13 ms·

The end of nuclear power in Germany

37 points by hochmartinez 4y ago

venk12 4y ago
Any energy expert(s) here? Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? What are the significant obstacles to be overcome?
- VHRanger 4y ago
  Significant obstacles like: - Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid. There are a few 'natural' batteries, like the water level of a hydro dam, but none for renewables. - Sometimes it's cloudy - Sometimes there's no wind - The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. So, despite handwaving these issues away, the "baseload" capacity remains a problem which has to be addressed by something with storable energy - eg. nuclear, hydro or coal.
  - venk12 4y ago
    Do you believe we have the technology needed to safely dispose nuclear waste without affecting the environment and future generations?
    - yaantc 4y ago
      Do you believe the possible threat of nuclear waste to future generations, considering our current waste management technologies, to be higher than the impact due to more CO2 generation by running electrical coal plants instead of nuclear ones? That seems a more relevant question to me. There's no silver bullet, and pointing problems on one side only may help win arguments (maybe?) but is not so helpful when trying to find the "best" option. Which, in real life, usually means the less bad option. Warts everywhere...
      - venk12 4y ago
        Indeed, you are correct! Is there an 'impartial' governing body that has examined these two alternatives and determined the advantages and disadvantages of each? Or is there any relevant literature that focuses on simulating/evaluating these options?
    - kirrent 4y ago
      Yes.
    - VHRanger 4y ago
      Easily, yes. It's easy and safe to dispose of, and doesn't take much space at all. Disposing nuclear waste effectively means putting it under ~3m of water in a place where people won't mess with it. As of 2016, France has produced 14,000 tons of nuclear waste *in its entire history*. That's about 7 normal olympic swimming pools in total volume. We have much bigger issues with other forms of waste, nuclear waste has always just been a scaremongering tactic for the anti-nuclear crowd.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Nuclear waste is also the issue the nuclear stans like to bring up, to propagate the falsehood that it is the issue that's holding back nuclear (so they can then correctly argue that it's not that big a problem, so incorrectly claim building more nuclear is a good idea.)
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Batteries work fine at scale. What they don't do is get you to 100% renewables. But hydrogen can be used for that last 5-10%, and Europe has many petawatt hours of hydrogen storage potential available in salt formations.
    - VHRanger 4y ago
      Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Last I checked 4 years ago they didn't at all in terms of costs or pollution to produce/dispose of. Natural stores energy like nuclear or hydro remain best.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Now you're moving the goal posts. If something is too expensive, it's too expensive at small scale as well as large scale. There is no engineering reason why a grid cannot have very large amounts of batteries attached to it. If they're at the moment too expensive, that's no inherent obstacle, since battery prices have been falling rapidly, much faster than nuclear's price ever did. > Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Hitchen's Razor. I can dismiss your original claim without evidence, since it was presented without evidence. In other words: sources? You go first. I suspect you are parroting studies that assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables, then clutch their pearls at how many batteries are needed. Using batteries for that last 10% or so is just bad engineering, so those studies are strawmen.
    - _hypx 4y ago
      If you have many petawatt-hours of hydrogen storage, you don't need batteries at all.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Batteries are likely going to be better for short term storage, due to their higher round trip efficiency. Hydrogen would win for long term storage (seasonal, for example) and backing up the system against rare prolonged dark-calm periods. A combination of the two storage modes could be better than either one alone. Adding additional capabilities (transmission, intermediate term storage, dispatchable demand of various kinds) can only make things cheaper.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Sep/IRENA_Utility-scale-batteries_2019.pdf https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication... They do. This is from 2019, there are probably better and more recent sources. > Sometimes it's cloudy > Sometimes there's no wind Yes, so you always use a mix. The biggest problem is when there is no sun and no wind and this happens for an extended period. At those times power will likely become a lot more expensive. And as long as we don't have seasonal storage there will always be periods in the year like that, no matter where you live unless it is close to the equator. > The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. You don't need a 'renewable grid', the one we have will serve just fine. Gamechanger: HVDC to offset day/night and seasonal cycles because it allows the transport of electricity over far larger distances. This + a relatively modest amount of storage may well be the ticket.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      Batteries are expensive + needs to be replaced periodically, which is making whole setup even more expensive in the long run. Batteries are dead end for energy storage.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Batteries are emphatically not a dead end, there are many more chemistries than Lithium Ion and the life spans are approaching 6000 cycles for the best kinds which is a 20 year lifespan. Yes, they are expensive, so is everything else connected to the power grid. The cost of storing a KWh and retrieving it has been steadily dropping over the past two decades making this now a feasible method to store energy at grid scale. Even so, like everything else, it is an optimization problem, you don't want to overdesign your battery storage because the safe assumption seems to be that future tech will be even better so pacing the roll-out of such tech is a prudent approach.
- forty 4y ago
  The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy :) it's tough because people don't really care about the environment as soon as they have to even slightly change any of their habits, and the situation would require that people significantly change their habits (so I'd say we are probably screwed)
  - pieix 4y ago
    As you’ve identified, few people will opt into a lower quality of living in the name of the greater good. The solution is to find better power generation methods, rather than force people to accept a downgrade.
    - forty 4y ago
      Well, it's not that much about acceptance, the downgrade is being forced on people right now (via drought, ocean rise, heat, fire, and other climatic events, and all this will also cause hunger, population move and wars), and it's a much worse downgrade than what people could do volontarily to mitigate the issue.
  - venk12 4y ago
    To what degree is personal consumption driving the demand for energy? And to what degree are industrials, workplaces or collective activities we do as part of the society? In any case, what are the ways to reduce consumption of energy at an individual level and society as a whole? Are there any novel ideas that are yet to be explored?
    - forty 4y ago
      For personal consumption, I'd assume a large part of the energy used directly come from home heating/cooling and transportation (cars). Solutions exist to improve both in many cases (insulation and public transportation/biking/walking).
  - kcplate 4y ago
    >> Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? > The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy If we can’t produce enough power using renewables to meet current demand you cannot run the world on renewables. So “no”.
- jamil7 4y ago
  I'm pro renewables, but I think the supply side is a significant obstacle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    I'm not going to waste time watching a video; they're very poor at efficiently transmitting information compared to text. Can you summarize the argument so I can poke holes in it?
- ianpurton 4y ago
  Germany is running on coal. It's by far the worst example of energy vs pollution in Europe.
  - jamil7 4y ago
    I think Poland might be worse actually, but yes Germany is bad.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    But this coal is endorsed by Greenpeace so it's basically renewable energy.
    - ianpurton 4y ago
      It's renewable if Greenpeace can somehow release the CO2 from our childrens lungs.
      - jojobas 4y ago
        1. Poe's law 2. Removing CO2 is basically 50% of the lungs job and they do it just fine.
    - zapnuk 4y ago
      That a dumb and incorrect statement. Here is the first link when you google "greenpeace coal germany". The level of stupidity from this and many other comments makes me wonder how many russian plants are here trying to push some agenda. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429/greenpeace-welcomes-germanys-plan-to-phase-out-coal-but-urges-haste/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429...
      - jojobas 4y ago
        Russian plants are feeling accomplished ever since Germany started building gas power plants like crazy. Phasing out coal is great, phasing out nuclear before coal is as idiotic as you can get. I'm convinced that European Greens are 50% Russian assets 50% useful idiots.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Symbiote 4y ago
  Greenpeace want a collection of energy policies to be implemented: demand reduction, renewable power generation, no nuclear power, no fossil fuel power. [1] is their policy from 2010. It suggests more CHP, renewable electricity generation with demand peaks balanced with hydrogen storage, improved electric public transport, rail rather than road freight, etc. I don't have time to read it now, it is 260 pages with lots of figures. [1] https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3-raw.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2010/fullreport.pdf https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3...
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Yes, the world can run on renewables. This has become completely clear. And it's likely to end up cheaper than using nuclear, especially when you consider that today's thermal reactors cannot power the world for more than a few years before the cheap uranium runs out. Europe's problem is that they're not well sited to use solar, compared to places closer to the equator. So heavy industry may move elsewhere. Nuclear will not change this, since solar in those best locations is very cheap.
elif 4y ago
Greenpeace celebrates during record profits for the German coal industry. [0] Germany (6th largest coal reserve in the world) becomes a net exporter of electricity to nuclear France just as "electricity became as polluting as power produced in South Africa and India" [1] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b83e3b9306591c84f.html https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-returns-to-coal-as-energy-security-trumps-climate-goals https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-r...
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  The problem with Germany's coal is that it's mostly lignite, the lowest quality and dirtiest type of coal. At least the UK lucked out on having the best quality coal.
- zapnuk 4y ago
  1. The reason Germany has to scale (temporarily) on coal wasn't the exit from nuclear power. It's because Germany stopped importing russian gas. 2. Why does France need to import electricity in the first place? Hint: It's because HALF of their nuclear reactors needed maintenance.
  - tjoff 4y ago
    ... and killing nuclear is apparently more important than not using coal.
golergka 4y ago
Mind boggling level of stupidity. With their campaign against nuclear, Greenpeace is an organization that dealt an enormous amount of damage to the environment and European energy independence.
- usr1106 4y ago
  I lived in Germany 30 years and have followed the country ever since. I don't think Greenpeace is particular popular in Germany. They have few activists and few supporters. The Greens' party which is clearly anti-nuclear is much more popular and still it's by by far not the biggest one in the country. A founder of the Greens' party said it this weekend: Even the Greens' party did not kill nuclear power. It was chancellor Merkel, a conservative, having the right feeling for the sentiments of the majority.
  - Braini 4y ago
    That is true in some way but the original decision to shut them down was taken about 20 years ago by the left red/green government. Merkels convernment initially decided to keep them running longer but took a 180 after Fukushima, probably as you say having the right feeling for the majority opinion in the country at that time.
    - usr1106 4y ago
      Right, there was the exit by red/green. Later there came the exit out of the exit probably by conservatives (I don't remember). After Fukushima came the exit out of the exit out of the exit by Merkel, conservative. That was slightly delayed by Covid or Russia's attack war (don't remember, probably the latter) but finalized last night.
erwerwerwer 4y ago
Pathetic, not a single mention of how this premature phasing out of nuclear power has increased use of coal power in Germany, resulting in higher carbon emissions. Greenpeace is a disgrace. It's well known that Russia has supported various anti-nuclear environmental movements in Europe to keep countries dependent on their gas supply.
- johnchristopher 4y ago
  > Greenpeace is a disgrace. It's well known that Russia has supported various anti-nuclear environmental movements in Europe to keep countries dependent on their gas supply. Far right movements, okay but do you have any source on Russia supporting anti-nuclear environmental movements in Europe ? edit: I found this question https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-001275_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127... from a Polish member of the parliament but the answer is... disconcertingly vague.
  - api 4y ago
    Deep ecology and luddite environmentalism are far right movements. They're adjacent to "trads." They just haven't realized it yet, nor have most of their detractors.
    - johnchristopher 4y ago
      That's a point of view, not an argument nor a source.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Coal-fired power in Germany declined right along with nuclear. The idea that nuclear was replaced with coal is false, and it's been debunked so much that anyone continuing to propagate the falsehood is deliberately lying.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    There is yet another aspect to this: the radiation hazard of coal which is often cited applies to black coal to a much higher degree than to brown coal, which is the kind that Germany tends to burn, and it's not as if that ash tends to be released into the environment either. A lot of money has gone into the scrubbing of the exhaust of coal fired plants. Still less of those would be better.
timonoko 4y ago
Greenpeace Finland has been remarkably silent on this issue since 2014. Google-translated webpage says now: "We follow the nuclear power debate and highlight problems related to nuclear power". This is not the official Greenpeace Anti-Nukular message at all. :-)
- braza 4y ago
  As an South American living in Germany for a while I learned in a hard way that this is a society that you need to extremely cynical and act defensively about those issues to have some peace of mind. Due to the surge in the gas and electricity after some basic math, we decided to stay 2 months away during the Winter with our family in Finland. Basically we saved €400 plus we enjoyed a quite nice time together. My next move will definitely look for a house with a fireplace.
  - rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
    Fireplaces will probably be banned too. They polute, you need to be cold in the winter and pay tribute to the environmentalist gods.
    - postsantum 4y ago
      Don't forget having fewer children
  - madsbuch 4y ago
    Fireplaces as a heat source is even more polluting than coal based energy as the exhausts are not cleaned. It is interesting to see how political activism as actively ruining the society by pushing people to worse technologies.
    - braza 4y ago
      Still using my “third-world-chipset” I hardly believe that (the possibility of ban fireplaces) it will have an expanded blast radius beyond Germany. Good luck for the politician that try to do it in the Nordic countries.
ianpurton 4y ago
A quick search paints a different picture > Germany produced 674.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) in 2021 - an increase of roughly 5.5 percent compared with the previous year.
- tmalsburg2 4y ago
  The previous year, 2020, is a bit of an outlier, though, due to covid.
tiku 4y ago
Yeah, just keep burning brown coal. I drove past one of the mines, truly big pits in the middle of nowhere. They can buy power of their neighbors, like the Netherlands, we are investing in new plants.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Germany is a net exporter of electrical energy.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I think they meant instead of burning coal that they could import electricty because NL 'is building new nuclear plants'. Whether they will ever really be built is still up for grabs, as is the question whether they will make money (unlikely).
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      NL is not building new nuclear plants. There's talk about it, but talk is talk, not building.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        It's gone a lot further than 'just talk': https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/12/09/borssele-voorkeurslocatie-voor-twee-nieuwe-kerncentrales https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/12/09/borss... But there is a lot of pushback and even if they break ground there is some chance that the projects will be cancelled due to cost.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  > we are investing in new plants. Which will come way too late to make a difference and will no doubt be subsidized heavily. It's just the neoliberals' dream to find a quick fix so they can continue as they were.
  - 4y ago
angry_octet 4y ago
Powerful ideas have long tailed effects. The nuclear panic that crested with Chernobyl has been embedded deeply in the public consciousness, and we have not seen its end yet. The science of climate change has not yet had an emotional connection with the populace, so when Greenpeace says they've killed nuclear in Germany they hear "nuclear catastrophe averted", when they should hear "we love to see more coal burned, more radiation released, and accelerate climate change".
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Is the fear of nuclear really higher in Germany? Lots of places are wary of nuclear but Germany proactively shutting down all plants goes the furthest.
  - Arnt 4y ago
    I live in Germany but am not German. I don't think there's more fear here, compared to the other places I know. You might say there's a coalition. Several kinds of opposition adding up. For example, all of the nuclear operators were caught discarding nuclear waste at a construction site some years ago, without either permission or records. The site was supposed to become a storage site, but throwing nuclear waste before it's opened, in places where construction workers will have to work later, and not keeping records? The episode lost trust with the engineering-friendly part of the audience. If anyone were to seriously suggest building a new plant here, the cost overruns of Hinkley Point C would be a large problem, because another part of the public is really stingy about the public purse. And so on. It's not all fear of nuclear accidents, it's more of a coalition.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Indeed. If nuclear really were the economic bee's knees, as the nuclear stans keep saying, the opposition could be bought off and corners wouldn't have to be cut. But nuclear is way too expensive and that corrodes support.
    - madsbuch 4y ago
jojobas 4y ago
The heat from hand-rubbing in Moscow exceeded total German power output today.
ptero 4y ago
A huge benefit of nuclear is the ability to generate a lot of base power to smooth out various external shocks. In addition to the fact that Germany is running on coal, as others noted, German industry has been badly decimated by the energy price hikes since the war in Ukraine started. And Germany without industry may not be particularly viable economically, which is not only a local problem, but hits the whole EU.
- braza 4y ago
  Some companies are struggling to compete with higher energy costs [1]. Not a good sign. [1] - https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2023/02/24/10858299/basf-to-close-several-major-assets-at-ludwigshafen-on-high-production-costs/ https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2023/02/24/10858...
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Base power like nuclear must generate nearly constantly (or else the economics becomes much worse), so it can't smooth out shocks. There's no excess capacity that can be added when needed.
  - ptero 4y ago
    By "external shocks" I did not mean daily or weekly fluctuations, but price jumps lasting many months to several years. Like oil price spikes 2006-2008, or less extreme but longer 2010-2014. Or shorter, but more extreme natgas spikes of 2022. Without local hydrocarbons or nuclear oil or gas price spikes drive industry out of the country. This is what happened in Germany, which apparently is doubling down on this strategy. With base nuclear power the state has a lot of flexibility to support industry in case geopolitics or neighbors' bad macro policies jack oil and gas prices up.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Nuclear is useless for dealing with shocks that are shorter than the time needed to build a nucleat plant.
mkl95 4y ago
Roughly, Germany has two options at the moment. Those options are doubling down on nuclear power and stabilize their economy, or relying on other forms of energy as some kind of existential gamble. No matter what they choose, it will have a domino effect on EU countries.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  The nuclear option there is nonexistent because of how long it takes to build nuclear power plants. The only real option is continued expansion of renewable sources. That's also the cheapest option.
slowmotiony 4y ago
You can almost hear the champagne being opened in the FSB headquarters in Moscow.
- tmalsburg2 4y ago
  I doubt it. The share of nuclear power was too small to matter geopolitically, just 5% of electricity.
  - Braini 4y ago
    These were just the last 5%, go back around 20 years where the shutdown was initially decided and it was about 30%.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - tmalsburg2 4y ago
      I know. But the idea that they'd pop the Champagne now suggests that the closure of the remaining plants was a reason for Russia to celebrate. However, if the phasing out of nuclear in Germany was ever a reason for them to celebrate, they would have celebrated long ago. Also, Russia is a major source of Uranium, so it's not at all clear that this is actually good for them. Further, even 20 years ago, nuclear covered only a tiny part of Germany's primary energy needs (at no time more than 12%) and could have easily been compensated for with coal. So again, it's not clear at all that ending nuclear has pushed the geopolitical needle.
generic92034 4y ago
Maybe only looking at the increase of energy production from coal is a bit short-sighted, though. Running a large number of nuclear plants could undermine the impetus to sufficiently and timely invest into expanding renewable energy production and the related infrastructure. Of course, it is quite some gamble, but if Germany gets it done as planned they will have a competitive advantage in a couple of decades, while other countries are struggling with aging nuclear plants and cost explosions for new ones. France is already an example for both issues.
RagnarD 4y ago
Showing that lies repeated often enough can be extremely destructive. Nuclear energy is incredibly safe. It's very compact, very reliable, emits no CO2, and extremely scalable. It's now proven that dissolved uranium in seawater can be practically extracted and continuously replenished in the ocean from dissolved rock, making it sustainable and renewable. Greenpeace doesn't give a damn about any of that. The greens hate nuclear because it's an extremely effective way to sustain and enhance human life.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  The problem with nuclear isn't safety, it's cost. If nuclear were 10x safer and no cheaper, it would go nowhere. If it were 10x cheaper and no safer, it would be going like gangbusters.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    That's why you see these ridiculously pre-negotiated prices for nuclear plants that would sink any commercial project before it was even committed to the drawing board. There is no way that these things will ever be commercially viable.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Indeed. There's a reason there's never been a merchant nuclear plant, selling into a competitive electricity market, anywhere in the world.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        They were in many places mostly a fig leaf in order to be able to create weapons grade nuclear material and it is no coincidence that almost every country that has heavily bet on nuclear power also has a nuclear arms arsenal.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Or a large stockpile of reactor grade plutonium (which, despite claims, can be use to make weapons), that would enable a rapid breakout of control regimes. Japan is the particular example.
lousken 4y ago
This is beyond stupid, this is malicious
stefantalpalaru 4y ago
[dead]
braza 4y ago
Life comes to you so fast Germany… 45% price increase in a region starting at 1 Jun 23. [1] - https://rp-online.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/energiepreise-nrw-eon-erhoeht-die-strompreise-um-45-prozent_aid-88519693 https://rp-online.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/energiepreise-nr...

37 points by hochmartinez 4y ago

Any energy expert(s) here? Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? What are the significant obstacles to be overcome?

VHRanger 4y ago
Significant obstacles like: - Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid. There are a few 'natural' batteries, like the water level of a hydro dam, but none for renewables. - Sometimes it's cloudy - Sometimes there's no wind - The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. So, despite handwaving these issues away, the "baseload" capacity remains a problem which has to be addressed by something with storable energy - eg. nuclear, hydro or coal.
- venk12 4y ago
  Do you believe we have the technology needed to safely dispose nuclear waste without affecting the environment and future generations?
  - yaantc 4y ago
    Do you believe the possible threat of nuclear waste to future generations, considering our current waste management technologies, to be higher than the impact due to more CO2 generation by running electrical coal plants instead of nuclear ones? That seems a more relevant question to me. There's no silver bullet, and pointing problems on one side only may help win arguments (maybe?) but is not so helpful when trying to find the "best" option. Which, in real life, usually means the less bad option. Warts everywhere...
    - venk12 4y ago
      Indeed, you are correct! Is there an 'impartial' governing body that has examined these two alternatives and determined the advantages and disadvantages of each? Or is there any relevant literature that focuses on simulating/evaluating these options?
  - kirrent 4y ago
    Yes.
  - VHRanger 4y ago
    Easily, yes. It's easy and safe to dispose of, and doesn't take much space at all. Disposing nuclear waste effectively means putting it under ~3m of water in a place where people won't mess with it. As of 2016, France has produced 14,000 tons of nuclear waste *in its entire history*. That's about 7 normal olympic swimming pools in total volume. We have much bigger issues with other forms of waste, nuclear waste has always just been a scaremongering tactic for the anti-nuclear crowd.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Nuclear waste is also the issue the nuclear stans like to bring up, to propagate the falsehood that it is the issue that's holding back nuclear (so they can then correctly argue that it's not that big a problem, so incorrectly claim building more nuclear is a good idea.)
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Batteries work fine at scale. What they don't do is get you to 100% renewables. But hydrogen can be used for that last 5-10%, and Europe has many petawatt hours of hydrogen storage potential available in salt formations.
  - VHRanger 4y ago
    Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Last I checked 4 years ago they didn't at all in terms of costs or pollution to produce/dispose of. Natural stores energy like nuclear or hydro remain best.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Now you're moving the goal posts. If something is too expensive, it's too expensive at small scale as well as large scale. There is no engineering reason why a grid cannot have very large amounts of batteries attached to it. If they're at the moment too expensive, that's no inherent obstacle, since battery prices have been falling rapidly, much faster than nuclear's price ever did. > Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Hitchen's Razor. I can dismiss your original claim without evidence, since it was presented without evidence. In other words: sources? You go first. I suspect you are parroting studies that assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables, then clutch their pearls at how many batteries are needed. Using batteries for that last 10% or so is just bad engineering, so those studies are strawmen.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    If you have many petawatt-hours of hydrogen storage, you don't need batteries at all.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Batteries are likely going to be better for short term storage, due to their higher round trip efficiency. Hydrogen would win for long term storage (seasonal, for example) and backing up the system against rare prolonged dark-calm periods. A combination of the two storage modes could be better than either one alone. Adding additional capabilities (transmission, intermediate term storage, dispatchable demand of various kinds) can only make things cheaper.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Sep/IRENA_Utility-scale-batteries_2019.pdf https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication... They do. This is from 2019, there are probably better and more recent sources. > Sometimes it's cloudy > Sometimes there's no wind Yes, so you always use a mix. The biggest problem is when there is no sun and no wind and this happens for an extended period. At those times power will likely become a lot more expensive. And as long as we don't have seasonal storage there will always be periods in the year like that, no matter where you live unless it is close to the equator. > The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. You don't need a 'renewable grid', the one we have will serve just fine. Gamechanger: HVDC to offset day/night and seasonal cycles because it allows the transport of electricity over far larger distances. This + a relatively modest amount of storage may well be the ticket.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    Batteries are expensive + needs to be replaced periodically, which is making whole setup even more expensive in the long run. Batteries are dead end for energy storage.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Batteries are emphatically not a dead end, there are many more chemistries than Lithium Ion and the life spans are approaching 6000 cycles for the best kinds which is a 20 year lifespan. Yes, they are expensive, so is everything else connected to the power grid. The cost of storing a KWh and retrieving it has been steadily dropping over the past two decades making this now a feasible method to store energy at grid scale. Even so, like everything else, it is an optimization problem, you don't want to overdesign your battery storage because the safe assumption seems to be that future tech will be even better so pacing the roll-out of such tech is a prudent approach.
forty 4y ago
The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy :) it's tough because people don't really care about the environment as soon as they have to even slightly change any of their habits, and the situation would require that people significantly change their habits (so I'd say we are probably screwed)
- pieix 4y ago
  As you’ve identified, few people will opt into a lower quality of living in the name of the greater good. The solution is to find better power generation methods, rather than force people to accept a downgrade.
  - forty 4y ago
    Well, it's not that much about acceptance, the downgrade is being forced on people right now (via drought, ocean rise, heat, fire, and other climatic events, and all this will also cause hunger, population move and wars), and it's a much worse downgrade than what people could do volontarily to mitigate the issue.
- venk12 4y ago
  To what degree is personal consumption driving the demand for energy? And to what degree are industrials, workplaces or collective activities we do as part of the society? In any case, what are the ways to reduce consumption of energy at an individual level and society as a whole? Are there any novel ideas that are yet to be explored?
  - forty 4y ago
    For personal consumption, I'd assume a large part of the energy used directly come from home heating/cooling and transportation (cars). Solutions exist to improve both in many cases (insulation and public transportation/biking/walking).
- kcplate 4y ago
  >> Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? > The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy If we can’t produce enough power using renewables to meet current demand you cannot run the world on renewables. So “no”.
jamil7 4y ago
I'm pro renewables, but I think the supply side is a significant obstacle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc
- pfdietz 4y ago
  I'm not going to waste time watching a video; they're very poor at efficiently transmitting information compared to text. Can you summarize the argument so I can poke holes in it?
ianpurton 4y ago
Germany is running on coal. It's by far the worst example of energy vs pollution in Europe.
- jamil7 4y ago
  I think Poland might be worse actually, but yes Germany is bad.
- jojobas 4y ago
  But this coal is endorsed by Greenpeace so it's basically renewable energy.
  - ianpurton 4y ago
    It's renewable if Greenpeace can somehow release the CO2 from our childrens lungs.
    - jojobas 4y ago
      1. Poe's law 2. Removing CO2 is basically 50% of the lungs job and they do it just fine.
  - zapnuk 4y ago
    That a dumb and incorrect statement. Here is the first link when you google "greenpeace coal germany". The level of stupidity from this and many other comments makes me wonder how many russian plants are here trying to push some agenda. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429/greenpeace-welcomes-germanys-plan-to-phase-out-coal-but-urges-haste/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429...
    - jojobas 4y ago
      Russian plants are feeling accomplished ever since Germany started building gas power plants like crazy. Phasing out coal is great, phasing out nuclear before coal is as idiotic as you can get. I'm convinced that European Greens are 50% Russian assets 50% useful idiots.
deleted 4y ago
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Symbiote 4y ago
Greenpeace want a collection of energy policies to be implemented: demand reduction, renewable power generation, no nuclear power, no fossil fuel power. [1] is their policy from 2010. It suggests more CHP, renewable electricity generation with demand peaks balanced with hydrogen storage, improved electric public transport, rail rather than road freight, etc. I don't have time to read it now, it is 260 pages with lots of figures. [1] https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3-raw.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2010/fullreport.pdf https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3...
pfdietz 4y ago
Yes, the world can run on renewables. This has become completely clear. And it's likely to end up cheaper than using nuclear, especially when you consider that today's thermal reactors cannot power the world for more than a few years before the cheap uranium runs out. Europe's problem is that they're not well sited to use solar, compared to places closer to the equator. So heavy industry may move elsewhere. Nuclear will not change this, since solar in those best locations is very cheap.

elif 4y ago

Greenpeace celebrates during record profits for the German coal industry. [0] Germany (6th largest coal reserve in the world) becomes a net exporter of electricity to nuclear France just as "electricity became as polluting as power produced in South Africa and India" [1] [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b83e3b9306591c84f.html https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/4d971e78dafc471b... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-returns-to-coal-as-energy-security-trumps-climate-goals https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-22/germany-r...

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
The problem with Germany's coal is that it's mostly lignite, the lowest quality and dirtiest type of coal. At least the UK lucked out on having the best quality coal.
zapnuk 4y ago
1. The reason Germany has to scale (temporarily) on coal wasn't the exit from nuclear power. It's because Germany stopped importing russian gas. 2. Why does France need to import electricity in the first place? Hint: It's because HALF of their nuclear reactors needed maintenance.
- tjoff 4y ago
  ... and killing nuclear is apparently more important than not using coal.

golergka 4y ago

Mind boggling level of stupidity. With their campaign against nuclear, Greenpeace is an organization that dealt an enormous amount of damage to the environment and European energy independence.

usr1106 4y ago
I lived in Germany 30 years and have followed the country ever since. I don't think Greenpeace is particular popular in Germany. They have few activists and few supporters. The Greens' party which is clearly anti-nuclear is much more popular and still it's by by far not the biggest one in the country. A founder of the Greens' party said it this weekend: Even the Greens' party did not kill nuclear power. It was chancellor Merkel, a conservative, having the right feeling for the sentiments of the majority.
- Braini 4y ago
  That is true in some way but the original decision to shut them down was taken about 20 years ago by the left red/green government. Merkels convernment initially decided to keep them running longer but took a 180 after Fukushima, probably as you say having the right feeling for the majority opinion in the country at that time.
  - usr1106 4y ago
    Right, there was the exit by red/green. Later there came the exit out of the exit probably by conservatives (I don't remember). After Fukushima came the exit out of the exit out of the exit by Merkel, conservative. That was slightly delayed by Covid or Russia's attack war (don't remember, probably the latter) but finalized last night.

erwerwerwer 4y ago

Pathetic, not a single mention of how this premature phasing out of nuclear power has increased use of coal power in Germany, resulting in higher carbon emissions. Greenpeace is a disgrace. It's well known that Russia has supported various anti-nuclear environmental movements in Europe to keep countries dependent on their gas supply.

johnchristopher 4y ago
> Greenpeace is a disgrace. It's well known that Russia has supported various anti-nuclear environmental movements in Europe to keep countries dependent on their gas supply. Far right movements, okay but do you have any source on Russia supporting anti-nuclear environmental movements in Europe ? edit: I found this question https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-001275_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127... from a Polish member of the parliament but the answer is... disconcertingly vague.
- api 4y ago
  Deep ecology and luddite environmentalism are far right movements. They're adjacent to "trads." They just haven't realized it yet, nor have most of their detractors.
  - johnchristopher 4y ago
    That's a point of view, not an argument nor a source.
pfdietz 4y ago
Coal-fired power in Germany declined right along with nuclear. The idea that nuclear was replaced with coal is false, and it's been debunked so much that anyone continuing to propagate the falsehood is deliberately lying.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  There is yet another aspect to this: the radiation hazard of coal which is often cited applies to black coal to a much higher degree than to brown coal, which is the kind that Germany tends to burn, and it's not as if that ash tends to be released into the environment either. A lot of money has gone into the scrubbing of the exhaust of coal fired plants. Still less of those would be better.

timonoko 4y ago

Greenpeace Finland has been remarkably silent on this issue since 2014. Google-translated webpage says now: "We follow the nuclear power debate and highlight problems related to nuclear power". This is not the official Greenpeace Anti-Nukular message at all. :-)

braza 4y ago
As an South American living in Germany for a while I learned in a hard way that this is a society that you need to extremely cynical and act defensively about those issues to have some peace of mind. Due to the surge in the gas and electricity after some basic math, we decided to stay 2 months away during the Winter with our family in Finland. Basically we saved €400 plus we enjoyed a quite nice time together. My next move will definitely look for a house with a fireplace.
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
  Fireplaces will probably be banned too. They polute, you need to be cold in the winter and pay tribute to the environmentalist gods.
  - postsantum 4y ago
    Don't forget having fewer children
- madsbuch 4y ago
  Fireplaces as a heat source is even more polluting than coal based energy as the exhausts are not cleaned. It is interesting to see how political activism as actively ruining the society by pushing people to worse technologies.
  - braza 4y ago
    Still using my “third-world-chipset” I hardly believe that (the possibility of ban fireplaces) it will have an expanded blast radius beyond Germany. Good luck for the politician that try to do it in the Nordic countries.

ianpurton 4y ago

A quick search paints a different picture > Germany produced 674.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) in 2021 - an increase of roughly 5.5 percent compared with the previous year.

tmalsburg2 4y ago
The previous year, 2020, is a bit of an outlier, though, due to covid.

tiku 4y ago

Yeah, just keep burning brown coal. I drove past one of the mines, truly big pits in the middle of nowhere. They can buy power of their neighbors, like the Netherlands, we are investing in new plants.

pfdietz 4y ago
Germany is a net exporter of electrical energy.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I think they meant instead of burning coal that they could import electricty because NL 'is building new nuclear plants'. Whether they will ever really be built is still up for grabs, as is the question whether they will make money (unlikely).
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    NL is not building new nuclear plants. There's talk about it, but talk is talk, not building.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      It's gone a lot further than 'just talk': https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/12/09/borssele-voorkeurslocatie-voor-twee-nieuwe-kerncentrales https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/12/09/borss... But there is a lot of pushback and even if they break ground there is some chance that the projects will be cancelled due to cost.
wkat4242 4y ago
> we are investing in new plants. Which will come way too late to make a difference and will no doubt be subsidized heavily. It's just the neoliberals' dream to find a quick fix so they can continue as they were.
- 4y ago

angry_octet 4y ago

Powerful ideas have long tailed effects. The nuclear panic that crested with Chernobyl has been embedded deeply in the public consciousness, and we have not seen its end yet. The science of climate change has not yet had an emotional connection with the populace, so when Greenpeace says they've killed nuclear in Germany they hear "nuclear catastrophe averted", when they should hear "we love to see more coal burned, more radiation released, and accelerate climate change".

nonethewiser 4y ago
Is the fear of nuclear really higher in Germany? Lots of places are wary of nuclear but Germany proactively shutting down all plants goes the furthest.
- Arnt 4y ago
  I live in Germany but am not German. I don't think there's more fear here, compared to the other places I know. You might say there's a coalition. Several kinds of opposition adding up. For example, all of the nuclear operators were caught discarding nuclear waste at a construction site some years ago, without either permission or records. The site was supposed to become a storage site, but throwing nuclear waste before it's opened, in places where construction workers will have to work later, and not keeping records? The episode lost trust with the engineering-friendly part of the audience. If anyone were to seriously suggest building a new plant here, the cost overruns of Hinkley Point C would be a large problem, because another part of the public is really stingy about the public purse. And so on. It's not all fear of nuclear accidents, it's more of a coalition.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Indeed. If nuclear really were the economic bee's knees, as the nuclear stans keep saying, the opposition could be bought off and corners wouldn't have to be cut. But nuclear is way too expensive and that corrodes support.
  - madsbuch 4y ago

jojobas 4y ago

The heat from hand-rubbing in Moscow exceeded total German power output today.

ptero 4y ago

A huge benefit of nuclear is the ability to generate a lot of base power to smooth out various external shocks. In addition to the fact that Germany is running on coal, as others noted, German industry has been badly decimated by the energy price hikes since the war in Ukraine started. And Germany without industry may not be particularly viable economically, which is not only a local problem, but hits the whole EU.

braza 4y ago
Some companies are struggling to compete with higher energy costs [1]. Not a good sign. [1] - https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2023/02/24/10858299/basf-to-close-several-major-assets-at-ludwigshafen-on-high-production-costs/ https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2023/02/24/10858...
pfdietz 4y ago
Base power like nuclear must generate nearly constantly (or else the economics becomes much worse), so it can't smooth out shocks. There's no excess capacity that can be added when needed.
- ptero 4y ago
  By "external shocks" I did not mean daily or weekly fluctuations, but price jumps lasting many months to several years. Like oil price spikes 2006-2008, or less extreme but longer 2010-2014. Or shorter, but more extreme natgas spikes of 2022. Without local hydrocarbons or nuclear oil or gas price spikes drive industry out of the country. This is what happened in Germany, which apparently is doubling down on this strategy. With base nuclear power the state has a lot of flexibility to support industry in case geopolitics or neighbors' bad macro policies jack oil and gas prices up.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Nuclear is useless for dealing with shocks that are shorter than the time needed to build a nucleat plant.

mkl95 4y ago

Roughly, Germany has two options at the moment. Those options are doubling down on nuclear power and stabilize their economy, or relying on other forms of energy as some kind of existential gamble. No matter what they choose, it will have a domino effect on EU countries.

pfdietz 4y ago
The nuclear option there is nonexistent because of how long it takes to build nuclear power plants. The only real option is continued expansion of renewable sources. That's also the cheapest option.

slowmotiony 4y ago

You can almost hear the champagne being opened in the FSB headquarters in Moscow.

tmalsburg2 4y ago
I doubt it. The share of nuclear power was too small to matter geopolitically, just 5% of electricity.
- Braini 4y ago
  These were just the last 5%, go back around 20 years where the shutdown was initially decided and it was about 30%.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tmalsburg2 4y ago
    I know. But the idea that they'd pop the Champagne now suggests that the closure of the remaining plants was a reason for Russia to celebrate. However, if the phasing out of nuclear in Germany was ever a reason for them to celebrate, they would have celebrated long ago. Also, Russia is a major source of Uranium, so it's not at all clear that this is actually good for them. Further, even 20 years ago, nuclear covered only a tiny part of Germany's primary energy needs (at no time more than 12%) and could have easily been compensated for with coal. So again, it's not clear at all that ending nuclear has pushed the geopolitical needle.

generic92034 4y ago

Maybe only looking at the increase of energy production from coal is a bit short-sighted, though. Running a large number of nuclear plants could undermine the impetus to sufficiently and timely invest into expanding renewable energy production and the related infrastructure. Of course, it is quite some gamble, but if Germany gets it done as planned they will have a competitive advantage in a couple of decades, while other countries are struggling with aging nuclear plants and cost explosions for new ones. France is already an example for both issues.

RagnarD 4y ago

Showing that lies repeated often enough can be extremely destructive. Nuclear energy is incredibly safe. It's very compact, very reliable, emits no CO2, and extremely scalable. It's now proven that dissolved uranium in seawater can be practically extracted and continuously replenished in the ocean from dissolved rock, making it sustainable and renewable. Greenpeace doesn't give a damn about any of that. The greens hate nuclear because it's an extremely effective way to sustain and enhance human life.

pfdietz 4y ago
The problem with nuclear isn't safety, it's cost. If nuclear were 10x safer and no cheaper, it would go nowhere. If it were 10x cheaper and no safer, it would be going like gangbusters.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  That's why you see these ridiculously pre-negotiated prices for nuclear plants that would sink any commercial project before it was even committed to the drawing board. There is no way that these things will ever be commercially viable.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Indeed. There's a reason there's never been a merchant nuclear plant, selling into a competitive electricity market, anywhere in the world.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      They were in many places mostly a fig leaf in order to be able to create weapons grade nuclear material and it is no coincidence that almost every country that has heavily bet on nuclear power also has a nuclear arms arsenal.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Or a large stockpile of reactor grade plutonium (which, despite claims, can be use to make weapons), that would enable a rapid breakout of control regimes. Japan is the particular example.

lousken 4y ago

This is beyond stupid, this is malicious

stefantalpalaru 4y ago

[dead]

braza 4y ago

Life comes to you so fast Germany… 45% price increase in a region starting at 1 Jun 23. [1] - https://rp-online.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/energiepreise-nrw-eon-erhoeht-die-strompreise-um-45-prozent_aid-88519693 https://rp-online.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/energiepreise-nr...