@knowak True, and fossil gas produces ~50% of the CO2 per kWh as compared to coal.

The point is however that Greenpeace prefers energy source that produces 170 gCO2eq/kWh over one that produces 12 gCO2eq/kWh and does so entirely for ideological and anti-scientific reasons, while still pretending as if decarbonisation was important for them.

@knowak The background is that if countries like Germany weren't shutting down their *existing* and fully operational nuclear power plants since 2010, the question of whether fossil gas is "less evil" wouldn't even arise. The only reason why they need to consider fossil gas is because they're losing the energy output as result of nuclear power plant closures and renewables cannot replace them.

@kravietz Yes, I'm aware of the circumstances. Personally, I disagree with phasing out of nuclear power. Still, getting from Greenpeace calling the policy of one country "necessary evil" to "greenpeace is fossil friends" is dramatization I associate with twitter. :)

@knowak In objective terms, even Gazprom hasn't done as much to increase fossil gas share in world's energy mix as Greenpeace did 🤷 They say "necessary evil" but at the end of the day fossil gas goes brrrr directly as result of their lobbying.

@kravietz Ummm, maybe, that's new to me. I'm afraid you'd have to explain your reasoning to me as you would to a 5 year old kid. :D "Increased share in mix" may still result in a net decrease of CO2 emissions, which would be in line with fighting climate change. Also, sources... (I don't expect you're going to spend your time convincing me :))

@knowak No problem, let's set the priorities first - I assume we're concerned about decarbonisation to mitigate climate change.

Now, energy sector is the largest single CO2 source. Any change you make here has huge impact on global emissions.

@knowak 10 years ago Germany started its Energiewende, primary objective of which was reduction in CO2 emissions.

As of end of 2020 they only succeeded at two *secondary* objectives: closure of nuclear power plants and increase of renewables. But not reduction of CO2.

They did reduce but much less than they could and planned.

@knowak An obvious and inconvenient benchmark is France who had decarbonised their energy sector long ago by transition to nuclear, and they did so to levels that Germany can only dream of.

Germany's energy sector CO2 intensity is on average 5x higher than France's.

And that's in spite of Germany having 40% of renewables in their mix.

@knowak

The reason is obviously that while 40% looks impressive in daily news ("another day fully powered by renewables"), wind and power have the advantage that they don't work when they don't work.

At the same time German industry, hospitals and households expect 24/7 energy supply.

@knowak

So while Germany has indeed increased share of renewables, it has at the same time *increased* imports of oil and gas. They have decreased nuclear and coal, but the gas imports are skyrocketing and - most importantly - CO2 emissions are decreasing very little or even increasing (depending on what reference year you compare against).

@knowak And this is not only Germany, the same phenomenon was seen in many countries - here's a comparison for NY where a decrease in nuclear share was promptly compensated by increase in fossil...

@knowak This trend - less nuclear and more renewables equals more fossil gas - became so widespread that fossil gas companies started quickly jumping the bandwagon and selling fossil gas as "the best friend of renewables"... Which is precisely the model Greenpeace is "reluctantly" promoting today with all their "necessary evil" rhetoric.