Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
This is a bit of a one sided way to look at it. When renewables are not producing well, the only choice is to use fossil fuels. So they may "save the day" on good days, but they don't help on bad ones. A long term energy strategy needs to account for those days. So then natural gas that could be used for heating needs to isntead be used for generating electricity. Relying on natural gas isn't the issue, it's tying themselves to one unreliable source where the failure occurred.
And it's not like Germany couldn't develop their own resources, they do have some oil and gas around, they've just made it very difficult for the O$G industry to function.
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But that's not how electricity pricing works. The price for electricity is set by the marginal kilowatt. That means if you're using a 10% mix of gas, or 50% mix, the price is mainly set by the price of gas right now. You pay the windmill guy the same price for his electricity as you pay the gas turbine guy. It doesn't matter what's generating it. The Windmill guy is just making waaaaaaaaaaaay more money because he's not paying much for the electricity he's selling.
Natural gas is a global commodity, so German production would have no impact on their pricing unless a) it was massive enough to change the global market, or b) they nationalized it. There's not enough there to make a difference here
/Tldr The unreliable source right now IS natural gas and it's almost entirely responsible for the energy costs in Germany.