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Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

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Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#61

Post by ThePhysicist »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48
ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

And yet weirdly, those non-technical people seem to have accidentally stumbled on the solution that the whole world is moving towards, while the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear and even their most ambitious goals include using less nuclear and replacing it with the stuff the ideological German's came up with, because it's better. And it wasn't that long ago that they were threatening to sc…

Solar and wind alone won't work without support by gas or other non-renewable sources. Try to find a single scientific study that gives a detailed overview of how the German energy mix is supposed to work and that explains how supply will be matched to demand 24/7 all year round. None exists. The whole "Energiewende" is built on the hope that either our neighbors will produce the necessary base capacity to stabilize our energy grid, or that a miracle storage technology will somehow be invented in the next 10 years.

I can recommend "Sustainable Energy: Without The Hot Air" [1] by a Cambridge professor, it goes into great detail about the problems of matching electricity demand to supply day- & year-round.

1: https://www.withouthotair.com/

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#62

Post by frafra »

herbst wrote: post #26
Juliate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the label is not that it's green or blue or whatever nature-friendly color. The point is to direct and strongly favor investments in less worse energy production sources. We're only sadly at a point where even some gas energy usage is a less worse option than no gas at all (because then, coal would be used instead).

This also means that all the money people fought for in the last years to get countries to invest in green energy is now funelled back into non green energy. People who invest in green energy Fonds suddenly invest in gas. I wouldn't care about the label wouldn't it destroy years of work for a better environment.

From the article: "gas-fired plants built through 2030 will be recognised as a transitional energy source as long as they are used to replace dirtier fossil fuels such as oil and coal."

"The technical screening criteria ensure that any new gas-based power/heat plant (or refurbished combined heat and power plant or heat/cool plant) is either below the technology-neutral 100g CO2/kWh life-cycle emission threshold (i.e. using Carbon Capture and Storage technologies) or meets a number of stringent conditions and obtains a construction permit by 2030." -- Questions and Answers on the EU Taxonomy Complementary Climate Delegated Act covering certain nuclear and gas activities

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#63

Post by RandomLensman »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

Nuclear does have a cost problem in the sense that costs have not really dropped since forever, which is not boding well for a technology (unlike, for example costs for solar). So I can accept people arguing that way - but could also still argue for nuclear as an expensive baseload technology.

The whole taxonomic discussion is a distraction anyway. We are long past some simple carbon reduction path making a dent (and also coming at high costs), so in the end will be about mitigation and even attempts at geoengineering - as usual politics are way behind the curve.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#64

Post by rasz »

konschubert wrote: post #57
LtWorf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany was the main push behind "burning wood = renewable energy"

Well, is it not?

Not if you cut ancient forests to heat your house to 24C in the winter https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/illegal-logging-...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#65

Post by JanSt »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #42
JanSt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also many institutes (e.g IDW) constantly pumping out papers that conclude nuclear energy has highest costs, highest danger, will leave unsolvable toxic waste problems, renewable energy is extremely cheap, building enough storage is no problem etc. These people are constantly invited to present these „Zukunftsenergien“ as opposed to the old bad nuclear in talk shows. And yet Germany, after two decades and c…

> And yet Germany, after two decades and close to a trillion dollar in renewable energies, has one of the most expensive Do you have any sources? Last time I checked, Germany and France weren't that far apart, if you remove taxes out of the costs. The thing is that Germany has a lot of Taxes that have nothing todo with how we generate the electricity. I.e. 90% of the electricity tax (Stromsteuer) goes into the govern…

The Stromsteuer ist only 5% of the price. It depends on your definition of taxes. The EEG-Umlage alone reached 6.5ct/kwh and directly paid for renewables. It‘s now taken out of the price, so the real price of energy is higher than what is paid by the consumer. The EEG Umlage is now hidden in and paid for by a special fund („Energie- und Klimafonds“)

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#66

Post by bambax »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #51
bambax wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In France, top positions in the administration are usually filled by people that are technically excellent and have gone through the system of grandes écoles (ENS, ENA, X, ...) That's a misconception. ENS has two branches, science and literature. ENS Sciences is technical, the other isn't. X (Polytechnique) is an engineering school in theory, but in practice very few of its students become actual engineers. ENA is…

I had colleagues that went through École Polytechnique and the Corps de Mines (usually reserved to the top 2 graduates of a given graduating class of several grandes ecoles) that then went on to work for the government. And I think it's still mandatory to work a certain number of years in the administration after going through some of the grandes écoles, not sure if that was changed (I graduated in 2012 so it was a w…

I know almost nothing about the German political system so I won't discuss that. But the French system has plenty of flaws, two of the biggest being that

1/ énarques aren't technical at all, don't actually know anything except how bureaucracy works, and yet they're in charge of everything

2/ super-selective schools have the side effect of letting people think they're geniuses because they topped a competition while in their teens

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#67

Post by ZeroGravitas »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #13
jpgvm wrote: post #2

About time. Nuclear is hardly an environmental risk even compared to the "cleaner" fossil fuels like gas. Hopefully this will allow the EU to return to competitive reactors designs instead of leaving China to pull humanities weight on that front. Though tbh I wouldn't be sad if we bought Chinese reactors until we are back up to speed, having Chinese nuclear > no nuclear. Everyone bitching about China stealing IP fina…

The problem here is that the term "green" means nothing and anything. It is always much better to define objectively what is the issue and what is the aim. It seems to me that the main issue is emissions and that the aim is therefore to reduce them as much as possible. In that context, nuclear is a perfectly valid option and probably unavoidable as things stand. Gas is 'bad' since it obviously does produce emissions…

The term 'green' in the headline means everything and nothing, but...

The things that are allowed by this law are fairly tightly specified, as even the article gives various details on:

> new nuclear and gas-fired plants built through 2030 will be recognised as a transitional energy source as long as they are used to replace dirtier fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

So, limited to the next 8 years, and only in places where they're not going to displace cleaner options.

> gas projects should only be financed if direct emissions are kept under a maximum cap and they switch to fully renewable energy by 2035

I've not read the legal text but this latter part likely refers to gas turbines that can run on methane or hydrogen or some mix of the two, which is a fairly standard part of forward planning.

There's some political shenanigans involved, but overall it's a fairly sensible compromise and another small step in the right direction.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#68

Post by cm2187 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48
ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

And yet weirdly, those non-technical people seem to have accidentally stumbled on the solution that the whole world is moving towards, while the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear and even their most ambitious goals include using less nuclear and replacing it with the stuff the ideological German's came up with, because it's better. And it wasn't that long ago that they were threatening to sc…

Nuclear is no different that solar and other technologies. It is economical at scale. It is prohibitive if all you build is a prototype once every 10 years, which is what we do in Europe. China and Korea found a way to make it work.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#69

Post by herbst »

frafra wrote: post #62
herbst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also means that all the money people fought for in the last years to get countries to invest in green energy is now funelled back into non green energy. People who invest in green energy Fonds suddenly invest in gas. I wouldn't care about the label wouldn't it destroy years of work for a better environment.

From the article: "gas-fired plants built through 2030 will be recognised as a transitional energy source as long as they are used to replace dirtier fossil fuels such as oil and coal." "The technical screening criteria ensure that any new gas-based power/heat plant (or refurbished combined heat and power plant or heat/cool plant) is either below the technology-neutral 100g CO2/kWh life-cycle emission threshold (i.e.…

I've read that. A lot of the money was still ment for other projects. Essentially pausing the whole green energy effort for the next 8 years (at least)

I think it's likely a good thing if Germany and some others invest money in Gas instead of coal. Especially now.

But in no world or metric is this green energy and should be built with green energy money.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#70

Post by cm2187 »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #61
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet weirdly, those non-technical people seem to have accidentally stumbled on the solution that the whole world is moving towards, while the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear and even their most ambitious goals include using less nuclear and replacing it with the stuff the ideological German's came up with, because it's better. And it wasn't that long ago that they were threatening to sc…

Solar and wind alone won't work without support by gas or other non-renewable sources. Try to find a single scientific study that gives a detailed overview of how the German energy mix is supposed to work and that explains how supply will be matched to demand 24/7 all year round. None exists. The whole "Energiewende" is built on the hope that either our neighbors will produce the necessary base capacity to stabilize…

And somehow the cost of the non renewable energies that are required to deal with the volatility of wind and solar are never factored in the cost.
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