Kind of insane that they started shutting down nuclear power plants earlier this year and are now more reliant on Russian gas because of it. How is that more green?
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-ge...
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-ge...
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-02-...
This entire concept is called Sektorenkopplung.
Due to low ownership rate of apartments, why would a landlord invest more money in heating with heatpumps or using more efficient insulation materials when he would bear the costs, but the tenant would get the benefits? So they only do it when forced to, or it is cheaper to use renewables.
Most of Germany, including politicians and home owners would quite gladly stay on fossil fuels aside from some blowhards who talk more than act.
Do they have the grid capacity to support people using more electric space heaters and less gas for heat?
My home uses gas heat. I suppose if there was some kind gas shortage I have to turn the thermostat down to the minimum needed to keep the pipes from freezing, then use space heaters to bring in-use rooms up to a livable temp.
But you've got to have both tactical and strategic responses, and the tactical solution may entail taking a hit from higher prices (though if that hit can be mitigated by other policy changes, like temporarily reducing taxes, that should be pursued as part of the tactical solution).
Tactical/short term: massively reducing gas use and trying to mitigate the short-term consequences by keeping nuclear online to power electric space heaters:
Strategic/long term: Switching all the buildings over to heat pumps powered by green energy.
https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1737041/wind-genera...
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec...
The reality of relying on things like wind is that you have to either over-produce, or have a backup, and the backup is usually coal.
If Nuclear plants had not been unnecessarily shuttered, Germany would be more prepared to weather the weather, instead of increasing coal burning significantly.
Additionally, new German homes are required, by law, to be build in a way that will not use 1. Gas for Heating 2. a lot of energy at all.
Additionally local energy storage and production in homes is encourgaged with 45% of funding coming from the German state.
Coal normally makes no sense to back wind, which is why Britain has been shutting coal plants while building ever more wind farms.
Germany is doing better at decarbonization than most countries, in fact, but still attracts a disproportionate amount of flak for "not doing enough".
My cynical side says that this is precisely because they're slowly proving that nuclear isnt a necessary component of decarbonization. They are setting an example that threatens the industry's survival.
That remains to be seen. We would need to see what their progress is 5, 10, and then 15 years from now. I think the 2035 target would take a miracle to actually accomplish without Nuclear Power.
https://www.luxresearchinc.com/blog/li-ion-manufacturing-in-...
> Lux expects the global annual Li-ion manufacturing capacity to more than triple by 2024.
That 2TWh or 45 minutes of storage for the whole world added annually.
With this manufacturing capacity it will be possible to have 2h of storage before 2030, which greatly increases the amount of renewable energy which could be utilized.
I'd say if not 100%, then 80% is realistic. Wind and solar combined make up around 30% already, so it's a question of doubling that number and adding appropriate storage.
the reactor near Hamburg was either broken or not running for some other reasons.
Also after 40 years of nuclear plants we still have not a good answer to the waste it produces.
That waste argument is repeated over and over again and just not relevant. Even if the waste problem is as massive as politics tries to claim (it isn't), that's not relevant for keeping the reactors running or even building new ones.
The absolute volume of waste produced is so low that keeping on relying on fission isn't changing the already existing waste problem in any meaningful way especially when considering breeding type reactors that can recycle existing "waste".
The argument is nothing but anti-fission propaganda and I wish it would stop being brought up as the first line of defense all the time.
These are pretty old reactors from the 80s or earlier.
Calling it propaganda tells me just one thing: its a waste of time discussing this more.
I always thought the security/proliferation arguments against nuclear power were the most convincing, but in germany's case I think the alternative has been worse on this front too.
World best solar panels but yeah for some reason they solid it to other countries or companies.
So no fossil was not the only way of going forward and it still isn't
Germany's conservative government then just ignored the German's companies cries for help, costing 200_000 jobs. Why? Well that were moslty voters for the greens, so their jobs weren't of interest.
IMO nuclear is the only real way out of the current mess.
any idea why we dont have several operational MSRs at this point?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
EDIT: i guess MSRs' structural components are subject to extreme corrosion from heat, salt, and radiation that makes them impossible to build for long-term continous operation.
And instead, you burn coal and Gaz which creates even more waste which we can't even store. The difference is that the nuclear waste are localised near you, while the CO2 is spread globally and mostly affect warmer country we don't care about.
> So simply put, there are around 17 meteors every year that hit ground and can cause a disaster
The disaster is made worse because of nuclear infrastructure. But I don't see the point. It is already a disaster to begin with. Look at Fukushima, the real disaster was the earthquake and tsunami that killed and destroyed lots of homes. The incident in the nuclear plant in the area did make it slightly worse, but not by much. Even though the media seem to blame the whole thing on the power plant.
While distance can make them safer, it also makes them less efficient.
There are no standard designs for nuclear reactors yet, although this is slowly changing.
Nuclear reactors have always been run at great subsidy.
Only two MSRs have ever been built, over half a century ago and have a huge list of disadvantages. Not saying that can't be overcome, but it takes time, money, and will. There is some movement in this area.
With solar and wind making such great strides, advantages of nuclear are decreasing.
Markets are not omniscient of course, and they might be ineffective, but it's something to think about when discussing nuclear energy.
the free market is made up of people who primarily watch sensational evening news and follow clickbait social media. the actual statistics are still well on the side of nuclear in terms of safety and externalities (as far as i understand)
Also, in typical governmental fashion (see: rocket building before SpaceX) power plants were optimized for (size???) instead of safety, cost and time to build.
Things you don't have to optimize for: efficiency
Make it fast to build and in self-contained modules (economies of scale). Make it failsafe (even if it costs efficiency)
These are called "blueprint reactors", because designing a nuclear reactor is easy, but building one is hard.
They exist in nuclear subs. There needs to be investment and research to make them commercially viable.
That means that it’s not a near-term solution, and also may turn out to not be viable at all.
Now yesterday Robert Habeck, Germany's minister for economic affairs and climate, and vice chancellor, claimed that a return to nuclear and/or coal is economically not viable, even if it were politically feasible (which it is not, since it would be political suicide given he's from the Green party). He's not stupid, so he knows he'll have to answer how in hell people will even heat their homes come next winter. Not only are energy prices up, but so are materials for home insulation (if you can get them at all) and prices for construction.
Right now, the government has plans to penalize landlords renting out homes with low energy efficiency, a plan typical of the SPD party, the Green party's coalition partner. Which won't work, though, because there simply is no way to reach those levels of energy efficiency given the demand in the construction industry, and in a way that decouples the consumer from their consumption, not to speak of constitutional (existing case law) concerns.
Meanwhile, the housing market is as insane as everywhere due to rampant public spending and the decrease in interest that goes with it. Adding ever more energy efficiency requirements means that it's objectively impossible for any average person to own a home.
As a German, I always wonder why the obvious flaw in these kind of discussions is never addressed: The current heating habbits of our German population is luxury heating - that is we heat every room to be comfy and luxurious standards. And people just claim "Germany needs X percent of gas for heating". But the truth is, if we would not have that gas, or prices would be insanely high, people will change their habits regarding heating and we would need less.
I myself had multiple discussion with my better half in winter when she was cranking up the heater in all rooms, to a level she could just walk around in light underwear and comfy dresses. I always rather heat a single room, close the door, and snug into my skiing thermos, sweatpants and sweater - and keep the time on the can short (not taking the smartphone helps) because its cold in there. This is actually sufficient for most time of the year (minus Mountain regions, but which are only sparsely populated). We do not have siberian winters. And I remember as a child at grandmas, there was a single wooden oven in the living room ("Stube"), everybody was in there together. The bedrooms where not heated at all, instead you take a thermos bottle (or even just hot potatoes in a tin) with you into the bed for the night - of course wearing long-sleeved tights and underwear.
I think a winter without heating would make people in our society aware what luxuries we've gotten accustomed to, and also show people how little one needs when things get serious.
The exit from nuclear power has been planned long ago, but the crucial point is, that in those years the renewables were not expanded enough. Solar buid-up peaked in 2012, Wind in 2017, with steep declines after that because of government decisions. But the government changed last autumn and the new one is all in on renewables. Partially because of the Greens being part of the government and now partially because even industry pushes for this to get cheaper electricity. And everyone wants stable supply and the current situation makes for a huge push towards renewables.