Solar and Wind Overtake Fossil Fuels in the EU (semafor.com)
- Reference: 0180642842
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/23/127254/solar-and-wind-overtake-fossil-fuels-in-the-eu
- Source link: https://www.semafor.com/article/01/22/2026/solar-and-wind-overtake-fossil-fuels-in-the-eu
> The milestone was hit largely thanks to a rise in solar power, which generated a record 13% of electricity in the EU, according to Ember. Together, wind and solar hit 30% of EU electricity generation, edging out fossil fuels at 29%.
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> The shift is especially important with the bloc's alternative to Russian LNG -- Washington -- becoming increasingly unreliable and willing to weaponize economic tools. The US Commerce Secretary threw shade at the bloc's renewable push during Davos, warning that China uses net zero goals to make allies "subservient" by controlling battery and critical mineral supply chains.
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> Still, renewables now provide nearly half of EU power, with wind and solar outpacing all fossil sources in more than half of member countries. "The stakes of transitioning to clean energy are clearer than ever," the Ember report's author said.
[1] https://www.semafor.com/article/01/22/2026/solar-and-wind-overtake-fossil-fuels-in-the-eu
declining production (Score:2)
The EU has seen declining electricity generation since about 2021, and an end to increasing electricity production as of about 2008. If you keep closing fossil plants, the share from other plants will increase, even if you don't build any more "sustainable" plants. Here are some interesting charts: [1]https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/... [europa.eu].
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_production,_consumption_and_market_overview#:~:text=within%20electricity%20markets.-,Electricity%20generation,by%20electricity%20imports%20and%20exports
duh (Score:2)
EU isn't energy independent and has a very serious security risk in times of economic retaliation, trade embargo, blockades, and war.
Between Russia and the US, I'm guessing Europe wishes it would have gotten ahead of this years ago. But better late than never I suppose.
Devil you know? (Score:2)
> The US Commerce Secretary threw shade at the bloc's renewable push during Davos, warning that China uses net zero goals to make allies "subservient" by controlling battery and critical mineral supply chains.
I wonder what the argument is here.
Is it that countries have no way to be truly independent therefore they might as well save money in converting to less pollutant tech?
Re: (Score:2)
It is not clear that we will continue building them at the current pace once the bubble bursts. Also, considering that LLMS are something like 5 orders of magnitude more power hungry than the human brain for equivalent tasks, it seems like there's a lot of room for improvement in power efficiency. A couple of orders of magnitude more efficient and the power usage becomes pretty negligible. Of course, all of the investment into AI facilities also becomes an obsolete sunk cost that we are pretty much all guar
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We already have greatly improved AI chips.
Optical Processors like Chinas Tai Chi and Tai Chi II.
They roughly are a million times faster per Watt than conventional GPUs and TPUs.
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It is not like EU couldn't make batteries. For example Finland has several sand and water batteries. Instead of storing electricity, those batteries store heat. It works extremely well, because there are often windy days during the winter when extra wind power is produced. That electricity is used to heat sand or water which is then distributed later as a heat to the homes.
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I think they are using quantum entangled sand so you don't have to actually move it.
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You should nitpick when it makes sense ... and not when it does not.
We are talking about batteries, that store electricity. That was plain obvious, right? Autist?
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If you enjoy nitpick, there is also Energy Dome from Italy, CO2 storage that can produce electricity.
[1]https://energydome.com/co2-bat... [energydome.com]
But it doesn't really matter that much do you store energy as electricity or heat in conditions similar to Finland, because heating consumes so much energy and energy demand is much higher during winter. So less (foreign) batteries are needed when heat storage is used.
[1] https://energydome.com/co2-battery/
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We are still talking about electricity ... and batteries that store electricity :P
Hence the fear mongering about China and Raw Earth materials ...
A pile of sand is not imported from China, neither does it intentionally contain raw earth materials.
And in general (there are exceptions), it is not used to revert the heat into electricity again. However that would make sense, if the storage is big enough and hot enough.
I read about a few of those super hot sand storages, might be that was in Finland, too.
Heat storage [Re:Devil you know?] (Score:2)
> It is not like EU couldn't make batteries. For example Finland has several sand and water batteries. Instead of storing electricity, those batteries store heat. It works extremely well, because there are often windy days during the winter when extra wind power is produced. That electricity is used to heat sand or water which is then distributed later as a heat to the homes.
This is insanely inefficient as a way to store energy for any use except low-grade heat.
But, yes, if heating your house is what you want to use energy for, if you have intermittant power, just heat up any well-insulated thermal mass when you have excess power, and tap that heat when you don't.
Works also for air conditioning-- if you have a large, well insulated water tank, you can run a refrigerator on solar power to chill the water when the sun is shining, and use the cold water to keep your house cool dur
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> It is not like EU couldn't make batteries. For example Finland has several sand and water batteries. Instead of storing electricity, those batteries store heat. It works extremely well, because there are often windy days during the winter when extra wind power is produced. That electricity is used to heat sand or water which is then distributed later as a heat to the homes.
EU could make any kind of batteries it wants. Experience shows us that the EU largely waits at the finish line, picks the winner, then taxes or fines the hell out of them.
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This statement by the US Commerce Secretary was the most interesting. The choices being:
1. The US controls fossil fuels, a consumable and lifetime system dependence.
2. China controls supply chains need for new deployments.
However China does not control the sun or wind. So go with fossil fuels and have an untrustworthy partner who could turn off your energy supply anytime for any reason, or go with a renewables system supplier who could delay the role out of new generation. A pretty easy choice, even
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The US could mine almost any of the "rare earth" minerals it needs. We've chosen to outsource the pollution and ecological damage.
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> The US could mine almost any of the "rare earth" minerals it needs. We've chosen to outsource the pollution and ecological damage.
There are strategic advantages to using up potential enemies resources before using your own. Part of the reason why I am against the US being the big exporter of petroleum that it is.
Re:Devil you know? (Score:4, Insightful)
>Is it just me or do other people get pissed off with trump calling wind turbines windmills? Does he really not know what a mill does? And his FUD around them is so outrageously wrong it makes my brain hurt. The sooner that loser's speeches stop being 'news' the better.
Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills.
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> Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills.
I would pay to watch trump on a horse attacking a wind turbine and falling off.
Re: Devil you know? (Score:2)
Won't somebody think of the horses?!
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> I would pay to watch trump on a horse attacking a wind turbine and falling off.
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, he (supposedly) very severely bruised his left/other hand at Davos just bumping it on a desk, imagine what riding a horse would do to him - or him doing any of the Rambo-like things on various MAGA posters.
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Nitpicking on:
o What you call a wind turbine, is technically not a turbine.
o Windmill is a common term for a "wind turbine"
Nitpicking mode off.
A turbine is something completely different than what we use/see as wind mills.
Nevertheless no one complains about calling them wind turbines, despite the fact they aren't any turbines.
So, why can you not cope with it, that we have no perfect fitting name, and some prefer to call them wind mill?
We Germans used to call them Wind-Anlage, where Anlage is a synonym for
Re: Devil you know? (Score:2)
> What you call a wind turbine, is technically not a turbine.
They extract work from a moving fluid. Theyâ(TM)re turbines.
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That is not the definition of a turbine.
A turbine has a compression stage, a expansion stage, usually a burning chamber, and the exhaust stage: where the actual energy is extracted. The whole thing is a turbine. Not a single rotor.
A single rotor is a rotor or a fan or a propeller, not a turbine.
Re: Devil you know? (Score:2)
> That is not the definition of a turbine.
Yes it is. Technically speaking even a water wheel is a turbine. You're talking about gas turbines, which are heat engines that just happen to have a turbine in them.
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Sorry, then the English usage of the term is different than the German and science usage.
What we put up as wind turbines, are rotors. A gas turbine does not happen to have turbines in it. It has a set of fans. Big difference. The whole thing is set of fans, not a set of turbines.
So "technically" you are wrong. It is just modern habit of speech to call them that. But alas speech/language is changing ...
Historically, a mill did not need to mill. It was a general term for wind or water driven "engines" aka "ma
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Nitpicking accepted. I had wondered about the term turbine too, but had no better word and turbine was the word being used by the people deploying them.
I guess my issue with trump is windmill and the those wind power generation devices, that I will refer to for convince sake as as wind turbines, is the juxtaposition of them. Here in New Zealand we have hundreds of wind turbines and only one operational windmill I know of. The wind turbines have a very industrial feel to them but the windmill gives off
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You should go at the end of the night and count the dead bats!!
New Zealand is on my travel list on the top. So I will remember your windmill :D
A shame, I never was in a windmill in Germany or Netherlands ...
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There is no actual argument other than continuing to create a nationwide reality distortion field.
Renewable energy has to fail, it must, because to acknowledge it means that conservatives would have to implicitly admit that it's actually economically viable, that climate change might be a teeny bit real, that carbon might actually affect the atmosphere and that the liberals might have actually been right about something and they may have been wrong.
That cannot be allowed to happen no matter what is staring
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I believe China has more than 60% of the production of rare earths elements. Rare earths elements are required for magnets in wind power generators, and batteries in EV.
In the future, production will probably diversify, with mining in Africa, Canada, Australia, etc.
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Rare earths elements are required for magnets in wind power generators,
No they are not. We did not use rare earths for centuries in those magnets.
It is just convenient to have them, as that makes the magnets stronger in relation to size/weight and in case of cars the engines more efficient.
I believe China has more than 60% of the production of rare earths elements.
Depends on the chemical element. China is leading in refined minerals. But it imports most of the raw materials from Australia and Chile. I wond
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Ok, modern and effective wind power generators requires rare earths elements.
> China dominates REE production, accounting for about 69% of global mining and 85% of refining. The Bayan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia is the world’s largest REE deposit, supplying elements like neodymium and dysprosium used in high-tech industries.
- (October 14, 2024) [1]https://businesscraft.se/busin... [businesscraft.se]
[1] https://businesscraft.se/business/where-are-rees-found-and-how-are-they-mined/
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Again: it is not required. You can do it without.
Required means: there is no other way.
Your mine example is mostly about neodymium and dysprosium. Lithium however, they mostly import from Australia and Chile.
Of course you could call it "required" if your whole production process is focused on a certain set of "things" which you settled on long ago, and can not easy shift away from.
Example the new electric engines BMW is using and the Donut engines, there is another company that escapes me at the moment: hav