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> The thing is that Germany was planning on significantly increasing their gas demand by building many gas reactors [1] to work in tandem with renewables. I wa

by hannob 4y ago

> The thing is that Germany was planning on significantly increasing their gas demand by building many gas reactors [1] to work in tandem with renewables. I wanted to explain what's wrong with this statement, because that's simply not true. But I don't have to: You just need to read the text that you linked to: "As Germany ramps up renewables and exits coal and nuclear power, it may need more gas power capacity, which would mostly be put to use at times of high electricity needs and little wind or sunshine – and not necessarily lead to more overall gas consumption."

marsven_422 4y ago
oneoff786 4y ago
That’s a really silly statement. You know what would reduce gas consumption even more? Reliable nuclear reactors with constant output.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  And you still have no dispatchable solution.
- croes 4y ago
  Nuclear energy is bad at providing flexible output and that's what is needed. And with rising temperatures the exiting power plants aren't reliable at all because the the need cool water supply
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  Nuclear isn't directly an alternative to gas power. You've got the problem stated right in your comment: the constant output of nuclear is only part of generation needs. Gas is different from nuclear in that it's easy to regulate the power generated, which is necessary to deal with demand spikes and generation dips (the latter due to wind/solar which may not always be available). Presumably Germany would only ever want to rely on gas for this purpose. There are ways to adjust nuclear power output but they are quite expensive (on top of the fact that any nuclear power plant is already expensive). To get rid of fossil fuel power plants you need to match their exceptional ability to regulate power generation levels. You could do this by using nuclear for base generation and supplementing renewables with storage techniques (e.g. pumped hydro storage), but nuclear is unfortunately not a "drop in" replacement on its own.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    The situation you’re describing arrives from a status quo of lots of renewables and no nuclear. The actual starting point was nuclear and no renewables. If they had both renewables and nuclear they could have done a number of other things with their energy design.
scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
Sounds like something they would 'have' to use all the time. It's not like wind and sunshine was about to start powering the German industrial machine all on it's own any time soon. Probably biased but reminds me of a recent talk by a Polish nuclear scientist explaining how this gas infrastructure is much more expensive than most people imagine. And it has to be regularly updated. So, if we are to factor in that cost, then brand new nuclear infrastructure and nuclear conversion isn't that much more.

by hannob 4y ago

marsven_422 4y ago

oneoff786 4y ago

That’s a really silly statement. You know what would reduce gas consumption even more? Reliable nuclear reactors with constant output.

tstrimple 4y ago
And you still have no dispatchable solution.
croes 4y ago
Nuclear energy is bad at providing flexible output and that's what is needed. And with rising temperatures the exiting power plants aren't reliable at all because the the need cool water supply
JeremyNT 4y ago
Nuclear isn't directly an alternative to gas power. You've got the problem stated right in your comment: the constant output of nuclear is only part of generation needs. Gas is different from nuclear in that it's easy to regulate the power generated, which is necessary to deal with demand spikes and generation dips (the latter due to wind/solar which may not always be available). Presumably Germany would only ever want to rely on gas for this purpose. There are ways to adjust nuclear power output but they are quite expensive (on top of the fact that any nuclear power plant is already expensive). To get rid of fossil fuel power plants you need to match their exceptional ability to regulate power generation levels. You could do this by using nuclear for base generation and supplementing renewables with storage techniques (e.g. pumped hydro storage), but nuclear is unfortunately not a "drop in" replacement on its own.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  The situation you’re describing arrives from a status quo of lots of renewables and no nuclear. The actual starting point was nuclear and no renewables. If they had both renewables and nuclear they could have done a number of other things with their energy design.

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago

Sounds like something they would 'have' to use all the time. It's not like wind and sunshine was about to start powering the German industrial machine all on it's own any time soon. Probably biased but reminds me of a recent talk by a Polish nuclear scientist explaining how this gas infrastructure is much more expensive than most people imagine. And it has to be regularly updated. So, if we are to factor in that cost, then brand new nuclear infrastructure and nuclear conversion isn't that much more.