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Comment by onli | Hacker News Reader

Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little.

On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient to consider building a nuclear plant. It wouldn't be safe at all. Also, don't overestimate the availability of uranium, which is estimated to only reach till 2080 (depends on who you ask probably).

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>Look at germany.

In Germany, where they are shutting down their nuclear power plants, more than 80% of the shut down nuclear power has been replaced with coal power plants,[26] which release 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage

In 2012, member firms of the Verband der Industriellen Energie- und Kraftwirtschaft (VIK) reported power failures of several seconds duration, combined with a rise in frequency fluctuations. These were reportedly caused by network overloads due to the shutdown of nuclear power plants, and an increase in wind power generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Role_...

See, none of the plants that were shut down so far has been shut down due to the plan to phase out nuclear power. End 2011 all of germanys nuclear plant were switched off - either due to scheduled maintenance or due to (minor) accidents. The plan is so slowly fade out nuclear power over the next decade - so any short term fluke has to be regarded as what it is - a short term and pretty normal fluctuation in local power production, something that the european grid was built to handle.

I think you'll find that Germany isn't replacing nuclear power, just buying it from outside their borders instead of generating it themselves [1].

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/greenwashing-af...

Or gas from that nice Mr Putin

German renewables keep on threatening to collapse European power grid, which is much more advanced than any other power grid on the world.

If other countries would be as aggressive with renewables as German are we would see a lot of Europe wide blackouts.

Collapse how?

Overload. Specifically Czech and Polish grids suffer from this because they're old and can't deal with the fluctuations. For more info see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-...

Quote from the article "The problem may intensify with the approaching winter." and "The coming winter can be critical,". The article dates vom october 2012 and the winter is over, no large-scale blackout in europe so far.

Renewable energies require updates to the network infrastructure - granted - but should that be a reason not to push technology and try to improve?

Why would Poland need to update their infrastructure so that Germany can force their excess production upon them.

Do you even understand what you are saying here?

You're reading something I'm not saying. Germany is investing billions in its own networks to handle those issues, for example into 6 new large scale distribution lines from north to south. So yes, we want to change what energy we're using but we're paying the cost. And then, it's not like germany isn't the largest net-payer in the European Union. Certainly a small part of those subsidies could be invested in energy networks in need of technological updates - currently we're already paying to bring old east-block nuclear plants to more modern safety levels, so a couple of cables shouldn't be too much of a big deal.

You are significantly underestimating the cost of high voltage transmission infrastructure.

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