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If nuclear was kept around, would its capacity allow for fossil fuels to be reduced more? Going by this chart: * https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/ge

If nuclear was kept around, would its capacity allow for fossil fuels to be reduced more? Going by this chart: * https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... * Also: https://www.iea.org/countries/germany https://www.iea.org/countries/germany * Also also: https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/emissions#what-are-the-main-sources-of-co2-emissions-in-germany https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/emissions#what-are-the... Nuclear was previously providing 22 GW (2022) to 20 GW (2010) of capacity, down to 12.1 GW (2011), then 8 (2019): currently (2023) lignite can output 18.6 GW of capacity, and hard coal is providing 18.9 GW. For output (per first link), at its peak nuclear provided ~150 TWh, while coal (lignite+hard) provided 120 TWh in 2023. So AFAICT, coal capacity could have been cut in half (perhaps even not running that often) if existing nuclear was kept around. (New nuclear did not have to be constructed, just keep around the current stuff longer until (a) fossils are retired, and (b) more renwwables are built out).

epanchin 2y ago
I was recently arguing with a German who thought burning coal was completely fine as long as you were burning less than you used to. He didn’t see the reason for nuclear at all.
- josefx 2y ago
  Meanwhile we had significant protests over the ever expanding surface mines feeding those coal plants.
- ernst_klim 2y ago
  What do they think about paying much higher electricity bills than in most other EU countries? https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics#Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
  - croes 2y ago
    This wouldn't change with nuclear energy because the price is bound to the most energy source. There is a reason the energy companies still keep coal power plants. Without the price and profit would go down.
  - geff82 2y ago
    Aside effects of the Ukraine war, it feels like the bill people actually pay has not risen too much in recent years. Germans famously do not have air conditioning in their homes and most switched all the lights to LEDs, leading to substantial bill reductions in many cases. Electricity for cars or for heating can be obtained at about 25% lower prices and modern houses are, in general, quite energy efficient. So I'd say that the high energy prices are hindering the construction of new factories/keeping the old ones (which can turn out to have bad effects soon), but everyday life is not too much bothered by them.
  - PinguTS 2y ago
    While that covers only the second half of 2023, the prices since then have come down significantly. Germany was never cheap, it was and is still in the top 5. What you also need to consider in those charts, what is the average salary. While it is comparable to Italy, take a closer look to Hungary how expansive it is there. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267500/eu-monthly-wholesale-electricity-price-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267500/eu-monthly-whole...
    - ernst_klim 2y ago
      Yes, but I pay 34Cents for electricity in Germany, and my friend in Netherlands pays 24-26Cents. That's a huge deal. > what is the average salary Norway, Finland, Netherlands are still much cheaper and they are rich.
      - PinguTS 2y ago
        I can get from 25 cent/kWh (Elektrizität Berlin) to 39 cent/kWh (N-Ergie). It is what you choose.
- croes 2y ago
  Which company would you trust to build and operate an nuclear power plant without putting profit over security?
  - criley2 2y ago
    Any of them? Coal is far more dangerous to human health and life than nuclear. Pick your quasi-legitimate source, but they all agree that coal is ~10X more deadly than nuclear. > Coal-fired energy chains are estimated to cause 12 times more deaths per gigawatt-ampere-year than nuclear energy chains, and coal is estimated to cause 820% more deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity produced than nuclear
    - croes 2y ago
      Who said the choice is between coal and nuclear? I prefer solutions that don't emit poisonous substances into the atmosphere nor make areas dangerous for thousands of years in case of accidents.
      - throw0101c 2y ago
        > […] nor make areas dangerous for thousands of years in case of accidents. After ~250 years spent nuclear fuel is only dangerous if you (a) eat it, or (b) grind it up and snort it like cocaine. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0p6QLMpg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0p6QLMpg4 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2t2tYQsK94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2t2tYQsK94 The long-lived stuff throws off mostly alpha particles (blocked by a sheet of paper) or beta particles (thin aluminium). The first few years (6-10) of spent fuel throws off the riskiest particles (gamma), and so the fuel sits in cooling pools for that period. The co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, Geraldine Thomas, has no problem with nuclear power: "Look at the science – smoking and obesity are more harmful than radiation": * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-smoking-more-dangerous-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas
      - abenga 2y ago
bee_rider 2y ago
It seems hard to evaluate that in isolation. They’ve been planning on shuttering their nuclear plants for the last 20 years or so, right? Would they have invested as much in renewables if that wasn’t the plan?
- literallycancer 2y ago
  The plan was to talk about renewables while buying Russian gas, since solar can't possibly cover the consumption. It's not a coincidence that the German prime minister from the era when they decided to phase out nuclear now works for Gazprom and Rosneft. He literally said the West caused Russia to invade Georgia in 2008 (what a fucking moron). In normal countries this is called treason. In Germany it's "developing trade relations".
  - ben_w 2y ago
    https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Area+Germany+*+1+kW%2Fm%5E2+*+20%25+*+10%25 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Area+Germany+*+1+kW%2Fm... Germany alone, using PV alone, has the potential to supply the entire planet's electricity demand 3.5 times over, even when using medium efficiency cells and also accounting for their capacity factor. Meeting just Germany's own domestic demand purely with PV would take 0.8% of the land area: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28514.6e9+kWh%2F1+year%29+%2F+%28Area+Germany+*+1+kW%2Fm%5E2+*+20%25+*+10%25%29%29+to+percent https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28514.6e9+kWh%2F1+y... This is about a tenth of the land area that's already been built on: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/lan_lcv_ovw/default/table?lang=en https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/lan_lcv_ovw/d... Also, this ignores the ample German wind resources that currently supplies a bit over twice as much as their PV, with all renewables collectively being 52% of Germany's gross electricity production: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterprises/Energy/Production/Tables/gross-electricity-production.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris... Of course, the people doing this might have simply not believed that any of this was possible, and had some villainous scheme in mind that accidentally went wrong in a way that gave everyone else substantial benefits — I've still not seen "The Mouse That Roared", but I'm aware of the plot and have that in mind.
  - 2y ago
oezi 2y ago
On the other hand nuclear was just 6% of the energy mix in its last year. On the other hand Germany is aiming to building out 13 GW of solar in just 2024 (capacity factors non-withstanding).
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > On the other hand nuclear was just 6% of the energy mix in its last year. And coal is 25-30% currently. If nuclear was higher, how much lower could have coal have been? How much lower could have emissions be without coal?
  - oezi 2y ago
    Nuclear is a legacy technology which is on the way out. German society didn't want to be stuck with it and footing a tremendous bill for subsidizing and later dismantling the technology in the end. Pretty much all industrialized countries with the exception of China is going in the same direction.
    - throw0101c 2y ago
      > Nuclear is a legacy technology which is on the way out. Don't tell that to Ontario-Canada > Demand for electricity across Canada is forecast to double in the next 25 years, and all the signs from Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government indicate that nuclear energy will supply the biggest portion of the province's additional power needs. * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power-electricity-1.6967927 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power... and Poland: > In December 2021, BWXT Canada signed an agreement, valued at up to $1 billion, to build key components in Ontario to support the deployment of Small Modular Reactors in Poland. * https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1004711/ontario-lands-major-nuclear-agreements-abroad-creates-jobs-at-home https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1004711/ontario-lands-maj... > German society didn't want to be stuck with it and footing a tremendous bill for subsidizing and later dismantling the technology in the end. Ontario is not dismantling but refurbishing: * https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-completion-of-darlington-unit-3/ https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-comple... The bill is such that nuclear is the second-cheapest source of power in Ontario (Table 2): * https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20231019.pdf https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...
PurpleRamen 2y ago
> If nuclear was kept around, would its capacity allow for fossil fuels to be reduced more? No. Germany is not even using its full potential for electrical energy at the moment. > Nuclear was previously providing 22 GW (2022) to 20 GW (2010) of power, down to 12.1 GW (2011), then 8 (2019): currently (2023) lignite is outputing 18.6 GW of power, and hard coal is providing 18.9 GW. Those numbers are irrelevant, they are not telling the usage. You can't freely replace one energy-source with some other. You need to look at the application and which energy-form it can use. And in Germany, the big historical problem is that the conversion to electrical applications was slow.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Those numbers are irrelevant, they are not telling the usage. Edit post to note capacity versus output: * nuclear was providing 150 TWh at its peak (~2004) * coal is currently providing 120 TWh So nuclear could have covered all the output of coal, and then some. * https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
  - PurpleRamen 2y ago
    Again: "cannot replace"! Coal is providing a very different form of energy, used with very different applications. Directly comparing the numbers, is comparing apples and bananas. Your case has no foundation.
    - ptero 2y ago
      > Coal is providing a very different form of energy, used with very different applications. What are those? Nuclear and renewables uses are indeed very different. Nuclear and coal for base load -- not so much. At least this is what I heard for decades. I would be interested to read a refutation.
      - PurpleRamen 2y ago
        Base load is more of a fairy tail. For the applications I'm talking about, I explained them in a sibling comment.
croes 2y ago
Even if they had wanted to, it would not have been possible, as the required fuel rods could not simply be ordered. The operators were therefore also against continued operation
- literallycancer 2y ago
  Other EU member countries are running their own NPPs just fine. Sounds like a problem with lack of motivation.
  - PinguTS 2y ago
    Nope, it is "problem" of past decisions. The past decision were, that 2022 should be the end date. All companies planed for that. You simply cannot change such decisions in an empty market. BTW the fuel is mostly coming from Kazakhstan. Does that ring a bell?
    - literallycancer 2y ago
      So buy it elsewhere? All I hear are excuses and why the current situation is someone else's fault, either previous governments or other countries because they wouldn't just shut up and die so Germany can have cheaper energy. Which they use to overproduce stuff and dump it in the rest of the EU, while calling everyone else lazy. Here's a hint, if your economy doesn't work unless you have the lowest energy prices in history, it's broken and needs to change.
    - ptero 2y ago
      Scary Kazatomprom as a fuel source is an invented problem. Nuclear fuel market is global with many producers. Fuel price is a tiny fraction of the nuclear electricity cost. Agree to a long-term contract at double today's price and there will be a line of companies running to sign it. Cameco (and others) put some of their nuclear mining into conservation because there was not enough buyers. Uranium is one of the most abundant elements, the only reason for the shortage of fuel is the politicians reluctance to make nuclear a pillar of the energy production.
    - 2y ago

epanchin 2y ago

I was recently arguing with a German who thought burning coal was completely fine as long as you were burning less than you used to. He didn’t see the reason for nuclear at all.

josefx 2y ago
Meanwhile we had significant protests over the ever expanding surface mines feeding those coal plants.
ernst_klim 2y ago
What do they think about paying much higher electricity bills than in most other EU countries? https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics#Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- croes 2y ago
  This wouldn't change with nuclear energy because the price is bound to the most energy source. There is a reason the energy companies still keep coal power plants. Without the price and profit would go down.
- geff82 2y ago
  Aside effects of the Ukraine war, it feels like the bill people actually pay has not risen too much in recent years. Germans famously do not have air conditioning in their homes and most switched all the lights to LEDs, leading to substantial bill reductions in many cases. Electricity for cars or for heating can be obtained at about 25% lower prices and modern houses are, in general, quite energy efficient. So I'd say that the high energy prices are hindering the construction of new factories/keeping the old ones (which can turn out to have bad effects soon), but everyday life is not too much bothered by them.
- PinguTS 2y ago
  While that covers only the second half of 2023, the prices since then have come down significantly. Germany was never cheap, it was and is still in the top 5. What you also need to consider in those charts, what is the average salary. While it is comparable to Italy, take a closer look to Hungary how expansive it is there. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267500/eu-monthly-wholesale-electricity-price-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267500/eu-monthly-whole...
  - ernst_klim 2y ago
    Yes, but I pay 34Cents for electricity in Germany, and my friend in Netherlands pays 24-26Cents. That's a huge deal. > what is the average salary Norway, Finland, Netherlands are still much cheaper and they are rich.
    - PinguTS 2y ago
      I can get from 25 cent/kWh (Elektrizität Berlin) to 39 cent/kWh (N-Ergie). It is what you choose.
croes 2y ago
Which company would you trust to build and operate an nuclear power plant without putting profit over security?
- criley2 2y ago
  Any of them? Coal is far more dangerous to human health and life than nuclear. Pick your quasi-legitimate source, but they all agree that coal is ~10X more deadly than nuclear. > Coal-fired energy chains are estimated to cause 12 times more deaths per gigawatt-ampere-year than nuclear energy chains, and coal is estimated to cause 820% more deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity produced than nuclear
  - croes 2y ago
    Who said the choice is between coal and nuclear? I prefer solutions that don't emit poisonous substances into the atmosphere nor make areas dangerous for thousands of years in case of accidents.
    - throw0101c 2y ago
      > […] nor make areas dangerous for thousands of years in case of accidents. After ~250 years spent nuclear fuel is only dangerous if you (a) eat it, or (b) grind it up and snort it like cocaine. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0p6QLMpg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0p6QLMpg4 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2t2tYQsK94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2t2tYQsK94 The long-lived stuff throws off mostly alpha particles (blocked by a sheet of paper) or beta particles (thin aluminium). The first few years (6-10) of spent fuel throws off the riskiest particles (gamma), and so the fuel sits in cooling pools for that period. The co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, Geraldine Thomas, has no problem with nuclear power: "Look at the science – smoking and obesity are more harmful than radiation": * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-smoking-more-dangerous-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obesity-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Thomas
    - abenga 2y ago

bee_rider 2y ago

It seems hard to evaluate that in isolation. They’ve been planning on shuttering their nuclear plants for the last 20 years or so, right? Would they have invested as much in renewables if that wasn’t the plan?

literallycancer 2y ago
The plan was to talk about renewables while buying Russian gas, since solar can't possibly cover the consumption. It's not a coincidence that the German prime minister from the era when they decided to phase out nuclear now works for Gazprom and Rosneft. He literally said the West caused Russia to invade Georgia in 2008 (what a fucking moron). In normal countries this is called treason. In Germany it's "developing trade relations".
- ben_w 2y ago
  https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Area+Germany+*+1+kW%2Fm%5E2+*+20%25+*+10%25 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Area+Germany+*+1+kW%2Fm... Germany alone, using PV alone, has the potential to supply the entire planet's electricity demand 3.5 times over, even when using medium efficiency cells and also accounting for their capacity factor. Meeting just Germany's own domestic demand purely with PV would take 0.8% of the land area: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28514.6e9+kWh%2F1+year%29+%2F+%28Area+Germany+*+1+kW%2Fm%5E2+*+20%25+*+10%25%29%29+to+percent https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28514.6e9+kWh%2F1+y... This is about a tenth of the land area that's already been built on: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/lan_lcv_ovw/default/table?lang=en https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/lan_lcv_ovw/d... Also, this ignores the ample German wind resources that currently supplies a bit over twice as much as their PV, with all renewables collectively being 52% of Germany's gross electricity production: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterprises/Energy/Production/Tables/gross-electricity-production.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris... Of course, the people doing this might have simply not believed that any of this was possible, and had some villainous scheme in mind that accidentally went wrong in a way that gave everyone else substantial benefits — I've still not seen "The Mouse That Roared", but I'm aware of the plot and have that in mind.
- 2y ago

oezi 2y ago

On the other hand nuclear was just 6% of the energy mix in its last year. On the other hand Germany is aiming to building out 13 GW of solar in just 2024 (capacity factors non-withstanding).

throw0101c 2y ago
> On the other hand nuclear was just 6% of the energy mix in its last year. And coal is 25-30% currently. If nuclear was higher, how much lower could have coal have been? How much lower could have emissions be without coal?
- oezi 2y ago
  Nuclear is a legacy technology which is on the way out. German society didn't want to be stuck with it and footing a tremendous bill for subsidizing and later dismantling the technology in the end. Pretty much all industrialized countries with the exception of China is going in the same direction.
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > Nuclear is a legacy technology which is on the way out. Don't tell that to Ontario-Canada > Demand for electricity across Canada is forecast to double in the next 25 years, and all the signs from Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government indicate that nuclear energy will supply the biggest portion of the province's additional power needs. * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power-electricity-1.6967927 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nuclear-power... and Poland: > In December 2021, BWXT Canada signed an agreement, valued at up to $1 billion, to build key components in Ontario to support the deployment of Small Modular Reactors in Poland. * https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1004711/ontario-lands-major-nuclear-agreements-abroad-creates-jobs-at-home https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1004711/ontario-lands-maj... > German society didn't want to be stuck with it and footing a tremendous bill for subsidizing and later dismantling the technology in the end. Ontario is not dismantling but refurbishing: * https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-completion-of-darlington-unit-3/ https://www.opg.com/releases/opg-celebrates-the-early-comple... The bill is such that nuclear is the second-cheapest source of power in Ontario (Table 2): * https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-20231019.pdf https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...

PurpleRamen 2y ago

> If nuclear was kept around, would its capacity allow for fossil fuels to be reduced more? No. Germany is not even using its full potential for electrical energy at the moment. > Nuclear was previously providing 22 GW (2022) to 20 GW (2010) of power, down to 12.1 GW (2011), then 8 (2019): currently (2023) lignite is outputing 18.6 GW of power, and hard coal is providing 18.9 GW. Those numbers are irrelevant, they are not telling the usage. You can't freely replace one energy-source with some other. You need to look at the application and which energy-form it can use. And in Germany, the big historical problem is that the conversion to electrical applications was slow.

throw0101c 2y ago
> Those numbers are irrelevant, they are not telling the usage. Edit post to note capacity versus output: * nuclear was providing 150 TWh at its peak (~2004) * coal is currently providing 120 TWh So nuclear could have covered all the output of coal, and then some. * https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
- PurpleRamen 2y ago
  Again: "cannot replace"! Coal is providing a very different form of energy, used with very different applications. Directly comparing the numbers, is comparing apples and bananas. Your case has no foundation.
  - ptero 2y ago
    > Coal is providing a very different form of energy, used with very different applications. What are those? Nuclear and renewables uses are indeed very different. Nuclear and coal for base load -- not so much. At least this is what I heard for decades. I would be interested to read a refutation.
    - PurpleRamen 2y ago
      Base load is more of a fairy tail. For the applications I'm talking about, I explained them in a sibling comment.

croes 2y ago

Even if they had wanted to, it would not have been possible, as the required fuel rods could not simply be ordered. The operators were therefore also against continued operation

literallycancer 2y ago
Other EU member countries are running their own NPPs just fine. Sounds like a problem with lack of motivation.
- PinguTS 2y ago
  Nope, it is "problem" of past decisions. The past decision were, that 2022 should be the end date. All companies planed for that. You simply cannot change such decisions in an empty market. BTW the fuel is mostly coming from Kazakhstan. Does that ring a bell?
  - literallycancer 2y ago
    So buy it elsewhere? All I hear are excuses and why the current situation is someone else's fault, either previous governments or other countries because they wouldn't just shut up and die so Germany can have cheaper energy. Which they use to overproduce stuff and dump it in the rest of the EU, while calling everyone else lazy. Here's a hint, if your economy doesn't work unless you have the lowest energy prices in history, it's broken and needs to change.
  - ptero 2y ago
    Scary Kazatomprom as a fuel source is an invented problem. Nuclear fuel market is global with many producers. Fuel price is a tiny fraction of the nuclear electricity cost. Agree to a long-term contract at double today's price and there will be a line of companies running to sign it. Cameco (and others) put some of their nuclear mining into conservation because there was not enough buyers. Uranium is one of the most abundant elements, the only reason for the shortage of fuel is the politicians reluctance to make nuclear a pillar of the energy production.
  - 2y ago