Cosmos - With Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Thread starter Greylock Crescent
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Amaris
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I don't really like to talk about it.
Back to the subject, Germany led the way toward green energy, with a goal of getting 80 percent of its electricity from wind, solar, and other renewables by 2050. Everyone was on board for the change, and it had no significant opposition. They spent $278 billion dollars switching over and had 400,000 employed in green energy.
Then reality started to intrude. Siemens lost a billion dollars, Bosch lost about two and a half billion, and other German green companies lost over ten billion. Green employment has fallen to 230,000, and the government says seven out of ten of the remaining jobs will go away when subsidies are removed in 2018. Just from 2012 to 2013 the number of employees in Germany's photovoltaic industry dropped in half, to 50,000, with further reductions coming.
They're switching back to coal to keep their grid from destabilizing, and their CO2 emissions are going up, unlike America whose emissions have been going down. All they got out of it was the most expensive electricity in Europe, and an exodus of jobs to other countries, and the loss of their reliable, non-polluting nuclear base-load plants.
Among some of the problems they encountered with their massive wind and solar installations is that some weeks they produce two much electricity when the grid doesn't need any, and other weeks they hardly produce anything, falling below four percent of rated output just when electricity demand is highest.
Back in the US this past winter, to keep the power on during the deep cold snap, utility companies had to run 90 percent of the coal-fired power plants that are currently slated for closure. The Germans, even the head of their green initiatives from their green party, has been telling them that their green energy program is going to fail because the grid is up against stability limits, and even in a country that's mad for green energy, rolling blackouts will get politicians thrown out of office (like Gray Davis in California). So they're building new coal fired power plants as fast as they can.
I suppose we could go on an ultra-expensive 15 year romp with green energy and then build all new coal plants, but it's expensive and kind of embarrassingly stupid to admit you can't do basic math or calculate base loads.
Then reality started to intrude. Siemens lost a billion dollars, Bosch lost about two and a half billion, and other German green companies lost over ten billion. Green employment has fallen to 230,000, and the government says seven out of ten of the remaining jobs will go away when subsidies are removed in 2018. Just from 2012 to 2013 the number of employees in Germany's photovoltaic industry dropped in half, to 50,000, with further reductions coming.
They're switching back to coal to keep their grid from destabilizing, and their CO2 emissions are going up, unlike America whose emissions have been going down. All they got out of it was the most expensive electricity in Europe, and an exodus of jobs to other countries, and the loss of their reliable, non-polluting nuclear base-load plants.
Among some of the problems they encountered with their massive wind and solar installations is that some weeks they produce two much electricity when the grid doesn't need any, and other weeks they hardly produce anything, falling below four percent of rated output just when electricity demand is highest.
Back in the US this past winter, to keep the power on during the deep cold snap, utility companies had to run 90 percent of the coal-fired power plants that are currently slated for closure. The Germans, even the head of their green initiatives from their green party, has been telling them that their green energy program is going to fail because the grid is up against stability limits, and even in a country that's mad for green energy, rolling blackouts will get politicians thrown out of office (like Gray Davis in California). So they're building new coal fired power plants as fast as they can.
I suppose we could go on an ultra-expensive 15 year romp with green energy and then build all new coal plants, but it's expensive and kind of embarrassingly stupid to admit you can't do basic math or calculate base loads.
It'll have to be spicey chicken, it's the only one I can make.
You could try reading the news. Der Spiegel is good. I'll give you a start with the current year's news.
EU to ditch climate protection - Der Spiegel - January 2014.
Germany's energy revolution on verge of collapse from NewScientist.com, January 2014.
Big industry will quit Germany unless sheltered from cost burdens of renewable energy - from Reuters, January 2014.
Germany's green energy switch about to collapse Canada Free Press - January, 2014.
Their links are all that matter gt.
I can't believe you want our grandchildren to die, baked in a Venus like Earth...
Shame...
That's now how this works.
YOU make the claims YOU provide the back-up to those claims.
Don't make claims to something and expect me to do the fact-checking for you in order to believe you're not pulling facts and evidence out of your ass.
Science isn't about presenting differing opinions. It's about finding the right one after all the wrong ones have been eliminated.
It might not be fair, but neither is life. Man up and accept that.
I agree. Companies like Tesla will succeed and the price will come down and the quality will improve.
The "electric public transportation" sounds good, but the problem is that where does all that electricy come from? .... mostly coal plants.
As gt pointed out, there isn't enough green energy now to sustain the grid.
There will be someday, but not tomorrow.
What exactly potty mouth?
Damn, "Through the Wormhole" if they provide all different views why not provide the one that says gravity isn't pulling is all towards the earth but that rather the weight of the universe is PUSHING us towards the Earth?! Huh?! What about my flat-earth theory?
I prefer the Jeffrey Hunter version of Jesus. He had such beautiful eyes...
I liked Jeffrey Hunter. So sad that he passed, with such a great future ahead of him. Still, my favorite Jesus is Robert Powell. Just something about him that made it seem like there was something greater to him, something unknowable. I loved his portrayal.
Ted Neely FTW!
I don't know, ask "them".
didn't know you're a "flat-earther". Sorry for you.
Fair is a weather condition.
This is a show aout science, not a science project.
It's IS about providing differing opinions when a theory is being vetted out.
The show isn't a activists vehicle.
It's an intellegently written show that educates those who watch, not demeans them.
... and yes, they've even talked about god...
Just stay under that flat rock you crawled out from under...
Take an smart phone with you and watch the show, then you can come back out with the living...
I assume it's "Through the Wormhole", which apparently is a Science show he likes. It's also hosted by God.
Improvement has been relatively slow but steady. The percentage of renewables is at around 25% of total energy production which is pretty much exactly where it is supposed to be according to the plan.
I giggled.
399,000 at its peak, yes.
That's the solar industry in particular which has been in a crisis for a couple of years. The Greens blame the previous CDU/CSU-FDP government.
Stop pulling figures out your ass. It's at 370,000 (down from 399,000).
Your 230,000 are the people employed in the actual manufacturing part of the industry and that number is down from about 260,000 at its peak.
We're building modern low-emission coal plants to make up for the loss of nuclear power since we're shutting those down while renewables aren't at a high enough level yet. That's shocking because?
Obviously.
Germany has been experiencing an amazing economic boom since 2007 with record-low unemployment and a booming industrial sector.
Industrial booms of that degree always increase emissions. America on the other hand has been continuing on its way towards deindustrialization and keeps killing off its industrial backbone.
So the trend has nothing to do with how energy is produced.
Partly right.
Mostly wrong.
Reliability and energy grid stability haven't been an issue so far. Our grid isn't really suffering any brown-outs or black-outs (unlike many areas in the US).
And that's news?
This has been the downside of renewable energy since forever. There are 5 solutions for this right now:
1) Short-term: Batteries. Very expensive and low yield. Still used for some things.
2) Flexible: Pumped-storage hydroelectricity. You're basically using excess energy in high yield times to pump water to higher elevations and during low yield times you use that water to produce energy by letting it flow back to lower elevations.
3) Power-to-Gas technology: You're using the energy to produce gas. Germany is a major player in that industry.
4) More efficient "smart grid". In the works.
5) More interconnected gas network.
Germany has been working and is still working on all five of these. It's not like "reality set in" at some point. It's just that switching to renewables has always been a long-term plan. The setbacks are mostly cost-related and I'm not saying everything is perfect but your scenario is so overly dramatic that I couldn't help but laugh.
As usual it's appalling how little research you put into your posts. You should stop reading American propaganda websites and read actual sources instead.
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