So germans are still buying (some) Russian gas for heat, while shutting down nuclear plants? That just seems wrong.
> biomass" often gets hidden in the "clean energy" part, but that just means burning something other than oil/coal/gas.
That's usually CO2 neutral if it's waste/wood pellets etc. Whether it's "clean" or "sustainable" is a hot topic, but in terms of climate it's a lot better than fossil fuel.
You make an argument that only works in theory. In reality you cannot switch heating modalities like underwear for whatever seems reasonable at the moment. Most houses are build with gas and oil heating systems. In some places like Berlin the gas infrastructure is very old and established. Even streetlights run on gas in some places and houses have generators in the basement to combine heat and electricity supply.
But this argument has been made for years. For decades. We are talking about banning the sales of combustion engine vehicles within 10 years. Surely in 10, 20 or 30 years one should be able to see pretty significant progress in the conversion of building heating systems?
I’m assuming old multi story houses with gas heating typically use a water system (radiators) and only a single basement furnace? In that situation, switching the boiler to anything else or even better just using central heating should be a reasonably sized investment.
It’s not like German cities are unique in how they are built and heated. Lots of other cities have done this conversion in the latest decades.
Gas infrastructure was old and established in all major European cities. Now it’s electrical stoves and central heating in many places.
> Now it’s electrical stoves and central heating in many places.
What's "central heating"?
I believe Germany already uses central heating in most places. The question is what powers it. Can it be efficiently replaced by renewable-energy (!) electric heating vs. fossil? Other commenters have posited "no".
The way I see it, investing in nuclear should have been part of the plan, instead of replacing it with renewables (vs. doing so for those uses of fossil where renewables make sense). The fear of nuclear energy in Germany is just ridiculous IMO, and arguably has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. With nuclear power on its way out know how and effort to research and to maintain existing plants and investment in it are at a minimum making continued operation now a liability.
Central heating is the distribution of hot water from a central location. Best case it’s leftover energy from nearby industry, worst case it’s just a place where something is burned, such as biogas/biomass/trash or fossil fuels. But many cities have some heavy industry that can supply waste heat for a lot of buildings.
Centrally burned fossil is better for the environment than burning in residential buildings, especially in cities. For the climate it makes no difference though.
Even though it’s a waste of high grade energy, one could imagine powering heating plants with electricity in a pinch. If there is so much surplus electricity that reactors are closed then perhaps…
The Stockholm City gas system, although much smaller than Berlin’s was swapped to a renewable gas (biogas) 10 years ago.
That’s a much less acute problem as it’s possible to stockpile or get from elsewhere. Gas pipelines would require new pipelines to replace (or gas ports and storage etc) which won’t happen this winter.
In my opinion I think biomass can be considered cleaner since the burning of it releases only recently stored carbon as opposed to taking huge carbon reserves from fossil fuels that might not have ever seen the atmosphere again. In my mind biomass is "carbon neutral" where fossil fuels are "carbon positive"
It is not neutral, it takes tens of years for standard sources of biomass to accumulate to useful amounts. Fast biomass would use something like hemp or other grass but it's still problematic.
And it does increase CO2 and NOx levels when burned, not to mention soot - it's dirtier than quality coal. The growth itself does not capture nearly enough to cover for it.
Biomass is mostly wood. If the forest is in steady-state (as is the case in Germany), this is carbon neutral. The main issue is that plants are much less efficient at light harvesting than solar cells. This means that there is probably not much scaling potential left.
Yes, heating and transportation are huge and almost entirely fossil fueled. Low-tech solutions such as heat pumps and better insulation alone could probably make a large impact.
Primary energy consumption isn't a great metric for comparing with renewable electricity, since for conventional plants it includes the unused energy lost as heat.
A fossil power plant wastes ~60% of the energy, a nuclear plant ~75%, a small petrol engine ~75%. Once you take this into account, the stats look a little better.
There's a reason why electrification of transportation and low-energy buildings are major topics in Europe. You see them on the top and on the left of your chart, respectively.
I understand that energy consumption includes things that aren't electricity so the proportion of oil is higher but everything else is different too. For example, in the parent comment, more wind than biomass is produced but in this comment the consumption is the other way around. Is it because biomass is used for cars as well (ethanol)? Maybe wood for heating too?
Yes, I think it's a mix of Biodiesel and wood stoves. Not sure why the rape seed production wouldn't count into the biomass production then. It makes sense that you see private-only things like wood stoves only on the consumption side.
I think another factor is that private sector (heavy industry) production of energy (with private coal plants etc) probably doesn't count into the production side either.
Also worth noting that "biomass" often gets hidden in the "clean energy" part, but that just means burning something other than oil/coal/gas.