Germany boosts renewables with “biggest energy policy reform in decades”

Re:Germany boosts renewables with “biggest energy policy ref... by imtringued on Thursday April 07, 2022 @04:37AM (#30942086)

> By definition, the primary energy input and electrical energy output are equal for renewable sources that don't require fuel.

When you think about it, this is unfairly disadvantaging renewables due to an unfortunate choice of primary energy. For renewables, the primary energy is solar radiation! Suddenly the primary energy of solar panels would go up 5 fold just because of changing the definition of primary energy. Then everyone would be talking how unfair primary energy is to fossil fuels.

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Re:Germany boosts renewables with “biggest energy policy ref... by yayachiken on Thursday April 07, 2022 @03:08PM (#30949019)

You can go even further. All "natural" processes are completely excluded from primary energy use.

If you include the energy used by agriculture (as in: photosynthesis) you will get a number that human energy use is something like 99% powered by the sun.

If you include ambient heat, non-solar energy sources become a rounding error. This may seem obvious and silly, but especially in residential heating using the ambient heat with heat-pumps, solar collectors, large sun-facing triple insulated window fronts, will be key for energy usage reduction.

I would recommend the books by Professor Volker Quaschning (well-known climate scientist in Germany), he goes into lots of stuff like this in detail.

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