This is satire, right?

Russia is the perfect example for your policy recommendation: no renewables, but doubled the nuclear power output since 1998.

Here is how the share of low-carbon electricity developed respectively over the past 20 years. In the EU it increased from 48.2% to 60.5%, while in Russia it increased from 34.4% to 40%. In relative terms that's a growth of 16.3% in low-carbon share in Russia, and a 25.6% growth in the EU.

Consumption of gas for primary energy peaked in the EU in 2010 before Fukushima at 4,228 TWh. It's use declined over the past decade to 3,966 TWh in 2021.

The EU decreased its nuclear power output since 2010, Russia increased it (in terms of primary energy from 454 TWh in 2010 to 558 TWh in 2021). But Russia also increased its gas consumption from 4,239 TWh in 2010 to 4746 TWh in 2021.

So you have: Russia implementing your policy advice, expanding nuclear power and shunning solar+wind, and the EU decreasing nuclear power output and expanding solar+wind. But these examples do not seem to support your conclusion. Rather the other way around, the example with increased nuclear power output also increased gas consumption, while the one with increased solar+wind decreased it.

Renewables are a shock to the fossil fuel providers, as they are eating into their market shares. Not only in the EU, but on a global scale: in 2011 fossil fuels constituted 86.16% of primary energy consumption globally, ten years later this share wass decreased to 82.28% in 2021.

This article discusses this aspect more specifically for Russia:

>Russia is the world’s top exporter of both oil and gas, and the third largest oil producer making it a major extraction powerhouse. According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) revenues from oil and gas-related taxes and export tariffs accounted for 45% of Russia’s federal budget in January 2022. > >This makes its economy uniquely vulnerable to the impact of disruptions, and suggested that in order to assert itself in a context of looming economic decline, it may resort to increasing aggression (both internal and external). Once Russia’s oligarchy saw peak oil demand in the rear view mirror, it would get increasingly aggressive and aim to maximize short-term extraction and cash flow. Given Russia’s preeminent position in the fossil fuel system, its recent expansionist history, and the likelihood of oil prices crashing down to the $20/barrel level by the end of the 2020s (which Seba predicted in Clean Disruption), Seba assessed that it was one of the top candidates for increasing geopolitical instability.

So you have declining fossil fuel consumption in the EU since 2006 (decreased from 15,103 TWh to 11,759 TWh in 2021), and increasing renewable power output. And you conclusion from that is that the renewable power is a boon to the fossil fuel providers?

I'd agree that the produced heat doesn't really play much of a role with respect to climate change.

> Also with those scales the change of earths average albedo with solar panels starts to have an effect, so I am not sure if renewables even are better in this context.

As your cited study points out. This heavily depends on where you place the solar panels. You can easily imagine that things like black-tiled rooftops or asphalted parking lots are actually improved in terms of absorbed heat by covering them with solar panels.

edit: nevermind, I figured now it is talking about total energy consumption, not just electricity. It's just a coincidence that the 22% matches up with wind+solar for electricity.

It's a little bit confusing, as renewables generally includes hydro and biomass. While the cited numbers are rather only wind+solar. If you include the others, renewables had a share of 38.6% in 2022 in the EU. 22% are just wind+solar, so I think that this article solely refers to those and their doubling.

The EU increased its solar share from 3.33% in 2014 to 7.27% in 2022 in the course of eight years. And it's wind share from 7.86% to 15.01%. So, a doubling over the next eight years is essentially just a continued exponential projection of the trend so far.

Which shows how unambitious the previous goal was. Now with the expectation of rising electricity demand, due to electrification of other sectors, this increase in share amounts to more absolute increases, but still, it appears like a fairly realistic target.

The study mainly points out that the coal-exit goal of the "Power Past Coal Alliance" isn't sufficient in itself. It needs to be accompanied by other policies:

>These odds would improve if norms around sustainable growth or carbon pricing prevail instead71,72. Additionally, PPCA members can still galvanize Paris-aligned coal-exit momentum by immediately confronting freeriding sectors and ramping-up VRE, electrification and technological (and financial) transfers to freerider nations. > >Recent literature highlights the importance of complementing demand-side antifossil initiatives with supply-side actions73,74,75, for example, mining or export restrictions. This counteracts price depression and leakage, increasing phase-out policies’ self-propagation potential. Given geographical variance in coal quality and trade, however, policy efficacy depends upon the specific adopters. Crucially, the largest anticipated coal consumers in 2045—China, India and ASEAN members (Fig. 2c)—can each sustain self-sufficient coal supplies.

>Those coal-rich developing nations also exhibit the highest path-dependence of accession probability to near-term decisions. Most glaringly, China falls below the 50% threshold and Indonesia below 5% in brown scenarios. Additionally, we observe that several highly probable OECD coalition members install new coal plants in brown and neutral COVID recoveries. PPCA accession then forces a sudden exodus of unamortized capital from 2025 to 2030. Thus, to preserve the health of their economy45, citizens46, grid81 and credibility, OECD governments must cancel all coal projects.

> not sure that can be replicated all over Europe especially the northern regions

Northern nations, like Denmark tend to use more wind. But overall, PV can offer quite a large fraction of energy needs all over Europe.

Coverage of the Energiewende is almost uniformly negative in the United States. The Atlantic article is just another instance of that PR, as you call it. It's neither particularly well researched (Merkel didn't decide the nuclear phase-out that was put into law already a decade earlier), nor well reasoned (they claim that the decline of nuclear power has not been covered by renewables, based on the observation that coal still is around?). Germany is produced way less electricity from coal in 2021 when that article was published than in 2001 when their nuclear power peaked, and the power output from wind and solar increased more (+106 TWh) than by what nulcear declined (-102 TWh). Power from coal declined even more (-123 TWh).

> The difference was the idiotic decision by Germany to drop nuclear power.

No, the difference is that the UK replaced their coal burning by gas. Similar to the US, however it is further advanced in replacing that gas burning with wind power than the US. Nuclear power output in the UK is also declining. It peaked in 1998 at nearly 100 TWh. In 2021, they produced less than 47 TWh and last year EDF closed Hunterston B (before the Russian invasion) and Hinkley Point B (in August).

>Despite Germany’s PR, their pre-Ukraine emissions reductions have far more to do with demographic decline than alternative energy.

Source? German population isn't really declining, so that seems to be a pretty bad analysis.

>Also, Germany counts electricity generation from lignite as “renewable” as long as it is backstopping solar.

No, it doesn't?

>https://youtu.be/AYu9rliT3F4

That video doesn't seem to care much about facts. France more populous than Germany? Germany gets more than a third of its power from wind+solar alone, not "just 10%". The government states estimated overall costs of 500 billion for the energy transition until 2050. The highest estimate I know of talks about 500 billion until 2025. Where did he pull the 2 trillion from?

Lignite burning in Germany has gone up this year, that's true, it increased by about 5%, but it's not like it would be a new development that they lean heavily on coal burning. They generated 140 TWh from lignite in 2002 when they were close to their nuclear power output compared to 105 TWh in 2022.

It's total nonsense, that only solar power is on the grid, when the sun shines, there just is too little solar power installed yet for that in Germany.

Here is the power production in June 2022. Notice that there isn't just solar+wind on the grid at any point. The claim that the emissions from that coal burning isn't accounted for in the carbon emission figures seems just total fabrication.

It's not confusing at all. I am pointing out that the metric of per-capita emissions is not misleading, but rather instructive. Highlighting that the rich with this high carbon emissions are far from sustainability.

Also, it is not a necessity that richer people have a higher carbon footprint. Compare Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago, for example.

Why should a tiny minority be granted the luxury of having excessive carbon emissions? (This doesn't only apply to Qatari but all "rich" people with high carbon emissions.)

Per-capita emissions aren't misleading, at least if your aim is a just society based on equal rights.

Hm, here is the table on per-capita CO2 emissions of all countries.

Qatar still takes the lead there in 2021 (here are the top 3):

• Qatar: 35.59 tons (+38% compared to 1990)
• Bahrain: 26.66 tons (+11% compared to 1990)
• Kuwait: 24.97 tons (+11% compared to 1990)

World average: 4.69 tons (+10% compared to 1990).

Average of high income countries: 10.27 tons (-16% compared to 1990).

Goal we need to reach: less than 2 tons.