[missedthecue]

The problem for europe is that solar panels, windfarms, and nuclear power plants don't produce natural gas. Electricity is great, but it's not a replacement for natural gas by itself. In Germany, only 25% of natgas usage is accounted for by electricity production.

[tialaramex]

It isn't difficult to synthesise methane (which is what natural gas is). You "just" need lots of energy. If the problem was "Even if we have plenty of electricity, how will we get methane?" the answer is you just synthesise it. Right now Europe's problem is keeping the lights on and their people alive in the coming winter.

Like many European countries, it is usual to heat German homes with gas boilers. You could (and if we don't want even worse climate change, must) replace those with electrical heating, most likely heat pumps with resistive backup. A heat pump doesn't care whether the electricity powering it is from a solar panel or a wind farm or what.

[trashtester]

Electricity, if the price is low enough, can fully replace almost every use case for natural gas. This will require some level of investment, of course, such as replacing gas ovens with electric ovens (or better, heat pumps) as well as replacing gas machinery with electric alternatives for most industries.

There MAY be a few cases where alternatives are harder to find (where you need the chemistry of the gas rather than the energy), but that is a pretty small percentage overall.

But to produce energy at prices that are competitive to typical prices for NG is pretty hard without either coal or cost efficient nuclear, at least in colder climates. Solar is perhaps close to becoming cheaper in sunny, dry areas further south, but wind power looks like a poor alternative at the scale needed, since it's so unreliable. Maybe one day batteries or other storage will be cheap enough that we can store wind power for a week or more, but for now, it looks like the only low-CO2 option is nuclear.

[dogma1138]

I suggest you look at how much natural gas is used by the chemical industry, in Germany ~25% of the natural gas consumed is consumed by non-energy related uses as in not heating, electricity production, smelting cooking etc, with ammonia and fertilizer production accounting for about 15% of total consumption alone.

That isn’t a small percentage and those industries have an enormous knock on effect globally there is a reason why the UN put the shortage of chemical fertilizers as one of the top priorities.

Cheaper electricity won’t solve that problem and the gas prices must come down because otherwise food prices would sky rocket world wide and we will be at a severe risk of having famine in developing countries.

And whilst there are other alternatives to natural gas such as gasification which is popular in China that still requires biomass and countries like Germany cannot simply shift their production to gasification for both environmental and practical reasons.

[trashtester]

In other words, Germany could cut at least 75% of their NG consumption, which is pretty significant.

This link describes how even the ammonia can be produced from hydrogen, which in turn can be produced from electricity (solar, nuclear, wind, take your pick):

https://www.freethink.com/environment/sustainable-fertilizer

[missedthecue]

Germany can do that maybe by 2040. Retrofitting every home in Germany to do away with gas heating and implement efficient electrical heating is easier said than done, to put it lightly. We're talking trillions in euros worth of investment and spending.

[trashtester]

If electricity doesn't come down enough in price, I fear it will take a lot longer than 2040. IF the price of electricity can be brought down below the price of natural gas per unit of energy, many use cases (the low hanging fruits) can be replaced relatively quickly.

Over the last couple of decades, though, the electricity price in Germany seems to have risen sharply, even when not including the last year.

It seems to me that many of the energy related policies in many countries have been focusing way to much on symbolism, instead of minimizing the price while also limiting actual harm to the population and the environment as much as possible. And when the price of electricity doesn't come down, consumers want to use it for as few things as possible.

[dogma1138]

You should look at how much electricity it would take to replace LNG in the chemical industry.

Whilst all of these are possible it’s possible with a multi decade mega project style of planning.

[trashtester]

So we should start increasing capacity now :)

And the first step is to have a realistic plan to make electricity as cheap and abundant as possible, as soon as possible, while still minimizing pollution.

Also, every step helps. If we cut consumption in half, we halve the rate of global warming (at least). It's not like its all-or-nothing.