<story><title>Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world&apos;s hyper-polluting power plants</title><url>https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edhelas</author><text>They can thanks Sweden, Finland, France and a few other neighboors to provide them with plenty of electricity and hydraulic backup when they need it (no wind at night).&lt;p&gt;France is sending around 2 to 4 GW of electricity (so mostly nuclear) to Germany all the time, &amp;quot;except&amp;quot; when there is plenty of wind, then France is buying for a really cheap price (sometimes negative) what Germany can&amp;#x27;t use. See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.rte-france.com&amp;#x2F;eco2mix&amp;#x2F;les-echanges-commerciaux-aux-frontieres&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.rte-france.com&amp;#x2F;eco2mix&amp;#x2F;les-echanges-commerciaux-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 to 4 GW is roughly 2 to 4 nuclear reactors at 100%, so one&amp;#x2F;two nuclear powerplants &amp;quot;on an average usage&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t say that you exited nuclear (or any other kind of energy) when you&amp;#x27;re massively, and really often, importing electricity from this source from across the borders.&lt;p&gt;And your graph is pretty clear. Germany didn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;removed fossil fuel&amp;quot;, they replaced around 100GW of coal with 50GW of natural gas + renewable. To me natural gas is still a fossil fuel (with a lighter co2 impact than coal indeed).&lt;p&gt;And in the end the result is &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.electricitymap.org&amp;#x2F;map&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.electricitymap.org&amp;#x2F;map&lt;/a&gt; 5 to 10x more CO² impact than France per kwh, even with 2x the nuclear plants setup in France (60GW of nuclear in France against 60GW of wind turbines and 60GW of solar panels in Germany).</text></item><item><author>defaultname</author><text>Fossil fuel&amp;#x27;s use in German power production is falling faster than their nuclear mix is. They never &amp;quot;went back to coal&amp;quot;. In reality renewables now account for almost double nuclear&amp;#x27;s output at its peak.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;styles&amp;#x2F;gallery_image&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;paragraphs&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020-source.png?itok=i-kda7MS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;styles&amp;#x2F;g...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Germany is absolutely a great example, even if it somehow became the target for the weird cadre of nuclear boosters.</text></item><item><author>wrycoder</author><text>Germany was setting an example, until they shut down their nuclear and went back to coal.</text></item><item><author>jbotz</author><text>According to this article just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation.&lt;p&gt;I think this may be one of the most encouraging bits of news about AGW that I&amp;#x27;ve seen in a long time.  5% of electric power plants (about 1500 plants) is a lot, but it&amp;#x27;s a manageable lot.  This gives us a clearly defined area of attack with a very high ROI.  It seems to say: if we&amp;#x27;re going to get serious about saving ourselves, start here and go all in.  The paper lists the top 10 polluting plants... unsurprisingly many of them are in China and India, but at least one is in Germany.  If Germany wants to set an example, there&amp;#x27;s where to start.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cinntaile</author><text>Cross-border electricity is what the future will look like though, it&amp;#x27;s not like it matters if the energy was generated in Germany or Finland when I turn on the lights at home.</text></comment>
<story><title>Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world&apos;s hyper-polluting power plants</title><url>https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edhelas</author><text>They can thanks Sweden, Finland, France and a few other neighboors to provide them with plenty of electricity and hydraulic backup when they need it (no wind at night).&lt;p&gt;France is sending around 2 to 4 GW of electricity (so mostly nuclear) to Germany all the time, &amp;quot;except&amp;quot; when there is plenty of wind, then France is buying for a really cheap price (sometimes negative) what Germany can&amp;#x27;t use. See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.rte-france.com&amp;#x2F;eco2mix&amp;#x2F;les-echanges-commerciaux-aux-frontieres&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.rte-france.com&amp;#x2F;eco2mix&amp;#x2F;les-echanges-commerciaux-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 to 4 GW is roughly 2 to 4 nuclear reactors at 100%, so one&amp;#x2F;two nuclear powerplants &amp;quot;on an average usage&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t say that you exited nuclear (or any other kind of energy) when you&amp;#x27;re massively, and really often, importing electricity from this source from across the borders.&lt;p&gt;And your graph is pretty clear. Germany didn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;removed fossil fuel&amp;quot;, they replaced around 100GW of coal with 50GW of natural gas + renewable. To me natural gas is still a fossil fuel (with a lighter co2 impact than coal indeed).&lt;p&gt;And in the end the result is &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.electricitymap.org&amp;#x2F;map&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.electricitymap.org&amp;#x2F;map&lt;/a&gt; 5 to 10x more CO² impact than France per kwh, even with 2x the nuclear plants setup in France (60GW of nuclear in France against 60GW of wind turbines and 60GW of solar panels in Germany).</text></item><item><author>defaultname</author><text>Fossil fuel&amp;#x27;s use in German power production is falling faster than their nuclear mix is. They never &amp;quot;went back to coal&amp;quot;. In reality renewables now account for almost double nuclear&amp;#x27;s output at its peak.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;styles&amp;#x2F;gallery_image&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;paragraphs&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020-source.png?itok=i-kda7MS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;styles&amp;#x2F;g...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Germany is absolutely a great example, even if it somehow became the target for the weird cadre of nuclear boosters.</text></item><item><author>wrycoder</author><text>Germany was setting an example, until they shut down their nuclear and went back to coal.</text></item><item><author>jbotz</author><text>According to this article just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation.&lt;p&gt;I think this may be one of the most encouraging bits of news about AGW that I&amp;#x27;ve seen in a long time.  5% of electric power plants (about 1500 plants) is a lot, but it&amp;#x27;s a manageable lot.  This gives us a clearly defined area of attack with a very high ROI.  It seems to say: if we&amp;#x27;re going to get serious about saving ourselves, start here and go all in.  The paper lists the top 10 polluting plants... unsurprisingly many of them are in China and India, but at least one is in Germany.  If Germany wants to set an example, there&amp;#x27;s where to start.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pydry</author><text>The data shows natural gas usage has been pretty much static for a decade: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;styles&amp;#x2F;gallery_image&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;paragraphs&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020-source.png?itok=i-kda7MS&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;styles&amp;#x2F;g...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Germany is also a net exporter of electricity and exported 13.7Twh more than it imported from France.</text></comment>