5 ms·

Imagine instead if the coal and gas burners had been replaced by renewables instead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”)
    - troupo 3y ago
      > You can see this today on the daily graph for France when solar production ramps over the day, pushing down nuclear generation. That.... is exactly what nuclear plants are literally designed to do. As for "economics". If we don't discuss the politics of disregard and underinvestment in nuclear power plants, we can't discuss the economics. The only reason your last link exists is precisely because French government sat on its ass and did nothing to the most important energy source in their country. What do you think will happen to your renewable energy after decades of similar disregard? If we don't discuss where to get energy on a quiet night, we can't discuss "economics". The only reason "Germany has replaced nuclear with renewables" discource exists is because Germany burns insane amounts of coal and imports energy from France and Denmark every time there's a dip in renewables (aka at least every 12 hours or so).

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”)
  - troupo 3y ago
    > You can see this today on the daily graph for France when solar production ramps over the day, pushing down nuclear generation. That.... is exactly what nuclear plants are literally designed to do. As for "economics". If we don't discuss the politics of disregard and underinvestment in nuclear power plants, we can't discuss the economics. The only reason your last link exists is precisely because French government sat on its ass and did nothing to the most important energy source in their country. What do you think will happen to your renewable energy after decades of similar disregard? If we don't discuss where to get energy on a quiet night, we can't discuss "economics". The only reason "Germany has replaced nuclear with renewables" discource exists is because Germany burns insane amounts of coal and imports energy from France and Denmark every time there's a dip in renewables (aka at least every 12 hours or so).