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They should phase-out fossil fuels first, then. I'm so tired of "wind and solar instead of nuclear", while fossil fuels are still burnt.

Panino 3y ago
Sorry to be blunt, but the wind people are building wind, the solar people are building solar, the fossil fuels people are supporting that... and what are the nuclear people doing apart from posting on the Internet? AFAICT that's all they're doing.
- google234123 3y ago
  Actually, the wind and solar (green people) also spend time attacking and blocking nuclear. See the anti nuclear movements
  - Panino 3y ago
    I think the people building wind earn the name pro-wind, same for solar as pro-solar, etc. And they are largely focused on their own efforts, as it's a lot of work to build power plants. I don't think online posters deserve to be called pro- anything since they don't really do anything other than talk, and it's mostly negative FUD so if anything they're anti-. The point I'm trying to make is that it seems that the people who claim to be pro-nuclear aren't actually in favor of nuclear, otherwise they'd be building it. Everyone else is building what they want, everyone except the supposed nuclear group.
    - google234123 3y ago
      Yes... find me images of the 100s of large demonstrations against wind or solar...
otherme123 3y ago
Nuclear reactors in Spain are very old. They have been phased out for years, and the nuclear lobby fights to keep the reactors on. This after a recent extension from 2028 to 2035. OTOH, fossil fuels are also being phased out. Coal is gone after years fighting the coal lobby. Fuel is also quite low. The remaining fossils are gas in combined cycle power plants, and they are lowest priority energy in the market, i.e. they only produce if all the other energies combined cannot produce enough. We have one of the best energy grids of Europe, and probably of the world. Blackouts are very rare events, the country is blessed both in sun and wind, and this 2023 half the energy produced was CO2 free. I'm sure they will phase out nuclear and fossils correctly in the next 10-15 years.
rstuart4133 3y ago
I don't know about Spain, but I can tell you what is happening in Australia. We aren't phasing out anything. "Phasing out" implies decommissioning a money making machine, and I've yet to see that happen anywhere. Yet, Australia looks like it will be one of the leaders in the changeover to renewables. Instead of "phasing out" we are replacing things when they no longer are making money. By chance and good luck most (all?) of our coal fired power stations were built decades ago, and so are becoming very expensive to maintain. Their private owners (who aren't about to take a loss for the public good and who would happily continue to pump out CO2 if it made a buck) are decommissioning them at a brisk pace. Politicians on the left like to claim their policies has something to do the rapid change over. Politicians on the right like to claim they are holding it up or stopping it. The reality seems to be neither are having much effect on the outcome. It's all driven by money. That said, the politicians of both sides sold the then publicly owned generators to private equity a decade or two ago. We were given lots of reasons by the pollies (like promises of cheaper power), most of which turned out to bullshit. But it did make this money driven transition possible. There are two reasons the coal fired stations are now making losses. One is the aforementioned "they are old" and hence getting expensive to maintain. But that doesn't explain why they are shutting down earlier than their planned lifetimes. The reason they are doing that is because renewables are economic poison for coal fired power stations. The planners counted on selling near 100% of the power they generated. But renewables are supplying 75% of the power (long term average of course, 150% in one hour and 0% in the next) in some parts of Australia. Coal plants can't vary their output fast enough to match indeterminacy of renewables, so they often find themselves pushing power into a market that is literally paying negative prices for it. Power prices go through the roof of course when renewables drop to 0%, but coal can't ramp up anywhere near quickly enough to take advantage of it. Instead, the gas peakers step in with their high priced generation. So coal can't win either way. Turns out that's a death sentence for a coal fired plant that's expensive to maintain, in spite of the fact that it's repaid it's capital costs years ago. Nuclear has the same problems competing against renewables, but on steroids. The capital costs take decades to recoup even with the assumption will make money from most of the demand in the plants catchment, and it's so bad at varying it's output to meet demand Japan (which has a lot of nuclear) has more pumped storage per unit generation (to soak up the excess output) than anywhere else on the planet. So it's not a surprise to me that Spain is phasing out nuclear. We would be far better off climate wise if they didn't, but this isn't driven by climate or safety concerns. The decision is driven my money.

Panino 3y ago

Sorry to be blunt, but the wind people are building wind, the solar people are building solar, the fossil fuels people are supporting that... and what are the nuclear people doing apart from posting on the Internet? AFAICT that's all they're doing.

google234123 3y ago
Actually, the wind and solar (green people) also spend time attacking and blocking nuclear. See the anti nuclear movements
- Panino 3y ago
  I think the people building wind earn the name pro-wind, same for solar as pro-solar, etc. And they are largely focused on their own efforts, as it's a lot of work to build power plants. I don't think online posters deserve to be called pro- anything since they don't really do anything other than talk, and it's mostly negative FUD so if anything they're anti-. The point I'm trying to make is that it seems that the people who claim to be pro-nuclear aren't actually in favor of nuclear, otherwise they'd be building it. Everyone else is building what they want, everyone except the supposed nuclear group.
  - google234123 3y ago
    Yes... find me images of the 100s of large demonstrations against wind or solar...

otherme123 3y ago

Nuclear reactors in Spain are very old. They have been phased out for years, and the nuclear lobby fights to keep the reactors on. This after a recent extension from 2028 to 2035. OTOH, fossil fuels are also being phased out. Coal is gone after years fighting the coal lobby. Fuel is also quite low. The remaining fossils are gas in combined cycle power plants, and they are lowest priority energy in the market, i.e. they only produce if all the other energies combined cannot produce enough. We have one of the best energy grids of Europe, and probably of the world. Blackouts are very rare events, the country is blessed both in sun and wind, and this 2023 half the energy produced was CO2 free. I'm sure they will phase out nuclear and fossils correctly in the next 10-15 years.

rstuart4133 3y ago

I don't know about Spain, but I can tell you what is happening in Australia. We aren't phasing out anything. "Phasing out" implies decommissioning a money making machine, and I've yet to see that happen anywhere. Yet, Australia looks like it will be one of the leaders in the changeover to renewables. Instead of "phasing out" we are replacing things when they no longer are making money. By chance and good luck most (all?) of our coal fired power stations were built decades ago, and so are becoming very expensive to maintain. Their private owners (who aren't about to take a loss for the public good and who would happily continue to pump out CO2 if it made a buck) are decommissioning them at a brisk pace. Politicians on the left like to claim their policies has something to do the rapid change over. Politicians on the right like to claim they are holding it up or stopping it. The reality seems to be neither are having much effect on the outcome. It's all driven by money. That said, the politicians of both sides sold the then publicly owned generators to private equity a decade or two ago. We were given lots of reasons by the pollies (like promises of cheaper power), most of which turned out to bullshit. But it did make this money driven transition possible. There are two reasons the coal fired stations are now making losses. One is the aforementioned "they are old" and hence getting expensive to maintain. But that doesn't explain why they are shutting down earlier than their planned lifetimes. The reason they are doing that is because renewables are economic poison for coal fired power stations. The planners counted on selling near 100% of the power they generated. But renewables are supplying 75% of the power (long term average of course, 150% in one hour and 0% in the next) in some parts of Australia. Coal plants can't vary their output fast enough to match indeterminacy of renewables, so they often find themselves pushing power into a market that is literally paying negative prices for it. Power prices go through the roof of course when renewables drop to 0%, but coal can't ramp up anywhere near quickly enough to take advantage of it. Instead, the gas peakers step in with their high priced generation. So coal can't win either way. Turns out that's a death sentence for a coal fired plant that's expensive to maintain, in spite of the fact that it's repaid it's capital costs years ago. Nuclear has the same problems competing against renewables, but on steroids. The capital costs take decades to recoup even with the assumption will make money from most of the demand in the plants catchment, and it's so bad at varying it's output to meet demand Japan (which has a lot of nuclear) has more pumped storage per unit generation (to soak up the excess output) than anywhere else on the planet. So it's not a surprise to me that Spain is phasing out nuclear. We would be far better off climate wise if they didn't, but this isn't driven by climate or safety concerns. The decision is driven my money.