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Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

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Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#111

Post by Mikeb85 »

Dunedan wrote: post #89
BenoitP wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's wind and solar is only possible because neighbouring countries compensate for when there's no wind and sun; which happen a lot of the time. On top of that wind and solar production must be bought first on the EU market, effectively ruining CO2-free capital that was there beforehand (read: nuclear). So these charts that you show only demonstrate that Germany was first to jump on wind and solar production. Gr…

Do you have sources to back these claims? I'd imagine that somewhere there is always enough wind and sun in Europe.

Ummm, Europe is close enough together that night falls over the whole continent before it rises again. So no there's not always sun somewhere in Europe.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#112

Post by plank »

olivermarks wrote: post #17

https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/netherlands-goes... Holland is building two new reactors, and 'Energy and electricity prices are at record levels due to Europe’s over-reliance on renewables, inadequate supplies of nuclear energy, and shortages of oil and gas due to under-investment in oil and gas exploration and production. Carbon emissions in Germany rose 25% in the first half of 2020 due in large part t…

“Holland is building”. No. In the coalition accord, a study is ordained (https://www.deingenieur.nl/artikel/twee-nieuwe-kerncentrales... : “de nieuwe coalitie wil laten onderzoeken of het haalbaar is om twee nieuwe kerncentrales te bouwen in Nederland”, for non-dutch speakers: https://www-deingenieur-nl.translate.goog/artikel/twee-nieuw...), but many think that the study will conclude it is not feasable.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#113

Post by sam_lowry_ »

phicoh wrote: post #101
olivermarks wrote: post #17

https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/netherlands-goes... Holland is building two new reactors, and 'Energy and electricity prices are at record levels due to Europe’s over-reliance on renewables, inadequate supplies of nuclear energy, and shortages of oil and gas due to under-investment in oil and gas exploration and production. Carbon emissions in Germany rose 25% in the first half of 2020 due in large part t…

It is extermely unlikely that The Netherlands will build two new reactors. My interpretation is that two political parties keep bringing up nuclear power to basically derail the discussion on how the Dutch government is not doing enough with respect to green energy. Given the costs at Hinkley Point C, Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, it very unlikely that any political party will actually sign off on building one. Further…

Belgium has a nuclear phase out plan and while it is not realistic, it still threatens supplies to Zeeland, Rotterdam and the industrial west.

Just look where powerlines go from Doel.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#114

Post by barney54 »

uniqueuid wrote: post #40

Please remember that nuclear energy makes up 12% of Germany's overall power production [1]. Yes we do import nuclear power from France. But this is not going to be a game-changer and might be even possible to offset with clean sources. [1] https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2021/09/PE21_429_43312.html

Averages do not matter when you need to keep the heat and lights on. Wholesale electricity rates are already 5 times as high as last winter. What matters is what generation can produce electricity when you need it and starting here in 10 days you will need more production.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#115

Post by GravitasFailure »

_ph_ wrote: post #95
GravitasFailure wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We no longer produce electricity with coal or nuclear! We just buy it from other countries and then browbeat them about environmental responsibility!" doesn't seem like a sustainable energy policy.

Germany is a net exporter of electricity. But Europe has a joint spot market for electricity, which is a good thing for all involved. No longer every country has to supply expensive peak power when surplus of neighbours can be used. And Switzerland and Austria are kind of European storage providers. A 1GW line to Norway went operational recently, which uses Norwegian water power for storage.

Will Germany remain a net exporter without their nukes, and by getting rid of their nuclear capacity will they be forced to delay shutting down their coal plants?

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#116

Post by Invictus0 »

fsh wrote: post #36

I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...

In my opinion, these charts are quite out of context. See this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29654571

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#117

Post by elcapitan »

fsh wrote: post #36

I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...

Primary energy consumption looks quite a bit different though: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

Also worth noting that "biomass" often gets hidden in the "clean energy" part, but that just means burning something other than oil/coal/gas.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#118

Post by octodog »

polote wrote: post #108
cmarschner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, to summarize, 1. Germany is a net exporter 2. Germany has reduced the production from fossil fuels from about 70% to about 37% within 30 years. 3. At the same time it cut nuclear power from around 28% to about 10. 4. It looks like without reducing nuclear power it could have replaced the equivalent amount of fossil fuels (achieving less than 20% fossil fuels by 2020). However, energy consumption has also gone up…

6. If everyone had the same electricity mix than Germany we would have total blackouts everyday

How do you reach that conclusion?

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#119

Post by polote »

king_phil wrote: post #100
fsh wrote: post #36

I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...

One important thing to notice is that uranium is a finite non-renewable resource. The Red Book says there are about 3.3 million tons that are extractable for a price of 130 USD/ton. In 2017 the total uranium production was 60.000 tons. Thats about 55 years of uranium left at the current production rate. The Red Book assumes there are another 2.1 million tons likely to exist from geological data, but not found yet and…

> One important thing to notice is that uranium is a finite non-renewable resource.

One important thing to notice is that place on earth to put wind turbines and solar panels is limited. Now imagine that electricity needs greatly increased ...

At the end of the day, everything is finite

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#120

Post by KptMarchewa »

this_user wrote: post #61
uniqueuid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important point. People don't easily forget when they had to avoid fresh fruit, vegetables and meat for a year because it was radioactive.

And parents replacing the sand in their children's sandpits. There are parts of southern Germany where you are not supposed to collect mushrooms or hunt and eat game, because there is still enough residual nuclear contamination to be harmful to humans. Proponents of nuclear energy like to pretend that it is almost completely safe. But if we look beyond the, admittedly relatively low, confirmed number of immediate cas…

This is the effect of stupid scare, not any real danger.
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