3 ms·
This is a pretty misleading piece. A couple of major errors: The central argument is that renewables basically replaced nuclear in Germany. But that is not* wh
by krellenstein 3y ago
This is a pretty misleading piece. A couple of major errors:
The central argument is that renewables basically replaced nuclear in Germany. But that is not* what happened. Simply put -- the continued operation of coal generation replaced the shut down nuclear, nearly on a one on one basis. These coal plants, all of them, would have been shut down absent the atomausstieg. Today, Germany currently produces about the same amount of power from coal (~160 TWh/y) as its nuclear fleet did before the shutdowns began (~160 TWh/y). Had Germany not shutdown its nuclear fleet it would burn zero coal today -- and would emit ~130 million tons of CO2-eq less greenhouse gases.
While Germany did reduce slightly coal power generation, it did this by dramatically increasing renewable generation and* fossil gas generation. Recall that fossil gas electricity generation has increased massively since the nuclear phase out began -- increasing from by more than a third since the beginning of the phase out. I don't really think anyone would argue that renewables plus fossil gas backup can not replace baseload power -- it can, just not particularly cleanly or cheaply.
The problem is that the German approach -- despite spending over €500 billion on the energiewiende -- did not make a low carbon electrical grid. It made an expensive, dirty grid. In 2022, a kWh of power generated in Germany produced on average 385 grams of greenhouse gas (in CO2-eq) -- 2021 was barely better at 365 g per kWh. Compare that to France, where in 2022 a kWh of power produces 85 g per kWh -- 4.5 times* cleaner. Furthermore, power is dramatically more expensive in Germany -- in 2022, a kWh of power was €0.3279 in Germany vs.€0.2086 in France.
*Furthermore, there are basic errors here. Nuclear power doesn't need pumped hydro -- literally Germany has more pumped hydro than France, despite not having the "Alps" etc
- Schroedingersat 3y agoShutting down a third of something rather than all of it isn't "replacing nuclear" with it. France's nuclear fleet is designed to use imports and exports to the rest of europe for storage to be economical. Somebody needs the storage. These are just the same tired lies.
- locallost 3y agoThis is pretty much all false. The 500 billion figure gets parroted around a lot, but there is no basis for it. Also, coal use has basically almost halved since 10 years ago, and gas did not actually increase, it's still usually around 13-14%. In absolute numbers it went down because of less electricity use. The number are here, gas is in yellow: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2023-03-22.png https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... The comparison is also not between France and Germany, but Germany now and Germany 20 years ago. The difference is massive, and the only counter argument can be that France did more with nuclear in the 70s and 80s, which is fine, but it's been the only country in the world that's done that, and France itself has not been able to replicate that. Germany on the other hand kickstarted a non-existing industry, that's been on an exponential growth worldwide in the last decade, and doesn't appear to be stopping. I think this comment in the thread was very insightful and should be read by everyone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35711724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35711724