5 ms·

I'll never understand how people can have easy access to the latest price metrics [0], which clearly shows that renewables are miles ahead of nuclear, and still

by j-pb 2y ago

I'll never understand how people can have easy access to the latest price metrics [0], which clearly shows that renewables are miles ahead of nuclear, and still largue against them. 20 billion Euros would only give you a SINGLE nuclear power plant at best [1]. If the conservative government we had for the 10 years prior hadn't sabotaged the Energiewende we could have hit 100% renewables by now, instead we had the "Altmaier-Delle" [3][4]. France build Nuclear instead of Coal from the get go, if we could turn back time and do the same in Germany too, great. But unless we invent a time machine, the next best thing is investing into the cheapest CO2-Free technology we have right now, and that's renewables. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source 1: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edfs-nuclear-project-britain-pushed-back-2029-may-cost-up-34-bln-2024-01-23/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edfs-nuclear-project... 2: https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/bundestagswahl/truebe-bilanz-von-peter-altmaier-wirtschaftsminister-ohne-plan-wie-schlecht-war-altmaier-wirklich-eine-abrechnung_id_24342042.html https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/bundestagswahl/true... 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmceuO02uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmceuO02uI

zozbot234 2y ago
Renewables are not truly CO2-free because sometimes the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. And then renewable fans have to rely on peaker natgas plants, that emit CO2 (though less of it on a kWh basis than oil or especially coal).
- j-pb 2y ago
  Dunkelflaute is extremely rare if you have a sufficiently large grid [0]. That's the beauty of european collaboration, you can have german and spanish renewable jump in for each other, norwegian pumped hydro in the super rare case that neither have wind or sun, and french nuclear, should that happen while the storage is empty and you don't feel like reducing steel production for the day (which is btw also a totally valid way to balance the grid). 0: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute
  - zozbot234 2y ago
    > Dunkelflaute is extremely rare Sure, the whole issue is that a reliable grid has to cope with "extremely rare" events too. So having nuclear plants to provide baseload power in such circumstances can be important.
- adrianN 2y ago
  Just run the peaker plants on hydrogen once you have enough overcapacity on sunny/windy days to actually fill some storage.
tass 2y ago
Germany has actively shut down nuclear plants and as a result burns more fossil fuel, no? As a percentage of total generation nuclear in Germany was never as high as France, but couldn’t they skip the 20 billion euro cost of a new plant and simply restart an existing one?
- mk89 2y ago
  Apparently yes: https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restart-of-germany-reactors-can-it-be-done https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restart-of-german... But in practice as long as you have Greens in the government you'll never be able to do it.
  - nolist_policy 2y ago
    That report is one year old, so the price calculations are completely off. It neglects that all reactors need to go into revision. It completely ignores the political dimension which is extremely complicated even if you ignore the Greens. For example the fuel elements are sourced from Russia.
    - mk89 2y ago
      The US is still buying uranium from Russia. Keeping the reactors open for another 3-5-10 years wouldn't have been such a big deal in terms of fuel. Considering also we're still buying gas from them ...
  - j-pb 2y ago
    The minister of the economy (greens) was the one who had them running longer than planned due to the Ukraine War [0], they were also the ones commisioning a study from the energy companies to see if they could extend their operations for years [1]. It was the konservative CDU/CSU that set the final decommission date after Fukushima [2]. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xznqbpv0QE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xznqbpv0QE 1: https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nukleare_Sicherheit/laufzeitverlaengerung_akw_bf.pdf https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nuklear... 2: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/atomstreit-in-der-koalition-soeder-droht-mit-ruecktritt-1.1101971 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/atomstreit-in-der-koaliti...

by j-pb 2y ago

zozbot234 2y ago

Renewables are not truly CO2-free because sometimes the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. And then renewable fans have to rely on peaker natgas plants, that emit CO2 (though less of it on a kWh basis than oil or especially coal).

j-pb 2y ago
Dunkelflaute is extremely rare if you have a sufficiently large grid [0]. That's the beauty of european collaboration, you can have german and spanish renewable jump in for each other, norwegian pumped hydro in the super rare case that neither have wind or sun, and french nuclear, should that happen while the storage is empty and you don't feel like reducing steel production for the day (which is btw also a totally valid way to balance the grid). 0: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute
- zozbot234 2y ago
  > Dunkelflaute is extremely rare Sure, the whole issue is that a reliable grid has to cope with "extremely rare" events too. So having nuclear plants to provide baseload power in such circumstances can be important.
adrianN 2y ago
Just run the peaker plants on hydrogen once you have enough overcapacity on sunny/windy days to actually fill some storage.

tass 2y ago

Germany has actively shut down nuclear plants and as a result burns more fossil fuel, no? As a percentage of total generation nuclear in Germany was never as high as France, but couldn’t they skip the 20 billion euro cost of a new plant and simply restart an existing one?

mk89 2y ago
Apparently yes: https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restart-of-germany-reactors-can-it-be-done https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restart-of-german... But in practice as long as you have Greens in the government you'll never be able to do it.
- nolist_policy 2y ago
  That report is one year old, so the price calculations are completely off. It neglects that all reactors need to go into revision. It completely ignores the political dimension which is extremely complicated even if you ignore the Greens. For example the fuel elements are sourced from Russia.
  - mk89 2y ago
    The US is still buying uranium from Russia. Keeping the reactors open for another 3-5-10 years wouldn't have been such a big deal in terms of fuel. Considering also we're still buying gas from them ...
- j-pb 2y ago
  The minister of the economy (greens) was the one who had them running longer than planned due to the Ukraine War [0], they were also the ones commisioning a study from the energy companies to see if they could extend their operations for years [1]. It was the konservative CDU/CSU that set the final decommission date after Fukushima [2]. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xznqbpv0QE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xznqbpv0QE 1: https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nukleare_Sicherheit/laufzeitverlaengerung_akw_bf.pdf https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nuklear... 2: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/atomstreit-in-der-koalition-soeder-droht-mit-ruecktritt-1.1101971 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/atomstreit-in-der-koaliti...