You have to realize that people have limited money. Of course the best way to go would have been to buy the house, insulate the roof, the walls, change all windows and the heating at the same time.

But we can't afford that. So we start with the point that saves us the most money, is mandated by the government and subsidized by 50%.

At this point, we have costs for heating of about 1500€ a year. Upgraded roof insulation could bring that down to 1000, but would cost approx. 30k so it would pay for itself in 60 years at current prices, at that time I am 97. Walls have a similar ROI, Windows are worse.

Well insulate the roof when we redo the tiles, we'll insulate the walls when we renew the paint,... And when we are done with that, we probably approach end of life of the heat pump anyway.

Oh, and by the way, energy efficiency class C(after renos) or D (before the renos) is nowhere near as bad as you claim it is.

Eh, obviously not able to talk about other houses, but we went from 26000ish kwh worth of heating oil to 18000ish kwh of heat from the heat pump that is generated by less than 5000 kwh of electric energy. At least a third of that is supplied by our solar roof.

I don't think there is any thermo work that would reduce energy consumption of our house by like 90%.

That... Doesn't say anything about renewables?

So no, neither gas nor coal nor nuclear is renewable.

44% renewable electric energy in 2022

I read it as electric energy, but you might be right, they might mean total energy. If that's the goal, Germany missed, obviously, but it would make a way better goal for 2030.

Yes, basically that. If you cover most of your energy needs with nuclear, switching to renewables isn't really a win in terms of co2.

If it's the best strategy going forward remains to be seen, replacing the aging fleet of reactors at an economical reasonable prices will be a monumental task, and the situation with the lack of cooling water in summer won't get easier either.

Germany has already hit the target as well as far as I know.

But it's supposed to be an average over the whole eu, so some countries will end up way above target and others well below. Some with better reasons (france comes to mind) others with worse reasons.

Eh? Don't know where you are but here the infrastructure is getting upgrades left and right, half the town here is getting glass fiber and the other half already has gigabit per tv cable.

It's a bit of renter's vs landlord market as well.

If the available renter has a budget of 1500$ for rent and utilities, you bet the landlord has an interest in efficient appliances so he can charge a higher percentage of those 1500$.

Now, if the renters have to be happy to find a place at all, it doesn't matter that much unfortunately...

While you are correct, the amount of water needed for green hydrogen is probably several orders of magnitude below the amount of water that we need to convert to drinking water - so we'll also see way less brine...

Iirc most manufacturers are phasing out ice cars by 2030 anyway

Unfortunately, nuclear does not fulfill this role from an economic perspective.

Cost of nuclear energy is mostly build cost and maintenance, fuel costs are pretty low. So if you have one, you want to keep it at nominal power for as much time as possible, if you just use it as backup, each kwh is insanely expensive.

For coal and gas, it's the other way round. Building them is cheap in comparison, so is maintenance. They only cost money if they run... So they are pretty good backup plants.

Also... You mean the brand new plant of the EPR Type in Flamanville? Construction was supposed to take 5 years, were now at 15 and counting and cost has gone up from 3.3 to 19(!) billion €

Unfortunately, nuclear does not fulfill this role from an economic perspective.

Cost of nuclear energy is mostly build cost and maintenance, fuel costs are pretty low. So if you have one, you want to keep it at nominal power for as much time as possible, if you just use it as backup, each kwh is insanely expensive.

For coal and gas, it's the other way round. Building them is cheap in comparison, so is maintenance. They only cost money if they run... So they are pretty good backup plants.

Also... You mean the brand new plant of the EPR Type in Flamanville? Construction was supposed to take 5 years, were now at 15 and counting and cost has gone up from 3.3 to 19(!) billion €

Three years is pretty short though. For Germany, I expect the energy consumption to rise due to heat pumps replacing gas /oil heating and electric cars replacing ice engines.

I don't think we can increase renewable energy generation fast enough to cover those as well as the existing generation in the next few years, but it's still a overall emissions reduction.

You may want to check the great uptime of nuclear power plants in France.

Or how cheap their new reactor is.

No, in favor of renewables. No new coal plant is being built.

Stop the bullshit.

Why would 100% renewable not be possible?

Target is exactly that. 100% renewable in 2035.

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/germany-aims-get-100-energy-renewable-sources-by-2035-2022-02-28/

Let me guess, you have no clue about the situation in Germany?

The goal for wind energy installation this year is almost double the target from last year (and it was met).

For solar, wait times are beyond one year.

Germany was at 44.6% renewable electric energy last year about double of, say, usa.

(and if you insist : coal is on a downward trend in Germany since 2012)

Because you pay for the renewables and the fossil plants that sit idle.

If you want to make methane, you'll need hydrogen as a precursor anyway.

Demographic decline? Population has been growing.

And no, we don't count coal energy as renewable.

How can one look at YOY 50% renewable electric energy and conclude that this must mean we burn more coal? Wind and solar produce more electricity every year than nuclear ever did

The fuck you are talking about? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File%3AEnergy_mix_in_Germany.svg

Coal use has gone down a lot over the years, if anything we burned more coal because we needed to export more energy to France as they had lots of reactor maintenance

German here... No we're not? We're installing as many panels as we can.

Rooftop solar comes in at 6ct/kwh here, which is substantially cheaper than coal, gas or nuclear power.

For what it's worth, it's been cheaper to have solar panels create enery for green hydrogen than to buy natural gas for most of the year.

Just as an addon: gas is way way way more expensive in Europe, Spot market prices are about triple of what you listed for the us, even before the war.

So gree hydrogen has already broken even here, and there are several agreements in place to generate green hydrogen in spain, tunesia,... And send it to northern Europe per pipeline.

ITER is aiming for a q>10, first plasma expected EO 2025