The Great German Energy Experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#101

Post by CrLf » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 4:51 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #62

macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

Being German and having voted Green most of my life (until the pirate party came along), I still watch those energy subsidies with suspicion. I am just not certain the money is spent in an efficient way here. As for the jobs in the green energy sector, apparently China already (or still) is cheaper than Germany in producing solar power cells. So much for that investment.

"apparently China already (or still) is cheaper than Germany in producing solar power cells"

Yeah, but that's because China can violate any worker rights under the Sun, and pollute as much as it wishes in the process (and producing solar cells pollutes quite a bit).

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#102

Post by excuse-me » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #62

macavity23 wrote: post #2

Great article - upvoted. That it's inconceivable that the US or UK government could think about spending such an amount (~5% of GDP!) on a long-term science and engineering project speaks volumes about why the Germans are where they are, and why we're where we are, economically speaking. From an engineering point of view I think it's foolish to turn off the nuke plants, but public opinion is what it is, and this caus…

Being German and having voted Green most of my life (until the pirate party came along), I still watch those energy subsidies with suspicion. I am just not certain the money is spent in an efficient way here. As for the jobs in the green energy sector, apparently China already (or still) is cheaper than Germany in producing solar power cells. So much for that investment.

What's the problem?

You close the nukes so everyone with an "Atomkraft Nein Danke" sticker on their VW votes for you.

You give huge feed in tarrif subsidy to anyone who owns a house to put panels on their roof - so the countryside votes for you.

You continue to subsidize coal so the Ruhr votes for you. But burn the coal in Poland and ship the power back - so there is no acid rain to worry about.

A perfect (if expensive) solution for everyone (unless you live east of Poland)

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#103

Post by ars » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 4:56 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #96

ars wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A: Yes, and wind. Wind has a reasonably good energy ROI, but it's not possible to collect enough energy from it without covering the country in turbines, and people don't want that. Offshore is interesting, but the costs (financial and energy invested in building them) are much higher. B: Market at work, sure, but the end result is the same: They are claiming low CO2 by simply sending the CO2 to China. C: It is true…

Your claim about 20 years required to return the energy to produce a solar panel is false. Googling a bit after "energy returned on energy invested" (EROI) indicates that there aren't really any reliable ways to measure this number. Wikipedia quotes 1.5 for the US, which seems ridiculously low. This study ( http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1796/pdf ) from 2011 indicates an average EROI for solar panels of 6.5, and…

You are misreading that number. It's not years, it's how much energy is returned compared to invested. i.e. 6.5 times as much energy returned as invested over the entire life of the device.

For comparison hydrocarbon fuels have numbers in the 30 range, and nuclear is 60 and up (depending on how long the plant lasts). So 6.5 is quite poor. And they list no numbers on expected lifespan - lifespan is the number one thing that controls the EROI on solar.

Also, these numbers usually use very sunny areas and ideal angles to calculate the return. In Germany the results will be much worse.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#104

Post by excuse-me » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 4:59 PM UTC

rmccue wrote: post #95

eigenvector wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't 'need' to convert it, but HVDC transmission is emerging as more efficient and cost-effective than conventional HVAC transmission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

From what I gather from the Wikipedia page, it's due to the transmission cables being underwater and hence having a much larger capacitance, which is a larger loss than normal DC loss. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that.) So, while AC is still more beneficial for transmission via cables in air/ground, DC appears to have less overall loss for underwater transmission.

DC is always more efficent to transfer. But it was difficult to efficiently convert to high voltage and back so you only did it when necessary.

The reason underwater links (eg France-UK) were commonly DC is that they linked countries whose grid wasn't synchronised - the same reason long distance grids in the US are DC

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#105

Post by krschultz » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #75

orangecat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the german public, for the environment and the whole humanity the risks from nuclear plant are that high that coal plants, even though they are now used more and are unhealthy, are way less dangerous. Yes, and the German public is flat-out wrong.

We have not a single working endlager for the waste the nuclear plants are producing. Historically, there have been several large accidents, Tschernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile, and several more smaller ones which would almost been fatal. I know that people on HN obviously like technology, and noticed that many people who like technology like nuclear plants. Maybe because they see them as great technology and are able…

You are really lumping things together here.

What do the USSR nuclear accidents say about German or US or Japanese reactors? Look at how many nuclear accidents USSR Navy ships had compared to US Navy ships.

I can see an argument to 'close the old ways, we do it better now'. But 'close all of them, because I don't know the difference between them and I'm afraid of anything with the world nuclear in it' is just fear mongering and it's a shame that Germany fell for it.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#106

Post by onli » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 5:12 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #82

onli wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said carbon free. I cited that sentence. Also a working nuclear "you already paid for"-plant costs money and produces carbon emissions.

Once you build the plant, any emissions from running it are absolutely minuscule. Gasoline maybe from the employees driving to work, maybe a bit from maintenance.

Drilling for the uranium is a whole chunk, according to http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.... But sure, less than coal (but still, more than wind).

edit: added link.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#107

Post by mlinksva » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 5:12 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #64

cturner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theere's a basic role of government that's widely agreed upon - that it keeps us from hurting one another and clarity on the use of roads and telecommunications channels and the like. And I realise that opinions diverge above that, but I'll put mine. Generally government is poor at picking winners, and inefficient, and seems like a bad place to look for inspiration in engineering. When governments set up things like…

Under this model, how would we end up with something like the Interstate Highway system?

Hopefully we wouldn't have! I'd rather have had more intact city cores and fewer drivers.

Probably my major objection to the system, urban freeways, didn't have to be part of the system, and Eisenhower apparently personally did not want them to be, see http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question23a Having destructive elements added to a giant plan usually seems to come with selling it though.

The German energy plan described in the article I'd bet involves a lot of tradeoffs to get support from various players. It sounds way riskier than say just more massively taxing carbon emissions and subsidizing energy R&D. But presumably those aren't politically feasible.

Another political infeasibility (I'd guess) that surely has been suggested elsewhere: Germans should instead get a large % of solar energy (or derived revenues) produced in southern Europe to pay for bailouts. This would also mean solar panels deployed more effectively, and local Greek, etc, labor employed for installation.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#108

Post by ars » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 5:15 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #106

ars wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you build the plant, any emissions from running it are absolutely minuscule. Gasoline maybe from the employees driving to work, maybe a bit from maintenance.

Drilling for the uranium is a whole chunk, according to http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99... . But sure, less than coal (but still, more than wind). edit: added link.

No wind uses more. You need to mine for the raw materials used to build the wind turbine.

For the equivalent amount of energy wind turbines use hundreds of times as much raw materials as nuclear - even including building the nuclear power plant, not just the uranium.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#109

Post by LiamMcCalloway » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

cturner wrote: post #44

lispm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually totally different. In the past the governments and the companies gave a shit about public opinion. Government money was used to research and build the nuclear industry. The electricity companies were huge monopolies. Currently we have four huge electricity producers which nicely divide the market into four regions. Competition? Zero. Government support? Max. That brought us huge coal power plants whic…

> You can see who is the opposition: the four > huge electicity producers. And responsible-budget people. Germany is running in defecit beyond it's European treaty obligations. A factor contributing to the bottom line is expensive energy and expensive energy projects.

Renewable energy bills are paid for by consumers in their eletricity bills, as was made clear in the article.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#110

Post by onli » Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 5:20 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #105

onli wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have not a single working endlager for the waste the nuclear plants are producing. Historically, there have been several large accidents, Tschernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile, and several more smaller ones which would almost been fatal. I know that people on HN obviously like technology, and noticed that many people who like technology like nuclear plants. Maybe because they see them as great technology and are able…

You are really lumping things together here. What do the USSR nuclear accidents say about German or US or Japanese reactors? Look at how many nuclear accidents USSR Navy ships had compared to US Navy ships. I can see an argument to 'close the old ways, we do it better now'. But 'close all of them, because I don't know the difference between them and I'm afraid of anything with the world nuclear in it' is just fear mo…

Neither the three mile plant nor Fukushima nor the accidents in german plants were located in the USSR. And Tschernobyl was in the neighbourhood (even if it weren't a technical comparable plant, it would still be an in my eyes understandable factor).