61–70 of 142 posts
I, for one, want Gen IV small-modular nuclear reactors built. They solve all our climate change-related challenges AND they eat the waste of older generation reactors. I fail to see why we're not investing in more nuclear over solar and wind (whose components are not usually recycled)
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What do you mean there's no way out? Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels, some are making good progress, in some the progress has recently stalled, some haven't really started yet... Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production).
> Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive tha…
The richest people I know (guys in their 30s worth 100 million) all made it through energy trading. Lots of hands in pockets here and is similar to most corrupt privatisation initiatives.
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Not sure what OP refers to but it isn't very long ago that we were paying over a dollar per kwh in Norway. We've always had extremely low energy prices due to our abundant hydroelectric power etc, but now it's all being sold to Germany or whatever and we get to buy their coal power for 30 times the price we're used to.
Norway had trouble with hydro power because of low water levels. Compared to 2021, hydro power was down 10%, imports went up by 60%, and exports remained the same. And for the record, Germany didn't have any trouble with electricity last year, they exported records amounts of it, even increased the usage of gas to meet other countries' demands. Germany exported more electricity to Luxemburg than Norway exported to Ge…
Nothing against Germany.
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Yeah, and it'll switch to natgas. Great improvement. Not.
Youbsaid Germany doesn't have a plan to exit fossil fuels. I showed they in fact do. You are not happy, fair enough. But since everything being done is either not enough or not feasible, what exactly is your proposal?
You actually haven't shown that. Coal exit does not mean fossil fuel exit.
And I have not seen an actual plan to get out of fossil fuels, apart from general hand-waving.
And I mean an actual plan, with detailed location of new power storage plants, exact targets for renewables, etc.
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We have yet to see, as they've yet to truly enter the market. So far, the record's not been good for large plants -- they tend to go way over budget and schedule. Case in point: Vogtle.
Rosatom is exporting nuclear power plants within budget and (mostly) on time. It's simply a question of expertise and experience. The US and Europe have ignored nuclear power for so long, that most expertise was lost long ago. And each new nuclear power plant becomes a unique snowflake.
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> Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive tha…
We are not stuck and these issues are solvable (as much as they exist): trade of electricity with neighbouring countries, storage etc. For example, a simple thing where Germany could try to follow the Nordic countries is heat pump installations to keep houses warm without fossil fuels.
I don't believe they are solvable with the existing approaches. Transition to natural gas from coal is possible, but there's nothing on the horizon after that.
The existing plans (if you can call them that) mostly depend on asterisks pointing to a footnote saying "magic happens here": cheap hydrogen, power-to-gas, radically cheaper batteries, etc.
> For example, a simple thing where Germany could try to follow the Nordic countries is heat pump installations to keep houses warm without fossil fuels.
They are trying. But they are already having problems with very expensive electricity. Which will only get worse, as demand climbs with more heat pumps.
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We have yet to see, as they've yet to truly enter the market. So far, the record's not been good for large plants -- they tend to go way over budget and schedule. Case in point: Vogtle.
That is mostly because there are no more large scale nuclear investments, lot of knowhow has been lost, everything is custom built now on every level of implementation (which SMRs promise to solve), and because people care about the initial investments, not for the TCO. Oh, and politically motivated NIH red-tape for getting some votes on the cost of whole society.
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Youbsaid Germany doesn't have a plan to exit fossil fuels. I showed they in fact do. You are not happy, fair enough. But since everything being done is either not enough or not feasible, what exactly is your proposal?
> I showed they in fact do. You actually haven't shown that. Coal exit does not mean fossil fuel exit. And I have not seen an actual plan to get out of fossil fuels, apart from general hand-waving. And I mean an actual plan, with detailed location of new power storage plants, exact targets for renewables, etc.
This is a classic case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And revamping huge portions of an energy grid, and generation base, is nothing that is done easily or fast.
Edit: Source in German:
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Fachthemen/Elektrizitaet...
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> Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive tha…
We are not stuck and these issues are solvable (as much as they exist): trade of electricity with neighbouring countries, storage etc. For example, a simple thing where Germany could try to follow the Nordic countries is heat pump installations to keep houses warm without fossil fuels.
Because now your inflexible base-load has increased. And while spreading generation over a wider area helps, it rapidly reaches limits (unless your power grid extends close to the equator).