5 ms·

Or even better: nuclear. You need a reliable source of energy, otherwise you have to combine solar and wind with gas anyway.

insickness 5y ago
"Back in the 1970s, when France decided to switch from fossil fuels to nuclear energy, the climate problem was not even on the agenda. And yet, within about 15 years France had almost fully decarbonized its electricity sector and had electrified a lot of other stuff (such as electrical heating and high-speed trains). Countries like France and Sweden have demonstrated in real life that it is possible to eliminate fossil fuels without sacrificing economic growth and prosperity. The reason why the carbon intensity of German electricity, even after two full decades of Energiewende, is still more than five times higher than that of nuclear France is [...] because anti-nuclear environmentalists [...] have more political clout in Germany than in France and have convinced their political leaders that it’s an excellent “climate policy” to abandon atomic energy and close down all of their remaining reactors. https://quillette.com/2022/01/27/why-environmentalists-pose-a-bigger-obstacle-to-effective-climate-policy-than-denialists/ https://quillette.com/2022/01/27/why-environmentalists-pose-...
- orbifold 5y ago
  Good chance that Green Party received significant support from outside forces to derail a sensible energy policy. Relying on fossil fuels / gas makes Germany way more dependent on the US and Russia, then otherwise.
  - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
    the green party wasn't part of government in the last 16 years and had little to no say in energy policy
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  The largest, and essentially only, anti-nuclear movement that exists is it's own economics. Blaming "environmentalists" is a cop-out instead of facing the reality: If it was profitable private capital would build it, if not in Germany then in other countries, further reducing cost. As have been seen since the 1950s that is not the case, nuclear has never been economical to build. Nuclear has a place to do what the French did, massive subsidies to achieve a national security motivated energy independence. With renewables at the fore front that argument does not exist anymore. Now nuclear only exists to share an industry base with naval reactors in submarines.
  - nickpp 5y ago
    Nuclear is expensive due to red tape and onerous regulations. Those exist in such exaggerated amounts because of green's antinuclear lobby. Turns out environmentalists of the 20th century are directly responsible for global warming.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      Given that we seem to have a nuclear accident every 10 years, which was always supposedly impossible to happen, it seems like we still haven't figured out all the edge cases. Combine that with that currently only ~500 reactors exist world wide, it paints a pretty bleak image.
      - nickpp 5y ago
        We could have a nuclear accident every year and it still wouldn't equal the damage we are doing burning fossil fuels. But as airplane crashes became rarer the more we flew, so will nuclear accidents the more we build and use nuclear power plants. The ones we have are a very old and early technologuy.
        Gwypaas 5y ago
        Why set the baseline at an accident a year when we have renewables? The French famously had some negative learning by doing in their nuclear build out. > The French nuclear case illustrates the perils of the assumption of robust learning effects resulting in lowered costs over time in the scale-up of large-scale, complex new energy supply technologies. The uncertainties in anticipated learning effects of new technologies might be much larger that often assumed, including also cases of “negative learning” in which specific costs increase rather than decrease with accumulated experience. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
  - jimmydorry 5y ago
    It is a highly political sector as well as a capital intensive one. You can sink as much money into your prep-work as you want, but if you don't end up getting the permits and regulatory approval, it is all for naught. Contrast that to any other kind of power generation, and the regulatory uncertainty alone is enough to sink any interest in spending a large amount of money up-front on something so uncertain.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Nuclear also needs to be paired with gas to meet demand shifts. I'm not sure why nuclear supporters are so oblivous to this fact, they constantly mention 'baseload' but it seems like they may have only a vague understanding of what that actually means. The non-baseload also needs to be generated somehow when people are awake and doing stuff. So how do we reduce gas use the most, building $X Billion nuclear or $X Billion solar, wind and batteries? The expert consensus is the latter.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  > So how do we reduce gas use the most, building $X Billion nuclear or $X Billion solar, wind and batteries? The expert consensus is the latter. Where can this expert consensus be found? I don't think this is accurate
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    You could look at your own country's plans to reach net zero for example. A readable summary of the latest info is "Electrify": https://www.rewiringamerica.org/electrify-the-book https://www.rewiringamerica.org/electrify-the-book
    - _Tev 5y ago
      Random paywalled book does not qualify as a basis for "expert consensus".
AnonymousPlanet 5y ago
Can Germany put its nuclear waste in your backyard? No? Where else?

insickness 5y ago

"Back in the 1970s, when France decided to switch from fossil fuels to nuclear energy, the climate problem was not even on the agenda. And yet, within about 15 years France had almost fully decarbonized its electricity sector and had electrified a lot of other stuff (such as electrical heating and high-speed trains). Countries like France and Sweden have demonstrated in real life that it is possible to eliminate fossil fuels without sacrificing economic growth and prosperity. The reason why the carbon intensity of German electricity, even after two full decades of Energiewende, is still more than five times higher than that of nuclear France is [...] because anti-nuclear environmentalists [...] have more political clout in Germany than in France and have convinced their political leaders that it’s an excellent “climate policy” to abandon atomic energy and close down all of their remaining reactors. https://quillette.com/2022/01/27/why-environmentalists-pose-a-bigger-obstacle-to-effective-climate-policy-than-denialists/ https://quillette.com/2022/01/27/why-environmentalists-pose-...

orbifold 5y ago
Good chance that Green Party received significant support from outside forces to derail a sensible energy policy. Relying on fossil fuels / gas makes Germany way more dependent on the US and Russia, then otherwise.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  the green party wasn't part of government in the last 16 years and had little to no say in energy policy
Gwypaas 5y ago
The largest, and essentially only, anti-nuclear movement that exists is it's own economics. Blaming "environmentalists" is a cop-out instead of facing the reality: If it was profitable private capital would build it, if not in Germany then in other countries, further reducing cost. As have been seen since the 1950s that is not the case, nuclear has never been economical to build. Nuclear has a place to do what the French did, massive subsidies to achieve a national security motivated energy independence. With renewables at the fore front that argument does not exist anymore. Now nuclear only exists to share an industry base with naval reactors in submarines.
- nickpp 5y ago
  Nuclear is expensive due to red tape and onerous regulations. Those exist in such exaggerated amounts because of green's antinuclear lobby. Turns out environmentalists of the 20th century are directly responsible for global warming.
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    Given that we seem to have a nuclear accident every 10 years, which was always supposedly impossible to happen, it seems like we still haven't figured out all the edge cases. Combine that with that currently only ~500 reactors exist world wide, it paints a pretty bleak image.
    - nickpp 5y ago
      We could have a nuclear accident every year and it still wouldn't equal the damage we are doing burning fossil fuels. But as airplane crashes became rarer the more we flew, so will nuclear accidents the more we build and use nuclear power plants. The ones we have are a very old and early technologuy.
      - Gwypaas 5y ago
        Why set the baseline at an accident a year when we have renewables? The French famously had some negative learning by doing in their nuclear build out. > The French nuclear case illustrates the perils of the assumption of robust learning effects resulting in lowered costs over time in the scale-up of large-scale, complex new energy supply technologies. The uncertainties in anticipated learning effects of new technologies might be much larger that often assumed, including also cases of “negative learning” in which specific costs increase rather than decrease with accumulated experience. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  It is a highly political sector as well as a capital intensive one. You can sink as much money into your prep-work as you want, but if you don't end up getting the permits and regulatory approval, it is all for naught. Contrast that to any other kind of power generation, and the regulatory uncertainty alone is enough to sink any interest in spending a large amount of money up-front on something so uncertain.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Nuclear also needs to be paired with gas to meet demand shifts. I'm not sure why nuclear supporters are so oblivous to this fact, they constantly mention 'baseload' but it seems like they may have only a vague understanding of what that actually means. The non-baseload also needs to be generated somehow when people are awake and doing stuff. So how do we reduce gas use the most, building $X Billion nuclear or $X Billion solar, wind and batteries? The expert consensus is the latter.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> So how do we reduce gas use the most, building $X Billion nuclear or $X Billion solar, wind and batteries? The expert consensus is the latter. Where can this expert consensus be found? I don't think this is accurate
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  You could look at your own country's plans to reach net zero for example. A readable summary of the latest info is "Electrify": https://www.rewiringamerica.org/electrify-the-book https://www.rewiringamerica.org/electrify-the-book
  - _Tev 5y ago
    Random paywalled book does not qualify as a basis for "expert consensus".

AnonymousPlanet 5y ago

Can Germany put its nuclear waste in your backyard? No? Where else?