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Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

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Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#41

Post by adventured »

Reggi55 wrote: post #7

Looks like they'll still be on coal when most of the world will be moving off it. Just because there's a timetable for it still makes it backward (including the self-decided avoidance of Nuclear) to hang on so long.

> Looks like they'll still be on coal when most of the world will be moving off it.

That's only true if most of the coal-using world excludes the 2.7 billion people living in China and India, neither of which have any plans to phase out coal at all. The US is also only gradually phasing out coal, it'll still be a major coal energy producer 20 years from now (probably 15% of its power base at that point).

China is very aggressively expanding its coal use - despite using as much coal as the rest of the world combined already. It's presently adding more new coal generation than exists in the entire EU.

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#42

Post by Tomte »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #9
_n_b_ wrote: post #3

This seems nearly unachievable--and will punishingly expensive--if they don't reverse their nuclear phase-out.

I know this isn't a very popular opinion, but I've always thought that was a hugely stupid idea in the first place. Instead of shutting down nuclear power plants, we should have doubled down on them and spent more money on research to make them safer (as I understand it, there's still many unexplored concepts to make nuclear power much safer and reduce nuclear waste) and more efficient. The sad truth is, that decisio…

The anti-nuclear Movement has been very strong for decades.

Calling it a fad about a single event is uninformed indeed. Ever heard of Chernobyl and other nuclear accidents?

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#43

Post by imtringued »

FisherGuy44 wrote: post #8

It seemed really expensive in the beginning, but now even more so, given they'll do it 5 years faster. I wonder if the investment pays off as it's implemented. Or does it pay off at all? It's really cheaper to move from coal to other ways of producing electricity? I'm asking about the current state of things because I'm sure in the future it'll be cheaper and cheaper

With the current CO2 certificate price it's doable and that price is only going up. Germany reduced carbon emissions by roughly 10% over the last two years. [0] The German "Energiewende" is mostly an example that politicians and the coal industry are slowing down technological progress. From 2008 to 2018 there was a whole decade of stagnation and suddenly they manage to trim the fat in just two years? CO2 pricing works extremely well but only if the price is high enough and only if the government isn't actively trying to dismantle the green tech sector.

[0] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/p...

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#44

Post by seqastian »

Tenoke wrote: post #13
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't a very popular opinion, but I've always thought that was a hugely stupid idea in the first place. Instead of shutting down nuclear power plants, we should have doubled down on them and spent more money on research to make them safer (as I understand it, there's still many unexplored concepts to make nuclear power much safer and reduce nuclear waste) and more efficient. The sad truth is, that decisio…

>I know this isn't a very popular opinion, but I've always thought that was a hugely stupid idea in the first place. Instead of shutting down nuclear power plants, we should have doubled down on them and spent more money on research to make them safer (as I understand it, there's still many unexplored concepts to make nuclear power much safer and reduce nuclear waste) and more efficient. It's a very common opinion am…

Not being able to explain it to the general public like they are three years old is one of the mayor flaws of nuclear.

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#45

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

alexgmcm wrote: post #2

Do they have a reliable and renewable replacement for baseload generation? Nuclear would be ideal but that has been ruled out for political reasons.

Something that irks me, someone working in the energy industry, is HN's (and reddit's) obsession with "baseload generation", throwing that term around without really understanding it.

It irks me because there is no such thing really. "Baseload" is the lowest point demand reaches during the 24 hour cycle. At all other points in time it is basically a number on a sheet.

What is needed, is enough dispatchable generation to cover lapses in renewable output, keeping blackouts to an "acceptable" level. Such dispatchable generation does not necessarily need to be large thermal plants.

The bigger reason why there is not much new nuclear, is not political reasons but rather the fact that nuclear is simply uncompetitive with other fuels, including wind. Given that wind power is only increasing, investors don't want to invest into a nuclear plant, then wait a decade for a plant to be built that ends up rarely selling power because other power sources always undercut them.

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#46

Post by mxfh »

lispm wrote: post #27
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't a very popular opinion, but I've always thought that was a hugely stupid idea in the first place. Instead of shutting down nuclear power plants, we should have doubled down on them and spent more money on research to make them safer (as I understand it, there's still many unexplored concepts to make nuclear power much safer and reduce nuclear waste) and more efficient. The sad truth is, that decisio…

> The sad truth is, that decision was largely driven by uninformed and emotional reactions to a single event on the other side of the world. Actually it's completely the other way: in Germany an informed population discussed this topic for two decades and eventually a consensus in society emerged to slowly phase out nuclear first and to create a new, renewable and market-oriented energy landscape. In Japan an uniform…

That's not quite correct, politics and electability of stances on the topic play a big role, even in Germany.

In 2001 socdem-green coalition agreed on an "Atomaustieg" that would not allow new plants to be greenlighted and the old ones would be phased out by some time 2015–2020.

In 2010 when Merkel first had a sole conservative-liberal coalition, those plants got an extension for another 8 years and even an unpopular "Austieg vom Austieg" (exit from exit) seemed viable.

It was only in 2011, as a direct consequence of Fukushima that Merkel's stance changed (or she saw an oppurtunity to push through with it, if that was her personal preference).

In my opinion, she saw that an "exit from exit"-stance would have endangered her re-election. So it was a largely political driven decision, regardless of what the educated concensus in Germany was. It took away a main attack talking point of the green party, which was polling at about 25%* in post Fukushima-2011, realms the green party only got back in only 8 years later, in the wake of the climate crisis topic last year.

Saying that Germany's handling of the energy sector is purely rational, simply doesn't hold up to the political realities, which can be quite messy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out#German...

* http://pollytix.eu/pollytix-german-election-trend/

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#47

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

barry-cotter wrote: post #4
alexgmcm wrote: post #2

Do they have a reliable and renewable replacement for baseload generation? Nuclear would be ideal but that has been ruled out for political reasons.

At worst they can import electricity from France which has plenty of nuclear power.

>import electricity from France

There is no interconnector, France and Germany are on the same grid I believe.

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#48

Post by bildung »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #9
_n_b_ wrote: post #3

This seems nearly unachievable--and will punishingly expensive--if they don't reverse their nuclear phase-out.

I know this isn't a very popular opinion, but I've always thought that was a hugely stupid idea in the first place. Instead of shutting down nuclear power plants, we should have doubled down on them and spent more money on research to make them safer (as I understand it, there's still many unexplored concepts to make nuclear power much safer and reduce nuclear waste) and more efficient. The sad truth is, that decisio…

Nuclear simply is too expensive. France is a good example: Most of the energy in the country is created by nuclear plants, which are old now and have to be decomissioned. Compared to other countries nuclear has an ok image in France, yet they don't plan to build new plants.

The Flamanville site is in the process of building an EPR unit, and already has 300% cost overruns [0].

The official prognosis for 6 new plants (to replace the old ones) has put the sticker price at $51 billion [1] - without any cost overruns, without waste disposal and without decomissioning of the plants - each of which adding billions per plant. Including these costs, utility scale wind turbines are roughly the same price, at about $15-20 billion per 1000MW.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-nuclear-epr/frances-e...

[2] http://www.windustry.org/how_much_do_wind_turbines_cost

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#49

Post by wrkronmiller »

bildung wrote: post #48
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't a very popular opinion, but I've always thought that was a hugely stupid idea in the first place. Instead of shutting down nuclear power plants, we should have doubled down on them and spent more money on research to make them safer (as I understand it, there's still many unexplored concepts to make nuclear power much safer and reduce nuclear waste) and more efficient. The sad truth is, that decisio…

Nuclear simply is too expensive. France is a good example: Most of the energy in the country is created by nuclear plants, which are old now and have to be decomissioned. Compared to other countries nuclear has an ok image in France, yet they don't plan to build new plants. The Flamanville site is in the process of building an EPR unit, and already has 300% cost overruns [0]. The official prognosis for 6 new plants (…

Wind turbines don’t solve the base load problem though...

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#50

Post by detaro »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #38
cesarb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that decision was largely driven by uninformed and emotional reactions to a single event on the other side of the world. Chernobyl wasn't on the "other side of the world", it was so close that the country was affected by the radioactive pollution.

The "Single event" that people were reacting to would be Fukushima, recently beforehand. IMHO it's not an "outlier" single event, not after Chernobyl. The track record matters. But it is on the other side of the world. Unlike Chernobyl.

But that's not what happened. Fukushima merely turned the Merkel-governments attempts at weakening the already-decided and widely supported exit plans (which had been created following decades of a slowly growing anti-nuclear movement) from unpopular (even before Fukushima, a majority supported the existing exit plans and disagreed with the Merkel policy) to entirely politically nonviable.

But somehow people think one headline from back then constitutes the entirety of German nuclear exit policy, and keep repeating this everywhere...

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