5 ms·
It's interesting to consider the counterfactual of what would have happened if Germany had gone for more nuclear power rather than on renewables. It's been exa
by sien 6y ago
It's interesting to consider the counterfactual of what would have happened if Germany had gone for more nuclear power rather than on renewables.
It's been examined here :
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2018/9/11/california-and-germany-decarbonization-with-alternative-energy-investments https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2018/9/11/califor...
Quotes of notes:
In 2017, Germany generated 37 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources.[1] In pursuing the Energiewende, Germany will have invested $580 billion in renewable energy and storage by 2025.
If Germany had invested in nuclear instead, it could have built 46 1.6 GW EPR reactors at the $12.5 billion per reactor cost of the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C. German companies assisted with the design of the EPR and the reactor was explicitly planned to meet the strictest European regulations.
With 46 EPRs operating at 90 percent capacity factor, Germany could first eliminate all coal, gas, and biomass electricity, then make up for today’s 150 terawatt-hours per year of wind and solar from its renewables investment, all while exporting 100 terawatt-hours of electricity to its neighbors (double 2017’s actual exports). Finally, with the remaining 133 terawatt-hours, Germany could decarbonize its entire light vehicle fleet including all 45 million of its passenger vehicles.[2]
- 0-_-0 6y agoHinkley Point C costs more than 12.5B: "The plant, which has a projected lifetime of sixty years, has an estimated construction cost of between £19.6 billion and £20.3 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under the "strike price" will be £50 billion, which "will continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts"." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
- imtringued 6y agoWhat if it built the nuclear plants but kept the coal plants running anyway? That's basically the current situation except with renewables. Before you tell me that those coal plants are necessary because renewables are intermittent... let me tell you that we already have more than enough natural gas plants to replace all our coal plants today....
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoWhy would do they do that? The grand-parent post shows that those nuclear plants would be generating electricity in massive excess of what Germany needs (see the part about exporting). In addition, unlike renewables, the generation is stable not depending on weather or time of year. In that scenario, coal plants would be completely uneconomical to run.
- belorn 6y agoPower plants bid for supplying energy at specific time and dates and for specific amount. With renewables you have cheap wind and solar that can outbid everything else in good weather conditions, but in bad conditions you have fossil fuels that will outbid renewables. With nuclear the bids are always the same regardless of weather, and thus if the price is lower than fossil fuels at one date it will most likely be lower at other dates (with exceptions for maintenance windows). Since natural gas has the currently lowest operational cost of all other fossil fuels on the average, they are usually able to outbid other fossil fuels. However as with any other market, the one that can produce a product cheapest is not always the one that gives the lowest bid and thus different fossil fueled plants get used at different times. Some plants can also produce heat as well as energy and thus artificially lower their bid. Over time however the one who can more cheaply produce a good of the same quality and reliability tend to make more costly production extinct.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoThe anti-nuclear greens share a lot of the responsible for the current mess we are in with regards to climate change with Big Oil. Big Oil told us there was nothing to worry about and produced oil, anti-nuclear greens made sure there was no viable alternative for fossil fuels for decades. Thankfully, we are now developing the solar power and battery tech that can provide an alternative, but we lost several decades.
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- triceratops 6y agoHow do you know Big Oil didn't fund a lot of the nuclear FUD? It's a threat to their business model too.
- leipert 6y agoGermany is not France in the 60s when it comes to overwhelmingly accepting nuclear in the population. 46 EPRs is crazy considering that currently 446 run world wide, and Germany is only running 28. Also just betting on one technology doesn’t make too much sense, especially considering that uranium is currently not mined in Germany (hasn’t been since the wall came down because it is not economically viable). So Germany would become dependent on other suppliers. (I am not against nuclear per se, just wanted to provide some thoughts to the counterfactual)
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