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German power mix may get dirtier for 1st non-nuclear winter
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Too expensive, takes too long to build, still fossil.
How is nuclear energy "still fossil"?
It isn't but it has all the same downsides as fossil fuels in terms of being dependent on some countries for fuel imports, extraction being extremely environmentally damaging, limited supply,...
It is a limited resource we dig out of the ground in countries we don't want to be depending on, because to do it in our own countries is too dirty for us. Then we use this bound energy and convert it into heat we release into the atmosphere. The only thing missing for being technically "fossil" is that it's originated from organic matter.
Short from that, it definitively classifies as not renewable, not sustainable, dangerous, not climate neutral, expensive, antquiated idea. And in the sense of being an antiquated idea at least, it is "still fossil".
It is not fossil, but i agree that we should switch over to use the term renewable instead, because that's the goal.
It is not, but if you spout lied loud enough some people believe you.
Except your wrong. It's the most expensive form of energy generation. The question is are you just dumb or saying wrong stuff on purpose. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
The levelised cost doesn't take into account the need to offset intermittence, which is the big fucking problem that the entire population of Germany seems to be ignoring.
Ah yes you don't have the exact same problem with nuclear because energy usage never fluctuates. But even if it would takes 10 times more money to store solar energy it still would be cheaper than nuclear.
Rare earths for batteries are a bottleneck, especially if you want to electrify transport too.
No they aren't. There are so many different battery types that don't use any rare materials. You can store heat in salt. SALT
Yes and we absolutely should, but Germany is going to have to build a shit ton more storage and generation capacity to make that work. Also different storage technologies have different discharge rates, while traditional batteries can provide instant, short lasting and much needed frequency regulation, heat-based batteries take time to respond but can operate for prolonged periods. This is also a really complex balance to reach.
Again, not saying there isn't space for renewables: my ideal grid is 40% nuclear 60% renewable.
but I'm not certain we can grow storage and production with the rate of increase in demand by purely using renewables. Especially given the future need for air conditioning, and green hydrogen production for industrial processes like steelmaking.
We're in the midst of a climate crisis, and my only and primary goal is to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. The statistics show clearly that Germany's phase out of nuclear had done the opposite. The wrong decision was made: these plants should have at least been maintained, and, in my opinion, moderately expanded. The EU should have developed an EU-wide nuclear fuel reprocessing and storage programme, and we could be much closer to climate neutrality and relative energy independence today.
Scheiße, I've upset the Germans.
That needs more than a lunatic on an online board.
This does not justify closing existing, already payed, plants. And it's not fossil.
The only way these plants could have continued to run would have been with extensive maintenance - they were already running under a special permission allowing them to forgo scheduled maintenance. This maintenance could not have been put off any longer and would have meant the shutdown of the plants for an extended period as well as high costs that nobody (including the plant operators) was willing to pay. In effect, just continueing to run the plants as they were would have invited disaster by gross negligence. Another factor is the human factor: since the end of nuclear power generation has been a long time coming, a lot of the specialists at the various plants have changed their plans accordingly and moved to other industries or even countries to pursue new carreer opportunities, so that the knowhow and manpower to operate these plants simply does not exist anymore.
The real failure is that the existing alternatives have not been allowed to grow as needed. Previous governments have not just cut subsidiaries for power sources like wind, they have made it near impossible to install new plants with idiotic, over the top regulations and laws.
Damn, if only you had existing plantd you could be using in Germany... Oh wait.
You mean the ones that are at the end of their expected lifetime and have been scheduled to shutdown for 12 years which surely hasn't lead to a lack of maintenance and upgrades that would have been done otherwise? The ones that made up a tiny percentage of our energy mix even before they were shut down?
funny how that 'tiny' percentage of your energy mix is now forcing germany to reopen coal power plants, but by all means, continue to fuck the planet up even more in pursuit of your absurd anti-nuclear ideology.
Oh you mean like the old plants in France that are out for maintainance so much, that France has to buy electric power from Germany? https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/05/germany-power-trade
France whose best idea this year was to make a law that now allows new built power plants to be built besides old ones, so "THEY CAN USE THE SAME PARKING LOT" because that was the ONLY idea they had to "speed up" the planning and building phase of power plants that in case of Finland took 13 years longer than expected, which was costly for the French power plant builder because they had to pay late fees?
When France finally will have a new power plant it will just replace the old ones and add nothing to the grid.
Holding France's old power plants up und building new ones, despite no one in the private sector wanting to invest into it, costs so much money that they have to use funds that were meant to build social housing to keep them up and start building. In the UK investors are so unwilling to invest, because of high risks of building costs exploding and projects finishing 12+ years late, that the government considers to give them "upfront money" to even think about investing into Sizewell C.
https://www.ft.com/content/7311cbdd-f245-43ff-92a3-9b763959a2db
Thats realistically 2045, when it is only 10 years late and that means the old power plants of France that were build in the 80s and 90s, having huge problems with maintenance and stress corrosion NOW, will have even more problems 12 - 22 years from now. I doubt they will make it for so long at all.
France is a mess and it will cost the whole EU billions to finally free them from their dead end. Not to mention that their unrealistic dreams of nuclear power also lead to them not having the money or the will to invest in insulation and heating/cooling that is not depending solely on electricity, which they desperately need to do and Germany does for years now.
I hate that the nuclear power chills have made the jump from Reddit to the Fediverse.