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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

#451

Post by idiotsecant »

robertlagrant wrote: post #320
idiotsecant wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could provide for all the needs of our current power consumption by use of a single very large solar array in central africa or the middle east. The problem is no the availability of wind and solar- those can provide a monumental amount of energy. The problem is that energy and power are not the same thing. We need to be able to store energy widely throughout the grid and make massive transmission system improveme…

Transmission and storage are not just political and financial problems, except in the sense that you can technically frame any problem as being them.

They are though - we know how to build high capacity transmission, we know how to build complex dispatch control systems, we know how to build energy storage. All we need is the money and factories and brains and hands to build a lot more of them. All that requires is powerful entities to decide it's important - i.e. politics.

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

#452

Post by hollerith »

nitrogen wrote: post #349
monopoledance wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or when their nuclear power plants boil their rivers...

Are there closed loop reactor designs that don't need to dump heat into a body of water?

Thermodynamics says that it needs to dump heat somewhere, but maybe they can dump it into the atmosphere instead using hyperboloid cooling towers.

Those are huge though (at least "natural draft" ones are) and usually made of concrete, and making the concrete currently requires lots of carbon emissions.

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

#453

Post by nkmnz »

stefan_ wrote: post #165
nkmnz wrote: post #51

price of 1MWh on Dec 21 2020: 45€ price of 1MWh on Dec 21 2021: 316€ https://www.wiwo.de/my/unternehmen/energie/knappheitspreise-...

price of 1MWh on Dec 23 2021 in France: >400€ https://www.services-rte.com/en/view-data-published-by-rte/f... Spot markets be spotting, we can play this game all day long.

Concrats, you've discovered that we have a (somewhat) unified electricity market in Europe, so of course prices are highly correlated. So what game do you think can be played all day long? Pretend that everything is good because we have the momentary luxury to pay absurd premiums on Russian gas so that Mr. Putin can pay for his power play?

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

#454

Post by xxgreg »

elcapitan wrote: post #117
fsh wrote: post #36

I am afraid this thread is going to be heavy on strongly held opinions and very light on facts and figures. In a futile attempt to compensate, here is the history of gross electricity production in Germany [1]. And here is the electricity import/export statistics [2]. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Energymi... [2] https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Infografiken/Energie/stroma...

Primary energy consumption looks quite a bit different though: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... Also worth noting that "biomass" often gets hidden in the "clean energy" part, but that just means burning something other than oil/coal/gas.

Primary energy consumption isn't a great metric for comparing with renewable electricity, since for conventional plants it includes the unused energy lost as heat.

A fossil power plant wastes ~60% of the energy, a nuclear plant ~75%, a small petrol engine ~75%. Once you take this into account, the stats look a little better.

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

#455

Post by asteroidbelt »

tacocataco wrote: post #377
_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?

I'm not worried about new reactor designs failing. I'm more worried about storing and protecting waste that lasts 20,000 years. Just seems like another opportunity to externalize costs onto future humans to me.

> storing and protecting waste that lasts 20,000 years

Earth core contains gazilions of spent nuclear fuel. Just burying spent nuclear fuel would not make anything worse.

But it is suboptimal, because spent nuclear fuel can be used in the future reactors.

I don't understand why people repeat this statement about spent fuel again and again why there's no problem.

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

#456

Post by midjji »

sandos wrote: post #403
midjji wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No not quite, burning fuel for heat locally will always be at least twice as effective as ideal conversion to power, followed by ideal conversion to heat, in practice its closer to three times. Therefore power prices need to fall substantially gas prices before the switch is worth it. That will never happen while producing power from gas or more expensive alternatives. In particular since the gas distribution infrast…

Sweden is shutting down its nuclear all since a vote in the 1980s, although new nuclear is suddenly being seriously considered here it seems. It only took a major electricity price shock!

Not sure its called shutting down if you keep it online for 40 years, then decide not to shut it down after all ^^

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

#457

Post by midjji »

diordiderot wrote: post #288
midjji wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not work that way. Long distance extreme high voltage transfer loses about 5% per 1000km, with the transformers adding another 10%, under ideal circumstances. In practice its higher, and thats on land. Sea cables lose 100x per km around 50% per 100km, again under ideal circumstances. In practice double the losses per distance, and if using existing grids, double it again, because most places dont build top en…

So you keep 70% of electricity piped from Morocco to the UK. That sounds bloody swell. I'd pay for that in a heart beat.

The oceans kill it completely, remember two oceans of 100km reduce transfer by 0.75, and thats ignoring all the other problems with the grids on the way.

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

#458

Post by midjji »

chmod775 wrote: post #297
midjji wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not work that way. Long distance extreme high voltage transfer loses about 5% per 1000km, with the transformers adding another 10%, under ideal circumstances. In practice its higher, and thats on land. Sea cables lose 100x per km around 50% per 100km, again under ideal circumstances. In practice double the losses per distance, and if using existing grids, double it again, because most places dont build top en…

> Long distance extreme high voltage transfer loses about 5% per 1000km. That's an incredibly low amount. Taking Berlin as an example, even 5000km lets you reach plenty of hot, sunny desert areas where any losses will be easily offset by vastly increased solar efficiency. Or you could spread out your wind energy sources to get more consistent coverage. In fact that's pretty much what Singapore is doing: building a so…

They might be, but if so, that power is exclusively used in australia^^

1000km of ocean reduce transmission to about 0.1%^^

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

#459

Post by scotty79 »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #154
scotty79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we raise price of energy to the level where mining cryptocurrency is barely profitable and even that only in times of peak production from renewables and subsidize consumers directly so they can purchase reasonable amount of energy priced that way for their own use?

Who is a reasonable consumer? Industries like steel refinement are basically just energy cost arbitrage just like Bitcoin but you get steel instead of Bitcoin. Plus crypto dynamically changes the mining difficulty.

> Who is a reasonable consumer?

I wouldn't phrase it like that.

I wouldn't split customers in reasonable and unreasonable ones.

I'd just estimate how much energy each person uses on average, both for heating or running devices and in the products they purchase.

Then I'd bring up energy price to a level where it's barely profitable to mine crypyo. I'd do that by taxing energy manufacturers.

Then I'd calculate how this increase will increase cost of living to average person. And pay out every person basic income at level high enough to compensate for this price hike.

Taxes might be used to steer energy sector rowards greener energy sources.

Companies can adapt to any energy price. Subsidizing exports might be needed to keep your exports globally competitive. Taxing imports according to energy consumed in their production might be needed to provide fair competition between imports and locally manufactered goods locally

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

#460

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

midjji wrote: post #458
chmod775 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long distance extreme high voltage transfer loses about 5% per 1000km. That's an incredibly low amount. Taking Berlin as an example, even 5000km lets you reach plenty of hot, sunny desert areas where any losses will be easily offset by vastly increased solar efficiency. Or you could spread out your wind energy sources to get more consistent coverage. In fact that's pretty much what Singapore is doing: building a so…

They might be, but if so, that power is exclusively used in australia^^ 1000km of ocean reduce transmission to about 0.1%^^

this was true with ac power cables, but isn't with hvdc ones. they don't have the same capacitance issues, and add such undersea cables are becoming more prevalent. a 1400km between Egypt and Greece is expected to be completed in 2023
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