Germany as the third largest economy in the world (swapped places with Japan recently) and the driving economic force in Europe of course plays a key role in European energy security.
The Ukraine conflict forced the transition to renewables to be accelerated and plans for a transition from coal to gas to be shelved; probably permanently.
Germany no longer is dependent on Russian gas at this point and it never was very dependent on nuclear even before it put in motion the plan to get rid of it completely almost 15 years ago. People are whining about this a lot but it doesn't really matter.
The energy gap is much bigger than the retired nuclear could ever fill and it was never going to be a big part of any short term solution to addressing that gap. It sure would have helped, a little bit. But in the end Germany managed fine without it.
The simple reality is that unless you already have a nuclear plant up and running, getting a new one is going to take probably well over a decade even under the best of circumstances. Probably more like two decades in Germany. Germany only had a few nuclear plants left in 2021 and they are now gone. New ones were not being planned. So like it or not, nuclear simply was not going to be a major factor in the German energy crisis. The 8GW of nuclear that was left and is now gone was never going to be anywhere close to enough.
Renewables are a different matter. The amount of generation added on a yearly basis is way more than the nuclear capacity they got rid off. The crisis has caused investments to be stepped up and the timeline to be accelerated. So much so, that despite the above, coal usage is not really growing. It just temporarily stopped shrinking. And we're already on the tail end of that too and the shrinkage will resume. At this point, the main challenge is actually not generation but energy transport and storage. It's doubtful coal will be completely shutdown by the mid 2030's as per the original pre-war plan. But it's going to decline in importance between now and then.
LNG as a fuel for gas plants is stupidly expensive and unlikely to be something that will be stepped up. It's a stop gap solution to keep existing plants going and that will increasingly be in the role of peaker plants that are only operational when they have nothing else. But I expect they'll be needed less and less.
Investments in the energy generation and transport infrastructure is going to have to step up of course. This will be good for Germany and Europe. More cables means more resilience against local weather and climate related peaks and dips in wind and solar generation and less dependence on foreign fossil fuel imports.
This isn't exactly an outlier we're dealing with here, we're seeing a situation that was always somewhere between plausible and probable depending on how much trust the assessor had in Russia before 2022. I'm going out on a limb here and saying that the current situation - purposefully avoiding producing energy, followed by an energy crisis - cannot be classed as good for Germany or the EU.
From the lowest point every direction of travel goes up, I suppose. In that sense hopefully the decisions made today are of higher quality and sure, it is in some way good that they've been delivered a clear warning shot and will now hopefully react to it by adjusting their policies.
The crisis is short term bad/annoying. The mitigation is long term excellent. The EU cutting loose from having to import gas/oil/coal from dodgy regimes in Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere is going to suck for those countries, is good for our planet, and good for the EU.
> Germany no longer is dependent on Russian gas at this point and it never was very dependent on nuclear even before it put in motion the plan to get rid of it completely almost 15 years ago. People are whining about this a lot but it doesn't really matter.
Oh, but it does matter. With high gas prices at the start of the war and shutting down the nuclear - this made electricity price go up all around Germany. Because Germany was in need for electricity and was buying it abroad. So this decision in Germany made poorer people in other countries pay more.
As I argued, Germany's nuclear was too insignificant to really matter. It's been outstripped by renewables growth many times over since the decommissioning began. And the shortage caused by Russian gas disappearing was a lot higher than the nuclear capacity that disappeared. Sure a few extra GW extra would have been helpful. But the shortage was much higher than that. And that's before you consider gas based heating (industrial and domestic) which of course is not helped at all by nuclear and which is by far the largest use of gas.
Any price increases in surrounding countries should be blamed on the policies of those countries first, and of course the Russians. And let's face it, a lot of countries were overly dependent on Russian gas. Trusting the Russians was a big mistake. And lots of countries fell for that.
In an interconnected market, when energy gets scarce, prices go up for everyone. And Germany can afford to pay high prices and it did. A lot of countries selling energy benefited from that. Oil and gas companies did really well and made record profits. And lots of countries declined to tax that appropriately and chose to let these companies keep their profits instead of taxing it and using the revenues to help those people. Don't blame the Germans, blame your local government for that. And then blame yourself if you voted them into office. Choices have consequences. And if you didn't, blame your fellow citizens.
> Don't blame the Germans, blame your local government for that. And then blame yourself if you voted them into office.
In my country we don't have energy generation from gas. At all. Why should I blame my government?
My friend, you came up with a lot of excuses for Germany. The one I can agree with is the war that Russia started. You country was the most dependent on russian gas. You pushed for new gas pipelines with Russia even at the last moments before the war.
The Ukraine conflict forced the transition to renewables to be accelerated and plans for a transition from coal to gas to be shelved; probably permanently.
Germany no longer is dependent on Russian gas at this point and it never was very dependent on nuclear even before it put in motion the plan to get rid of it completely almost 15 years ago. People are whining about this a lot but it doesn't really matter.
The energy gap is much bigger than the retired nuclear could ever fill and it was never going to be a big part of any short term solution to addressing that gap. It sure would have helped, a little bit. But in the end Germany managed fine without it.
The simple reality is that unless you already have a nuclear plant up and running, getting a new one is going to take probably well over a decade even under the best of circumstances. Probably more like two decades in Germany. Germany only had a few nuclear plants left in 2021 and they are now gone. New ones were not being planned. So like it or not, nuclear simply was not going to be a major factor in the German energy crisis. The 8GW of nuclear that was left and is now gone was never going to be anywhere close to enough.
Renewables are a different matter. The amount of generation added on a yearly basis is way more than the nuclear capacity they got rid off. The crisis has caused investments to be stepped up and the timeline to be accelerated. So much so, that despite the above, coal usage is not really growing. It just temporarily stopped shrinking. And we're already on the tail end of that too and the shrinkage will resume. At this point, the main challenge is actually not generation but energy transport and storage. It's doubtful coal will be completely shutdown by the mid 2030's as per the original pre-war plan. But it's going to decline in importance between now and then.
LNG as a fuel for gas plants is stupidly expensive and unlikely to be something that will be stepped up. It's a stop gap solution to keep existing plants going and that will increasingly be in the role of peaker plants that are only operational when they have nothing else. But I expect they'll be needed less and less.
Investments in the energy generation and transport infrastructure is going to have to step up of course. This will be good for Germany and Europe. More cables means more resilience against local weather and climate related peaks and dips in wind and solar generation and less dependence on foreign fossil fuel imports.