4 ms·

Why don't we (Europeans) use nuclear power in the winter and solar in the summer? It seems to make perfect sense but I haven't read any plans like this. Reacto

Why don't we (Europeans) use nuclear power in the winter and solar in the summer? It seems to make perfect sense but I haven't read any plans like this. Reactors need regular lengthy maintenance and are easy to cool in the winter, while solar panels are cheap and can be placed everywhere but are almost useless during wintertime. Reactors could even provide heating in the winter while ACs are the perfect consumers of solar energy when the sun is the strongest. Storing enough heat/electricity for the entire winter on the other hand seems completely futile; there is no technology that can be scaled up enough without sounding like it came straight from Perry Rhodan.

koheripbal 4y ago
The Chancellor of Germany literally appointed an executive from Greenpeace to her cabinet - demonstrating her political alliance with Germany's "Green Party". Being anti-nuclear power is a foundational principle, dating back 50 years. They will NEVER accept nuclear power. No amount of logic or evidence will persuade them. Despite both the current energy crisis, and statements from the remaining 3 (of formerly 17) nuclear plants and the nuclear regulatory groups that they can continue to operate these remaining plants safely for years with existing nuclear fuel reserves - the German leadership has reaffirmed that they will close those remaining 3 nuclear plants THIS YEAR. DURING THE CRISIS. Imagine having a flat-earther during the race to the moon, or a anti-vax president during a pandemic. That is what it's like having an anti-nuclear extremist leadership in an energy crisis. They would literally rather burn coal. It is a form of entrenched ideology that will never compromise no matter how freezing cold Germans are this coming winter.
- jimbob45 4y ago
  The Chancellor of Germany literally appointed an executive from Greenpeace to her cabinet …? Is Olaf Scholz not a man?
LatteLazy 4y ago
We sort of do, but nuclear is enormously expensive already, so only using it half the time just makes it all worse...
yayachiken 4y ago
Nice, a Perry Rhodan reference on HN, didn't expect that one :) I also wonder the same. In my layman opinion, the most sensible approach would be moving some of the new nuclear projects to Germany. This would then free up resources in France to invest in renewable power. This could help solve the current problems in Germany (high CO2 output) as well as France (inflexible grid) This has the following advantages: * Renewable energy from wind and solar, are the cheapest forms of energy right now, full stop. Decarbonizing our economy is currently constrained by capital expense. So any other form of energy production needs a really good technical reason to get preferred over the cheap forms of energy. * Corollary from that: Please note that everybody who claims that renewables destabilize the grid by introducing peaks is mostly full of shit. It is absolutely trivial to turn both wind turbines and solar alternators off almost immediately. Why do we try to avoid that? Because having all that bound capital standing around doing nothing lowers ROI (and for example Germany guarantees that the operators will get their lost revenue replaced.) This is literally the only reason. Everyone who claims that renewables at the current stage of the transition will threaten black-outs due to overproduction is spreading misinformation. When we get over ~80% of renewable production, we need new solutions, e.g. to provide fine-grained synchronization for the grid, which is currently done en passant via the rotational inertia of the turbines in thermal plants. * France has a good position to support renewables very cost-efficiently. Lots of valuable Atlantic coast with wind, both on-shore and with a huge economic zone offshire, a neighbour (Spain/Portugal) with high amounts of wind and solar even in winter months, which is just waiting to be piped into central Europe. But there is no political will because nuclear is so comfortable and you don't have to fight NIMBYs thousands of times for each wind turbine or solar park * As articles like this one show, France has already hit a constraint with nuclear plants: Cooling water. This constraint is quite scary, as access to surface cooling water will only get worse as climate change progesses. Scaling up nuclear even more would require spreading the load over more shoulders, e.g. by using rivers in Germany. Note that the lignite plants in Germany are cooled using ground water which is collected by pumping ground water to keep the associated open-pit mines free of flooding (with high ecological impact, still maybe a solution for France?) * Contrary to what nuclear proponents on HN mostly claim, nuclear power is inflexible, and already putting a strain on the French grid. Electricity generation (spot) prices since April are almost always equal or higher in France than in Germany due to lack of transmission capacity between these countries (to verify this, use services like Electricity Maps or Energy Charts which graph the cost of electricity in real time over the last 24h, data is available via ENTSOE-E). Building more renewables would alleviate these problems, but is actually not so easy or economically feasible with the current mostly nuclear grid. * Contrary to what nuclear opponents on HN mostly claim, base load is still useful to some degree, which is why Germany still burns coal and has biofuel reactors specifically to provide base load. Moving nuclear generation capacities to Germany would reduce carbon output during nights, especially summer nights low on wind, and free up biogas to be used for peaker operation. Why doesn't France reduce its dependence on nuclear power, allowing economic incentives for cheaper solar and wind power? Mostly politics. Shutting down the nuclear power plants is even more expensive than letting them run until their EOL, which is a tough sell. Also NIMBYs hate wind turbines a lot, and by the decentralized nature of wind, fighting them is harder than the NIMBYs against nuclear plants. Why doesn't Germany build more nuclear power? Mostly politics and history. Also building a nuclear power plant is not easy from a planning standpoint and might take upwards of 10 years even if society completely commits, alleviating no current problems. Any solution involving nuclear that still makes sense would be a long-term decision, probably pan-European. For now without support e.g. by France, the most economic and climatically sensible path for Germany is to press on 100% with electrification and removing barriers for additional investments into wind and solar.
crote 4y ago
Because nuclear power plants are stupid expensive to build. The electricity sales prices is dominated by paying back the multi-billion dollar loan which funded the construction. Running a nuclear plant half of the time means doubling the electricity price - and it is already by far the most expensive method of producing electricity. If you build nuclear power plants, you basically have to run them at 100% capacity 100% of the time to be even remotely close to being economically viable.

koheripbal 4y ago

The Chancellor of Germany literally appointed an executive from Greenpeace to her cabinet - demonstrating her political alliance with Germany's "Green Party". Being anti-nuclear power is a foundational principle, dating back 50 years. They will NEVER accept nuclear power. No amount of logic or evidence will persuade them. Despite both the current energy crisis, and statements from the remaining 3 (of formerly 17) nuclear plants and the nuclear regulatory groups that they can continue to operate these remaining plants safely for years with existing nuclear fuel reserves - the German leadership has reaffirmed that they will close those remaining 3 nuclear plants THIS YEAR. DURING THE CRISIS. Imagine having a flat-earther during the race to the moon, or a anti-vax president during a pandemic. That is what it's like having an anti-nuclear extremist leadership in an energy crisis. They would literally rather burn coal. It is a form of entrenched ideology that will never compromise no matter how freezing cold Germans are this coming winter.

jimbob45 4y ago
The Chancellor of Germany literally appointed an executive from Greenpeace to her cabinet …? Is Olaf Scholz not a man?

LatteLazy 4y ago

We sort of do, but nuclear is enormously expensive already, so only using it half the time just makes it all worse...

yayachiken 4y ago

Nice, a Perry Rhodan reference on HN, didn't expect that one :) I also wonder the same. In my layman opinion, the most sensible approach would be moving some of the new nuclear projects to Germany. This would then free up resources in France to invest in renewable power. This could help solve the current problems in Germany (high CO2 output) as well as France (inflexible grid) This has the following advantages: * Renewable energy from wind and solar, are the cheapest forms of energy right now, full stop. Decarbonizing our economy is currently constrained by capital expense. So any other form of energy production needs a really good technical reason to get preferred over the cheap forms of energy. * Corollary from that: Please note that everybody who claims that renewables destabilize the grid by introducing peaks is mostly full of shit. It is absolutely trivial to turn both wind turbines and solar alternators off almost immediately. Why do we try to avoid that? Because having all that bound capital standing around doing nothing lowers ROI (and for example Germany guarantees that the operators will get their lost revenue replaced.) This is literally the only reason. Everyone who claims that renewables at the current stage of the transition will threaten black-outs due to overproduction is spreading misinformation. When we get over ~80% of renewable production, we need new solutions, e.g. to provide fine-grained synchronization for the grid, which is currently done en passant via the rotational inertia of the turbines in thermal plants. * France has a good position to support renewables very cost-efficiently. Lots of valuable Atlantic coast with wind, both on-shore and with a huge economic zone offshire, a neighbour (Spain/Portugal) with high amounts of wind and solar even in winter months, which is just waiting to be piped into central Europe. But there is no political will because nuclear is so comfortable and you don't have to fight NIMBYs thousands of times for each wind turbine or solar park * As articles like this one show, France has already hit a constraint with nuclear plants: Cooling water. This constraint is quite scary, as access to surface cooling water will only get worse as climate change progesses. Scaling up nuclear even more would require spreading the load over more shoulders, e.g. by using rivers in Germany. Note that the lignite plants in Germany are cooled using ground water which is collected by pumping ground water to keep the associated open-pit mines free of flooding (with high ecological impact, still maybe a solution for France?) * Contrary to what nuclear proponents on HN mostly claim, nuclear power is inflexible, and already putting a strain on the French grid. Electricity generation (spot) prices since April are almost always equal or higher in France than in Germany due to lack of transmission capacity between these countries (to verify this, use services like Electricity Maps or Energy Charts which graph the cost of electricity in real time over the last 24h, data is available via ENTSOE-E). Building more renewables would alleviate these problems, but is actually not so easy or economically feasible with the current mostly nuclear grid. * Contrary to what nuclear opponents on HN mostly claim, base load is still useful to some degree, which is why Germany still burns coal and has biofuel reactors specifically to provide base load. Moving nuclear generation capacities to Germany would reduce carbon output during nights, especially summer nights low on wind, and free up biogas to be used for peaker operation. Why doesn't France reduce its dependence on nuclear power, allowing economic incentives for cheaper solar and wind power? Mostly politics. Shutting down the nuclear power plants is even more expensive than letting them run until their EOL, which is a tough sell. Also NIMBYs hate wind turbines a lot, and by the decentralized nature of wind, fighting them is harder than the NIMBYs against nuclear plants. Why doesn't Germany build more nuclear power? Mostly politics and history. Also building a nuclear power plant is not easy from a planning standpoint and might take upwards of 10 years even if society completely commits, alleviating no current problems. Any solution involving nuclear that still makes sense would be a long-term decision, probably pan-European. For now without support e.g. by France, the most economic and climatically sensible path for Germany is to press on 100% with electrification and removing barriers for additional investments into wind and solar.

crote 4y ago

Because nuclear power plants are stupid expensive to build. The electricity sales prices is dominated by paying back the multi-billion dollar loan which funded the construction. Running a nuclear plant half of the time means doubling the electricity price - and it is already by far the most expensive method of producing electricity. If you build nuclear power plants, you basically have to run them at 100% capacity 100% of the time to be even remotely close to being economically viable.