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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

#431

Post by OJFord »

wumpus wrote: post #389
spywaregorilla wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be very difficult for the grid. Switching to electric heating is a big hurdle.

Electric heating? Do you mean resistive heating, or heat pumps? It's been difficult in this discussion to figure out what people are saying.

And when you say resistive, do you mean element within (an electric) boiler, radiators to work as normal, or something more direct, electric radiators/underfloor/etc.?

I think it doesn't really matter much what is meant throughout - point was about shifting gas demand on to the electricity supply, and whether the grid could cope with it if everyone did that to a meaningful degree.

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

#432

Post by ben_w »

luckylion wrote: post #206
ben_w wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in general are bad at risk assessment. In many countries, roughly 30% don’t want vaccines, citing the 1:10,000 side effects, ignoring the roughly 1:1,000 fatality rate (as a fraction of global population, 1:55 of infected[0]). Same deal with playing lotteries in the expectation of getting rich, or fearing terrorists more than dangerous drivers. [0] https://covid19.who.int/

Certainly, but imminent doom is essentially a hobby in Germany. We have the term Angstlust which I always found quite fitting: deriving pleasure from fear. It's an interesting realization when you've grown up in Germany and then live outside of it for a while and realize that not everyone is constantly worried about the world ending tomorrow.

Curious, I’ve not noticed that moving to Berlin from the UK. Where did you go? In wondering if the U.K. is just as bad, or if Berlin is unusually chill.

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

#433

Post by tmikaeld »

wumpus wrote: post #397
tmikaeld wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you only use electricity only some hours a day? No it’s usage need to be constant, or you'll get black-outs in regions where the grids 50hz frequency cannot be kept - which a lot of communals in Sweden are dangerously close to. And if you don't keep the network balanced, you'll get complete blackouts instead of regional blackouts.

Well, speaking for myself, I do use different amounts of electricity during the day. As does everyone in my region. And your region, probably.

But you want to be able to use electricity when you need it, right?

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

#434

Post by KptMarchewa »

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.)

Or using reactor waste heat to heat houses.

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

#435

Post by KptMarchewa »

neuronic wrote: post #197
AstralStorm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why is this always spread? Right now is a winter night (-6 celsius), this is the live electricity map for Europe: https://app.electricitymap.org/map Right this second, Germany is EXPORTING to most of their neighbors. Are they charging the other batteries now or how am I supposed to follow your logic?

Turn off 10% of your generation and you'll be importing.

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

#436

Post by gr__or »

dispat0r wrote: post #410
lmm wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They'd still have a better lifestyle if they used the same amount of energy and used it more efficiently. Only if you're assuming some kind of linear relationship between energy consumption and happiness, which seems extremely dubious.

Maybe not happiness but definitely living standards. In the US air conditioning systems are common in Germany not so much.

Lots of housing in Germany is well-insulated enough that AC is not needed. This argument seems dubious.

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

#437

Post by hagbard_c »

cinntaile wrote: post #316
raffraffraff wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing. How many so-called zero emissions cars will be running on lignite next year? Oh, I give up.

Not that many. Power from Poland or Germany is not that common in Sweden, Sweden exports most of the time. It can happen during periods of low winds, but it's not that frequent.

It has become far more frequent than it used to after the closure of Ringhals 1 and Barsebäck, two nuclear power plants in the south of Sweden. The power grid in Sweden is designed to take electricity produced mostly by hydroelectric plants in the north and middle and nuclear in the south. The closure of those nuclear plants in the south has led to an imbalance, especially given the increase in power use in the south. To make matters worse the "government" - between quotes here because they hardly deserve that term - allowed the establishment of several data centres by the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google, each of which consumes enough electricity to make it impossible for other industry to be established in the same area given the limits of the distribution network. To make things even worse those data centres got a really sweet deal on electricity, they're not paying all the taxes and surcharges which other consumers and industry have to. In return they provide a couple of dozen jobs, each of which was subsidised by the Swedish state (in addition to the mentioned deal on electricity) to the tune of 2.5 million SEK (around $275.000,-).

Here's some more choice words on the failures of the current Swedish energy policy:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/02/28/irrationa...

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

#438

Post by tut-urut-utut »

riedel wrote: post #16
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #2

German energy policies are insane. Shutting down nuclear energy without replacing source. Already planning shut down of coal plants, also without any plans for replacement. And with Green Party in power it can only become worse. But we shouldn’t worry as long as we can import expensive dirty energy from other countries and complain it’s them and not us not doing enough to stop global warning.

The insane part is only that not enough is done to boost energy distribution from renewables. So many subventions have been dumped into nuclear and the cost for disposal, it makes sense to move out beyond safety concerns. About the time: to there could have been better times but there was a political momentum and I think a majority of German are in support of the transition.

> but there was a political momentum and I think a majority of German are in support of the transition.

Majority of German media outlets are in support for transition. German private households already pay one of the most expensive electricity in the world. With prices going even more up, I'm not so sure many would be happy to pay even more.

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

#439

Post by dougmwne »

wwtrv wrote: post #418
dougmwne wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all the people I know in Poland who were children at the time of Chernobyl have thyroid issues, including my partner. It’s not accurate to say that it had zero health impact. Of course, coal has plenty of health impact, just not a good look to be so flippant about a major nuclear disaster.

How do you know those issues thyroid issues were not caused by fossil fuel pollution? Many more people have serious health issues or die every year due pollutants emitted from burning coal (and other fossil fuels but coal is by far the worst) than the total death count related to Chernobyl was, its not even comparable. Poland is especially bad in this regard. It consistently has one the highest PM10 and PM2.5 levels…

Because there is a well studied link and a clear biological pathway has been identified. [1]

I’m not in favor of coal, I know it has health consequences, but the existence of coal pollutants does not negate the existence of health consequences from nuclear disasters. I’m also not against nuclear, but it is clearly dangerous, both to health and environment and for proliferation. Considering and balancing these risks as well as climate risk is good governance.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626541/

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

#440

Post by dougmwne »

rollcat wrote: post #209
dougmwne wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all the people I know in Poland who were children at the time of Chernobyl have thyroid issues, including my partner. It’s not accurate to say that it had zero health impact. Of course, coal has plenty of health impact, just not a good look to be so flippant about a major nuclear disaster.

Chernobyl was also a political/PR issue, and in typical USSR fashion, the general public wasn't even informed until over a week after the incident. Consider the half-life of iodine-135, by the time people were being recommended and provided with the necessary medication most of the damage was already done.

Indeed. I know people who found out because they had friends in the university physics department. General population was not told immediately.
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