coal great again (although they are running into a few economic barriers... it's just too expensive, and dirty.)

Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

The determination of the real costs is delayed till 2023. In the mean time they pretend to believe in fairy tales, they don't really ... but politics.

The market will not put down the necessary amount of new gas plant without either guaranteed consumption or being paid to keep it mothballed until the next dunkelflaute. Germany needs a massive expansion of its subsidized reserve capacity and they are unwilling to commit to doing so for now.

Report is here by the way :
http://docs.dpaq.de/14440-1901...

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[angel'o'sphere]

You are an idiot.

The actually existing reserve capacity in Germany is FAR OVER 100% of what er produce. And if you did not get it so far, we export 50% of all power we produce.

How dumb are you after getting corrected 100 times during the last 5 years about your misconceptions?

expansion of its subsidized reserve capacity
Why the fuck would reserve power be subsidized by anyone/anything? The cost of every fucking kW/h people are buying already includes the cost for reserve power.

You have no fucking clue how the power business works and tell bullshit here ... WTF ... you annoy me.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

German doesn't export power during a Dunkelflaute ... and that's the problem.

You can't rely on neighbours to fill up the reliability gap of renewables.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

By the way, the report literally says Germany needs expansion of its natural gas generating capacity. They also mention all the problems why the market might not be willing to invest in them while renewable energy is being expanded (they are the first to get turned off). They just kind of wave their hands in the air and say they will wait for 2023 for the market to supply and if not they need a rethink how to make the investment more attractive, while pre-emptively saying it can't be expansion of the reserve capacity. Clearly indicating it's the solution, they doth protest too much.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[angel'o'sphere]

There are no "Dukelflautes" in Germany.
Dunkel as in dark, it is at night.

Wind does not stop at night, especially not at the coast, dumbass.

You can't rely on neighbours to fill up the reliability gap of renewables.
Yes we can ... or do you have any news article about a power outage in recent years that was not caused by a mayor grid problem, as in collapsing pillars due to ice load on top of them?

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[angel'o'sphere]

No idea what you want to say.
You sound like a politician using the right words but producing random sentences.

Germany needs expansion of its natural gas generating capacity.
We don't generate much natural gas anymore, we just burn it, somehow/somewhere.

pre-emptively saying it can't be expansion of the reserve capacity.
As I already pointed out: we already have more reserve capacity than the amount of power we export.
Building more "reserve power plants" makes no sense. If you would know how the power market and the reserve power market works, you would not write nonsense like above.

Short introduction:
The power selling market (not buying, yes only selling, might sound stupid for you that there are markets that are purely selling but that is how it is ...) is divided into three markets (if you include transport grids, then it is four but that is not relevant)
o power generation
o reserve power
o balancing power

If you live in region Pinky and I live far away in Brainy, and for some obscure reason you bought power from me, you pay what I bill you, or more precisely as you obviously are a big customer - otherwise you had not bought from me - pay what we agreed on in the contract, then:
o I have to generate the power and transport it to you (that is why I excluded transport grids), you pay my bill for that
o I have to pay a reserve power plant operator in your local grid a "stand by fee"
+ I have to agree on a contract with said reserve power operator to pay his fee if he has to switch from stand by to actually provide the reserve power - no big issue as if I fail to produce and deliver the power "I owe you" I safe the production costs for it
o I have to pay the "balancing power" in your grid in case you don't take the agreed amount but take more or less or don't take it in the "bandwidth" we agreed on - and yes, for that I have to make a contract with "balancing power providers" but that is usually only the grid operator of your grid region or "balancing region"

So, as neither you nor the writer of the article you refer to seems to know stuff like this: you have no idea what "reserve power is" (hint: there are three kinds of reserve power ... you can google it).

So: no, Germany is not building more reserve power plants, we already have much to many of them.
Hint: every coal plant that was shut down because it was replaced by wind and solar and biomass is basically a reserve power plant now.

No idea why people on /. who never read a book about electric power generation and/or grids and/or grid management and/or electric power markets and/or renewable energy feel so eager to post every time a "Germany" or "renewable" or "nuke" threat shows up.

Electric power and grids and power plants don't work as you think they work. So: shut up. Watch a movie, eat some pop corn, drink a beer.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

Sometimes the wind does stop, at the same time across all of Northern Europe. We still have excess fossil fuel capacity for now, of the sort Germany wants to turn off. Everyone is turning off old fossil fuel capacity without replacing it 1:1 though, in France's case they will also turn off ageing nuclear plants without completely replacing them. That's why you can't rely on neighbours, excess capacity is evaporating everywhere. Leading the pack means you run into trouble first, because every country will prioritize its own during a Dunkelflaute.

As I said, the report itself said new natural gas generating capacity needs to be build ... there's nothing terribly controversial about that. They are just pretending the market will provide and delaying some hard political choices by a couple more years.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

"As I already pointed out: we already have more reserve capacity than the amount of power we export."

There were 2 days of net imports last December. This will get worse with a coal phase out. What you need is not reserve capacity in excess of what you export, what you need is fossil fuel reserve capacity to keep the country running with next to no wind and without outside help.

It's not an article, it's the Abschlussbericht Kommission Wachstum, Strukturwandel und Beschäftigung“.

Die Versorgungssicherheit soll grundsätzlich im Energiebinnenmarkt gesichert werden. Grundsätzlich
sollen die empfohlenen Maßnahmen zum Ausstieg aus der Kohleverstromung Planbarkeit für die
Marktakteure schaffen und so dafür sorgen, dass die erforderlichen Investitionen in neue Kapazitäten
–
insbesondere Gaskraftwerke und Speicher
–
im Rahmen des Energy Only Marktes und im Rahmen des KWKG getätigt werden.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Uecker]

2 days of imports in December doesn't imply that Germany needed to import power, just that it was cheaper than generating it. Yes, as coal is removed the current excess capacity will also be reduced. But I am not really sure why you are so concerned, Germans always make sure everything is 100% safe and overengineered. There were many studies and simulations than you can safely run the grid with a lot of renewables if take the right actions (e.g. build north-south power lines). In contrast to what all the nuclear proponents on slashdot believe, France is in fact the country which is in trouble with their inflexible and aging nuclear fleet. France currently is not fully self-sustained as it regularly has to import power for prolonged periods of time (e.g. if demand is very high due to electric heating or if there a several nuclear plants down for some reason such as a heat wave).

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

That wasn't my point, I simply said not all the costs had been taken into account yet ... because politics. The proposal suggests taking another look in 2023 to see what is necessary to get sufficient gas generating plants build and that look and more money will almost certainly be necessary.

Not just domestic politics either. The EU allowed the reserve pool to exist for now, but announcing a dramatic expansion of subsidies so soon after the EU did so would probably not be a good idea.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Uecker]

But I don't see how you come to the conclusion "Germany needs a massive expansion of its subsidized reserve capacity and they are unwilling to commit to doing so for now." From the practical point, we have more than enough plants and for a reserve it is not horrible if they are still coal or lignite as they would not usually be used. And wasn't the criticism of the EU quite the opposite: that the capacity reserve isn't really necessary and essentially an instrument Germany uses to subsidy it's industry in a non-compliant way.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[angel'o'sphere]

Obviously importing some power is cheaper than spinning up a reserve power plant.

Germany is a member of the EU.

The EU is a member in the European/Scandinavian(North African super grid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

That grid again is interconnected all over the northern eastern hemisphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

No idea what your bullshit about: "Germany needs to do this or that or the light goes out" is about ... go back into your cave in your third world country you come from.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[angel'o'sphere]

Sometimes the wind does stop, at the same time across all of Northern Europe.
No it does not.
Look on a map.

As I said, the report itself said new natural gas generating capacity needs to be build ... there's nothing terribly controversial about that.
The report is about abolishing coal ... and that mainly means: abolishing mining! Because that is the economical problem.

Time frame is till 2038 ... there is no need for any gas plant till then as all plants that get mothballed are replaced by wind and solar.

Re:Only part of the costs have been calculated

[Pinky's Brain]

It's much easier to keep an old (coal) plant on stand by and still make a profit than a new gas plant. Those investors have to look decades ahead. Gas plants are the most expensive to run, so they get turned off first. They will want some kind of profit guarantee to build them.

Giving them that guarantee from reserve pool status is the most open way of doing things. Consumption guarantees will be a problem down the road, when you face the choice of the plants either becoming very very expensive reserves or just using their power regardless of the potential of more CO2 reductions. Loan guarantees will just be a huge political scandal down the road, the power companies will reap profits for a while and then when they become unprofitable (due to increasing renewable power generation) wash their hands of them and let government temporarily nationalize them and take a huge loss if they try to sell them again.

Meanwhile the EU makes everything harder by wanting the markets to be open.

Re:unpossible!

[Zocalo]

Of course they're going to be burning at least some of coal they mine - I even said as much. The point was whether they're going to burn *all* the coal from these new mines or whether they're going to export some of it and, if so, how much. They could still go green for power generation by 2038, fuel their existing coal-fired powerplants mostly from existing mines, and export the bulk of the coal from these mines well past 2038 if they want and the mines have enough capacity for it, so your argument isn't valid - A does not follow B. Any exported coal is going to get burnt *somewhere* of course, quite possibly somewhere with very lax regulation on carbon capture too, but if all goes to plan with their power generation switch Germany can claim to be 100% green by 2038 and feel good about it, even if the net overall result is just as environmentally friendly as carbon credits by a different name.

Re:2038 lol

[mspohr]

If they ever open, they will be closed soon.

Intentions for now.

[Voice of satan]

Whether this plan will come into effect remains to be seen.

But if they displace coal generated electricity by gas plants, i won't be impressed. Especially if they choose faster plants over combined cycle (they pollute less than a combination of classical gas + wind turbines but i do not expect the greens to accept that easily). They will still emit much more greenhouse gases per capita than the French.

If i was a betting person i would put money on gas greenwashed by subsidized wind and solar.

The Germans (And to a lesser extent the Spaniards) are struggling to manage the variability of their renewable electricity. Are they planning to modernize their grid so central European countries do not have to carry their power from on side of Germany or another ?

Seen from afar, i also find the power of public opinion in what are essentially technical matters frightening. Can the administration act as a counterweight to the politicians ?

Re:Intentions for now.

[AHuxley]

German exports and production needs 24/7 power at a set low price.
Changes to power prices every day and night put pressure on the ability to export and keep jobs in Germany.
Gas plants beed imported gas, a product Germany has to pay for to be imported.
Subsidized wind and solar that works when the sun is out and wind is blowing don't give that low 24/7 power price needed.

As new power prices go up in Germany, Germany will have to move well paid jobs to other nations that have low cost power.
Who wants to import an average product from Germany with a huge energy price to pay Germany for?
Costs get passed on and people just won't pay extra for German products and services with such extra energy costs.

Re:unpossible!

[110010001000]

Exactly. It is a NEW plant. Plus they are importing more coal every year: http://www.mining.com/web/germ...

Re:2038 lol

[110010001000]

Yeah, right. One thing I have noticed about Europeans in general: they are delusional. They think they are "green". Meanwhile they lie about diesel emissions and Germany is INCREASING their coal imports. http://www.mining.com/web/germ...

You guys see everyone else as the problem. Stupid Americans right? Yet we are the #2 country in renewable energy generation. Stupid Germans.

Re:unpossible!

[110010001000]

Yeah we all know about Germans and "agreements". They haven't been hitting their Co2 emission reduction targets and have been increasing their coal imports: http://www.mining.com/web/germ...

Much like Germany's "clean diesel" claims, it is all a lie.

Re:unpossible!

[110010001000]

They are just replacing it by importing it from other countries: http://www.mining.com/web/germ...

Germany is a complete joke.

Re:2038 lol

[thegarbz]

BS. Germany is expanding coal mines and opening new ones.

Err you misspelled "Germany has just closed its last coal mine". I know man it's an easy mistake to make. The keys are right next to each other.

Re:unpossible!

[MS]

Are you dislexic? I'm sorry for you.

Construction of the plant in Datteln started in 2007. In 2010 Germany decided to increase the amount of renewable energy to 80% till 2050, and for that goal the coal plants had to be gradually decomissioned. No new coal plants were build or planned since then. For the one plant "under construction", the owner Uniper had to fight a lot to be allowed to finish it. But it's not yet clear, if it will ever be finished.

So, don't spread fake news!

Re:unpossible!

[skullandbones99]

and don't forget that France's nuclear power also contributes to powering Germany.

and then the blackouts came

[umghhh]

We have that already - the big industrial consumers are being switched off when frequency goes below certain level (which is the way the imbalance between demand and available power manifests itself) - last such event was this month. The nuclear power plants are planned to stop production in few years time. If coal is to be stopped too then Germans have 3 options left: import, gas or blackouts. Judging on the ruling hysteria the ICE will be illegal in a year or two in Germany which means that they want all go electric in transport. This will surely 'improve' the situation. So they will build lots of gas powered generators and import lost of the stuff from France and Poland? Assuming that this all will work I wonder what will happen with the price - electricity in Germany is already most expensive in EU. This whole nonsense will not make it cheaper. I suppose this all means that at the end that the rich liberal elite will just have to be escorted trough unlit streets by armed guards so that proles do not cut their throats. Happens already anyway. German is a rich country so they can replace all the power plants with dynamos and hire new citizens to drive them. They just be good for something.

Re:and then the blackouts came

[AHuxley]

In the past German hydro, gas, cola, nuclear would have kept it all working.
Now the sun has to be out and the wind blowing.
Its not fun having to stop and start a production line that could be working 24/7.
The costs of power will not make exports any cheaper.

Re:and then the blackouts came

[Uecker]

The grid in Germany is extremely stable (compared to the rest of the world including US). There are a lot of simulations, planning, etc. to keep it this way and the conclusion of such studies(including by Fraunhofer) was that you can add a lot of renewables (up to 60% and maybe more) before you have to think about storage. Energy prices might make exports a little bit more expensive, but as Germany is extremely competitive and usually criticized for exporting too much (e.g. by Trump) this is hardly a problem. Also: the alternative, adding nuclear power would be much more expensive.

Germany didn't commit to this plan

[magzteel]

More fake news on Slashdot

Germany didn't commit to this plan, the article says it's a recommendation.

"BERLIN - Germany SHOULD stop using coal for electricity production by 2038, a government-appointed commission said Saturday, laying out an 80-billion euro roadmap to phase out the polluting fuel."

"Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier said the government would "carefully and constructively examine" the recommendations, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported in its Sunday edition."

Re:Germany didn't commit to this plan

[Type44Q]

More fake news on Slashdot

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by Slashdot editors who received participation trophies in return for never exceeding a 6th grade literacy level.

Re:Germany didn't commit to this plan

[AmiMoJo]

As TFA also notes, it would be extremely unusual for the government not to accept this recommendation.

Re:Germany didn't commit to this plan

[magzteel]

As TFA also notes, it would be extremely unusual for the government not to accept this recommendation.

That's a fair statement but still it's wrong to spin an article titled "Germany should phase out coal use by 2038: commission" into "Germany To Phase Out Coal Use By 2038, Says Report".

Re:unpossible!

[Zorpheus]

But you claim that they are still building new plants. No, they finished last year. There is none under construction or planned, according to your article.

Elephants in the room: Steel and cement

[vik]

Huge amounts of coal are used in Germany for making steel and cement. Not entirely sure how much - hard to google the numbers - but the steel companies in particular aren't going to like it. They rely on cheap electrical power to run arc furnaces as well as using roughly a quarter of the coal directly.

Re:unpossible!

[Smidge204]

So for "New Coal Stations" you cite an article that talks about (as the first example) a coal plant that's been in planning and construction for over a decade, and as of now (nearly 8 months after that article was written) still isn't commissioned and won't be for at least another year. Meanwhile, that project is to build a 4th unit to replace the three that were decommissioned years ago. Three out, one new. That's a net decrease innit?

The other examples are even dumber; A plant that was completed in 2013, one that was completed in 2015, and a plant that's been in construction since 2008 with no completion date yet.

I suppose the time travelers didn't succeed in telling the planners not to bother.

The article closes with a few paragraphs about a plant commissioned in 1996 that is nearing end of contract and presents it as an opportunity to replace it with something other than coal power.

So instead of "Germany is building new coal plants" your article just demonstrates that Germany has built coal plants - past tense - and that even some of those may never see operation. Forgive me if I'm not as convinced as you are on this point.
=Smidge=

Oh Gee

[JimSadler]

I have been busy trying to find the purple mountain's majesty across the fruited plains. First as far as I can tell there are no purple mountains. The plains are hardly blessed with any fruit at all. But missing something in a song is acceptable as I am convinced we are holding a guided light so that the poor and the wretched around the world can cross our borders. But the idea that Germany can get rid of coal faster than the US has no chance at all. That is just silly. After all our streets are all paved with hold just so we can easily sweep up the coal dust that covers them. Now we do know that coal duct contains Mercury and probably lead as well and just maybe gold dust is in that soot as well.

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany is going to leave billions of tons of super-toxic planet-ending coal buried randomly under Europe without any containment whatsoever?
[shocked gasp]
I wonder what sort of jail time and fines they would assign to an individual who intentionally buried 100kg of the stuff.
[facepalm]

All sarcasm aside.....

I'm sure the elites will be just fine; The poor will do well too, since the elites always pass laws to tax the ordinary citizen in order to provide subsidies for the poor. It's the middle class who always pay for all this phony virtue signalling. The price for them will be high as they pay for more expensive energy, plus pay higher rates to hide subsidies, and probably also get hit with inconveniences like demands they live with less energy use.

The secular elites in the formerly-Christian countries which used to be called Western Civilization are completely insane - theyrenounce a fixed source of morality and then fixate on proving their own moral superiority while forcing the people they think are beneath them to bear all the burdens for their warped policies.

The Germans will do this by making themselves fully-dependent upon Putin and his Russian natural gas (something Trump has repeatedly complained about) and yet they will still insist they need the Americans to spend a hundred billion dollars per year defending them from Russia (Trump is the only American politician to ever make an issue of this two-faced behavior by America's "friends").

Re:so...

[spth]

Natural gas from Russia isn't that expensive (especially when delivered via the new pipelines Trump is complaining about).

It is not a renewable resource, but much better than coal in terms of emissions.

In case relations with Russia deteriorate or Russia increases the price too much, US LNG will become a viable alternative - Trump would prefer Germany to buy more of it now, but currently US LNG isn't priced competitively compared to Russian gas. Also, Russia has a reputation of being a reliable supplier of natural gas, as long as they are paid. They always kept the gas flowing throughout the cold war.

Re:so...

[spth]

While US presence helps protect Europe from Russian aggression, Europeans would be able to do that job by themselves.

The European militaries are not a strong as the US. But they'd still be a sufficient deterrent regarding Russian aggression against EU member states. Integrating these militaries into an EU military might be necessary (since the countries currently have different strengths that would complement each other). The EU has sufficient conventional forces for small-scale conflicts. There is a nuclear second-strike capability which provides a deterrent regarding large-scale conflict.

On the other hand, US presence mostly provides advantages to the US. Both in terms of influence within the EU, and in terms of capabilities in projecting US force to nearby places, such as the middle east.

Re:2038 lol

[subie]

The US exports coal to 42 countries of which India imports the most followed by South Korea, The Netherlands, japan, and lastly Brazil. The approximately 47% of US coal exports go to those countries. Also the US is no longer allowing any new coal plants to be built.

Re:2038 lol

[Anonymous Coward]

You know India and China have a couple billion extra people compared to America don't you? You expect them to have lower CO2 levels? Per person America is twice China and 6-8 times India.
Clearly America is the worst offender. Decades of decreases and yet you are still so much worse than the countries you mentioned.

Re:unpossible!

[cheesybagel]

Nah. The plan is to burn Russian natural gas and use that to load-level wind or solar.
Which is going to be stupendously inefficient because gas turbines lose efficiency if you constantly spool them up and down like that.

Re:2038 lol

[Uecker]

Insults is all you have when confronted with actual numbers?

Re:2038 lol

[Uecker]

He is merely a boring troll. Just look at all the insults and easily debunked statements he makes. The sad thing is some of them are modded up by nuclear proponents, although this is bad strategy because it only makes their side look stupid.

Re: 2038 lol

[Anonymous Coward]

We all need to cut CO2, so no need to wait for others to go first (because that will only leave you with even less time to get it done before itâ(TM)s too late).

Re:unpossible!

[Askmum]

You may repeat that another thousand times - but it' not true.

Replace coal with lignite and it is true. Garzweiler II is being extended as we speak. They even diverted a section of motorway for it to be dug up.

New supply lines in Germany are heavily debated and sometimes very opposed by the sheeple. Meanwhile the situation is so dire that even Belgium suffers under it because it is unwantingly being used as transmission path for German energy.

I'm very interested what the future brings.

Re:2038 lol

[Uecker]

I just quote from the article you cite and let the readers judge themselves whether what you say is even remotely capturing the reality of what is happening in Germany:

"Germany's 2019 hard coal imports seen rising after mining ends"

"Germany is expected to import 45 million tonnes of hard coal this year, up roughly 1.4 percent from 2018 despite mounting competition from renewable energy, as the closure of domestic mines reduces domestic supply, importers said on Friday. The total would comprise an estimated 30 million tonnes for power generation and 15 million tonnes of coking coal and coke, products used in steelmaking, data from lobby group VDKI showed. Germany's last two hard-coal mines, in the west of the country, closed at the end of December under a deal to stop unprofitable mining in favour of imports. The pair had contributed an annual 2.6 million tonnes of power station feedstock."

"Despite the forecast rise, there could be import losses in 2019 as a result of a long-term national plan, due within the next fortnight, on phasing out coal, VDKI said. The projected increase would also be from a weaker base.Volumes in 2018 declined by 13 percent year-on-year to 44.5 million tonnes as renewable energy gets priority on grids, elbowing out thermal plants' output. Steam coal imports for power stations alone fell 17 percent to 30 million tonnes. Green power made up 40 percent of total generation in 2018, resulting from Germany's politically driven process to replace fossil fuels. VDKI estimated the addition of green power plants lost it 3 million tonnes of imports last year, while relatively high solar production in a hot year also played a part."

Re:2038 lol

[hholzgra]

Nonsense. Germany closed it's last hard coal mine in 2015 ...

No, we closed the last one at the end of 2018, and the local mines had been on a decline for several decades already as imported hard coal was so much cheaper than digging it up from up to a kilometer deep under a densely populated area.

German brown coal on the other hand can still be retrieved from open pits rather easily (once you got rid of settlements and protected forests that may be in the way).

That's why the share of electricity produced by hard coal has been going down quite a bit over time, while the share of brown coal has declined only minimally so far.

But despite having no more hard coal mines of our own hard coal plants are still providing about 15% of our electricity so far, they are just operated by cheaper imported coal than what we could bring up from the deep locally

Re:2038 lol

[umghhh]

Actually last coal mine was closed 2018. Lignite is still being mined.

Re:2038 lol

[umghhh]

I think this is about 40% that comes from coal. The fact that Germany has used lignite and did not renew the power producing infrastructure based on coal etc is that Green party prevented it - almost every time an attempt has been made to make to build new more effective power plant so that old ones can be closed was stopped by greens. Similarly with nuclear plants - the way Germany made the transition to non-nuclear made the operators use the old ones and close newer (and safer) ones - rational from their i.e. economic perspective. As far as I can tell Greens have become the most counterproductive force in terms of protecting environment. Some say it is the revenge of the rich over the plebs. I do not know if that is true but the way this goes is just silly. As stated elsewhere - what it does is not saving the environment but removing industrial infrastructure from Germany - I would be surprised if many operators of industrial equipment that requires large quantities of electricity stayed in Germany post 2038. Not because of the phasing out of coal in electricity production (which may or not happen) but because the policy is irrational and erratic and does not guarantee that production is at all possible which is also put in question by profitability in view of constantly raising prices of electricity. Because the renewables are so volatile Germans will have to install quite a lot of gas powered plants to cover that. Putin will be happy although with current suit of policymakers in Germany I can imagine that they may actually force us to buy expensive liquefied gas from US. They do not give a shit anyway - their future is probably more secure than the rulers of NK while approaching their impact on economy.

Re: 2038 lol

[umghhh]

This is of course completely OT but worthy a discussion on its own especially the trends in Germany reflect the ones in other countries of the West. We indeed do not have freedom of speech in Germany, at least not the US way. The truth however is that freedoms not only of speech are being limited of late everywhere in the West. Hate speech makes a difference. What we do not have: state run censorship. The posts discussing for instance discussing advancements of the religion of freedom are regularly removed or demonetized. We also have state run propaganda (Germany has what used to be called GEZ and is a tax like fee to cover costs of companies controlled by governments of provinces (called Land in German). The main stream media plays as the state owned ones do. There are places where one can get alternatives so it is not as bad as it sounds. Yet it is more effective than what communists did in the east of Europe before. Most of German media have closed the forums they offered for discussion of their articles or censor them heavily. The most interesting was the event in Chemnitz last year where the Chancellor detected manhunts although there were none - mainstream media continued bashing the protesters (against inactivity of the authorities in face of massive violence by some new citizens) in spite of no facts supporting the reports. A chief of security service (Verfassungsschutz) has been fired for telling Kaiserin is naked (brrrr).

CapEx prevents "dirt cheap to operate"

[stomv]

You're right that the variable operating and maintenance cost is low. VOM is fuel and all costs that scale linearly with the amount of generation. Simple wear and tear, some labor, that sort of thing. However, nuclear power plants have significant capital investment requirements. CapEx are expenses on infrastructure that depreciate over 5, 10, even 20+ years. CapEx investments are necessary to maintain a safe, efficient plant, and are often executed during a refueling stage. As plants get older, CapEx gets even more challenging because more investments are necessary. Because you might be replacing parts on something designed 40 or 50 years ago, replacements aren't always easy to obtain "off the shelf," driving up prices even more. In the United States, we've had several nuclear power plants retire in the past few years because, despite "already built and running," their VOM + CapEx requirements penciled out at more than the ~$30MWh that we're seeing for wholesale electricity prices (plus very low capacity payments in many markets). Dozens more have been placed on the dole, receiving (or claiming need) for subsidies to remain open. A strong case can be (and is being) made to pay the subsidies to keep the plants open, because the sheer quantity of very-nearly-carbon-free electricity is enormous. But the claim that nuclear power plants are "dirt cheap to operate" isn't true on a multi-year basis, because of the CapEx requirements.

Re:unpossible!

[umghhh]

They actually are razing forests (in nature reservations among other places) to build wind parks. The human seeded trees in Hambacher forests that they did not raze because of some green maniacs protests is just peanuts.

Re:unpossible!

[umghhh]

You take your pick, I take mine. Yours was on day when most of Germans suffered from heavy headaches etc. and did not work (1.1.2018) and on 1.1 when Germans do not work either. On nother days especially in January but this season for instance on 14.12.2018 and 10.1.2019 the grid had to take emergency measures to prevent frequency going too low (that is how overload manifests itself in a power grid). That happens regularly in January because of prevailing weather conditions. There is no battery from Tesla that can support whole country for 3 weeks as it sometimes happens. But that is not important - get this: Germans pay other countries for taking over excess electricity that wind and solar produce. They pay others to take it. No wonder they pay the highest prices for electricity on the local market. I guess this should be no surprise - the bolsheviki that rule here have miserable success record in anything even remotely touching economy.

Re:unpossible!

[umghhh]

I wonder what happens when the last ICE car will be banned in Germany while you ban also coal and nuclear power. I guess you may hope for Russian gas but that produces NOx too - OMG!!! We should hope then that the ICE driven tracks will bring riot police on time to protect the ruling green elite when the proles march to their quarters. I hope I will manage to leave Germany by then.

Re:Bwahahahahaha

[Voice of satan]

It has worked quite well for the French.

Re:2038 lol

[hackertourist]

Germany has a pretty good track record in this regard. They first introduced legislation on subsidies for renewable energy installations in 1991 (i.e. something like 8 elections ago). With a few adjustments to respond to big changes in the market, this legislation still exists and has provided a stable base for long-term investments in renewable energy.

Just in Time for Fusion!

[sycodon]

Hell, by 2038 we should have fusion. That's just about 20 years away.

Y2K38

[Joey Vegetables]

Apparently, German coal-fired power plants run old versions of Linux that store timestamps as 32 bit signed integers.

Re:2038 lol

[edtice1559]

If it is dead and uneconomical why are they spending $91B to phase it out. I'm definitely no fan of coal and I would consider it crazy to invest in coal infrastructure. As coal plants near retirement, replace them with something better. And maybe not spend much to extend their lives. But to just abandon a perfectly good piece of infrastructure at an astronomical cost doesn't seem very wise. We keep hearing that coal isn't economical. If that's the case, switching should cost this much!

Re:2038 lol

[Uecker]

You are right, sorry. It seems the decision to close the last mine was made in 2015.

Re:2038 lol

[Uecker]

You are right.

Re:2038 lol

[kaatochacha]

Watching you two debate US and German Government is like watching every dysfunctional government.

Re:2038 lol

[kaatochacha]

Yeah, um, that was almost 80 years ago. Let it go.

Re:unpossible!

[Uecker]

This is a myth. Germany exports a lot of power during all times of the year and never relies power from France. For example in 2018: Power exports: 81 TWh, Imports: 31 TWh. (source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen...)

Re:unpossible!

[Uecker]

According to several news article the situation on the 14th was caused by a technical fault ([1]). There was also easly enough wind power so that conventional plans were running on a low level and Germany continuously exported power during that day (source: https://www.energy-charts.de./ So your implied claim that there was not enough power generated by renewables during that time is obviously wrong. In fact, it seems that except for a couple of hours in the evening of the 24th power exports exceeded imports on all days in January. Heise blames France and remembers that there are regularly problems when demand in winter due to electrical heating is high [2]. In know, this does not fit the story of bad renewables and good reliable nuclear power.

[1] http://www.manager-magazin.de/...
[2] https://www.heise.de/tp/featur...

Re:unpossible!

[Uecker]

But that is not important - get this: Germans pay other countries for taking over excess electricity that wind and solar produce. They pay others to take it. No wonder they pay the highest prices for electricity on the local market. I guess this should be no surprise - the bolsheviki that rule here have miserable success record in anything even remotely touching economy.

And this is also easily debunked. According to the data [1] renewables tend to produce power when demand is high and also price is high. Negative prices are rare.

[1] https://www.energy-charts.de/p...

Re:unpossible!

[Uecker]

And France was importing power from Germany almost all the time in January: https://www.energy-charts.de/p...

Re:unpossible!

[kaatochacha]

but if all goes to plan with their power generation switch Germany can claim to be 100% green by 2038 and feel good about it,.

That's kind of the problem: The coal is just being used somewhere else, but they can "feel good" about it. Sigh.

Re:Yet somehow net import by euros. Explain

[kaatochacha]

Because at some point France might figure out a better use for that dumped power, and you need a backup plan?

Re:Will import electricity from neighbours.

[kaatochacha]

That's pretty much it.
I considered getting a new car last year when I thought mine was failing.
Shopped around , did the math, figured which one would provide the cheapest amount of mileage per $.
Then my car DIDN'T fail. So I didn't get a new one.
Many people are incapable of making that decision.