> There's usually at least one ice storm or very wet snow event at the start and/or end of winter now and it's very likely that in our wooded area we get trees into power lines and boom the buckets go
That's where a large, sparsely populated country is a real disadvantage. "Trees into powerlines" isn't really an event in Germany, since high voltage lines are 150 feet up in the air and kept clear of trees (they'll just cut a line though a forest for them). And everything smaller is generally buried. But that would be very hard to do in Canada. And of course we don't have to fight with ice on our transmission lines.
> How does coal make sense there?
Lobbying. And saving the jobs of hard-working coal miners is more romantic and appealing in election campaigns than saving the jobs of wind turbine manufacturers.
It used to make economic sense in the sense that coal plants were cheaper to run, but that has changed in recent years so what you see now is mostly inertia
> And how is shutting down their own nukes a thing when it's OK to use French nuke power?
Oh, there are lots of protests against French nuclear plants too, especially those in the border regions. We just can't do much about them. But the people who don't like nuclear plants aren't the ones running the energy markets.
On the future: Before 2022 the idea was to transition all coal capacity to gas. This was mostly happening on its own anyways due to gas outcompeting coal on price, and new pipelines like Nordstream were going to accelerate that economic pressure to transition. The Ukraine war was a big setback for that.
In the end I believe we are still moving to a future where a lot of power is coming from solar and offshore wind, with natural gas peaker plants to offset times without wind until grid-scale battery technology moves a bit along (molten salt, hot sand, pumped hydro in abandoned mines, etc). In addition to that obviously hydro and pumped hydro from the Scandinavian countries
We are far enough into economies of scale that the generation side is mostly going to sort itself out on economics alone. Solar is becoming dirt cheap, offshore wind is becoming profitable, natural gas is cleaner and cheaper than coal. The bigger issue are transmission lines. Building transmission lines takes decades because every NIMBY fights against them. But the existing transmission lines are built around a somewhat even spread of supply and demand, versus the new situation where we want offshore farms in the North Sea to be able to supply lots of electricity to the South when there's good wind, and the solar panels in the South to help power the North. And politicians from certain parties love to side with "their" NIMBYs for easy political points
That's where a large, sparsely populated country is a real disadvantage. "Trees into powerlines" isn't really an event in Germany, since high voltage lines are 150 feet up in the air and kept clear of trees (they'll just cut a line though a forest for them). And everything smaller is generally buried. But that would be very hard to do in Canada. And of course we don't have to fight with ice on our transmission lines.
> How does coal make sense there?
Lobbying. And saving the jobs of hard-working coal miners is more romantic and appealing in election campaigns than saving the jobs of wind turbine manufacturers.
It used to make economic sense in the sense that coal plants were cheaper to run, but that has changed in recent years so what you see now is mostly inertia
> And how is shutting down their own nukes a thing when it's OK to use French nuke power?
Oh, there are lots of protests against French nuclear plants too, especially those in the border regions. We just can't do much about them. But the people who don't like nuclear plants aren't the ones running the energy markets.
On the future: Before 2022 the idea was to transition all coal capacity to gas. This was mostly happening on its own anyways due to gas outcompeting coal on price, and new pipelines like Nordstream were going to accelerate that economic pressure to transition. The Ukraine war was a big setback for that.
In the end I believe we are still moving to a future where a lot of power is coming from solar and offshore wind, with natural gas peaker plants to offset times without wind until grid-scale battery technology moves a bit along (molten salt, hot sand, pumped hydro in abandoned mines, etc). In addition to that obviously hydro and pumped hydro from the Scandinavian countries
We are far enough into economies of scale that the generation side is mostly going to sort itself out on economics alone. Solar is becoming dirt cheap, offshore wind is becoming profitable, natural gas is cleaner and cheaper than coal. The bigger issue are transmission lines. Building transmission lines takes decades because every NIMBY fights against them. But the existing transmission lines are built around a somewhat even spread of supply and demand, versus the new situation where we want offshore farms in the North Sea to be able to supply lots of electricity to the South when there's good wind, and the solar panels in the South to help power the North. And politicians from certain parties love to side with "their" NIMBYs for easy political points