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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

#281

Post by chris_va »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #263
cure wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that nuclear doesn't ramp up/down very well either. Correct. Nuclear reactors can't be turned on/off quickly. They are suitable to handle the base load, in other words, but can't be used as peakers. > Wind and solar don't even make sense for Germany given their climate/geography. Uhm, respectfully, that is a load of nonsense. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…

This is wrong. Nuclear reaction output can be modulated on the order of milliseconds, practically visible as the temperature of the core, which varies on seconds to minutes. They can be used as peaker plants if so designed. In the US at least, the issue is that energy output must be telegraphed 4+ hours in advance. If I had to guess this is a constructed incentive to make nuclear less desirable than coal or gas under…

The technical ramp up/down issue is often conflated with amortized capital cost.

Nuclear, in order to provide electricity at a competitive rate, needs >90% capacity factor. That means it can't ramp up/down and stay in business, not that it can't ramp up/down. Since the fuel is trivially cheap, ramping down does not provide any economic savings. The opposite is true for an CCGT plant.

... and that is the fundamental reason why there isn't any pressure to build new nuclear in the US (I am less familiar with PPAs and grid regulation in the EU).

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

#282

Post by ragebol »

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 energy market mandates that wind and solar production must be bought before everything else.

Not exactly. Operators can bid a price for generation and markets dictate the cheapest generators are bought up first. Renewables tend to have zero marginal cost and are therefore often cheapest. Nuclear also has low marginal cost, but not zero.

Renewables being favored is not a rule but effect of how the market works.

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

#283

Post by flor1s »

midjji wrote: post #218
com2kid wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you can't either decide when people turn on their washing machine. Not completely, but you can make electricity almost free at certain times of day to encourage shifting usage. Although there is a natural limit to this, since people have to be home to do laundry! (Also electric driers are the real culprit, they use an obscene amount of electricity! I am not sure if Germany is big on electric dryers or not thoug…

Power is far to abstract and far to cheap for people to make even the slightest adjustment to their habits. After all, lets say you knew that making your morning coffe between 07-08 cost 10 cents more than doing so an hour earlier or later, would you get up earlier, or go to work latter? And in 1 cent is more realistic.

I don't think this is true. My (Dutch) mom used to wash at night and in the weekend because of reduced tariffs. She is very energy conscious on general. Not everyone is oblivious to these things, especially less well off people.

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

#284

Post by diordiderot »

garmaine wrote: post #255
cwp wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being dependent on imported gas seems like an inherent issue of the German energy system.

Heating is largely natural gas based, so it's not substitutive. I don't think Germany should be shutting down its nuclear reactors, but that has nothing to do with Russian gas. (Unless perhaps they started making synthetic methane using the heat of a nuclear reactor, which is not a terrible idea but not something they are currently doing AFAIK.)

Electricity absolutely, unarguably, is a substitute for gas.

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

#285

Post by [deleted] »

yosito wrote: post #65
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…

And here I thought the "rational German" stereotype had some justification.

[deleted]

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

#286

Post by dane-pgp »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #159
inglor_cz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine that somewhere there is always enough wind and sun in Europe. The problem with this approach is that you need to overbuild the total installed capacity massively, so that every "somewhere" could, in need, play the role of an energy producing and exporting center for all the other regions. If 70 % of Europe is calm and dark at one point, the remaining 30 % would need to produce enough energy for the entire…

It would be great to have that infrastructure of course, but if we're going to say "OK we need to do mammoth projects which require lots of up front capex and ongoing administrative competence", that same argument applies to old-school nuclear reactors too. The most grating thing about the renewable fad is that "herp durp churn out more wind and solar at the margins decentralized" and "massive coordinated grids and/o…

> ongoing administrative competence", that same argument applies to old-school nuclear reactors too.

Well, except that "ongoing" for nuclear means "100+ years".

https://www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk/science-engineering/202...

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

#287

Post by Kirby64 »

midjji wrote: post #254
jhgb wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany would have problems if not for French nuclear You could say that pretty much about any country in the European synchronous grid. Everyone needs everyone else. > and a great many, rather expensive, gas power plants The gas plants are actually quite cheap. It's the gas that's expensive. > Its also worth nothing that the rising power prices have largely prevented germany from moving away from using gas to for…

No not quite, burning fuel for heat locally will always be at least twice as effective as ideal conversion to power, followed by ideal conversion to heat, in practice its closer to three times. Therefore power prices need to fall substantially gas prices before the switch is worth it. That will never happen while producing power from gas or more expensive alternatives. In particular since the gas distribution infrast…

Heat pumps generally have a coefficient of performance (i.e., number of watts consumed vs. number of 'heat watts' moved) of ~4 with modern systems. So, compared to resistive electric heat (COP=1) it's roughly 4x as efficient. It gets worse in colder climates, (such as parts of Sweden...), but you should be doing better most of the time, as you aren't at super super cold temperatures all the time.

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

#288

Post by diordiderot »

midjji wrote: post #208
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It does not work that way. Long distance extreme high voltage transfer loses about 5% per 1000km, with the transformers adding another 10%, under ideal circumstances. In practice its higher, and thats on land. Sea cables lose 100x per km around 50% per 100km, again under ideal circumstances. In practice double the losses per distance, and if using existing grids, double it again, because most places dont build top en…

So you keep 70% of electricity piped from Morocco to the UK.

That sounds bloody swell. I'd pay for that in a heart beat.

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

#289

Post by flor1s »

pzo wrote: post #180
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

transmitting energy from other half of the earth (where is daylight when you are sleeping) is probably not best idea (not sure if even economically or technically possible). Also would be wise to turn off nuclear energy once you have this 'big enough grid'.

Is day and night really the problem here? Because I thought demand usually peaks at certain times of the day (e.g. early in the evening in California: https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-o...), and actually bottoms out during the night. You would mostly use an interconnected grid (and storage) to compensate for this.

Also there is wind energy which doesn't care about whether the sun shines or not (actually it generates more energy when the sun isn't shining: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-power-turbin...).

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

#290

Post by smotah »

LunaSea wrote: post #273
stefan_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's that high in France because Germany is knee deep in gas plants. So much for a European partner ...

Indeed, that's a consequence of how the price is artificially calculated within the European electricity market. To avoid providing advantage to electricity resellers having providers with lower production costs the price is calculated according to the price of the last connected plant at any given time within the interconnected grid. It's most of the time natural gas or coal plants because of the "flexibility" needs.

The cost of electricity production in France is currently lower than Germany, but the resell price is currently close due to those market rules.

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