13 ms·
Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants
- criley2 5y agoSad to see Germany continue to shut down Nuclear while having to greatly expand coal usage because their wind farms significantly under produce due to unexpected weather patterns. (As much as +40% coal generation in the past two years, and -20% wind) https://www.ans.org/news/article-3274/germany-coal-tops-wind-energy-in-2021-but-theres-more-to-the-story/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-3274/germany-coal-tops-wind... https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising-but-the-switch-to-gas-should-continue/ https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising... And they're replacing it with... gas! Great, another carbon based fuel that is dramatically inferior to Nuclear in energy density, environment impact, and national security.
- cinntaile 5y agoThey're not replacing nuclear with gas. Nuclear has a steady output, gas will be variable output. It will run when deemed necessary.
- hardlianotion 5y agoWhat they going to replace that baseload with? Or do they not need that baseload any more (seems unlikely).
- cinntaile 5y agoThey'll replace it with renewables and energy storage solutions. Not instantly of course, but they'll keep building out capacity. There are also interconnections to other countries that can serve as help when needed. These developments makes pure baseload technologies less economical since you need something that can adapt to the inherent variability.
- Jyaif 5y ago...which will be 24/7 for a number of those gas power plants, to replace the steady output of nuclear.
- _dain_ 5y agothis is sophistry. "necessary" means sufficient to cover the shortfall from the lack of nuclear baseload. the effect of shutting down nuke plants will be to burn more gas, there is no way to dispute this.
- cinntaile 5y agoGas and nuclear don't fulfill the same purpose. It's not like they'll stop building out solar and wind and storage solutions. If your energy system depends on renewables and there is not enough storage (or other geographical interconnected solutions) then you'll need something like gas to quickly spin up and down if the demand requires it. Maybe new nuclear plants will be able to do this too, but right now they can't match gas.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Ericson2314 5y agoMaybe if there is a war in Ukraine the pipelines will be destroyed, and they will be forced to turn them back on.
- the-dude 5y agoEasier to open Nordstream 2 then.
- typingmonkey 5y agoAs I understood, they will directly begin to dismantel the plants. So there is no way back.
- odiroot 5y agoDon't they need to wait for all the reactions to die down and everything to cool down?
- rasz 5y agoGas pipeline goes thru Belarus. Only a small part of Oil pipeline crosses Ukraine. Putin would love a good excuse to close ground pipeline tho, this would brute force Nord Stream 2.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoBelarus is run by a mad man and his killer elite. There is no worse country to pass gas through.
- johnisgood 5y agoYeah, this has been known for a long time now that Germany is planning to shut down their nuclear plants. I have no clue why. There is a country in Eastern Europe and >60% of their electricity is from their nuclear power plants, and they are extending it. Imagine this country exporting electricity to Germany. Anyways, I believe it was a pretty shitty idea to say no to nuclear.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chess_buster 5y agoBecause our plants are extremely old.
- johnisgood 5y agoAre there any plans on building newer ones?
- wildmanxx 5y ago
- neoromantique 5y agomany of Chernobyl survivors ended up moving elsewhere to continue working on a different plant :shrug:
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoFun fact: three brave men from the Chernobyl mini-series that swimmed in radioactive water, drank vodka and died IRL lived happily ever after and one of them became chief nuclear scientist in Ukraine. IIRC, two are still alive.
- nexuist 5y agoSurvivors of Fukushima? You mean all of them? Nobody died at Fukushima...or Three Mile Island. President Carter visited it while it was still melting down. Yes, people died at Chernobyl, and we all know why (incompetence and lies). Are you suggesting the German nuclear industry is comparable to the Soviets?
- alexpetralia 5y agoMy extremely uninformed understanding is that there is an energy crisis in Europe, and that this will exacerbate the situation.
- outside1234 5y agoWe should call this the "enable Putin" and "destroy the climate" plan. Honestly, I think we should declare a 50% tax on the gas going through the new Putin Nordstream 2 pipeline and direct the proceeds to NATO. Prices in externalities of gas usage and gets the EU closer to their NATO commitment.
- Ekaros 5y agoWhy waste money on military? Couldn't it be used much better ways like to decarbon various areas in infrastructure?
- cheschire 5y agoA bully (Russia) comes up to a child (Ukraine) and kicks them in the shin really hard (Crimea). Then grabs them by the shirt and rears back like they're about to punch the kid. You're right, why waste money teaching the kid Aikido when we could instead spend that money on school tutors to try to get them into schools that don't have bullies.
- SimonSword91 5y agoI live in Germany and I wonder, what the consequences will be of shutting down both coal and nuclear in very short time. My guess is, we will pay for nuclear energy from France and coal energy from Poland when wind slows down. The new government tries to accelerate the construction of renewable energy but I think their plans will fail because of worker shortage and supply chain problems.
- nradov 5y agoBuying nuclear energy from France gets tough when they have their plants shut down for maintenance. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3780688-france-shuts-down-nuclear-plants-gas-and-power-prices-shatter-records https://seekingalpha.com/news/3780688-france-shuts-down-nucl...
- zetazzed 5y agoFrance will build more nuclear, and in the long run solidify its position as a huge exporter of electricity at high rates when wind is low. Weird arbitrage opportunity for them as the neighbors go all in on wind.
- rmbyrro 5y agoLooks like France will be kind of an insurer for energy market. Trading the risk of energy supply shortage for the risk of radioactive accidents.
- cinntaile 5y agoNot quite. They're reducing their dependency on nuclear as well. Sure they might build some new reactors but they'll also close some old ones. It's expected that they will close more reactors than they will build.
- 908B64B197 5y agoFrance seems to be confident regarding nuclear safety. Most of that engineering is done in-house as well. I wonder what explains this different attitude as compared to their neighbors.
- deepsun 5y agoYet Poland is still running mostly on coal.
- mygoodaccount 5y agoWhy was Nord Stream 2's approval delayed by the German government?
- the-dude 5y agoTo appease the US.
- outside1234 5y agoWho, to be clear, pays for almost all of the defense in NATO. So yes, to appease the US. Also, it's terrible policy to depend on Putin, which seems obvious to everyone but Germany
- the-dude 5y agoHow come trade is seen as a peace maker for inside the EU, but not seen as a peace maker when done with Russia? AFAIK Russia has been a trustworthy gas supplier and it would be economical suicide if they proved not to be trustworthy.
- mattnewton 5y agoThere is trade, and then there is giving a geopolitical rival an "off" switch to a sizable percentage of your energy supply. Free trade requires easy substitutes to remain "free" and opponents of this plan mostly think that energy markets don't work like that because of high switching costs. Germany can not just spin up new nuclear plants or easily buy electricity from neighbors past a certain amount of it's usage. I don't know enough to know if this angle is correct.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoThe threat isn't directly to invade Germany. It is to stop Germany from intervening when Russia invade it's neighbor countries. EG if you embargo us or provide Military Support to russian opponents, will shut down the power in Germany and you'll freeze to death. A short-term gas disruption will cause Russia to lose some money, but would be much more dangerous for Germany
- maxclark 5y agoNuclear power is an amazing energy source. It doesn’t look like we’ll ever get beyond the politics that would make small scale <10MW installations economically feasible. It’s really a shame.
- oaiey 5y agoIt is amazing. But two major incidents within 30 years time range are not so amazing. When we continue in that rate we will have a serious problem. And with aging reactors and instability everywhere it does not look good.
- jpxw 5y agoOne incident caused by a natural disaster that would never happen in a European country like Germany, the other caused by mismanagement and frankly jaw droppingly pigheaded incompetence which would also never happen in a country like Germany. Edit: in response to the large number of people bringing up BER and other infrastructure failures in Germany: yes, BER and others may have been bad, but a completely different kind (and magnitude) of incompetence than that which led to the Chernobyl meltdown. They really aren’t comparable.
- smarx007 5y agoYes, although never say never...
- jpxw 5y agoWell nothing is risk-free. But in my opinion in any case the risk of allowing climate change to rampantly continue vastly outweighs the infinitesimal risks of nuclear.
- donio 5y ago"infinitesimal risk" would be something that is unlikely to happen once in a million years or even the lifetime of the planet which is clearly not the case. It's "acceptable risk" or "justifiable risk" at best.
- jpxw 5y agoTo be replaced by Russian gas. Great move!
- rsj_hn 5y agoYeah, I'm a supporter of Nordstream 2 because cheap gas is better than expensive gas, but I can't understand why Germany is making itself more dependent on gas instead of building out nuclear capacity to be less dependent. The whole policy really doesn't make a lot of sense, it's not pro-fossil fuel or anti-fossil fuel, it's not pro-Russia or anti-Russia. It's all of the above, which is worse, since it's anti-everything and pro-everything. It suggests German leadership is too incompetent to pursue their own interests and so they are effectively acting randomly.
- jabl 5y agoThey're pursuing their own interests just fine; Schröder got a nice position on the board of the nordstream project.
- hogFeast 5y agoIt is hard to find an explanation for this other than Germany has been co-opted by Russia. Ukraine has been separated from the herd and will surely fall. Putin will be on Germany's border by the end of the decade.
- nvalis 5y agoFor context a nice realtime overview of the current energy production in Germany is given by the Energy Charts[0] of the Frauenhofer ISE. [0] https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&...
- watermelon0 5y agoThis one is even better, since it shows how much energy is imported/exported to various countries: https://app.electricitymap.org/map https://app.electricitymap.org/map
- kortex 5y agoWow, that really makes the France/Germany/Poland disparity stark.
- daenz 5y agoI have skimmed these kinds of articles, and maybe I am missing another important reason for this happening, but I am not seeing it. Is it essentially: people are scared of nuclear?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cjpearson 5y agoNuclear is pretty unpopular in Germany, especially since Fukushima. In 2012 73% of Germans were in favor of the phase-out compared to 16% opposed. I don't think it's fair to characterize that as people being scared though. Some certainly may be, but others have different reasons. I think it's unfortunate given the climate, energy and geopolitical situation, but the Government is doing what the people clearly want it to do.
- daenz 5y agoAre the other reasons that you are referring to likely related to nuclear not being "green" enough?
- Yoofie 5y agoUnfortunately fear is often the primary motivator for alot of irrational decisions & behaviour.
- RivieraKid 5y agoI'm sad that the UK has left the EU. Out of Germany, France and the UK, they always seemed like the voice of reason and the least bureaucratic. I can't exactly pinpoint why I think that but here are some examples - (1) they don't make ridiculous policy decisions such as shutting down nuclear power plants (ok, leaving the EU is an exception to this) (2) best at e-government (3) seems like a good environment for startups, for example almost all European fusion startups are from the UK (4) their politicians don't end up working for Russian energy companies.
- rmbyrro 5y agoMaybe Brittons got tired of so many ridiculous policies from the EU shoving down their throats?... Not saying I'm pro or against Brexit, just that your point seems to corroborate their decision to leave.
- systemvoltage 5y agoI initially opposed the move but now it sort of makes sense. Previously I was influencing my own thoughts from the liberal media sphere but the more you dig into the reasons why UK left the EU, the more convinced I am. Just look at the vaccine fuck ups by the EU. UK has one of the best vaccination strategies in the world barring smaller nations like Israel, UAE and Qatar. And of course, China.
- rmbyrro 5y agoYes, it's sad to admit but, from many angles, leaving do seem to be a relatively better choice.
- dane-pgp 5y ago> UK has one of the best vaccination strategies in the world Yet one of the worst outcomes fighting the virus. "UK had one of Europe’s highest excess death rates in under 65s" in 2020.[a] In practice, what did the EU really get wrong with the vaccines, other than generating some unjustifiably smug headlines from the UK right-wing press? The UK can't even say it got a good deal on the vaccines, having paid 50% more per dose than than EU.[b] [a] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n799 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n799 [b] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n281 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n281
- epivosism 5y agoDespite a lot of investigation it looks like Fukushima did not cause an increase in cancer deaths (and there were no direct deaths from it either). It's sad and strange that we treat it as if it had caused hundreds or thousands of deaths, and our response to it is to increase fossil fuel use, which definitely will lead to more death and pollution. Read for yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster
- Ekaros 5y agoMaybe saddest part of the whole Fukushima was that it was entirely avoidable. If proper planning and implementation was actually done. I expect Germany and European nations being culturally better to get things fixed. My understanding was that root-cause was old design and not sufficiently secure back-up power and failure to get such on site. Which could have been done, but was not.
- swampthing 5y agoThe Japanese aren’t exactly known for being sloppy or cutting corners. What is the cultural difference you’re referring to?
- Zigurd 5y agoThere have been accidents and scandals with fuel reprocessing in Japan that do not conform with Japan's image of competent management.
- deeviant 5y agoThat fact that people look at Fukushima and say, "see this is why nuclear power is safe!" absolutely blows my mind. The outcome we had for Fukushima was not the only one possible. It could have been better, much better, and it could have been worse, much worse. That fact that one of the most advanced and earthquake prepared nations in the world even got close to having a Fukushima event, let alone actually had one, should paint a clear picture of pitfalls of nuclear power. We need power the scales for the world. The most urgent need for clean power is in developing countries, which are actually not the countries who would have the best chance to run a safe nuclear power plant. Solar is already scaling, it's already safe, it's already cost effective. Utility-scale storage is already more than on the way and is dropping in price quickly, and it's not even a problem with solar until solar penetrates a larger percentage of the grid anyways. Do I think that nuclear plants in modern countries should be shutting down: No. But the real justification to supporting nuclear over solar for the future of our power grid is to be a contrarian or because you think nuclear power is cool.
- hasmanean 5y agoAh well. I guess we must buy solar and wind now.
- afterburner 5y agoI mean they're cheaper anyways. They win.
- _dain_ 5y agountil it's night and the wind isn't blowing.
- Ekaros 5y agoFreezing to death is free... And great for climate. Intercontinental connections are possible, but what options we have Africa, Russia and Middle-East? Not exactly stable options. So local production is only real solution and nuclear is very reasonable option from carbon standpoint.
- hasmanean 5y agoI was being sarcastic. They may be cheaper but nothing is cheaper than a plant that does not need to be built. Getting rid of nuclear to reduce electricity supply and then supplanting that with wind/solar is borderline evil.
- 0x_rs 5y agoThis seems shortsighted at first look, but there's got to be more to it. During an undeniable, ongoing energy crisis every power source, a continuous one at that, should be treasured. While the phase out has been ongoing for more than a decade, could this not have been put into hold temporarily? Any expiring certifications? In any case I find it laughable that Greens themselves have contributed to the decommissioning of NPPs and are supporting of this move. So much for one the actual cleanest and certainly the one safest energy source.
- S3raph 5y agothis is the the result of a nonexistent European energy policy, let's switch of coal and nuclear and not work on accelerating the approving process of renewable power plants what should go wrong right? the entire EU is completely dependent on gas which we import from countries like Russia, Algeria. Currently due to the skyrocketing gas prices, production from coal is at a all time high, but hey the green transition is working right??! companies are closing because they can't handle the energy costs, but Germany says everything is fine...
- bluecalm 5y agoDon't forget successful more then two decades long effort to torpedo the pipeline from Norway to Poland while forcing through Nordstream that goes around. The EU have a consistent policy of leaving Putin an option to put pressure or just straight up capture some land to the East of German border by making sure the gas won't stop flowing in case that happens.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cryptodan 5y agoNuclear Power is the only feasible renewable energy that keeps energy flowing. I'd rather deal with the waste then be mining forever or burning oil.
- Nbox9 5y ago> I'd rather deal with the waste then be mining forever or burning oil. How does Nuclear Power stop mining? I see how it would reduce the need for coal, but it won’t change our appetite for metals, rocks, or gemstones.
- kortex 5y agoIt has 1000000x the energy density. Even when accounting for refining losses, it's still way less mining than coal. And then there is thorium.
- mirekrusin 5y agoIt's overall sad, Germany is at the top of the list of competent countries to run nuclear plants. Better news would be if they double on it and sell surplus to the rest of Europe.
- grouchysmurf 5y agoThe main reason behind this is to enforce decision of letting Russian gas in i.e. to have NS2 officially opened. With power shortages -- in the whole Europe -- that this shutdown will only make worse, blocking NS2 will no longer look as a viable option. Tough times are coming.
- dsq 5y agoThere may be an additional, geopolitical element to Germany buying France's nuclear energy. This is an implicit subsidy of the EU's only nuclear weapons state, post Brexit. To make sure the EU (not the same as NATO) continues to have a nuclear deterrent of its own, France must be recompensed.