Alright, the world is still waiting for your microchips and internet powered grid. Meanwhile Germany has super expensive and super dirty electricity, while France has some of the cleanest in Europe.
Another trillion € thrown at renewables alone with absolutely no baseload tech will certainly fix it.
I’d speculate the reasons are a mix of backward-thinking or when it comes to Katharina Reiche, possibly corrupt, politicians and a grid that isn’t prepared to handle this kind of load.
Either way, these fluctuations in renewables are extremely lucrative to investors. Store power when the sun shines or the winds are strong, release it in the night hours and pocket the difference.
So, what is actually in the way of renewables apart from a good and controllable grid and some conservative politicians? I don’t think there’s much.
As for nuclear, even if you leave the risks of meltdown out of it, the upfront and running costs do not allow it to be competitive.
And yes, French power is cheaper, but take a look at the taxes and fees added to power in Germany. The actual power generation makes up only 41.3% of its household price.
France’s nuclear power plants are operated by a state comapny about 70 billion in debt. Every private company not backed by tax money would be bancrupt multiple times…
The state is the only one willing to pay for these because no sane private investor would finance these due to the extraordinary bad ROI and uncalculatable risks involved no insurer in the world is willing to cover.
Alright, the world is still waiting for your microchips and internet powered grid. Meanwhile Germany has super expensive and super dirty electricity, while France has some of the cleanest in Europe.
Another trillion € thrown at renewables alone with absolutely no baseload tech will certainly fix it.
Germany is drowning in requests for large commercial batteries to be built and/or connected to the grid (source, e.g.: https://www.smard.de/page/home/topic-article/444/221208/entwicklung-bei-uenb-und-vnb). We are talking about a give or take 10% approval rate.
I’d speculate the reasons are a mix of backward-thinking or when it comes to Katharina Reiche, possibly corrupt, politicians and a grid that isn’t prepared to handle this kind of load.
Either way, these fluctuations in renewables are extremely lucrative to investors. Store power when the sun shines or the winds are strong, release it in the night hours and pocket the difference.
So, what is actually in the way of renewables apart from a good and controllable grid and some conservative politicians? I don’t think there’s much.
As for nuclear, even if you leave the risks of meltdown out of it, the upfront and running costs do not allow it to be competitive.
And yes, French power is cheaper, but take a look at the taxes and fees added to power in Germany. The actual power generation makes up only 41.3% of its household price.
France’s nuclear power plants are operated by a state comapny about 70 billion in debt. Every private company not backed by tax money would be bancrupt multiple times… The state is the only one willing to pay for these because no sane private investor would finance these due to the extraordinary bad ROI and uncalculatable risks involved no insurer in the world is willing to cover.