6 ms·

Let's not forget that: - CO2 emissions of Germany is still 5 times more than a comparable (similar GDP/flatness/weather) than France for electricity production

by pl-94 7y ago

Let's not forget that: - CO2 emissions of Germany is still 5 times more than a comparable (similar GDP/flatness/weather) than France for electricity production [1]; - Electricity production is roughly a third of all final energy and CO2 emissions come mainly from coal and fuel [2]. Two threats for which Germany has done very little for now. - Germany is spending around 2 billions of dollars [3] for renewable energies, whereas it would have cost more than 50x less with nuclear, allowing to spend the rest of this investment into building insulation and thermal renewable energies. - PV investments were computed from past market prices, not with the negative price obtained with non controllable source of energy [3]. Germany is only at the beginning of energy subsidies. Investing in photovoltaics is politically efficient, not environmentally efficient. Please let's stop to focus on renewable electricity. Let's start focusing on carbon-less solutions. The hard problem is about coal and fuel. The situation could not be more urgent, since conventional oil has reached its peak. Not removing our dependency on oil is strongly damaging for our economies. Focusing on non controllable sources of energy is just accelerating the damages. Please see https://jancovici.com/en/ https://jancovici.com/en/ for more convincing arguments :) [1] - https://electricitymap.tmrow.co https://electricitymap.tmrow.co [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Energy_supply,_consumption_and_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Energ... [3] - http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Eye_watering_cost_of_renewable_revolution_2301121.html http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Eye_watering_cost_of_re... [4] - https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-turn-negative https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-...

aurelwu 7y ago
Nuclear is far from being cheap. Take a look at the exploding costs at Flamanville [0], Olkiluoto[1], Hinkley Point C[2]. Those 3 Plants alone already cost more than 1/50 of the 2 trillion which you claim would have been sufficient. Decommissioning of 1990 retired german nuclear powerplant Greifswald is still not even close to being finished. newly installed PV is far cheaper than nuclear and I'll exclude storage/PtX here as usually when nuclear prices are looked at they also ignore decommissioning costs which are probably way higher than future storage technologies will be. [0] http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-delay-Flamanville-EPR-start-up http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-delay... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-olkiluoto/arevas-finland-reactor-to-start-in-2019-after-another-delay-idUSKBN1CE1ND https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-olkiluoto... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
- jswizzy 7y ago
  It's the economy of scale. Nuclear costs are do to limited production of plants and the strictness of regulations. The costs could be lowered significantly if plants were built at scale. As is almost every plant is one of kind in the west where as China they are cheap because they just crank out the same design that has all the engineering and construction all figured already which is the bulk of construction costs.
  - benj111 7y ago
    "and the strictness of regulations" Are you saying we should have laxer standards?
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    economies of scale only work to a certain point. You point to China as an example of doing it right. But China is really just in the same position as the us, but earlier in the process. They’re cranking out nuclear facilities, but are probably equally unprepared to decommission them when the time comes. Nuclear is a very important technology. It probably doesn’t make sense to scale it up as a solution right now. This is somewhat true for solar as well but for opposite reasons. Economically, it seems better to perpetually wait as the price and efficiency keep improving. Buying panels now and getting an extra year of service vs waiting a year and getting a better model is often not worth it. (On the individual scale. There are obviously macro goals that incentivize solar investment now).
  - bayesian_horse 7y ago
    Well, in China nobody can tell you where you can stick the radioactive part of your "economy of scale". Or the reactor facilities themselves, because in China it's relatively easy to use any amount of land, without regard of who owned it before. Then you really don't need to tailor the plants to each location... AFAIK no democratic country with significant nuclear energy has sufficiently solved the waste storage problem, and it is a very active problem in a lot of countries I know.
rndgermandude 7y ago
Your first two claims are mostly correct. Your third claim is utterly wrong. And it's 2 trillion, of course, over a period of 20 years, 2011 - 2030, an estimate from 2012 that Siemens made. Let's assume for a second that the (widely debunked) 2 trillion the former Siemens CEO/nuclear lobby president literally pulled out of his ass in 2012 is reality. Replacing those 2 trillion in renewable with nuclear for USD 40 billion? Germany is spending roughly EUR 10 billion a year on nuclear currently. If we replaced all nuclear stations with with new fancy "cheaper" ones we'd still be at EUR 7 billion. Let's assume we tripled the capacity to roughly 35% of total production (from now less than 12%), that's 21 billion a year. So EUR 420 billion over 20 years. So the factor would be 4x for renewables (given the worst estimate published by a guy in 2012 who happened to be the president of the main nuclear lobby group at the time) vs nuclear (the cheapest estimate I could come up). You're an order of magnitude off at least and that is when you believe the Siemens numbers. Regarding your 4th claim about negative price: wrong conclusion. Negative prices mean an oversupply of generated power. The eventual solution is not to subsidize producers, but to refine the system not to produce such large oversupply in the first place, while still making sure that a sudden drop in supply (because e.g. as a rather blunt example it starts raining and PV output goes down) can be managed.
- roenxi 7y ago
  > Replacing those 2 trillion in renewable with nuclear for USD 40 billion? Germany is spending roughly EUR 10 billion a year on nuclear currently. If we replaced all nuclear stations with with new fancy "cheaper" ones we'd still be at EUR 7 billion. Working from the very high level, since Germany started shutting down its nuclear plants in the Energiewende (started ~2011) electricity use has apparently cratered by more than 10% per capita [0]. That is evidence that something is going wrong, something so fungible dropping by 10% doesn't scream 'cheaper than the alternatives'. Especially since there isn't really any in-practice data on how expensive solar/wind farms are to maintain over a 20 year timeframe so we don't know what the costs will look like after the capital expenditure is done (hopefully very cheap, I'm not casting aspersions - just there isn't a lot of data for how grids go when they rely on these technologies). We're still early days, so maybe you are spot on and just didn't feel like including sources, but there is not yet clarity on whether the money spent on renewables has been a true like-for-like replacement for the nuclear it replaced. The trends are big, slow moving and well underway though. The experiment in energy transitioning remains very interesting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany
mqus 7y ago
Lets also not forget that this was the warmest June since measurements began[1] and that the temperatures were accompanied by a lot of sun. [1](german) https://www.wetter.com/videos/kolumnen/juni-2019-bricht-rekorde-waermster-juni-aller-zeiten/5d15cd5aa5b4b94ded17be70 https://www.wetter.com/videos/kolumnen/juni-2019-bricht-reko...
bayesian_horse 7y ago
Nuclear power is indeed quite cheap, especially if the operators have to pay neither insurance nor damages for the potentially catastrophic consequences of accidents. And most operators have totally understated/underestimated the cost of demolishing plants at the end of their lifetime. In Germany in particular, the biggest actual problem would be waste storage. We just don't really know were to put it, and even if we knew we couldn't agree where. So, in the meantime, until we know with absolute certainty what to do with it (so please no pie-in-the sky reclamation ideas or unproven reactor types nobody can build commercially), I prefer not piling up more of that stuff.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  Compared to the CO2 from burning coal, which we know what it does and we also don't have a great solution for, and the fact that mining coal is also dangerous/not risk free? I'd also love an ideal world without nuclear or fossil fuels, but that doesn't make it real.
  - pl-94 7y ago
    Yup. Fuels + coals are directly killing a few millions per year because the storage is the atmosphere. There is no green source of energy, but some sources (hydro, nuclear, renewables) are several orders of magnitude more letals than other sources, whereas some sources are several orders of magnitude cheaper than renewable energies (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents)
  - bayesian_horse 7y ago
    That comparison is useless and misleading. It's still a fact that people don't want radioactive waste stored in their vicinity, and in democratic countries they can and will prevent such storage indefinitely. And who can really blame them? The stuff is undeniably lethal and scary. There seems to be a majority of people who don't really trust a theoretical, probabilistic safety when the downside risk is this catastrophic. And on top of that, lots of "impossible" accidents have happened, further eroding public trust in theoretical safety.
imtringued 7y ago
Are you serious? That 2 trillion dollar estimate is including decommissioning costs of nuclear power plants which have to be paid even if you replace old nuclear power plants with new ones. Suddenly "50x less" turns into at most 7x less and we haven't even paid for the construction cost of a single nuclear plant yet. 50x less is 40 billion which barely covers the cost of a single reactor.

by pl-94 7y ago

aurelwu 7y ago

Nuclear is far from being cheap. Take a look at the exploding costs at Flamanville [0], Olkiluoto[1], Hinkley Point C[2]. Those 3 Plants alone already cost more than 1/50 of the 2 trillion which you claim would have been sufficient. Decommissioning of 1990 retired german nuclear powerplant Greifswald is still not even close to being finished. newly installed PV is far cheaper than nuclear and I'll exclude storage/PtX here as usually when nuclear prices are looked at they also ignore decommissioning costs which are probably way higher than future storage technologies will be. [0] http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-delay-Flamanville-EPR-start-up http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Weld-repairs-to-delay... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-olkiluoto/arevas-finland-reactor-to-start-in-2019-after-another-delay-idUSKBN1CE1ND https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-olkiluoto... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

jswizzy 7y ago
It's the economy of scale. Nuclear costs are do to limited production of plants and the strictness of regulations. The costs could be lowered significantly if plants were built at scale. As is almost every plant is one of kind in the west where as China they are cheap because they just crank out the same design that has all the engineering and construction all figured already which is the bulk of construction costs.
- benj111 7y ago
  "and the strictness of regulations" Are you saying we should have laxer standards?
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  economies of scale only work to a certain point. You point to China as an example of doing it right. But China is really just in the same position as the us, but earlier in the process. They’re cranking out nuclear facilities, but are probably equally unprepared to decommission them when the time comes. Nuclear is a very important technology. It probably doesn’t make sense to scale it up as a solution right now. This is somewhat true for solar as well but for opposite reasons. Economically, it seems better to perpetually wait as the price and efficiency keep improving. Buying panels now and getting an extra year of service vs waiting a year and getting a better model is often not worth it. (On the individual scale. There are obviously macro goals that incentivize solar investment now).
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  Well, in China nobody can tell you where you can stick the radioactive part of your "economy of scale". Or the reactor facilities themselves, because in China it's relatively easy to use any amount of land, without regard of who owned it before. Then you really don't need to tailor the plants to each location... AFAIK no democratic country with significant nuclear energy has sufficiently solved the waste storage problem, and it is a very active problem in a lot of countries I know.

rndgermandude 7y ago

Your first two claims are mostly correct. Your third claim is utterly wrong. And it's 2 trillion, of course, over a period of 20 years, 2011 - 2030, an estimate from 2012 that Siemens made. Let's assume for a second that the (widely debunked) 2 trillion the former Siemens CEO/nuclear lobby president literally pulled out of his ass in 2012 is reality. Replacing those 2 trillion in renewable with nuclear for USD 40 billion? Germany is spending roughly EUR 10 billion a year on nuclear currently. If we replaced all nuclear stations with with new fancy "cheaper" ones we'd still be at EUR 7 billion. Let's assume we tripled the capacity to roughly 35% of total production (from now less than 12%), that's 21 billion a year. So EUR 420 billion over 20 years. So the factor would be 4x for renewables (given the worst estimate published by a guy in 2012 who happened to be the president of the main nuclear lobby group at the time) vs nuclear (the cheapest estimate I could come up). You're an order of magnitude off at least and that is when you believe the Siemens numbers. Regarding your 4th claim about negative price: wrong conclusion. Negative prices mean an oversupply of generated power. The eventual solution is not to subsidize producers, but to refine the system not to produce such large oversupply in the first place, while still making sure that a sudden drop in supply (because e.g. as a rather blunt example it starts raining and PV output goes down) can be managed.

roenxi 7y ago
> Replacing those 2 trillion in renewable with nuclear for USD 40 billion? Germany is spending roughly EUR 10 billion a year on nuclear currently. If we replaced all nuclear stations with with new fancy "cheaper" ones we'd still be at EUR 7 billion. Working from the very high level, since Germany started shutting down its nuclear plants in the Energiewende (started ~2011) electricity use has apparently cratered by more than 10% per capita [0]. That is evidence that something is going wrong, something so fungible dropping by 10% doesn't scream 'cheaper than the alternatives'. Especially since there isn't really any in-practice data on how expensive solar/wind farms are to maintain over a 20 year timeframe so we don't know what the costs will look like after the capital expenditure is done (hopefully very cheap, I'm not casting aspersions - just there isn't a lot of data for how grids go when they rely on these technologies). We're still early days, so maybe you are spot on and just didn't feel like including sources, but there is not yet clarity on whether the money spent on renewables has been a true like-for-like replacement for the nuclear it replaced. The trends are big, slow moving and well underway though. The experiment in energy transitioning remains very interesting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany

mqus 7y ago

Lets also not forget that this was the warmest June since measurements began[1] and that the temperatures were accompanied by a lot of sun. [1](german) https://www.wetter.com/videos/kolumnen/juni-2019-bricht-rekorde-waermster-juni-aller-zeiten/5d15cd5aa5b4b94ded17be70 https://www.wetter.com/videos/kolumnen/juni-2019-bricht-reko...

bayesian_horse 7y ago

Nuclear power is indeed quite cheap, especially if the operators have to pay neither insurance nor damages for the potentially catastrophic consequences of accidents. And most operators have totally understated/underestimated the cost of demolishing plants at the end of their lifetime. In Germany in particular, the biggest actual problem would be waste storage. We just don't really know were to put it, and even if we knew we couldn't agree where. So, in the meantime, until we know with absolute certainty what to do with it (so please no pie-in-the sky reclamation ideas or unproven reactor types nobody can build commercially), I prefer not piling up more of that stuff.

guitarbill 7y ago
Compared to the CO2 from burning coal, which we know what it does and we also don't have a great solution for, and the fact that mining coal is also dangerous/not risk free? I'd also love an ideal world without nuclear or fossil fuels, but that doesn't make it real.
- pl-94 7y ago
  Yup. Fuels + coals are directly killing a few millions per year because the storage is the atmosphere. There is no green source of energy, but some sources (hydro, nuclear, renewables) are several orders of magnitude more letals than other sources, whereas some sources are several orders of magnitude cheaper than renewable energies (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents)
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  That comparison is useless and misleading. It's still a fact that people don't want radioactive waste stored in their vicinity, and in democratic countries they can and will prevent such storage indefinitely. And who can really blame them? The stuff is undeniably lethal and scary. There seems to be a majority of people who don't really trust a theoretical, probabilistic safety when the downside risk is this catastrophic. And on top of that, lots of "impossible" accidents have happened, further eroding public trust in theoretical safety.

imtringued 7y ago

Are you serious? That 2 trillion dollar estimate is including decommissioning costs of nuclear power plants which have to be paid even if you replace old nuclear power plants with new ones. Suddenly "50x less" turns into at most 7x less and we haven't even paid for the construction cost of a single nuclear plant yet. 50x less is 40 billion which barely covers the cost of a single reactor.