[macspoofing]

The point is, it isn't just Germany. There is no country on Earth that actually replaced fossil fuels with wind/solar. The point with Germany is that you guys invested billions into this, and you still are building pipelines for natural gas and buying coal-derived power from your neighbors.

[kolinko]

Wind/solar no, but Iceland is running 100% geothermal - granted it won’t scale to other countries.

[black_puppydog]

"we guys" also had Peter Altmaier, Markus Söder, and all the other Conservative leaders who successfully legislated solar & wind to death.

[macspoofing]

Are you sure you're not just making excuses for the failure of renewables in Germany to replace fossil fuels?

Again, I mentioned Germany, but it isn't just Germany. No country in the world is running on wind/solar. There are no near-term plans for any country on Earth to replace fossil fuels with wind/solar. It isn't the fact that some conservative leaders put some extra taxes or regulations on solar and wind. It's that solar and wind cannot actually replace fossil fuels. Solar and Wind are diffuse, intermittent power sources, with no grid-scale battery technology available to bridge that intermittence. Therefore, you need natural gas to use a base load when the sun isn't shining, and the wind isn't blowing. This is also why natural gas companies tend to be one of the biggest supporters of solar and wind.

[black_puppydog]

Yes, I'm pretty sure. The conservative govts of the different regions introduced legislation that meant you can't currently build wind energy _at all_ in many of the places where it would make sense. That wasn't a fluke; the stated intent was to keep wind energy from "ruining our beautiful landscape". The new (SPD/green/liberals) coalition is just in the process of slowly unwinding these.

For solar, the ministries are by now steeped in a mentality that's hostile to renewables. Robert Habeck (greens) is now minister of economy and ecology, and even when he told his houses to come up with regulation improvements to solar, the results were... weird. One report stated that the proposals included rules like "if I use any of my own PV generated power in my home, I receive none of the regular public subsidies anymore for the power I send into the national grid." There was no technical or logical grounds for that; it was just that all the ministry mentality by now was "if there's a way to put stones in the way of renewables, the default is to do that."

Frankly, and I'm sorry to sound rude about this, you need to stop using a country as an argument for which you clearly have no idea what the political & societal conditions are. Like I said in my first reply: find better arguments.

[macspoofing]

>Frankly, and I'm sorry to sound rude about this, you need to stop using a country as an argument for which you clearly have no idea what the political & societal conditions are.

I don't take this as rudeness but rather a result of a different worldview.

The disconnect you and I have is that you believe that wind/solar can replace fossil fuels. In a universe where that fact is true, the fact that wind/solar hasn't been rolled out would most likely be a result of bad government policy.

I don't believe wind/solar can replace fossil fuels. So the fact that wind/solar haven't succeeded in Germany is perfectly inline with expectations. It wouldn't matter what policies Germany put in, because it isn't possible for wind/solar to replace fossil fuels was never going to work. There was no policy that was going to change the reality of this.

[black_puppydog]

No, my point is that regardless of whether you or me are right, your use of Germany as an example is not holding up because you clearly don't bring the background knowledge to argue your point using this example. I'm not saying you're even wrong, just that this particular argument you're making is not informed enough to hold up.

[macspoofing]

>I'm not saying you're even wrong, just that this particular argument you're making is not informed enough to hold up.

Let's torture this a little longer.

Regardless of the minutia, and internal politics, the big picture reality is that Germany still invested in wind/solar to a greater extent then any advanced economy.

I understand you're saying that mistakes were made and more could have been done, and this political party didn't do a good job, etc., but that's par for course. That's how any complex government program is run in a democratic nation. In fact, maybe you even have to price that in. That is, if a well-managed, rich nation cannot shepherd through this transition, that also says something about the viability of wind/solar.

With respect to why Germany is still building natural gas pipelines. In my mind this was an actual rational decision because I truly believe that when it comes to high-level people in the know, there is an understanding that wind/solar is never going to work. You would not be spending billions of dollars when an alternative is both cheaper (as proponents of wind/solar claim), geopolitically less reliant on an authoritarian state, and also gives you political brownie points (because everyone loves wind/solar).