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Planned shut down for coal is 2038 in Germany (17 years from now). Or quite possibly a bit sooner if the green party manages to negotiate that in a potential 3

Planned shut down for coal is 2038 in Germany (17 years from now). Or quite possibly a bit sooner if the green party manages to negotiate that in a potential 3 party government negotiation that might be kicking off end of this month. There's this myth that Germany started burning more coal in response to the nuclear shut down. That kind of never happened. Coal proportion in Germany has been slowly shrinking for years, just like in most of the rest of the world. Peak coal was around the same time Fukushima happened. It actually dropped almost as fast as nuclear in the years after: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... The only thing other than renewables that has had any growth in Germany is gas. But it's not nearly as much as the amount of coal and nuclear that disappeared from the market. The real story is that the energy market has nearly doubled in 20 years in Germany. Fossil fueled plants combined are now only about 40% of that. With coal gone and the overall market continuing to grow, that will drop to single digit percentages pretty soon. Like nuclear in Germany today. The French nuclear market is slowly shrinking as well. They too are shifting to renewables and are slowly shutting down aging nuclear plants from last century. They are still building a few new plants of course but it does not compensate for the lost capacity. A lot of aging plants are reaching their end of life in the next decades. Most of them will not be replaced probably. And with decades long planning cycles, you can kind of tell by noticing that plans for those are simply not being conceived. Just not a thing. Most ongoing nuclear construction in Europe is many years late, billions over budget, and simply the result of planning cycles that started in decades ago.

adrianN 5y ago
Every kW of capacity in a nuclear plant that got shut down could instead have been used to burn less coal. Instead we replaced nuclear with renewables. I don't think that's the right order to do things if saving CO2 is the main objective.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  Nuclear had been a problem for years. Every attempt to transport nuclear waste was paired with very disruptive protests to block those transports. That made an expensive solution even more expensive and it made politicians involved look bad too. Germany is a crowded place; NIMBYism can make or break a political career and this was a never ending PR nightmare for conservative politicians. It made them look bad. Just not worth the trouble given how small the nuclear proportion was in the German market. Just trying to emphasize here how completely and utterly uncontroversial this nuclear shutdown has been locally. Up until Fukushima there were still new plants being considered/pondered/dreamed off (those plans looked increasingly less likely to ever happen). 2011 was the year when renewables became the one and only answer to future proofing Germany's energy needs. Nuclear became part of the problem instead of the solution. No more new plants was an easy and extremely popular decision across the political spectrum. Which immediately raised the sensible question what to do with the remaining old ones. Which was promptly answered by "lets just get this over with and move on with renewables". There only was around 16GW of nuclear capacity at the time, 8 of which is gone by now. The rest is going in the next few years. It wasn't that big of a deal replacing one expensive source of energy with another that wasn't that cheap either (at the time). Germany was not ready to do that with coal twelve years ago because at the time it was still most of its energy generation so it simply couldn't. That simply isn't true anymore. Renewables are now cheaper and coal is now the expensive option in the market. Once coal is gone, the next obvious target will be gas and oil plants (around 4% of the market).
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  … used to burn less coal. Here's some bad news: the albedo effect of coal smoke is supressing global warming by about 1,5°C - about half of the warming to date. We don't just have to shutdown coal: we have to capture a lot of the 2000 GT already in the atmosphere. Which is why all the IPPC projects assume enourmous CCS.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    Burning more coal doesn't make the problem of sucking all the carbon out of the atmosphere any easier.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    It's the water vapor that reflects light / IR and increases the albedo. Evaporate more water using waste heat from nuclear plants, industrial plants, or just by building huge vertical pipes that use convection to push warm damp air a kilometer up. Produce more clouds! This all can be done without burning (additional) carbon to power it.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      I think my comment has been misunderstood (my fault). Under no circumstances is burning more carbon helpful.
natmaka 5y ago
Indeed, in France the 'nuclear success story' led to a state law (2015-992, from 2015, the "loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte") stating that the part of nuke-produced electricity must fall to less than 50% in 2025, from 72% then, and that renewable sources must replace it. In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 7.9% of the gridpower in 2019). The sole reactor currently planned (Flamanville-3) is a complete disaster, more than 11 years behind schedule, it will cost at least 19 billion € (initial budget: 3.7 billion ).
tsimionescu 5y ago
The difference is that France is already producing about half as much CO2 as Germany, despite Germany having much more wind/solar. That's the power of not throwing away your huge investments in nuclear power.

adrianN 5y ago

Every kW of capacity in a nuclear plant that got shut down could instead have been used to burn less coal. Instead we replaced nuclear with renewables. I don't think that's the right order to do things if saving CO2 is the main objective.

jillesvangurp 5y ago
Nuclear had been a problem for years. Every attempt to transport nuclear waste was paired with very disruptive protests to block those transports. That made an expensive solution even more expensive and it made politicians involved look bad too. Germany is a crowded place; NIMBYism can make or break a political career and this was a never ending PR nightmare for conservative politicians. It made them look bad. Just not worth the trouble given how small the nuclear proportion was in the German market. Just trying to emphasize here how completely and utterly uncontroversial this nuclear shutdown has been locally. Up until Fukushima there were still new plants being considered/pondered/dreamed off (those plans looked increasingly less likely to ever happen). 2011 was the year when renewables became the one and only answer to future proofing Germany's energy needs. Nuclear became part of the problem instead of the solution. No more new plants was an easy and extremely popular decision across the political spectrum. Which immediately raised the sensible question what to do with the remaining old ones. Which was promptly answered by "lets just get this over with and move on with renewables". There only was around 16GW of nuclear capacity at the time, 8 of which is gone by now. The rest is going in the next few years. It wasn't that big of a deal replacing one expensive source of energy with another that wasn't that cheap either (at the time). Germany was not ready to do that with coal twelve years ago because at the time it was still most of its energy generation so it simply couldn't. That simply isn't true anymore. Renewables are now cheaper and coal is now the expensive option in the market. Once coal is gone, the next obvious target will be gas and oil plants (around 4% of the market).
throwaway210222 5y ago
… used to burn less coal. Here's some bad news: the albedo effect of coal smoke is supressing global warming by about 1,5°C - about half of the warming to date. We don't just have to shutdown coal: we have to capture a lot of the 2000 GT already in the atmosphere. Which is why all the IPPC projects assume enourmous CCS.
- adrianN 5y ago
  Burning more coal doesn't make the problem of sucking all the carbon out of the atmosphere any easier.
- nine_k 5y ago
  It's the water vapor that reflects light / IR and increases the albedo. Evaporate more water using waste heat from nuclear plants, industrial plants, or just by building huge vertical pipes that use convection to push warm damp air a kilometer up. Produce more clouds! This all can be done without burning (additional) carbon to power it.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    I think my comment has been misunderstood (my fault). Under no circumstances is burning more carbon helpful.

natmaka 5y ago

Indeed, in France the 'nuclear success story' led to a state law (2015-992, from 2015, the "loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte") stating that the part of nuke-produced electricity must fall to less than 50% in 2025, from 72% then, and that renewable sources must replace it. In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 7.9% of the gridpower in 2019). The sole reactor currently planned (Flamanville-3) is a complete disaster, more than 11 years behind schedule, it will cost at least 19 billion € (initial budget: 3.7 billion ).

tsimionescu 5y ago

The difference is that France is already producing about half as much CO2 as Germany, despite Germany having much more wind/solar. That's the power of not throwing away your huge investments in nuclear power.