How do you reach that conclusion?
2. Sun and wind only produce a fraction of the time (40% [1] and 25% [2] respectively, and 7.5% (= 8.94/(63.2+56)) of installed capacity this very second [3])
3. Production capacity without sun and wind < peak demand
Germany's mix only work because of neighbouring countries. And their humongous amounts of still existing coal and gas.
[1] https://assets.greentechmedia.com/assets/content/cache/made/...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/555654/wind-electricity-...
The problem with the current generation of nuclear is that it's expensive to build, and a lot of the older reactors are, well, old. If it's possible to get the same emissions reduction by building out lots and lots of renewable, instead of spending that money on nuclear, that's understandable for a country that can't just print money.
There will eventually be some limit to that strategy (i.e. how do you meet supply at night) and we'll have to see how the next-gen energy storage and nuclear pan out.
People say this as if reactors get build once and then stay the same way. These reactors get upgraded all the time. Here's an example: Isar 1 was one of the oldest reactors in Germany. When a German reactor gets new fuel rods it has to be certified again according to current regulations. Isar 1 needed new fuel rods in 2011, so it got upgraded and certified again. After that new fuel rods were introduced into the reactor. A few month later as consequence of the Fukushima disaster it got "shut down"[1], because it was now "not safe". Which is obviously bullshit, cause the rules on reactor safety for German nuclear reactor didn't change due to Fukushima, opinions did and politicians needed to show that they do something.
[1] It didn't really get shut down in 2011. It got removed from the power grid. So, Isar 1 continued to produce power, which was then promptly discharged into the environment as heat. Only after the fuel rods were burned down it really got shut down.
Wow. Idiocracy vibes.
That's completely idiotic, correct?
Not completely, but you can make electricity almost free at certain times of day to encourage shifting usage.
Although there is a natural limit to this, since people have to be home to do laundry!
(Also electric driers are the real culprit, they use an obscene amount of electricity! I am not sure if Germany is big on electric dryers or not though, that is something which is very culture dependent)
Holy crap, doing the math a US style dryer would cost ~1.50 in electricity in Germany to dry one load of clothing.
Sources: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Germany/electricity_price... https://www.thespruce.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-an-el...
So, like, you know, yeah. My dryer has a delay start function on it, if late night prices are 1/2 peak, then I'd save 75 cents a load. Let's say 3 days a week of laundry, $9 a month in savings.
Again, my dryer already does this, it isn't new tech, it is just nudging me to make use of the existing button that is already there!
US electricity prices are so low, eh, not really worth it for the state I live in.
Also, electricity prices are not the same everywhere. My parents for example pay only 20 ct/kwh (I have no idea how they got that contract, especially since they moved only last year. They have low overall usage though (2,000 kWh/a, with fixed cost being like 30% of the total bill)
It's not just a syllogism, it's a really weak one. You actually can decide when people "turn on their washing machine". It's called controlled supply, it's existed since the 1950s. Mainly for water heating but in principle any function.
Looking at maps for power prices with large hydropower dams you can easily see how most countries grids dont transfer more than around 1000km, and often quite a bit shorter. In practice this is the point where it becomes more cost effective to build new powerplants, than bigger infrastructure for transfer.
We could build grids designed for this, but never across oceans, and we are talking about an absolutely gargantuan investment, and its generally not considered as a solution for the unreliability of solar and wind. Its also why no one ever suggests to use the big empty oceans for truly large scale wind or solar etc, its always places very close to land.
Its also worth pointing out that superconductors cannot solve this, even if price and the gargantuan cooling energy requirements are ignored. This is because while superconductors transfer power without loss, they can only do so up to a limited effect, as the power interferes with the superconducting ability after that, essentially breaking it.
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 solar farm 5000km away in Australia.
1000km of ocean reduce transmission to about 0.1%^^
That sounds bloody swell. I'd pay for that in a heart beat.
Atmospheric depressions are bigger than than, and the distance for solar are much bigger as well (other than cloudy, there's day and night).
Specifically, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... puts the cost of wind/solar at roughly 1/3rd the cost of nuclear, so it's more (cost) efficient to spend as much on transmission as you do on generation and build a really well connected massive grid than to use nuclear.
Also there is wind energy which doesn't care about whether the sun shines or not (actually it generates more energy when the sun isn't shining: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-power-turbin...).
Transmitting power also consumes energy - you cannot have a electric wire across pacific to transmit power from US to EU without transformers - electric power line is not a fiber optic that transmit just signal.
I also doubt we have enough rare earth minerals to make all those magnets for wind turbine and and electric car enough for whole planet. Remember also you have to decomission those windturbine after some years which is expensive
Regarding rare earths, we will need them regardless of using nuclear or renewables for electric cars, so that seems partly tangential. For wind turbines their reliance on rare earths seems troublesome. It's geopolitically ironic that we (Western Europeans) get our gas from Russia and our rare earths from China.
You are right that you can't have an electric wire across the Pacific to get power from the US to the EU, but more because the EU doesn't border the Pacific. On a more serious note, Novia Scotia to Ireland is about 2600 miles, so it's on the edge of doable with HVDC, but it would be a massive project and slightly hard to justify.
I'm interested to know what rare earth metals make up so much of a wind turbine. According to https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/66861.pdf (page 65), around 99% of a turbine is accounted for by steel, fiberglass, iron, copper, and aluminum.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/05/24/usd-30-billion-north...
Whats funny about this is, that the wind farm will not even be connected to Iceland itself! I guess they have such great geothermal resources that they don't really need more power.
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.electricitymap.org/zone/DE
[1] https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.ph...
What you mean to say is "we need to provide power all the time".