Sol3dweller t1_jedxji0 wrote
Reply to comment by marcusaurelius_phd in The European Union to nearly double the share of renewables in the 27-nation bloc's energy consumption by 2030 amid efforts to become carbon neutral and ditch Russian fossil fuels. by chrisdh79
This is satire, right?
Russia is the perfect example for your policy recommendation: no renewables, but doubled the nuclear power output since 1998.
Here is how the share of low-carbon electricity developed respectively over the past 20 years. In the EU it increased from 48.2% to 60.5%, while in Russia it increased from 34.4% to 40%. In relative terms that's a growth of 16.3% in low-carbon share in Russia, and a 25.6% growth in the EU.
Consumption of gas for primary energy peaked in the EU in 2010 before Fukushima at 4,228 TWh. It's use declined over the past decade to 3,966 TWh in 2021.
The EU decreased its nuclear power output since 2010, Russia increased it (in terms of primary energy from 454 TWh in 2010 to 558 TWh in 2021). But Russia also increased its gas consumption from 4,239 TWh in 2010 to 4746 TWh in 2021.
So you have: Russia implementing your policy advice, expanding nuclear power and shunning solar+wind, and the EU decreasing nuclear power output and expanding solar+wind. But these examples do not seem to support your conclusion. Rather the other way around, the example with increased nuclear power output also increased gas consumption, while the one with increased solar+wind decreased it.
Renewables are a shock to the fossil fuel providers, as they are eating into their market shares. Not only in the EU, but on a global scale: in 2011 fossil fuels constituted 86.16% of primary energy consumption globally, ten years later this share wass decreased to 82.28% in 2021.
This article discusses this aspect more specifically for Russia:
>Russia is the world’s top exporter of both oil and gas, and the third largest oil producer making it a major extraction powerhouse. According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) revenues from oil and gas-related taxes and export tariffs accounted for 45% of Russia’s federal budget in January 2022. > >This makes its economy uniquely vulnerable to the impact of disruptions, and suggested that in order to assert itself in a context of looming economic decline, it may resort to increasing aggression (both internal and external). Once Russia’s oligarchy saw peak oil demand in the rear view mirror, it would get increasingly aggressive and aim to maximize short-term extraction and cash flow. Given Russia’s preeminent position in the fossil fuel system, its recent expansionist history, and the likelihood of oil prices crashing down to the $20/barrel level by the end of the 2020s (which Seba predicted in Clean Disruption), Seba assessed that it was one of the top candidates for increasing geopolitical instability.
So you have declining fossil fuel consumption in the EU since 2006 (decreased from 15,103 TWh to 11,759 TWh in 2021), and increasing renewable power output. And you conclusion from that is that the renewable power is a boon to the fossil fuel providers?
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