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Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#291

Post by CamperBob2 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #233
hedora wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're repeating some of the excuses the article addresses. - The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert. - They quantify the additional risk of meltdown due to delaying new safety regulations. It's negligible compared to operating plants according to the new regulations. - Their proposal would increase Germany's stockpile of nuclear waste by 3%, which is surely within e…

Without disagreeing per se, some of the reasoning is dubious. Studying something in grad school likely makes you familiar, not an expert. I would be skeptical of anyone without at least a decade of industry experience. No one becomes an expert by going to grad school; you have to build real things under real constraints. I went through a selective hard sciences program (coincidentally including nuclear chemistry) and…

Do you think the politicians who made the decision were any more qualified?

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#292

Post by nl »

dzikimarian wrote: post #286
nl wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Germany has never had any odd political issues?

This type of issues? No. I assume you mean nazis, but while it's hard to find words to describe their crimes, they had pretty robust approach to engineering. On the east side from the other hand ideology always beat logic. Also, if we're going to assume, that everything we build will be foundation for the next Hitler, then there's hardly point in doing anything.

The point is that corrupt political outcomes occur anywhere.

And Nazi Germany had exactly the same issues you identified in Soviet Union: a reluctance to tell authority bad news.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#293

Post by _ph_ »

renewiltord wrote: post #19
V__ wrote: post #11

> According to the text, they might even need a constitutional amendment. I am no expert in German law, but this strikes me as an unlikely requirement that would nevertheless be doable. A 2/3 majority is needed in both the Bundesrat (senate) and Bundestag (house). Not happening. > This is what they say: The existing nuclear reactors should have passed a lengthy security inspection in 2019, which they didn’t pass sinc…

Is security there the same as what we'd call security or is it like `securité` in French which is safety? I'm pretty sure the former is not that hard, and you can bypass it if there is a real national need. The real thing is that Germany has NS and NS2 and so they're happy to just guzzle gas.

If you haven't noticed it, those gas pipelines are practically dead. NS2 is, and NS1 is being ramped down. Make no mistake, Germany is getting out of Russian gas as long as Putin is in power. It is all about ramping it down without impacting the population and the industry too much.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#295

Post by _ph_ »

fintechjock wrote: post #154
MauranKilom wrote: post #102

So the entire article, and also the discussion here skips over a very simple point: Nuclear power plants provide baseline loads because they can't be turned on and off at a whim, while gas power plants can scale up and down quickly to handle daily load peaks. Looking at yearly consumption graphs completely ignores the reality of the grid. Where do you get electricity from for the peaks in the morning and the evening,…

> Where do you get electricity from for the peaks in the morning and the evening, when solar is still weak and wind may or may not be blowing? Not nuclear, for sure. Stable supply is the answer to unstable demand. That means nuclear is the answer to this problem. If that baseline isn’t high enough, then they need more nuclear - not less.

That is compeletely wrong. Producing too much electricity is equally destabilizing the grid as producing not enough. That is, why gas is needed as it can be switched very quickly. Of course, you could decide just to switch off renewable source (which is very easy, they are the quickest switchable sources) a lot of time, but that would make energy production really expensive.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#296

Post by 0xy »

photochemsyn wrote: post #145
steve_taylor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just the German greens. Australia’s greens are staunchly anti-nuclear despite it being the only viable solution to the baseload problem, which renewables haven’t yet solved.

Isn't battery storage the baseload solution for renewable power? And it doesn't have to be lithium batteries, there are cheaper alternatives if you don't need the batteries to be that small.

Ah yes, batteries made from non-renewable resources mined by literal child slaves is the solution to renewables' glaring baseload problems.

The only problem is, that makes them non-renewable.

Renewables + gas = not renewable.

Renewables + batteries = not renewable (plus there's the whole child slavery thing that ideologues ignore)

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#297

Post by DasIch »

hedora wrote: post #175
KarlKemp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, nobody wants to change the policy. Not the greens, not the conservative party, nor the companies that own these power plants. It is simply not possible to run a dozen nuclear reactors on a two-weeks'-notice timescale, at least not in a democracy that respects property rights and safety practices. It's also economically unsound and technologically misguided, since nuclear power cannot replace the role g…

The article argues for a 9 month timescale, not two weeks, and suggests replacing the role Russian gas has in the European grid. It then shows the decommissioned nuclear plants and the gas plants it proposes shutting down have enough capacity to do exactly that.

Gas usage for electricity is insignificant and irrelevant for the discussion at large. What Germany is concerned about is usage of gas for heating and in industry. Turn of the gas and realistically, parts of German industry will be destroyed at a 0.5-6% loss to GDP.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#298

Post by danhor »

makotech221 wrote: post #215
freemint wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name him?

https://twitter.com/0ddette/status/1499486726259101702

Gerhard Schröder ("affectionately" called Gasherd) was the chancellor until 2005, not specifically in charge of energy policy. He also hasn't been politically in charge of anything for the last 15 years. The nuclear shutdown now in place (after a few reversals, exiting the exit started by Schröder) was triggered by Merkel, who isn't involved (at least yet) with russian gas money.

The current minister in charge (Robert Habeck) is part of the greens, who were one the most parties most opposed to russia and it's energy (staunchly against North Stream 2) and Habeck shares these views according to his public mentions.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#299

Post by _ph_ »

makotech221 wrote: post #119
Barrera wrote: post #118

From the article: 1. Legal hurdles. "The previous law was changed to close the nuclear power plants after Fukushima." 2. Safety. "To keep the reactors open in 2023, Germany would need to accept accelerating the risk assessment and maybe living without some retrofittings." 3. Fuel. "The reactors would then need new fuel, which would take 12-15 months to arrive, and would require a doubling of manufacturing capacity."…

lol completely wrong, the guy in charge of the energy policy in Germany is a major benefactor of GAZPROM so he made Germany entirely dependent on it.

You are referring to Gerhard Schröder, who was the German chancellor from 1998 to 2005. So he was in charge of running the country, not the energy politics specifically in that time, and not in the 17 years following up today.

To start with, yes, his later (up to today) involvement with Gazprom is a scandal, bordering on corruption. But had nothing to do with German politics after 2005.

He might have been too friendly towards Russian gas, but Germany used Russian gas for many decades before him and the largest mistakes, which we suffer from today, have been made made by the governments which followed his. And I say this as someone who always opposed him.

While deciding about exiting nuclear energy long-term during his government, the switch to renewables was started. If the following governments had fully stuck to that, the situation would already be significantly different. And of course, however much gas you use, tying Germany so much to one supplier was the greatest mistake of all, especially after 2008 and 2014. There would have been ample time of adjusting energy politics to the changed situation, but nothing has been done.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#300

Post by akvadrako »

photochemsyn wrote: post #145
steve_taylor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just the German greens. Australia’s greens are staunchly anti-nuclear despite it being the only viable solution to the baseload problem, which renewables haven’t yet solved.

Isn't battery storage the baseload solution for renewable power? And it doesn't have to be lithium batteries, there are cheaper alternatives if you don't need the batteries to be that small.

Batteries are currently about 1000× too expensive, because

(a) you realistically need seasonal storage for when the wind/sun are both weak, so about 30 * 24 Wh/W, and

(b) you need around 2× the otherwise needed generation capacity to charge those batteries.

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