5 ms·

As a physicist I would have absolutely preferred to keep nuclear around because it just makes sense in a technologically advanced, geographically and politicall

As a physicist I would have absolutely preferred to keep nuclear around because it just makes sense in a technologically advanced, geographically and politically stable environment. Let me be blunt: that ship has sailed (train/left, horse/bolted, ...) and no complaints are going to change a thing. We can now regret that or just deal with it and move on. Renewables are faster too build and cheaper by now. They might not be able to provide baseload if sized to baseload but overprovisioning goes a far way already (from what I remember it is even the connections to wind/solar fields that are more expensive than the actual panels by now (or: panels are cheaper than the connectors), so it makes sense to maximize their utilization, not that of panels). We are also not living in a medieval self-sustenance society in which everything needs to be produced and consumed locally. Power can be moved in huge amounts quite successfully (look for Chinese examples of HVDC power lines if you are curious). Either way: we should stop mooning over a bygone love, there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

tjansen 4y ago
"overprovisioning goes a far way already" Overprovisioning by how much? The installed capacity is over 60GW for wind and a bit under 60 GW for solar. This morning at 6 am, wind produced 3.9GW (6% of capacity) and solar 0.6GW (1%). At the same time, fossils produced 30GW and nuclear 4GW. Source: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE
- piva00 4y ago
  And right now, 15.24 wind is providing 16.8GW (26% of capacity, 21% of total electricity production in DE) and solar 23GW (38% capacity, 28% total production DE). A single data point at 6am doesn't tell much, neither does one at 15.24.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tjansen 4y ago
    The 6am data point shows you that simple overprovisioning is not sufficient. DE would have needed about 500 GW wind capacity to replace fossil fuels at 6am. At least without having any other backup.
onecommentman 4y ago
“Let me be blunt: that ship has sailed (train/left, horse/bolted, ...) and no complaints are going to change a thing.” You’ve presented precious little technical evidence to support such an absolute statement. Perhaps instead a nuclear engineer would be in a better position to make such an assessment, although I don’t know of one who would be unprofessional enough to make such a blunt statement without some supporting analysis. Assuming the infrastructure is still in place, it seems likely some reasonable effort could be made to restart a technology that was working perfectly well in Germany in, let’s see, January 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-germany-nuclear-shutdown-story-82051054 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-ge... “overprovisioning goes a far way already” Your blind faith in the scalability of renewables in a cloudy, not-very-windy country such as, say, Germany is touching, but unsupported by any analysis. Perhaps a power engineer should be consulted. Much sunnier, windier countries haven’t gone all in on renewables and instead have chosen a robust diverse energy technology portfolio. Perhaps they are wiser. Seems so in April 2022. “Power can be moved…” from countries who weren’t foolish enough to make technical and economic decisions based on ideology in the first place and thus have electricity to offer to, say, Germany. Not the first time ideology took precedence over common sense in Germany’s history. “stop mooning over a bygone love”…what an oddly romantic metaphor for nuclear power. “Your lovely face highlighted by the blue glow of Cherenkov Radiation…”. It was German politics that rejected nuclear power, not economics or national security or engineering or public safety. Nothing romantic about that, nor anything romantic about Germany changing its political mind on the matter as the situation warrants. I trust the abilities of German engineers more than the intelligence and integrity of German politicians. History strongly supports such an assessment.

tjansen 4y ago

"overprovisioning goes a far way already" Overprovisioning by how much? The installed capacity is over 60GW for wind and a bit under 60 GW for solar. This morning at 6 am, wind produced 3.9GW (6% of capacity) and solar 0.6GW (1%). At the same time, fossils produced 30GW and nuclear 4GW. Source: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE

piva00 4y ago
And right now, 15.24 wind is providing 16.8GW (26% of capacity, 21% of total electricity production in DE) and solar 23GW (38% capacity, 28% total production DE). A single data point at 6am doesn't tell much, neither does one at 15.24.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tjansen 4y ago
  The 6am data point shows you that simple overprovisioning is not sufficient. DE would have needed about 500 GW wind capacity to replace fossil fuels at 6am. At least without having any other backup.

onecommentman 4y ago

“Let me be blunt: that ship has sailed (train/left, horse/bolted, ...) and no complaints are going to change a thing.” You’ve presented precious little technical evidence to support such an absolute statement. Perhaps instead a nuclear engineer would be in a better position to make such an assessment, although I don’t know of one who would be unprofessional enough to make such a blunt statement without some supporting analysis. Assuming the infrastructure is still in place, it seems likely some reasonable effort could be made to restart a technology that was working perfectly well in Germany in, let’s see, January 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-germany-nuclear-shutdown-story-82051054 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-ge... “overprovisioning goes a far way already” Your blind faith in the scalability of renewables in a cloudy, not-very-windy country such as, say, Germany is touching, but unsupported by any analysis. Perhaps a power engineer should be consulted. Much sunnier, windier countries haven’t gone all in on renewables and instead have chosen a robust diverse energy technology portfolio. Perhaps they are wiser. Seems so in April 2022. “Power can be moved…” from countries who weren’t foolish enough to make technical and economic decisions based on ideology in the first place and thus have electricity to offer to, say, Germany. Not the first time ideology took precedence over common sense in Germany’s history. “stop mooning over a bygone love”…what an oddly romantic metaphor for nuclear power. “Your lovely face highlighted by the blue glow of Cherenkov Radiation…”. It was German politics that rejected nuclear power, not economics or national security or engineering or public safety. Nothing romantic about that, nor anything romantic about Germany changing its political mind on the matter as the situation warrants. I trust the abilities of German engineers more than the intelligence and integrity of German politicians. History strongly supports such an assessment.