Germany: Coal tops wind as primary electricity source | Hacker News Reader

Germany: Coal tops wind as primary electricity source

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10 years ago Germany announced they were ending nuclear by 2022.

Discussed on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2599099

> The only way to successfully switch to renewable energy is by making renewable energy cheaper than coal or nuclear.

The last sentence of the first reply is appropriate, since Germany basically did that. Thanks Germany!

Interesting to think about what other sort of supposedly environmentally-motivated campaigning that's happening will actually end up with a net negative effect on the environment.

It's a religion in Germany. Im French, so biased pro-nuclear. God just talking to a German abt nuclear power not being only about Fukushima and Tchernobyl puts them in a state of existensial anger you rarely see in these otherwise rational people :D

I'm german and it's not only about disasters such as Fukushima and Tschernobl. Those may have shaped public opinion a lot but there is more. There is not a single in production long term storage for nuclear waste in Europe[1],[2]. According to [2] the only country building a long term storage for nuclear waste is Finnland.

For me the problem of nuclear waste is a big factor in regard to my opinion of nuclear fission plants. I'm sure the designs are a lot safer nowadays and we don't have natural catastrophes that pose similar threats to these power plants here in central europe and yet I oppose them because of the nuclear waste.

[1] https://de.statista.com/infografik/20000/geschaetzte-menge-d... [2] https://www.energate-messenger.de/news/200160/bericht-europa...

[Edit]: In regard to coal - coal has been a large source of energy for Germany since the industrialization because we have access to it. Germany has been so dependant on it that in-case of being cut off from oil there are considerations to convert coal into gasoline. Because of this dependency it was subsidized for decades. It's not surprising that with wind energy having a low in 2021, coal is currently in first place again. The current goal seems to phase coal-power out by 2035-2038 which I hope will happen sooner rather than later.

I think the only reason the phasing-out of coal is actually happening in Germany is the prospect of less dependency on oil (with more electric vehicles on the horizon).

Nuclear waste is a solved problem [0]. It takes very little space and storage technology is good enough since a long time. It's just a lack of the political will.

[0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html

I'm not sure but this site is NOT convining, especially since it's bascially dismisses all the points as stupid. besides that it didn't give a single solution how reactive waste can be stored over thousands of years. in fact the site talks about it, but it never gives a solution.

btw. most people never think that nuclear the technology is a bad idea. the problem ALWAYS are humans. you can't guarante storage of something toxic for thousands of years. humans are stupid and greedy. you can't build a safe nuclear facility because some greedy people will always try to save a few dollars here and there for absolute no reason. germany even tried to build a few reactors since the 90's but political parties and greedy managers wanted to force it and skipped important stuff, which exactly shows why nuclear is not an option. people will always screw the safety to save a few bucks. always.

In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can be recycled (as it is in France) which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel:

"...What is more important today is why fast reactors are fuel-efficient: because fast neutrons can fission or "burn out" all the transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides) many of which last tens of thousands of years or longer and make conventional nuclear waste disposal so problematic. Most of the radioactive fission products (FPs) the reactor produces have much shorter half-lives: they are intensely radioactive in the short term but decay quickly. The IFR extracts and recycles 99.9% of the uranium and Transuranium elements on each cycle and uses them to produce power; so its waste is just the fission products; in 300 years their radioactivity will fall below that of the original uranium "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry some people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amount of waste is very manageable (the Netherlands actually stores their waste in an art museum!) and in a relatively short amount of time we will likely be able to use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.

If you are actually worried about nuclear waste, do some web searches about the problems with coal waste - it will be a much harder problem to solve than nuclear waste. The problems with coal waste aren't discussed much since people focus on the air pollution from burning coal as it kills so many people.

So your saying french nukes are definitely, positively, hundred percent, absolutely sure, bet yr granma's health, better than jap ones.

You cannot generate power with a nuke, just grilling a sausage (at the right distance), and japan never had nukes, so yes french nukes are more nuk'y then "jap" ones.

It's impossible to know the counterfactual, because having a set date for leaving nuclear has also been a forcing function for ramping up renewables. So it's entirely possible that coal would have made up as much or more of the energy consumed in the hypothetical 2021 with nuclear plants still active.

Of course there could have been an even more radical counterfactual where Germany decided to get out of coal by doubling down on nuclear but that hasn't been a political possibility in Germany for many years.

The counterfactual is right next door. France has half the emissions per capita of Germany since it primarily relies on nuclear power.

Interestingly, after a quick look at some stats, it's not totally obvious why Germany has higher emissions per capita.

Your theory that it's France's extensive nuclear use seems unlikely though since Spain, UK, Portugal, Italy etc. all seem to be roughly on par.

My initial guess is that burning coal, or worse lignite or worse peat, seems to be the decisive factor, though high industry usage also plays a part.

If you just compare carbon intensity per KWh produced, then France has a notable lead, 6 times less than Germany, so I wonder what brings them back down into the pack. Is some of that electricity being wasted or used inefficiently?

French reactors are also almost all older than 30 years, and it is thought that constructing new reactors would be extremely expensive, as most megaprojects tend to be these days, so I don't think it is a fair counterfactual. Smaller renewable and natural gas plants don't seem to suffer from cost disease so much.

Coal topped wind for the first half of 2021. But comparing consecutive half years is misleading because changes may be due to variance. Autumn storms may make it so wind eventually surpasses coal for 2021 for example.

This page shows that the longterm trend is an increasing share of renewable energy in the German electricity mix: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

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