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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

#101

Post by jhayward »

sisu2019 wrote: post #33
hef19898 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you can say that Germany kickstarted mass manufacturing of PV modules. So even if Germany itself didn't benefit, everybody else did. Including Chinese manufacturers. So I'd argue that the money was well invested.

and how are these PV users going to cover their baseload?

The concept of `baseload' is entirely a creation of the system of extremely large thermal plants that are essentially a path-dependent outcome of the electric grid's development. There is no intrinsic usefulness in the concept.

In other words it would be good to stop acting as though the only possible grid is one that looks exactly like the one that was developed in the early 1900's. There are many other arrangements of generation resources and economic structures to pay for them than the existing grid. That is what renewables are moving toward.

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

#102

Post by jhayward »

jseliger wrote: post #2

Germany and California could already have near-zero greenhouse gas emissions from power production: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11... . The technology already exists. The problems are chiefly political.

Anyone using Michael Shellenberger and his faux front for nuclear lobbying is as an authority is participating in a fraud designed to mislead and misinform. Please don't.

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

#103

Post by jhayward »

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.

Why do you keep posting this lie?

Chernobyl's unit 4 was destroyed by an explosion.

Fukushima had multiple explosions that destroyed the upper levels of reactor buildings, and ruptured the containment of unit 2.

During the three mile island accident there were several days where engineers were sweating bullets because there was a hydrogen gas bubble at the top of the pressure vessel, and they were afraid it would explode. It was only after about a week of effort that they were able to eliminate the H2 bubble.

Every nuclear reactor has the possibility of immense damage due to explosion - steam explosions, explosive gas, and secondary systems such as diesel and electrical system. It is one of the primary hazards that control systems and emergency cooling and venting are there to deal with. Lying to everyone that it's not possible isn't helpful to the nuclear community.

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

#104

Post by sonnyblarney »

ccffph wrote: post #98
sonnyblarney wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 d…

We have already solved the nuclear waste problem. The issue is that nobody wants to bury it in their backyard, so to speak. Waste containers are incredibly safe and secure, and modern fuel waste is much safer than gen 1 fuel waste. People like feel-good shiny solar panels and wind turbines over concrete near-zero emission solutions.

We haven't solved the 'waste problem'.

1) Long term storage has some existential risks. Over very long time horizons, these risks become real.

2) Transportation, processing and storage: all of this operational stuff is totally ripe for accidents.

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

#105

Post by sisu2019 »

jhayward wrote: post #101
sisu2019 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and how are these PV users going to cover their baseload?

The concept of `baseload' is entirely a creation of the system of extremely large thermal plants that are essentially a path-dependent outcome of the electric grid's development. There is no intrinsic usefulness in the concept. In other words it would be good to stop acting as though the only possible grid is one that looks exactly like the one that was developed in the early 1900's. There are many other arrangements…

well we certaintly aren't moving towards that in Germany so I wonder where they actually are and what that looks like in reality. If everyone else is also just going to burn more coal than ever before all of this is nothing but a very expensive step backwards.

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

#106

Post by jhayward »

cygx wrote: post #70
yourMadness wrote: post #49

For those of you that want to see the data behind this story: https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&p... I think the history is one of a failed economic subsidy program that accidentally accelerated the PV-industry by a few years. There were several growing PV manufacturers in germany up to around 2011/2012. In that timeframe the manufacturers were all busy building new factories, but the governm…

Some relevant numbers (TWh) from that graphic: 2002 2018 Total 503 545 Coal + Oil 253 205 Gas 40 44 Nuclear 156 72

So, they've successfully got rid of about 50% of nuclear and 20% of coal by adding a very small amount of gas generation. Presumably the rest is coming from renewables. Sounds like a pretty good progress report.

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

#107

Post by vidarh »

choeger wrote: post #83
jwr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

You can blow up a Chernobyl type nuclear plant a year and it'd still be better than coal.

Until we've gotten rid of coal shutting down nuclear and delaying decommissioning of coal to take up the slack involves causing mass death.

Coal is only 'acceptable' because the consequences are not as immediately visible.

PV might well be a better option once we've shut down all fossil fuel plants but in the meantime shutting down nuclear is irresponsible and immoral if it delays decommissioning of other types of plants.

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

#108

Post by core-questions »

anoncake wrote: post #25
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chernobyl was a Gen II reactor. Three Mile Island and Fukushima were also Gen II. [0] There has never been a meltdown of a Gen III reactor, which is the bulk of the fleet in France. Gen IV are being designed to be impossible to melt down, and, to use waste from other plants as a fuel source. They do not emit radioactive waste.[1] [0] "To date, there have been five serious accidents (core damage) in the world since 19…

> There has never been a meltdown of a Gen III reactor yet. > Gen IV are being designed to be impossible to melt down Fukushima was designed to be tsunami-safe. Using NPPs risks rendering large areas uninhabitable. Using fossils risks most of Earth. That does make NPPs a better solution in the short term, but relying on them permanently is still madness.

> Fukushima was designed to be tsunami-safe.

If you look at the compromises made in the design, I don't think you can really say that this was the case. Even if so, all it proves is that maybe we should build such reactors in safer places, not on fault lines near the ocean.

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

#109

Post by vidarh »

spython wrote: post #6
liminal wrote: post #4

It's crazy to move from Nuclear to coal for the sake of the environment. Renewables are great when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, but the rest of the time Nuclear is the better choice

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.

Coal plants spew much more radioactivity into the air and keep doing so. Add on the particulate matter, and we'd be better off with a Chernobyl a year - the death toll from coal is much higher.

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

#110

Post by petre »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #69
hef19898 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I remember from my masters that there are plans (underway? to be? already in place?) to actually connect the countries. Would be great if that worked out.

While there are some pretty huge electrical links in place already, there is a large political and public resistance towards expanding this. For the public, they know that the endgame is more expensive electricity. No good. For local industry, it basically amounts to taking the increasingly large competitive advantage they have of cheap, low emission electricity and just giving it away to Europe.

The generation capacity will idle otherwise. It's probably better to sell the electricity for cheap than let the capacity idle to the point where it rusts and becomes useless.
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