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This has come up many times by now. But the supposed transition to renewable energy in Germany was merely a substitution of natural gas for nuclear power. What

This has come up many times by now. But the supposed transition to renewable energy in Germany was merely a substitution of natural gas for nuclear power. What bothers me greatly is that Germany still has not come to turns with the fact that they need nuclear power. That is a long and costly investment to make and you need to start right away. LNG can only get you so far and renewable sources just can't provide the energy needed, as should be clear by now (although it was widely understood for the past 30 years at least).

Archelaos 5y ago
Germany does not need nuclear power. This is far too expensive and dangerous. The future is renewable.
- yucky 5y ago
  >The future is renewable. So what should they do in the present?
- ghusto 5y ago
  They shut down two reactors, and are currently reliant on other countries nuclear generated power. As long as they get to say _they're_ not the ones producing it, it's okay? I'm all for renewable energy, but this is hypocritic nonsense fuelled by emotional decision making, and not helpful towards that goal.
  - Archelaos 5y ago
    > hypocritic nonsense Please, stay calm. Germany is in a transition process. Nuclear is phasing out, renewable is coming. In the EU Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Norway, and Portugal have no nuclear power plants (Estonia has none, but is planning one; Croatia has none, but operates one together with Slovenia; Poland is planning one for 2040). Germany is just joining this club of "hypocrites" this year. In the next years, Germany is going to export more electric energy than importing. Yes, there are days when Germany needs to import electricity, but that this includes electricity produced by nuclear power is only due to the fact that other countries are slower in their transition process or have decided against it. You should not blame Germany for being fast, when others are just slow.
    - nickpp 5y ago
      > Nuclear is phasing out, renewable is coming. Shouldn’t one have the replacement first and only then close the existing producers?!
      - smsm42 5y ago
        Why, if you can score a quick political win by just buying gas from Russia? Nothing bad can come from sending billions of euros to a maniacal dictator threatening to nuke the West, and energy dependence on the said dictator would never create any problems, right?
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      Belgium was also stupid enough to try and shut down all of its nuclear plants. So now they had to open gas powerplants which are way more polluting. Now they had to roll back their decision because it's totally bonkers, and open back some less polluting nuclear plants. I always find it a bit funny that the green parties are so retarded that they take decisions that cause more pollution. They really live in this idealistic world that is completely separate from the real one. Hippies...
      - nopcode 5y ago
        All of which you stated are just Belgian *plans* which have changed. The new gas power plants weren't build and the nuclear reactors weren't shut down.
    - ghusto 5y ago
      Alright maybe I'm the one being a little emotional, but hypocrisy makes my blood boil. https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-and-deadly-emissions-spiked/ https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-a... > Following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant meltdown, Germany’s antinuclear lobby kicked into high gear, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protest. The German government quickly passed legislation to decommission all of the country’s nuclear reactors > ... > found that nuclear power was mostly replaced with power from coal plants, which led to the release of an additional 36 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or about a 5 percent increase in emissions So yes, they're fast. So much so that they've outpaced any plans that should have existed to go alongside phasing out nuclear power. I hope you're right and they're at least going to be in good shape in a few years, but I both doubt that, and it doesn't change the damage they're doing right now.
- tarsinge 5y ago
  The rational short term future is renewable+nuclear. 100% renewable with intermittent sources with current tech is nearly impossible, and we need to act now. But don't take my word for it, that's what the IPCC says too. We need a low carbon non intermittent on demand energy. France proves everyday that works, now. Don't fall for emotional reasonings, lobby or geopolitical narratives relayed by useful idiots NGO[0][1], in the coming years it is not renewables vs nuclear, it is renewables with nuclear, both against carbon emitting energies. [0]https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-environmental-groups https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-envi... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy#Fossil_gas_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy#Fossil_gas...
jka 5y ago
Here are some statistics on the utilization and installed capacity of energy production in Germany today: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE And here are some estimated Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) figures by energy technology as of 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf#page=8 https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
Well, fossil fuels are renewable on long enough timescales. Germans are just betting on the long game ;)
- pchangr 5y ago
  IMHO, Germans are betting on not getting bashed by the workers unions only. When the whole anti-nuclear frenzy from the 90s came in.. coal workers seized the opportunity.. and they couldn’t get rid of them until the EU pressure was too much .. so they turned to the next cheapest option.. which at the time was gas… and until the EU realizes gas is also not green.. gas is the new coal.
- sidibe 5y ago
  Biofuels maybe. I don't know a thing but I remember learning most fossil fuels wouldn't happen today because organisms have become more efficient at consuming all parts of plants and fossil fuels are from parts of the plant that couldn't be broken down at the time
kitkat_new 5y ago
> and renewable sources just can't provide the energy needed, as should be clear by now (although it was widely understood for the past 30 years at least). Renewable energy cost has fallen _a lot_, and Germany doesn't need nuclear power, IF it worked towards this goal: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Fraunhofer-ISE-Studie-Wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-Energiesystem.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...
- jaredklewis 5y ago
  The cost of renewables has fallen, but the cost of grid scale energy storage is still quite high. When the cost of the entire energy grid is viewed holistically (including required storage if using renewables) the cost of nuclear is competitive with renewables. Unless people are suddenly ok with blackouts, energy grid have to be robust. For renewables, that means having enough stores energy for times of decreased production.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    I have long considered that those buying their power from wind or solar should have remote relay switches in place that simply cut power when there is no solar or wind produced. Seems exactly what they are buying.
    - fenrissan 5y ago
      hydroelectric is also renewable
      - mattalex 5y ago
        Barely: the majority of energy tabulated as "hydroelectric power" comes from pumped hydroelectric storage. However, computing this as hydroelectric power is very naive: Option a) the power to pump was generated using fossile fuels. In this case pumped storage is just "greenwashing" energy and doesn't actually produce any. Option b) the power was generated using renewables. In this case the pumped storage just counts the renewables twice. This "pumparound" is what makes up the gains in hydroelectric power, not only in Germany, but in most countries: There simply isn't infinite amounts of useable space for hydroelectric power. If you look at the generated energy, though you will see a constant increase in generated power: 2016: 11,258 MW hydroelectric power, of which 6,806 MW (more than half) are pumped. Generation: 21.5 TWh 2019: 11,022 MW hydroelectric power, of which 6,364 MW (still more than half) are pumped. Generation: 27.88 TWh A major component of the rise in generation is that pump-around. From an energy storage PoV they aren't even that effective: Let's say you wanted to supply Munich and surroundings with power for 3 days (~2Mio people). Let's also assume that there are only people living there, so no industry or infrastructure. Let's also assume we have 100% efficiency in our pumped storage system. Let's also assume that everybody lives in two-person housholds (to make the math eaiser). According to destatis, a two person houshold consumed 3221kWh in 2018 (without industry and infrastructure). Dividing by 356 gives us the daily consumption. In Joules, this amounts to 3.25710^13 joules. Dividing by 9.81 m/s^2 and we achieve a value of 3d3.3210^12 kgm. There are now two ways to handle this: 1. high mass 2. high distance Let's choose something flashy and pump lake constanze (bodensee), the largest freshwater lake in central europe. We would have to pump this up by almost a quarter of a meter to save this amount of energy. And this is with completely optimistic values: double this for electric cars, then add the same amount for electric heating, then again for industry, then add another at least 20% for inefficiency of the hydroelectric generation. And then you have to consider that this is one German city. Or, maybe in a different view: German renewables only need to lose 1/40 th of their efficiency for you to be in this situation (if you want to go 100% renewable). One also has to consider that, even if it were possible to add more capacity (which the German hydroelectric association doesn't believe is), one has to consider that hydroelectic is by far the most environmentally destructive of all power generation methods. Simply the flooding of a single valley is such an utter environmental disaster, that one has to be very sure that this valley absolutely _has_ to become a hydroelectric installation. Additionally one has the construction of the damn itself, as well as the enormous disturbance of every instance of wildlife both up and downstream for decades to centuries (and that ignores the both human and wildelife destruction brought on by a damn break). I would gladly take the construction of a nuclear powerplant over a hydroelectric one, considering that the biblis reactor alone has a nameplate capacity of almost half the amount of non-pumped hydroelectric power.

Archelaos 5y ago

Germany does not need nuclear power. This is far too expensive and dangerous. The future is renewable.

yucky 5y ago
>The future is renewable. So what should they do in the present?
ghusto 5y ago
They shut down two reactors, and are currently reliant on other countries nuclear generated power. As long as they get to say _they're_ not the ones producing it, it's okay? I'm all for renewable energy, but this is hypocritic nonsense fuelled by emotional decision making, and not helpful towards that goal.
- Archelaos 5y ago
  > hypocritic nonsense Please, stay calm. Germany is in a transition process. Nuclear is phasing out, renewable is coming. In the EU Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Norway, and Portugal have no nuclear power plants (Estonia has none, but is planning one; Croatia has none, but operates one together with Slovenia; Poland is planning one for 2040). Germany is just joining this club of "hypocrites" this year. In the next years, Germany is going to export more electric energy than importing. Yes, there are days when Germany needs to import electricity, but that this includes electricity produced by nuclear power is only due to the fact that other countries are slower in their transition process or have decided against it. You should not blame Germany for being fast, when others are just slow.
  - nickpp 5y ago
    > Nuclear is phasing out, renewable is coming. Shouldn’t one have the replacement first and only then close the existing producers?!
    - smsm42 5y ago
      Why, if you can score a quick political win by just buying gas from Russia? Nothing bad can come from sending billions of euros to a maniacal dictator threatening to nuke the West, and energy dependence on the said dictator would never create any problems, right?
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    Belgium was also stupid enough to try and shut down all of its nuclear plants. So now they had to open gas powerplants which are way more polluting. Now they had to roll back their decision because it's totally bonkers, and open back some less polluting nuclear plants. I always find it a bit funny that the green parties are so retarded that they take decisions that cause more pollution. They really live in this idealistic world that is completely separate from the real one. Hippies...
    - nopcode 5y ago
      All of which you stated are just Belgian *plans* which have changed. The new gas power plants weren't build and the nuclear reactors weren't shut down.
  - ghusto 5y ago
    Alright maybe I'm the one being a little emotional, but hypocrisy makes my blood boil. https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-and-deadly-emissions-spiked/ https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-a... > Following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant meltdown, Germany’s antinuclear lobby kicked into high gear, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protest. The German government quickly passed legislation to decommission all of the country’s nuclear reactors > ... > found that nuclear power was mostly replaced with power from coal plants, which led to the release of an additional 36 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or about a 5 percent increase in emissions So yes, they're fast. So much so that they've outpaced any plans that should have existed to go alongside phasing out nuclear power. I hope you're right and they're at least going to be in good shape in a few years, but I both doubt that, and it doesn't change the damage they're doing right now.
tarsinge 5y ago
The rational short term future is renewable+nuclear. 100% renewable with intermittent sources with current tech is nearly impossible, and we need to act now. But don't take my word for it, that's what the IPCC says too. We need a low carbon non intermittent on demand energy. France proves everyday that works, now. Don't fall for emotional reasonings, lobby or geopolitical narratives relayed by useful idiots NGO[0][1], in the coming years it is not renewables vs nuclear, it is renewables with nuclear, both against carbon emitting energies. [0]https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-environmental-groups https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-envi... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy#Fossil_gas_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy#Fossil_gas...

jka 5y ago

Here are some statistics on the utilization and installed capacity of energy production in Germany today: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE And here are some estimated Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) figures by energy technology as of 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf#page=8 https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

Well, fossil fuels are renewable on long enough timescales. Germans are just betting on the long game ;)

pchangr 5y ago
IMHO, Germans are betting on not getting bashed by the workers unions only. When the whole anti-nuclear frenzy from the 90s came in.. coal workers seized the opportunity.. and they couldn’t get rid of them until the EU pressure was too much .. so they turned to the next cheapest option.. which at the time was gas… and until the EU realizes gas is also not green.. gas is the new coal.
sidibe 5y ago
Biofuels maybe. I don't know a thing but I remember learning most fossil fuels wouldn't happen today because organisms have become more efficient at consuming all parts of plants and fossil fuels are from parts of the plant that couldn't be broken down at the time

kitkat_new 5y ago

> and renewable sources just can't provide the energy needed, as should be clear by now (although it was widely understood for the past 30 years at least). Renewable energy cost has fallen _a lot_, and Germany doesn't need nuclear power, IF it worked towards this goal: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/Fraunhofer-ISE-Studie-Wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-Energiesystem.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...

jaredklewis 5y ago
The cost of renewables has fallen, but the cost of grid scale energy storage is still quite high. When the cost of the entire energy grid is viewed holistically (including required storage if using renewables) the cost of nuclear is competitive with renewables. Unless people are suddenly ok with blackouts, energy grid have to be robust. For renewables, that means having enough stores energy for times of decreased production.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  I have long considered that those buying their power from wind or solar should have remote relay switches in place that simply cut power when there is no solar or wind produced. Seems exactly what they are buying.
  - fenrissan 5y ago
    hydroelectric is also renewable
    - mattalex 5y ago
      Barely: the majority of energy tabulated as "hydroelectric power" comes from pumped hydroelectric storage. However, computing this as hydroelectric power is very naive: Option a) the power to pump was generated using fossile fuels. In this case pumped storage is just "greenwashing" energy and doesn't actually produce any. Option b) the power was generated using renewables. In this case the pumped storage just counts the renewables twice. This "pumparound" is what makes up the gains in hydroelectric power, not only in Germany, but in most countries: There simply isn't infinite amounts of useable space for hydroelectric power. If you look at the generated energy, though you will see a constant increase in generated power: 2016: 11,258 MW hydroelectric power, of which 6,806 MW (more than half) are pumped. Generation: 21.5 TWh 2019: 11,022 MW hydroelectric power, of which 6,364 MW (still more than half) are pumped. Generation: 27.88 TWh A major component of the rise in generation is that pump-around. From an energy storage PoV they aren't even that effective: Let's say you wanted to supply Munich and surroundings with power for 3 days (~2Mio people). Let's also assume that there are only people living there, so no industry or infrastructure. Let's also assume we have 100% efficiency in our pumped storage system. Let's also assume that everybody lives in two-person housholds (to make the math eaiser). According to destatis, a two person houshold consumed 3221kWh in 2018 (without industry and infrastructure). Dividing by 356 gives us the daily consumption. In Joules, this amounts to 3.25710^13 joules. Dividing by 9.81 m/s^2 and we achieve a value of 3d3.3210^12 kgm. There are now two ways to handle this: 1. high mass 2. high distance Let's choose something flashy and pump lake constanze (bodensee), the largest freshwater lake in central europe. We would have to pump this up by almost a quarter of a meter to save this amount of energy. And this is with completely optimistic values: double this for electric cars, then add the same amount for electric heating, then again for industry, then add another at least 20% for inefficiency of the hydroelectric generation. And then you have to consider that this is one German city. Or, maybe in a different view: German renewables only need to lose 1/40 th of their efficiency for you to be in this situation (if you want to go 100% renewable). One also has to consider that, even if it were possible to add more capacity (which the German hydroelectric association doesn't believe is), one has to consider that hydroelectic is by far the most environmentally destructive of all power generation methods. Simply the flooding of a single valley is such an utter environmental disaster, that one has to be very sure that this valley absolutely _has_ to become a hydroelectric installation. Additionally one has the construction of the damn itself, as well as the enormous disturbance of every instance of wildlife both up and downstream for decades to centuries (and that ignores the both human and wildelife destruction brought on by a damn break). I would gladly take the construction of a nuclear powerplant over a hydroelectric one, considering that the biblis reactor alone has a nameplate capacity of almost half the amount of non-pumped hydroelectric power.