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Comment by Krasnol | Hacker News Reader

Oh, sure they are reaping.

61.5% of Germany's electricity comes from renewable sources[1]. What nuclear generated has been replaced years ago, and they have a law to phase out coal completely.

The only weird thing about it is that they're being hated on so much from the nuclear-bubble, while the bubble simultaneously drags the shield of innovation and environment protection. Meanwhile, there is negligible innovation in nuclear and saving the environment 2024 means acting fast. Nothing about nuclear is fast.

[2] https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ausbau-erne...

PS. because it automatically comes up: no, Germany could not phase out coal before nuclear because there are much more jobs connected to coal and no politician would survive such a fast exit. How important it is, can be seen from the name of the commission tasked with the coal phase out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Growth,_Structur...

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> 61.5% of Germany's electricity comes from renewable sources

Now. For years they switched to coal. Even today, Germany falls to the siren songs of the gas lobby, who promise a €1.5tn investment into gas infrastructure will be happily written off for the sake of the planet.

FYI: In Germany the same companies who have nuclear reactors, have coal, gas and renewables. They do not lobby against themselves. Therefore, your "lobby" phrases do not work for Germany. You should stop repeating that. It only shows that you have not sufficient knowledge to participate in this discussion.

ok but lol you are still obviously denying and acting blind to the fact that for many many years, that neither we will nor our lungs will get back, coal had to be ramped up and overused in Germany, Nuclear is safe and effective and until we actually solve the battery problem most of the world should switch to nuclear if we want to survive, Yale has tried to fit the numbers on many occasions but not even them can disagree that nuclear is required

> ok but lol you are still obviously denying and acting blind to the fact that for many many years, that neither we will nor our lungs will get back, coal had to be ramped up and overused in Germany

This simply isn't true. Coal use for electricity has been declining consistently in Germany and especially since the first shutdowns of nuclear plants (cca 2011). And the replacement was not natural gas as in e.g. the US.

Here’s a chart of Germany’s energy mix over the last 30 years:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time...

Looks like coal usage for electricity production indeed only went up for ~3 years around 2011, probably we can consider that a mere blip within the downward trend.

Wind and solar indeed seem to pick up what nuclear used to bring to the energy mix. Gas usage is only slightly up over 30 years, which doesn’t look like it’s directly substituting nuclear — but surely it could have gone down had nuclear be kept around?

(Personally, I wish politics would have pushed harder against coal and simply ignored nuclear for a couple more decades. But political feasibility is important ofc, and I don’t know how hard of a sell that would have been in 2010.)

I don't know what would've surely happened. It's easy to think well if they did this not that all the positives would remain they'd just be better. I think life is more complicated than that.

In general what I think is people make a pariah out of Germany and its energy choices, but this is mostly based on false data, which tells me enough. The debate is riddled with false data which lead to even worse conclusions. In the end the numbers are positive and that's all what's important for me. There are better candidates for criticism when looked at individually or even globally, what the individual strategies accomplish on a global scale. So when looked at globally, the German energy transition has accomplished a ton. E.g. the 600TW of solar this year never would've happened without it, which more than offsets the 10-15GW of nuclear they switched off, most of which was past its retirement age.

Well then it sounds like they are progressing in the right direction. If in the future you get to a point where 80% of all energy is renewable and 20% are peaker plants that’s a pretty good place to be in. I’m all for nuclear but a 1 in a 1000 year event causing a nuclear spill, say by the Danube, that makes multiple countries unlivable is a pretty scary proposition. That being said, I have no idea what the state of the art is when it comes to nuclear power plants so maybe plants are very, very safe now.

Nuclear was replaced by renewables, not by coal: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschla... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_generati...

A point you certainly can argue about, is that coal should have been replaced by renewables before nuclear, but that discussion is over now.

For gas use electricity production is just a minor use. Most gas is consumed by industry and for heating purposes. Not enough happened in Germany in the last years electrifying them.

> coal should have been replaced by renewables before nuclear, but that discussion is over now

Right. Coal stayed online where it would have otherwise gone away. That was true for close to a decade.

> gas use electricity production is just a minor

And growing. Look at your own chart. The change in natural gas electrical generation is about as large as solar’s entire controbution.

See for yourself

https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=en&...

Nuclear wasn’t completely replaced. The graphs you link to show that Germany’s electricity generation have dropped to the level it was at in the year 2000, and that’s before the last of the nuclear plants were turned off.

As a result, Germany’s industrial production is falling. Which will be great for the environment if countries who previously imported goods produced by Germany’s clean nuclear power don’t just switch to goods produced by China and South East Asia’s far dirtier electricity.

Of course, China is steadily increasing its own nuclear energy production, so it’ll end up being clean eventually, and likely sooner than us given how efficient they are.

But it’s not like we’re reducing dependency on nuclear power. It’s more like we’re trading the risk of nuclear accident in our own backyards for something else. I tend to think that the something else is the risk that the eastern world’s factories stop accepting the western world’s increasingly worthless paper money, which they’ll be in a much stronger position to do once we’re no longer able to manufacture what we need due to environmental concerns.

> As a result, Germany’s industrial production is falling

The causality here seems debatable.

Cheap Chinese goods which take market share from German goods aren't just cheap because of cheap energy.

Indeed: if cheap (for the consumer, not for the taxpayer...) nuclear electricity was sufficient France industry would thrive. Reality: it (sadly) is dying.

It's true that energy intensive industry has been hit hard in Germany. But is also true that the sector has been heavily subsidized for decades. As the carbon mining sector. That was effectively paying the energy cost of those industries with taxes.

In Spain, where we didn's shut down nuclear energy nor have oil or coal, energy intensive industry is also threatening or shutting down (https://www.miningweekly.com/article/alcoa-threatens-to-shut...). The threats are barely hidden "subsidize our costs or else...".

Here are some key events in Germany's nuclear phase-out: 1998 A coalition government includes the phasing out of nuclear power in its policy

(this was later un-done in 2009 and then redone in 2011 which is the cause of confusion).

IE. Germany got INCREDIBLY lucky that China went hard into renewables and dropped the price of them dramatically. Because they did basically replace or plan to replace all the nuclear plants with coal plants.

it was replaced by coal,gas and exports. With nuclear, much less of them would have been used, as simple as that

The nuclear exit began in earnest in 2011.

Lets have a look at how the German electricity production has shifted over the years:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/p...

- Fossil gas: 2011 -> 2023 = stable.

- Coal: 2011 -> 2023 = large reduction

At the height of the energy crisis when half the French nuclear fleet was off line due to corrosion issues.

Germany temporarily reopened a few mothballed coal power plants to keep the lights on in France.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...

Man I know this. But the simple undeniable fact is - if nuclear was kept on - even less gas and coal would have been used, it's an obvious thing. Renewables did help ditching some of fossil generation, but with nuclear it would have been even more

And that's different from "it was replaced by coal".

You should probably have started with a correct statement, not a falsehood that you had to rephrase into a correct statement.

in the end it's the same. Replaced with coal&gas = more coal&gas was used than it would have been needed with nuclear on

Which again is a completely different argument than what you started with. The argument was that nuclear power was replaced with coal and gas.

As we've concluded it evidently was not. Both coal and nuclear power has been replaced with renewables.

I would suggest you stop spreading falsehoods.

This is a popular internet myth. The actual data shows that coal consumption is way down and even in the year of the shutdown the percentage of coal/gas went up by an insignificant amount.

Because more and more energy-intensive industries are shutting down their factories in Germany.

Those require a large amount of baseload energy.

Nevertheless, "nuclear was replaced by coal" is a lie, and remains a lie.

While this is true they are among the worst polluters in the EU. England, Spain, France, even italy has a better CO2 balance than Germany per kWH. The amount of energy that comes from renewables is a meaningless number. The only thing that matters is how much CO2 they emit per kWH and due to their coal power plants, the number is quite bad. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map

Yes, Germany has a historic debt there. However, the transition is working and in 2024 Germany has used less coal than any year after 1960. Coal power usage is in a strong decline. The nuclear reactors have been more than replaced.

And here we can see how their electricity generation has fallen

https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

And in France:

https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=FR...

Note that France has lost more nuclear generation than Germany over this period.

Good news; France’s nuclear output is forecast to bounce back to the 340-365TWh range this year.

https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journ...

Where are all those rolling blackouts we've been promised by the fearmongering of the nuclear-astroturf? Weird eh?

Maybe it's not always clever to use US-logic on the rest of the world.

Germany is not Texas.

Texas, where new nuclear has been dead in the water for years.

> “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.

(passage from Dec. 2018 Physics Today; Texas natural gas is even cheaper than that now)

The point is it’s not the technology that is the issue in Texas - it’s unhinged turbo capitalism

It's a system where it's more difficult for utilities to ram through uncompetitive capital intensive projects by way of capture of the state regulatory agencies. If that's "unhinged", hinge-ness is overrated.

Texas, albeit culturally/politically swimming in fossil fuel, pushes hard towards renewables: https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/infrastru...

it didn't happen because germany increased imports by a lot. 20TWh this year so far

Nearly each and every nation imports and exports, in order to optimize (better import low-cost or low-emission electricity than locally generate it thanks to some expensive and dirty plant).

The yearly balance (imports - exports) is key.

I meant net imports. France alone net exported to Germany 11TWh from those 20

Uh?

2023 (last full year): 9.34 / 8.92

Source: https://energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=...

I may be wrong, but this year = 2024, not 2023. Per your source: https://energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=...

I may be wrong, but 2024 isn't yet a full year.

Moreover FR/DE isn't the main path anymore, and as DE sometimes plays as a gateway we have to take the complete balance into account.

my OG comment clearly stated 'this year so far'. It's also obvious imports increased if you look per month net imports 2023 vs 2024. It doesn't matter the gateway, net imports do matter. Germany net imported 20TWh in 2024 so far and that's a fact. Germany net imported a lot more from neighbor states compared to last year and again, that's a fact.

The fact which is missing here is how much money Germany made with those trades.

As the other commenter wrote: trading, transfers, etc. is normal in the EU grid. You buy cheap, you sell expensive. Just because Germany imports electricity, doesn't mean it has to. The German grid, even in its unfinished state, allows turning off power generation where it doesn't make sense financially, and they can do that fast because they don't have those slow nuclear power generators clogging up the grid.

We'll see what comes of it when the year is finished and official sources release their information. Until then, you can translate this page here from the Federal Network Agency: https://www.smard.de/page/home/topic-article/444/213848

In the last paragraphs they write on in/exports and that they've bought cheap from France and Belgium in the last quarter. Why shouldn't they? France needs to have their reactors running. They are a constant deficit on the French taxpayer. Therefore, it is cheap on the EEX.

nuclear can be turned modulated pretty fast too, look at France. We indeed should look at final year balance. Edf indeed needs to sell as much as they can, because of arenh. Afaik it'll end in the end of 2025. "In France, alternative retailers (i.e. those who aren’t EDF) can currently secure regulated access to energy produced by EDF’s existing nuclear fleet under the ARENH mechanism. It places an obligation on EDF to sell up to 100 TWh of nuclear power annually (about 25% of its production in France) at a regulated price of €42/MWh." It's interesting how the things will turn the next year indeed and how edf will handle it's new freedom

> nuclear can be turned modulated pretty fast too, look at France

Nope. Albeit being shock-full of nuclear reactors... France always maintains fossil fuel active in order to load-follow. Add 'peakers' (needed during peak-demand) and here is the result: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+...

Details: there are safety-related limits (power modulation proportion, duration of a pause needed after each modulation, modulations frequency...) to nuclear load-following capacity, and the very combustible status is a major parameter.

Pertinent document (French ahead!): https://www.sfen.org/rgn/expertise-nucleaire-francaise-suivi...

« un réacteur peut varier de 100 % à 20 % de puissance en une demi-heure, et remonter aussi vite après un palier d’au moins deux heures, et ce deux fois par jour »

Proposed translation: "a reactor power output can vary from 100% to 20% in 30 minutes, then after 2 hours can go back to 100% at the same speed, and can cycle this way 2 times per day".

This is quite a good performance when it comes to load-following (French engineers are very good at this), however it is insufficient in the real world (save any ridiculously expensive over-provision of nuclear reactor, most idling) and very weak compared to gas turbines performances.

> Edf indeed needs to sell as much as they can

No. EDF always needed to sell as much as they can, even before AREHN, because maintaining a high load factor for their nuclear reactors is financially key. An idle industrial reactor is a financial disaster.

> 61.5% of Germany's electricity comes from renewable sources[1]. What nuclear generated has been replaced years ago, and they have a law to phase out coal completely.

472g of C02 per kW/h as we speak[1]. 20 times more than France and its nuclear.

A resounding success…

[1]: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

Whether the number for France is correct, is debatable. While I like the electricitymaps app, they are quite optimistic about nuclear power. But that isn't the point. The point is: Germany is strongly reducing the usage of coal. Yes, historically we have burned far too much coal, but that cannot be changed retroactively. What can and is being done is to replace coal as quickly as possible and that is happening.

Ironically there was a spike in coal usage in 2022, that was caused both by the war Russia started against Ukraine and even more so by France having to shut down too many nuclear reactors for repairs - German coal had to fill part of that gap.

> Whether the number for France is correct, is debatable. While I like the electricitymaps app, they are quite optimistic about nuclear power.

They aren't “optimistic”, nuclear simply doesn't emit CO2 directly, and indirect emissions are dwarfed by direct emissions of fossils fuel plants.

> What can and is being done is to replace coal as quickly as possible and that is happening.

It has been happening for the past 13 years, and there's no end in sight. We'll be able to have the same discussion in 13 years with only marginal progress (maybe they'll be around 200g/kWh at that point if we're being optimistic…).

> and even more so by France having to shut down too many nuclear reactors for repairs - German coal had to fill part of that gap.

And so what? French nuclear has been filling the gap for defunct German nuclear for more than a decade now … And Germany could have filled this gap with coal even if they had much less regular coal use thanks to their nuclear.

The nuclear emissions seem to be optimistic in their absolute amounts - mining and producing nuclear fuel causes a lot of emissions. No one claimed it exceeds the one of fossil fuel power plants.

There has been a strong decline in coal usage in the last years, both because the CO2 prices have started to move the balance and also because the buildup of renewables has been accelerated again. And no, France hasn't been "filling the gap". Until very recently, Germany had been a constant net electricity exporter.

> mining and producing nuclear fuel causes a lot of emissions

It may cause a “lot of emissions” per kilogram of enriched Uranium, but it is very low compared to the amount of energy it produces because you really need little Uranium to produce tons of energy (that's also why all French nuclear fuel waste over 60 years of nuclear industry fit in a single room).

> There has been a strong decline in coal usage in the last years

This has been the narrative for the past 10 years, yet here we are. And in ten years Germany will still be producing way too much CO2 from its coal plants…

> And no, France hasn't been "filling the gap". Until very recently, Germany had been a constant net electricity exporter.

So is France, but that doesn't mean there's no gap to fill when the wind isn't blowing…

> they are quite optimistic about nuclear power

Centrifuge enrichment and improved extraction techniques (high quality ore in Canada or else in-situ leaching) mean CO2 emissions are very low.

Would you care to provide references for CO2 emissions from already built nuclear power stations (preferably not the infamous StormSmith and Sovacool papers)?

For new-build, Hinkley Point C "not an EPD" make interesting bed-time reading. https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/hpc_-_life_cyc...

Germany was the country that pushed natural gas to be defined as "green investment" in Europe. They are also building new and fresh thermal power plants to burn even more fossil fuels in the future. There is no end date to when Germany will stop burning fossil fuels.

What can be done and what is being done are miles apart. Investing into new fossil fueled power plants is not what the best thing Germany could be doing, nor is it what they should be doing. In 20 years there will be a large fleet of fossil fueled power plants and people will be again arguing that historically they burned too much of it but nothing can be done retroactively. Changing the current plans of new fossil fueled power plant would not be a retroactively change today, but it will be in 20 years.

That is not correct. Yes, we are building more gas power plants. As peaker plants to pick up the residual load. That can in theory be the total net power requirement, which is why we need many of them. However, they are not running continuously. Already today, most gas power plants are idle most of the time. Gas usage by Germany is going on a steep decline as renewables are built up and especially as heating systems are converted to heat pumps.

61.5% sounds like a lot, but how much electricity is needed to replace everything that fossil fuel is now used for? I think it needs to increase to 400% or so to do that.

We don't need to replace primary energy with electric energy in a 1:1 ratio.

An ICE car is 20-30% efficient, an EV is 90% efficient. Generally we are looking at a grid expansion, but it is not massive.

See this amazing chart on rejected vs. useful energy:

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/

> an EV is 90% efficient

An EV is 85-90% efficient with power coming out of the batteries. However, the charging efficiency of the batteries is at about 80%. So the overall efficiency is 80% of 90%, or 72%.

For the sake of replacement, we should not include the charging efficiency, because the context is that of "how kuch energy the car can store" rather than "where it comes from"

It's "how much is needed to keep doing the same thing", I don't see why charging would be excluded.

It is not about how much it can store. You cannot wish away the charging losses. There are no losses to pumping gas into a tank. Nor can you wish away the losses in the charger itself. Converting AC to DC is hardly 100% efficient.

In that case, you should also not wish away refining losses, where petroleum is turned into gasoline and other fuels.

If you want to get an accurate accounting of CO2 emissions, sure.

Somewhere between 2-3x the electricity consumed right now (which is way down from the peak several years ago as efficiency increases, e.g. LEDs instead of light bulbs etc.). It would be crazy expensive to build nuclear reactors to produce so much electricity, with renewables it is still quite a task, but a much more manageable one.

in fact for germany building a similar renewable output will be much more expensive. Don't forget about transmission and balancing. Needless to say Germany doesn't have an actual plan to ditch gas, even h2-ready plants will either use a mix with gas(most probably) or pure h2(if it'll even be deployed) will still have huge NOx emissions

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