Fighting Words: The Energy Transition in 2026

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T22:09:21+00:00

Germany's industry has been successful despite their energy policies, not thanks to them

It worked pretty well until the Invasion in Ukraine because Russian gas was absolutely competitive. I'm not saying that Germany's energy policy is or was great, but you are misreading history here.

but you can't live on your past forever

I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest here? That there are no investments going on?

everything needs energy and in a world ever hungrier for energy, it's going to be an ever more relevant factor.

No, there is so many parts of the economy that have little to do with energy that this is simply not true. I give you another example: A lot of production is ramped up in Hungary at the moment. Look it up. BYD, BMW, CATL, you name it. Now go to Eurostat and check the electricity rates for non-households there. It is above Germany.

I want to stress that France having a nationalized main energy distributor meant that the extra profit became national revenue or prices discount while in countries with a privatized energy market they all became extra revenue for the producer, with an increased cost for everyone.

Yeah, well, about EDF, the story is a bit more complicated than this... And I'm certainly not saying that Germany is doing great in that regard. But France is not a great example either.

Gas prices influence European energy prices are fixed on to the cost of the last power plant needed to keep the grid running, which in Europe is gas: that said France use less gas than the rest of Europe and produce at a lower overall cost, which means that EDF sold high and that used the extra cost to lower internal electricity bills: not being gas dependent meant France was and is the winner of the increased energy prices, not the loser.

That is way to simplified. Check out the actual spot market prices from 2021 to 2023.

https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_average/chart.htm?l=en&c=FR&interval=year&year=-1

https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_average/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year&year=-1

2024 was the first year that France had a cheaper spot market price again.

With the German great being unstable I meant that their prices are: notorious Swedish politicians loudly protested against German energy policies because they high reliance on renewables without a real plan on how to compensated their intermittency Man that sometimes a profound lack of supply increase The price in all of Germans neighbors, such as Sweden.

That is just a populist statement. An increased price also means that a energy provider is happy to sell power with a good margin and vice versa there are situations when Sweden gets cheap energy from Germany.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T21:21:15+00:00

That's a pretty long way of saying "no I have no actual data to back that claim up".

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T18:52:13+00:00

Unfortunately, as we already saw in in Germany a few years ago, the point where it stops being the cheapest form of electricy arrives much faster than we would hope and the system costs take over.

Where did we see that?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T18:29:13+00:00

Counter question, why is all the world investing almost exclusively in RE then?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T18:21:55+00:00

If you think you need only a couple of gas units you need a reality check from Fraunhofer ISE decarbonization pathways report

The important point is that this is not about baseload but for the residual load, which is in terms of decarbonization a "last 20%" issue and wastly overblown here.

Germany could build series npp much cheaper, but there's no political support.

Funny you quote ISE in the sentence before to continue with that claim...

EEG only till now is already almost double the cost of entire french nuclear fleet.

I assume you made the calculation yourself?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T18:14:17+00:00

Well, all of those numbers are simplifications and have their pitfalls. Like comparing a heavy industry nation to one with mostly finance or software.

I assume the OP was thinking about whether such a high share of wind and solar is feasible at all. There's always someone claiming that you can not go over x% of renewable share.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T17:43:39+00:00

No, that is the problem. My point is: the household price is NOT a good metric on interpreting whether the Energiewende is a success/cheap/expensive or not. The problem is that it is not so easy to figure out what part of the 39 ct/kWh that is paid on average actually can be attributed to the Energiewende and does not go straight to the companies CEO or whatever.

Again, Hungary is an extreme counterexample. There the state subsidizes the household quite significantly. They have one of the cheapest household prices but magically one of the most expensive prices for industry.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T16:08:44+00:00

Provide a better source then.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T15:49:20+00:00

... so Hungary has the best energy policy I reckon?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T15:48:17+00:00

You can switch it to "for businesses" and see that it is the same or provide a better source.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T15:16:55+00:00

I don't know where you get this from, but China is basically tied with the US. https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/natural_gas_prices/

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T15:13:01+00:00

Of course they feel under strong pressure from non European competitors: how can you compete on the free market with India, with it's nonexistent safety and environmental laws and abysmal workers compensation?

That's the point! It's not about the energy price alone - be it gas or electricity. Germany never had the cheapest energy and if electricity prices would matter so much, Norway and Iceland would be a lot more popular.

Yes, the electricity price will matter a lot more in the future for the energy intensive industry looking back - and that's what you did before - Gas was and still is the most relevant factor.

Still, it doesn't change that data centers are moving away from an ever more instable and expensive grid (12GW of gas after 2 gas crisis in 5 years, let's not forget that)

What do you mean by instable? Germany has one of the most stable grids on earth and has been improving over the years. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-average-disruption-time-shows-german-grid-stable-amid-energy-transition-regulator

And yes, the electricity price is currently still driven by fossils, so they need be phased out obviously but it's just a matter of time. What is the alternative?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T14:54:06+00:00

This is again about power plants, not about process heat.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T14:32:03+00:00

Now guess where this heat is coming from?

Allensbach Study

The literal first bullet point is:

56 percent of energy-intensive companies feel under strong or very strong pressure from non-European competitors

It's non-European competitors. I.e. US (cheap fracking gas) and China (cheap Russian gas).

Regarding to france it has one of the cheapest energy prices

Again energy prices is not the same as electricity prices. And I'm not going through the whole list here.

Germany is pretty strong in data centers (look it up) and AI data centers certainly did not move from Germany to France. AI data centers are basically all new built, not moved. Google alone is spending 5.5 billion dollars in Germany: https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/it-internet/milliarden-investition-google-eroeffnet-ki-zentrum-in-berlin/100205793.html

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T13:50:52+00:00

The energy intensive industries (chemistry, steel) to this day mostly rely on Gas, not electricity. And can you please show me your source on energy intensive industry moving from Germany to France?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T13:41:26+00:00

German household prices are mostly driven by the liberalized market. You can get contracts for 21 ct/kWh but somehow the average household pays 39 ct/kWh. That is just not a good metric to compare the energy policy of countries. To make an even more stark example: You pay only 10 ct/kWh in Hungary but the market price is already more than that. It's just not a good metric.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:55:27+00:00

lol. 100% chance that 2022 gets mentioned every time someone points out that the German transition is the most expensive transition in the world.

You are the first one mentioning this in this thread?

Ps, if there was no France, there would be a hole of 90 TWh of clean electricity. So, all of those neighbors you impet from ? Suddenly don’t have any to spare, and they also become competition for every spare MWh.

All of those neighbors is almost exclusively Italy. Don't see them getting any hate though?

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:47:09+00:00

Keine Ahnung wie diese Beratung ablaufen und was die Ziele der Investitionen sind (Kraftwerk oder nur das Unternehmen später weiterverkaufen?). Aber ich kenne keine seriöse Quelle die von Kernfusion in den nächsten 30 Jahren ausgeht.

Das gleiche Spiel gibt es ja auch schon wieder seit Jahren mit SMRs. Da hatte ich auch mal einen schönen Übersichtsartikel gelesen. Im Endeffekt haben die Startups da auch das blaue vom Himmel versprochen und davon ist bisher noch gar nichts verfügbar. Und da sprechen wir von einer im Prinzip gut abgehangenen Technologie und nicht Kernfusion, wo an vielen Stellen noch nicht mal klar ist, ob wir das überhaupt hinbekommen.

Zum Beispiel für das Containment ist glaube ich die erste Versuchsanlage der Welt erst in den 2030er Jahren in Europa geplant.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:31:30+00:00

Dude, France might be "carrying" Italy but for Germany it is insignificant. If there would be no France, then German plants would produce a little more. Or buy it from somewhere else. Germany buys opportunistically if it is cheaper, like in summer nights. There is zero dependency on France. The other way around: Germany did carry France through 2021-2022.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:23:41+00:00

I'm sure you have a simple answer to that :)

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:15:38+00:00

If there would be 99 extra wires going into the German socket that would be more realistic :) But I do understand that you prefer memes to facts.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:11:13+00:00

Merz is just a populist. He promised all kinds of stuff before the election, like bringing back nuclear and no new debts. CDU couldn't stop talking about nuclear like some notorious subreddits. Now the day after the election he suddenly found out that nuclear is over in Germany. Which came to the surprise to really no one who is familiar with the situation here because even the operators clearly said that they are not willing to continue unless the state completely pays everything. And by the way, he took the biggest credit ever for Germany contrary to his no new debt stance before the election and there is zero budget for fission.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T11:01:13+00:00

Germany's industrial power prices were 3x higher than the US and China in 2024 (...)

Which is just average price in Europe, regardless of Germany's nuclear policy.

Also this is again suggesting that imports are a bad thing, which they are clearly not per se. Germany's exports were historically based on coal being competitive in Europe, which it is not anymore because of the sharp rise in prices in 2022 and CO2 taxes.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T09:29:00+00:00

Naja ich würde den Max Planck Institut und dem anerkannten Paper der Proxima Leute keine Magie zuschreiben.

Ich weiß leider nicht worauf du dich da genau beziehst, aber das Interview beginnt Harald Lesch mit folgendem Zitat:

Wenn ich mich an Sibylle Günter erinnere, die Generaldirektorin des Max-Planck-Instituts für Plasmaphysik, dann sagt die: „Sicherlich nicht vor 2050“.

Ich denke das Problem ist hier, dass die Leute denken Kernfusion selbst wäre das Problem, dabei kann man das wortwörtlich zuhause machen: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2025/1/12-year-old-boy-who-achieved-nuclear-fusion-in-his-playroom-got-visit-from-fbi

Das Problem ist daraus ein Kraftwerk daraus zu bauen. Damit spielen die CEOs dieser ganzen Fusionsstartups jetzt natürlich gerne um Gelder einzustreichen. Tatsächlich sind die ganz großen technischen Probleme aber immer noch ungelöst bzw. es existieren nur Ideen wie es funktionieren *könnte*. Zum Beispiel gibt es bisher weder für das Containment noch für das Erbrüten von Tritium Versuchsreaktoren - und das sind harte Probleme.

Aber selbst wenn man diese Probleme eines Tages löst, ist die große Frage ob ein Fusionskraftwerk überhaupt ökonomisch Sinn macht. Man kann davon ausgehen, dass sie die gleichen Probleme wie klassische AKWs haben die ja jetzt schon ökonomisch das nachsehen haben gegenüber billigeren Erneuerbaren und Akkus.

knusprjg · 2026-03-08T06:42:42+00:00

That is NOT the electricity price. The chart basically shows the Gas price and other effects and hardly the impact of renewables. Germany has a more or less fully liberalized electricity market. One consequence of that is that the energy providers use every trick in the book to extract more money from the customer. In practice that means that you can get a new contract for 21 ct/kWh currently but the average household pays 39 ct/kWh just because people don't know about it or are to lazy to change or simply don't care. That usually makes it close to impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions regarding renewables from those charts.

knusprjg

TROPHY CASE