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Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

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Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#301

Post by modriano »

JAlexoid wrote: post #245
modriano wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> excessive export means more wasted electricity. I'm not an expert so please forgive me if this is a stupid question, but how is exported electricity wasted electricity? My intuition is that (assuming the exported energy is used) it would both prevent the generation of electricity by other (less environmentally friendly) means, and it would generate income. What is wasted here?

You should understand the source of that exported electricity. Electricity is exported from the capacity that is inflexible, as you cannot scale it up/down. Common low flexibility electricity sources - coal, nuclear, hydro.

I was under the understanding that coal and hydro were more flexible and hydro even being pretty responsive (just reduce the flow rate and build up the water level in the reservoir). But in any case, wouldn't the surplus just cause the price to drop, causing other power sources to just dial down production thereby stabilizing the price?

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#302

Post by toper-centage »

yosito wrote: post #54

The obvious reasons this is bad are that it increases German dependence on Russian oil and burning fossil fuels for energy. What are the arguments in favor of it, from the point of view of the German politicians and/or activists that are pushing for it? It has to be more thought out than "Nuclear bad". I'm just trying to understand.

These are very old power plants that need to be decommissioned.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#303

Post by garmaine »

diordiderot wrote: post #284
garmaine wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is largely natural gas based, so it's not substitutive. I don't think Germany should be shutting down its nuclear reactors, but that has nothing to do with Russian gas. (Unless perhaps they started making synthetic methane using the heat of a nuclear reactor, which is not a terrible idea but not something they are currently doing AFAIK.)

Electricity absolutely, unarguably, is a substitute for gas.

Not when your building's central heating is done by a natural gas furnace. Not without expensive retrofitting.

(Which should be done. But it'll take time.)

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#304

Post by BurningFrog »

Kon5ole wrote: post #215
pkdpic wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany intends to take all coal-fired generation offline by 2038 Good if they actually mean it maybe? > leading to a likely increase in renewable-power assets in the long term... Yet in the short term, coal is helping to bridge the supply gap. This just seems asinine. But what do I know... Is there something impassably / chronically dangerous about nuclear power or is it just public fear that pushes us away from i…

For me it's not an engineering problem but a human one. Since the waste from a single power plant during one year of operation is enough to kill hundreds of millions of people we have to ensure no madmen get their hands on the waste for thousands of years after we have spent all the watt-hours the waste has produced. We're leaving that problem to hundreds of generations to come, who will get no benefit from it, just…

The water in a small lake is enough to drown a billion people.

These horror fantasies mean nothing.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#305

Post by coryrc »

BenoitP wrote: post #192
_ph_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is obvious, that the renewable production needs to be paired with some on-demand sources. Short term, gas is great for that, as gas power plants can be switched on and off quickly, long-term the necessary storage options are needed (some of that can be power2gas, which can be burnt in the gas power plants).

> Short term, gas is great for that Still an unacceptable CO2 emission in my book. Natural gas is at 55,82 [kg CO2 / GJ], when coal is at 94,6 [kg CO2 / GJ]. [1] So that's only 40% less pollution, and there are still huge quantities of coal that has yet to be replaced in Germany. What's missing from your view is how you provide for baseload. Right now, what is baseload in Germany? It is coal: https://app.electricitym…

Going to chime in with my usual statement, "baseload" as a concept only applies if you have energy sources which are cheap to run but can't scale up and down quickly. That is no longer the case.

What you mean to say is "we need to provide power all the time".

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#306

Post by cesarb »

arghwhat wrote: post #66
_Microft wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We experienced fallout from Chernobyl (radiation levels of wild boar meat and some mushrooms are still under surveillance today) and we were designated nuclear ground zero in case that the Soviets tried to invade Europe. What attitude towards all things nuclear do you expect to arise from that?

Being target for nuclear bombs isn't related to nuclear power in the slightest. The fallout sucked, but even that was a minor hiccup compared to the destruction pollution is bringing with it...

> Being target for nuclear bombs isn't related to nuclear power in the slightest.

There's a reason nuclear power plant technology is strictly controlled as "dual use": the same technology used for power production can also be used to produce the material for a nuclear bomb. So you can't say they're completely unrelated.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#307

Post by robertlagrant »

wumpus wrote: post #221
AstralStorm wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we'll see it when it happens. Renewables are like a trickle at best, all the low hanging fruit there is taken, and the required battery capacity is huge....

> Renewables are like a trickle at best Doesn't Germany have a lot of wind power? Denmark sure does. Let's see, 27.2% wind in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany And apparently there's a fair bit of North Sea area that can be used for new offshore wind.

Percentages are misleading when it comes to power sources that only work some of the time.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#308

Post by spywaregorilla »

chris_va wrote: post #274
garmaine wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is largely natural gas based, so it's not substitutive. I don't think Germany should be shutting down its nuclear reactors, but that has nothing to do with Russian gas. (Unless perhaps they started making synthetic methane using the heat of a nuclear reactor, which is not a terrible idea but not something they are currently doing AFAIK.)

To be fair, residential/commercial heating could be entirely electric, and heat pumps have additional benefits over natural gas heating (like being reversible in the summer). Presumably people would switch if the cost of electricity was low enough for it to be more economical. Decisions that result in the price of electricity staying high provide political leverage to gas producers. Though, eyeballing the numbers, it…

This would be very difficult for the grid. Switching to electric heating is a big hurdle.

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#309

Post by mongol »

mikaeluman wrote: post #272

Much of Europe is following in Germanys steps I am afraid. I can only speak for Sweden. We had for the longest time the most solid energy base with hydro power in the north and nuclear in the south. Policy has since decades been anti-nuclear though but it really accelerated 2016. Basically nuclear power gets heavy tax and fee penalties while wind gets the reverse treatment. If you check https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsys…

The strangest thing is that it got so far. We had a nuclear-friendly prime minister, or at least one that could judge the benefits of nuclear, and he happened to forget all about it as time passed (Löfven)

Re: Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of the year

#310

Post by coryrc »

estaseuropano wrote: post #231
BenoitP wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd imagine that somewhere there is always enough wind and sun in Europe. * wind: wind power production scales with the cube of the wind speed [1], so actual production only occurs about 25% of the time [2]. Also huge areas produce at the same time: the size of the average depression [3] can often be as large as the continent. * sun: solar panels don't produce at night. I don't think I need to source that claim. Cl…

Cloud is not really such a problematic factor: https://scijinks.gov/solar-energy-and-clouds/ And the nice thing about nights is that they are quite predictable. So not a very difficult problem to solve. Tesla power wall (I'd argue overpriced...): $10k [1] Cost of an average nuclear plant today: $20bn [2] (+operating costs) So you could buy and install 2Mio powerwalls for thr price of one nuclear plant. How many power…

Clouds reduce solar about 85% in Seattle.
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