The Comments Section, Part 8 (Germany's Energy Surplus)

In reply to an article posted on Facebook about Germany's renewable energy driving their energy costs below zero.

I guess I feel have to keep people in check so they keep thinking, and not taking even good news at face value. I am not directly involved with the German energy initiative, nor am I an expert on this stuff, but I do know there's a lot of information on the internet that gets shared out of context, to feed into bias of certain ideals. Whether those ideals are noble or not, we should never let ourselves give in to misinformation simply because it supports our opinions.

All of life is a balance. It is not about right and wrong, left and right, black and white, good and evil... It's more complicated than that, and there are nearly always more than two sides to every issue. It is a series of gray areas. It is a balancing act. Not as a seesaw balances, which tips in only two directions, but a top, which can tip and fall in any direction. When we have learned to stop thinking like there is only a right and wrong side to things, then, maybe, we will have become wise enough to see that not everything is as it seems, and our opinions are not always correct.

Unfortunately this information was taken quite out of context, and this website isn't citing sources. This is actually evident of instability in their energy market, and various other sources online say Germany pays more for their energy overall than most other countries in Europe. This was a fluke that lasted 1 day, rather than a consistent fact that their costs are in the negative.

Days with high wind and sun produce a massive surplus of energy in Germany, but because they are relying so heavily on sources of energy that produce so inconsistently, wind and solar, they have a shortage of renewable energy on overcast days in Winter when the wind is still and there is less daylight in the day/night cycle. During those times of energy shortage, they need additional power from sources they can more easily turn on and off. They are phasing out nuclear power, which is the cleanest non-renewable source of energy in terms of carbon emissions, so this is why they still need, and continue to use, a large number of coal-based power plants and natural gas. But those are very dirty, and it creates an energy surplus situation where a lot of energy is going to waste.

This whole process means that, despite all these efforts thus far, the carbon emissions in Germany aren't quite declining as fast as planned, even though they've made such a large jump into renewable energy. They probably shouldn't have been so quick to phase out nuclear before coal, but maybe they have a plan. I'm not an expert, I just Google things, so I could also be wrong on various points.

Their hearts are definitely in the right place, but they need to find a more consistent means of gathering renewable energy, like hydroelectric power plants. And they're working on that! I totally support that they're actually working on this! All of this is data the world needs to see, to help us learn how to do it right. I hope they meet their 2020 goals so they can show the world how it's done.