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Comment by MikeCapone | Hacker News Reader

France has been mismanaging its fleet and signally for years that they want to move away from it, under-investing in it, etc. It's not the technology's fault.

Germany had some of the best managed plants in the world -- until they decided to shut them down, leading to more coal being burned and more dependence on other countries like Russia...

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Germany is exiting both nuclear and coal. In the time from 2010 to 2022 where 14/17 of nuclear plants were shut down generation from coal was reduced from 263 TWh per year to 181 TWh. Renewables increased from 105 TWh to 254 TWh. I also would have preferred to leave the nuclear plants running longer and exit coal faster, but in the overall scheme of things it does not matter too much. Nuclear is basically irrelevant. It is too expensive and slow to build. In reality, renewables will take over everything very quickly.

Gas and coal imports from Russia stopped completely. But guess what still depends on Russia: The nuclear industry in Europe and the US.

Too bad numbers don't work when it's a quiet night, and you have to burn gas, caol, and biomass to make up for those nuclear reactors you've shut down: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396

Sorry, I am not interested what a nuclear shill posts on twitter. Here is the source for my numbers (which are the official ones). Sorry, in German but I assume you can guess the labels: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/STR...

Again: total numbers mean absolutely nothing on a night when there's zero production from renewables.

That "shill" is showing data. Just the fact that you don't like this data doesn't make it invalid.

Right now it's night in Germany, and even though the wind is blowing, it's only at 40% generation. And look, there's coal, supplying 22%, and gas supplying another 9%: https://imgur.com/a/3bYudyd

So what? You are complaining that Germany still uses coal. This is a fair complaint (and one should complain about this), but Germany is in the middle of the transition to renewables and that in the middle of the transition you still use coal does not tell you that the transition is not working. In fact, there are plenty of simulation studies which show that it will work. We also know that nuclear will have no meaningful impact in fighting climate change because it is too expensive and too slow to build.

> but Germany is in the middle of the transition to renewables and that in the middle of the transition you still use coal does not tell you that the transition is not working.

No, it shows that people believe in bullshit and actively hurt their own clean power generation capabilities due to decades of FUD.

And yes, however many renewables you build, you still have no answer for intermittent power generation.

> We also know that nuclear will have no meaningful impact in fighting climate change because it is too expensive and too slow to build.

Strange how some countries build them relatively fast (China can builds 1 reactor in 6 years, building several reactors in parallel, see Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant) while e.g. in Europe after three decades of FUD, scremongering and underinvestment, we not only believe they can't be built fast enough, but can't build them either.

Also, the reason this is only possible at all is that Germany uses the rest of Europe as a giant battery to manage the non-dispatchability of renewables. The import-export balance often changes by as much as one third of Germany consumption in 12 hours [1].

The electricity prices are also becoming zero[2] in Germany during parts of the day, which is a great outcome only on the surface. As this progresses, the consequence will be that renewable electricity producers aren't getting paid during their prime generating hours. This means even more subsidies will be required going forward to bring additional production. It will become more apparent once the reserve of easily dispatchable electricity sources is fully tapped to balance renewables across Europe. We will see very high prices during mornings and evenings and whenever it's cold and dark. The fossil fuel plants that are turned on during these periods will need to earn enough to address the additional wear due to quick power cycling and to keep being maintained for the rest of the time when they are unused.

[1] - https://www.smard.de/page/en/marktdaten/78?marketDataAttribu...

[2] - https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-...

> dispatchable electricity sources is fully tapped to balance renewables across Europe. We will see very high prices during mornings and evenings and whenever it's cold and dark

It's already a problem in Sweden. It exports electricity to Germany when demand is high... which leaves nothing to Sweden, and the prices skyrocket. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-12/swedish-m...

The prices in summer were so high mainly because half of France nuclear plants were offline. Look, even the article you cite mentions this: "The largest Nordic nation became the region’s top exporter in the first half after France suffered problems at its aging reactors"

The grid is for trade, so I am not sure what sense this complaint makes. Also France relies on imports sometimes. Electricity prices changing with production and demand is also exactly what market is for. As long as the market is working, this is beneficial to buyer and seller and changing prices are signals that allow the market to optimize production and consumption. Even when the price becomes zero sometimes, that does not mean than renewables need more subsidies if they earn money at other times where the price is higher. Also Germany still has enough of conventional generation capacity to ramp up production if needed, so the "is possible at all because" comment is wrong. If there is trade, then because this is cheaper overall (and in general this helps buyer and seller).

> As long as the market is working, this is beneficial to buyer and seller and changing prices are signals that allow the market to optimize production and consumption.

The market will always look to extract the highest possible price from the consumer.

> If there is trade, then because this is cheaper overall (and in general this helps buyer and seller).

Strange how "cheaper overall" fantasy is "consumer energy prices have quintupled in the past few years" in reality

I don't get this bogus argument. Germany is using the least coal in its history for electricity. The data is very easy to find, but it's a knee jerk reaction that they got rid of nuclear and so they must've replaced it with coal. Not true at all, and it's getting tiring reading this nonsense.

They replaced it with coal, gas and biofuel (that is, burning more stuff): https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396

It's nonsense. Look at the production for the year for the last 10 years, not a snapshot of a nuclear lobbyist.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35660264

So it matters when wind is providing 20%, but it doesn't matter when it's providing 100%. Thus, even though coal use is at a historic low, it's actually increasing, and in other news water is dry and grass is red.

> So it matters when wind is providing 20%, but it doesn't matter when it's providing 100%.

Of course. Because when there's no electricity, there's no electricity.

> even though coal use is at a historic low, it's actually increasing

You pretend this is a contradiction when it's not. Germany has just shut down its last reactors. So yes, the usage of coal will increase because when renewable generation is low you still need to provide electricity. Guess what provides that electricity.

No. Germany already began shutting down reactors in 2011 and coal use continued to go down. The proof is in the pudding -- data beats predictions.

The rise in renewables will continue to decrease coal use. Deadline for coal is 2038, with possibly moving it to 2030.

> The proof is in the pudding -- data beats predictions.

Tell me, using data, on a quiet night, where does Germany's electricity come from, and where it will come from this wondrous future of 2030?

Makes no difference. Your claim was that Germany replaced nuclear with coal. Here are the hard numbers:

https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38...

The bottom three are:

black coal in magenta

nuclear in gray

brown coal in brown

Nuclear shutdowns started in Germany in 2011. Check the numbers.

BTW with what did France replace its failing reactors last year?

https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-france-climate-an...

> Your claim was that Germany replaced nuclear with coal. Here are the hard numbers:

Funny how these hard numbers don't answer a simple question: where does Germany get its power on a quiet night like April 15th (answer is simple: buring coal, gas, and biofuels).

> BTW with what did France replace its failing reactors last year?

Last year it's "failing" generators were taken of for planned maintenance. The actual failures accounted for 0.18% loss in power.

50% of the German electricity are now renewable, wind, solar, biomass, water. In 2022, Germany was creating and exporting a considerable chunk of electricity to help plugging the holes left by the switched off French reactors.

Did you had a look at what Europe didn't stop importing from Russia due to lacking alternatives... cough cough.

I also don't get how an article can claim a global solution if nuclear currently is at 10% and we cannot keep up with supply and plants and and and.. this wont scale to 100%, not even 50 or even 20% of future global needs, would deplete cheap enough enable resources too quick... and what also is always forgotten: our world will likely have more, not less conflicts, unfortunately. Have fun managing this plants with wars all around and rivers going empty.

Yeah yeah all the issues happening and brought up again is just stupid people, mismanagement, etcetc.. But that unfortunately is humanity :/

Just no :/ especially as there are good enough and more sustainable other alternatives.

> Germany had some of the best managed plant

Better than France, likely agrees.. but still awful and that sentence is a joke. If that is your bar, good night. German infrastructure is currently rotting at record pace, happy we got those plants out there.

I am cautious on technology vs management. It's like the people who thinks death penalty is great in theory but the justice system is imperfect in practice: maybe, but you can't have one without the other. Nuclear plants have to be managed and that's an issue too.

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