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Germany's Energy Catastrophe

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Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#91

Post by dividedbyzero »

ssl232 wrote: post #33
RandomLensman wrote: post #19

There is no quick going back to nuclear power and right now the past is irrelevant - the future matters. Might as well skip on new fission and then maybe build fusion power plants (if and when). By the way: using coal as an emergency backstop if there is no gas was always the official plan.

Is Germany still capable of mining enough of its own coal for its own needs during such emergencies?

No, but coal wouldn't work the same way as an instrument for political pressure the same way as pipeline-supplied gas does right now. Store enough for a few months and get coal shipped from elsewhere, same infrastructure etc. Buy someone else's shipments if need be, like with LNG currently, lots of poorer places are going to receive less than what they bought because Germany and the EU pay just about anything right now.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#92

Post by ucha »

mvgcf wrote: post #10

This op-ed is getting things so utterly wrong, I don‘t even know where to start. The Energiewende (so cool he can make use of a german word, so much credibility) here in Germany is working just fine. It is a reasonable investment in our future. The reason natural gas is a problem right now is not that we have insufficient energy. The lack of gas is problematic because it is a preliminary product used in chemical proc…

> On sustainable energy sources: I, as many other germans, receive all of my electricity from purely renewable energy sources for more than ten years now. 24/7.

How can you receive energy purely from renewable energy sources when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine? Germany doesn't have any significant capacity for electricity storage. It's such a bold statement but it seems physically impossible.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#93

Post by tarsinge »

sexy_panda wrote: post #89
epups wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear energy is just cheap because it gets massively funded by the state. No it doesn't. Not anymore than gas, coal and renewables at least. The issue of disposal is also simply incorrect. There are plenty of places to store it, France does it, everyone does it. Do you know where the waste from coal goes? Into the atmosphere, where it kills thousands directly and potentially billions indirectly with global warmin…

> The issue of disposal is also simply incorrect. There are plenty of places to store it. The question is not, whether there are places or not. It doesn't matter if none of the 16 regions in Germany wants to be responsible to store the waste. If no one wants to deal with it, the effect is the same.

The discussion was on technical feasibility, that Germany is irrational (because it’s not a question of wanting to store, it’s a choice between that and fossil waste = storage in the atmosphere = climate change) is another.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#94

Post by LunaSea »

VaxWithSex wrote: post #60
LunaSea wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh is that why Germany pressured the EU to qualify gas as "green" energy and block nuclear energy from getting the same qualification?

They actually didn't. New plants only qualify as "green investments" if and only if they can be used to burn electrolyzed hydrogen in the future.

Which also isn't "green" in any shape or form.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#95

Post by LunaSea »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #43
LunaSea wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh is that why Germany pressured the EU to qualify gas as "green" energy and block nuclear energy from getting the same qualification?

Except they didn't block that. Both sources are now qualified as green, gas however only as use for easing the transition.

That's why I wrote "pressured" and not "succeeded". They tried heavily.

Gas isn't a transition to anything.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#96

Post by dividedbyzero »

epups wrote: post #74
DocTomoe wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany doesn't really lack electricity. ... yet. There is an interesting report on the ARD Mediathek [1] right now in which - among other nuclear-involved people - the guy responsible the flow of electricity talks about power production and consumption. He points out that while it is true that at some points in time, renewables provided 95% of our consumption, there are still other times where they make up less th…

It's amazing how many well intentioned people cannot grasp this very simple point. There is no way to run a grid solely on solar and wind. Therefore the choice isn't between those and nuclear, it's between nuclear and coal/gas.

And now the fourth largest economy in the world with a huge and extremely capable engineering base is committed to finding a way. Given that storage and other supporting tech for renewables has so far received hardly any serious funding at all, I think it's quite realistic to expect a success story there. Just consider what the many billions invested into fracking tech did to the US accessible gas reserves, and that wasn't thought to be technologically and economically feasible by most knowledgeable people either.

A fully renewable grid really is terra incognita, no one's done that before, of course there are a lot of open questions. But being a trailblazer might pay off handsomely if it does work out well, as others will want such a grid too.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#97

Post by BrandoElFollito »

sexy_panda wrote: post #86
avar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even have a good way to dispose nuclear waste. Sure we do, just aerosolize it and vent it into the atmosphere! At which point... Nuclear energy is [...] massively [subsidized] by the state. ...You'd have a fair comparison to other modes of energy production. It's not nuclear that's massively subsidized, everything else is.

> Sure we do, just aerosolize it Sounds interesting, would you mind to expand / link some site that goes into details? > It's not nuclear that's massively subsidized, everything else is. Germany massively cut funding for solar power being supplied into to the grid (Einspeise­vergütung) back in 2012 [1] and it still isn't funded the way it was before. But it is and was still worth it for most people, if they just cons…

> Sounds interesting, would you mind to expand / link some site that goes into details?

I think that the comment was ironic, to show a parallel with how coal waste is "utilized"

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#98

Post by dividedbyzero »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #69
VaxWithSex wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a solved problem for Germany. Electrolyze Hydrogen, store it in the existing gas infrastructure for the winter. Use the gas plants to burn it in the winter.

That has a round trip efficiency of around 20-25 % I think (more if you can also use the process heat), so we would need to over-provision renewables by 400 % to make it work.

There is a ton of unused roof space that could be decked out with solar, though. There are few heat pumps deployed so far, lots of inefficient old houses that could be modernized, plus there is an array of concepts for other storage tech still at a pretty early stage. It's probably going to be a mix of different generation and storage tech coupled with gains in efficiency, and that seems like it could work out.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#99

Post by dividedbyzero »

epups wrote: post #76
VaxWithSex wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a solved problem for Germany. Electrolyze Hydrogen, store it in the existing gas infrastructure for the winter. Use the gas plants to burn it in the winter.

There is no large scale hydrogen storage facility that could take even 1% of German's energy needs.

Yet.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#100

Post by epups »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #96
epups wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how many well intentioned people cannot grasp this very simple point. There is no way to run a grid solely on solar and wind. Therefore the choice isn't between those and nuclear, it's between nuclear and coal/gas.

And now the fourth largest economy in the world with a huge and extremely capable engineering base is committed to finding a way. Given that storage and other supporting tech for renewables has so far received hardly any serious funding at all, I think it's quite realistic to expect a success story there. Just consider what the many billions invested into fracking tech did to the US accessible gas reserves, and that…

Sure, I support that. But one thing doesn't preclude the other. Invest in nuclear now to get rid of coal, and at the same time invest in research that may or may not pay off.
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