8 ms·
> Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signal
by hutrdvnj 5y ago
> Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.
I think it is unserious to call every other solution other than nuclear energy unserious in a climate discussion. Germany, for instance, has very serious discussions on climate neutrality without nuclear energy.
- shawabawa3 5y agoGermany has been burning more and more coal since shutting down their nuclear plants in favour of renewables What a great green strategy that was
- phicoh 5y agoThat's wrong. Germany was significantly reduced the amount of electricity from coal over the last decades. Renewables have picked up both the reduction in coal and the reduction in nuclear power.
- shawabawa3 5y agoSorry I misremembered the statistic. They've been reducing coal usage slightly over the last 20 years, but burn 50% more natural gas. overall energy generation from fossil fuels is up over the last 20 years (since their first nuclear plant was shut down)
- phicoh 5y agoAccording to https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&stacking=stacked_absolute&interval=year&legendItems=0011111111011110 https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE... total amount of fossil fuel use for electricity went down.
- shawabawa3 5y agoI was looking at capacity not generation So capacity of fossil fuels went up, but I suppose natural gas shuts down while renewable generation is high so it doesn't use its capacity all the time - my bad
- phicoh 5y agoYes, the easiest way to get a stable grid with wind and solar is to have natural gas capacity equal to what you need from wind and solar. Gas is not used when there is wind or solar, and is very easy and quick to turn on when needed. In the future when more green gasses become available, bio methane, hydrogen or syn methane, those gas plants can be filled with those as well.
- Archelaos 5y agoThis is not true. The agreement between the federal government and the energy supply companies to phase out nuclear energy dates back to 14 June 2000. The first nuclear power plant was shut down permanently in Nov. 2003. At this time the power generation from coal (both hard coal and lignite) was around 300 TWh/year. It almost halfed to 162.6 TWh in 2021. The all time low was in 2020, though, due to the pandemic. For details of Germany's energy production and consumption since 1990 see: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
- yreg 5y agoYou are right to correct the GP. Imagine the lives that could be saved if they replaced the coal with renewables first and phased out nuclear second.
- shawabawa3 5y agosorry you're correct i was inaccurate. Coal has only increased in 2021, but fossil fuels have increased since 2002 (from 69.9GW to 78.9GW), i misremembered that statistic as coal instead of fossil fuels
- Archelaos 5y agoThe consumption of natural gas itself has indeed increased. But the sum of natural gas + coal has still decreased a lot. From aprox. 350 TWh per year in the early 2000s to 251,6 TWh in 2021. The partial replacement of coal by natural gas is at least in part caused by the transition to renewable energies. Until the transition is complete, natural gas is the best fossil fuel option to even out fluctuations in the production of renewable energy, because gas power plants can be switched on and off very quickly at peak times (in strong contrast btw to nuclear power plants) and they can be built relatively decentralized, each with a small volume. Therefore it is not likely that we will see a major drop in natural gas consumption in Germany in the next two decades.
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
- vaughan 5y agoDiscussions…Germany is 10x worse CO2g/kWh than France.
- Archelaos 5y agoThe factor for CO2g/kWh in 2017 is lower: between 6.0 and 7.3, depending on what exactly is measured.[1] However, the absolute numbers for Germany are declining fast as renewable energies are taking hold:[2] 2017: 485 2018: 471 2019: 408 (preliminary) 2020: 366 (estimated) (In a hurry, could not find newer numbers for France.) If one looks at the CO2 emissions per capita the gap is not so large. I could not find any new numbers for this either, but in 2018 the values of CO2 emissions in metric tons per capita were as follows:[3] France 5.0 Germany 9.1 For comparison: United States 16.1 If one looks at the timelines, the gap between France in Germany seems to close more or less fast/slowly everywhere. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920916307933 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192091... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/372/bilder/strommix-2020.png https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/37... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- yreg 5y agoGermany is serious at talking about climate but what Germany says (and does) makes little sense unfortunately.
- malka 5y agoyes thanks you so much germany for your wonderful "green" gas plant.