>In 2024, France became the largest European importer of Russian LNG, with imports increasing by 80 percent compared to 2023, according to the report.
>In the nuclear sector, French collaboration with Russia state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom remains intact. Despite its strategic importance to Russia’s regime, neither France nor the EU has sanctioned Rosatom.
Meanwhile Germany phased out Russian gas entirely
In June 2025, these are the biggest importers of Russian fossil fuels
This is why we need to make it legally _required_ for power companies to market-price power at a granularity of at least 1 hour (i.e. the price represents how much power actually costs based on the hour, or even better, on the minute or up-to-the-second), are _required_ to send this price as a signal out across the powerline itself (it can carry that kind of very low bandwidth data just fine).
The problem isn’t power. Not anymore. The problem is not how much but _when_. Take this week in NL:
From ~13 to ~17 power is literally free. _Literally_. More power is on the net due to all the solar panels going full blast (it’s been a very sunny few days). You have an airco? Turn it on. Please turn it on. You should _get money_ if you turn the thing on. It’s free. Better than free.
But.. around 17:00 or so the cost goes from negative to sky high. The solar panel power drops off a cliff due to the sun setting (they are no longer shining directly on the panels, massively reducing the power output of them), but pretty much all the offices are still doing their thing. And all the aircos are still on. Even worse, folks who got home early are plugging in their EVs.
You want to charge your EV at 17:30? Fine. That’ll be €60,-. You have a free day tomorrow and will charge it in the afternoon, very sunny tomorrow. Fine. You will _get_ €10,- by doing that, actually. You, or rather, your smart powerplug, knows that the charging can wait until the night and charge slower? Fine. That’ll be €15,- total for the charge.
It doesn’t work like that today. Because of this, __that chart means fuck all__. Because that massive renewables curve is sometimes at virtually zero, and thus we need non-renewables to be capable of _producing every watt of power we want to consume_. Most of the time, that means you have gas powerstations just idling away doing nothing. They are just _just in case_ a cloud appears. There’s no solution to this (forget batteries. Never gonna work. At least, there is no path to a future where batteries can meaningfully put a dent in this issue with current and near-future technology)… other than the ensure the _consumption side_ starts becoming more flexible, taking more power when it is free/easy and taking less when there’s a shortage.
Which is never gonna happen properly until we price it accordingly. Whatever it takes. State sponsored smart plugs: Yeah, probably. State subsidizing the first 500Wh per person so that its price is capped, and a free thing for your powerbox that will cap your usage at some max price, preferring to just reduce your power to a few specific groups and 500Wh rather than stick you with a large bill, because the point is certainly not to bankrupt the less well off with this scheme. Just to reward those who use power when it is free.
Because I did ran my fancy new aircon from 13 to 17 and turned it off then and I’m paying just as much as the fuck who turned it _on_ at 17. I’ll live, but, the power net kinda can’t deal with the ass. So we need to entice this ass to stop doing it.
Instead we have most of the population whining incessantly about any plan to put an end to ‘de salderingsregeling’. __Madness__.
Mr_barba97 on
What a crime sunsetting nuclear…..☢️
Km0do on
Lignite still being that high up is pretty sad. It’s pretty much the worst polluter of all of these.
AdMean6001 on
Germany’s energy management is an absolute disaster…
RedLemonSlice on
Looking at that purple line go down makes me sad 💔
Germany leads over the US and China with renewables per capita. Not so bad after all.
KomisktEfterbliven on
It hurts my soul to see nuclear at 0
Yukyu95 on
Easy to show that when you get all your electricity from clean French Nuclear power plant and not developing your own because your coal mines are just so important to your culture
GrenobleLyon on
Hi,
Has someone the cost of this Energiewende? And the average yearly price of electricity in Germany (for private consumers, not businesses) and prices in the UK, France, italy (more expensive?) and Spain?
And the same graph about England / the UK? Brits are in the way of phasing out coal and replacing it by renewables and nuclear (they already had nuclear plants but are building Hinckley Point (and Sizewell?) new ones).
Thanks,
ufos1111 on
natural gas use increased after the start of the invasion of ukraine in 2014, tsk tsk
cheesebaker666 on
wasted potential with nuclear power
Mimirovitch on
Irrelevant, you need to show energy mix usage, not electricity production, because it hides a lot of important details, such as over/underproduction (solar and wind are unstable), import (french nuclear), usage of raw coal and gaz by the industry, etc…
katonda on
The biggest mistake everywhere is scrapping nuclear power. Having that + renewables, would’ve made us carbon neutral in Europe already. I understand the ugly sides of nuclear power but there are plenty of concepts that never got enough funding to make nuclear truly sustainable, safe and abundant (luckily some european private companies are on the case already, like Copenhagen Atomics).
VolitupRoge on
Renewable electricity generation is not sustainable unless we figure out a way to store it economically at scale.
epSos-DE on
Germans getting richer , because a lot of those renewable power is owned by small companies and retirement funds and small investors !
Basically they are pumping money back to Germany, instead of places that sell fuel !
19 commenti
Still can’t believe they shut off the reactors. Got nuclear to zero before oil or coal or gas! Is there or isn’t there a climate emergency?
Natural gas increasing after 2014 and stable since 2022.
[insert padme même]
This is not russian natural gas, right ?
Right ?
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20250414-greenpeace-report-reveals-france-s-double-standards-in-dealing-with-russia
>In 2024, France became the largest European importer of Russian LNG, with imports increasing by 80 percent compared to 2023, according to the report.
>In the nuclear sector, French collaboration with Russia state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom remains intact. Despite its strategic importance to Russia’s regime, neither France nor the EU has sanctioned Rosatom.
Meanwhile Germany phased out Russian gas entirely
In June 2025, these are the biggest importers of Russian fossil fuels
https://energyandcleanair.org/june-2025-monthly-analysis-of-russian-fossil-fuel-exports-and-sanctions/
France is #2 for LNG.
Hear me out:
This is why we need to make it legally _required_ for power companies to market-price power at a granularity of at least 1 hour (i.e. the price represents how much power actually costs based on the hour, or even better, on the minute or up-to-the-second), are _required_ to send this price as a signal out across the powerline itself (it can carry that kind of very low bandwidth data just fine).
The problem isn’t power. Not anymore. The problem is not how much but _when_. Take this week in NL:
From ~13 to ~17 power is literally free. _Literally_. More power is on the net due to all the solar panels going full blast (it’s been a very sunny few days). You have an airco? Turn it on. Please turn it on. You should _get money_ if you turn the thing on. It’s free. Better than free.
But.. around 17:00 or so the cost goes from negative to sky high. The solar panel power drops off a cliff due to the sun setting (they are no longer shining directly on the panels, massively reducing the power output of them), but pretty much all the offices are still doing their thing. And all the aircos are still on. Even worse, folks who got home early are plugging in their EVs.
You want to charge your EV at 17:30? Fine. That’ll be €60,-. You have a free day tomorrow and will charge it in the afternoon, very sunny tomorrow. Fine. You will _get_ €10,- by doing that, actually. You, or rather, your smart powerplug, knows that the charging can wait until the night and charge slower? Fine. That’ll be €15,- total for the charge.
It doesn’t work like that today. Because of this, __that chart means fuck all__. Because that massive renewables curve is sometimes at virtually zero, and thus we need non-renewables to be capable of _producing every watt of power we want to consume_. Most of the time, that means you have gas powerstations just idling away doing nothing. They are just _just in case_ a cloud appears. There’s no solution to this (forget batteries. Never gonna work. At least, there is no path to a future where batteries can meaningfully put a dent in this issue with current and near-future technology)… other than the ensure the _consumption side_ starts becoming more flexible, taking more power when it is free/easy and taking less when there’s a shortage.
Which is never gonna happen properly until we price it accordingly. Whatever it takes. State sponsored smart plugs: Yeah, probably. State subsidizing the first 500Wh per person so that its price is capped, and a free thing for your powerbox that will cap your usage at some max price, preferring to just reduce your power to a few specific groups and 500Wh rather than stick you with a large bill, because the point is certainly not to bankrupt the less well off with this scheme. Just to reward those who use power when it is free.
Because I did ran my fancy new aircon from 13 to 17 and turned it off then and I’m paying just as much as the fuck who turned it _on_ at 17. I’ll live, but, the power net kinda can’t deal with the ass. So we need to entice this ass to stop doing it.
Instead we have most of the population whining incessantly about any plan to put an end to ‘de salderingsregeling’. __Madness__.
What a crime sunsetting nuclear…..☢️
Lignite still being that high up is pretty sad. It’s pretty much the worst polluter of all of these.
Germany’s energy management is an absolute disaster…
Looking at that purple line go down makes me sad 💔
With the latest data [available here](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-renewables?tab=chart&country=CHN~USA~DEU)
Germany leads over the US and China with renewables per capita. Not so bad after all.
It hurts my soul to see nuclear at 0
Easy to show that when you get all your electricity from clean French Nuclear power plant and not developing your own because your coal mines are just so important to your culture
Hi,
Has someone the cost of this Energiewende? And the average yearly price of electricity in Germany (for private consumers, not businesses) and prices in the UK, France, italy (more expensive?) and Spain?
And the same graph about England / the UK? Brits are in the way of phasing out coal and replacing it by renewables and nuclear (they already had nuclear plants but are building Hinckley Point (and Sizewell?) new ones).
Thanks,
natural gas use increased after the start of the invasion of ukraine in 2014, tsk tsk
wasted potential with nuclear power
Irrelevant, you need to show energy mix usage, not electricity production, because it hides a lot of important details, such as over/underproduction (solar and wind are unstable), import (french nuclear), usage of raw coal and gaz by the industry, etc…
The biggest mistake everywhere is scrapping nuclear power. Having that + renewables, would’ve made us carbon neutral in Europe already. I understand the ugly sides of nuclear power but there are plenty of concepts that never got enough funding to make nuclear truly sustainable, safe and abundant (luckily some european private companies are on the case already, like Copenhagen Atomics).
Renewable electricity generation is not sustainable unless we figure out a way to store it economically at scale.
Germans getting richer , because a lot of those renewable power is owned by small companies and retirement funds and small investors !
Basically they are pumping money back to Germany, instead of places that sell fuel !
Okay but, what ajout the imports?