> Fortunately, wind and solar are doing very well in reducing CO2 emissions. In the coming one or two decades, wind and solar can easily outpace nuclear in reducing CO2 emissions.
Germany has proved this is a huge lie.
Edit: to elaborate a bit, what it proves without surprise is that wind and solar can't significantly reduce CO2 without a clean baseline. By their very nature (not producing at night and without wind), and without some miraculous tech breakthrough, wind and solar can't be the major part of the mix for our developed societies, that's the hard reality of the orders of magnitudes involved here. So the question is what is the realistic plan for that baseline to complement solar and wind for at least 50% of the mix? Because the only options I see are A/Nuclear, B/Bet on imaginary storage tech, C/Bet on fusion becoming viable with decades earlier.
It's the other way around. Without wind and solar, Germany would produce a lot more CO2 than it produces today.
If you come from a situation where most electricity is generated from fossil fuel, with a bit of nuclear, than installing a bit of solar and wind trivially reduces CO2. Wind on the North Sea can trivially take 50% of all required electricity production.
It is the end game that is hard. With just solar and wind you can't go down to zero CO2 emission.
That said, it is not clear that you can go to zero CO2 with just nuclear. Unless you are massively overbuilding nuclear to deal with peakload.
The current problem is that no government has proposed a timeline when fossil fuel will be more expensive than storage (or than nuclear mixed with wind).
As long as fossil fuel is cheap, we will only see solar and wind, because those are currently cheaper than fossil.
Sorry but no this is not what I call “very much”, nor “very well” as GP said. If you look at all the fossil bars (don’t forget the gas that would be too easy) it further prove my point that Germany really failed this decade and the trajectory is not looking good.
Also for a reality check have a look at electricitymap.org when there is no wind and when it’s the night, I don’t see how ones could keep a straight face thinking they are doing good, this is the mix of the future for our cities.
Germany has proved this is a huge lie.
Edit: to elaborate a bit, what it proves without surprise is that wind and solar can't significantly reduce CO2 without a clean baseline. By their very nature (not producing at night and without wind), and without some miraculous tech breakthrough, wind and solar can't be the major part of the mix for our developed societies, that's the hard reality of the orders of magnitudes involved here. So the question is what is the realistic plan for that baseline to complement solar and wind for at least 50% of the mix? Because the only options I see are A/Nuclear, B/Bet on imaginary storage tech, C/Bet on fusion becoming viable with decades earlier.