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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. Natura

by 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.

by phicoh 3y ago

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.