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> Germany is also not turning coal plants back on "Ab Oktober werden insgesamt zwölf Kohlekraftwerke mit einer Leistung bis zu knapp sieben Gigawatt zusätzlich

> Germany is also not turning coal plants back on "Ab Oktober werden insgesamt zwölf Kohlekraftwerke mit einer Leistung bis zu knapp sieben Gigawatt zusätzlich Strom für das deutsche Netz zur Verfügung stellen." From October, a total of twelve coal-fired power plants with an output of up to almost seven gigawatts will provide additional electricity for the German grid. https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/stromerzeugung-welche-kohlekraftwerke-im-oktober-wieder-in-betrieb-gehen/28717510.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/stromerzeug... > Gas use percentage wise is pretty much the same as 10 years ago. The very chart you cite has gas use almost tripling from 1990 to 2020, from 36 to 91. > the collapse of nuclear in France There was no "collapse" of Nuclear in France. This counter-factual talking point has been corrected so many times it isn't funny any more. What happened was that France scheduled maintenance work that had been deferred during the pandemic. This was planned, because with nuclear power, you can plan things. The reason that it was planned for summer is that that is when both energy demand is at its lowest and otherwise not-so-stellar renewable production is at its highest. Unlike renewables, which are mostly unpredictable, and the little that is predictable is bad: that they produce far less energy when it's needed most. And even the Twitter thread you cite (which also incorrectly speaks of French "outages"), admits that a whopping 1/3rd of the reduction in nuclear production was due to Germany turning off plants. Also, you might want to take a closer look at the chart you cited. The still very modest drop in coal you spotted mostly coincides with a drop in total energy consumption, making the relative reduction even more modest than it already is. So we just used less energy overall. Whoop-dee-doo. And coal use rose again even in 2021 in absolute terms, so before the war.

locallost 4y ago
Read the Twitter link I posted: only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal. Those plants were put on stand by because wishful thinking is not a good policy, but they were mostly idle. A quarter of France plants were out unplanned, another quarter were in planned maintenance. This was all documented extensively, we should not debate facts. On top of that the EDF kept blowing its own deadlines all year. Summary from the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr... "A record 26 of its 56 reactors are off-line for maintenance or repairs after the worrisome discovery of cracks and corrosion in some pipes used to cool reactor cores." Shutting down a quarter of your fleet because of worrisome discovery of cracks, causing panic on the energy markets across the continent does not sound like predictable to me. Renewables on the other hand are extremely predictable and pretty much always deliver on the prediction because they are so distributed. The chart says Germany produced 165TWh from coal in 2021 and roughly 250TWh in 2010. I believe you should check the dictionary for the words "modest" and "predictable".
- mpweiher 4y ago
  Stop spreading disinformation. > only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal 1. Once again: it was not a "failure". It was scheduled maintenance/inspection. 2. Yes. The French were able to schedule this maintenance/inspection in the summer, when energy demand is at its lowest and renewable production at its highest. It is so helpful to be able to schedule these things. Unlike renewables, which you you can't schedule at all, and the only thing you really know is that they will produce the least energy when you need it most. 3. Once again: this was scheduled maintenance/inspection. And during the scheduled inspection they found some cracks. This is something that happens when you inspect things. That is why you do the inspections: so you find stuff that you then fix. [The regularly scheduled car inspection found some problems with the engine that were duly fixed. Germans: OMG!!! WE MUST IMMEDIATELY BAN ALL CARS!!!! ] 5. "Modest". Yep, that's fairly modest, particularly when compared to considering a tripling of gas use as "unchanged". And that reduction went hand-in-hand with an overall reduction in demand in the last years. Also, you need to look at the lignite coal numbers, because lignite is the worst polluting kind: hardly changed at all. We did reduce the hard-coal a bit more due to shutting down the mines (by removing subsidies).
  - locallost 4y ago
    No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet. A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. When it became clear the EDF doesn't have the situation under control the futures prices exploded everywhere but especially in France. At one point the futures prices there reached almost 2000$ per MWh. I've posted one link that documented the problem from a reputable source, and posted a quote directly here. That you choose to ignore reality and live in a constructed world is a testament to the wishful thinking mentality of the pro nuclear crowd. But like I posted elsewhere it doesn't really matter -- Europe needs to remove fossil fuels and this will happen a lot quicker than most people assume. The ink on the plans for new nuclear plants won't even dry.
    - mpweiher 4y ago

locallost 4y ago

Read the Twitter link I posted: only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal. Those plants were put on stand by because wishful thinking is not a good policy, but they were mostly idle. A quarter of France plants were out unplanned, another quarter were in planned maintenance. This was all documented extensively, we should not debate facts. On top of that the EDF kept blowing its own deadlines all year. Summary from the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr... "A record 26 of its 56 reactors are off-line for maintenance or repairs after the worrisome discovery of cracks and corrosion in some pipes used to cool reactor cores." Shutting down a quarter of your fleet because of worrisome discovery of cracks, causing panic on the energy markets across the continent does not sound like predictable to me. Renewables on the other hand are extremely predictable and pretty much always deliver on the prediction because they are so distributed. The chart says Germany produced 165TWh from coal in 2021 and roughly 250TWh in 2010. I believe you should check the dictionary for the words "modest" and "predictable".

mpweiher 4y ago
Stop spreading disinformation. > only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal 1. Once again: it was not a "failure". It was scheduled maintenance/inspection. 2. Yes. The French were able to schedule this maintenance/inspection in the summer, when energy demand is at its lowest and renewable production at its highest. It is so helpful to be able to schedule these things. Unlike renewables, which you you can't schedule at all, and the only thing you really know is that they will produce the least energy when you need it most. 3. Once again: this was scheduled maintenance/inspection. And during the scheduled inspection they found some cracks. This is something that happens when you inspect things. That is why you do the inspections: so you find stuff that you then fix. [The regularly scheduled car inspection found some problems with the engine that were duly fixed. Germans: OMG!!! WE MUST IMMEDIATELY BAN ALL CARS!!!! ] 5. "Modest". Yep, that's fairly modest, particularly when compared to considering a tripling of gas use as "unchanged". And that reduction went hand-in-hand with an overall reduction in demand in the last years. Also, you need to look at the lignite coal numbers, because lignite is the worst polluting kind: hardly changed at all. We did reduce the hard-coal a bit more due to shutting down the mines (by removing subsidies).
- locallost 4y ago
  No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet. A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. When it became clear the EDF doesn't have the situation under control the futures prices exploded everywhere but especially in France. At one point the futures prices there reached almost 2000$ per MWh. I've posted one link that documented the problem from a reputable source, and posted a quote directly here. That you choose to ignore reality and live in a constructed world is a testament to the wishful thinking mentality of the pro nuclear crowd. But like I posted elsewhere it doesn't really matter -- Europe needs to remove fossil fuels and this will happen a lot quicker than most people assume. The ink on the plans for new nuclear plants won't even dry.
  - mpweiher 4y ago