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I 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 en
by SimonSword91 5y ago
I 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.
- belorn 5y agoThe overall radioactive waste in the environment will go down if coal plants in EU get replaced with nuclear plants in France, even if there would be future accidents at a similar rate per TW/h produced. Even more so if the coal mines get closed down, as those mines also tend to release a lot of radioactive waste into the environment. Nuclear plants can in some way be seen as fossil fuel plants that store all the waste produced and only release anything if there is an accident. The fossil fueled plants do the opposite, constantly releasing a steady stream into the surrounding area with no risk of an single accident that release a large stored amount in a single instant.
- trhway 5y agoIn 20 years they will be pressured by their green neighbors to shut down and will be stuck with a pile of hard to get rid of nuclear junk.
- praptak 5y agoShutting down nuclear to buy coal sounds pretty countereffective. What was the justification for this decision?
- kingkawn 5y agoFukushima.
- rmbyrro 5y agoNo one decided to do this, it's just OP's predictions. OP might turn out to be wrong. Or right...
- Ekaros 5y agoNuclear is "bad" and scary... Plus you know nuclear weapons. And solar and wind produce plenty... Apart form times when they do not, like many times during winter.
- jacquesm 5y agoContinent sized landmasses can survive on wind and solar assuming HVDC interconnects. Some storage would be nice to have, preferably more than a weeks' worth.
- dijit 5y agoThis is an extremely naive assumption. Do you have any citations for such a theory? Everything I’ve read on the subject (admittedly not much) tells me that wind power is not only a disaster ecologically (kills too many birds, though not as many as domestic cats) but also unable to produce enough power to govern everything even with interconnects. Distribution of power is also difficult, but there was notably a “still” winter in Sweden which is driving up prices significantly due to hydro not being enough. (I live here, that’s how I know)
- jacquesm 5y agoI don't really understand the strong position you take while at the same time admitting to not having read much on the subject, and then to regurgitate a bunch of debunked nonsense. This is not a good basis for a discussion.
- csunbird 5y agoYup, and we will end up paying 50% more for our energy usage, just because of political swings.
- dv_dt 5y agoAvoiding nuclear will save you money in the long run though
- wildmanxx 5y agoSad that this is downvoted. The hidden cost of nuclear is one of the biggest issue the tech-affine crowds tend to ignore and not want to hear about. You may not pay it on your utility bill, but society and later generations will pay it.
- Tenoke 5y agoExcept Germany has largely been replacing it with coal (and gas) which has costs paid in lives today rather than in unlikely future hypotheticals.
- Zigurd 5y agoAlmost every nation with nuclear power has underestimated decommissioning costs. Those costs will go on long after the lifespan of the power plant.
- euler2100 5y agoCare to explain how exactly? I'm genuinely curious.
- luckylion 5y agoAs a leading politician of the German social democratic party famously said: a kwh you don't use is least expensive. I guess they'll save plenty of money when there's power rationing.
- belorn 5y agoEnergy subsidies in the EU says the opposit: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/default/files/annex_to_the_state_of_the_energy_union_report_on_energy_subsidies_in_the_eu.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/default/files/annex_to_the... Countries that need a lot of reserve energy is paying a lot of subsidies to fossil fuels. Year in, year out. First you need to pay them in order to keep the plants on standby when renewables are plenty, and then you need to pay them again when demand exceeds the productions of renewables. The outcome is very large and steady stream of money going into the pockets of those who invest into fossil fuel. Nuclear would need a lot in order to catch up to the same level of subsidies.
- hogFeast 5y ago
- mnglkhn2 5y ago
- jacquesm 5y agoIt frees up a lot of budget for solar and wind construction, you can expect to see quite a jump in that over the next couple of years.
- bufferoverflow 5y agoGermany's primary energy source is now coal, now way they can shut it down. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-electricity-source/a-59168105 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec... This is so stupid, what are they thinking?
- PartiallyTyped 5y agoLooks like pandering to Greens/anti-nuclear people, but honestly, I don't know. To me, it appears borderline insane, but there's probably something that I am missing.
- folkrav 5y agoNon German here, but pandering to greens by switching to coal sounds like pure insanity. Not that I'm surprised by much these days...
- Ekaros 5y agoHow to win votes? In the end it's all politics, where feelings are more important than true solutions.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y agoCoal was the primary source for energy in Germany since the beginning of the industrial age. In the last decade we had some years were alternatives took over but since the emergence of nuclear power it was never the primary source for energy.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoBy "primary" you mean they used 27% over a 6 month period, compared with 21% the 6 months a year earlier. Switching back into first after a good spell for wind had it briefly in the lead. Why does that mean they can't switch it off? The UK had 30% Coal in 2014 when they announced they would phase it out and did so slightly ahead of schedule.
- 5y ago
- jwr 5y agoI think a big part of the problem is that Germany has strong business ties with Russia (if you think I'm exaggerating, you might not realize that former chancellor Gerhard Schröder became the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft right after being chancellor — ties do not get any stronger than that). It is in Russia's best interest to have EU countries dependent on their fossil fuels (natural gas and coal). This goal is being achieved admirably, with Poland burning coal like crazy (buying lots of Russian coal) and Germany burning Russian gas like crazy (through Nord Stream pipelines). Shutting down the nuclear plants plays straight into that strategy.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y agoEveryone is talking about not doing enough. Everyday, even here. There is this strange fascination like in the 70s with fossil fuels that we can just worry later about it. It's the same with nuclear energy now, maybe even worse. Using one finite polluting resource is not gonna be the answer as much as everyone on hackernews wants it to be. Sometimes when you want progress you have to burn the boats. This is Germany burning the boats so they have to force alternatives and progress.
- BenoitP 5y ago> accelerate the construction of renewable energy Accelerate what? Wind and solar are at capacity, and storage solutions do not exist at that scale.
- tjansen 5y agoThe plan is to replace them with natural gas (https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/wirtschaft-155.html https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/wirtschaft-155.html). At least until 2040, when they want to stop using natural gas (https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/regierungsbildung-koalition-will-ausstieg-aus-dem-gas-ab-2040/27817086.html https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/regierungsbildung-ko...). After 2040, all fossil fuels and nuclear power are supposed to replaced by renewables. But no one knows how to do this yet, without any way to store significant amounts of energy.