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Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

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Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#81

Post by atemerev »

hef19898 wrote: post #62
jwr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear plants do not "blow up". This is FUD, pure and simple. People are unreasonably scared of nuclear energy, and we might lose a planet because of this. For real data on how dangerous nuclear energy is, please look at https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

Well, there actually is some unreasonable view on nuclear. Especially in Germany. Doesn't change the fact that long term we should get rid of it. The storage of the waste is just to tricky and when not if something goes wrong we talk about serious damage. That we should IMHO get rid of coal earlier isn't exclusive, so.

Today's "waste" is tomorrow's fuel for breeder reactors. We don't need to store waste; we need to burn it.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#82

Post by EastLondonCoder »

hackeraccount wrote: post #50
netsharc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure if the survival of human race is at stake, money is no object. If someone in a foreign country invented a machine that everyone can buy to make themselves carbon-positive, the logical move for any government would be subsidize the purchase, even if that means great debt: but as the planet continues surviving, the country will go on collecting tax revenue from productive citizens/businesses and will be…

The point is that while you can spend a lot of money you can't spend infinite money. There's a finite pile of euros. Every euro you spend on something stupid is one less euro you can spend on something smart.

The only "currency" I know with a finite money supply is bitcoin. I may be misunderstanding you but there certainly isn't a fixed pile of Euro notes sitting in a vault under the European Central Bank. Money creation is essential to any macroeconomy, just look at the countries in Southern Europe. They have to deal with atrocious unemployment because they cant devalue. Germany and France certainly can. Sure runaway inflation is harmful, but in the choice of inflation in the high single digit contra 20-30% unemployment, my choice would be to lower unemployment.

If your case is that economic output is fixed I would flat out disagree. It's been shown over and over again that investment increases economic output. Which was very much the idea with Germany's Energiewende

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#83

Post by choeger »

jwr wrote: post #53
geff82 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 is not the only thing that counts. One of those "clean" nuclear plants blows up and we can essentially close our countries or all die of cancer.

Nuclear plants do not "blow up", at least not the ones that are built after Chernobyl. Please stop spreading FUD.

Fukushima did blow up. Saw it live on TV. In fact, anything that creates that much thermal energy in a pressurized environment has a chance to blow up.

Fission is a pointless, dirty, expensive technology when it comes to power generation on Earth. It is also not that friendly to the environment once you consider the huge infrastructure you have to operate. But the worst thing is that it is not scalable. Think about exchanging all coal and gas power plants with nuclear reactors, consider the safety and proliferation issues and then tell me that PV with chemical storage is not much simpler solution.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#84

Post by geff82 »

scarmig wrote: post #78
geff82 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 is not the only thing that counts. One of those "clean" nuclear plants blows up and we can essentially close our countries or all die of cancer.

> CO2 is not the only thing that counts. In terms of existential threats to human life as we know it, it is. The choices aren't "renewables and nuclear" or "renewables and ponies and magical unicorns." The choice is what proportion of energy do we want from nuclear vs renewables vs fossil fuels. The best option is reducing energy requirements. After that, though, a large proportion of every unit of nuclear energy you…

Energiewende is no ponies and magical unicorns, it is a quite well thought out system to about zero CO2 ouput in 2050 (except some industries like steel production where fossils will be needed for some time to come until better chemical processes are found). 2050 is not the number that "Fridays for future" want to hear, but still ambitious enough to really make a difference. A lot of new infrastructure has to be built (and is currently built) and paid for (that is why I gladly pay my 28,9 cents/KwH). It is a giant project, but mostly it is using technology we know and can use today. We just have to scale it.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#85

Post by cygx »

ehaliewicz2 wrote: post #76
cygx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a tool of social organization that lacks instrinsic value. Any time we as a society refuse to do something worthwhile for the sole reason that it would cost too much, that's a capitulation to human stupidity and/or greed.

It's not so much about money, the implication is that making solar panels costs some amount of resources that according to the parent, could possibly be spent in better ways. The money just represents, indirectly, the amount of resources.

The question is, what's the limiting factor: Availability of manpower, natural resources, etc, or 'merely' the money to pay for them? The latter is an artificial constraint.

Take nuclear fusion as an example: Supposedly, this is a case where the projected investments necessary to go from theory to practice just haven't been made. With return of investment only anticipated in the far-off future, it was decided that the money could be spent in better ways.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#86

Post by temp1831 »

vkou wrote: post #66
hef19898 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term? Some kind of storage solution in combination with hydro power and, my preference, natural gas as it burns much cleaner than coal. Short to mid term? Same as above, only that storage will have to be replaced with something else. Since coal is clearly favoured by the system in Germany coal has to replaced by itself. Coal is just the worst alternative. Unfortunately nuclear is no option in Germany, until stor…

Natural gas is not a sustainable long-term solution. World emissions need to be brought to zero, in the next five years, in order for us to avoid a climate castrophe. If we are still positive at the five-year mark, that means zero at, say, the ten-year mark, and negative emissions for many decades. Natural gas has no place in this long-term.

If you think we are going to bring world emissions to zero in 5 years you are hopelessly idealistic.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#87

Post by sonnyblarney »

cygx wrote: post #64
hackeraccount wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that while you can spend a lot of money you can't spend infinite money. There's a finite pile of euros. Every euro you spend on something stupid is one less euro you can spend on something smart.

Money is a tool of social organization that lacks instrinsic value. Any time we as a society refuse to do something worthwhile for the sole reason that it would cost too much, that's a capitulation to human stupidity and/or greed.

The value of money is not artificial, it's valued through a measurement of it's availability vis-a-vis other resources and opportunities.

Surely countries can invest more if those projects are 'more value creating than other investments' and if it's rational, but the notion that countries shouldn't be afraid of debt either is pragmatically no helpful.

All of us are just a few irresponsible financial decisions away from being Greece, Venezuela, Weimar etc.. Stable fiat currencies are a precarious thing, which why we are so cold and 'small c' conservative about it.

As for Germany's problems, it has to do with how we measure value, institutional legacy, and obviously unwillingness to consider Nuclear.

Merkel was never really a pragmatist in the sense we would understand it - she was a political pragmatist, meaning really just 'populist' but more of the centrist type: I believe her Nuclear decision was mostly political.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#88

Post by DoctorOetker »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #8
spython wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a radioactive cloud over most of Europe after Chernobyl. It is much harder politically to defend nuclear energy once you lived through that disaster.

There's a cloud of particulants from burning coal and oil over most of Europe--- and it has killed orders of magnitude more people than contamination from Chernobyl.

where do I learn more about the isotope composition of coal? does it vary significantly from deposit to deposit? can they be chemically removed on the basis of their current element identity?

similarily are there significant radioactive isotopes related to the manufacture of plastic products? Regardless if they remain in the plastic or another byproduct? How is such a byproduct dealt with?

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#89

Post by sonnyblarney »

vkou wrote: post #66
hef19898 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term? Some kind of storage solution in combination with hydro power and, my preference, natural gas as it burns much cleaner than coal. Short to mid term? Same as above, only that storage will have to be replaced with something else. Since coal is clearly favoured by the system in Germany coal has to replaced by itself. Coal is just the worst alternative. Unfortunately nuclear is no option in Germany, until stor…

Natural gas is not a sustainable long-term solution. World emissions need to be brought to zero, in the next five years, in order for us to avoid a climate castrophe. If we are still positive at the five-year mark, that means zero at, say, the ten-year mark, and negative emissions for many decades. Natural gas has no place in this long-term.

"Natural gas has no place in this long-term."

Carbon sequestration is possibly a viable solution. There seem to be solutions in trial (there are numerous questions around it), and even with added costs of capture, it's considerably cheaper and more reliable than other form of energy - moreover, we have it in abundance.

Natural Gas is as viable for the horizon of our future we're able to predict.

In 100 years, every dimension of our tech will have changed so much it's hard to predict. Maybe we solve the nuclear wast problem. Maybe we get fusion. Maybe we have uber cheap solar. Maybe we have dirty easy sequestration. Maybe we have alternatives.

Re: Progress has been limited on Germany's shift from nuclear to renewables

#90

Post by derblitzmann »

anoncake wrote: post #77
jwr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear plants do not "blow up". This is FUD, pure and simple. People are unreasonably scared of nuclear energy, and we might lose a planet because of this. For real data on how dangerous nuclear energy is, please look at https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

> Nuclear plants do not "blow up". The reactor of Chernobyl did blow up. Just not like a nuclear bomb, if that's what you meant. Which may be a bad thing, Hiroshima is actually inhabitable. >People are unreasonably scared of nuclear energy, and we might lose a planet because of this. People are quite reasonably scared of nuclear energy. What's unreasonable is that they are less scared of global warming. Your data is…

The reactor that blew up in Chernobyl was because of the design of the reactor itself. Even at the time it was built, the west never would have green lit the reactor design.
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