7 ms·

Closing all the nuclear plants and replacing them with increased coal usage, mainly. Compared to France where nuclear makes up a huge proportion of generation c

Closing all the nuclear plants and replacing them with increased coal usage, mainly. Compared to France where nuclear makes up a huge proportion of generation capacity and the UK where gas is the main source (not low carbon, but much lower than coal).

midasuni 3y ago
UK is a varied mix so hard to say the main source. gas, coal and oil (almost entirely gas) together are about 40% of generation. The other 60% is imports, biomass, wind, solar, hydro etc.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
> Closing all the nuclear plants and replacing them with increased coal usage, mainly. This is not accurate. What was lost from commercial nuclear was replaced with renewables. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36599124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36599124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36598618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36598618 (Thread) https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2023/german-net-power-generation-in-first-half-of-2023-renewable-energy-share-of-57-percent.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/...
- midasuni 3y ago
  Imagine instead if the coal and gas burners had been replaced by renewables instead
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    While nuclear is low carbon, it is not cheap and does not like to load follow (whereas renewables can simply curtail and shut down when there is insufficient load or transmission for their generation). If there are consistent excess renewables on a grid, it seriously impairs the economics of nuclear. France’s nuclear reactors load follow but are hard on the mechanicals attempting to do so, and France has some serious issues with reactor maintenance and refurbishment. Coal and nuclear are the first to be driven out of the generation mix due to their poor economics (or sometimes air pollution regulation as is the case with coal), and remaining coal and natural gas will be driven out over the next decade. Natural gas competes with renewables and batteries, both of which continually decline in cost. Peaking natural gas (vs more efficient combined cycle gas turbine) is already no longer competitive with batteries, and those generators are quickly being replaced. Tangentially, Germany has twelve interconnectors with neighboring electrical grids. They need not stand up all of this low carbon generation themselves. They also have almost 10GW of hydro storage and almost 5GW of battery storage (so far).
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > it is not cheap New nuclear isn’t cheap. Existing nuclear is cheap enough. The fact remains that the answer to OP’s question is Germany shuttered its plants and began importing dirty power.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        I believe the question should be, “what is the cost of the emissions delta of early turndown of these plants vs continuing to run them until retirement (whether due to economics or longevity),” in both fiat and emissions. It is not as simple as “we should’ve run them until the doors fall off.” That is a simple idea for a complex problem.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > It is not as simple as “we should’ve run them until the doors fall off.” That is a simple idea... It is also a straw man. The Neckarwestheim reactor, which Germany shut down this year, began operating in 1989 [1]. The average age of America's reactors is almost a fifth longer, with decades life left [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#React... [2] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
    - troupo 3y ago
      > and does not like to load follow It really does like load follow. Educate yourself: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... Renewables on the other hand definitely do not like load following: they are slow to start up and are severely impacted by regular weather conditions like night and no wind
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Citations below, it really comes down to it being uneconomical to load follow when capacity factor declines below a sustainable threshold, which will surely comes as renewables scale up. You can see this today on the daily graph for France when solar production ramps over the day, pushing down nuclear generation. https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/REupdate/20220128.php https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/REupdate/2... (“France’s New Nuclear Power Plans and Techno-Economic Difficulties”) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340212471010 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00963402124710... (“Nuclear power and the French energy transition: It’s the economics, stupid!”) https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-revises-up-cost-of-nuclear-plant-outages https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-revises-up-cost-... (“EDF revises up cost of nuclear power plant outages”)
- oaiey 3y ago
  Correct. But solar is also very fluctuating (wind also) and as a consequence often coal / natural gas has to compensate. As a German totally supporting the renewable agenda but there is a reality to face.
- troupo 3y ago
  > What was lost from commercial nuclear was replaced with renewables. Until there's a windless night, sure
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Hydroelectric is generally counted as a renewable, and it's also a storage system.
    - troupo 3y ago
      That's true. Unfortunately it's not feasible to build hydroelectric everywhere.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Indeed, but we don't need it everywhere — between transmission lines and that most of the good sites in Germany are pretty close to the major industry and population centres (except Berlin and Brandenburg, which is basically marsh and nature reserves, leading back to the transmission lines).
        troupo 3y ago
        > Indeed, but we don't need it everywhere — between transmission lines and that most of the good sites in Germany are pretty close to the major industry and population centres 1. Not everywhere, but you need quite a lot of them. You significantly underestimate how much power modern civilisation consumes 2. You can't build a hydroelectric plant/storage in the marshes. You can't build it willy-nilly in any river you want, either. You can't just build it on any lake or in any mountains you like. There's a high-level overview here: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-analysing-feasibility-grid-scale-options/ https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-ana...
        ben_w 3y ago
        I'm assuming 1kW/capita, or about 5 GW for Berlin. I might be overestimating power lines or people's willingness to have transmission lines near them. What's the ampacity of a typical high voltage line?

midasuni 3y ago

UK is a varied mix so hard to say the main source. gas, coal and oil (almost entirely gas) together are about 40% of generation. The other 60% is imports, biomass, wind, solar, hydro etc.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

> Closing all the nuclear plants and replacing them with increased coal usage, mainly. This is not accurate. What was lost from commercial nuclear was replaced with renewables. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36599124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36599124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36598618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36598618 (Thread) https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2023/german-net-power-generation-in-first-half-of-2023-renewable-energy-share-of-57-percent.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/...

midasuni 3y ago
Imagine instead if the coal and gas burners had been replaced by renewables instead
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  While nuclear is low carbon, it is not cheap and does not like to load follow (whereas renewables can simply curtail and shut down when there is insufficient load or transmission for their generation). If there are consistent excess renewables on a grid, it seriously impairs the economics of nuclear. France’s nuclear reactors load follow but are hard on the mechanicals attempting to do so, and France has some serious issues with reactor maintenance and refurbishment. Coal and nuclear are the first to be driven out of the generation mix due to their poor economics (or sometimes air pollution regulation as is the case with coal), and remaining coal and natural gas will be driven out over the next decade. Natural gas competes with renewables and batteries, both of which continually decline in cost. Peaking natural gas (vs more efficient combined cycle gas turbine) is already no longer competitive with batteries, and those generators are quickly being replaced. Tangentially, Germany has twelve interconnectors with neighboring electrical grids. They need not stand up all of this low carbon generation themselves. They also have almost 10GW of hydro storage and almost 5GW of battery storage (so far).
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > it is not cheap New nuclear isn’t cheap. Existing nuclear is cheap enough. The fact remains that the answer to OP’s question is Germany shuttered its plants and began importing dirty power.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      I believe the question should be, “what is the cost of the emissions delta of early turndown of these plants vs continuing to run them until retirement (whether due to economics or longevity),” in both fiat and emissions. It is not as simple as “we should’ve run them until the doors fall off.” That is a simple idea for a complex problem.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > It is not as simple as “we should’ve run them until the doors fall off.” That is a simple idea... It is also a straw man. The Neckarwestheim reactor, which Germany shut down this year, began operating in 1989 [1]. The average age of America's reactors is almost a fifth longer, with decades life left [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#React... [2] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
  - troupo 3y ago
    > and does not like to load follow It really does like load follow. Educate yourself: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... Renewables on the other hand definitely do not like load following: they are slow to start up and are severely impacted by regular weather conditions like night and no wind
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Citations below, it really comes down to it being uneconomical to load follow when capacity factor declines below a sustainable threshold, which will surely comes as renewables scale up. You can see this today on the daily graph for France when solar production ramps over the day, pushing down nuclear generation. https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/REupdate/20220128.php https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/REupdate/2... (“France’s New Nuclear Power Plans and Techno-Economic Difficulties”) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340212471010 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00963402124710... (“Nuclear power and the French energy transition: It’s the economics, stupid!”) https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-revises-up-cost-of-nuclear-plant-outages https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-revises-up-cost-... (“EDF revises up cost of nuclear power plant outages”)
oaiey 3y ago
Correct. But solar is also very fluctuating (wind also) and as a consequence often coal / natural gas has to compensate. As a German totally supporting the renewable agenda but there is a reality to face.
troupo 3y ago
> What was lost from commercial nuclear was replaced with renewables. Until there's a windless night, sure
- ben_w 3y ago
  Hydroelectric is generally counted as a renewable, and it's also a storage system.
  - troupo 3y ago
    That's true. Unfortunately it's not feasible to build hydroelectric everywhere.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Indeed, but we don't need it everywhere — between transmission lines and that most of the good sites in Germany are pretty close to the major industry and population centres (except Berlin and Brandenburg, which is basically marsh and nature reserves, leading back to the transmission lines).
      - troupo 3y ago
        > Indeed, but we don't need it everywhere — between transmission lines and that most of the good sites in Germany are pretty close to the major industry and population centres 1. Not everywhere, but you need quite a lot of them. You significantly underestimate how much power modern civilisation consumes 2. You can't build a hydroelectric plant/storage in the marshes. You can't build it willy-nilly in any river you want, either. You can't just build it on any lake or in any mountains you like. There's a high-level overview here: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-analysing-feasibility-grid-scale-options/ https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-ana...
        ben_w 3y ago
        I'm assuming 1kW/capita, or about 5 GW for Berlin. I might be overestimating power lines or people's willingness to have transmission lines near them. What's the ampacity of a typical high voltage line?