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Nuclear is clearly green. Gas is more interesting. At 500g/kwh it's on higher side normally. So there must be more to this.

black3r 5y ago
The article states that a Gas power plant would only be labeled green if it emits less than 270g/kWh, replaces a previous fossil fuel plant, construction starts before 2030 AND plant plans to switch to low carbon gases (biogas?) by the end of 2035. I guess the goal is to phase out coal in Germany and Poland by any means necessary..
- kergonath 5y ago
  > plant plans to switch to low carbon gases (biogas?) by the end of 2035. Which will of course not be enforced, besides the fact that biogas as a “green energy” has huge caveats.
- clusterfish 5y ago
  You can get great g/kwh for gas plants if you don't account for all of its stray methane emissions, and the accounting for that is rather pitiful nowadays. The 2035 "low carbon gases" thing is just ridiculously unworkable and will be repealed later as unrealistic. So at best, they'll just trading ~10 years of coal power for ~5 years of coal power followed by 40+ years of fossil methane power. That's a terrible trade.
drran 5y ago
> Nuclear is clearly green. We should repaint radiation warnings in green, to indicate that. > Gas is more interesting. At 500g/kwh it's on higher side normally. So there must be more to this. Nord Stream 2.
- jevoten 5y ago
  How about instead of "radiation bad", we look at more objective metrics, like deaths/CO2 per kWh: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy And instead of comparing nuclear to a magical zero-pollution/emission, flawlessly safe, always-available power source, we should compare it to what it actually gets replaced with.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    Or read the article and see that most gas plants will not be labeled as green. Still a bad choice.
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    Renewables are what you should compare nuclear with. And by your own stats they win even there. Framing it as a contest versus fossil fuels is building a strawman nowadays.
    - kergonath 5y ago
      Go on, then, compare away. Both in terms of deaths/kWh and CO2/kWh, nuclear is equivalent or better than most renewable you could name. There are arguments against nuclear, but these aren’t them.
      - Gwypaas 5y ago
        Yep. So close you can call it equal, unless future deaths from groundwater pollution where to happen from leakage. So lets discount that and focus on the side which allocates capital and brings projects to completion. The cheapest renewables are currently a magnitude cheaper per KWH.
        kergonath 5y ago
        > unless future deaths from groundwater pollution where to happen Surely you have a risk assessment for this, or can point to holes in the existing ones? No industry is clean by definition and at the moment both wind turbines and solar panels depend on local industry in China, which is quite bad even by European standards and also runs on coal. And then there is the insanity of cutting down forests to put solar panels. > The cheapest renewables are currently a magnitude cheaper per KWH. They are only if you include subsidies and neglect to account for storage. But that’s not really relevant as I am not arguing against renewables. Both renewables and nuclear have different profiles, different advantages, and different use cases. And a combination is much cheaper than using only either. The thing is, though, that by saying that nuclear is as bad as fossil fuels, we contribute to expanding our use of fossil fuels in the future, which is orders of magnitude worse than all the nuclear accidents that ever happened or are likely to happen. There is no way of framing Germany’s decision to close early perfectly functioning nuclear reactors only to build gas-fired power plants as a win for either the climate or humanity.
tcfhgj 5y ago
how green is it creating a unsolved waste problem costing the future tons of money? Yes, it's better than coal and perhaps even gas, but....
- zarzavat 5y ago
  Do you think that future generations will be more concerned about some nuclear waste buried deep underground, or extreme weather conditions?
- twblalock 5y ago
  > Yes, it's better than coal and perhaps even gas, but.... There aren't greener alternatives that will produce all the power we need -- yes we can invest in wind power etc., but that won't produce enough power for a modern society. Nuclear is the greenest realistic option.

black3r 5y ago

The article states that a Gas power plant would only be labeled green if it emits less than 270g/kWh, replaces a previous fossil fuel plant, construction starts before 2030 AND plant plans to switch to low carbon gases (biogas?) by the end of 2035. I guess the goal is to phase out coal in Germany and Poland by any means necessary..

kergonath 5y ago
> plant plans to switch to low carbon gases (biogas?) by the end of 2035. Which will of course not be enforced, besides the fact that biogas as a “green energy” has huge caveats.
clusterfish 5y ago
You can get great g/kwh for gas plants if you don't account for all of its stray methane emissions, and the accounting for that is rather pitiful nowadays. The 2035 "low carbon gases" thing is just ridiculously unworkable and will be repealed later as unrealistic. So at best, they'll just trading ~10 years of coal power for ~5 years of coal power followed by 40+ years of fossil methane power. That's a terrible trade.

drran 5y ago

> Nuclear is clearly green. We should repaint radiation warnings in green, to indicate that. > Gas is more interesting. At 500g/kwh it's on higher side normally. So there must be more to this. Nord Stream 2.

jevoten 5y ago
How about instead of "radiation bad", we look at more objective metrics, like deaths/CO2 per kWh: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy And instead of comparing nuclear to a magical zero-pollution/emission, flawlessly safe, always-available power source, we should compare it to what it actually gets replaced with.
- dathinab 5y ago
  Or read the article and see that most gas plants will not be labeled as green. Still a bad choice.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  Renewables are what you should compare nuclear with. And by your own stats they win even there. Framing it as a contest versus fossil fuels is building a strawman nowadays.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    Go on, then, compare away. Both in terms of deaths/kWh and CO2/kWh, nuclear is equivalent or better than most renewable you could name. There are arguments against nuclear, but these aren’t them.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      Yep. So close you can call it equal, unless future deaths from groundwater pollution where to happen from leakage. So lets discount that and focus on the side which allocates capital and brings projects to completion. The cheapest renewables are currently a magnitude cheaper per KWH.
      - kergonath 5y ago
        > unless future deaths from groundwater pollution where to happen Surely you have a risk assessment for this, or can point to holes in the existing ones? No industry is clean by definition and at the moment both wind turbines and solar panels depend on local industry in China, which is quite bad even by European standards and also runs on coal. And then there is the insanity of cutting down forests to put solar panels. > The cheapest renewables are currently a magnitude cheaper per KWH. They are only if you include subsidies and neglect to account for storage. But that’s not really relevant as I am not arguing against renewables. Both renewables and nuclear have different profiles, different advantages, and different use cases. And a combination is much cheaper than using only either. The thing is, though, that by saying that nuclear is as bad as fossil fuels, we contribute to expanding our use of fossil fuels in the future, which is orders of magnitude worse than all the nuclear accidents that ever happened or are likely to happen. There is no way of framing Germany’s decision to close early perfectly functioning nuclear reactors only to build gas-fired power plants as a win for either the climate or humanity.

tcfhgj 5y ago

how green is it creating a unsolved waste problem costing the future tons of money? Yes, it's better than coal and perhaps even gas, but....

zarzavat 5y ago
Do you think that future generations will be more concerned about some nuclear waste buried deep underground, or extreme weather conditions?
twblalock 5y ago
> Yes, it's better than coal and perhaps even gas, but.... There aren't greener alternatives that will produce all the power we need -- yes we can invest in wind power etc., but that won't produce enough power for a modern society. Nuclear is the greenest realistic option.