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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

#161

Post by merb »

nradov wrote: post #98
cure wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how wind and solar don't make sense. Wind and solar make total sense. All we need to do is overbuild wind/solar generation + invest in energy storage capacity. This can be done relatively quickly, certainly much more quickly than building new nuclear plants.

What kind of grid scale storage can be built quickly?

hydro, but thats also something we do not built because it's not environment friendly (takes a lot of space and kills species living there and might need to move people). keep in mind we are not china they basically do everything lately to grow their energy, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar the full mix, something which would not be possible in germany, because people would go full madness, heck even wind already is something that some people do not like.

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

#162

Post by pixelpoet »

formerly_proven wrote: post #138
barney54 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6. Wholesale electricity rates have increased from 50 Euros/mwh to 250 Euros/mwh over the course of the last year. This isn't about averages. It's about meeting demand, which is especially important during the winter heating season.

Electric heating is extremely uncommon in Germany (like 1-2 % of households use it).

Paying 41c/kWh for ökostrom / 100% renewable energy here, and doing some mining with two 150W Radeon 6000 GPUs to keep this computer room warm goes a long way to making it cost effective.

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

#163

Post by Krasnol »

polotics wrote: post #97
cmarschner wrote: post #30

The sentiment on HN on this topic has traditionally been negative, and comments that support the move get downvoted. The fear of nuclear energy is deeply rooted in Germany and cannot be simply ignored. The "Anti AKW" (anti nuclear power) movement was huge since the 80s, it predates the fear of global warming, and it was at the core of what became the Green party. And Merkel, who has a doctorate quantum chemistry, cam…

Merkel... Did not come to the conclusion that nuclear power is too risky. She wanted to do more nuclear, well aware of CO2, but Fukushima happened (killing zero victims, but hey) and she saw her policy would get her voted out office, and no potential replacement was going to do better, so she folded, in the hope that large investment in renewables would help. It didn't, because a renewable world is a 18th century wor…

> She wanted to do more nuclear

This is a lie.

Before Fukushima she only moved the nuclear exit a few years back.

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

#164

Post by HPsquared »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143
polote wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't decide when the wind blow and when the sun shines. And you can't either decide when people turn on their washing machine. So it is obvious there is a problem

So the thing about the earth is that it's big. If you have a big enough grid, it will be sunny and windy over a fairly consistent portion of that area.

We don't have a planetary grid (yet, at least). If there's a high pressure system across Europe, the whole continent can have low wind. This usually comes with either very high temperatures (in summer) or very low temperatures (in winter) which further stresses the system.

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

#165

Post by stefan_ »

nkmnz wrote: post #51

price of 1MWh on Dec 21 2020: 45€ price of 1MWh on Dec 21 2021: 316€ https://www.wiwo.de/my/unternehmen/energie/knappheitspreise-...

price of 1MWh on Dec 23 2021 in France: >400€

https://www.services-rte.com/en/view-data-published-by-rte/f...

Spot markets be spotting, we can play this game all day long.

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

#166

Post by IsThisYou »

BenoitP wrote: post #58
dvt wrote: post #4

This is insane to me. Nuclear is the best long-term option for ecologically-friendly energy generation. This is absolutely a bad move, and the coal industry has done a great job of demonizing nuclear power.

Well, Germany's wind was done without a thought about how to implement storage; it did not have to; it was a perfect egotistic game-theoretic play: The EU energy market mandates that wind and solar production must be bought before everything else. What happens at the moment is France's nuclear reduces production when Germany's wind is over-producing; there is no energy storage at all. So right now, on top of wind use…

The EU is our battery.

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

#167

Post by BenoitP »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143
polote wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't decide when the wind blow and when the sun shines. And you can't either decide when people turn on their washing machine. So it is obvious there is a problem

So the thing about the earth is that it's big. If you have a big enough grid, it will be sunny and windy over a fairly consistent portion of that area.

With the current technology, you can't transport electricity more than ~1000 km with acceptable losses.

Atmospheric depressions are bigger than than, and the distance for solar are much bigger as well (other than cloudy, there's day and night).

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

#168

Post by jhgb »

AstralStorm wrote: post #158
jhgb wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has the same electricity mix as Germany and it has extremely good SAIDI index compared to all other countries ( https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-electric... ). I guess those Germans are just insanely competent, then.

Check precision energy import charts, especially at night in winter. Germany uses other countries as a battery.

Winter nights in Germany are the domain of coastal wind turbines. Off to build more wind farms, then!

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

#170

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

nradov wrote: post #98
cure wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how wind and solar don't make sense. Wind and solar make total sense. All we need to do is overbuild wind/solar generation + invest in energy storage capacity. This can be done relatively quickly, certainly much more quickly than building new nuclear plants.

What kind of grid scale storage can be built quickly?

Compared to building reactors, anything is quick.
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