4 ms·

Don't lump "West" like that. Germany has a green party in the ruling coalition, in France that stuff is taken somewhat seriously and the second biggest coalitio

by sofixa 4y ago

Don't lump "West" like that. Germany has a green party in the ruling coalition, in France that stuff is taken somewhat seriously and the second biggest coalition in parliament (that the government has to rely on to pass laws) has an explicit green component. During the election cycle (president and lower chamber of parliament) this spring green and social issues were the main topics of discussion and main component of most campaigns.

Workaccount2 4y ago
You mean the "green" party that relentlessly fear-mongered nuclear and got Germany addicted to russian fossil fuels? The one that is going to be forced to start burning coal again?
- _ph_ 4y ago
  No, you are mistaking them for the CDU and SPD which got us addicted to russian fuels and at the same time curbed the deployment of renewal sources. The Greens is the party whose minister Harbeck has now to clean up the mess left to him and on short notice, Germany has a reasonable amount of coal power plants which can be reactivated to prevent blackouts. But this is only necessary due to Russia not delivering the agreed amound of gas. (And ironically on the French nuclear power plants failing due to wear and heat, so that Germany had to produce an additional 20TWh of electricity to keep the grid alive)
  - Workaccount2 4y ago
    Germany isn't a barren desert with copious wind and sun. Demonizing nuclear will be looked back upon as cataclysmic fuck-up fueled by pure ignorance.
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      Germany has enough wind and sun to cover all electricy needs. And the fact that the nuclear-friendly France is not able to replace their aging fleet of power plants shows, that nuclear isn't such a simple or cheap solution. If Germany would push renewables, electricity would be carbon neutral before the first new nuclear power plant could come online.
      - Workaccount2 4y ago
        The issue is that neither wind or solar provide baseline generation. Frances issue aren't with nuclear, but with funding.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Storage to address the intermittency of renewables will still leave renewables cheaper than nuclear. Nuclear is just that bad.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        How much storage are you talking about? With the impacts of climate change causing more serious events, can you guarantee you will have enough storage?
        pfdietz 4y ago
        As much as is needed. Rare events can be backed up with hydrogen-burning turbines. A simple cycle turbine power plant has 5% of the capital cost of a nuclear power plant of the same output, so this doesn't cost much compared to the all-nuclear solution.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        How much is as much as needed? 1 week worth? 2 weeks? A month? If we are going to have hydrogen turbines how much should we have? Enough to cover a quarter of a city?
        pfdietz 4y ago
        The time required just dictates how large the underground storage caverns should be, not how much the turbines cost. There is enormous space for these, and they can be very cheap. As you may know, natural gas demand is seasonally leveled using such caverns.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Please spare me, the Green party in Germany (and Austria) did more harm than good by pushing for renewables which underdelivered and hidrocarbures over nuclear which they were vehemently against. Just because you call yourself green doesn't mean you know what you're doing. And let's not forget how several former high ranking German and Austrian politicians are on the boards of various Russian oil and gas companies, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence and not in any way related to the countries' energy policies. /s
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Sorry, but no. Yes, the greens pushed for exiting nuclear, but it was the Merkel government which hastened it and at the same time cut down the deployment of renewables. Germany could be much further ahead without that. We still are at 50% renewables in the mix, while nuclear was at its peak below 30% like 20 years ago. The ranking German politician is former chancellor Schröder and indeed, this is very much critisized throughout Germany.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Just because Merkel nailed the final nail, doesn't mean that the greens didn't build the coffin and nail 3/4 of the nails. Stop trying to shift the blame off the greens.
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      Stop blaming the greens for what they are not responsible. Merkel (or rathr her minister Altmaier) shortened the life time of nuclear and more importantly curbed the buildup of renewables. Of course the exit of nuclear can only work with enough renewables being built up and that they not only failed but held back. Add to that the complete one sided dependence of Russian gas - they even sold the German gas storage to Gazprom. Guess why the German storage happened to be empty just at the beginning of the invasion of the Ukraine.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago

by sofixa 4y ago

Workaccount2 4y ago

You mean the "green" party that relentlessly fear-mongered nuclear and got Germany addicted to russian fossil fuels? The one that is going to be forced to start burning coal again?

_ph_ 4y ago
No, you are mistaking them for the CDU and SPD which got us addicted to russian fuels and at the same time curbed the deployment of renewal sources. The Greens is the party whose minister Harbeck has now to clean up the mess left to him and on short notice, Germany has a reasonable amount of coal power plants which can be reactivated to prevent blackouts. But this is only necessary due to Russia not delivering the agreed amound of gas. (And ironically on the French nuclear power plants failing due to wear and heat, so that Germany had to produce an additional 20TWh of electricity to keep the grid alive)
- Workaccount2 4y ago
  Germany isn't a barren desert with copious wind and sun. Demonizing nuclear will be looked back upon as cataclysmic fuck-up fueled by pure ignorance.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Germany has enough wind and sun to cover all electricy needs. And the fact that the nuclear-friendly France is not able to replace their aging fleet of power plants shows, that nuclear isn't such a simple or cheap solution. If Germany would push renewables, electricity would be carbon neutral before the first new nuclear power plant could come online.
    - Workaccount2 4y ago
      The issue is that neither wind or solar provide baseline generation. Frances issue aren't with nuclear, but with funding.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Storage to address the intermittency of renewables will still leave renewables cheaper than nuclear. Nuclear is just that bad.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        How much storage are you talking about? With the impacts of climate change causing more serious events, can you guarantee you will have enough storage?
        pfdietz 4y ago
        As much as is needed. Rare events can be backed up with hydrogen-burning turbines. A simple cycle turbine power plant has 5% of the capital cost of a nuclear power plant of the same output, so this doesn't cost much compared to the all-nuclear solution.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        How much is as much as needed? 1 week worth? 2 weeks? A month? If we are going to have hydrogen turbines how much should we have? Enough to cover a quarter of a city?
        pfdietz 4y ago
        The time required just dictates how large the underground storage caverns should be, not how much the turbines cost. There is enormous space for these, and they can be very cheap. As you may know, natural gas demand is seasonally leveled using such caverns.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Please spare me, the Green party in Germany (and Austria) did more harm than good by pushing for renewables which underdelivered and hidrocarbures over nuclear which they were vehemently against. Just because you call yourself green doesn't mean you know what you're doing. And let's not forget how several former high ranking German and Austrian politicians are on the boards of various Russian oil and gas companies, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence and not in any way related to the countries' energy policies. /s

_ph_ 4y ago
Sorry, but no. Yes, the greens pushed for exiting nuclear, but it was the Merkel government which hastened it and at the same time cut down the deployment of renewables. Germany could be much further ahead without that. We still are at 50% renewables in the mix, while nuclear was at its peak below 30% like 20 years ago. The ranking German politician is former chancellor Schröder and indeed, this is very much critisized throughout Germany.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Just because Merkel nailed the final nail, doesn't mean that the greens didn't build the coffin and nail 3/4 of the nails. Stop trying to shift the blame off the greens.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Stop blaming the greens for what they are not responsible. Merkel (or rathr her minister Altmaier) shortened the life time of nuclear and more importantly curbed the buildup of renewables. Of course the exit of nuclear can only work with enough renewables being built up and that they not only failed but held back. Add to that the complete one sided dependence of Russian gas - they even sold the German gas storage to Gazprom. Guess why the German storage happened to be empty just at the beginning of the invasion of the Ukraine.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago