4 ms·

With all due respect, renewables are not decades away, they are at a major inflection point right now. While I deplore the shuttering of Germany's NPPs, nuclear

by iSnow 3y ago

With all due respect, renewables are not decades away, they are at a major inflection point right now. While I deplore the shuttering of Germany's NPPs, nuclear would not have been a solution to the decarbonization challenge, as the times to build NPPs and the costs are prohibitive. Renewables are the cheapest source of energy right here and now, we should invest way more into researching grid-scale storage solutions. Also not so sure about NL being more relaxed, they have a cultural war at their hands over nitrogen emissions from agriculture, and it has shaken up their political system.

myspy 3y ago
We did choose to put solar on our roof with heat pump when we built our home only four years ago and at the time, there was no certainty if this investment will be any good. This year we also bought a battery and can run the house with this setup from spring to autumn with small input from the grid. Only winter sucks because the heat pump is less efficient when it's cold. Would be great to have better storage for the grid to get cheaper energy during that time.
eldaisfish 3y ago
Renewables are the cheapest source of energy PROVIDED the cost of providing energy when they are generating zero energy is paid for by someone else. This argument keeps coming up and is entirely wrong and very misleading. Renewable energy due it its intermittent nature creates a problem and does nothing to solve that problem. The cost of that solution must be factored into the cost of energy from renewable generation.
- iSnow 3y ago
  And which power source doesn't create externalities that are not factored into the price?
- phicoh 3y ago
  There was a perfectly reasonable transition strategy. Install as much solar and wind turbines as possible and rely on natural gas plants are other times. Natural gas plants are relatively cheap and can in the future be converted to hydrogen. The big advantage is that solar and wind can directly reduce CO2 emissions, instead of waiting for decades for new nuclear power to come online. Converting heating of buildings to heat pumps and cars to electrical also directly reduces CO2 emissions even if you generate electricity from natural gas. There was one part where it went terribly wrong, and that was the idea source the natural gas almost exclusively from Russia...
  - Aachen 3y ago
    You're mostly right of course, but keep in mind that "waiting for decades for nuclear to come online" is not a fair comparison. Nuclear: pick ten locations -> allocate the money for each -> it goes five times over budget but in the end you have 80% of your energy need taken care of. By the time they're done, the remaining 20% is covered by renewables (we're already almost at that point. If only we had kept nuclear...). Renewables means fighting with nearly every individual land owner in the country separately. Either they need solar panels on them or they need a wind turbine near them. Have fun and good luck arguing millions of individual cases. The latter is cheaper per MW, people will argue. Faster to build each individual spot and no huge investments needed. All true. I just hope it's going to happen at the speed that people extrapolate from the low-hanging fruit we got so far...
    - phicoh 3y ago
      I don't know the projected number for Germany in 2050, but 10 locations could mean that you would need 30 GW per location (just a rough estimate). At todays prices for nuclear power that is an insane amount of money that needs to be put on the table upfront. Experience in The Netherlands shows that if people benefit, they are a lot less resistant. People are eager to put solar on their own roofs, if it has a good return on investment. But also wind turbines owned by local cooperations meet far less resistance than turbines owned by a big company. Of course The Netherlands has the advantage that there is plenty of space at sea for wind turbines.
  - eldaisfish 3y ago
    the part where it went terribly wrong is relying on variable energy sources to power a grid designed around the assumption of controllable power generation. There is a not a single gigawatt scale power grid anywhere in existence that has managed to supply growing load, over extended timeframes using renewable generators. This is the heart of the problem - we will eventually reach a stage where renewable energy powers entire grids but we are not there yet nor is the end in sight for much of the world. In the meantime, we must eliminate carbon emissions and power sources like nuclear are ideal.
Aachen 3y ago
I really hope you're right about it not being decades away NL and their stikstofcrisis is a legal thing. Individuals (on average) don't care about climate the way people do in Germany (on average). An example involving more than just direct friends and family: I wanted to join friends in NL in a protest on a global strike day a few years ago because nobody in Germany wanted to go with me, only to find that in NL there weren't any protests going on that I could propose for us to go to. A small one in the Hague or Amsterdam I think, nothing close enough for us to reasonably join. There's groups for climate in NL as well, but they're so much smaller.

by iSnow 3y ago

myspy 3y ago

We did choose to put solar on our roof with heat pump when we built our home only four years ago and at the time, there was no certainty if this investment will be any good. This year we also bought a battery and can run the house with this setup from spring to autumn with small input from the grid. Only winter sucks because the heat pump is less efficient when it's cold. Would be great to have better storage for the grid to get cheaper energy during that time.

eldaisfish 3y ago

Renewables are the cheapest source of energy PROVIDED the cost of providing energy when they are generating zero energy is paid for by someone else. This argument keeps coming up and is entirely wrong and very misleading. Renewable energy due it its intermittent nature creates a problem and does nothing to solve that problem. The cost of that solution must be factored into the cost of energy from renewable generation.

iSnow 3y ago
And which power source doesn't create externalities that are not factored into the price?
phicoh 3y ago
There was a perfectly reasonable transition strategy. Install as much solar and wind turbines as possible and rely on natural gas plants are other times. Natural gas plants are relatively cheap and can in the future be converted to hydrogen. The big advantage is that solar and wind can directly reduce CO2 emissions, instead of waiting for decades for new nuclear power to come online. Converting heating of buildings to heat pumps and cars to electrical also directly reduces CO2 emissions even if you generate electricity from natural gas. There was one part where it went terribly wrong, and that was the idea source the natural gas almost exclusively from Russia...
- Aachen 3y ago
  You're mostly right of course, but keep in mind that "waiting for decades for nuclear to come online" is not a fair comparison. Nuclear: pick ten locations -> allocate the money for each -> it goes five times over budget but in the end you have 80% of your energy need taken care of. By the time they're done, the remaining 20% is covered by renewables (we're already almost at that point. If only we had kept nuclear...). Renewables means fighting with nearly every individual land owner in the country separately. Either they need solar panels on them or they need a wind turbine near them. Have fun and good luck arguing millions of individual cases. The latter is cheaper per MW, people will argue. Faster to build each individual spot and no huge investments needed. All true. I just hope it's going to happen at the speed that people extrapolate from the low-hanging fruit we got so far...
  - phicoh 3y ago
    I don't know the projected number for Germany in 2050, but 10 locations could mean that you would need 30 GW per location (just a rough estimate). At todays prices for nuclear power that is an insane amount of money that needs to be put on the table upfront. Experience in The Netherlands shows that if people benefit, they are a lot less resistant. People are eager to put solar on their own roofs, if it has a good return on investment. But also wind turbines owned by local cooperations meet far less resistance than turbines owned by a big company. Of course The Netherlands has the advantage that there is plenty of space at sea for wind turbines.
- eldaisfish 3y ago
  the part where it went terribly wrong is relying on variable energy sources to power a grid designed around the assumption of controllable power generation. There is a not a single gigawatt scale power grid anywhere in existence that has managed to supply growing load, over extended timeframes using renewable generators. This is the heart of the problem - we will eventually reach a stage where renewable energy powers entire grids but we are not there yet nor is the end in sight for much of the world. In the meantime, we must eliminate carbon emissions and power sources like nuclear are ideal.

Aachen 3y ago

I really hope you're right about it not being decades away NL and their stikstofcrisis is a legal thing. Individuals (on average) don't care about climate the way people do in Germany (on average). An example involving more than just direct friends and family: I wanted to join friends in NL in a protest on a global strike day a few years ago because nobody in Germany wanted to go with me, only to find that in NL there weren't any protests going on that I could propose for us to go to. A small one in the Hague or Amsterdam I think, nothing close enough for us to reasonably join. There's groups for climate in NL as well, but they're so much smaller.