[lake99]

Do you know what the German protesters are proposing as an alternative? Germany banned nuclear, brown lignite is bad, extensive mining destroys forests, wind power destroys forests and is bad for birds, Germany is not a good candidate for solar, and so on. So what's next?

[Kliment]

Germany is actually an excellent candidate for solar (though not nearly as much as places like Spain). It has an enormous solar installed base that produces a sizeable amount of energy, and had the buildout incentives not been cut a couple years back solar would be the second biggest electrical energy component today. Meanwhile coal is still heavily subsidized, to the tune of 4 billion euros yearly.

[namibj]

Also you can easily put solar over e.g. car parks, in which case you don't even need a proper roof if you funnel water from the panels towards the gutters without splashing the users walking to the cars. The cost should be within 30% of the panel price itself for a decent-size parking lot, less if you can get economies of scale through standardized modules that are placed next to each other to form rows for the cars.

A bonus would be that the cars don't heat up as much/get packed with snow.

And the land isn't wasted, because there is no reason not to have a roof over a paved parking lot other than the fact that a roof costs money to build and maintain, which isn't an issue with solar. You already can't use the land for plants/nature, so you might as well put your solar there instead of some open field/grassland that can be used for something else.

[anoncake]

> You already can't use the land for plants/nature

You can put plants on rooftops, we just don't.

[kalium-xyz]

You ever see those projects where they generate biofuel from algae growing ontop / against building using special build tanks? Its really cool.

[bubblewrap]

Cool, but also energy efficient?

[anoncake]

It certainly beats bare roofs. AFAIK photosynthesis is still more efficient than photovoltaic, too. In any case, it's easier to store biofuel than electricity.

[bubblewrap]

Solar apparently hasn't become viable after years of subsidization. And the problem of storing energy is still not solved. There is no solar power at night.

Subsidization of coal would of course be equally wrong.

[Nasrudith]

Solar is already cheaper than coal without subsidies. That alone counts as viable even if given the most pessimistic assumptions like "no power storage" it could leave generators running only at night.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Solar apparently hasn't become viable after years of subsidization

Whether that is true or not: How do you expect it to become viable when coal is subsidized?

> And the problem of storing energy is still not solved.

Source?

[bubblewrap]

Isn't it common knowledge that the energy storage problem still isn't solved. What solution do you think exists?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

For one, "isn't it common knowledge" does not strike me as a particularly well-informed position.

"The energy storage problem" really never was an energy storage problem. It is a political problem of paying for it, because everyone calculates the costs of building storage systems and pretends that the future costs of continuing the burning of fossil fuels are zero, and then decides to go the "cheaper route" that simply has future generations pay for everything, and potentially orders of magnitude more than building storage systems now would cost.

As for technological solutions that do exist, the most important thing is that there is not the solution. If your topology allows for it, pumped hydroelectric is great. If you are the Netherlands, maybe not. Or rather, it's still useful for peak loads, but not for any kind of long-term storage. Batteries have become cheaper and are great for really fast reaction times to be able to deal with fast fluctuations in production, plus they are very efficient, so they are great for daily cycling. Also, just controlling demand better ("smart grid") can solve part of the actual problem (imbalance between demand and production), so you don't actually need as much storage. Or rather, you can even use the demand side for storage: You can, for example, cool down warehouses a degree or two more when you have excess energy in the grid, thus reducing demand later. For long-term storage, Power to gas seems promising: It's pretty inefficient, but it can achieve a high energy density, and efficiency doesn't matter that much for the exceptional case of extremely low renewable production over a large area. Plus, chances are the efficiency can be increased.

Ths point is: There is no silver bullet, but lots of solutions that can be combined to achieve a stable electricity supply from renewable energy sources.

[DocTomoe]

> Whether that is true or not: How do you expect it to become viable when coal is subsidized?

Cutting subsidies to coal and/or increasing subsidies to solar just raises the cost of energy for end users, which does not affect the average HN user, but will affect the average citizen.

Germans already paying a ridiculous amount of money per kilowatt hour (in fact, we are the first world country with the highest electricity price, 40 US cents as compared to 12 US cents you would pay in the States).

Raising subsidies is an antisocial move that will lead to increased public unrest, at a time when we see right-wing politics raising it's ugly head again.

In the end, the pot goes to the spring till it breaks.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Cutting subsidies to coal and/or increasing subsidies to solar just raises the cost of energy for end users

Source? And does that include the future costs of the environmental impact for the end users that will still be alive by then?

> Germans already paying a ridiculous amount of money per kilowatt hour

What exactly is ridiculous about a price that reflects the actual costs?

> (in fact, we are the first world country with the highest electricity price, 40 US cents as compared to 12 US cents you would pay in the States).

If you are paying 40 US cents per kWh for electricity in .de, then that's because you chose to, not because that's the market price.

> Raising subsidies is an antisocial move that will lead to increased public unrest, at a time when we see right-wing politics raising it's ugly head again.

So ... we should implement right-wing politics so that right-wing politics doesn't win? What's even the point of that argument?

[DocTomoe]

> Source?

"Source" is not a magic incantation that invalidates a statement. When subsidies change, price goes up, we have seen that repeatedly happening in the German electricity market, most prominently with the EEG.

> environmental impact for the end users that will still be alive by then?

You try to derail my point by underhandedly claiming I want more coal, which is false. I am pro-nuclear until we get fusion (also technically a nuclear technology) working. "But the costs are hidden, deconstruction will have to be paid by the taxpayer". Maybe - but when we were nuclear and before we installed bird-shredding and insect-killing wind farms, before we made everyone pay for large amounts of money to gift to rich homeowners to put solar on their roofs, electricity was considerably cheaper.

> What exactly is ridiculous about a price that reflects the actual costs?

The actual cost of power generation apparently can be a lot lower, because the hypercapitalist US pays about a third of our price.

Also, if you need to prop up an energy source with money, obviously it is not cost-effective.

> If you are paying 40 US cents per kWh for electricity in .de, then that's because you chose to, not because that's the market price.

I pay about 46 Eurocents per kilowatt hour, or around 52 US-Cents, with EnBW (900 kw/h per year[1], fixed costs factored in). Arguably, I could lower that to about 42 Eurocents per kilowatt hour if I change to Yello, who are famous for buying large amounts of nuclear electricity. Which, btw, is about to end here. With my low consumption, savings of about 36 Euros are just not worth it.

[1] So here I am - a single who moved to a small flat, all the lights are LEDs (which are considerably more expensive than the old ones), cooking rarely, enterntainment coming from a low-wattage laptop, actually turning off everything before leaving the flat ... I have done my part. I won't be painted as some kind of environmental monster or a right-winger because I do not support risking the social cohesion of our society to provide for some people's green renewable fantasies.

> So ... we should implement right-wing politics so that right-wing politics doesn't win?

So, what exactly is right-wing in not making the price of electricity rise to appease some crypto-right-wing Greens?