[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?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> "Source" is not a magic incantation that invalidates a statement.

That is correct. The statement is already insufficiently justified all by itself. "Source?" simply points out this pre-existing problem.

> When subsidies change, price goes up, we have seen that repeatedly happening in the German electricity market, most prominently with the EEG.

So, if we were to completely subsidize electricity for all citizens ... the price paid by citizens would go up? And that is because when we forced utilities to buy certain forms of energy at a fixed price, they passed that cost on to the customer? Are you really sure that that is your argument?

> 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.

You seemed to object to cutting subsidies for coal. But well, I guess your plan then is to increase the share of nuclear energy by continuing the subsidy for coal!?

> "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.

Erm, what? So, maybe the costs are hidden and will be paid via taxes ... but the prices that didn't include those costs were considerably cheaper? And that is supposed to be an argument for what exactly? That we should pay rich homeowners with taxes rather than increased energy prices?

And shredding birds somehow also magically kills the insects that those birds don't get to eat? Or what is that argument about?

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

So, how much of the long-term costs of electricity generation in the US are included in the retail price? We don't want to be comparing apples to oranges, do we?

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

How does that follow?

> 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.

Well, that's certainly not representative. I pay ~ 0.27 EUR/kWh effective, though at ~ 3000 kWh per year, which makes a big difference for the effective price--and as such, I doubt you can reasonably compare your 0.50 USD to some average 0.12 USD in the US.

> 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)

Wut?

If we assume your typical "60 W" LED lamp lasts 10000 hours, that's 3 EUR for the lamp (if you buy reasonable quality somewhat cheaply) plus (assuming 6 W) 60 kWh of electricity, which at 0,46 EUR/kWh costs 27.60 EUR, so a total of 29.60 EUR.

The same amount of light from incandescent lamps is 10 60 W bulbs at ~ 0,40 EUR each, plus 600 kWh of electricity, that would be 276 EUR, so a total of 280 EUR.

What kind of LED lamps do you buy where LED lamps are "considerably more expensive"?! Even if we assume cheaper electricity, or terrible lamps that blow out after 1000 h, or that the incandescent bulbs were for free ... how do you manage to make LED lamps more expensive?!

> 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.

I don't care whether you are a right-winger, your suggestion amounted to implementing right-wing policies.

As for whether those "fantasies" are bad policy or not, your arguments so far have not been particularly convincing.

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

The unjustified assumption that this is about appeasing anyone, and not about finding the best solution for an actual problem.