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Germany's coal exit quietly progressing, likely completed by 2032 – researcher (www.cleanenergywire.org)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/Europe@europe.pub
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Germany's coal phase-out is on track to happen through market forces well before the legal 2038 deadline, regardless of current energy market turbulence, says Hauke Hermann, a researcher at the Institute of Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut). Carbon price trends make an exit as early as 2031 or 2032 likely, Hermann told Clean Energy Wire. Refiring old coal plants in response to the Iran war's energy market shock to cut power costs would distort investment signals and is unlikely to happen in practice, he added.

Soaring energy prices have triggered calls for slowing Germany’s coal exit. The country’s coal exit law, agreed in 2020, provides for the step-by-step decommissioning of coal power plants. It also stipulates that coal-fired power generation must cease by 2038 at the very latest. Germany's western coal region aims for an earlier phase-out by 2030, but delays in building new gas-fired power plants as a backup for renewables make meeting this earlier deadline increasingly unlikely.

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[–] [S] 0 points 5 months ago

As an addition: In its report, The Global Coal Exit List 2025: Troubling Trends Towards Chemicals and Captive Power, the NGO Urgewald identifies India, China, and the U.S. as the main obstacles for a coal phase-out.

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    46 comments in c/climate@slrpnk.net view that post
    [–] [S] 14 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    As an addition: In its report, The Global Coal Exit List 2025: Troubling Trends Towards Chemicals and Captive Power, the NGO Urgewald identifies India, China, and the U.S. as the main obstacles for a coal phase-out.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    China is a surprise to me, didn't know they use that much coal for non energy production. At least they are scaling down when it comes to energy.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    According to the Chinese Communist Party's recently released 15th five-year plan: compared to the 14th five-year plan, China’s goals for non-fossil energy additions would see China’s annual green energy additions fall by more than half in the next five years, while at the same time, fossil fuel energy consumption would increase by 8-10%,

    China is not on track to meet its 2060 carbon neutrality goal, according to climate think tank, Carbon Action Tracker.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    They will burn the question is whether that fire comes before or after there's any benefit to be had from any of it Americans are already turning off power to people without shutting down the plants or making anything what's the actual down side of burning it all down

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    • [–] 17 points 5 months ago (19 children)

    Fucking hell that is slow. Germany, wtf?

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Only like a decade after they said they would. That's pretty good still going to cause untold ecological damage but less than say openai or the invasiam of Ukraine

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    The invasion of Ukraine forced Europe to lower fossil fuel consumption and now Ukraine is also destroying a lot of fossil fuel infrastructure in Russia. Even the destruction of the Kakhovka dam seems to turn out rather wild ecosystem. The Baltic countries are also recreating massive wetlands on the border to Russia.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago

    LOL we're getting wildly expensive environmentally disastrous fracking gas from the USSA, shipped in diesel tankers.
    And why? because these terrorists blew up Nordstream causing a huge environmental disater by itself.
    Quit your BS

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (10 children)
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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    "but someone else will do worse" is not a valid defence.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Not really a defense, just saying that they are nullifying our efforts.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    "Our efforts" lol, lmao even. The west - Germany and the US in particular - are not even trying.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

    So are their renewable installations...

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    That's like saying a chain smoker is turning healthy by starting to brush their teeth, while increasing their cigarette intake..

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    60% of China's power capacity at this point are renewables, and even if they're building coal, they're building renewables much faster.. Long term, it's clear they're still phasing out coal.. The power plants are there, but they probably won't be running much in 10-20 years time

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    • [–] -3 points 5 months ago (19 children)

    Replacing it mostly with gas, which still produces global warming? Gas is better, but still problematic from environment, price and dependency point of view 🤷

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 5 months ago (18 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (17 children)

    What are these graphs saying about the future coal phase out?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (16 children)

    My read of those graphs is that coal (and lignite) have both been going down and will likely continue to do so. Natural gas has been constant, it does not appear to replace the reduction in coal.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (15 children)

    Usage of both can go down only to some extent. Then what? Germany has no nuclear, where will energy come from during windless nights/cloudy days? France?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Last year there were 78GW of battery grid connections approved in Germany. That is with 720GW pending for approval. So safe to say that segment is growing quickly. Add to that trade with other countries. Europe is large enough, that the weather is very different across the continent.

    Oh and also, there always is some wind at least. The worse week last year was at 12.8% of electricity consumption from wind and average is 28%. That week also had pretty good solar.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Shouldn't that be GWh? Anyway, that's peanuts if you want to rely purely on renewables. You also can't look at average wind, you have to cover energy demand all the time. If there is no wind for minutes in such case, you have big problems.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Shouldn’t that be GWh?

    No, grid connections are measured in GW.

    Anyway, that’s peanuts if you want to rely purely on renewables.

    These batteries usually are planned to have two hours of storage. Some more some less. So 158GWh would be enough to power Germany through sunny, but windless days. 1440GWh are more then a days worth of electricity consumption of Germany. Again there are no days with absolutely no wind and solar and Germany needs more of them to even charge those batteries up anyway. So it is on the lower end of what is needed to run a country like Germany without fossil fuels.

    At that point you can talk about some weird forms of storage like hydrogen or use a bit of biomass or something like that. You might even get away with carbon capture and storage, because the amount of fossil fuels needed for that grid are so low.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    I think you need more than one day of energy's worth, plus there is a problem with short and cloudy winter days where you'd struggle to generate enough energy let alone store it. I'd be really curious if there are some actual studies that observe past years and calculate all this.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Other parts of Europe that have wind and battery storage. That isn't rocket science and improving the grid makes way more sense and is cheaper than building white elephant nuclear reactors (that will not be online before way into the 2040ties anyways).

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Yes

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago* (5 children)

    Germany is very much opposed to nuclear, but when it needs it, it has no problems with importing it? That's a bit hypocritical and not really self sufficient, isn't it. Besides it might happen there is draought plus/or huge energy demand and France won't be able to export energy.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    A bit hypocritical to think nuclear could prevent that when it takes 15 years under optimal conditions to build a reactor.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Nuclear could prevent that, but Germany closed even their functional NPPs, let alone planned new ones when it should. How come France emissions are incredibly low and state is self sufficient, even exports a lot...

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    Germany closed half a century old plants that were over or close to their maximum design lifespan.

    France is still having Russia of all places process a large part of the needed uranium 🙄 And the nuclear power plants are causing huge debts for the operators.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Germany npps roughly started operating from 1970-85, in Slovenia we have one NPP that began in 1983, still works perfectly fine and we are extending its life at least until 2043 if not beyond. So, tell me again about maximum design lifespan...

    France is still having Russia of all places process a large part of the needed uranium 🙄 And the nuclear power plants are causing huge debts for the operators.

    What's the price tag on avoiding global warming? Also uranium can be found and processed elsewhere and it sucks that they use Russia (both imports and processing). But I guess this is just typical EU hypocrisy when it comes to Ukraine war.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Yes, that is half a century, and no, explanding their life time is irresponsible from a safety standpoint as any operator will tell you. At most you can add new reactor blocks and decomission the old ones. Furthermore it is also uneconomic to operate vintage npps as necessary repairs become much more expensive.

    And no, investing into white elephants that don't produce any electricity for at least 15 years does not help with climate change. It is actively harmful, as during that time the fossile fuel plants continue to operate, while necassary investments into the grid and renewables can't be done because all the money is stuck with building prohibitively expensive npps.

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    • [–] -3 points 5 months ago

    So they want get rid of coal and gas peakers? While critically depending on imports from neighbors when the renewables don't deliver?

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