- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/64240187
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Well the good news is renewables will continue to get cheaper even if these fuckwads try to prop up their overlords a bit longer. I don’t think they can stop renewables from taking over unless they outright ban it, which will be their next play.
The issue is that landlords do not care about operating costs. So as long as it is possible to install cheaper gas boilers then heat pumps, they will do it.
Yeah it’s tricky. I really think energy costs should be split between landlords and tenants somehow.
Or, you know, eliminate private ownership of residential real estate…
If renewables were indeed cheaper, nobody would use fossil fuels, at all.
This is true, which is why the vast majority of new power generating equipment installs is renewables.
A bit over 50% isn’t exactly a vast majority, and primary energy shows a fuller picture: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy
That is historical consumption not new installs, but even from this there is a clear trend that can be extrapolated. Energy companies, the greediest fucks in human history are choosing renewables because economically it is the best choice.
The trend in primary energy consumption is that there is no substitution/transition to renewable, but addition/stacking on top of existing consumption. So the fossil fraction remains about constant.
Of course, the fossil part will be going away shortly, but then you can’t build current renewable infrastructure without fossil/mineral resources, so it’s an extender/multiplier of fossil.
Inertia doesn’t exist in your world, does it?
In new installs, with – everything else being equal – price/TCO is the only buying signal. The dirty trick, of course, is that not all Joules and Watts are created equal.
Vote for a right wing party again, Germany! Do it. I can’t wait for the complaints once they’re in power. Oh, it’s the immigrant’s fault again? How original.
Germany is not investing into hydrogen generation, so that just leaves you with mandatory 100% heat pumps. If you don’t see a problem with that, think again.
Hydrogen is just a shitty battery that always leaks flammable gas.
Since “green hydrogen” is basically a fiction right now, heat pumps (or neighborhood heating, as someone else mentioned) are the only option we have.
But it is politics which has made it a fiction. The science and technology is straightforward enough, though 1 usd/kg target is a red herring.
Germany has tonnes of unused wind-energy. That could very well be used for green hydrogen. Everything is in place, there is just not political will to push the button and make it a viable option.
District heating is also a very useful option.
If you happen to have a nice option like deep geothermal, that’s good. Biofuels are not really renewable, but you would have better exhaust scrubbing than in residences. In Germany this is rare, here the push was for heat pumps. Assuming you don’t have to renovate buildings (most legacy can’t deal with lower fluid temperatures, and might also need reinsulation) a heat pump needs sufficient power cabling, is an expensive piece of hardware with a limited lifespan, needs periodic servicing and has frequently problems in lower subzero temperatures. Also, if the grid is down, you’re SOL.
District heating allows a city to use industrial waste heat, from factories or data centres. It is also a lot easier to add storage in form of large insulated water tanks to the system. At that point you can add thermal solar to the mix and also just fairly simple large boilers(those are pretty close to 100% efficient and a lot cheaper then heat pumps).
As for geothermal, that too is an option in quite a few parts of Germany, if you go deep enough:
Also obviously large heat pumps are always an option as well.
