7 ms·

Also Germany: repoens, I believe approx. 8 GW, coal plants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliecoleman/2022/07/08/germany-reopens-coal-plants-because-of-reduced

Also Germany: repoens, I believe approx. 8 GW, coal plants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliecoleman/2022/07/08/germany-reopens-coal-plants-because-of-reduced-russian-energy/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliecoleman/2022/07/08/germany... I'm sorry, but this is hearfelt: the German greens are climate criminals. And they were fully warned of exactly this situation decades ago, so no, they have zero "circumstances forced our hand" defence. You knew, and you chose to burn coal anyway.

mschuster91 4y ago
> I'm sorry, but this is hearfelt: the German greens are climate criminals. And they were fully warned of exactly this situation decades ago, so no, they have zero "circumstances forced our hand" defence. The Greens have not been in government for the last sixteen years. It was the conservative governments under Merkel and particularly the environment and later economy minister Altmaier who openly celebrated reducing buildout of solar power [1]. As for nuclear power: any talk about lengthening their operation is utter madness. There are no fuel rods and the reactors haven't had their security checkups because they were scheduled to be shut down - and just look at France just how catastrophic nuclear power actually is (ETA: I substantially detailed that in a daughter comment, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337). The government has little other choice than to keep the coal burners running at this point, as the Merkel governments have done everything in their power to hinder renewable energy buildout, and the Bavarian CSU has sabotaged cross-country high voltage power transmission lines. [1] https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Einbruch-bei-der-Photovoltaik-article7193576.html https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Einbruch-bei-der-Photovoltaik-ar...
- hnbad 4y ago
  I'd say it's the fault of neoliberalism (which certainly has a foothold in parts of the CDU/CSU and all major parties really, not just the FDP) that most infrastructure projects of the past decades have been limited to a few failed prestige projects (powerlines just aren't as sexy as a massive airport nobody can use) but it's the fault of the Greens (not specifically the party but the general political movement it stems from) that we're at a point where we are stuck with coal because nuclear is no longer an option. I'm not saying it's bad they protested nuclear. Nuclear needs to go, too. It's just bad that they hyperfixated on nuclear because it's easier to scare people about it and that they didn't ensure we get rid of coal first. Scaring people about nuclear was child's play after Chernobyl if the threat of the Cold War wasn't enough (as the public already conflated nuclear power and nuclear weapons). The coal industry's political power is much greater in Germany tho and taking it on would have meant finding a way to bridge the cultural gap between blue collar Kumpels and the more college educated Birkenstock crowd. Hopefully FFF and XR are finally doing some of the work now but sadly the opposition has also gotten better at its game and that Kumpel at his Stammtisch beer will most likely make bad jokes about "Greta" despite not batting an eye if you ask him to sign a petition to shut down all nuclear plants.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    I really believe Neoliberalism has kneecapped the West, our infrastructure is basically stuck in 1980's, which is when the ideology took hold. In UK, since we privatised water companies, they have not built a single new reservoir, they are basically operating 30 year old infrastructure, dumping sewage in rivers and paying themselves dividends in the billiona
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    We don't need nuclear. Even with decades of conservative sabotage, we generate ~41% of our electricity needs [1] on a renewable basis. Imagine we had used the last sixteen years to go all-in on renewables - we wouldn't need to kowtow in front of any dictatorship. No Qatari gas, no Russian or other dictatorship uranium, nothing. [1] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerbare-energien/erneuerbare-energien-in-zahlen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerb...
    - tjansen 4y ago
      The amount of electricity generated over the course of a year is irrelevant without storage. We could generate 1000% of our energy needs and still not have enough, if we generate 2000% in summer and 0% in winter. We need to generate 100% of our energy needs every single hour. Renewables are practically incapable of doing this on their own. They can reduce the use of fossil fuelds (or nuclear power), but not replace them.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > We need to generate 100% of our energy needs every single hour. Renewables are practically incapable of doing this on their own. They can reduce the use of fossil fuelds (or nuclear power), but not replace them. Install enough windmills across the entire coastal areas of Europe, add thousands of kilometers long cross-continental UHVDC links like China does [1] and even winter won't be a problem. Besides: using biomass / biogas fuel for conventional burner plants is climate neutral, and the supply is enough to cover half of the deliveries of Russia [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... [2] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/biogas-statt-erdgas-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/biogas-stat...
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  "look at France just how catastrophic nuclear power actually is" I assume you are referring to power plants that has to shut down due to low water levels? If the powerplant is designed with a source of eater in mind, it will have tp shut down when the water is gone. It does not matter if the plant is oil, coal or nuclear. Plenty of nuclear powerplants use seawater for cooling, and none of them had to shutdown.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > I assume you are referring to power plants that has to shut down due to low water levels? It goes way worse than the drought. For the sake of not spamming around the same text, I consolidated the list of issues here in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 > Plenty of nuclear powerplants use seawater for cooling, and none of them had to shutdown. Plants at the seawater border are vulnerable to floods as a result of extreme weather conditions, we've seen the consequences of that in Fukushima. Additionally, being close to the sea means the plants are vulnerable to the rise of sea water, which is a risk for the future.
- YawningAngel 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on the problems with France? If I were in government in France I'd be thrilled with nuclear power as an investment right about now
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > Can you elaborate on the problems with France? 80% of their power is generated by nuclear. Of their nuclear plants, way over half the fleet has been offline for months because of inspections and sometimes substantial damages from age-related corrosion issues [1], and the other half is severely limited or cut off as well because the rivers that they depend on for cooling can't keep up [2]. And since the entire continent is a single synced grid, someone has to cover the gap, and that's German gas peakers [3]. Unfortunately, European energy markets operate at the "merit order" principle [4] which means that the highest bidder on the spot market sets the price for everyone else - which means while gas peaker plants generate extremely expensive energy for France, the operators of any other type of plant get the exact same high price leading to billions of euros in excess profit for them [5]. France also has another problem, and that's the EPR design that has led to severe budget and time overruns. Not just generic issues, but massive design defects [6]. They bet on Flamanville replacing a bunch of the aged plants, the bet failed, and no one knows when that reactor will finally come online. Flamanville was projected to cost 3.3 billion euros and be ready in 2012 - current estimates are at 12.7 billion euros at the least and a start in Q2/23 [7], and other EPR projects are just as bad. [1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-reduce-nuclear-power-output-as-french-river-temperatures-rise https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-redu... [3] https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/wird-franzoesische-stromluecke-fuer-deutschland-zum-problem-100.html https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/w... [4] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/boerse/merit-order-wie-ein-gut-gemeintes-system-unsere-strompreise-explodieren-laesst_id_137157603.html https://www.focus.de/finanzen/boerse/merit-order-wie-ein-gut... [5] https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000137852348/gas-und-oelpreise-treiben-gewinne-der-energiekonzerne-hoch https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000137852348/gas-und-oelpr... [6] https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1645421/energy-crisis-edf-forced-to-redesign-hinkley-point-c-epr-nuclear-reactor-taishan-leak https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1645421/energy-crisis... [7] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-hopeful-end-sight-long-delayed-budget-busting-nuclear-plant-2022-06-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-hopeful-end-sigh...
- tjansen 4y ago
  > The Greens have not been in government for the last sixteen years. While this is true, they have always been in favour of shutting down nuclear power plants and now they would have the opportunity to reverse this course, but they don't. The Greens have been founded as an anti-nuclear party. In the 80s, they even demanded to replace nuclear power with coal (https://twitter.com/MoormannRainer/status/1435297744487338015 https://twitter.com/MoormannRainer/status/143529774448733801...). Shutting down nuclear power plants is obviously more important to them than the climate. > and just look at France just how catastrophic nuclear power actually is. What's so catastrophic about France? Despite all the troubles they currently have, their CO2 emissions per kW are still a fraction of Germany's.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > While this is true, they have always been in favour of shutting down nuclear power plants and now they would have the opportunity to reverse this course, but they don't. Because nuclear does not make sense. The financial risk of accidents at a Fukushima or Chernobyl scale is too high (as no insurer will take on that risk, the taxpayers will have to pay for it, and as the Ukraine invasion and the fighting around Chernobyl shows, disaster plants are a danger for decades!), a lot of the uranium comes from questionable sources (Russia and Khazakhstan [1]), and Europe does not have permanent storage solutions for the nuclear waste [2]. Renewable energies already make up 41% of our electricity generation, it could be 100%. > What's so catastrophic about France? Despite all the troubles they currently have, their CO2 emissions per kW are still a fraction of Germany's. For the sake of not spamming around the same text, I consolidated the list of issues here in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 As for the CO2 emissions: yeah because the CO2 everyone else in Europe generates to compensate their nuclear issues is not counted in their CO2 budget but ours. [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu... [2] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/atommuell-die-suche-nach-einem-endlager-in-anderen-laendern,SBbRStO https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/atommuell-die-suche-nac...
    - tjansen 4y ago
permo-w 4y ago
what blame do the Christian Democrats have for this?
- freilanzer 4y ago
  If you blame them for everything you will be at least partially correct more often than not.

mschuster91 4y ago

> I'm sorry, but this is hearfelt: the German greens are climate criminals. And they were fully warned of exactly this situation decades ago, so no, they have zero "circumstances forced our hand" defence. The Greens have not been in government for the last sixteen years. It was the conservative governments under Merkel and particularly the environment and later economy minister Altmaier who openly celebrated reducing buildout of solar power [1]. As for nuclear power: any talk about lengthening their operation is utter madness. There are no fuel rods and the reactors haven't had their security checkups because they were scheduled to be shut down - and just look at France just how catastrophic nuclear power actually is (ETA: I substantially detailed that in a daughter comment, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337). The government has little other choice than to keep the coal burners running at this point, as the Merkel governments have done everything in their power to hinder renewable energy buildout, and the Bavarian CSU has sabotaged cross-country high voltage power transmission lines. [1] https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Einbruch-bei-der-Photovoltaik-article7193576.html https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Einbruch-bei-der-Photovoltaik-ar...

hnbad 4y ago
I'd say it's the fault of neoliberalism (which certainly has a foothold in parts of the CDU/CSU and all major parties really, not just the FDP) that most infrastructure projects of the past decades have been limited to a few failed prestige projects (powerlines just aren't as sexy as a massive airport nobody can use) but it's the fault of the Greens (not specifically the party but the general political movement it stems from) that we're at a point where we are stuck with coal because nuclear is no longer an option. I'm not saying it's bad they protested nuclear. Nuclear needs to go, too. It's just bad that they hyperfixated on nuclear because it's easier to scare people about it and that they didn't ensure we get rid of coal first. Scaring people about nuclear was child's play after Chernobyl if the threat of the Cold War wasn't enough (as the public already conflated nuclear power and nuclear weapons). The coal industry's political power is much greater in Germany tho and taking it on would have meant finding a way to bridge the cultural gap between blue collar Kumpels and the more college educated Birkenstock crowd. Hopefully FFF and XR are finally doing some of the work now but sadly the opposition has also gotten better at its game and that Kumpel at his Stammtisch beer will most likely make bad jokes about "Greta" despite not batting an eye if you ask him to sign a petition to shut down all nuclear plants.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  I really believe Neoliberalism has kneecapped the West, our infrastructure is basically stuck in 1980's, which is when the ideology took hold. In UK, since we privatised water companies, they have not built a single new reservoir, they are basically operating 30 year old infrastructure, dumping sewage in rivers and paying themselves dividends in the billiona
- mschuster91 4y ago
  We don't need nuclear. Even with decades of conservative sabotage, we generate ~41% of our electricity needs [1] on a renewable basis. Imagine we had used the last sixteen years to go all-in on renewables - we wouldn't need to kowtow in front of any dictatorship. No Qatari gas, no Russian or other dictatorship uranium, nothing. [1] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerbare-energien/erneuerbare-energien-in-zahlen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/erneuerb...
  - tjansen 4y ago
    The amount of electricity generated over the course of a year is irrelevant without storage. We could generate 1000% of our energy needs and still not have enough, if we generate 2000% in summer and 0% in winter. We need to generate 100% of our energy needs every single hour. Renewables are practically incapable of doing this on their own. They can reduce the use of fossil fuelds (or nuclear power), but not replace them.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > We need to generate 100% of our energy needs every single hour. Renewables are practically incapable of doing this on their own. They can reduce the use of fossil fuelds (or nuclear power), but not replace them. Install enough windmills across the entire coastal areas of Europe, add thousands of kilometers long cross-continental UHVDC links like China does [1] and even winter won't be a problem. Besides: using biomass / biogas fuel for conventional burner plants is climate neutral, and the supply is enough to cover half of the deliveries of Russia [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... [2] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/biogas-statt-erdgas-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/biogas-stat...
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
"look at France just how catastrophic nuclear power actually is" I assume you are referring to power plants that has to shut down due to low water levels? If the powerplant is designed with a source of eater in mind, it will have tp shut down when the water is gone. It does not matter if the plant is oil, coal or nuclear. Plenty of nuclear powerplants use seawater for cooling, and none of them had to shutdown.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > I assume you are referring to power plants that has to shut down due to low water levels? It goes way worse than the drought. For the sake of not spamming around the same text, I consolidated the list of issues here in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 > Plenty of nuclear powerplants use seawater for cooling, and none of them had to shutdown. Plants at the seawater border are vulnerable to floods as a result of extreme weather conditions, we've seen the consequences of that in Fukushima. Additionally, being close to the sea means the plants are vulnerable to the rise of sea water, which is a risk for the future.
YawningAngel 4y ago
Can you elaborate on the problems with France? If I were in government in France I'd be thrilled with nuclear power as an investment right about now
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > Can you elaborate on the problems with France? 80% of their power is generated by nuclear. Of their nuclear plants, way over half the fleet has been offline for months because of inspections and sometimes substantial damages from age-related corrosion issues [1], and the other half is severely limited or cut off as well because the rivers that they depend on for cooling can't keep up [2]. And since the entire continent is a single synced grid, someone has to cover the gap, and that's German gas peakers [3]. Unfortunately, European energy markets operate at the "merit order" principle [4] which means that the highest bidder on the spot market sets the price for everyone else - which means while gas peaker plants generate extremely expensive energy for France, the operators of any other type of plant get the exact same high price leading to billions of euros in excess profit for them [5]. France also has another problem, and that's the EPR design that has led to severe budget and time overruns. Not just generic issues, but massive design defects [6]. They bet on Flamanville replacing a bunch of the aged plants, the bet failed, and no one knows when that reactor will finally come online. Flamanville was projected to cost 3.3 billion euros and be ready in 2012 - current estimates are at 12.7 billion euros at the least and a start in Q2/23 [7], and other EPR projects are just as bad. [1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-reduce-nuclear-power-output-as-french-river-temperatures-rise https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-redu... [3] https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/wird-franzoesische-stromluecke-fuer-deutschland-zum-problem-100.html https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/w... [4] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/boerse/merit-order-wie-ein-gut-gemeintes-system-unsere-strompreise-explodieren-laesst_id_137157603.html https://www.focus.de/finanzen/boerse/merit-order-wie-ein-gut... [5] https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000137852348/gas-und-oelpreise-treiben-gewinne-der-energiekonzerne-hoch https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000137852348/gas-und-oelpr... [6] https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1645421/energy-crisis-edf-forced-to-redesign-hinkley-point-c-epr-nuclear-reactor-taishan-leak https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1645421/energy-crisis... [7] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-hopeful-end-sight-long-delayed-budget-busting-nuclear-plant-2022-06-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-hopeful-end-sigh...
tjansen 4y ago
> The Greens have not been in government for the last sixteen years. While this is true, they have always been in favour of shutting down nuclear power plants and now they would have the opportunity to reverse this course, but they don't. The Greens have been founded as an anti-nuclear party. In the 80s, they even demanded to replace nuclear power with coal (https://twitter.com/MoormannRainer/status/1435297744487338015 https://twitter.com/MoormannRainer/status/143529774448733801...). Shutting down nuclear power plants is obviously more important to them than the climate. > and just look at France just how catastrophic nuclear power actually is. What's so catastrophic about France? Despite all the troubles they currently have, their CO2 emissions per kW are still a fraction of Germany's.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > While this is true, they have always been in favour of shutting down nuclear power plants and now they would have the opportunity to reverse this course, but they don't. Because nuclear does not make sense. The financial risk of accidents at a Fukushima or Chernobyl scale is too high (as no insurer will take on that risk, the taxpayers will have to pay for it, and as the Ukraine invasion and the fighting around Chernobyl shows, disaster plants are a danger for decades!), a lot of the uranium comes from questionable sources (Russia and Khazakhstan [1]), and Europe does not have permanent storage solutions for the nuclear waste [2]. Renewable energies already make up 41% of our electricity generation, it could be 100%. > What's so catastrophic about France? Despite all the troubles they currently have, their CO2 emissions per kW are still a fraction of Germany's. For the sake of not spamming around the same text, I consolidated the list of issues here in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 As for the CO2 emissions: yeah because the CO2 everyone else in Europe generates to compensate their nuclear issues is not counted in their CO2 budget but ours. [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu... [2] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/atommuell-die-suche-nach-einem-endlager-in-anderen-laendern,SBbRStO https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wissen/atommuell-die-suche-nac...
  - tjansen 4y ago

permo-w 4y ago

what blame do the Christian Democrats have for this?

freilanzer 4y ago
If you blame them for everything you will be at least partially correct more often than not.