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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

#71

Post by AstralStorm »

bildung wrote: post #62
wrkronmiller wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Actually, they do: "In this study, benefits of interconnecting wind farms were evaluated for 19 sites, located in the Midwestern United States, with annual average wind speeds at 80 m above ground, the hub height of modern wind turbines, greater than 6.9 m/s (class 3 or greater). We found that an average of 33 % and a maximum of 47 % of yearly-averaged wind power from interconnected farms can be used as reliable, bas…

United States is somewhat bigger than France, which is why it somewhat works. Somewhat because the base load achievable by such balancing is rather small. And by adding more plants you make the crest factor in this estimate higher...

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#72

Post by AstralStorm »

usrusr wrote: post #53
tpm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atomausstieg started in 2000, long before the Fukushima disaster.

But before Fukushima, it was mostly an empty statement of intent. The nuclear industry was already winding down, but not really because they were taking the decision for granted, they were just assessing the tiny (at the time) risk of it not being reverted as too much for them. Fukushima changed the perception of exit plans from "yeah, right, I'll believe it when I see it" to "yeah, definitely". Fukushima hit hard be…

By ”can't handle” people mean an incident similar in scope to a mine collapse or coal plant fire. The fires of Saudi oil fields were more toxic than that. People do not understand the kind and level of risk posed by radiation at all - Fukushima was cleanly contained, despite multiple safety systems failing. (Compared to TMI or Chernobyl especially.) The evacuation caused more harm than the incident, as does the sigmatization of the people This is how overblown the whole affair is.

Yes, wind and solar are safer. So is geothermal. But nuclear is still safer than hydroelectric, gas, oil or coal.

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#74

Post by mxfh »

lispm wrote: post #55
mxfh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In 2001 socdem-green coalition agreed on an "Atomaustieg" After two decades of discussion and political struggle. > Merkel's stance changed Merkel knew already that there was not enough support for nuclear. The Fukushima event caused the collapse of the nuclear support in her own party and in the industry. > Saying that Germany's handling of the energy sector is purely rational, simply doesn't hold up to the politi…

in reference to 2001 this sounds about right, sorry just was confused which time span those 2 decades refer to. propably even 2 1/2 decades or more, the big demostrations started about 78/79.

Re: Germany looks to step up coal exit timetable

#77

Post by bildung »

AstralStorm wrote: post #71
bildung wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, they do: "In this study, benefits of interconnecting wind farms were evaluated for 19 sites, located in the Midwestern United States, with annual average wind speeds at 80 m above ground, the hub height of modern wind turbines, greater than 6.9 m/s (class 3 or greater). We found that an average of 33 % and a maximum of 47 % of yearly-averaged wind power from interconnected farms can be used as reliable, bas…

United States is somewhat bigger than France, which is why it somewhat works. Somewhat because the base load achievable by such balancing is rather small. And by adding more plants you make the crest factor in this estimate higher...

Europe is actually better in this regard because of grid connections between the countries. So lack of wind could be compensated by imports from Spain or Germany, for example.

Germany and Norway also currently work on a project for a direct connection between their respective grids, called NordLink.

Base load in a renewable-only world is an essentially solved problem, see for example the following link: https://skepticalscience.com/detailed-look-at-renewable-base...

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