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I could refute a 2030 study from the flat earth society with an essay from natural philosophers from ancient Greece, if the first doesn't address the establishe

by yokaze 7y ago

I could refute a 2030 study from the flat earth society with an essay from natural philosophers from ancient Greece, if the first doesn't address the established facts of the second. A more detailed rebuttal: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ehsekb/comment/fcldewm https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/ehsekb/comment/f...

Danieru 7y ago
Those rebuttals assume a causal relation between shutting down nuclear and an increase in renewables. Aka: shutting nuclear does not mean one gets to credit renewables as the replacement. Instead as the research paper properly accounts for, if nuclear remained in use then Germany would have reduced coal much further. Instead germany is treading water, shutting one carbon free source as it brings online another carbon free source. The net effect is no actual improvement, only a theoretical reduction in risk. Realized outcomes are the same. Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises. For as much as Japan is said to be a society of "saving face" they instead often focus on results over pr. The world would be better off if Germany followed suit.
- fuckyah 7y ago
  It’s fine, because coal is more renewable than nuclear. Who is going to store the waste for millions of years? Does that cause emissions too? CO2 can be removed from the air. Nuclear will kill you and poison everything for millions of years.
- lispm 7y ago
  The goal of the Energiewende was not just to replace Nuclear power with renewable, but to enable a new decentralized energy landscape. Is politically harder to replace coal in Germany, because it is a local form of energy - like fracked gas in the US or coal in the US. Germany does not have much oil, gas, hydro, ... resources compared to some other countries, Coal powered industry was what made the industrialization of Germany possible. In that sense the idea that coal kills people is seen in the context, where it actually ENABLED the industrialization and the big industrial areas (Ruhrgebiet, ...). In the same way nuclear before did not replace coal in Germany - instead the big four electricity giants monopolized both: nuclear and coal. Prior to the Energiewende, there was practically no renewable energy in Germany. Electricity production was in the hands of a few (four) big companies, having divided the country in four areas. A big goal was to break up this system and introduce markets for energy, where almost everyone can participate. Nuclear is a big state, top down, non-market industry. It works well with and creates those big authoritarian/centralized systems. It's also favorable in countries which either have nuclear weapons or want the option of nuclear weapons (like Japan, which has the technology, industry and could produce them within a few years, if they wanted -> Nuclear latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency ). That Japan is restarting nuclear, means that the country struggles to restart them in meaningful numbers in the same environment as before with the same old-design reactors... Countries like France or Japan did very little for renewable energy - which is now fast growing and well suited for large regions of the world - Germany helped jump start it...
- danans 7y ago
  > Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises Japan's energy mix went from 81% fossil fuel in 2011 to 89% in 2016, with most of that coal and LNG [1]. Germany is at 40% of energy from renewables [2]. I'm not saying it's an easy problem for them to solve, but they are far from an example of renewable energy deployment. 1. https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japan_energy_2017.pdf https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japa... 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewables-beats-coal-in-germany-power-mix-for-first-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewable...
  - lispm 7y ago
    40% of electricity. not energy in general. Germany has more problems (like most countries) with heating, transport, ... which currently are not well under way on a transition to renewable energy...
    - danans 7y ago
      Yes, electricity is what I meant. While the Japan report I linked was energy overall, Japan's electric sector is nonetheless 83% fossil fuel based [1], which is much worse in absolute terms than Germany, regardless of their respective recent trends. I agree that Germany, like most nations, has a major problem with road transport dependency on oil. Germany is currently playing catch-up with car electrification, but it is, with Japan, a leader in electrified rail transport. In terms of home heating though, Germany, for its climate is far ahead of the US, with much higher home building standards for energy efficiency and comfort, and smaller homes in general. Japanese homes, as I'm told, are often very cold in the winter due to lack of central heating and very poor insulation, so they don't use much energy, but are also uncomfortable. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan#Mode_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan#Mo...
      - lispm 7y ago
        > a leader in electrified rail transport and expanding on electricity from renewable energy for rail transport There are also the first hydrogen powered trains going into service. In the future more Hydrogen will be produced with renewable energy (for example with surplus electricity from wind).
- est31 7y ago
  > Instead germany is treading water, shutting one carbon free source as it brings online another carbon free source. That's wrong. German coal use has been reduced by 20% in 2019. The CO2 output of the energy sector was reduced by 7%. Yes, it would have been more had nuclear stayed online, but your claim that Germany is treading water is wrong. Source: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-germany-closer-2020-climate-target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-ge...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
ikeboy 7y ago
Funny ad hominem by assocation there on NBER. If I'm parsing that right, they claim the paper is wrong because the place it was published has funders that they don't like? https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-the-nber/ https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-t... Even Krugman, hardly someone that can be accused of conservative bias, agrees that NBER is basically neutral.

by yokaze 7y ago

Danieru 7y ago

Those rebuttals assume a causal relation between shutting down nuclear and an increase in renewables. Aka: shutting nuclear does not mean one gets to credit renewables as the replacement. Instead as the research paper properly accounts for, if nuclear remained in use then Germany would have reduced coal much further. Instead germany is treading water, shutting one carbon free source as it brings online another carbon free source. The net effect is no actual improvement, only a theoretical reduction in risk. Realized outcomes are the same. Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises. For as much as Japan is said to be a society of "saving face" they instead often focus on results over pr. The world would be better off if Germany followed suit.

fuckyah 7y ago
It’s fine, because coal is more renewable than nuclear. Who is going to store the waste for millions of years? Does that cause emissions too? CO2 can be removed from the air. Nuclear will kill you and poison everything for millions of years.
lispm 7y ago
The goal of the Energiewende was not just to replace Nuclear power with renewable, but to enable a new decentralized energy landscape. Is politically harder to replace coal in Germany, because it is a local form of energy - like fracked gas in the US or coal in the US. Germany does not have much oil, gas, hydro, ... resources compared to some other countries, Coal powered industry was what made the industrialization of Germany possible. In that sense the idea that coal kills people is seen in the context, where it actually ENABLED the industrialization and the big industrial areas (Ruhrgebiet, ...). In the same way nuclear before did not replace coal in Germany - instead the big four electricity giants monopolized both: nuclear and coal. Prior to the Energiewende, there was practically no renewable energy in Germany. Electricity production was in the hands of a few (four) big companies, having divided the country in four areas. A big goal was to break up this system and introduce markets for energy, where almost everyone can participate. Nuclear is a big state, top down, non-market industry. It works well with and creates those big authoritarian/centralized systems. It's also favorable in countries which either have nuclear weapons or want the option of nuclear weapons (like Japan, which has the technology, industry and could produce them within a few years, if they wanted -> Nuclear latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency ). That Japan is restarting nuclear, means that the country struggles to restart them in meaningful numbers in the same environment as before with the same old-design reactors... Countries like France or Japan did very little for renewable energy - which is now fast growing and well suited for large regions of the world - Germany helped jump start it...
danans 7y ago
> Meanwhile japan which is restarting nuclear along with expanding renewables gets blocked at the climate change summits because they are not making meaningless promises Japan's energy mix went from 81% fossil fuel in 2011 to 89% in 2016, with most of that coal and LNG [1]. Germany is at 40% of energy from renewables [2]. I'm not saying it's an easy problem for them to solve, but they are far from an example of renewable energy deployment. 1. https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japan_energy_2017.pdf https://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/brochures/pdf/japa... 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewables-beats-coal-in-germany-power-mix-for-first-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/renewable...
- lispm 7y ago
  40% of electricity. not energy in general. Germany has more problems (like most countries) with heating, transport, ... which currently are not well under way on a transition to renewable energy...
  - danans 7y ago
    Yes, electricity is what I meant. While the Japan report I linked was energy overall, Japan's electric sector is nonetheless 83% fossil fuel based [1], which is much worse in absolute terms than Germany, regardless of their respective recent trends. I agree that Germany, like most nations, has a major problem with road transport dependency on oil. Germany is currently playing catch-up with car electrification, but it is, with Japan, a leader in electrified rail transport. In terms of home heating though, Germany, for its climate is far ahead of the US, with much higher home building standards for energy efficiency and comfort, and smaller homes in general. Japanese homes, as I'm told, are often very cold in the winter due to lack of central heating and very poor insulation, so they don't use much energy, but are also uncomfortable. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan#Mode_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan#Mo...
    - lispm 7y ago
      > a leader in electrified rail transport and expanding on electricity from renewable energy for rail transport There are also the first hydrogen powered trains going into service. In the future more Hydrogen will be produced with renewable energy (for example with surplus electricity from wind).
est31 7y ago
> Instead germany is treading water, shutting one carbon free source as it brings online another carbon free source. That's wrong. German coal use has been reduced by 20% in 2019. The CO2 output of the energy sector was reduced by 7%. Yes, it would have been more had nuclear stayed online, but your claim that Germany is treading water is wrong. Source: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-germany-closer-2020-climate-target https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-ge...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

ikeboy 7y ago

Funny ad hominem by assocation there on NBER. If I'm parsing that right, they claim the paper is wrong because the place it was published has funders that they don't like? https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-the-nber/ https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/understanding-t... Even Krugman, hardly someone that can be accused of conservative bias, agrees that NBER is basically neutral.