3 ms·
Why is Germany using more natural gas now than in 2010? Did they replace coal by gas? Would it have been possible to replace coal with nuclear instead, and kee
by Rygian 4y ago
Why is Germany using more natural gas now than in 2010? Did they replace coal by gas?
Would it have been possible to replace coal with nuclear instead, and keep gas at 2015 levels?
- jansan 4y agoIt is needed in summer to replace solar energy during the night. Gas power plants can be switched on and off almost at will, unlike coal or nuclear plants that have long startup and shutdown times. So the gas power plants are switched on at night in summer when the sun doesn't shine. Also, the EU commission declared in February 2022 natural gas as a sustainable energy source, and the EU parliament confirmed this in July 2022. Sounds a bit bizarre, but the dates are correct.
- Rygian 4y agoSo nuclear was replaced by renewables+gas (EU newspeak not withstanding).
- hedora 4y agoSome modern nuclear plants can be turned on and off at will. The reactor itself takes a long time to ramp up and down, but it heats a molten salt battery. The battery can burst-power the turbines at well-above the reactor output; they can be sized to handle peak demand + overnight loads.
- calaphos 4y agoEven if technically possible the economics of nuclear power plants don't favour only using them for peak loads. With gigantic initial captial investment and very low fuel costs (almost?) all nuclear power plants are used for base loads. It's hard to find current numbers, but capital investment for combined cycle natural gas plants seems to be about a tenth of modern reactor projects in western countries.
- hedora 4y agoWe have no real choice. Natural gas has to be phased out as soon as possible. The plant designs I’m describing are new, but marching to commercialization. They are not in wide-scale production yet. They are optimized for a world where solar and wind have taken over most of the production.
- legulere 4y agoGas has lower CO2 emissions and the advantage over coal that it can better supply peak loads. At that point in time Russia was also seen as a reliable cheap supplier of it, as the UdSSR has been since the 70s before. It's unlikely that coal could have been replaced with new nuclear. It would have probably been an EPR from back then Framatome and Siemens. Construction of the EPR in Olkiluoto started in 2005 and just finished recently. Keeping old nuclear reactors running and shutting down coal plants instead would have been possible though, but didn't have backing in the population.
- pantalaimon 4y agoSchröder was chancellor when the initial nuclear phase-out was decided. He later joined the board of Gazprom. I no longer believe in coincidence.