5 ms·
... to appease Germany's environmentalists who saw shutting down working nuclear plants as a major win. (Yes, I know it's a different source of coal. But ener
by bpodgursky 6y ago
... to appease Germany's environmentalists who saw shutting down working nuclear plants as a major win.
(Yes, I know it's a different source of coal. But energy, in the age of oil tankers and thousand-mile pipelines, is fungible.)
- bob29 6y agoNo. Literally Germany's coal is specifically because its their own coal, a natural resource within their own borders they control. For national security, they maintain a coal capacity. Germany's coal burning is national security, nothing to do with environmentalists.
- bpodgursky 6y agoArguments about Germany's energy independence would be far more compelling if they were not, for example, currently building giant pipelines to import Russian natural gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
- foepys 6y agoThat's mostly for heating, though. Heat pumps are being increasingly used in new homes but nearly all homes older than 10 years are using gas or oil furnaces. Electricity prices are also very high, amongst the highest in the world, so heat pumps aren't as cheap to run as in other countries. It's definitely a problem that needs to be fixed, potentially within the next 30 years because that's the timeframe where the law requires old furnaces to be replaced.
- bpodgursky 6y agoBut electricity would be cheaper... offsetting imported natural gas... if they left the nuclear power plants on.
- saddlerustle 6y agoAbout a third of the coal burned in germany is imported
- ulfw 6y agoNational Security. Really?! So you use up a limited resource during peace times to have less of it during war times? Is that your logic?
- thatguy0900 6y agoWell, you probably already want working staffed coal plants when the war starts.
- bpodgursky 6y agoIt seems far easier and cheaper to keep the nukes running and just stockpile, like, a suitcase worth of uranium.
- foepys 6y agoAnd in the event of an attack you just hope they won't target nuclear power plants to recreate Chernobyl and Fukushima?
- arcticbull 6y agoNuclear reactors are very much hardened against such attacks, and of course, those were both very different situations. No need to spread FUD about the safest form of electricity in the entire world in terms of deaths per TWh. [1] It's also roughly zero carbon. You know the worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl, killed 4000 people in the full course of time - and we've learned a ton since then. Fukushima killed 1 person. On the other hand the worst hydro accident, Banqiao Dam, killed 200,000 people instantly. [2] Such an outlier it's frequently excluded from all analyses on hydro safety. No such luck for the Soviets though. I know what I'd target for maximum effect. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
- 6y ago
- herbst 6y agoThey literally break down cute little towns and pay them pennies to relocate to increase the coal mining holes. Germany really is somewhat strange in this
- derriz 6y agoWhat? This makes zero sense. Germany gets 24% of electricity from lignite/coal - down from 45% 6 or 7 years ago.
- bpodgursky 6y agoThis is a sloppy counterfactual, because that number could, and should, have been close to zero already! Yes, things are improving slowly. Yes, it is still crappy compared to the smart play.
- graeme 6y agoI don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Coal and nuclear are fairly interchangeable. Since nuclear was shut down and some coal remains, it’s fairly clear Germany chose coal over nuclear for the medium term.
- derriz 6y agoI'm guessing because it's an impossible counterfactual to suggest that an advanced industrial country could fully replace/de-carbonize 70% of their electricity production in the time span under discussion. Suggesting impossible counterfactuals doesn't advance the discussion in any way. And Germany did not "chose coal over nuclear". While they have reduced nuclear production by about 30 TWh in the last 7 years, they have slashed coal-based electricity production by far more - 140 TWh - in the same period. And it's not like Germany is bucking some trend with respect to nuclear - nuclear has been in decline globally since its peak in the mid 1980s.
- graeme 6y agoWhy is it impossible to run a counterfactual? They could have kept 100% of their nuclear and reduced their coal production by the same amount instead.
- derriz 6y agoForgot to add to my reply - why is Germany being singled out? China burns 15 times as much coal as Germany - even the USA burns 3 times as much.
- pizzapill 6y agoGermany is replacing nuclear/coal with wind/solar energy: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiemix#/media/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiemix#/media/Datei:Energi... (grey = wind, red = nuclear, black/brown = coal) Both nuclear and coal are shrinking since ~ 2000 and both sources of energy have been replaced by renewables since then. Currently ~40% of power produced in Germany comes from renewables. Wind energy has become #1 source of power from 0 twenty years ago.
- ekianjo 6y agoNope Germany is massively relying on nuclear energy produced by its neighbors.
- pizzapill 6y ago2002 was the last year Germany imported more power than it exported: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153533/umfrage/stromimportsaldo-von-deutschland-seit-1990/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153533/umfrag...
- idownvoted 6y agoAh Sweet, the old “exportweltmeister” scam never seems to get old. Germany is exporting so much energy because (and only because) without the base load provided by conventional power plants it’s energy grid routinely is on the brink of collapse, whenever there are weather based shifts in renewable energy production. This causes the electricity price to routinely go negative because our neighboring countries don’t want to have it either. What a failure. And what a failure that people still fall for that exportweltmeister lie
- pizzapill 6y agoDo you have a source for your claims? I mean its obvious that renewables are dependent on the weather, but that's no issue since a neighbour can always produce & Germany is building up power storage capacity. Including a fat line to Norway where Germany sends wind power and receives renewables power when there is a need. Additional the German power grid is super stable, black- or brownouts simply don't happen. > This causes the electricity price to routinely go negative because our neighboring countries don’t want to have it either. This has and probably will always happen. For example Aluminum smelters are getting paid to burn electricity almost since the beginning of the industrialization, otherwise this industry wouldn't exist. > What a failure. And what a failure that people still fall for that exportweltmeister lie So building up massive renewable capacity while starting to sell more and more of it is a failure to you? Either your expectations are crazy high or very low...