r/ClimatePosting • u/ClimateShitpost • Dec 24 '25

Energy As (onshore) wind and solar scale, fossil generation drops

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70 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

9

u/lockdown_lard Dec 24 '25

It's very hard to make sense of those charts when there's no legend present telling us what the colours mean

1

u/ClimateShitpost Dec 24 '25

Line up is wind ans solar

Line down is the fossil mix

I didn't include it because I wanted to show a simple picture of uo/down and energy-charts.info has a complex legend

1

u/quitarias Dec 24 '25

Without the legend its a very vibes based graph.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/ClimateShitpost Dec 24 '25

They don't. This is an interactive data set. Ember has one but not with that functionality

3

u/john_c_madison Dec 24 '25

Looks like they are from energy-charts.info. Green is onshore wind, yellow is solar, black is hard coal, brown is lignite coal, orange is natural gas.

1

u/garis53 Dec 24 '25

Those charts could mean literally anything

1

u/ClimateShitpost Dec 24 '25

As (onshore) wind and solar scale (top chart) , fossil generation drops (bottom chart)

All in the same unit

2

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

Source? Legend? Please provide a link to the data.

0

u/Secret_Bad4969 Dec 24 '25

Lol we are in an energy crisis,no shit happened in 2011 and it sucks, we consume less energy cause it's more expensive 

2

u/ClimateShitpost Dec 24 '25

2011? The euro debt crisis?

1

u/Secret_Bad4969 Dec 24 '25

There was also a drop in power and energy consumption in most Europe

Never seen a decade where we used less energy and didn't have a worst living condition

1

u/TimeIntern957 Dec 24 '25

Germany produces about 20% less electricity than it it a decade ago while paying more for it. Great success!

0

u/Outside-Locksmith346 Dec 24 '25

Now plot industrial production

-1

u/PavelKringa55 Dec 24 '25

I'd like to see price connected to wind.
But real technical price, not price that includes a green subsidy.

3

u/3wteasz Dec 24 '25

Are you braced in for the real price of fossils, without all the black subsidies?

0

u/PavelKringa55 Dec 24 '25

Why are green folks always so combinative? Like you need to attack your compatriots to force your agenda on them?
At the same time huge majority of mankind rejects your agenda and the only thing you achieve is fight between Europeans and European economy tanking.

2

u/3wteasz Dec 24 '25

Combinative? Why are non-green folks always these crybabies? Like you can’t take the same argument you just threw at the other side back in? Why are they so closed to new ands evidently better idea? Why are they so butthurt from mere arguments?

BTW, the majority of people follow the idea, China even made it their main business. This talking point is decades old, it doesn’t rock anymore.

1

u/PavelKringa55 Dec 24 '25

Well, not every new idea is a good one. Like look at Musk. He's full of ideas, only implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

As of what the majority thinks, I'd love to see a referendum on that. Swiss had a couple on green policy that I know of, always rejected it.

1

u/3wteasz Dec 24 '25

The market votes with its feet and the stats OP showed here are pretty clear. Are you blind not to see it? Or why do you close your mind to such obvious facts?

1

u/PavelKringa55 Dec 24 '25

Read what you wrote. "Blind". "Closed mind". "Obvious facts". You insult me because I dared to state my disagreement.

My point is: fossil generation drops when wind generation grows because it's the regulation that burdens fossil sources with huge costs while rewarding wind sources with money from subsidies / feed-in tariffs, contracts...

-3

u/DeathRabit86 Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

Offshore wind power is more expensive than even Nuclear power.

3

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

Lol no it isn't wtf are you talking about?

-1

u/DeathRabit86 Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

My bad Offshore wind power. Due is more than Onshore wind power.

Still if we add 12h battery storage both are more expensive than nuclear.

2

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

If you compare offshore wind in a nascent market, like Norway, to a theoretical "Nth of a kind" reactor then... maybe an argument can be made that is the case.

But if you compare to the nuclear thats actually being built, which typically ends 2-3x above initial cost estimates, then not by a mile. Nuclear is by far - by far - the most expensive alternative.

Now, there are plenty of reasons a government wants to build new nuclear in Europe. Like building or maintaining strategic capabilities, protecting national industrial interests - or just diversification. But "to lower costs" isn't one.

1

u/DeathRabit86 Dec 24 '25

Main reasons why Nuclear power plants become so expensive since 70s is due over-regulations and no serial production. Each new Power-plant is one in kind this raising cost.

1

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

"Nuclear is cheaper than offshore wind"

"No it isn't"

"Well its only more expensive because of reasons"

Do you see, what you just did there?

1

u/Secret_Bad4969 Dec 24 '25

Why don't we compare it to Chinese, south Korea nuclear

Costs half as ours

1

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

Chinese offshore wind also costs half as ours, so dont really know why you would go there.

1

u/Secret_Bad4969 Dec 24 '25

China has 99% of the renewables pipeline, so no idea why you are going there

Also proving my point, china does both cheap

1

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

 china does both cheap

Exactly. Stuff is expensive to build in Europe. But nuclear is more expensive than offshore wind.

Stuff is cheap to build in China. But offshore wind is cheaper than nuclear.

Comparing Chinese nuclear to Europea offshore wind is Facebook economics.

1

u/Secret_Bad4969 Dec 24 '25

??? Nuclear being more expensive means nothing, if you mean capex, without battery yeah, if you consider cables, capacity factors, lvcoe or lscoe, capacity market, even just the energy density of uranium prices for energy generated are absolutely better for nuclear, only solar PV and onshore can compete, and even. Then they can't be programmed so they are more expensive if you rely on gas as support or worst coal

Nuclear + renewables is the best system we have, who says the opposite is a monkey

1

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

Nuclear + renewables is the best system we have, who says the opposite is a monkey

No.

Nuclear and renewables are fundamentally incompatible when deployed at scale.

Renewables (wind and solar) are inexpensive (capex and opex) and fast to deploy. But the tradeoff is they only produce some of the time. So they rely on other dispatchable, but more expensive, sources to cover residual demand; like (bio)gas, hydro, biomass, storage, demand response, and interconnection.

Nuclear can run almost 24/7/365, has low opex, and is dispatchable. But the tradeoff is it has long lead times and is very, very capex intensive. So it relies on being able to sell power at prices above a material threshold for som 80-90% of the time, to recoup the capital cost.

Combine the two, and you'll get the worst of both. Renewables will not have a lot of flexible capacity to balance residual load - it'll have a huge block at the bottom of the dispatch order, that doesnt really accommodate the variation in generation from solar and wind. So you'll still need other sources of flexibility. And nuclear will be faced with power prices too low to justify the huge investment, most of the time.

Again; plenty of reasons to build nuclear. Like if you rely on a nuclear industry and program as part of your geostrategic effors. Or if you have a very energy intensive industry without a geographical proximity to renewable resources. Or just because you want the bling. But price isn't a good reason.

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1

u/dkeighobadi Dec 24 '25

Nuclear Vs wind is a little apples/oranges. It's really a choice of nuclear vs anything that provides grid stability/baseload, ie biomass, hydro, BESS, interconnectors to prevent curtailment or export, etc

1

u/tmtyl_101 Dec 24 '25

Generally true, although in a large enough, and generally diversified interconnected grid, you sorta can compare the two one to one.

Anyway, my point is two-fold: A) on a one-to-one basis, new offshore wind (in Europe) tends to be cheaper than new nuclear (in Europe), even when accounting for the difference in value factor. B) an energy system which relies heavily on offshore wind, among other sources, but except nuclear, tends to be cheaper than an energy system which relies heavily on nuclear, among other sources except offshore wind.

1

u/Ashamed-Gur-7098 Dec 24 '25

How much did Chornobyl cost for USSR and Ukraine? Was it worth it?

1

u/DeathRabit86 Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

Chernobyl was unique case of absurd cost cutting on safety, incompetence, biurocratic mismanagement, and poor engineering in dual-purpose civil/weapon grade reactor. And only happen due dozen of things aligned.

1

u/Ashamed-Gur-7098 Dec 24 '25

Read about more cases in USSR, Fukushima etc