Home financing ever possible? Probably not!

It was actually like that in December this winter. We had a "dark doldrums" for several weeks.



The colors "duck poop" represent wind.

We had 3 weeks where wind and photovoltaics barely reached 15% of current demand. If we then convert all heating systems to heat pumps and cars to BEVs, we really need solutions. And I don't accept "Let's just accelerate the expansion - it will work out."

If we want to be CO2-neutral by 2045, we also need green baseload in winter (demand will increase extremely!!!).

Gas is out, coal is out, and biomass on a relevant scale is a big question mark for me. Hydrogen will buy up the industry for steel and chemicals for the foreseeable future. What will be left?

Importing nuclear power from France and saying that France is on the wrong track while we have blooming landscapes?

How well France produces and even exports nuclear power was shown last summer when half of all reactors had to be taken offline due to overheating risks. By the way, about a quarter of the reactors were offline for maintenance during winter as well.

We have enough unused roof and facade areas on which we can install photovoltaics. Facades have the advantage over roofs that the angle of incidence would be optimized for winter, by the way.

In combination with wind, water, and biomass this will be sufficient.

Biomass

Biogas plants that run exclusively on feedstock are no longer allowed... many of them will go offline after the current Renewable Energy Act contract expires

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but that is the crucial point that many overlook or do not want to accept. In summer, in city traffic and charged from renewable energy - sure, the electric car is completely unbeatable without doubt. In winter at -5 degrees at 100 km/h on the highway, the situation looks completely different. Then the electric car including heating (no, I am not sitting in the winter at -5 degrees without heating in the car, forget it) easily consumes 20 kWh with charging losses in winter (cold battery), you are at 25 kWh. In the coal power mix you need about 55-60 kWh of primary energy. That is 5-6 liters of diesel per 100 km. With my car at 100 km/h, I come clearly below that.....
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No, unfortunately you overlook the crucial point or do not want to accept it. Please research how many days a year in Germany we have -5°C at times when people usually drive… so for example not at 2:00 a.m.

And your calculation with the coal power mix is nonsense.

Actually, your entire post, taken together, is nonsense.

Even your unit kW/h is complete nonsense. For electric cars, one calculates kWh/100 km.
Power is measured in watts or kW (kilowatts). Power is already a time-dependent unit.
P = dW/dt or dE/dt. So work per time, or energy per time.

kW/h would be dW/dt / t so practically work per time squared. What is that supposed to be?

How well France produces nuclear power and even exports it was shown last summer when half of all reactors had to be taken offline due to overheating risks. By the way, in winter about a quarter of the reactors there were also offline due to maintenance work.

We have enough unused roof and facade areas where we can install photovoltaics. Facades would actually have the advantage over roofs that the angle of incidence would be optimized for winter.

In combination with wind, water, and biomass, that will be sufficient.

True story. If Germany hadn’t fired up gas power plants in summer 2022 and consumed the extremely scarce and expensive gas at that time, France would have had to shut down a large part of its industry. It will be interesting when the French accuse us of something again, which they have always been much better at anyway... regularly drinking, for example...

That about the facade... yes, that’s what happens when laypeople think. In winter, you have lower intensity of irradiation, a significantly shorter duration of irradiation (16 hours of sun in summer, 8 hours of sun in winter...), and usually worse weather conditions in winter as well. Besides that comes the problem of shading, especially in densely built-up areas you will hardly find a facade that isn’t constantly shaded by adjacent buildings.

And in summer, when the sun really blazes down... then the 0° are catastrophic for utilization. Waste of resources, more often than not, that’s what it is.

All in all... first paragraph, correct. Second paragraph is unfortunately nonsense. And whether that will be sufficient... that will show once we finally build storage solutions... without them, it won’t work anyway.

No, unfortunately you are overlooking the crucial point or you don’t want to acknowledge it. Please research how many days of the year we have -5°C in Germany at times when people usually drive by car... so for example not at 2:00 a.m. And your calculation with the coal power mix is nonsense as well.

Well, in December (dark doldrums) we had, according to Electricitymaps (which has a reputation for underrating Germany – so this is already a worst-case scenario), an emission factor of 561g CO2e/kWh. With 25kWh/100km, that comes to 14kg CO2 for 100 km. I have been driving my diesel for the last 43,000 km at 7.64l/100km, which is supposed to produce 2.65kg CO2 per liter (Helmholtz). That makes 20kg CO2. That’s the beauty of numbers. They illuminate the discussion. With electricity it’s the mix, and even during dark doldrums, the mix doesn’t make an electric car a stinker. Of course, it’s better if sun and wind fill the tank – no question. There is a beautiful LCA for the Polestar 2 with interesting graphs on various electricity mixes studied.

And what if I light a barrel of gasoline to keep myself warm? How would my CO2 balance be then? Can you calculate that for me? Apart from that... 7.6l diesel per 100km? Are you somehow proud of that? Sounds so... sad.