I had the typical green energy discussion at work again today. People tell me that the majority of our energy comes from renewables.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo
Again energy, not electricity.
How can people still be so wrong about these obvious facts?
It doesn't take much time to Google this stuff. Why are people like me still conspiracy theorists when we say that solar is a useless energy source for society as a whole?
I just gave up and shared the link with my colleagues and went on with my daily life.
Yeah, maybe if you live in Germany. But not if you live in near the equator.
Also, a lot of solar generation goes unmeasured because smaller installations are off-grid. Those figures shown for solar are likely only from larger-scale farms.
Energy consumption isn't the same as production. A lot of renewable (and nonrenewable) energy is produced that is never consumed, effectively stranded or wasted. One chart is confusing because its titled "consumption" but the chart axis measures "production".
Even the "obvious facts" don't include the whole story sometimes.
They still mean nothing, otherwise we would see a drop in energy demand from the other sources.
Not necessarily. You're assuming that every watt of off-grid power is just a watt of grid power that would have otherwise been used.
Grid and off-grid are not perfect substitutes. Maybe they are close in Germany (I have no idea). But broadly speaking, not.
Industrial sites (bitcoin mines included) are often built near a power plant. They might even establish their own energy source that isn't grid connected.
I agree with that part! And to take an extreme case, there are life differences of off grid power in Africa! I just think in Europe it does not make a whole lot of difference.
I got two things for this:
First, you're right: nobody understands the difference between electricity and energy. But when explained, everyone is like "oh yes, cars, and machines... oh and all those production processes that can't run on electricity. I see yes, energy."
But it's a sort of a fake, surface level mentality because they don't grasp it... so next time they'll STILL say shit about energy when they mean electricity. (and normies don't know that electricity is, like one-quarter or something of all energy).
Two, in an interconnected Europe-wide grid it's basically impossible to say what portion of which country's generation was which source:
It quickly spirals into a statistical impossibility in serious need of an electrical engineer.
I don't envy you lol
It's very difficult for most people to change their mind once they've decided on something as it would mean they are wrong. I think most people consider themselves to be smart, and being wrong challenges this belief.
Luckily for me, I know I'm a fucking moron, so I'm usually able to pivot what I think about something when presented with ample evidence.
Best advice of the day! You deserve those 100 sats!
People don't generally look to understand things. They generally learn one narrative and cling to it. And the media has been feeding them a false narrative their whole lives so the programming is deep. Even when we use Google to 'verify', we use it with our own bias and googles bias. We always look to confirm our own bias. So it is quite difficult to break out of these deep programmed patterns.
100%
People don't want to be informed. People want to feel informed.
Sadly true!
Ask on which chair they would sit on: electric chair or heated chair. Let them feel the difference.
Great advice!
How is oil used for energy/electricity? I get coal and gas, but doesn't oil need to be refined into something else to become useful for energy production?
And what's the difference really between energy and electricity?
How do you think factories or furnaces work? Chemistry is a high energy sector, most machines there do not run on electricity.
Or heating your home, hot water, and so on.
Good point but I still don't get how they would use oil and not some oil derivative?
Heating, hot water etc. is done with diesel/gas/electricity. Not oil. No?
Maybe oil is just the category overlord for diesel, crude, petroleum and kerosene? Maybe @denlillaapan can clarefiy?