5 ms·

> Germany is heavily investing in solar and wind. Why do you bring up coal? Because coal is what Germany really relies on in practice, making it one the worst

> Germany is heavily investing in solar and wind. Why do you bring up coal? Because coal is what Germany really relies on in practice, making it one the worst industrialised nations when it comes to CO2 emissions per kWh. Check for yourself, right this minute : http://electricitymap.org/ http://electricitymap.org/ > it's just the same trap as burning fossil fuels. Why would we want to make the same mistake again? Because it's not the same mistake at all. Nuclear waste is stored in highly stable geological layers, and the volumes are orders of magnitude lower. As I wrote here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996751), a year's worth of nuclear energy for running France's whole fleet of trains produces just 200kg of nuclear waste. Since the beginning of the nuclear programme, the cumulated volume is 3650m3, or an olympic swimming pool's worth of it. Don't get me wrong, renewables are a worthy long term goal, but we might never get there in the first place if we don't tackle the climate change and emissions emergency first.

xxgreg 7y ago
Phasing out coal in Germany is a political battle against a large entrenched century old industry. The phase-out looks to be gaining traction in recent years. Deals are being made to retrain coal miners and fund economic redevelopment of heavily coal dependent regions. All players including the power companies, network operators, miners unions, green NGOs, central and regional governments have been in discussion about how to manage the phase-out. A schedule for when plants will be turned off is being written into law. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal-phase-out-germanys-exit-law-draft https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal... Coal powered electricity generation is dropping and renewable generation is increasing. See chart: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2019.png?itok=Cqqf1JON https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... From: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... Where Germany has a bad record on emissions reductions is in other sectors such as transport and heat. Germany has had a centre-right political party running the show for 15 years, progress has been slow. The next election will likely be a CDU-Green coalition which will likely increase ambitions on emissions reductions.
- renaudg 7y ago
  The incontrovertible problem remains : wind/solar are intermittent, peak load sources (Germany doesn't have the geography for hydro) No matter how you spin this, you NEED to pick one of either nuclear, gas or coal in your mix to complement renewables. Of these 3, only one of them is low carbon. Of the other two, one makes your energy grid depend on Putin's whims, while the other causes tremendous fine particles pollution causing thousands of premature deaths today, in addition to carbon emissions. > Coal powered electricity generation is dropping and renewable generation is increasing. But won't ever replace a base load source of electricity. Even after a 300 billion investment and spectacular share increase of renewables from 6 to 46%, Germany's emissions per kWh are 5-10 times worst than the best. > The next election will likely be a CDU-Green coalition which will likely increase ambitions on emissions reductions. Increased ambition is great but the facts above are unescapable. Are Die Grüne willing to drop ideology and face them ? That seems highly improbable.
  - xxgreg 7y ago
    Wind and solar, plus the already existing 6gw of pumped storage and increased curtailment gets you to 80 percent. The remaining 20 percent requires more storage. Batteries can help to some extent for shifting day to day peaks. Seasonal storage is more tricky. Germany has about 3 months worth of natgas stored in underground caverns. One approach would be to use this to store syntheticly produced gases from electrolysis. Note so far everyone here is talking about electricity which only makes up a third of Germany's emissions. Synthetic gases (non-fossil) will be required for high temperature heat, and chemical feedstocks for industry. For example some steel smelters in Germany are transitioning from coal to hydrogen. Nuclear is a poor fit to an electrical grid which is mostly renewable for both economic and technical reasons. However it may be a good fit for running synthetic gas plants which can use both the heat and electricity and require 24/7 energy.
  - xxgreg 7y ago
    Regarding the Greens. They will be more willing to push back against the German car industry which should lead to increased reductions in transport emissions. Other sectors are likely similar.
PeterStuer 7y ago
"Nuclear waste is stored in highly stable geological layers" That is just factually wrong. "Despite advanced schemes in Finland, not a single country worldwide has an operational underground repository." [1] That was 2014 and plans have stalled or have been abandoned altogether due to local opposition and technical problems. The reality is that in nearly all cases storage is onsite or in other above ground locations. France still has a plan to build and operate an underground storage facility in Bure [2], but costs have exploded due to not just very rose colored estimates at the start, but also due to running into problems such as water seepage and not being able to handle certain failure scenarios such as a transport catching fire. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26425674 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26425674 [2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o
- renaudg 7y ago
  So on the one hand with nuclear, we're talking about one swimming pool's worth of waste since the beginning of the French nuclear programme. Currently stored safely enough, long term solution identified and implementation in progress. You find this unacceptable. On the other hand, we have renewables with no solution in sight (let alone implemented) for the intermittence problem (awaiting an hypothetical scientific breakthrough in batteries). In practice, you rely on coal for the day-to-day base load. Coal, for only a year's worth of running a country's trains generates "700.000 tons of solid ash (usually stored in the open air), plus 1.000 tons of soot and fine particles, including tons / dozens of tons of arsenic, lead, thallium, mercury, even uranium and thorium". You call this the reasonable option. And in another comment, you even feel entitled to lecture the Belgians and French about their nuclear plants near the border that might hypothetically fail one day, when 7 of the 10 worst polluters in Europe are Germany's lignite plants (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-eus-top-polluters-free-democrats-attack-eeg/german-lignite-dominates-list-most-polluting-european-power-plants https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-e...), with coal killing 23.300 people in Europe every year (https://endcoal.org/health/ https://endcoal.org/health/) right now, with certainty
  - PeterStuer 7y ago

xxgreg 7y ago

Phasing out coal in Germany is a political battle against a large entrenched century old industry. The phase-out looks to be gaining traction in recent years. Deals are being made to retrain coal miners and fund economic redevelopment of heavily coal dependent regions. All players including the power companies, network operators, miners unions, green NGOs, central and regional governments have been in discussion about how to manage the phase-out. A schedule for when plants will be turned off is being written into law. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal-phase-out-germanys-exit-law-draft https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal... Coal powered electricity generation is dropping and renewable generation is increasing. See chart: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2019.png?itok=Cqqf1JON https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... From: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... Where Germany has a bad record on emissions reductions is in other sectors such as transport and heat. Germany has had a centre-right political party running the show for 15 years, progress has been slow. The next election will likely be a CDU-Green coalition which will likely increase ambitions on emissions reductions.

renaudg 7y ago
The incontrovertible problem remains : wind/solar are intermittent, peak load sources (Germany doesn't have the geography for hydro) No matter how you spin this, you NEED to pick one of either nuclear, gas or coal in your mix to complement renewables. Of these 3, only one of them is low carbon. Of the other two, one makes your energy grid depend on Putin's whims, while the other causes tremendous fine particles pollution causing thousands of premature deaths today, in addition to carbon emissions. > Coal powered electricity generation is dropping and renewable generation is increasing. But won't ever replace a base load source of electricity. Even after a 300 billion investment and spectacular share increase of renewables from 6 to 46%, Germany's emissions per kWh are 5-10 times worst than the best. > The next election will likely be a CDU-Green coalition which will likely increase ambitions on emissions reductions. Increased ambition is great but the facts above are unescapable. Are Die Grüne willing to drop ideology and face them ? That seems highly improbable.
- xxgreg 7y ago
  Wind and solar, plus the already existing 6gw of pumped storage and increased curtailment gets you to 80 percent. The remaining 20 percent requires more storage. Batteries can help to some extent for shifting day to day peaks. Seasonal storage is more tricky. Germany has about 3 months worth of natgas stored in underground caverns. One approach would be to use this to store syntheticly produced gases from electrolysis. Note so far everyone here is talking about electricity which only makes up a third of Germany's emissions. Synthetic gases (non-fossil) will be required for high temperature heat, and chemical feedstocks for industry. For example some steel smelters in Germany are transitioning from coal to hydrogen. Nuclear is a poor fit to an electrical grid which is mostly renewable for both economic and technical reasons. However it may be a good fit for running synthetic gas plants which can use both the heat and electricity and require 24/7 energy.
- xxgreg 7y ago
  Regarding the Greens. They will be more willing to push back against the German car industry which should lead to increased reductions in transport emissions. Other sectors are likely similar.

PeterStuer 7y ago

"Nuclear waste is stored in highly stable geological layers" That is just factually wrong. "Despite advanced schemes in Finland, not a single country worldwide has an operational underground repository." [1] That was 2014 and plans have stalled or have been abandoned altogether due to local opposition and technical problems. The reality is that in nearly all cases storage is onsite or in other above ground locations. France still has a plan to build and operate an underground storage facility in Bure [2], but costs have exploded due to not just very rose colored estimates at the start, but also due to running into problems such as water seepage and not being able to handle certain failure scenarios such as a transport catching fire. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26425674 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26425674 [2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o

renaudg 7y ago
So on the one hand with nuclear, we're talking about one swimming pool's worth of waste since the beginning of the French nuclear programme. Currently stored safely enough, long term solution identified and implementation in progress. You find this unacceptable. On the other hand, we have renewables with no solution in sight (let alone implemented) for the intermittence problem (awaiting an hypothetical scientific breakthrough in batteries). In practice, you rely on coal for the day-to-day base load. Coal, for only a year's worth of running a country's trains generates "700.000 tons of solid ash (usually stored in the open air), plus 1.000 tons of soot and fine particles, including tons / dozens of tons of arsenic, lead, thallium, mercury, even uranium and thorium". You call this the reasonable option. And in another comment, you even feel entitled to lecture the Belgians and French about their nuclear plants near the border that might hypothetically fail one day, when 7 of the 10 worst polluters in Europe are Germany's lignite plants (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-eus-top-polluters-free-democrats-attack-eeg/german-lignite-dominates-list-most-polluting-european-power-plants https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-e...), with coal killing 23.300 people in Europe every year (https://endcoal.org/health/ https://endcoal.org/health/) right now, with certainty
- PeterStuer 7y ago