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Wind and solar energy overtake fossil fuels to provide 30% of EU electricity (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 3 months ago by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Wind turbines and solar panels have overtaken fossil fuels to generate 30% of the European Union’s electricity in the first half of the year, a report has found.

Power generation from burning coal, oil and gas fell 17% in the first six months of 2024 compared with the same period the year before, according to climate thinktank Ember. It found the continued shift away from polluting fuels has led to a one-third drop in the sector’s emissions since the first half of 2022.

Chris Rosslowe, an analyst at Ember, said the rise of wind and solar was narrowing the role of fossil fuels. “We are witnessing a historic shift in the power sector, and it is happening rapidly.”

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[–] dgmib@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's not like the country was massively relying on nuclear energy at any point in time really.

Germany’s 17 nuclear reactors were generating almost 30% of its electricity a decade ago before they started phasing them out. It was their second largest source of electricity after coal.

Despite having built literally 100s of solar and wind farms in the past decade they still had to increase their coal output by 40 TWh to make up for the gap. A nuclear reactor generates a fuck ton of electricity.

And for what? Statically speaking 800x more people are killed in coal mining accidents per TWh generated than are killed by all nuclear power accidents combined. They phased out their largest source of carbonless electricity and the decision likely killed more people than would have died even if there was a nuclear accident.

[–] Eximius@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

^ this.

Ask any engineer, scientist, or even economist: shutting down nuclear plants requires a special kind of stupid.

This ignores the fact that the coal plants were producing greenhouse gas and insane amounts of unhealthy pollution for all these 30-50 years.