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Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

> 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…

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