This has come up many times by now. But the supposed transition to renewable energy in Germany was merely a substitution of natural gas for nuclear power. What bothers me greatly is that Germany still has not come to turns with the fact that they need nuclear power. That is a long and costly investment to make and you need to start right away. LNG can only get you so far and renewable sources just can't provide the e…
Well, fossil fuels are renewable on long enough timescales. Germans are just betting on the long game ;)
3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
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Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#212This has come up many times by now. But the supposed transition to renewable energy in Germany was merely a substitution of natural gas for nuclear power. What bothers me greatly is that Germany still has not come to turns with the fact that they need nuclear power. That is a long and costly investment to make and you need to start right away. LNG can only get you so far and renewable sources just can't provide the e…
> and renewable sources just can't provide the energy needed, as should be clear by now (although it was widely understood for the past 30 years at least). Renewable energy cost has fallen _a lot_, and Germany doesn't need nuclear power, IF it worked towards this goal: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/p...
They never include massive battery costs, and are never designed to provide robust baseload power. The grid needs to be up 99.5% of the time. The rule of thumb in engineering is that every 9 costs another 10x - and this applies to energy production most especially.
It's such an absolute cluster-F that I honestly believe the renewables and anti-nuclear movements in the West are promoted by the Russian FSB.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compared to gas at pre-war prices, they were getting close but not quite competitive. Compared to current gas prices or nuclear, batteries are dirt cheap and some of the others are almost as cheap as batteries.
If you want hours of battery storage sure, not if you want seasonal storage. That makes solar+battery a niche, not something you base your energy economy on. Besides, even if you did there's not enough minerals being mined to do battery grid storage at scale to move entire economies over to it.
LFP storage batteries use only widely available minerals: Lithium, Iron and Phosphorus. No nickel, cobalt etc.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compared to gas at pre-war prices, they were getting close but not quite competitive. Compared to current gas prices or nuclear, batteries are dirt cheap and some of the others are almost as cheap as batteries.
Source? Looking at this report[1], battery storage methods are 2x-3x the cost of "combustion turbine" (natural gas?). Presumably the kW and kWh costs for storage costs don't factor in the underlying of the energy they're storing, so the actual cost is likely higher. [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/07/f65/Storage%... (figures 5.5 and 5.6)
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The german failure to finish the "energiewende" is a political one, And that is one of the reasons that the most recent election led to the elevation of the Green Party.
And I'm going to make a prediction: Nothing will change because this isn't a political issue. This is a materials science, physics, and chemistry issue. We do have have a battery technology to get around solar/wind intermittency issues. Doesn't matter who is in charge.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
> hypocritic nonsense Please, stay calm. Germany is in a transition process. Nuclear is phasing out, renewable is coming. In the EU Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Norway, and Portugal have no nuclear power plants (Estonia has none, but is planning one; Croatia has none, but operates one together with Slovenia; Poland is planning one for 2040). Germany is just joining this club…
Alright maybe I'm the one being a little emotional, but hypocrisy makes my blood boil. https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-a... > Following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant meltdown, Germany’s antinuclear lobby kicked into high gear, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protest. The German government quickly passed legislation to decommission all of the country’s nuclear reacto…
The decision for abondoning nuclear power did not follow the Fukushima desaster of 11 March 2011, but preceeded it by more than 10 years. The agreement between the German federal government and the energy supply companies to phase out nuclear energy dates back to 14 June 2000. The first nuclear power plant was shut down permanently in Nov. 2003. It was planned to shut the last one down between 2015/2020. In 2010, a new government extended the operating term by several years (depending on the individual power plant), but returned in 2011, after Fukushima, to an earlier phase out, but which was still later (2022) than the initial decision from 2000.
The first decision for abondoning nuclear power was a project of a coalition of the SPD (labour) and the Green party. From late 2005 to late 2021 the Green party was not part of the government. The result was a slowdown in efforts to switch to renewable energies, in particular before 2010. But even after Fukushima the government was very slow to push ahead with the measures necessary for a switch to renewable energies, especially the planning and implementation of new long-distance power lines.
The operators of the nuclear power plants were more or less the same as the operators of the coal-fired power plants: RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON/PreussenElectra, EnBW. (The STEAG is the only major coal-plant operator that was not involved in nuclear energy.) In other words, Germany's nuclear industry is more or less identical with its carbon-based industry. It was their lobbying within the Merkel cabints from 2005 to 2021 that resulted in the deal to replace nuclear with coal, instead of switching to the new technologies of their competitors faster.
The deficits in the current situation were therefore not caused by the political forces that advocated a switch from nuclear and coal to renewable energies, but by those who stood in the way of this change.
Personally, I very much support this restructuring, but I am not dogmatic. In view of the situation in Ukraine, I would have spontaneously thought it appropriate to extend the lifetime of the last three nuclear power plants. However, I have read in the press that this is not practical for at least two reasons: firstly, in order to keep them running longer, they would have to be maintained (technical tests and repairs would be necessary), which would mean that they would have to be taken off the grid soon for several month, and secondly, the procurement of new fuel elements would reportedly take about one and a half years.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost of renewables has fallen, but the cost of grid scale energy storage is still quite high. When the cost of the entire energy grid is viewed holistically (including required storage if using renewables) the cost of nuclear is competitive with renewables. Unless people are suddenly ok with blackouts, energy grid have to be robust. For renewables, that means having enough stores energy for times of decreased pro…
I have long considered that those buying their power from wind or solar should have remote relay switches in place that simply cut power when there is no solar or wind produced. Seems exactly what they are buying.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not an appropriate question for HN though. Not that it makes a difference to their comment here, which is entirely reasonable.
Advocatus diaboli: WHY is it not an "appropriate" question for NH, and who decides what is appropriate?
As to who decides, I believe it's a combination of user flagging and moderation by a few HN mods.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> hypocritic nonsense Please, stay calm. Germany is in a transition process. Nuclear is phasing out, renewable is coming. In the EU Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Norway, and Portugal have no nuclear power plants (Estonia has none, but is planning one; Croatia has none, but operates one together with Slovenia; Poland is planning one for 2040). Germany is just joining this club…
Belgium was also stupid enough to try and shut down all of its nuclear plants. So now they had to open gas powerplants which are way more polluting. Now they had to roll back their decision because it's totally bonkers, and open back some less polluting nuclear plants. I always find it a bit funny that the green parties are so retarded that they take decisions that cause more pollution. They really live in this ideal…
The new gas power plants weren't build and the nuclear reactors weren't shut down.
Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine
#220I wouldn’t doubt, given the nefarious consequences for Germany, that this site is Russian INFOSEC campaign. Germany cannot function without Russian gas right now. Simple there isn’t enough BTU’s. Why did Germany put itself into this strange Russian dependency is also very strange. Perfectly fine and environmentally friendly nuclear power plants for dependency from Russian natural gas. Why?
You're suggesting that Russia wants Germany to stop importing gas? If so, why doesn't Russia stop selling it, like they threaten to every now and then?
Without russia having to publicly force this to happen.