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On July 07 2021 19:36 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2021 18:28 Erasme wrote:
While it's true that germany has been against nuclear as a whole since chernobyl, the green are against it since the party's inception, making it one of their key point.
Laughable at best, for the supposedly "green" party. You kind of seem to have lost track of your argument here. -"The greens in Germany are laughable because they want to ban nuclear energy" -"Germany is already phasing out nuclear energy, based on a decision by a coalition of parties that didn't involve the greens" -"Yes, but the greens wanted to do that earlier" That isn't exactly the most sensible line of thought. Also, it is not laughable for a green party to be against nuclear energy. There are a lot of big environmental problems with nuclear energy. (First and foremost what to do with the nuclear waste, but also the apparently reoccuring problem of major disasters.) Though i guess one could argue that Chernobyl was actually a positive for the ukrainian nature, because apparently humans are a lot worse for nature compared to radiation. But i don't think that is the argument for why nuclear power is environmentally friendly that you want to make. Just because nuclear energy doesn't produce CO2 doesn't mean that it is environmentally a good thing.
Germans want to phase out from nuclear, greens want to do it faster. If they get to power, i'd assume they would try to accelerate that phasing out from nuclear to coal. Which is a really stupid/funny move from 'greens'. Is it clear enough ?
Also nuclear waste is well overblown, i'd argue that it produces less waste than coal mines and that the waste is easier to control.
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Can you show me where Germany is phasing form nuclear to coal? I have trouble spotting it, but you seem to be very confident and knowledgable in your statements...
![[image loading]](https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2021-05-10.png)
Brown + Gray are coal
Purple: Nuclear
Yellow: Gas
Green: Renewables
Gray: Others
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Phasing out of nuclear by 2022 while phasing out of coal by 2038. But Germany is still opening new coal plants.
I actually didn't know how sharply their coal produced energy fell in 2019 though, thank you for that.
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The phasing out of coal thing is being done in an utterly stupid way.
It is basically just throwing money at coal power providers for closing plants that would not have been profitable anyways. The companies would have closed the coal power plants anyways due to carbon pricing. But because the state forces them to close them, they get free money.
2038 is far too late a date to completely phase out coal, but that is what you get when you let the conservatives negotiate that deal.
The reason that phasing out nuclear is happening earlier than phasing out coal is because it was decided upon earlier. First in 2000 and then once again in 2011. (The phasing out of nuclear was handled in an absurd way, once again fucked up by our conservatives. We already had a plan to phase out nuclear which started in 2000, then the conservatives decided to stop that plan in 2010, and decided to phase out nuclear again in 2011 after Fukushima (thus once again paying lots of money to the energy companies))
Meanwhile, phasing out coal was only decided upon in 2020. People only really started caring about climate change in the 2010s in my experience. And having the conservatives in power doesn't make stuff go quicker.
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What is going to happen is growing dependence on Russian gas and oil. Nothing surprising as it was Schröders idea to close all the nuclear plants in the first place.
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On July 07 2021 23:00 mahrgell wrote:
Can you show me where Germany is phasing form nuclear to coal? I have trouble spotting it, but you seem to be very confident and knowledgable in your statements
Your graph does show that Germany is moving to renewable energy which is good, but the pro-nuclear argument is that you need base power and that should be nuclear not coal/gas. Do you think the coal bars would be as large if nuclear plants were not shut down? Do you think coal would be shut down faster if more nuclear plants had been opened in the last 10 years?
I would also point that that the brown bar is the worst kind of coal for the environment (lignite) which is shrinking slower.
On July 07 2021 22:32 Erasme wrote:
i'd argue that it produces less waste than coal mines and that the waste is easier to control.
There could be a discussion if the better forms of coal are better or worse than nuclear, but lignite will never be in that conversation. At the end of the day, Germany is light years ahead of the US in environmental policy so I understand Germans coming out in full force to hem and haw though.
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On July 07 2021 23:50 Silvanel wrote:
What is going to happen is growing dependence on Russian gas and oil. Nothing surprising as it was Schröders idea to close all the nuclear plants in the first place.
Weird, the diagram mahrgell posted doesn't seem to show any growing consumption of gas or oil.
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On July 08 2021 00:27 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2021 23:50 Silvanel wrote:
What is going to happen is growing dependence on Russian gas and oil. Nothing surprising as it was Schröders idea to close all the nuclear plants in the first place. Weird, the diagram mahrgell posted doesn't seem to show any growing consumption of gas or oil. coal your right but that yellow bar (gas) sure looks to be growing post 2000.
(not that I necessarily agree with Silvanel)
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On July 08 2021 00:39 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2021 00:27 Simberto wrote:On July 07 2021 23:50 Silvanel wrote:
What is going to happen is growing dependence on Russian gas and oil. Nothing surprising as it was Schröders idea to close all the nuclear plants in the first place. Weird, the diagram mahrgell posted doesn't seem to show any growing consumption of gas or oil. coal your right but that yellow bar (gas) sure looks to be growing post 2000. (not that I necessarily agree with Silvanel)
Just to prevent people peeling their eyes out and counting pixels:
I couldn't find the numbers where the original image was located, but here is the same data as a diagram, where you can hover the numbers.
So the gas consumption grew considerably from 2000 -> 2010, but since then just fluctuated and is now at the same level as 2011. Oil is not relevant at all in Germany.
But then again, the original starting point of this convo was how the evil greens were trying to stop nuclear power, when it was the conservative government that brought this current nuclear exit on the way.
And as Simberto has already detailed, there were a number of botched-up deals and side effects with this exit, no doubt. So this is really nothing the Grens can be blamed for, it wasn't them negotiating those deals.
And a 2019 survey had 60% of the Germans in favor of a 2022 OR earlier nuclear exit, 17% were in favor of a slower nuclear exit and only 17% wanted the exit to be reversed. (I have no clue why "as planned" and "faster than planned" were summed up...) And I would not expect any shift away from this since then. (quite the contrary, actually...)
So this is basically public policy and the only reasonable stance for any party wishing to succeed in Germany.
And while some of the issues around it might be rage-inducing, when looking at comparable nations it feels like Germany did really well here. And when the argument is "It can't be done, because look OMG; GERMANY STRUGGLING; THEY ARE COLLAPSING, its all a huge coal pit now", then well... this is just nonsense. We are doing great, thanks for worrying!
Hows the US energy grid doing in the meantime?
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From this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
Germany is the sixth largest consumer of energy in the world,[4] and the largest national market of electricity in Europe. The country is the fifth-largest consumer of oil in the world. Oil consumption accounted for 34.3% of all energy use in 2018, and 23.7% of Germany's energy consumption came from gas.[5]
Germany imports more than half of its energy.[6] The country largely imports its oil from Russia, Norway and the United Kingdom.[7] Germany is also the world's largest importer of natural gas. The largest gas imports come from the Netherlands, Norway, and Russia via the Nord Stream. In 2016, Germany imported 49.8 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas from Gazprom.[8] A terminal in Emden opened for gas from Norway in 2016.[9]
Because of its rich coal deposits, Germany has a long tradition of using coal. It is the fourth-largest consumer of coal in the world. Domestic coal mining has been almost completely phased out. This is because German coal is a lot more expensive to mine than importing coal from China or Australia.
Energy doesnt start nor end with electricity.
Edit:
Germany consumes 88 mld cubic meters of gas per year, ~50 mld of those comes through Nord Stream 1. They are building Nord Stream 2 to even increase their dependenace on Russian gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
Edit 2:
I believe that shutting down nuclear and later coal with only lead to this dependence growing, as part of the output will be likely taken by gas plants.
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I mean, it's not possible to think about power generation without taking the interconnected grid into account.
France's huge nuclear power capacity can be of tremendous importance to provide base load for fluctuating renewables until proper load management measures are in place for those.
Power is only one side of the coin though. Heat is provided overwhelmingly by means of burning fossil fuels still.
Like, everywhere.
Point that erasme is grossly misinformed about the German political landscape still stands tho. :o)
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Shutting down nuclear power plants is just so wild and sad to me.
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United States24771 Posts
Shutting down nuclear when it's no longer needed is okay to me (unless new innovation makes it better). Shutting it down prematurely is what's worrisome. For example, where will New York City get electricity from to replace the prematurely shut down Indian Point Nuclear Power Station?
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Seriously I'm always quite disappointed in the bizarre hatred of nuclear energy.
It's not like coal plants are safer to live by, they give off far more radiation. When a nuclear reactor goes bad it's worse for the surrounding population than other plants, but I'm not sure it's really notably better to be 10 miles from a failing coal plant than from a failing nuclear plant.
It's kinda stupid that we already have a way to avoid a guaranteed disaster but since it involves a bunch of small chances of smaller (but still large) disasters it's considered riskier than keeping our coal plants going. If we switched all our energy to nuclear that we could, within the next year, it'd probably delay global warming more than any other measure. (It would also ruin a lot of the world economy, which is my personal guess as to why nuclear isn't really defended : it brings in far fewer extra jobs than coal/oil do per megawatt/hr generated, and it takes more educated workers while coal still needs miners...).
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On July 08 2021 05:35 Nevuk wrote:
Seriously I'm always quite disappointed in the bizarre hatred of nuclear energy.
It's not like coal plants are safer to live by, they give off far more radiation. When a nuclear reactor goes bad it's worse for the surrounding population than other plants, but I'm not sure it's really notably better to be 10 miles from a failing coal plant than from a failing nuclear plant.
It's kinda stupid that we already have a way to avoid a guaranteed disaster but since it involves a bunch of small chances of smaller (but still large) disasters it's considered riskier than keeping our coal plants going. If we switched all our energy to nuclear that we could, within the next year, it'd probably delay global warming more than any other measure. (It would also ruin a lot of the world economy, which is my personal guess as to why nuclear isn't really defended : it brings in far fewer extra jobs than coal/oil do per megawatt/hr generated, and it takes more educated workers while coal still needs miners...).
Ah the good old "Being against nuclear means being pro coal" argument. Because as has been shown (including in the last page here), coal is the only replacement for nuclear energy.
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On July 08 2021 05:35 Nevuk wrote:
Seriously I'm always quite disappointed in the bizarre hatred of nuclear energy.
It's not like coal plants are safer to live by, they give off far more radiation. When a nuclear reactor goes bad it's worse for the surrounding population than other plants, but I'm not sure it's really notably better to be 10 miles from a failing coal plant than from a failing nuclear plant.
It's kinda stupid that we already have a way to avoid a guaranteed disaster but since it involves a bunch of small chances of smaller (but still large) disasters it's considered riskier than keeping our coal plants going. If we switched all our energy to nuclear that we could, within the next year, it'd probably delay global warming more than any other measure. (It would also ruin a lot of the world economy, which is my personal guess as to why nuclear isn't really defended : it brings in far fewer extra jobs than coal/oil do per megawatt/hr generated, and it takes more educated workers while coal still needs miners...).
I think you are greatly overestimating how quickly you can get nuclear power going safely. It takes years to go from planning to an actual working nuclear power plant.
I'd be a lot more in favor of nuclear if we could find a way to actually guarantee that the company which produces the energy pays for the dealing with the nuclear waste, for however long it takes, in a very, very safe way. But that would probably also make nuclear power not profitable anymore. Nuclear is already more expensive than photovoltaic or wind.
As far as i know, nuclear also isn't very good as a measure to deal with the fluctuations that green energy has. You cannot really turn a nuclear power plant on and off quickly.
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United States24771 Posts
On July 08 2021 06:22 Simberto wrote:
I'd be a lot more in favor of nuclear if we could find a way to actually guarantee that the company which produces the energy pays for the dealing with the nuclear waste, for however long it takes, in a very, very safe way. But that would probably also make nuclear power not profitable anymore. Nuclear is already more expensive than photovoltaic or wind.
Are you talking about spent fuel, low level-waste, or both? The problem with spent fuel, at least in the U.S., is not that we can't get companies on the hook for the cost of disposing of the waste. The problem is finalizing the approved disposal method/location despite opposition from various stakeholders. In the case of low-level waste, companies already are paying their fair share for the material they send for disposal.
As far as i know, nuclear also isn't very good as a measure to deal with the fluctuations that green energy has. You cannot really turn a nuclear power plant on and off quickly.
You don't turn a commercial nuclear power plant on and off in 30 seconds, but generally you don't actually need to do that unless the country is 100% nuclear, which obviously isn't going to happen.
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I would also like to point out that nuclear waste storage sites are needed not only for used fuel, but also for plenty of other things like protective gear, medical equipment, transport containers etc. (the mentioned above Low-Level-Waste).
LLW is often stored in the same disposal site as spent fuel rods (High-Level-Waste) altough in different chamber. Majority of nuclear waste is LLW btw.
The point is, even if we eliminate 100% of commercial electricity producing nuclear reactors we would still need disposal sites for LLW from research and medical reactors. And those will be met with the same, irrational fearmongering. I mean, people are ok living next to ignite (brown coal) powerplants but are scared shitless of molten salt reactors...
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Netherlands6273 Posts
On July 08 2021 06:19 mahrgell wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2021 05:35 Nevuk wrote:
Seriously I'm always quite disappointed in the bizarre hatred of nuclear energy.
It's not like coal plants are safer to live by, they give off far more radiation. When a nuclear reactor goes bad it's worse for the surrounding population than other plants, but I'm not sure it's really notably better to be 10 miles from a failing coal plant than from a failing nuclear plant.
It's kinda stupid that we already have a way to avoid a guaranteed disaster but since it involves a bunch of small chances of smaller (but still large) disasters it's considered riskier than keeping our coal plants going. If we switched all our energy to nuclear that we could, within the next year, it'd probably delay global warming more than any other measure. (It would also ruin a lot of the world economy, which is my personal guess as to why nuclear isn't really defended : it brings in far fewer extra jobs than coal/oil do per megawatt/hr generated, and it takes more educated workers while coal still needs miners...).
Ah the good old "Being against nuclear means being pro coal" argument. Because as has been shown (including in the last page here), coal is the only replacement for nuclear energy.
What you're missing is opportunity cost. Practically we're never going to make the grid green all at once. So instead of green energy replacing coal or gas it first has to replace the energy provided by the closed nuclear plants. Closing nuclear early will make providing a green grid a lot harder and slower.
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On July 08 2021 16:11 Silvanel wrote:
I would also like to point out that nuclear waste storage sites are needed not only for used fuel, but also for plenty of other things like protective gear, medical equipment, transport containers etc. (the mentioned above Low-Level-Waste).
LLW is often stored in the same disposal site as spent fuel rods (High-Level-Waste) altough in different chamber. Majority of nuclear waste is LLW btw.
The point is,even if we eliminate 100% of cemmercial electricity producing nuclear reactors we would still need disposal sites for LLW from research and medical reactors. And those will be met with the same, irrational fearmongering. I mean, people are ok living next to ignite (brown coal) powerplants but are scared shitless of molten salt reactors...
I guess that's more us being shit at risk assessment than anything related to the technologies.
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EPT
