My second reply is on whether the decision to shut down their nuclear plants at the start of the year was the correct thing to do (the black/white reference). From your final remarks, you seem to tilt toward that they should not have been shut down:
> You might argue that in the light of the current situation, Germany's last three nulcear plants to be shut down this years should run a little longer.
(or at least, that's how I interpret "You might argue that").
From my point of view, shutting those down had been a bad decision for a while, and was still wrong. You seem to argue that even if this was considered, it shot down for political reasons. I would argue, from my limited knowledge about German politics, that it is not a surprise that the Green party would not take that path.
I suppose from the perspective of the perspective of government in Germany given the pre-existing situation as the war started, this may not be black and white.
From my perspective, and I suppose many peple who see Germany from a distance, we may see this over a longer time period, back to March 2011 and perhaps beyond. In that context (and with my view on nuclear power), shutting down the plants this spring is just the culimination of a string of bad decisions. So with my context, it was clearly wrong, even if inertia may have made it inevitable.
So I suppose it depends on perspective.
> Germany wants to switch completely to renewable electrical energies by 2035 (all energies by 2045).
Germany wants to do that, clearly. But is it realistic. I'm reading articles such as this one:
This does not instil confidence, to say the least. Also, this clearly illustrated the problem with renewables, namely their intermittent nature. For ALL energy to be provided by renewables (and not depend on non-renewable production in other countries), the grid probably needs several days consumption worth of storage capacity.
Actually getting a point where Germany is able to produce a number of GWh equal to the yearly production is quite easy by comparison. Storage is the hard part. The numbers I've seen so far, indicates that many houses with solar panels have batteries with the capacity to store 5-10 kWh, but if you want to rely on batteries for a few cold, cloudy days in the winter in a row with no wind (and addition have power for your commute in your electric BMW, at autobahn speeds), you may need ~100x that, for EACH house.
Hopefully we will se a revolution in the cost of batteries over that period, but I still consider this pretty optimistic.
> You might argue that in the light of the current situation, Germany's last three nulcear plants to be shut down this years should run a little longer.
(or at least, that's how I interpret "You might argue that").
From my point of view, shutting those down had been a bad decision for a while, and was still wrong. You seem to argue that even if this was considered, it shot down for political reasons. I would argue, from my limited knowledge about German politics, that it is not a surprise that the Green party would not take that path.
I suppose from the perspective of the perspective of government in Germany given the pre-existing situation as the war started, this may not be black and white.
From my perspective, and I suppose many peple who see Germany from a distance, we may see this over a longer time period, back to March 2011 and perhaps beyond. In that context (and with my view on nuclear power), shutting down the plants this spring is just the culimination of a string of bad decisions. So with my context, it was clearly wrong, even if inertia may have made it inevitable.
So I suppose it depends on perspective.
> Germany wants to switch completely to renewable electrical energies by 2035 (all energies by 2045).
Germany wants to do that, clearly. But is it realistic. I'm reading articles such as this one:
https://energywatch.com/EnergyNews/Policy___Trading/article1...
This does not instil confidence, to say the least. Also, this clearly illustrated the problem with renewables, namely their intermittent nature. For ALL energy to be provided by renewables (and not depend on non-renewable production in other countries), the grid probably needs several days consumption worth of storage capacity.
Actually getting a point where Germany is able to produce a number of GWh equal to the yearly production is quite easy by comparison. Storage is the hard part. The numbers I've seen so far, indicates that many houses with solar panels have batteries with the capacity to store 5-10 kWh, but if you want to rely on batteries for a few cold, cloudy days in the winter in a row with no wind (and addition have power for your commute in your electric BMW, at autobahn speeds), you may need ~100x that, for EACH house.
Hopefully we will se a revolution in the cost of batteries over that period, but I still consider this pretty optimistic.