10 ms·

Why does this non-sense get constantly rehashed all the time? You cannot compare the cost of an electricity generation system solely based on the cost of the p

Why does this non-sense get constantly rehashed all the time? You cannot compare the cost of an electricity generation system solely based on the cost of the plant technology itself, you always have to take the whole system costs into account. Solar panels might be cheap, but they are unable to provide a reliable electricity source without backup or storage systems which is what drives the actual costs. France has 70% nuclear and their kWh costs around 17 Euro cents and causes greenhouse gas emissions of 50 grams of CO2 on average. Germany has 50% renewables with the kWh at over 31 Euro cents and 400 grams of CO2 on average. The French energy sector is responsible for 50 million tons of CO2 each year while Germany’s energy sector causes over 350 million tons of CO2 each year. So, no, large scale solar power is neither cheap nor clean.

steeve 6y ago
This. As cool as PV is, there is a big difference between always-on, modular power source and one that has a variable and intermittent production. It would be like saying one doesn't need heating in the winter since heat is cheap in the summer.
Faaak 6y ago
You're comparing end-user energy cost with production costs. These are not the same ! The cost you're comparing (0.17€/kWh) includes transmission costs (Enedis + EDF), taxes (CSPE, ...) AND the energy cost (~0.06€/kwh, market rate). You cannot compare costs between countries like that, because taxes are different and transmission costs too. You must compare market rate costs (from eex for example).
- belorn 6y ago
  A fair comparison would take a per population approach and compare similar environmental regions, and calculate the cost of supplying that region and population with the energy demand over the span of years. It is however not that hard to do since the energy market basically operate already on this principle. Energy companies bid on supplying a specific demand in the future, and the bid that is lowest win. That bid also include if I understand it right the cost of transmission. The practical end result is that different companies win the bid depending on all the variations that makes energy production commercial viable. A solar plant that is not producing enough energy because of weather conditions is not going to put in a bid, and thus the fossil fueled power plant wins the bid and the outcome is pollution. The more times fossil fueled power plants win, the more economical incentives there are to build more fossil fueled power plants, and the more pollution we get in the air. The only way to have a non-polluting power grid is to either outlaw fossil fueled plants from bidding, or make sure that there is always an pollution free alternative that has an economical reason to make a lower bid. Nuclear, renewables, batteries, solar, wind, carbon taxes or what have you, as long as fossil fueled power plants can manage to make the lowest bid we have a problem.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  Except Germany is doing all sorts of accounting maneuvers to hide the high cost of renewables. They say they have a low wholesale price and the final price is high just because of taxes, but in the end you pay so many taxes that end up in the renewable subsidies in different forms.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Total price: 30.43 ct/kWh* Supplier’s cost (23%) Grid charges (24%) Renewable energy surcharge (21%) Sales (value-added) tax (16 %) Electricity tax (7 %) Concession levy (5%) Offshore liability levy (1.3%) https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-house...
foepys 6y ago
Do these numbers factor in pollution from uranium and coal mining and enrichment? For uranium there is also the burden of storing it for a few ten thousand years. You also need to factor in that Germany is exporting more power than it imports within a year, primarily to Austria and Switzerland but also a bit to France.
- Jweb_Guru 6y ago
  In order to be pro-nuclear power on a large scale, you pretty much have to not care about nuclear waste storage, as we don't have any good long term solutions for it. The favored argument nowadays seems to be that it's not that dangerous and what danger there is is easily outweighed by the climate benefits.
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    The current argument is that we know exactly what to do with nuclear waste. Put it deep geologic repositories like onkalo. https://www.posiva.fi/en/ https://www.posiva.fi/en/ If we do end up building a few thousand large reactors, we will want to switch to waste recycling. The whole 'no idea what to do with it' is what the antinuclear movement chose to say after stonewalling the permanent disposal work in the USA for years. Very cynical in my opinion especially if you consider existing waste to be imminently hazardous to the biosphere.
    - blabitty 6y ago
      I think it's fair to characterize the antinuclear movement as cynical and disingenuous in general,they are a political movement that has never argued in good faith scientifically. In fairness the original governmental nuclear program withheld from the public that the designs behind power generation were actually being driven by weapons needs and the long term storage issues largely result from that dual use design.
      - acidburnNSA 6y ago
        > In fairness the original governmental nuclear program withheld from the public that the designs behind power generation were actually being driven by weapons needs I have to challenge you on this statement. Certainly the 1940s Hanford reactor designs were for weapons production, and yes dual use (weapons & commercial power) was briefly considered in the early 1950s, but as early as 1953 it was rejected as an option by the US government, who had enough weapons material production coming from Hanford and projections from Savannah River that there was no justification for more. Further, the Atomic Energy Commission actually worried that if nuclear power plants became very popular, they didn't want to be stuck with a fixed price contract requirement to buy any excess plutonium. The Power Demonstration Reactor Program of 1958-1965 was run to find the best reactor for making economical power. It was very open and public. By 1965, light water reactors were offered at cost parity with coal plants and the fleets of today were kicked off. So, brief mention of dual use was ended in the early 1950s, whereas the designs of today were commercialized in the 1960s.
bob29 6y ago
I can promise you the energy industry knows about both CapEx and OpEx and has incredibly in depth models on them for all relevant energy technologies. And on the topic, I can also promise you that they do in fact know about the concept of capacity factor and that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. And on the topic of France, their reactors oveheat the river they use for cooling and have to shutdown. And just as you claim you can't soley consider the cost of a plant, you can't solely consider the smokestack emissions of a plant without consider the mining, enrichment, handling, and disposal of nuclear. Germany has a large CO2 output because they have a large manufacturing industry, and for policy reasons technically decoupled from their investment in solar, they also maintain production capacity of a dirty type of coal as power source because they have it in abundance within their own borders, its a security interest. If you think your armchair analysis has outsmarted the energy industry then go ahead and invest in fossil and nuclear i guess.
- hinkley 6y ago
  If we don’t switch to wind and solar we’re going to be hearing a lot about heat pollution in the coming decades. They fought Clinton, Illinois’ nuclear plant for decades. The locals were uneasy because it’s on a recreational lake. The lobby for it dismissed the concerns of the uneducated rabble and built it anyway. An amoeba that causes encephalitis grew in the heat from the cooling plant. Nobody was allowed to swim there anymore. There’s not a lot to do in the middle of the Plains States if you aren’t in a metropolitan area. Swimming and boating are two of your options. Fusion, fission, geothermal all dump between one and two units of heat at the source for every two units they push down a power line (which is mostly turned into heat at the destination and a little along the way). In the big picture, all of them are bad pairings with global warming. And hydro reservoirs boost methane emissions.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Isn't heat pollution a lost energy opportunity, where the heat could be reclaimed to generate electricity as well?
    - 6y ago
cute_boi 6y ago
+ there is no mention of batteries etc. Batteries are most important component and I doubt it has improved so much. Yea I don't understand these non-sense which doesn't includes whole system costs.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Because one cannot compute that in a generally applicable way. It depends on details of ststems that vary from place to place. Levelized cost of energy is more constant, although not entirely so.
albertgoeswoof 6y ago
You’re messing with these stats a lot (I assume this is not malicious). The 50% renewables are not the cause of the extra 350g of CO2 in Germany. The way you word this it sounds like renewables == bad, when in reality Germany is burning a boat load of coal which is causing the extra emissions, while France’s emissions are offset because they have lots of Nuclear power. Nuclear power takes 20-50 years to come online- it’s too late to rely on it and burn fossil fuels in the mean time. That ship sailed long ago.
- random314 6y ago
  The OP misrepresents every time there is a positive solar energy story, using the same Germany story as an example.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  > That ship sailed long ago. That ship was sunk. Germany had a lot of nuclear power, and decided shut it down. That is why Germany is producing so much CO₂. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#German...
  - _Microft 6y ago
    It agree that we should have shut down coal power instead of nuclear power but fact is that this never happened. Deal with it. Edit: „Deal with it“ might have been a snarky way to say it but on a serious note - nothing good comes from regretting missed opportunities forever. Get over them and make the best of the situation.
  - joseph_grobbles 6y ago
    "Germany had a lot of nuclear power" No, they really didn't. At its height it accounted for barely 20%. It was dwarfed by coal, lignite and natural gas. It was never anything like France that went all in with nuclear. Since then, German consumption has exploded, yet the non-renewables have stayed about static while virtually all new demand is met with renewables.
- 6y ago
bluefirebrand 6y ago
Not to mention the large amount of real-estate that a solar farm requires. Which isn't always convenient either given that it only works in sunny places. Solar will only ever be a part of the picture, not the whole thing.
- Jweb_Guru 6y ago
  Of all the things people complain about with solar, this is by far the strangest. Perform any calculations you like and you'll find that the area required to power the entire world with solar would be quite small; the only issue it has (but don't get me wrong, it is a big one) is the need for storage.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    In the US in particular, corn is subsidized and turned into ethanol at an alarming rate. Subsidizing solar seems like it would be a better use of land. Especially if you can combine it at all with buffer zones to control runoff.
  - foepys 6y ago
    There were plans to build huge solar plants in the Sahara desert but all got scrapped partly because of energy storage and transport, and partly because few countries want to depend on energy production in countries with either (looming) civil war or semi-regular terrorist attacks.
    - Jweb_Guru 6y ago
      I would not call Europe not wanting to be beholden to African countries the way they are beholden to Europe a problem with solar power, personally.
  - Lendal 6y ago
    The problem isn't just with the area but also location. Would it be okay if it were about the size and location of a rainforest? That's what we're doing here in Florida. Drive down I-10 and you'll see large previously-forested areas now covered by several large solar plants. Really, really dumb. I've no problem with putting solar over parking lots or open desert. But forests? My state is so moronic sometimes.
anewhnaccount2 6y ago
The costs of disposing of nuclear waste don't come out of the energy bill, they come directly out of taxes. This needs to be factored in, because this cost continues long after the plant is decommissioned.
- phkahler 6y ago
  That's a much lesser concern in France, where reprocessing or different reactor types have significantly less waste. Not zero though.
mcot2 6y ago
IMO Germany is more set up to benefit from future developments than France and the numbers you cite may very well look a lot different in 10 years. What you are giving is a static snapshot in time where France has a mature technology that is declining and Germany is rapidly moving to the future. Nuclear certainly has a place in baseload generation but new greenfield development is rare and costs skyrocket upon decommissioning. On the other hand Germany is well positioned to take advantage of cost declines in battery storage to solve the intermittency problem. It’s not clear what France does when all of their reactors age out.
- realusername 6y ago
  > IMO Germany is more set up to benefit from future developments than France and the numbers you cite may very well look a lot different in 10 years Within 10 years, Germany will already have to replace a good half of their renewable capacity so I doubt that assessment will change. That's the next issue which is not often taken into account, those renewables have a very low lifespan.
jay_kyburz 6y ago
Nobody takes into consideration the cost of managing nuclear waste either. I understand there is not much anymore, but I believe its still dangerous and requires armed security effectively forever. (making the cost effectively infinite). I guess those costs are for future generations and not our problem. (Kind of like CO2)
- digitaltrees 6y ago
  Excellent point. It also assumes that society will be sufficiently organized to provide the security and maintenance for the entire half life of the waste. That seems like a fairly unrealistic assumption. And so we are basically guaranteed to ruin the area where waste is stored at some point in the future and easily explains why congress has been unable to designate a permanent storage location.
  - ElKrist 6y ago
    "It also assumes that society will be sufficiently organized to provide the security and maintenance for the entire half life of the waste." Could you please provide a concrete example of a problem of security or maintenance on such facility and with such scenario, what makes you think that it is more likely to happen than any other threats with similar impact our societies face?
    - jay_kyburz 6y ago
      Currently the dry casks that we use to store nuclear waste get rusty, or leak the inert gas within them. This needs to be monitored and repaired. They need to be security because they can be stolen and the waste within can be used as a weapon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
      - ElKrist 6y ago
        Yes I am aware of those. My question is: what makes you think that this poses a superior threat than other issues we face? When I think about the future and its risks I never think about nuclear waste. I think primarily about global warming and all its consequences: massive migrations, droughts, fires etc. To me these are way more important because 1) the likelihood is MUCH higher 2) the impact is MUCH higher
rtx 6y ago
I think people have been hoodwinked, same as with UBI. Nuclear is the only way fwd, sooner we come to realization better it will be for us. Solar and wind do lot of eco damage due to low density output.
brianwawok 6y ago
You can’t compare price and co2 and skip nuclear waste. Add in tons of nuclear waste generated to the above stats and it is maybe more fair. (For the record I am very pro-nuclear, but it feels disingenuous to mention solar requires storage but totally ignore nuclear disposal)
audunw 6y ago
Wait, how are these numbers for Germany and France relevant? Germany's renewable energy was built in recent years, much of it during a time when it was significantly more expensive than now. Frances price is from mostly very old nuclear reactors, many of which are close to end-of-life. And you seem to be attributing the CO2 emissions to the renewables, but that's in no way fair. Even if we had the solution to energy storage, you'd expect a country switching from coal to renewables to have high emissions even at the half-way point. > So, no, large scale solar power is neither cheap nor clean. It's more complex than headlines would lead you to believe. But that's ALWAYS the case. This conclusion is just as dumb as the headlines, if not even dumber. You're right that storage and backup is a big factor, but it's a problem that's rapidly being solved.
- ElKrist 6y ago
  Can you please expand on what makes you say that "storage (...) is a problem that's rapidly being solved" ? Have you read articles with scenarios about % electricity stored compared to daily consumption for instance? Are we going to reach any significant number in the next decade? From this IEA article [1] it is not clear that we're getting close to it fast enough [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-storage https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-storage
konjin 6y ago
>Why does this non-sense get constantly rehashed all the time? Because journalists are not engineers: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
- mapgrep 6y ago
  The author of the linked piece has the following background: “He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University.” From the Carbon Brief “about” page. (Click his byline on the linked article and you’ll see he works for Carbon Brief.) https://www.carbonbrief.org/about-us https://www.carbonbrief.org/about-us So he’s a scientist. Given that you disagree strongly with a well credentialed chemist, are you sure the profession of journalism or the credentials of its practitioners are the issue here? Also, it’s interesting you linked an article that leans heavily on the authority of Michael Crichton, himself a noted climate change denialist — and a former physician. It would seem to me poor information and sloppy work crosses many fields. I think anyone who has, say, used very much software in their life would probably agree.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    Michael Crichton wasn't a denialist of climate change, he doubted that humans were the leading cause of climate change. He was also a physician (a medical doctor), not a physicist.
  - konjin 6y ago
    >So he’s a scientist. Yes, not an engineer.
digitaltrees 6y ago
Why do we price a barrel of oil without the military costs to protect the shipping channels. Or the short term and long term storage. While you have a point. It’s hard to deny the extreme drop in cost of solar over time. And that drop runs counter to a lot of predictions from people that said moving away from fossil fuel is impossible.
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  Barrels of oil are a very poor comparison, as the price is based on limited supply (which is even artificially controlled by the OPEC), where with solar and nuclear the price is much closer (and based) on manufacturing costs.
joseph_grobbles 6y ago
How is this nonsense the top comment? Who upvotes this tripe? To counter the calculations of the IEA (who are a world more informed than cbmuser, I'm fairly sure), this guy conflates the entire historic mix of two very different countries, one with a long history of coal, natural gas and lignite (those decreasing as renewables enter the mix).
- steeve 6y ago
  Because it highlights the failure of the solar/wind (intermittent renewables) argument. Can you point me to a grid that runs mainly on solar and wind that’s les than 150gCO2eq/kWh? France is around 50-60.
ethn 6y ago
Look at my comment history for a previous discussion but these studies also include theoretical costs for non-renewable energy called 'carbon pricing'. It's flat-out dishonest. If solar power were the cheapest energy source, it would be unilaterally adopted until it's no longer the cheapest option--it's trivial to hook up to the grid, private individuals do it today. Unless of course there is a global conspiracy with the entire energy utility, semiconductor, and financial industry; private individuals; and municipalities to avoid profit seeking behavior.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  I think it is slowly adopted everywhere, and we are facing resistance from the traditional energy industry as they try to protect their current investments. Profit seeking behavior from the fossil fuel industry is to resist change at all costs. Profit seeking behavior from our politicians here in Australia is to not upset the fossil fuel industry as they are a large source of donations.
  - ethn 6y ago
    Indeed that is the conspiracy theory where they have undue influence on the profit seeking behaviors of utility companies, financial entities, municipalities, and otherwise private individuals with sufficient capital. However, what most don't know is that the big money (in terms of EBITDA) in the fossil fuel industry is in downstream services, plastics and other carbon products derived from oil. This accounts for around 80.1% of Exxon's Revenue[1] and even more in profit. The goal for Exxon is to reduce reliance of energy from oil to reduce the cost of crude oil and maintain the sticky margins of plastics. It's for this reason that Exxon has always been in the forefront in carbon economies and taxes [2]. Energy is instead one of the worst businesses to be in, a low-margin commodity, with ever-decreasing margins. [1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/16/how-exxonmobil-strikes-the-right-balance-in-rocky.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/16/how-exxonmobil-str... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/exxon-mobil-pledges-1-million-to-campaign-to-promote-carbon-tax.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/exxon-mobil-pledges-1-millio...
madsbuch 6y ago
Why is this a problem? Slippers are cheaper than hiking boots, but I am not expecting that slippers can satisfy all my footwear needs.
ineedasername 6y ago
That's an odd bit if logic to get to your conclusion. You haven't demonstrated that renewables aren't clean, you've demonstrated that the non-renewable portion for Germany generates more C02 than the non-renewable (nuclear) portion for France. It's also strange to talk about energy cleanliness in the context of nuclear energy yet only bring in C02 when the environmental factors with nuclear extend much beyond C02
pippy 6y ago
>France has 70% nuclear Not for long sadly :( Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035.
eecc 6y ago
Uh, what about the yearly production of nuclear waste by the French energy sector? Do they have a long term solution for that? And what about decommissioning old power plants? They’re currently deciding whether to run them another 10 years beyond their 40 years design lifetime. (Great way to postpone a problem, by the way)
- steeve 6y ago
  Yes, it’s called CIGEO. For the record, the whole of France’s nuclear fuel waste since the 50’s is a 15mx15mx15m cube. Also, that 40 years numbers is a financial one, not a technical or design one. Some reactors based on the same designs have been validated for 60 years in the US.
  - eecc 6y ago
    Well, minus what they purified to make weapons. That’s the problem with spent fuel: you either toss it, but it’s still recyclable and burnable again or you recycle it, and you’re inevitably left with some bomb grade material that flies in the face of all international agreements of non-proliferation. Anyhow, CIGEO build still needs to start and how many years of future capacity does it allow for? Many reactors were designed to run 40-50 years and they’ve been lengthened to procrastinate costly dismantling and maintain production without new builds (which are, at this point, highly uneconomical)
andy_threos_io 6y ago
Solar energy will not run out in the near future (at least 5 billion years, even earth will be destroyed way before the sun run out of fuel), fossil fuels will run out, it does not matter if it's 50, 100 or 1000 years from now, but it will run out. Period. (that's the same problem with current nuclear power technology beside other factors)
- steeve 6y ago
  Yeah no. Look up Gen IV. And the BN-800 reactor that’s online and in commercial service. Also, SuperPhénix.

steeve 6y ago

This. As cool as PV is, there is a big difference between always-on, modular power source and one that has a variable and intermittent production. It would be like saying one doesn't need heating in the winter since heat is cheap in the summer.

Faaak 6y ago

You're comparing end-user energy cost with production costs. These are not the same ! The cost you're comparing (0.17€/kWh) includes transmission costs (Enedis + EDF), taxes (CSPE, ...) AND the energy cost (~0.06€/kwh, market rate). You cannot compare costs between countries like that, because taxes are different and transmission costs too. You must compare market rate costs (from eex for example).

belorn 6y ago
A fair comparison would take a per population approach and compare similar environmental regions, and calculate the cost of supplying that region and population with the energy demand over the span of years. It is however not that hard to do since the energy market basically operate already on this principle. Energy companies bid on supplying a specific demand in the future, and the bid that is lowest win. That bid also include if I understand it right the cost of transmission. The practical end result is that different companies win the bid depending on all the variations that makes energy production commercial viable. A solar plant that is not producing enough energy because of weather conditions is not going to put in a bid, and thus the fossil fueled power plant wins the bid and the outcome is pollution. The more times fossil fueled power plants win, the more economical incentives there are to build more fossil fueled power plants, and the more pollution we get in the air. The only way to have a non-polluting power grid is to either outlaw fossil fueled plants from bidding, or make sure that there is always an pollution free alternative that has an economical reason to make a lower bid. Nuclear, renewables, batteries, solar, wind, carbon taxes or what have you, as long as fossil fueled power plants can manage to make the lowest bid we have a problem.
flavius29663 6y ago
Except Germany is doing all sorts of accounting maneuvers to hide the high cost of renewables. They say they have a low wholesale price and the final price is high just because of taxes, but in the end you pay so many taxes that end up in the renewable subsidies in different forms.
sergeykish 6y ago
Total price: 30.43 ct/kWh* Supplier’s cost (23%) Grid charges (24%) Renewable energy surcharge (21%) Sales (value-added) tax (16 %) Electricity tax (7 %) Concession levy (5%) Offshore liability levy (1.3%) https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-house...

foepys 6y ago

Do these numbers factor in pollution from uranium and coal mining and enrichment? For uranium there is also the burden of storing it for a few ten thousand years. You also need to factor in that Germany is exporting more power than it imports within a year, primarily to Austria and Switzerland but also a bit to France.

Jweb_Guru 6y ago
In order to be pro-nuclear power on a large scale, you pretty much have to not care about nuclear waste storage, as we don't have any good long term solutions for it. The favored argument nowadays seems to be that it's not that dangerous and what danger there is is easily outweighed by the climate benefits.
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  The current argument is that we know exactly what to do with nuclear waste. Put it deep geologic repositories like onkalo. https://www.posiva.fi/en/ https://www.posiva.fi/en/ If we do end up building a few thousand large reactors, we will want to switch to waste recycling. The whole 'no idea what to do with it' is what the antinuclear movement chose to say after stonewalling the permanent disposal work in the USA for years. Very cynical in my opinion especially if you consider existing waste to be imminently hazardous to the biosphere.
  - blabitty 6y ago
    I think it's fair to characterize the antinuclear movement as cynical and disingenuous in general,they are a political movement that has never argued in good faith scientifically. In fairness the original governmental nuclear program withheld from the public that the designs behind power generation were actually being driven by weapons needs and the long term storage issues largely result from that dual use design.
    - acidburnNSA 6y ago
      > In fairness the original governmental nuclear program withheld from the public that the designs behind power generation were actually being driven by weapons needs I have to challenge you on this statement. Certainly the 1940s Hanford reactor designs were for weapons production, and yes dual use (weapons & commercial power) was briefly considered in the early 1950s, but as early as 1953 it was rejected as an option by the US government, who had enough weapons material production coming from Hanford and projections from Savannah River that there was no justification for more. Further, the Atomic Energy Commission actually worried that if nuclear power plants became very popular, they didn't want to be stuck with a fixed price contract requirement to buy any excess plutonium. The Power Demonstration Reactor Program of 1958-1965 was run to find the best reactor for making economical power. It was very open and public. By 1965, light water reactors were offered at cost parity with coal plants and the fleets of today were kicked off. So, brief mention of dual use was ended in the early 1950s, whereas the designs of today were commercialized in the 1960s.

bob29 6y ago

I can promise you the energy industry knows about both CapEx and OpEx and has incredibly in depth models on them for all relevant energy technologies. And on the topic, I can also promise you that they do in fact know about the concept of capacity factor and that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. And on the topic of France, their reactors oveheat the river they use for cooling and have to shutdown. And just as you claim you can't soley consider the cost of a plant, you can't solely consider the smokestack emissions of a plant without consider the mining, enrichment, handling, and disposal of nuclear. Germany has a large CO2 output because they have a large manufacturing industry, and for policy reasons technically decoupled from their investment in solar, they also maintain production capacity of a dirty type of coal as power source because they have it in abundance within their own borders, its a security interest. If you think your armchair analysis has outsmarted the energy industry then go ahead and invest in fossil and nuclear i guess.

hinkley 6y ago
If we don’t switch to wind and solar we’re going to be hearing a lot about heat pollution in the coming decades. They fought Clinton, Illinois’ nuclear plant for decades. The locals were uneasy because it’s on a recreational lake. The lobby for it dismissed the concerns of the uneducated rabble and built it anyway. An amoeba that causes encephalitis grew in the heat from the cooling plant. Nobody was allowed to swim there anymore. There’s not a lot to do in the middle of the Plains States if you aren’t in a metropolitan area. Swimming and boating are two of your options. Fusion, fission, geothermal all dump between one and two units of heat at the source for every two units they push down a power line (which is mostly turned into heat at the destination and a little along the way). In the big picture, all of them are bad pairings with global warming. And hydro reservoirs boost methane emissions.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Isn't heat pollution a lost energy opportunity, where the heat could be reclaimed to generate electricity as well?
  - 6y ago

cute_boi 6y ago

+ there is no mention of batteries etc. Batteries are most important component and I doubt it has improved so much. Yea I don't understand these non-sense which doesn't includes whole system costs.

pfdietz 6y ago
Because one cannot compute that in a generally applicable way. It depends on details of ststems that vary from place to place. Levelized cost of energy is more constant, although not entirely so.

albertgoeswoof 6y ago

You’re messing with these stats a lot (I assume this is not malicious). The 50% renewables are not the cause of the extra 350g of CO2 in Germany. The way you word this it sounds like renewables == bad, when in reality Germany is burning a boat load of coal which is causing the extra emissions, while France’s emissions are offset because they have lots of Nuclear power. Nuclear power takes 20-50 years to come online- it’s too late to rely on it and burn fossil fuels in the mean time. That ship sailed long ago.

random314 6y ago
The OP misrepresents every time there is a positive solar energy story, using the same Germany story as an example.
BurningFrog 6y ago
> That ship sailed long ago. That ship was sunk. Germany had a lot of nuclear power, and decided shut it down. That is why Germany is producing so much CO₂. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#German...
- _Microft 6y ago
  It agree that we should have shut down coal power instead of nuclear power but fact is that this never happened. Deal with it. Edit: „Deal with it“ might have been a snarky way to say it but on a serious note - nothing good comes from regretting missed opportunities forever. Get over them and make the best of the situation.
- joseph_grobbles 6y ago
  "Germany had a lot of nuclear power" No, they really didn't. At its height it accounted for barely 20%. It was dwarfed by coal, lignite and natural gas. It was never anything like France that went all in with nuclear. Since then, German consumption has exploded, yet the non-renewables have stayed about static while virtually all new demand is met with renewables.
6y ago

bluefirebrand 6y ago

Not to mention the large amount of real-estate that a solar farm requires. Which isn't always convenient either given that it only works in sunny places. Solar will only ever be a part of the picture, not the whole thing.

Jweb_Guru 6y ago
Of all the things people complain about with solar, this is by far the strangest. Perform any calculations you like and you'll find that the area required to power the entire world with solar would be quite small; the only issue it has (but don't get me wrong, it is a big one) is the need for storage.
- hinkley 6y ago
  In the US in particular, corn is subsidized and turned into ethanol at an alarming rate. Subsidizing solar seems like it would be a better use of land. Especially if you can combine it at all with buffer zones to control runoff.
- foepys 6y ago
  There were plans to build huge solar plants in the Sahara desert but all got scrapped partly because of energy storage and transport, and partly because few countries want to depend on energy production in countries with either (looming) civil war or semi-regular terrorist attacks.
  - Jweb_Guru 6y ago
    I would not call Europe not wanting to be beholden to African countries the way they are beholden to Europe a problem with solar power, personally.
- Lendal 6y ago
  The problem isn't just with the area but also location. Would it be okay if it were about the size and location of a rainforest? That's what we're doing here in Florida. Drive down I-10 and you'll see large previously-forested areas now covered by several large solar plants. Really, really dumb. I've no problem with putting solar over parking lots or open desert. But forests? My state is so moronic sometimes.

anewhnaccount2 6y ago

The costs of disposing of nuclear waste don't come out of the energy bill, they come directly out of taxes. This needs to be factored in, because this cost continues long after the plant is decommissioned.

phkahler 6y ago
That's a much lesser concern in France, where reprocessing or different reactor types have significantly less waste. Not zero though.

mcot2 6y ago

IMO Germany is more set up to benefit from future developments than France and the numbers you cite may very well look a lot different in 10 years. What you are giving is a static snapshot in time where France has a mature technology that is declining and Germany is rapidly moving to the future. Nuclear certainly has a place in baseload generation but new greenfield development is rare and costs skyrocket upon decommissioning. On the other hand Germany is well positioned to take advantage of cost declines in battery storage to solve the intermittency problem. It’s not clear what France does when all of their reactors age out.

realusername 6y ago
> IMO Germany is more set up to benefit from future developments than France and the numbers you cite may very well look a lot different in 10 years Within 10 years, Germany will already have to replace a good half of their renewable capacity so I doubt that assessment will change. That's the next issue which is not often taken into account, those renewables have a very low lifespan.

jay_kyburz 6y ago

Nobody takes into consideration the cost of managing nuclear waste either. I understand there is not much anymore, but I believe its still dangerous and requires armed security effectively forever. (making the cost effectively infinite). I guess those costs are for future generations and not our problem. (Kind of like CO2)

digitaltrees 6y ago
Excellent point. It also assumes that society will be sufficiently organized to provide the security and maintenance for the entire half life of the waste. That seems like a fairly unrealistic assumption. And so we are basically guaranteed to ruin the area where waste is stored at some point in the future and easily explains why congress has been unable to designate a permanent storage location.
- ElKrist 6y ago
  "It also assumes that society will be sufficiently organized to provide the security and maintenance for the entire half life of the waste." Could you please provide a concrete example of a problem of security or maintenance on such facility and with such scenario, what makes you think that it is more likely to happen than any other threats with similar impact our societies face?
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    Currently the dry casks that we use to store nuclear waste get rusty, or leak the inert gas within them. This needs to be monitored and repaired. They need to be security because they can be stolen and the waste within can be used as a weapon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
    - ElKrist 6y ago
      Yes I am aware of those. My question is: what makes you think that this poses a superior threat than other issues we face? When I think about the future and its risks I never think about nuclear waste. I think primarily about global warming and all its consequences: massive migrations, droughts, fires etc. To me these are way more important because 1) the likelihood is MUCH higher 2) the impact is MUCH higher

rtx 6y ago

I think people have been hoodwinked, same as with UBI. Nuclear is the only way fwd, sooner we come to realization better it will be for us. Solar and wind do lot of eco damage due to low density output.

brianwawok 6y ago

You can’t compare price and co2 and skip nuclear waste. Add in tons of nuclear waste generated to the above stats and it is maybe more fair. (For the record I am very pro-nuclear, but it feels disingenuous to mention solar requires storage but totally ignore nuclear disposal)

audunw 6y ago

Wait, how are these numbers for Germany and France relevant? Germany's renewable energy was built in recent years, much of it during a time when it was significantly more expensive than now. Frances price is from mostly very old nuclear reactors, many of which are close to end-of-life. And you seem to be attributing the CO2 emissions to the renewables, but that's in no way fair. Even if we had the solution to energy storage, you'd expect a country switching from coal to renewables to have high emissions even at the half-way point. > So, no, large scale solar power is neither cheap nor clean. It's more complex than headlines would lead you to believe. But that's ALWAYS the case. This conclusion is just as dumb as the headlines, if not even dumber. You're right that storage and backup is a big factor, but it's a problem that's rapidly being solved.

ElKrist 6y ago
Can you please expand on what makes you say that "storage (...) is a problem that's rapidly being solved" ? Have you read articles with scenarios about % electricity stored compared to daily consumption for instance? Are we going to reach any significant number in the next decade? From this IEA article [1] it is not clear that we're getting close to it fast enough [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-storage https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-storage

konjin 6y ago

>Why does this non-sense get constantly rehashed all the time? Because journalists are not engineers: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

mapgrep 6y ago
The author of the linked piece has the following background: “He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University.” From the Carbon Brief “about” page. (Click his byline on the linked article and you’ll see he works for Carbon Brief.) https://www.carbonbrief.org/about-us https://www.carbonbrief.org/about-us So he’s a scientist. Given that you disagree strongly with a well credentialed chemist, are you sure the profession of journalism or the credentials of its practitioners are the issue here? Also, it’s interesting you linked an article that leans heavily on the authority of Michael Crichton, himself a noted climate change denialist — and a former physician. It would seem to me poor information and sloppy work crosses many fields. I think anyone who has, say, used very much software in their life would probably agree.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  Michael Crichton wasn't a denialist of climate change, he doubted that humans were the leading cause of climate change. He was also a physician (a medical doctor), not a physicist.
- konjin 6y ago
  >So he’s a scientist. Yes, not an engineer.

digitaltrees 6y ago

Why do we price a barrel of oil without the military costs to protect the shipping channels. Or the short term and long term storage. While you have a point. It’s hard to deny the extreme drop in cost of solar over time. And that drop runs counter to a lot of predictions from people that said moving away from fossil fuel is impossible.

stingraycharles 6y ago
Barrels of oil are a very poor comparison, as the price is based on limited supply (which is even artificially controlled by the OPEC), where with solar and nuclear the price is much closer (and based) on manufacturing costs.

joseph_grobbles 6y ago

How is this nonsense the top comment? Who upvotes this tripe? To counter the calculations of the IEA (who are a world more informed than cbmuser, I'm fairly sure), this guy conflates the entire historic mix of two very different countries, one with a long history of coal, natural gas and lignite (those decreasing as renewables enter the mix).

steeve 6y ago
Because it highlights the failure of the solar/wind (intermittent renewables) argument. Can you point me to a grid that runs mainly on solar and wind that’s les than 150gCO2eq/kWh? France is around 50-60.

ethn 6y ago

Look at my comment history for a previous discussion but these studies also include theoretical costs for non-renewable energy called 'carbon pricing'. It's flat-out dishonest. If solar power were the cheapest energy source, it would be unilaterally adopted until it's no longer the cheapest option--it's trivial to hook up to the grid, private individuals do it today. Unless of course there is a global conspiracy with the entire energy utility, semiconductor, and financial industry; private individuals; and municipalities to avoid profit seeking behavior.

jay_kyburz 6y ago
I think it is slowly adopted everywhere, and we are facing resistance from the traditional energy industry as they try to protect their current investments. Profit seeking behavior from the fossil fuel industry is to resist change at all costs. Profit seeking behavior from our politicians here in Australia is to not upset the fossil fuel industry as they are a large source of donations.
- ethn 6y ago
  Indeed that is the conspiracy theory where they have undue influence on the profit seeking behaviors of utility companies, financial entities, municipalities, and otherwise private individuals with sufficient capital. However, what most don't know is that the big money (in terms of EBITDA) in the fossil fuel industry is in downstream services, plastics and other carbon products derived from oil. This accounts for around 80.1% of Exxon's Revenue[1] and even more in profit. The goal for Exxon is to reduce reliance of energy from oil to reduce the cost of crude oil and maintain the sticky margins of plastics. It's for this reason that Exxon has always been in the forefront in carbon economies and taxes [2]. Energy is instead one of the worst businesses to be in, a low-margin commodity, with ever-decreasing margins. [1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/16/how-exxonmobil-strikes-the-right-balance-in-rocky.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/16/how-exxonmobil-str... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/exxon-mobil-pledges-1-million-to-campaign-to-promote-carbon-tax.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/exxon-mobil-pledges-1-millio...

madsbuch 6y ago

Why is this a problem? Slippers are cheaper than hiking boots, but I am not expecting that slippers can satisfy all my footwear needs.

ineedasername 6y ago

That's an odd bit if logic to get to your conclusion. You haven't demonstrated that renewables aren't clean, you've demonstrated that the non-renewable portion for Germany generates more C02 than the non-renewable (nuclear) portion for France. It's also strange to talk about energy cleanliness in the context of nuclear energy yet only bring in C02 when the environmental factors with nuclear extend much beyond C02

pippy 6y ago

>France has 70% nuclear Not for long sadly :( Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035.

eecc 6y ago

Uh, what about the yearly production of nuclear waste by the French energy sector? Do they have a long term solution for that? And what about decommissioning old power plants? They’re currently deciding whether to run them another 10 years beyond their 40 years design lifetime. (Great way to postpone a problem, by the way)

steeve 6y ago
Yes, it’s called CIGEO. For the record, the whole of France’s nuclear fuel waste since the 50’s is a 15mx15mx15m cube. Also, that 40 years numbers is a financial one, not a technical or design one. Some reactors based on the same designs have been validated for 60 years in the US.
- eecc 6y ago
  Well, minus what they purified to make weapons. That’s the problem with spent fuel: you either toss it, but it’s still recyclable and burnable again or you recycle it, and you’re inevitably left with some bomb grade material that flies in the face of all international agreements of non-proliferation. Anyhow, CIGEO build still needs to start and how many years of future capacity does it allow for? Many reactors were designed to run 40-50 years and they’ve been lengthened to procrastinate costly dismantling and maintain production without new builds (which are, at this point, highly uneconomical)

andy_threos_io 6y ago

Solar energy will not run out in the near future (at least 5 billion years, even earth will be destroyed way before the sun run out of fuel), fossil fuels will run out, it does not matter if it's 50, 100 or 1000 years from now, but it will run out. Period. (that's the same problem with current nuclear power technology beside other factors)

steeve 6y ago
Yeah no. Look up Gen IV. And the BN-800 reactor that’s online and in commercial service. Also, SuperPhénix.