[nickik]

People live in a fantasy world when thinking about solar. Solar is nicely visible and gives people a worm heard.

The reality is that solar is a tiny part of global energy and even in countries like Japan it did not even come close to replacing nuclear.

Japan will have nuclear future because they simply have to much capacity already. However the poplar nature of nuclear politics makes it a problem, they will continue to be import depended and fossil fuel for many years to come.

[misiti3780]

Not sure why you are getting downvoted --- solar and wind account for 1.5% of total, taken from Enlightenment Now by Steve Pinker:

> A second key to deep decarbonization brings up an inconvenient truth for the traditional Green movement: nuclear power is the world’s most abundant and scalable carbon-free energy source. Although renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind, have become drastically cheaper, and their share of the world’s energy has more than tripled in the past five years, that share is still a paltry 1.5 percent, and there are limits on how high it can go. The wind is often becalmed, and the sun sets every night and may be clouded over. But people need energy around the clock, rain or shine. Batteries that could store and release large amounts of energy from renewables will help, but ones that could work on the scale of cities are years away. Also, wind and solar sprawl over vast acreage, defying the densification process that is friendliest to the environment.

[fogetti]

Net wind energy percentage in Germany in 2017 was 18.9%. And that's a fact. Which clearly voids your argument. Yes, there are limitations how high it can go and I don't expect it to be anywhere near 100%. But it's clearly a huge source of energy already and it will increase even more in the coming years.

The reason why it totals 1.5% is because it costs money to replace existing power sources and the lobby power of the coal industry is still huge. It has nothing to do with solar energy itself.

[eukgoekoko]

I wouldn't call Germany's Energiewende a success story since Germany has the highest electricity prices in EU: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

You may call it "the lobby power" but there seems to be no choice for the heavy industry than to use coal, thanks to nuclear phase-out.

[crdoconnor]

German coal usage has been on the decline since 2013.

It's actually become something of a political issue (because of the lost jobs).

In 2010-2013 renewables apparently couldn't keep up. Since 2014 they appear capable of replacing all other end of lifed power plants.

[pgeorgi]

> the highest electricity prices in EU

The renewable parts of that is bound to go down: As part of the push to renewables, when spinning up capacity, you get prices guaranteed for 20 years. The different to market rates is spread across the whole market ("EEG Umlage", "renewable energy law contribution").

But: that law is approaching 20 years now and so in 2021 the first installations will drop out of that subsidy scheme. Prices and guaranteed rates were dropping ever since, and so will the subsidies - with a delay of 20 years.

> there seems to be no choice for the heavy industry than to use coal

Comparing the numbers in 2000 and 2017 (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung#Bruttostromerze...), coal used to account for more than 50% of power generation in 2000, down to 36.6% in 2017. Even in absolute numbers to account for the rise in total power production, coal is less in 2017 than in 2000. Petrochemicals are up from 9.5% to 14.1% though.

Non-regenerative power was 436.5 TWh in 2017, down from 538.7 TWh in 2000.

[eukgoekoko]

The stats you have provided are the numbers for the whole electricity generation, while I was talking of the heavy industry alone. I am not an expert, but AFAIK for steelmakers in particular it is crucial to have a reliable constant power supply, which neither solar nor wind can provide (let alone steel production itself relies on coal).

[ThomPete]

18% at a horrible cost and not for all uses of energy. The german energy politics is a diaster. You are confusing reality with potential. Most countries get energy outside their own countries just like Denmark who are even higher on wind but still had to get coal based energy from germany because of the lack of wind this summer. Solar and wind isnt even close to solving actual energy needs which includes transportation one of the biggest co2 immitors.

And no realistic fuelcell technology or disrributed grids.

[mr_toad]

Germany can import French power. That’s a big part of the reason they can get away with a low base capacity and avoid price spikes.

[petre]

And French power is something like 70% nuclear. Germany is basically relying on neighbouring countries and coal for base load.

[philipkglass]

France does not have enough nuclear capacity for high winter electricity demand and it has too much nuclear capacity relative to domestic demand in temperate weather. It ends up reliant on imports from Germany in winter time and exports surplus electricity at times of low demand. As I write this, France is importing 6.7 GW from Germany: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/

If France were forced to disconnect from its neighbors, its electricity would be more expensive and/or more emissions-intensive. It would need more fossil combustion to deal with seasonal demand swings and/or it would get less utilization out of its nuclear reactor fleet. The same goes for Germany, of course: electrically isolating itself would also increase costs/emissions. Germany and France both rely on international electrical connections to improve utilization of their non-combustion electricity sources. Both use imports to meet part of their electricity demands. Both are net electricity exporters over the course of a full year.