The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) reports that Germany generated 72.2 TWh of solar in Germany in 2024, accounting for 14% of total electricity generation.
It skews the metrics though. By the title you’d think Germany is already more than halfway through to become carbon neutral, when it is obviously still extremely far away from that goal. People read this and think we’re actually doing okay.
I am so frustrated by the discourse around renewables and climate change. Everybody online seems to be treating it like a puzzle or a board game, where you “win” at climate change when you find the “right” solution.
That’s not how it works. I don’t care about the “carbon neutrality” of Germany any more than I care about the “carbon neutrality” of a patch of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a global process that is never going to end. We’re always going to need energy, it’s always going to come from a mix of sources and we need to eventually find a global equilibrium we can strive to maintain.
Data is data, but taking issue with news, and particularly positive news, as if they were propaganda in a campaign where eventually people will have to elect the one source of energy they consume is kind of absurd. Yes, renewables are gaining ground, solar is moving faster than expected and no, that doesn’t make the issue go away and we still need to accelerate the process and remove additional blockers to that acceleration. There are no silver bullets and there never will be.
That’s a propaganda term by people who promote bullshit like e-fuels because “the only CO2 emissions are what was already out of the air, so bottom line it’s neutral”.
The only one spewing propaganda is you. The world needs “net negative” to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere that was already blasted into it since the industrial revolution, not “net zero”/“carbon neutral”.
It skews the metrics though. By the title you’d think Germany is already more than halfway through to become carbon neutral, when it is obviously still extremely far away from that goal. People read this and think we’re actually doing okay.
The hell is “doing okay”?
I am so frustrated by the discourse around renewables and climate change. Everybody online seems to be treating it like a puzzle or a board game, where you “win” at climate change when you find the “right” solution.
That’s not how it works. I don’t care about the “carbon neutrality” of Germany any more than I care about the “carbon neutrality” of a patch of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a global process that is never going to end. We’re always going to need energy, it’s always going to come from a mix of sources and we need to eventually find a global equilibrium we can strive to maintain.
Data is data, but taking issue with news, and particularly positive news, as if they were propaganda in a campaign where eventually people will have to elect the one source of energy they consume is kind of absurd. Yes, renewables are gaining ground, solar is moving faster than expected and no, that doesn’t make the issue go away and we still need to accelerate the process and remove additional blockers to that acceleration. There are no silver bullets and there never will be.
That’s a propaganda term by people who promote bullshit like e-fuels because “the only CO2 emissions are what was already out of the air, so bottom line it’s neutral”.
Please stop spewing climate denial propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net-zero_emissions https://unfccc.int/news/a-beginner-s-guide-to-climate-neutrality https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-carbon-neutrality https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20190926STO62270/what-is-carbon-neutrality-and-how-can-it-be-achieved-by-2050
The only one spewing propaganda is you. The world needs “net negative” to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere that was already blasted into it since the industrial revolution, not “net zero”/“carbon neutral”.
Get a clue.