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Fossil fuel's use in German power production is falling faster than their nuclear mix is. They never "went back to coal". In reality renewables now account for

Fossil fuel's use in German power production is falling faster than their nuclear mix is. They never "went back to coal". In reality renewables now account for almost double nuclear's output at its peak. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020-source.png?itok=i-kda7MS https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... Germany is absolutely a great example, even if it somehow became the target for the weird cadre of nuclear boosters.

edhelas 5y ago
They can thanks Sweden, Finland, France and a few other neighboors to provide them with plenty of electricity and hydraulic backup when they need it (no wind at night). France is sending around 2 to 4 GW of electricity (so mostly nuclear) to Germany all the time, "except" when there is plenty of wind, then France is buying for a really cheap price (sometimes negative) what Germany can't use. See https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-echanges-commerciaux-aux-frontieres https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-echanges-commerciaux-... 2 to 4 GW is roughly 2 to 4 nuclear reactors at 100%, so one/two nuclear powerplants "on an average usage". You can't say that you exited nuclear (or any other kind of energy) when you're massively, and really often, importing electricity from this source from across the borders. And your graph is pretty clear. Germany didn't "removed fossil fuel", they replaced around 100GW of coal with 50GW of natural gas + renewable. To me natural gas is still a fossil fuel (with a lighter co2 impact than coal indeed). And in the end the result is https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map 5 to 10x more CO² impact than France per kwh, even with 2x the nuclear plants setup in France (60GW of nuclear in France against 60GW of wind turbines and 60GW of solar panels in Germany).
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  >(no wind at night) No, wind at night!
- pydry 5y ago
  The data shows natural gas usage has been pretty much static for a decade: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020-source.png?itok=i-kda7MS https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... Germany is also a net exporter of electricity and exported 13.7Twh more than it imported from France.
  - edhelas 5y ago
    Yes, on the open european electricity market, electricity coming from renewable have the priority "on injection" on the grid above all the other sources of electricity. So when you have spikes of renewable productions (a lot of wind and a lot of sun) Germany sells it to "everyone around" at a really cheap price. Which means that on a yearly average Germany indeed exported a lot of cheap renewable electricity to everyone. Now try to guess what is happening when everyone starts to do what Germany is doing for close to 20 years now ?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pydry 5y ago
      Well, they're cheaper than all other forms of electricity. The cost of renewables is mostly capital expenditure. If you have spare you might as well export it and you can probably underbid any other form of power. France is also leaning rather heavily on the capital expenditures it made on nuclear power in the 80s. Unfortunately its gonna be in for a whopping bill when its plants start aging out in 2025: https://www.france24.com/en/20170710-france-hulot-could-close-nuclear-plants https://www.france24.com/en/20170710-france-hulot-could-clos... Germany, OTOH, will be able to coast on what it's already built in the next 10 years while the rest of Europe plays catch up.
      - edhelas 5y ago
        The current Germany infrastructure total cost is around 500B€ in 20 years. That's for sure a few brand new nuclear power plants, or a few big investment plans in power efficiency (heat pumps, isolation…). Wind turbines lifespan is around 25 years (some 30 years), mostly limited by structural and physical issues. You can't reinstall a new wind turbine on top of an old one (the concrete base is also fragilized and new turbines are often way bigger than old ones). Solar panels indeed have a way better lifespan and recent ones stay efficient even after decades of use. So one question now: why is Germany building and importing so much natural gaz (~400g of CO²/kwh, it's around 10 for renewable/nuclear) if their renewable plan is working so well ?
- defaultname 5y ago
  > France is sending around 2 to 4 GW of electricity (so mostly nuclear) to Germany all the time False. In reality Germany often has a trade surplus with France. See, every country has multiple interconnects, and various areas send and receive power. On the whole, Germany sends more power to France than France sends to Germany. Which makes sense -- France's total power production is far below its peak power demand, and as is the nature of nuclear power, plants are very often offline. But sure, one area of Germany imports from France while another area exports to France...that isn't notable. You're regurgitating ridiculous pro-nuclear propaganda. Telling that your argument has completely shifted between posts. "Germany didn't "removed fossil fuel"" Who are you quoting? Further, Germany started their nuclear decommissioning in 2011. Natural gas + coal + lignite is *WAY* below that level now. >And in the end the result is https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map 5 to 10x more CO² impact than France per kwh, even with 2x the nuclear plants setup in France (60GW of nuclear in France against 60GW of wind turbines and 60GW of solar panels in Germany). Germany had a much dirtier power profile before they started decommissioning nuclear reactors. They have a much, much cleaner profile now, even if it still isn't as clean as France's. The "went back to coal" nonsense is ridiculous noise. EDIT: I would love to know what's going on in the minds of people who downvote comments like this. Just upset with fact and reality?
  - edhelas 5y ago
    > as is the nature of nuclear power, plants are very often offline Source ? Nuclear is around 90% of Capacity factor in the USA, 75% in Canada, around 70% in France and UK. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_factors_by_energy_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_facto... So close to 2 to 3x more than wind turbines and solar panels. And roughly the same numbers are other kind of plants (gaz, coal…).
    - defaultname 5y ago
      >So close to 2 to 3x more than wind turbines and solar panels This is a pretty facetious comparison. You install solar knowing that the sun won't shine all the time, and turbines that the wind won't blow. No one installs it expecting 100%. The cost to install is low. Nuclear, on the other hand, is a massive capital expenditure. When nuclear is down, that is a major problem because you don't overbuild. An unplanned outage can be a disaster. This whole conversation is a bit rich given that many of France's reactors are nearing EoL and France has no plans on replacing them. Regardless, I soundly and overwhelmingly debunked the nonsense that Germany "went back to coal" so now it's on with strawmen and shifting goal posts. Such is always the nature of any discussion involving the magical panacea of nuclear.
- petre 5y ago
  Worse, the gas comes from Russia, so they are now dependent on Russian gas imports. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2c.html https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2...
- cinntaile 5y ago
  Cross-border electricity is what the future will look like though, it's not like it matters if the energy was generated in Germany or Finland when I turn on the lights at home.
  - lazide 5y ago
    It definitely does if your neighbor decides they need extra money and jacks up the rates and/or doesn’t like you anymore and shuts it off. Then it is whoever has the most self contained power wins.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      While true, that feels about as likely as Bavarian independence.
      - lazide 5y ago
        Russia has done it with natural gas in the last 10 years. The UK seemed like a great EU partner - until they weren’t. Things change and over the span of 10-20 years, things can change dramatically. The life span of many of these decisions is 30 years or more.
        ben_w 5y ago
        Which is why I gave the example of a regional independence movement rather than saying it’s impossible.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      I don't think the scenario you describe is a realistic scenario within the European energy market. Prices are decided by supply and demand and the market is getting more interconnected so single points of failure become less likely. I do wonder what happens in case there is no wind and no sun all over Europe and the demand is higher than the supply. It's probably very unlikely to happen but then countries will prioritize their own citizens (as we saw now during the covid crisis) and then we could have blackouts. I assume scenario's like these have been researched but I don't follow this subject, maybe someone else here knows?
- bildung 5y ago
  Of course the CO² impact per kwh is higher in Germany. The country started two world wars and the winning factions understandably weren't overly eager to see Germany building nuclear proliferation capabilities. For the first 10 years after WW2 any kind of nuclear research was forbidden. For the same reason Germany was also forbidden to have an army in the first years after 1945. That's why nuclear never played a big role in Germany and critical parts of nuclear infrastructure (like fuel rod recycling) are still done in other countries (mostly France).
- thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  > no wind at night Wind speeds are actually greatest around sunrise and sunset, which corresponds more or less with peak energy demand.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wazoox 5y ago
North Stream 2 anyone? Why do you think Germany needs to increase enormously its gas imports from Russia? Gas is cleaner than coal, but still much worse than nuclear. That will be a serious problem to meet net 0-emission targets in 2050 as planned.
- hnaccount_rng 5y ago
  It really really doesn’t. This is a political thing with Russia, Gazprom and our former chancellor Schröder. The aim (mostly for Russia) is to circumvent Ukraine and thereby remove their opportunity to … acquire … some of what is moved through their territory. As far as I remember Nordstream I isn’t even at capacity. Sure from a Ukrainian point of view NSII sucks. But it isn’t even close to an existential thing for Germany. The gas dependency is temporary (<15 years) and could also be filled by US LNG. Which is why the US is against NSII So yeah from a geopolitical point of view this is all very interesting. From an ecological point of view the net impact is close to zero
- edhelas 5y ago
  I expect Germany to actually lower their CO² emissions by switching from coal to gas in the upcoming decade. It will be a way to show that "plenty of renewable + no nuclear is the way to 0 CO² emission". Until they reach the lower limit with all the gas plants deployed, then they'll really have to think again about how they will definitely remove those plants. Gas is really the best backup for renewable. It's cheap (for now), really adjustable (perfect for the renewable intermittence, on the contrary of nuclear), easy to deploy (not that easy with nuclear plants). The only issue is that it still emits a lot of CO²… and that you strongly depend on other countries for your energy (gas cannot be store as easily as uranium for example).
- xvilka 5y ago
  They will just ask China to build modern nuclear plants[1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/23/china-will-lead-the-world-in-nuclear-energy-along-with-all-other-energy-sources-sooner-than-you-think/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/23/china-wil...
opo 5y ago
>Germany is absolutely a great example, ... Coal mining is dangerous/destructive, burning coal is poisoning the oceans and has killed many, many people. For example, an estimate is that over 20,000 deaths are caused per year due to burning coal in Europe. I am not sure how many of these deaths Germany is exporting every year to countries downwind, but it isn't zero: https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-for-over-20000-deaths-a-year-in-europe/ https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-f... A NASA estimate is that the use of nuclear power has saved approximately 1.8 million lives in the years 1971-2009: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-... Of course the above is just the immediate damage from coal - future generations will have to live with the effects of all that CO2 being added to the atmosphere from Germany burning lignite and hard coal to produce ~130 TWh of power. How many deaths will come from that? (Burning natural gas produces less CO2 than burning coal, but the production and distribution of natural gas leads to enough losses to the atmosphere, it is estimated the climate impact might be similar to coal.) Choosing to eliminate nuclear power when you are still burning fossil fuels is truly a horrible decision.
- ThomPete 5y ago
  coal is all the things you are saying but its saved way more people than it have killed.
ellyagg 5y ago
the weird cadre of nuclear boosters Inappropriate. If we are free to insult people we disagree with on here now, than I might as well say "the weird cadre of nuclear detractors".
clemensley 5y ago
Germany's phasing out of nuclear after Fukushima costs $12 Billions and 1,100 lives every year. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26598/w26598.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26598/w265... For comparison, 1 person died from radiation exposure after Fukushima. https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-cher... A small group of well meaning "activists" have cost many lives bc they did not look at the data.

edhelas 5y ago

They can thanks Sweden, Finland, France and a few other neighboors to provide them with plenty of electricity and hydraulic backup when they need it (no wind at night). France is sending around 2 to 4 GW of electricity (so mostly nuclear) to Germany all the time, "except" when there is plenty of wind, then France is buying for a really cheap price (sometimes negative) what Germany can't use. See https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-echanges-commerciaux-aux-frontieres https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-echanges-commerciaux-... 2 to 4 GW is roughly 2 to 4 nuclear reactors at 100%, so one/two nuclear powerplants "on an average usage". You can't say that you exited nuclear (or any other kind of energy) when you're massively, and really often, importing electricity from this source from across the borders. And your graph is pretty clear. Germany didn't "removed fossil fuel", they replaced around 100GW of coal with 50GW of natural gas + renewable. To me natural gas is still a fossil fuel (with a lighter co2 impact than coal indeed). And in the end the result is https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map 5 to 10x more CO² impact than France per kwh, even with 2x the nuclear plants setup in France (60GW of nuclear in France against 60GW of wind turbines and 60GW of solar panels in Germany).

cool_dude85 5y ago
>(no wind at night) No, wind at night!
pydry 5y ago
The data shows natural gas usage has been pretty much static for a decade: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020-source.png?itok=i-kda7MS https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... Germany is also a net exporter of electricity and exported 13.7Twh more than it imported from France.
- edhelas 5y ago
  Yes, on the open european electricity market, electricity coming from renewable have the priority "on injection" on the grid above all the other sources of electricity. So when you have spikes of renewable productions (a lot of wind and a lot of sun) Germany sells it to "everyone around" at a really cheap price. Which means that on a yearly average Germany indeed exported a lot of cheap renewable electricity to everyone. Now try to guess what is happening when everyone starts to do what Germany is doing for close to 20 years now ?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pydry 5y ago
    Well, they're cheaper than all other forms of electricity. The cost of renewables is mostly capital expenditure. If you have spare you might as well export it and you can probably underbid any other form of power. France is also leaning rather heavily on the capital expenditures it made on nuclear power in the 80s. Unfortunately its gonna be in for a whopping bill when its plants start aging out in 2025: https://www.france24.com/en/20170710-france-hulot-could-close-nuclear-plants https://www.france24.com/en/20170710-france-hulot-could-clos... Germany, OTOH, will be able to coast on what it's already built in the next 10 years while the rest of Europe plays catch up.
    - edhelas 5y ago
      The current Germany infrastructure total cost is around 500B€ in 20 years. That's for sure a few brand new nuclear power plants, or a few big investment plans in power efficiency (heat pumps, isolation…). Wind turbines lifespan is around 25 years (some 30 years), mostly limited by structural and physical issues. You can't reinstall a new wind turbine on top of an old one (the concrete base is also fragilized and new turbines are often way bigger than old ones). Solar panels indeed have a way better lifespan and recent ones stay efficient even after decades of use. So one question now: why is Germany building and importing so much natural gaz (~400g of CO²/kwh, it's around 10 for renewable/nuclear) if their renewable plan is working so well ?
defaultname 5y ago
> France is sending around 2 to 4 GW of electricity (so mostly nuclear) to Germany all the time False. In reality Germany often has a trade surplus with France. See, every country has multiple interconnects, and various areas send and receive power. On the whole, Germany sends more power to France than France sends to Germany. Which makes sense -- France's total power production is far below its peak power demand, and as is the nature of nuclear power, plants are very often offline. But sure, one area of Germany imports from France while another area exports to France...that isn't notable. You're regurgitating ridiculous pro-nuclear propaganda. Telling that your argument has completely shifted between posts. "Germany didn't "removed fossil fuel"" Who are you quoting? Further, Germany started their nuclear decommissioning in 2011. Natural gas + coal + lignite is *WAY* below that level now. >And in the end the result is https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map 5 to 10x more CO² impact than France per kwh, even with 2x the nuclear plants setup in France (60GW of nuclear in France against 60GW of wind turbines and 60GW of solar panels in Germany). Germany had a much dirtier power profile before they started decommissioning nuclear reactors. They have a much, much cleaner profile now, even if it still isn't as clean as France's. The "went back to coal" nonsense is ridiculous noise. EDIT: I would love to know what's going on in the minds of people who downvote comments like this. Just upset with fact and reality?
- edhelas 5y ago
  > as is the nature of nuclear power, plants are very often offline Source ? Nuclear is around 90% of Capacity factor in the USA, 75% in Canada, around 70% in France and UK. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_factors_by_energy_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_facto... So close to 2 to 3x more than wind turbines and solar panels. And roughly the same numbers are other kind of plants (gaz, coal…).
  - defaultname 5y ago
    >So close to 2 to 3x more than wind turbines and solar panels This is a pretty facetious comparison. You install solar knowing that the sun won't shine all the time, and turbines that the wind won't blow. No one installs it expecting 100%. The cost to install is low. Nuclear, on the other hand, is a massive capital expenditure. When nuclear is down, that is a major problem because you don't overbuild. An unplanned outage can be a disaster. This whole conversation is a bit rich given that many of France's reactors are nearing EoL and France has no plans on replacing them. Regardless, I soundly and overwhelmingly debunked the nonsense that Germany "went back to coal" so now it's on with strawmen and shifting goal posts. Such is always the nature of any discussion involving the magical panacea of nuclear.
petre 5y ago
Worse, the gas comes from Russia, so they are now dependent on Russian gas imports. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2c.html https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2...
cinntaile 5y ago
Cross-border electricity is what the future will look like though, it's not like it matters if the energy was generated in Germany or Finland when I turn on the lights at home.
- lazide 5y ago
  It definitely does if your neighbor decides they need extra money and jacks up the rates and/or doesn’t like you anymore and shuts it off. Then it is whoever has the most self contained power wins.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    While true, that feels about as likely as Bavarian independence.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Russia has done it with natural gas in the last 10 years. The UK seemed like a great EU partner - until they weren’t. Things change and over the span of 10-20 years, things can change dramatically. The life span of many of these decisions is 30 years or more.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        Which is why I gave the example of a regional independence movement rather than saying it’s impossible.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    I don't think the scenario you describe is a realistic scenario within the European energy market. Prices are decided by supply and demand and the market is getting more interconnected so single points of failure become less likely. I do wonder what happens in case there is no wind and no sun all over Europe and the demand is higher than the supply. It's probably very unlikely to happen but then countries will prioritize their own citizens (as we saw now during the covid crisis) and then we could have blackouts. I assume scenario's like these have been researched but I don't follow this subject, maybe someone else here knows?
bildung 5y ago
Of course the CO² impact per kwh is higher in Germany. The country started two world wars and the winning factions understandably weren't overly eager to see Germany building nuclear proliferation capabilities. For the first 10 years after WW2 any kind of nuclear research was forbidden. For the same reason Germany was also forbidden to have an army in the first years after 1945. That's why nuclear never played a big role in Germany and critical parts of nuclear infrastructure (like fuel rod recycling) are still done in other countries (mostly France).
thescriptkiddie 5y ago
> no wind at night Wind speeds are actually greatest around sunrise and sunset, which corresponds more or less with peak energy demand.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wazoox 5y ago

North Stream 2 anyone? Why do you think Germany needs to increase enormously its gas imports from Russia? Gas is cleaner than coal, but still much worse than nuclear. That will be a serious problem to meet net 0-emission targets in 2050 as planned.

hnaccount_rng 5y ago
It really really doesn’t. This is a political thing with Russia, Gazprom and our former chancellor Schröder. The aim (mostly for Russia) is to circumvent Ukraine and thereby remove their opportunity to … acquire … some of what is moved through their territory. As far as I remember Nordstream I isn’t even at capacity. Sure from a Ukrainian point of view NSII sucks. But it isn’t even close to an existential thing for Germany. The gas dependency is temporary (<15 years) and could also be filled by US LNG. Which is why the US is against NSII So yeah from a geopolitical point of view this is all very interesting. From an ecological point of view the net impact is close to zero
edhelas 5y ago
I expect Germany to actually lower their CO² emissions by switching from coal to gas in the upcoming decade. It will be a way to show that "plenty of renewable + no nuclear is the way to 0 CO² emission". Until they reach the lower limit with all the gas plants deployed, then they'll really have to think again about how they will definitely remove those plants. Gas is really the best backup for renewable. It's cheap (for now), really adjustable (perfect for the renewable intermittence, on the contrary of nuclear), easy to deploy (not that easy with nuclear plants). The only issue is that it still emits a lot of CO²… and that you strongly depend on other countries for your energy (gas cannot be store as easily as uranium for example).
xvilka 5y ago
They will just ask China to build modern nuclear plants[1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/23/china-will-lead-the-world-in-nuclear-energy-along-with-all-other-energy-sources-sooner-than-you-think/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/04/23/china-wil...

opo 5y ago

>Germany is absolutely a great example, ... Coal mining is dangerous/destructive, burning coal is poisoning the oceans and has killed many, many people. For example, an estimate is that over 20,000 deaths are caused per year due to burning coal in Europe. I am not sure how many of these deaths Germany is exporting every year to countries downwind, but it isn't zero: https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-for-over-20000-deaths-a-year-in-europe/ https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-f... A NASA estimate is that the use of nuclear power has saved approximately 1.8 million lives in the years 1971-2009: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-... Of course the above is just the immediate damage from coal - future generations will have to live with the effects of all that CO2 being added to the atmosphere from Germany burning lignite and hard coal to produce ~130 TWh of power. How many deaths will come from that? (Burning natural gas produces less CO2 than burning coal, but the production and distribution of natural gas leads to enough losses to the atmosphere, it is estimated the climate impact might be similar to coal.) Choosing to eliminate nuclear power when you are still burning fossil fuels is truly a horrible decision.

ThomPete 5y ago
coal is all the things you are saying but its saved way more people than it have killed.

ellyagg 5y ago

the weird cadre of nuclear boosters Inappropriate. If we are free to insult people we disagree with on here now, than I might as well say "the weird cadre of nuclear detractors".

clemensley 5y ago

Germany's phasing out of nuclear after Fukushima costs $12 Billions and 1,100 lives every year. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26598/w26598.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26598/w265... For comparison, 1 person died from radiation exposure after Fukushima. https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-cher... A small group of well meaning "activists" have cost many lives bc they did not look at the data.