6 ms·

It boggles my mind that they would turn off the cleanest, most consistent power supply that exists, now. "Focus is renewables, not baseload" - that doesn't eve

It boggles my mind that they would turn off the cleanest, most consistent power supply that exists, now. "Focus is renewables, not baseload" - that doesn't even make sense, you still need the latter to heat a country through winter (or cool it down during summer, in case of Australia). So I guess on the flat, overcast days they'll burn coal instead, which has its own horrible mix of emissions. Or gas. Bravo, genius. I'm all for green energy etc, but the focus must be on reducing total emissions. As someone who likes charging their EV from the sun I have experienced how bleak it gets during the Melbournian winter - I'll get 3-4 kWh in a day at worst/too often - maybe up to 8 more normally, compared to closer to 40-50 kWh on my 6.6/5 kWh PV system (rarely less than 30) during summer.

pydry 3y ago
It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast and so cheaply over 10 years and yet the story it is routinely spun into is that it is a shameful abject failure because in the process of doing that they switched off an aging, overpriced source of green energy that comprised just 6% of their usage. I think the respective attitudes pro nuclear advocates have to Poland (80% coal->80% coal) and Germany (10%->50% renewables) kind of underscores that nobody is shaming Germany for climate reasons.
- illiarian 3y ago
  > It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast Compare it to France which didn't have to decarbonize to begin with. Because of those bad-bad-bad no-good reactors.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    France needs to and is decarbonising. Electricity is perhaps the most important (because of electrification) but it's not the only sector. Plus France's electricity has always had the last 20% to deal with.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > France needs to and is decarbonising. In Europe only Sweden and Norway have lower carbon emissions from electricity generation than France.
  - pydry 3y ago
    France didn't decarbonize deliberately and they did it 50 years ago decades before anybody paid any attention to global warming. Meanwhile theyre becoming progressively more aware of the extreme costs of staying nuclear - costs they kept halfway reasonable by neglecting maintenance which is now biting them back.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > costs they kept halfway reasonable by neglecting maintenance. That is not how you keep costs reasonable. You're just postponing them until they become unreasonable.
    - locallost 3y ago
      Correct. France built its reactors after the oil crises of the early 70s to guarantee its energy independence. The irony being those same plants failed at the time of the biggest energy crises since then.
      - illiarian 3y ago
        > The irony being those same plants failed at the time of the biggest energy crises since then. They didn't fail.
        locallost 3y ago
        They failed. A quarter was out because of faulty pipes and another quarter was out because of planned maintenance. France had to rely on its neighbors to keep its lights on, and became a net importer of electricity for the first time in decades. And I repeat during the biggest energy crisis in 50 years, which was the entire reason for their existence. Can't fail in a worse way.
    - trashtester 3y ago
      > France didn't decarbonize deliberately and they did it 50 years ago decades before anybody paid any attention to global warming. Whether or not France did or did not decarbonize deliberatly is secondary to the fact that they DID decarbonize. On the other hand, when Germany set out to decarbonize, they SHOULD look have looked at historical data for what actually produced the desired outcome. But instead they chose to replace their nuclear power with wind power, while keeping fossil power the same.
martin_a 3y ago
> It boggles my mind that they would turn off the cleanest, most consistent power supply that exists, now. The end of nuclear power has been a thing in Germany for the last 20 years. Changes of the required laws were already done in 2002, Fukushima was just another data point to stick to this plan. Most reactors were EOL anyway and the energy providers wanted to offload responsibilites (and costs) to the public. Nuclear power only made up around 6% of the total energy consumption of Germany, so it's not that of a big deal. What we need in Germany (now and for the last 20 years) is less bureaucracy for setting up solar systems and lots of development for public/private storage solutions. The future of energy is decentralized.
- illiarian 3y ago
  > Fukushima was just another data point to stick to this plan. Fukushima wasn't a data point. It was a populist FUD talking point.
- trashtester 3y ago
  The mistake was made 20 years ago, and now the German public seems to start to realize that it was a mistake. For some of us, this is like seeing a train crash in slow motion. During the tsunami in 2011 (that led to a minor nuclear incident), my facepalm moment was when I realized that the death toll from the tsunami would be eclipsed 1000-fold by the anti-nuclear fallout. (And the nuclear part would be eclipsed 1,000,000-fold).
  - bayesian_horse 3y ago
    That "minor nuclear incident" required a clean up that still isn't finished and already ran up a tab of about a trillion Dollars. Pro-nuclear propaganda tries to focus on "only" one direct fatality, and conveniently ignores all the cost associated with not running up that number.
    - trashtester 3y ago
      > required a clean Expenditures on the "clean up" was beyond excessive. If Germany tries to "clean up" the harmful emissions from burning lignite to a similar safetly level, they will go broke.
_ph_ 3y ago
There is also wind. The mix of wind and solar works quite well in Germany. Of course, from the carbon point of view, switching off nuclear before coal is a bad idea. But there are a few considerations to be made and the original plans were much more reasonable, but not executed. - a large driver of decommissioning nuclear was about nuclear waste, safety and also costs - the original agreement from 2002 didn't set an exit date but a total amount of nuclear energy produced. Which would have meant that some reactors would have ran into the late 20ies - of course, the plan assumed build up of renewables at best speed What where the deviations from that plan? - the CDU/CSU+FDP government first prolonged the life time of nuclear, then after Fukushima shortened it beyond the original agreement. - at the same time the CDU/CSU led governments from that on did not push renewables enough, at some time they actually started curbing the buildup. As a result, there is far less renewables in the mix than there could have been. So the original plan wasn't that bad and has been screwed up considerably. Now we have to fix the situation but there is only one way ahead: continue with the switch to renewables at best speed.

pydry 3y ago

It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast and so cheaply over 10 years and yet the story it is routinely spun into is that it is a shameful abject failure because in the process of doing that they switched off an aging, overpriced source of green energy that comprised just 6% of their usage. I think the respective attitudes pro nuclear advocates have to Poland (80% coal->80% coal) and Germany (10%->50% renewables) kind of underscores that nobody is shaming Germany for climate reasons.

illiarian 3y ago
> It boggles my mind that Germany can decarbonize so much and so fast Compare it to France which didn't have to decarbonize to begin with. Because of those bad-bad-bad no-good reactors.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  France needs to and is decarbonising. Electricity is perhaps the most important (because of electrification) but it's not the only sector. Plus France's electricity has always had the last 20% to deal with.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > France needs to and is decarbonising. In Europe only Sweden and Norway have lower carbon emissions from electricity generation than France.
- pydry 3y ago
  France didn't decarbonize deliberately and they did it 50 years ago decades before anybody paid any attention to global warming. Meanwhile theyre becoming progressively more aware of the extreme costs of staying nuclear - costs they kept halfway reasonable by neglecting maintenance which is now biting them back.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > costs they kept halfway reasonable by neglecting maintenance. That is not how you keep costs reasonable. You're just postponing them until they become unreasonable.
  - locallost 3y ago
    Correct. France built its reactors after the oil crises of the early 70s to guarantee its energy independence. The irony being those same plants failed at the time of the biggest energy crises since then.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > The irony being those same plants failed at the time of the biggest energy crises since then. They didn't fail.
      - locallost 3y ago
        They failed. A quarter was out because of faulty pipes and another quarter was out because of planned maintenance. France had to rely on its neighbors to keep its lights on, and became a net importer of electricity for the first time in decades. And I repeat during the biggest energy crisis in 50 years, which was the entire reason for their existence. Can't fail in a worse way.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    > France didn't decarbonize deliberately and they did it 50 years ago decades before anybody paid any attention to global warming. Whether or not France did or did not decarbonize deliberatly is secondary to the fact that they DID decarbonize. On the other hand, when Germany set out to decarbonize, they SHOULD look have looked at historical data for what actually produced the desired outcome. But instead they chose to replace their nuclear power with wind power, while keeping fossil power the same.

martin_a 3y ago

> It boggles my mind that they would turn off the cleanest, most consistent power supply that exists, now. The end of nuclear power has been a thing in Germany for the last 20 years. Changes of the required laws were already done in 2002, Fukushima was just another data point to stick to this plan. Most reactors were EOL anyway and the energy providers wanted to offload responsibilites (and costs) to the public. Nuclear power only made up around 6% of the total energy consumption of Germany, so it's not that of a big deal. What we need in Germany (now and for the last 20 years) is less bureaucracy for setting up solar systems and lots of development for public/private storage solutions. The future of energy is decentralized.

illiarian 3y ago
> Fukushima was just another data point to stick to this plan. Fukushima wasn't a data point. It was a populist FUD talking point.
trashtester 3y ago
The mistake was made 20 years ago, and now the German public seems to start to realize that it was a mistake. For some of us, this is like seeing a train crash in slow motion. During the tsunami in 2011 (that led to a minor nuclear incident), my facepalm moment was when I realized that the death toll from the tsunami would be eclipsed 1000-fold by the anti-nuclear fallout. (And the nuclear part would be eclipsed 1,000,000-fold).
- bayesian_horse 3y ago
  That "minor nuclear incident" required a clean up that still isn't finished and already ran up a tab of about a trillion Dollars. Pro-nuclear propaganda tries to focus on "only" one direct fatality, and conveniently ignores all the cost associated with not running up that number.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    > required a clean Expenditures on the "clean up" was beyond excessive. If Germany tries to "clean up" the harmful emissions from burning lignite to a similar safetly level, they will go broke.

_ph_ 3y ago

There is also wind. The mix of wind and solar works quite well in Germany. Of course, from the carbon point of view, switching off nuclear before coal is a bad idea. But there are a few considerations to be made and the original plans were much more reasonable, but not executed. - a large driver of decommissioning nuclear was about nuclear waste, safety and also costs - the original agreement from 2002 didn't set an exit date but a total amount of nuclear energy produced. Which would have meant that some reactors would have ran into the late 20ies - of course, the plan assumed build up of renewables at best speed What where the deviations from that plan? - the CDU/CSU+FDP government first prolonged the life time of nuclear, then after Fukushima shortened it beyond the original agreement. - at the same time the CDU/CSU led governments from that on did not push renewables enough, at some time they actually started curbing the buildup. As a result, there is far less renewables in the mix than there could have been. So the original plan wasn't that bad and has been screwed up considerably. Now we have to fix the situation but there is only one way ahead: continue with the switch to renewables at best speed.