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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost is irrelevant if you can’t store the energy generated. Nuclear is predictable and carbon free. Look at France.
Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...
Good luck with the Greens now as the #3 party. The authors of the letter are right, Germany will miss its 65% emissions target and politicians will try to fix this with carbon credits and other policy BS which of course doesn't quite work in practice, since clean electricity doesn't come out of thin air.
Nevermind the hugely powerful car industry.
Safe nuclear power needs German engineering.
I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party members at rallies for having differing viewpoints about nuclear. Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.
How about - Germany trying to find a nuclear waste deposit since ages (that doesn't have to be evacuated due to ground water later on)* - Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so - Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years - State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies…
Waste can be refined to safe levels these days. It's just not being done on a wide scale.
> Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so
We're paying unfathomable amounts of money dealing with carbon emissions - way more than millions, which is a drop in the bucket of taxpayer revenue, anyway.
> Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years
And? That's 100 years of clean energy and a more livable planet. 100 years for more research. 100 years for other forms of energy capture or generation.
It's 100 years of bought time.
> State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies
"always" makes it sound like every week involves another nuclear "disaster". That's not accurate, at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
There are a few other lists that are related but I imagine this is what you intended. Please study the amount of people affected, directly, by those incidents.
By contrast, the heat wave this year killed at least 2,300 people in India alone.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-he...
> French nuclear plants that had some interesting failures in the last years, while we can just watch and hope they're treated correctly. Meanwhile you're told "nono, everything is fine".
Who is saying "everything is fine"? That's a seemingly extreme reduction of public outreach, especially since the IAEA has been trying to do good about being transparent with the world's nuclear operations.
> No nuclear company is insured for the real amount of money they'd have to pay for the next fukushima or Tschernobyl.
While I don't disagree things could be improved there, I'm so tired of Chernobyl being used as some "all nuclear is bad" example. Chernobyl was a cost-cutting endeavor, and the design was known to be faulty well before it failed. It was implemented in an incredibly corrupt system and poorly operated. The safety measures were not developed yet, and regulatory committees simply didn't exist at the time like they do now.
Chernobyl ignored the science. It was, quite literally, a ticking time bomb. Yes, we could be doomed to repeat this if we so chose, but that's such a far reaching example that it's throwing the baby out with the bath water.
> It's the country with stories like these:
This is entirely unrelated and FUD from two clearly biased publications.
> I could even suspect USA influence to prevent more solar money to china or gas/oil money to russia.
This is speculation, fullstop.
It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
Because at the moment, wind isn't doing so well, there being a wind-drought for the last few months and all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being the front line of the Cold War, while both the US and USSR developed battle plans for where nuclear weapons would be detonated in your country during a war, probably lends shades to the debate that aren't present in other countries. (Yes, nuclear power / nuclear weapons, but in the 70s that wasn't a clear distinction)
Considering MAD existed and most nukes would have been dropped on the US and USSR, not Germany, I don't think that's the issue. We and the russians had far more to worry about than the germans. Of course MAD pretty much ensured a 0% chance of nuclear war so really nothing to worry about. Nations truly worried about nuclear weapons develop them, not fight against them. Think about it. Considering that Germany is an am…
It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
Current wholesale electricity prices in Germany are $194/MWh: https://www.energylive.cloud/ How much does Germany spend on the military? Cancel it, and spend the money on nuclear power. Otherwise Germany has a significant strategic weakness (gas imports) to Russia, its only realistic enemy.
Which efforts? Germany might look quite progressive when it comes to renewables but lacks a holistic strategy. Energy storage is not discussed at all.
It's good that the Greens are part of the government again to put in larger restrictions but they'll be limited by the other 2 parties. Real change is probably going to be provided by companies like Tesla which actually provide a solution to the storage problem.
Also the article is behind a paywall and from Welt which is from the same publisher as the notorious yellow press publication Bild. Die Zeit (Former editor-in-chief of it is mentioned) hasn't put it on its start page.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?
A lack of wind from January to March this year sharply reduced the amount of electricity produced by Germany's wind turbines. In contrast, stormy weather in the first quarters of 2019 and 2020 sharply boosted the electricity produced."
The wind might go at night, or it might not, or it might not for months.