<story><title>EU coal and gas collapse as wind and solar ascend</title><url>https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind-and-solar-ascend/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>calpaterson</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t agree that the &amp;quot;vast majority&amp;quot; of government motivations for green energy are &amp;quot;geostrategic&amp;quot;.  Some of it is but much is clearly driven by genuine concern about the environment by elected representatives.&lt;p&gt;If Germany were most motivated by energy independence they would not have closed so many nuclear power plants.  There are in fact lots of decisions that politicians make that are inconsistent with aiming for strategic benefits but are consistent with an earnest (and sometimes quixotic) concern for the environment.  If the UK was so bent on energy independence we would have made more progress on heat pumps.  Yet gas boilers (lifespan: 15 years) are still being fitted today.  In truth, governments thing about energy security a bit, they think about green stuff a bit and they aren&amp;#x27;t always very effective agents of change...&lt;p&gt;I also think you&amp;#x27;re not right to imply that energy production largely happens as a result of government direction.  In fact, energy prices are high at the moment and the prospect of profit drives development of green energy a great deal (not that subsidies don&amp;#x27;t have an effect as well).&lt;p&gt;To be honest (and I hope I&amp;#x27;m not straying into a personal attack here - that&amp;#x27;s not intended) I think your viewpoint sounds clever because it is cynical.  Cynical views - especially the attribution of an ulterior motive - usually sound clever.  But I think your post is at best partly right and perhaps even mostly wrong.  Political realism is a drug to take only in small doses.</text></item><item><author>mjburgess</author><text>What goes missing in the analysis of energy sources is their geostrategic impact. The vast majority of government motivations for &amp;#x27;green energy&amp;#x27; is geostrategic.&lt;p&gt;Oil&amp;#x2F;coal&amp;#x2F;etc. is distributed &amp;#x27;unhelpfully&amp;#x27; for western and asian interests, and it&amp;#x27;s use once. So the countries which have it must be permanently available for oil trade. Whereas with green energy, barring the provision of somewhat renewable metal supply, states do not need particularly complex diplomatic relationships.&lt;p&gt;The reason for the world&amp;#x27;s attention now being drawn to the middle east isn&amp;#x27;t as simple as Hamas. Europe needs trade open from the middle east, and it needs oil. This is at the heart of trying to balance interests in the region wrt israel.&lt;p&gt;Both china, us and europe are overwhelmingly against any disruption in the region which is why it hasnt spiraled into a full-blown regional conflict &lt;i&gt;yet&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Issues such as these play strongly on the minds of states as they try to transition. China&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;going green&amp;quot; because its a net importer, and very worried about its dependence on russia and the middle east.&lt;p&gt;This, I think, should give us hope. Whilst going green is an economic hit, it&amp;#x27;s a massive security boost. And states almost always trade wealth for security (, since, in the end, without secrutiy your wealth will disappear).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>richardw</author><text>EU obviously has many reasons to shift to renewables, but a huge amount of urgency was provided by the Russia&amp;#x2F;Ukraine war. There was both effort to shift supply to other countries, and reduce overall demand.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A regulation on co-ordinated demand reduction measures for gas: This targets a 15% voluntary reduction in EU gas demand between 1 August 2022 and 31 March 2023, compared with its five-year average. The European Commission has adopted the European Gas Demand Reduction Plan with best practices and guidance for member states to help them reduce gas demand.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.iea.org&amp;#x2F;reports&amp;#x2F;how-to-avoid-gas-shortages-in-the-european-union-in-2023&amp;#x2F;the-need-for-action&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.iea.org&amp;#x2F;reports&amp;#x2F;how-to-avoid-gas-shortages-in-th...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In March 2022, the European Commission and International Energy Agency presented joint plans to reduce reliance on Russian energy, reduce Russian gas imports by two thirds within a year, and completely by 2030.[15][16]&lt;p&gt;In April 2022, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said &amp;quot;the era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end&amp;quot;.[17] On 18 May 2022, the European Union published plans to end its reliance on Russian oil, natural gas and coal by 2027.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A fully open study from Zero Lab at Princeton University published in July 2022 and based on the GenX framework concluded that reliance on Russia gas could end by October 2022 under the three core scenarios they investigated – which ranged from high coal usage to accelerated renewables deployment.[63][64][needs update] All three cases would result in falling greenhouse gas emissions, relative to business as usual.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;2022–2023_Russia–European_Union_gas_dispute&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;2022–2023_Russia–European_Unio...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>EU coal and gas collapse as wind and solar ascend</title><url>https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind-and-solar-ascend/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>calpaterson</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t agree that the &amp;quot;vast majority&amp;quot; of government motivations for green energy are &amp;quot;geostrategic&amp;quot;.  Some of it is but much is clearly driven by genuine concern about the environment by elected representatives.&lt;p&gt;If Germany were most motivated by energy independence they would not have closed so many nuclear power plants.  There are in fact lots of decisions that politicians make that are inconsistent with aiming for strategic benefits but are consistent with an earnest (and sometimes quixotic) concern for the environment.  If the UK was so bent on energy independence we would have made more progress on heat pumps.  Yet gas boilers (lifespan: 15 years) are still being fitted today.  In truth, governments thing about energy security a bit, they think about green stuff a bit and they aren&amp;#x27;t always very effective agents of change...&lt;p&gt;I also think you&amp;#x27;re not right to imply that energy production largely happens as a result of government direction.  In fact, energy prices are high at the moment and the prospect of profit drives development of green energy a great deal (not that subsidies don&amp;#x27;t have an effect as well).&lt;p&gt;To be honest (and I hope I&amp;#x27;m not straying into a personal attack here - that&amp;#x27;s not intended) I think your viewpoint sounds clever because it is cynical.  Cynical views - especially the attribution of an ulterior motive - usually sound clever.  But I think your post is at best partly right and perhaps even mostly wrong.  Political realism is a drug to take only in small doses.</text></item><item><author>mjburgess</author><text>What goes missing in the analysis of energy sources is their geostrategic impact. The vast majority of government motivations for &amp;#x27;green energy&amp;#x27; is geostrategic.&lt;p&gt;Oil&amp;#x2F;coal&amp;#x2F;etc. is distributed &amp;#x27;unhelpfully&amp;#x27; for western and asian interests, and it&amp;#x27;s use once. So the countries which have it must be permanently available for oil trade. Whereas with green energy, barring the provision of somewhat renewable metal supply, states do not need particularly complex diplomatic relationships.&lt;p&gt;The reason for the world&amp;#x27;s attention now being drawn to the middle east isn&amp;#x27;t as simple as Hamas. Europe needs trade open from the middle east, and it needs oil. This is at the heart of trying to balance interests in the region wrt israel.&lt;p&gt;Both china, us and europe are overwhelmingly against any disruption in the region which is why it hasnt spiraled into a full-blown regional conflict &lt;i&gt;yet&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Issues such as these play strongly on the minds of states as they try to transition. China&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;going green&amp;quot; because its a net importer, and very worried about its dependence on russia and the middle east.&lt;p&gt;This, I think, should give us hope. Whilst going green is an economic hit, it&amp;#x27;s a massive security boost. And states almost always trade wealth for security (, since, in the end, without secrutiy your wealth will disappear).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Gud</author><text>Germany closed their nuclear plants when the fear of nuclear was at an all time high, due to Fukushima.&lt;p&gt;At the same time, the risk of war has been downplayed ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.</text></comment>