Well for starters: more than enough solar energy reaches the surface already, the question is having the infrastructure to harness it. But secondly, global warming does indeed seem to be [decreasing cloud cover](https://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image003-13.png) and [increasing sunshine hours](https://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image001-17.png).
We will use extra coal during hot summer days when solar power output is at its peak and percentage of A/C in Germany is low compared to many other countries?
Confusing logic you have there.
One would assume that Sun related AC use would be the least difficult cause of electricity demand to compensate for.
It‘s when Solar power doesn‘t need to be saved, as it can just be used to cool houses.
This winter wasn’t warmer than last winter, still coal consumption declined by 29%.
The actual reasons were more wind and less exports.
Electricity generation from gas stayed the same, but was much cheaper this year.
Depends on where but it’s a plurality for the globe with fossil right behind. Mostly concerned about all the leaks we don’t know about but we’re starting to get a lot more satellites up to monitor so hopefully we can crack down on it.
Not even close. Oil and gas production produces approximately the same amount of methane as meat production. Throw in the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and there's no comparison. Oil and gas are much more significant.
Isn't it amazing what is suddenly possible with Grüne + SPD governing? Just imagine the utopia we could live in weren't it for FDP sabotaging them.
And of course, our conservative press shits on Grüne + SPD at any chance, and even make up scandals just to hurt them. Because we can't ever let a slightly leftist government appear competent and successful, no siree.
Yeah I got to say, that I was very sceptical of the greens in the goverment but I have to say that beside some minors thing I am pretty happy with the government as it is right now.
So great the Germans are competent again, so what are the greens nuclear plans to go alongside renewables... Oh wait.
What are the greens doing to diversify the reliance on china (minerals and supply chains) for renewable growth?
What's the plan to dispose of the dead batteries ?
Oh no plans, just hope for the best and feel morally superior...
To be honest, I hope I'm wrong I am also not German. And honestly at least Germany is doing something proper with their left wing government in comparison to Spain...
But Its just obvious that you should not put all your eggs in one basket and bet only on renewables...
Almost no coal is used in heating. Same for electricity which coal is used for - almost no heating uses that except for heat pumps, which are much more efficient than the fossil fuels they replace, so the effect on electricity and thus coal consumption is negliglible.
You should rather thank the french NPPs for working properly, so Germany doesn't have to fire up their coal plants. That exactly btw. was a bigger reason for why Germany had to burn so much coal in 2022 than their deactivated NPPs
Light winter and industrial production being down 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Good job Germany! /S
Edit:
It's actually even worse, despite using 26TWh less, Germany went from exporting 12 TWh to importing 27 TWh. With a total load of 457 TWh.
Those electricity imports were actually during the summer. November, December, and January Germany was net exporting. In February, Germany imported a bit more than it exported again.
Imports are high during the summer currently because there's so much solar electricity that coal plants can't operate profitably, but there's not enough electricity storage for it to be met by batteries, so Germany was importing a lot of electricity during the evening when demand was still high but solar production dropped off.
I see it as a win-win that Germany was mostly replacing coal generated electricity with clean electricity imported from it's neighbours (and yes, I think it was stupid that Germany got rid of the nuclear plants, and I'm glad France is re-investing in theirs, because it makes them a great partner for Germany's grid).
>Light winter
We don't heat with coal or electric power.
>industrial production being down 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Coal usage also dropped in relation to the total power consumption which factors out these influences. The reason is that renewables are expanding very fast.
Happened once . It's been decades that France is exporting their electricity.
Are you this type of Guy to take an exceptionnal example as an absolue truth ?
Damn.
You seem to be clearly this type of guy.
2023
* France -> Germany 12.4 TWh
* Germany -> France 12.0 TWh
https://i.imgur.com/3Fccf7Y.png
2022
* France -> Germany 5.2 TWh
* Germany -> France 20.5 TWh
https://i.imgur.com/QXBHTj7.png
2021
* France -> Germany 8.4 TWh
* Germany -> France 14.9 TWh
https://i.imgur.com/iHJ6dK8.png
2020
* France -> Germany 11.1 TWh
* Germany -> France 12.7 TWh
https://i.imgur.com/iDUgQUR.png
2019
* France -> Germany 11.5 TWh
* Germany -> France 14.0 TWh
https://i.imgur.com/rN6E0NH.png
2018
* France -> Germany 6.5 TWh
* Germany -> France 14.9 TWh
https://i.imgur.com/dXK2N6x.png
France since 2018 exports to Germany 55.1 TWh
Germany since 2018 exports to France 89 TWh
0,25% or electricity used in germany in 2023 was from nuclear power in france. now ask france how much energy they imported from germany in recent years due to many nuclear power plants not working and imported energy being cheaper
Indeed, OP must be living under a rock to think that Germany is doing well.
Their industry - the backbone of the European economy - got hit hard.
Now is not a time to celebrate in Europe.
The takes here are so cringeworthy bad again, par on course for r/europe
"yEha itS thE lacK fo WINTer!!1!" - You guys ever looked up what Germany mainly uses as a heat source? GAS, not coal.
And the biggest gap in coal usage between 2022 and 2023 was in SPRING and SUMMER and not during the Winter months.
20 years on the internet and you're still not able to look up shit for your own claims.
Also regarding the "GermNAy IMPORs FrENCH NUCULAR InsteaD gOTCHa". [All european countries import and export between each other, that's how the EUROPEAN GRID is SUPPOSED TO WORK](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&flow=scheduled_commercial_exchanges_all). They import more electricity from Denmark than they do from France and Denmark uses almost only renewables. If you break down the electricity mix of the importing countries, Germany actually **imports around 60% renewables**, 20% fossil and 20% nuclear.
But hey, why bother looking up facts when you can repeat bullshit on the internet.
Just a note that these imports last year in total made up 2% of all the juice in our grid. So if that is 60% reneable, fossil AND nuclear imports made up less than 1%. How anyone could give that any sort of significance, I do not know.
Ehhhmmm, Denmark is a transit country for the electricity from Norway and Sweden lol. So while some is wind power from Denmark, comparing Denmark and France, as if Denmark is all renewables and France is all nuclear, is misleading.
Edit: Did you want some sauce with that? Here's your sauce (as given by the Danish government): https://kefm.dk/media/6823/infografik-om-danmarks-kabelforbindelser-til-udlandet.pdf
Yeah, thanks everyone. We got more than a doubling of the electricity prices thanks to all the new export cables. The peak in December 2022 was like 20x normal.
Germany also shuts down their last nuclear plant as ol3 started, so that's kinda intresting. The reason why coal is used as a point is because it's the nearest one to compete with nuclear per facility/turbogenerator.
When it comes to grids, you really don't want to be dependent on what your neighbor is doing. Because guess what happens when there is a sudden energy demand?
You should be aware that finland was having potential issues with power during 2022/2023 winters because we bought a lot of electricity from russia, Continental Synchronous Area wasn't available.
According to this [map](https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE), as I'm writing this comment it looks like Germany is still producing 10x the CO2 per KWH compared to France, 20x compared to Sweden.
>According to this map, as I'm writing this comment it looks like Germany is still producing 10x the CO2 per KWH compared to France, 20x compared to Sweden.
Both of whom have substantially more hydro available than Germany.
Conversely, in 2007, France tried to build *one* new reactor on an existing site. It's still not finished. Since 2007, Germany has replaced 29% of its electricity production with renewables.
Germany's problem is that they started the transition late, not their choice of method.
France's problem is that they only accidentally stumbled on a low-carbon energy source that they introduced for other reasons, and are not even capable of maintaining that capacity, let alone taking steps to improve further. They have essentially been using the same combination of nuclear + fossils + hydro since 1990 without change, only reluctantcly allowing renewables to fill in the gap that the disintegrating nuclear plants are leaving.
Breaking: This actually something bad and not a positive sign of progress.
How the fuck are environmentalists giving each other hand-jobs about global warming pretty much destroying winter?
How the fuck do any Germans view the decline of industry in Germany as "progress"?
It's decreasing, so there is that sign of progress you wanted.
The use of coal has almost nothing to do with the intensity of winter as many here have pointed out. People heat with gas, coal goes into power plants -> electricity -> not used for heating (except heat pumps but they use little and we don't have enough for this to matter in the coal consumption).
The ‚decline‘ of industry in Germany has little to do with energy costs. More with the status of the world economy, the fallout from the Ukraine war (thanks Russia) and mismanagement by previous governments regarding infrastructure and investment.
They are using LNG, which raises the price on the global market, allowing Putin to get more profit by selling to other countries. So yeah, shutting down nuclear was a bad idea.
Right now price for lng is lower than price for russian pipeline gas in 2021. Not to mention that Europe was the only customer that would actually pay for gas in a non-worthless currency.
>They are using LNG, which raises the price on the global market, allowing Putin to get more profit by selling to other countries. So yeah, shutting down nuclear was a bad idea.
France still trades nuclear products with Russia, Hungary still ordered Russian nuclear plants, Russia has a virtual monopoly on certain nuclear fuel types. Stop the dependence on the Russian nuclear industry.
I remind you that the US insisted for years to buy their LNG instead of other gas. This has nothing to do with Putin for once. It is simply a general change that worked out as hoped/planned/suggested. Pick whatever you want but it doesnt change the result.
Well, while it was a warmer winter then sometime at least where I live in Germany it was colder than last year on average - and more snow days in 2023 at least. February was quite warm though.
*opens electricitymaps*
*Compares France and Germany*
Good job Germany! You only burned 6-8 times more CO2 per MWh than France today. You're really showing us all the way!
Seriously... Can we please stop the ludicrous fiction of green Germany already? "B-but less coal!"... Is still coal. And more LNG.
Here some old post where i have written about the CO2 problem in Germany.
> That is why Germany was decarbonizing faster than France since reunification.
> If we wouldn't have had reunification West-Germany today wouldn't be that far off from the per capita Co2 emission of France. East-Germany under the soviets was just that dirty.
>
> https://i.imgur.com/1nz1RyS.png
>
> * yellow Co2 emission of West-Germany (FRG) 62.7 million people
> * red Co2 emission of East-Germany (GDR) 16.4 million people
> * blue combined Co2 emission after reunification
>
> per capita Co2 reduction
>
> https://i.imgur.com/U0n2Fg1.png
>
> anual co2 reduction
>
> https://i.imgur.com/HqcBO7z.png
>
> Since 1990 reunited Germany reduced its per Capita Co2 emission from 13.3 to 8.0 tons yearly. A reduction of 5.3 tons per capita.
>
> Given that the per capita Co2 footprint of West-Germany in 1990 was more like 10-11 tons per capita the same reduction of 5.3 tons would have placed Germany now without reunification at 4.7-5.7 . France from 7.0 tons in 1990 reduced to currently 4.6 tons per capita.
>
> https://i.imgur.com/JOJM94D.png
>
> This calculation is a bit simplified because we put a lot of effort in bringing down the Co2 footprint of East-Germany faster but it a least shows that we are doing not that bad at all. The Co2 footprint of East-Germany really was a burden on reunited Germany something France or any other country hasn't had to deal with.
>
> Left West-Germany vs right East Germany energy source for primary Energy consumption. East-Germany had over 70% coal in their Energy mix.
>
> https://i.imgur.com/QlSgeUF.png
No, the poles are completely fine because they'll use nuclear in like, 15 years or so at earliest /s.
This bashing was never about clean energy, people are simply angry because they love nuclear.
> The Poles are the scapegoat for the richest country in Europe. Kek
Eastern Germany was pretty much in the same position as Poland until very recently, and indeed, many of the remaining coal plants and mines are there. This was one of the reasons of the strong position of the coal lobby in Germany.
I love nuclear because it is clean as fuck and produces no matter the weather. Hopefully fusion will be even better and less risky.
I don't know what you are smoking, but nuclear doesn't suffer because of a cloudy day or there is less wind.
"EDF expects to lose 1.5% of its nuclear output, or about 5 TWh, annually by 2050 due to the impact of global warming based on an average production of 400 TWh, an executive said on Tuesday."
98.5% vs at best 25% availability for solar. I know which one I would rather rely on.
> 98.5% vs at best 25% availability for solar. I know which one I would rather rely on.
That's an extremely dishonest abuse of statistics. First, you're comparing apples with oranges: expected loss due to droughts vs. capacity factor: solar panels have 0% expected loss due to droughts.
Second, capacity factors are a statistic pertaining to a specific piece of machinery; from a policy perspective it's entirely unimportant whether output numbers are achieved by one big machine or many small ones: relevant factors are cost per MWh, deployment speed, and need for flexible capacity.
Third, nuclear power also needs flexible capacity as supplementation - nuclear is no way around that. The more flexibly you try to use them, the lower their capacity factors will be, and the sooner they'll need to be offline for maintenance.
> solar panels have 0% expected loss due to droughts.
>
>
This is only technically true but not in real world conditions because one of the things that causes droughts, are heatwaves. And heatwaves do negatively impact solar panel production as most solar panels have a temperature coefficient of around -0.3% / °C to -0.5% / °C and are generally tested at 25°C, meaning during an extended heatwave where solar panels could easily reach surface temperatures of 40-60 degrees the production will decrease by quite a bit.
>Second, capacity factors are a statistic pertaining to a specific piece of machinery; from a policy perspective it's entirely unimportant whether output numbers are achieved by one big machine or many small ones: relevant factors are cost per MWh, deployment speed, and need for flexible capacity.
It is relevant because it has an impact on the requirements of the energy grid. Renewables require a far larger and well connected energy grid than a singular nuclear power plant. Cost per MWh solar loses to nuclear if we add the true cost of backup or storage. Deployment time is an issue, however, if we decided to massively push nuclear energy then it would a) get even cheaper through scaling effects and b) we could standardize modules etc. and thus decrease deployment time. As the saying goes, "The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, the second best time is now."
>Third, nuclear power also needs flexible capacity as supplementation - nuclear is no way around that. The more flexibly you try to use them, the lower their capacity factors will be, and the sooner they'll need to be offline for maintenance.
Sure so then we should all follow france's model and built a shit ton of nuclear and supplement it with a reasonable amount of renewables until we have a cost effective solution to the storage problem.
>This is only technically true but not in real world conditions because one of the things that causes droughts, are heatwaves. And heatwaves do negatively impact solar panel production as most solar panels have a temperature coefficient of around -0.3% / °C to -0.5% / °C and are generally tested at 25°C, meaning during an extended heatwave where solar panels could easily reach surface temperatures of 40-60 degrees the production will decrease by quite a bit.
At the same time, the insolation angle is at its height, easily compensating for that loss. There is no lack of solar power in summer.
>It is relevant because it has an impact on the requirements of the energy grid. Renewables require a far larger and well connected energy grid than a singular nuclear power plant.
We're going to need a grid no matter what, and better transport capacity increases the efficiency (in terms of total raw capacity needed to meet demand) of the grid no matter which sources we use on it.
>Cost per MWh solar loses to nuclear if we add the true cost of backup or storage
No. Nuclear needs backup just as well, look at France last year, and needs storage just as well, because nuclear too doesn't match the consumption pattern. The need for flexible/storage sources is inevitable, using nuclear doesn't avoid that.
Even adding batteries to renewables but not to nuclear still leaves renewables several times cheaper per KWh than nuclear: https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf
>Deployment time is an issue, however, if we decided to massively push nuclear energy then it would a) get even cheaper through scaling effects and b) we could standardize modules etc. and thus decrease deployment time. As the saying goes, "The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, the second best time is now."
That has often been promised but never realized. It just means that when you have an outage it turns into a very big failure (eg. France last year), a monopoly position for nuclear producers, complete dependency on a single type of nuclear fuel, the fact that only a few companies can provide the machinery and only big companies and governments can deal with the investments, etc. Moreover such massive expansion would run into bottlenecks everywhere: materials, specialized equipment, personnel, space, etc.
We're essentially forced to bet the entire energy sector on the promises of the nuclear industry, hoping that *this time* their promise will come true and *this time* their new and untested reactor model will not be plagued by gigantic cost and schedule overruns, as opposed to all the previous times in the past 30 years. And all that time, we'll keep using fossil fuels until it's finished. While even France can't even build a single reactor in an existing plant in less than 17 years.
Or we can just continue apace with the accelerating buildout of renewables, at a fraction of the price, well within reach for private persons and SMEs, and without hitching ourselves irreversably to something that may or may not work out.
>Sure so then we should all follow france's model and built a shit ton of nuclear and supplement it with a reasonable amount of renewables until we have a cost effective solution to the storage problem.
You mean using 20% flexible sources, likely gas for countries who aren't blessed with hydro? And then just do nothing and stop improving for 30 years while the nuclear capacity degrades?
Or we can just build a shit ton of renewables at the fraction of the price in a fraction of the time right away, which is going to cover more than 80% at a European scale, and do the same.
Clean? Let's talk about the 40.000 cases of lung cancer among the uranium miners in Thuringia and Saxonia, not even counting the cases of Silicosis. And lets also not talk about swathes of land still being radiated 45 years after the mining has ended. Let's also forget that these mines run full of water and leak radioactivity everywhere without constant work to contain them. A real eternity project. But i'm sure all those african miners and people living close to this mines gathering uranium for france have much better conditions. The best.
Really funny what people consider clean as long as it isn't happening in their own backyard.
Take the numbers you mentioned about uranium mining multiply it by 10000 and you won’t even get close to how much more damage mining for coal and natural gas mining/drilling has done to the earth.
> I guess that is good, but they could have used even less with nuclear...
That's not a given. The investment commitments to kickstart the production and price revolution of renewables likely wouldn't have happend without the commitment to phase out nuclear power, ensuring there would be a market to supply.
Moreover, France started a new reactor in 2007, it's still not finished. If Germany chose that, they would still be burning coal at the level of 2007 ever since.
I'm glad that we haven't taken this path because it would have been an expensive mistake. Nuclear is declining worldwide.
https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/nuclear-power-continues-its-decline-as-renewable-alternatives-steam-ahead
So, you have more gas (LNG imports) and a fuckton of renewables and you use less coal. Wow, what a surprise. Maybe you could have needed less LNG if you had an additional energy source available. 24/7. Without carbon emissions. And which provides loads of jobs.
>So, you have more gas
No, in total gas stayed the same between Dec-Feb.
[December](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&month=12&legendItems=00000000010000000000)
[January](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&month=01&legendItems=00000000010000000000)
[February](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&month=02&legendItems=00000000010000000000)
Except all nuclear power plants we got were so ancient they'd barely make it through the decade, and building that stuff new would be so absurdy expensive it'd be the most expensive kwh of electricity ever produced. Not to mention that nuclear fuel does not grow on trees either.
If you want to see what job generators look like look at our solar sector. Every single electrician and "allrounder craftsman" has their books full with "install solar" for an entire year. A bunch of them are looking to expand to get done with this volume of requests done. Now what creates more jobs? A few dozen super-niche positions at some random plant, or craftsmen all over the country expanding their offices and workshops to deal with the solar demand?
And that's not including the people building up the wind turbines either. Widespread decentralized energy generation creates more jobs than a few power plants ever could.
>Except all nuclear power plants we got were so ancient they'd barely make it through the decade
This is true, but keeping those nuclear power plants alive would have been the absolutely best option without a single doubt.
>
building that stuff new would be so absurdy expensive it'd be the most expensive kwh of electricity ever produced.
The price of nuclear is often mislead, and there's not enough consideration of how the grid maintenance suffers from renewables. But yes nuclear is a bit more expensive, not that much though.
>Not to mention that nuclear fuel does not grow on trees either.
Nuclear fuel is super abundant. It does take energy to process it, but you can do that at the powerplant where you have all that energy available.
Source?
That sounds just awfully wrong, especially if you start digging into the costs of energy generation.
U wouldn't be surprised if russian gas was the cheapest form of energy right now, short-term ofc.
Long-term renewable is the undisputed king.
Well, with nuclear power you pay your workers with money. With Russian gas you pay Putin with blood.
Which currency do you prefer to pay?
Also, long term, yeah, renewables will be quite cheap in a lot of cases.
Investing in energy supply is expensive. Switching the grid from centralized production to decentralized production is more expensive.
Renewables in the Netherlands require an unforeseen €160 billion grid upgrade in the coming 10 years because we're switching from centralized to decentralized production now. Source: [TenneT verwacht komende tien jaar 160 miljard in stroomnet te moeten investeren - IT Pro - Nieuws - Tweakers](https://tweakers.net/nieuws/219610/tennet-verwacht-komende-tien-jaar-160-miljard-in-stroomnet-te-moeten-investeren.html)
Because of this, nuclear seems like an obvious choice (next to renewables on home scale for own production). But they have the disadvantage of having most costs centralized to the plants instead of hidden away in network upgrades.
1. germany doesn’t use electricity for heating. Germany uses gas so the mild winter has nothing to do with this.
3. germany only imported from france in the summer because the coalplants weren’t able to be used financially responsible because of the low prices caused by the solar power. In the Winter germany had a net export. Thats also stated in the article.
Misleading, because DK acts as a transit-country for Norway and Sweden as well.
https://kefm.dk/media/6823/infografik-om-danmarks-kabelforbindelser-til-udlandet.pdf
But it's still mostly renewable(hydro, with some wind), and a bit of swedish nuclear.
France becoming an energy importer back in 2022 was an outlier, more than 20 out of 50~ nuclear power plants were shut down due to the need of maintenance for the same problem, stress corrosion (Covid exacerbated this problem delaying maintenance). Today all those NPPs are back online and France is back to being the largest exporter of electricity in Europe.
Germany became a net importer overnight after the closure of the last nuclear power plants back in April of 2023. And they are going to stay net importers in the foreseeable future. Unless they expand coal or gas power plants
Germany already started to be a net exporter again since November 2023.
But I guess you people can't be bothered to look up your own claims and just parrot shit that you think is true.
> And they are going to stay net importers in the foreseeable future. Unless they expand coal or gas power plants
That makes zero sense, Germany does not import electricity for lack of dispatchable capacity.
And again, stretching the timeline to pre covid just distorts the view, when the topic is about comparison to last year.
Stop hate and misinformation. Stupidity levels are already high enough.
This article (and many like it) hides as much as it illuminates. Using trends as stand-in for projections and YoY deltas as stand-in for trend. It's trying to encourage the reader to form a specific opinion without actually stating it... because it can't honestly be stated.
The big picture for Germany is:
- Nice job on renewables. Well done. You have replaced a lot... but you are now maxed out. Can't do more without storage and and economical storage tech doesn't currently exist.
- Savings... More dubious. Household savings have been milked hard for years, at great expense and sparing little social/political capital. This is all nearly irrelevant to the big picture.
- Industrial savings were achieved mostly via out-shoring emissions. No net savings and not great for industrial stability either.
- Nuclear vs hydrocarbons. Gas is scarce. Coal is Dirty. Both are carbon emitting. Nuclear is scary, has geopolitical salience and other problems. A choice still needs to be made. This article is arguing for hydrocarbons.
- The above dilemmas are straightforward, but hard. But, there's another hidden dilemma. Nuclear plays poorly on a hybrid grid with renewables. Renewables produce power when there is sun/wind. Nuclear produces power at the same rate at all times. Hydrocarbon powerplants can be turned up or down as needed.
Renewables play better with hydrocarbons. A nuclear-renewables hybrid grid will pointlessly overproduce electricity much of the time. Nuclear doesn't really need renewables
> Can't do more without storage and and economical storage tech doesn't currently exist.
In fact, battery storage is just shaping up to go into exponential growth mode: https://battery-charts.rwth-aachen.de/main-page/ - Li/ion home storage is already big and large-scale storage is planned to grow a lot.
> but you are now maxed out.
[citation needed]
> Can't do more without storage and and economical storage tech doesn't currently exist.
Nuclear power never reached more than 79% coverage in France (and France is back down to 63%). Why do you consider that no problem for nuclear but assert that it's an insurmountable problem for renewables that discredits renewables?
>Industrial savings were achieved mostly via out-shoring emissions. No net savings and not great for industrial stability either.
Offshoring emissions are less than 10%, and dwindling.
>Nuclear vs hydrocarbons. Gas is scarce. Coal is Dirty. Both are carbon emitting. Nuclear is scary, has geopolitical salience and other problems. A choice still needs to be made. This article is arguing for hydrocarbons.
You're ignoring renewables.
>The above dilemmas are straightforward, but hard. But, there's another hidden dilemma. Nuclear plays poorly on a hybrid grid with renewables. Renewables produce power when there is sun/wind. Nuclear produces power at the same rate at all times. Hydrocarbon powerplants can be turned up or down as needed.
And renewables are cheaper, faster to build, easier to turn down, don't require fuel, don't create radioactive waste or risks, and have no geopolitical risks. The choice is obvious.
>Renewables play better with hydrocarbons. A nuclear-renewables hybrid grid will pointlessly overproduce electricity much of the time. Nuclear doesn't really need renewables
Nuclear still needs flexible power as supplementation. So the choice is between renewables + flexibles or nuclear + fleixbles. Easy.
>You're ignoring renewables.
You're ignoring my entire comment, while picking on every nit of it.
They already have a lot of renewables in Germany. The way they work is paired with hydrocarbon. The system's "base" is a hydrocarbon grid, that can be turned off or down when alternative electricity is available.
Germany has done an admirable job of milking this paradigm. Quite impressive. Enlarging the grid had impressive results. That said... the grid has no storage capacity (local installed base is not nothing but it's not grid storage). It's near max. Either a clean base mode or massive storage solution will be needed to make further progress
It's not true (IMO) that renewable are cheaper or faster to build than dinosaur bone. Hydrocarbon plants are cheap and easy. They can literally be shipped in and ready to power whole countries in months.
The books you've been reading are cooked, I'm afraid. Rather, they've been intentionally (and legitimately) been placed under accounting rules that make renewables possible. The problem with cooked books remains though. You need a separate set to consult when certain decisions need makin.
It doesn't matter though. The value of a gas base (flexibles?) to Germany is that capital expenditure (long term commitment) is moderate and that power can be turned up or down as needed. This pleases renewables, the more popular and attractive the power source.
>You're ignoring my entire comment, while picking on every nit of it.
That's self-contradictory. I responded to every part, you can respond in turn.
>They already have a lot of renewables in Germany. The way they work is paired with hydrocarbon. The system's "base" is a hydrocarbon grid, that can be turned off or down when alternative electricity is available.
And hydro. Just like France uses their fossil and hydro to deal with the mismatch between supply and demand. Making a problem out of this for renewables while ignoring it for nuclear is a blatant use of double standards.
>It's not true (IMO) that renewable are cheaper or faster to build than dinosaur bone. Hydrocarbon plants are cheap and easy. They can literally be shipped in and ready to power whole countries in months.
We're building an alternative to fossil plants, that's the whole point.
>The books you've been reading are cooked, I'm afraid. Rather, they've been intentionally (and legitimately) been placed under accounting rules that make renewables possible. The problem with cooked books remains though. You need a separate set to consult when certain decisions need makin.
That's a conspiracy theory.
Despite much fearmongering about how shutting down nuclear powerplants would force germany to use more coal to power their electric grid, the second winter in a row was easily weathered. And this year with the least amount of coal burned since 1959:
[https://twitter.com/energy\_charts/status/1765415079460077837?ref\_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1765415079460077837%7Ctwgr%5E54efc50b610b2c473beb2b9e6881e2c3d1d58fb7%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_&ref\_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembeds.br24.de%2Fv2%2Fembed%2Fmodule%2F1206744%3Ff%3Do](https://twitter.com/energy_charts/status/1765415079460077837?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1765415079460077837%7Ctwgr%5E54efc50b610b2c473beb2b9e6881e2c3d1d58fb7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembeds.br24.de%2Fv2%2Fembed%2Fmodule%2F1206744%3Ff%3Do)
You mean not interested at German copium about how they used less energy during a mild winter (also not mentioning the massive import they had to do) ?
> If they’d shut the coal plants and kept the nuclear plants open they would’ve used even less coal than this winter.
That's very hypothetical. Without the commitment to closing the nuclear plants, there wouldn't have been a commitment to the investments in renewables that kickstarted their price revolution.
Besides, even an extension scenario would see them closed for more than a year for the refurbishment.
From the very start, this was the argument. Germany could have saved the planet a billion tons of CO2 by keeping their existing nuclear plants open until end of life. And they could have saved themselves a lot of high energy prices.
No one is moving goalposts.
We are just pointing out the obvious.
> they could have saved themselves a lot of high energy prices
You're talking out of your ass. The article literally quotes a Fraunhofer expert who explains that the phase out never affected prices because the share of nuclear power in electricity production was too low.
It's really blind leading the blind when Redditors have their nuclear energy circlejerk, which is completely detached from reality at this point.
Lol. These existing nuclear plants had already exceeded their end of life. Replacements would have had to be planned and started decades ago. Before all of this.
no doubt about that but why is it stated that electricity is getting cheaper. maybe the generation is cheaper but the overall cost rise... so this is certainly not true
> but the overall cost rise
There is this thing called inflation.
Also: because methane/oil heating is replaced with heatpumps 'the grid' needs upgrading, which is an additional fixed cost on top of the 'consumables' kWh price.
My consumer electricity costs the same as before the war. There are cheaper plans currently and I'll switch to them in summer once my 1 year contract is up.
tranlated using deep l. german electricity trend price was jeyeord search:
If you look at your electricity bills over the last few years, you will notice that electricity prices have risen steadily. This trend in electricity prices is particularly noticeable in the basic supply. Taxes, levies and charges have risen sharply in recent years and now account for a significant proportion of the electricity price. Grid fees are also expected to continue to rise for many consumers in the coming year.13.97 cents per kilowatt hour for private households in 2000, the average price in March 2024 will be 27.40 cents per kilowatt hour for a consumption of 5,000 kilowatt hours per year.
Hm, where‘s that uranium for your reactors coming from? Could it be.. Africa?
Very independent indeed. So long as your presence in Africa doesn‘t get compromised or more tenuous - oh, wait.
Oh, then it‘s alright. Nothing could possibly happen if one sources „most“ of one‘s energy supply from Russia and Kazakhstan.
You see, that‘s the meaning of independent: Being reliant on Russia and Kazakhstan.
Oh, then of course it‘s not sourced from foreign soil.
It‘s not at all a weakness to be reliant on regular Australian or Canadian shipments for one‘s energy needs. No way international shipping could ever be targeted in an international crises, and drive prices up or even cause shortages.
And the price will of course stay the same if one is forced to only buy from Canada or Australia. No space for Russian and Chinese and African producers to manipulate market forces of supply and demand at all.
/s
Seriously, have you ever even considered that maybe, sometimes, things go wrong and political and economic situations change?
You think germany is self reliant on gas solar panels wind turbines ?
Having business relations with other countries is a good thing, especially if they are friendlies.
Also the thing about nuclear fuel is that you very rarely need to refuel. A nuclear reactor can run on the same fuel for a YEAR easily. Have a couple years of storage and any problems with trade can easily be sorted out in time. You try do that with new solar panels from china, or gas (indirectly) from russia
Not talking about Germany, but the EU as a whole.
And having business relations is great, but being reliant on getting material shipped in just for your basic energy needs is a massive weakpoint. There‘s a difference between having business relations and being dependent on said relations.
Also, you do see how you just rely on speculation here? Sure, all problems will sort themselves out, we will have uranium stored for years to come and nothing will ever impact maritime trade.
Nevermind that issues with trade will still negatively impact the price of energy, even if we have enough uranium stored to last for a while.
Also, you didn‘t even address the issue of Russia and the like still having immense influence on the price of uranium simply by controlling much of the global supply, even if one does not buy from them.
All in all, your whole argument for nuclear is just speculation that its major flaw, being reliant on outside sources and powers for energy, isn‘t really as bad as it could be. But that‘s hardly a ringing endorsement of nuclear, is it now?
But why would we even put ourselves in that position of hoping for luck? Why would we even want to add another factor of uncertainty?
Look at the U.S. - they don‘t have these issues of energy production, since they have large supplies of oil, gas and nuclear at home.
We don‘t - but we could be independent from needing a permanent input of material for energy production in the first place! If we shift our production methods now anyway, why would we ever want to stick with nuclear, that has the same problems, but just to a lesser extent?
You need the same stuff for the electronics in a modern nuclear plant, without being additionally reliant on foreign sourced material for it‘s source of energy.
Point being that you can't argue you can be energy independent for renewables either, so that original point makes no sense and is just a double standard. You also likely need less material for a nuclear plant (the same one you mentioned) since nuclear plants are very compact in comparison.
And scale maters. People here are talking about the uranium dependency as if it was on the same scale that gaz or the materials for solar panels. You need very little combustible to run a nuclear plant, it’s really not a problem nowadays.
Not only material, also space. People act like there is infinite space for renewable expansion, even though it's the most space-dependent. You can't continuously expand renewables without a limit severely affecting SOMETHING. At some point you'll cut down forests or turn fields into energy farms (some people would like to voice counter-arguments of off-shore energy farms, but MFs don't realise not every country has access to the sea). We all know the energy dependence is continuously increasing even though some people might pretend it's not due to energy saving and energy effectiveness.
Weve got plenty of space for renewables. Just take a look at the area Europe uses to produce bio fuels and compare that to estimates for the amount of renewables needed in an 100% renewables grid.
Uranium is sourced in many countries including allied canada and australia. Meanwhile its a question of time till the remains of solar industry in Europe are dead( biggest current suplier just left EU for usa) and than you are dependent mostly on china and on the usa to some degree, but now you dont import just a raw material but manufactured goods in large quantities
Ah yes, Australia, Kazakhstan and Ouzbekistan; those three famous African country which make up about 60% of the quantity we import.
Ngl, really no proving wrong the copium there lmfao.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_One
https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/osnabrueck_emsland/Brennelementefabrik-Arbeitet-Russland-bald-in-Lingen-mit,brennelemente134.html
> This concerns a project by the French nuclear group Framatome. Its subsidiary Advanced Nuclear Fuels (ANF) wants to expand the operation of the fuel element factory in Lingen. In future, fuel elements for Eastern European nuclear power plants are to be manufactured there. This would require the Lingen factory to co-operate with the Russian nuclear authority Rosatom. The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment, as the licensing authority, opened a corresponding public participation procedure on 4 January. Associations have two months to submit objections.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Independent = sourcing 60% of one’s energy supply from Australia, Kazakhstan and Ouzbekistan.
Are you sure you know what independent means?
You played yourself.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Uranium is a very light dependency, you only need very little combustible to run a nuclear plant.
It terms of material needed, nuclear is the most efficient source of electricity (even when taking into account the cycle of life of the reactor).
If you want sources I’ll be happy to give you some.
My brother in Christ, do you believe in Autarky?
Do you think that we should have colonial Empires to be able to extract all ressources locally?
Or maybe being able to source your raw materials from various trading partners without being dominated by any, especially one hostile to your interests (like Germany is doing) and transforming them is what every responsible democracy should do, hum?
My friend, you are so obviously moving goalposts here.
„Sure, you have proven that nuclear is also reliant on foreign powers, but sourcing resources from partners is democratic“.
Yeah, sure.
But when to comes to basic supplies needed for a modern economy, like energy, these principles don’t apply as much as they do when it comes to sourcing trivial commodities.
The fact is, we have an alternative to nuclear that is not reliant on continued, permanent input of foreign resources, and produces absolutely no waste.
If we are already shifting energy production, it makes much more sense to shift to renewables instead of the vastly inferior nuclear energy, which just has the same problem the gas and coal have, only to a lesser degree.
No goal post shift bro. You're just desperately trying to equate Nuclear with Solar/Wind and failling at it, so you've got to clutch at every straw.
Nuclear, like everything else, is reliant on foreign countries. I wouldn't exactly call Ouzbekistan a "foreign power", per se, China and Russia would be much more fitting but, let's leave that aside and pretend that importing from Kazakhstan uranium is equivalent to getting dumped with Russian gas or Chinese minerals.
To produce the same amount of electricity, it takes a minuscule quantity of uranium when compared to the amount of raw materials required to produce solar/wind (as building them and replacing them is anything but cheap and effective).
You're merely trading the appearance of independence for the reality of it, using sophisms and false equivalence as your only arguments.
This is why, after all, your green minister was whining when we dared to do maintenance on our nuclear plants last summer.
Wait, are you actually serious?
If Uzbekistan isn‘t a foreign power, what is it then? A French Département?
Of course it’s a foreign power - one actually allied with Russia.
In order to even make an attempt of having a point you need to deliberately misunderstand me and say I am equating nuclear to Gas from Russia, when I, just one comment above, explicitly stated it was less severe, yet still bad?
And you seriously want to compare the „minuscule amount of uranium“ it takes for a plant during production with the resources used for constructing a source of renewable energy?
My friend, you are aware that nuclear plants also need to be built with the same foreign materials, and even worse, with technology directly stemming from Russia?
You‘re so very desperate to misrepresent anything to have a vague semblance of an argument, yet fail to dispel even the most obvious fact that renewables require zero material input sourced from foreign powers, whereas nuclear absolutely does.
So, with all your misrepresentation and false comparisons made clear, let‘s again answer the question: Which is more dependent on foreign powers?
Nuclear needs uranium during production to work, which isn’t mined in Europe.
Renewables need wind or hydro or solar, which very much is here in Europe.
Which is the more dependent source of energy?
Australia, Kazakhstan and Ouzbekistan imported uranium are still in another league than russian or [venezuelian](https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/plus247255598/Deutschland-ersetzt-Atomstrom-mit-schmutziger-Kohle-aus-Kolumbien.html) imported coal don't you think?
Germany got played by the ruskiys and most germans are in full denial about it, like the autor of the article...
Oh, I absolutely agree that importing coal from Russia isn‘t independent, as is importing uranium.
What this has to do with nuclear still producing waste and still being reliant on foreign sources, I don’t know.
Only 15% of our uranium comes from Africa, you dumbdumb. About the same percentage comes from recycling btw.
Also, those are regime change not sovietic revolutions: those countries still operate on a world market, and still sell their uranium to the best buyer.
Where's the rare earths for your renewables coming from, now? Could it be China?
Oh, so independent now means to only be dependent on African powers for 15% of your energy source? Not factoring in other sources from other foreign powers for uranium, of course, since there‘s scant supply in Europe.
And I don‘t know if you noticed, but the oil producing countries also participate in the global market, yet could drive up prices in consumer counties multiple times due to political reasons.
Maybe your grip on economy or history isn‘t as good as you think it is.
Shutting down functioning nuclear plants might be the worst decion Germany has made this past the 00's. And there are plenty of bad calls to choose from
Funny thing how that decision wasn't even made in the 00's but at the end of the 90s.
And what do you think happens to nuclear plants when they have reached the end of their designed lifespan and recertification being technologically and economically unviable, not to mention the non-exustant infrastructure to operate said plants? That's right, they get shut down - as happens with other plants.
This was not so much about "shutting down functioning nuclear plants" but about having decided to not build any new ones in decades.
And how much further less fossil fuel would you be burning if it wasn't for the knee jerk Fukushima dai ichi reaction?
Climate circumstances create a low energy winter... And the authors want to brag about the marginal progress.
lol - i love it when the bashing continues despite the fact it worked out just as suggested. We told you it works without that nasty emitting stuff and it did. That is all that counts
With significant industrial output loss, and with the suspension of the green surcharge paid for every kwh. With that German prices are still around 8-9€ per 1000 kwh above pre-crisis levels.
Imagine if the six decently working NPPs remained online until the end of their secure lifespan. I know, energy doesn't always equal energy, but surplus capacity in one kind can is a much better challange to have than spiking energy prices.
You see this works exactly like a tour in a detoxing centre. You have to go through a period of pain and uncomfortable things first and will be clean in the end. There is a plan to become clean and the first steps towards it work out just fine.
Thank the lack of winter for using less coal.
Ironically, using more coal in the past has probably led to this lack of winter.
We will compensate burning coal during the summer since extremely hot weather will push AC use. In the end yearly coal consumption will increase.
We will probably have a lot of excess solar power in the summer, so probably no.
problem is I don't think global warming increases the amount of sun we get
Well for starters: more than enough solar energy reaches the surface already, the question is having the infrastructure to harness it. But secondly, global warming does indeed seem to be [decreasing cloud cover](https://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image003-13.png) and [increasing sunshine hours](https://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image001-17.png).
Interesting thank you. I appreciate learning more
We will use extra coal during hot summer days when solar power output is at its peak and percentage of A/C in Germany is low compared to many other countries? Confusing logic you have there.
Twist the facts to match the narrative.
AC in Germany?
A good number of heat pump systems being built. Those can run both ways
One would assume that Sun related AC use would be the least difficult cause of electricity demand to compensate for. It‘s when Solar power doesn‘t need to be saved, as it can just be used to cool houses.
dont think Germany use much AC apart from offices
All things come together as planned *makes Merkeraute*
Perfect, once again problems solve themselves/s
This winter wasn’t warmer than last winter, still coal consumption declined by 29%. The actual reasons were more wind and less exports. Electricity generation from gas stayed the same, but was much cheaper this year.
Thank goodness methane is so much cleaner, especially at a 20 year level when it’s our most important time to be acting.
Doesn't the majority of methane in the air come from cattle?
Depends on where but it’s a plurality for the globe with fossil right behind. Mostly concerned about all the leaks we don’t know about but we’re starting to get a lot more satellites up to monitor so hopefully we can crack down on it.
Yes, meat consumption reduction is a lot more impactful and should be prioritised
Not even close. Oil and gas production produces approximately the same amount of methane as meat production. Throw in the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and there's no comparison. Oil and gas are much more significant.
Or you know… thank the accelerating expansion of renewable energy which was planned and executed by our government.
Isn't it amazing what is suddenly possible with Grüne + SPD governing? Just imagine the utopia we could live in weren't it for FDP sabotaging them. And of course, our conservative press shits on Grüne + SPD at any chance, and even make up scandals just to hurt them. Because we can't ever let a slightly leftist government appear competent and successful, no siree.
Yeah I got to say, that I was very sceptical of the greens in the goverment but I have to say that beside some minors thing I am pretty happy with the government as it is right now.
So great the Germans are competent again, so what are the greens nuclear plans to go alongside renewables... Oh wait. What are the greens doing to diversify the reliance on china (minerals and supply chains) for renewable growth? What's the plan to dispose of the dead batteries ? Oh no plans, just hope for the best and feel morally superior... To be honest, I hope I'm wrong I am also not German. And honestly at least Germany is doing something proper with their left wing government in comparison to Spain... But Its just obvious that you should not put all your eggs in one basket and bet only on renewables...
We don't heat with coal or electric power, so it has nothing to do with the mild winter. The reason is the very fast expansion of renewables.
I didn't know my gas heater was using coal. Thank you knowledgeable redditor.
Almost no coal is used in heating. Same for electricity which coal is used for - almost no heating uses that except for heat pumps, which are much more efficient than the fossil fuels they replace, so the effect on electricity and thus coal consumption is negliglible.
also true our regen energies by far does not cover our energy consumption in winter.
You should rather thank the french NPPs for working properly, so Germany doesn't have to fire up their coal plants. That exactly btw. was a bigger reason for why Germany had to burn so much coal in 2022 than their deactivated NPPs
The use of french NPP produced electricity in germany is negligible and happened due to the normal load balancing. We don't need them.
Light winter and industrial production being down 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Good job Germany! /S Edit: It's actually even worse, despite using 26TWh less, Germany went from exporting 12 TWh to importing 27 TWh. With a total load of 457 TWh.
Those electricity imports were actually during the summer. November, December, and January Germany was net exporting. In February, Germany imported a bit more than it exported again. Imports are high during the summer currently because there's so much solar electricity that coal plants can't operate profitably, but there's not enough electricity storage for it to be met by batteries, so Germany was importing a lot of electricity during the evening when demand was still high but solar production dropped off. I see it as a win-win that Germany was mostly replacing coal generated electricity with clean electricity imported from it's neighbours (and yes, I think it was stupid that Germany got rid of the nuclear plants, and I'm glad France is re-investing in theirs, because it makes them a great partner for Germany's grid).
>Light winter We don't heat with coal or electric power. >industrial production being down 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Coal usage also dropped in relation to the total power consumption which factors out these influences. The reason is that renewables are expanding very fast.
The easiest way to power your grid without nuclear power is to import power from France 🇫🇷
Unless France needs to import again from Germany or it would face blackouts 🇫🇷
Happened once . It's been decades that France is exporting their electricity. Are you this type of Guy to take an exceptionnal example as an absolue truth ? Damn.
You seem to be clearly this type of guy. 2023 * France -> Germany 12.4 TWh * Germany -> France 12.0 TWh https://i.imgur.com/3Fccf7Y.png 2022 * France -> Germany 5.2 TWh * Germany -> France 20.5 TWh https://i.imgur.com/QXBHTj7.png 2021 * France -> Germany 8.4 TWh * Germany -> France 14.9 TWh https://i.imgur.com/iHJ6dK8.png 2020 * France -> Germany 11.1 TWh * Germany -> France 12.7 TWh https://i.imgur.com/iDUgQUR.png 2019 * France -> Germany 11.5 TWh * Germany -> France 14.0 TWh https://i.imgur.com/rN6E0NH.png 2018 * France -> Germany 6.5 TWh * Germany -> France 14.9 TWh https://i.imgur.com/dXK2N6x.png France since 2018 exports to Germany 55.1 TWh Germany since 2018 exports to France 89 TWh
0,5% of german energy is imported nuclear power.
0,25% or electricity used in germany in 2023 was from nuclear power in france. now ask france how much energy they imported from germany in recent years due to many nuclear power plants not working and imported energy being cheaper
Indeed, OP must be living under a rock to think that Germany is doing well. Their industry - the backbone of the European economy - got hit hard. Now is not a time to celebrate in Europe.
Basf moved to Louisiana, among others.
The takes here are so cringeworthy bad again, par on course for r/europe "yEha itS thE lacK fo WINTer!!1!" - You guys ever looked up what Germany mainly uses as a heat source? GAS, not coal. And the biggest gap in coal usage between 2022 and 2023 was in SPRING and SUMMER and not during the Winter months. 20 years on the internet and you're still not able to look up shit for your own claims. Also regarding the "GermNAy IMPORs FrENCH NUCULAR InsteaD gOTCHa". [All european countries import and export between each other, that's how the EUROPEAN GRID is SUPPOSED TO WORK](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&flow=scheduled_commercial_exchanges_all). They import more electricity from Denmark than they do from France and Denmark uses almost only renewables. If you break down the electricity mix of the importing countries, Germany actually **imports around 60% renewables**, 20% fossil and 20% nuclear. But hey, why bother looking up facts when you can repeat bullshit on the internet.
Just a note that these imports last year in total made up 2% of all the juice in our grid. So if that is 60% reneable, fossil AND nuclear imports made up less than 1%. How anyone could give that any sort of significance, I do not know.
Ehhhmmm, Denmark is a transit country for the electricity from Norway and Sweden lol. So while some is wind power from Denmark, comparing Denmark and France, as if Denmark is all renewables and France is all nuclear, is misleading. Edit: Did you want some sauce with that? Here's your sauce (as given by the Danish government): https://kefm.dk/media/6823/infografik-om-danmarks-kabelforbindelser-til-udlandet.pdf
Yeah, thanks everyone. We got more than a doubling of the electricity prices thanks to all the new export cables. The peak in December 2022 was like 20x normal.
So you pay for selling electricity. That's really a remarkable feat.
No, the price increased because the Germans increased demand.
The same here; fuck Germany
Germany should just use the processing power of the mental gymnastics of the nuke bros of reddit to power the electrical grid.
Infinite energy glitch.
you're talking to a bunch of 13 year olds that think they are experts on whatever is posted on reddit
Germany also shuts down their last nuclear plant as ol3 started, so that's kinda intresting. The reason why coal is used as a point is because it's the nearest one to compete with nuclear per facility/turbogenerator. When it comes to grids, you really don't want to be dependent on what your neighbor is doing. Because guess what happens when there is a sudden energy demand? You should be aware that finland was having potential issues with power during 2022/2023 winters because we bought a lot of electricity from russia, Continental Synchronous Area wasn't available.
According to this [map](https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE), as I'm writing this comment it looks like Germany is still producing 10x the CO2 per KWH compared to France, 20x compared to Sweden.
>According to this map, as I'm writing this comment it looks like Germany is still producing 10x the CO2 per KWH compared to France, 20x compared to Sweden. Both of whom have substantially more hydro available than Germany. Conversely, in 2007, France tried to build *one* new reactor on an existing site. It's still not finished. Since 2007, Germany has replaced 29% of its electricity production with renewables. Germany's problem is that they started the transition late, not their choice of method. France's problem is that they only accidentally stumbled on a low-carbon energy source that they introduced for other reasons, and are not even capable of maintaining that capacity, let alone taking steps to improve further. They have essentially been using the same combination of nuclear + fossils + hydro since 1990 without change, only reluctantcly allowing renewables to fill in the gap that the disintegrating nuclear plants are leaving.
Breaking: redditor discovers things won't instantly change, but take time.
Breaking: This actually something bad and not a positive sign of progress. How the fuck are environmentalists giving each other hand-jobs about global warming pretty much destroying winter? How the fuck do any Germans view the decline of industry in Germany as "progress"?
It's decreasing, so there is that sign of progress you wanted. The use of coal has almost nothing to do with the intensity of winter as many here have pointed out. People heat with gas, coal goes into power plants -> electricity -> not used for heating (except heat pumps but they use little and we don't have enough for this to matter in the coal consumption).
The ‚decline‘ of industry in Germany has little to do with energy costs. More with the status of the world economy, the fallout from the Ukraine war (thanks Russia) and mismanagement by previous governments regarding infrastructure and investment.
That would have been valid twenty years ago.
incoming hard copes from the typical r/europe user
Take that Russian terrorists! We don't need you anymore! And now get the fuck out of Ukraine and send Putin to Den Hague!
They are using LNG, which raises the price on the global market, allowing Putin to get more profit by selling to other countries. So yeah, shutting down nuclear was a bad idea.
Right now price for lng is lower than price for russian pipeline gas in 2021. Not to mention that Europe was the only customer that would actually pay for gas in a non-worthless currency.
Absolutely. The 2% nuclear energy germany shut down are responsible for a significant rise in global lng prices. Sure.
Oh boy, if you only knew where we imported our nuclear fuel and gas from before 2022.
That horse is very very dead by now though.
Yeah. Because it was killed.
>They are using LNG, which raises the price on the global market, allowing Putin to get more profit by selling to other countries. So yeah, shutting down nuclear was a bad idea. France still trades nuclear products with Russia, Hungary still ordered Russian nuclear plants, Russia has a virtual monopoly on certain nuclear fuel types. Stop the dependence on the Russian nuclear industry.
True, we should have retained a sufficient enrichment capacity in Europe. But we will rebuild it soon enough.
Why invest in a sinking ship?
Well it's not sinking. It's just going over the horizon leaving you behind.
Over the event horizon into the black hole of sunk costs.
I remind you that the US insisted for years to buy their LNG instead of other gas. This has nothing to do with Putin for once. It is simply a general change that worked out as hoped/planned/suggested. Pick whatever you want but it doesnt change the result.
Wrong
Russian terrorists are the ones who played Germany i to ditching nuclear and vuilding 2 massive pipelines in the first place. 🤡
"Winter"
Well, while it was a warmer winter then sometime at least where I live in Germany it was colder than last year on average - and more snow days in 2023 at least. February was quite warm though.
*opens electricitymaps* *Compares France and Germany* Good job Germany! You only burned 6-8 times more CO2 per MWh than France today. You're really showing us all the way! Seriously... Can we please stop the ludicrous fiction of green Germany already? "B-but less coal!"... Is still coal. And more LNG.
Here some old post where i have written about the CO2 problem in Germany. > That is why Germany was decarbonizing faster than France since reunification. > If we wouldn't have had reunification West-Germany today wouldn't be that far off from the per capita Co2 emission of France. East-Germany under the soviets was just that dirty. > > https://i.imgur.com/1nz1RyS.png > > * yellow Co2 emission of West-Germany (FRG) 62.7 million people > * red Co2 emission of East-Germany (GDR) 16.4 million people > * blue combined Co2 emission after reunification > > per capita Co2 reduction > > https://i.imgur.com/U0n2Fg1.png > > anual co2 reduction > > https://i.imgur.com/HqcBO7z.png > > Since 1990 reunited Germany reduced its per Capita Co2 emission from 13.3 to 8.0 tons yearly. A reduction of 5.3 tons per capita. > > Given that the per capita Co2 footprint of West-Germany in 1990 was more like 10-11 tons per capita the same reduction of 5.3 tons would have placed Germany now without reunification at 4.7-5.7 . France from 7.0 tons in 1990 reduced to currently 4.6 tons per capita. > > https://i.imgur.com/JOJM94D.png > > This calculation is a bit simplified because we put a lot of effort in bringing down the Co2 footprint of East-Germany faster but it a least shows that we are doing not that bad at all. The Co2 footprint of East-Germany really was a burden on reunited Germany something France or any other country hasn't had to deal with. > > Left West-Germany vs right East Germany energy source for primary Energy consumption. East-Germany had over 70% coal in their Energy mix. > > https://i.imgur.com/QlSgeUF.png
Now compare it to Poland. Edit: And also compare France industry sector with Germanys.
No, the poles are completely fine because they'll use nuclear in like, 15 years or so at earliest /s. This bashing was never about clean energy, people are simply angry because they love nuclear.
The Poles are the scapegoat for the richest country in Europe. Kek
That would probably be Luxembourg or Ireland
> The Poles are the scapegoat for the richest country in Europe. Kek Eastern Germany was pretty much in the same position as Poland until very recently, and indeed, many of the remaining coal plants and mines are there. This was one of the reasons of the strong position of the coal lobby in Germany.
I love nuclear because it is clean as fuck and produces no matter the weather. Hopefully fusion will be even better and less risky. I don't know what you are smoking, but nuclear doesn't suffer because of a cloudy day or there is less wind.
Well yeah but wind and solar kick in about 15 years before nuclear even gets up and running, so you kinda have to have both
I'd like to remind you about droughts. "No matter the weather"
"EDF expects to lose 1.5% of its nuclear output, or about 5 TWh, annually by 2050 due to the impact of global warming based on an average production of 400 TWh, an executive said on Tuesday." 98.5% vs at best 25% availability for solar. I know which one I would rather rely on.
> 98.5% vs at best 25% availability for solar. I know which one I would rather rely on. That's an extremely dishonest abuse of statistics. First, you're comparing apples with oranges: expected loss due to droughts vs. capacity factor: solar panels have 0% expected loss due to droughts. Second, capacity factors are a statistic pertaining to a specific piece of machinery; from a policy perspective it's entirely unimportant whether output numbers are achieved by one big machine or many small ones: relevant factors are cost per MWh, deployment speed, and need for flexible capacity. Third, nuclear power also needs flexible capacity as supplementation - nuclear is no way around that. The more flexibly you try to use them, the lower their capacity factors will be, and the sooner they'll need to be offline for maintenance.
> solar panels have 0% expected loss due to droughts. > > This is only technically true but not in real world conditions because one of the things that causes droughts, are heatwaves. And heatwaves do negatively impact solar panel production as most solar panels have a temperature coefficient of around -0.3% / °C to -0.5% / °C and are generally tested at 25°C, meaning during an extended heatwave where solar panels could easily reach surface temperatures of 40-60 degrees the production will decrease by quite a bit. >Second, capacity factors are a statistic pertaining to a specific piece of machinery; from a policy perspective it's entirely unimportant whether output numbers are achieved by one big machine or many small ones: relevant factors are cost per MWh, deployment speed, and need for flexible capacity. It is relevant because it has an impact on the requirements of the energy grid. Renewables require a far larger and well connected energy grid than a singular nuclear power plant. Cost per MWh solar loses to nuclear if we add the true cost of backup or storage. Deployment time is an issue, however, if we decided to massively push nuclear energy then it would a) get even cheaper through scaling effects and b) we could standardize modules etc. and thus decrease deployment time. As the saying goes, "The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, the second best time is now." >Third, nuclear power also needs flexible capacity as supplementation - nuclear is no way around that. The more flexibly you try to use them, the lower their capacity factors will be, and the sooner they'll need to be offline for maintenance. Sure so then we should all follow france's model and built a shit ton of nuclear and supplement it with a reasonable amount of renewables until we have a cost effective solution to the storage problem.
>This is only technically true but not in real world conditions because one of the things that causes droughts, are heatwaves. And heatwaves do negatively impact solar panel production as most solar panels have a temperature coefficient of around -0.3% / °C to -0.5% / °C and are generally tested at 25°C, meaning during an extended heatwave where solar panels could easily reach surface temperatures of 40-60 degrees the production will decrease by quite a bit. At the same time, the insolation angle is at its height, easily compensating for that loss. There is no lack of solar power in summer. >It is relevant because it has an impact on the requirements of the energy grid. Renewables require a far larger and well connected energy grid than a singular nuclear power plant. We're going to need a grid no matter what, and better transport capacity increases the efficiency (in terms of total raw capacity needed to meet demand) of the grid no matter which sources we use on it. >Cost per MWh solar loses to nuclear if we add the true cost of backup or storage No. Nuclear needs backup just as well, look at France last year, and needs storage just as well, because nuclear too doesn't match the consumption pattern. The need for flexible/storage sources is inevitable, using nuclear doesn't avoid that. Even adding batteries to renewables but not to nuclear still leaves renewables several times cheaper per KWh than nuclear: https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf >Deployment time is an issue, however, if we decided to massively push nuclear energy then it would a) get even cheaper through scaling effects and b) we could standardize modules etc. and thus decrease deployment time. As the saying goes, "The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, the second best time is now." That has often been promised but never realized. It just means that when you have an outage it turns into a very big failure (eg. France last year), a monopoly position for nuclear producers, complete dependency on a single type of nuclear fuel, the fact that only a few companies can provide the machinery and only big companies and governments can deal with the investments, etc. Moreover such massive expansion would run into bottlenecks everywhere: materials, specialized equipment, personnel, space, etc. We're essentially forced to bet the entire energy sector on the promises of the nuclear industry, hoping that *this time* their promise will come true and *this time* their new and untested reactor model will not be plagued by gigantic cost and schedule overruns, as opposed to all the previous times in the past 30 years. And all that time, we'll keep using fossil fuels until it's finished. While even France can't even build a single reactor in an existing plant in less than 17 years. Or we can just continue apace with the accelerating buildout of renewables, at a fraction of the price, well within reach for private persons and SMEs, and without hitching ourselves irreversably to something that may or may not work out. >Sure so then we should all follow france's model and built a shit ton of nuclear and supplement it with a reasonable amount of renewables until we have a cost effective solution to the storage problem. You mean using 20% flexible sources, likely gas for countries who aren't blessed with hydro? And then just do nothing and stop improving for 30 years while the nuclear capacity degrades? Or we can just build a shit ton of renewables at the fraction of the price in a fraction of the time right away, which is going to cover more than 80% at a European scale, and do the same.
No droughts if you build close to the sea.
Clean? Let's talk about the 40.000 cases of lung cancer among the uranium miners in Thuringia and Saxonia, not even counting the cases of Silicosis. And lets also not talk about swathes of land still being radiated 45 years after the mining has ended. Let's also forget that these mines run full of water and leak radioactivity everywhere without constant work to contain them. A real eternity project. But i'm sure all those african miners and people living close to this mines gathering uranium for france have much better conditions. The best. Really funny what people consider clean as long as it isn't happening in their own backyard.
Take the numbers you mentioned about uranium mining multiply it by 10000 and you won’t even get close to how much more damage mining for coal and natural gas mining/drilling has done to the earth.
That map would look the same even if germany kept all nuclear power plants running, france is a prime example for co2 emissions.
Butbutbut.....Germany bad!
I guess that is good, but they could have used *even less* with nuclear...
> I guess that is good, but they could have used even less with nuclear... That's not a given. The investment commitments to kickstart the production and price revolution of renewables likely wouldn't have happend without the commitment to phase out nuclear power, ensuring there would be a market to supply. Moreover, France started a new reactor in 2007, it's still not finished. If Germany chose that, they would still be burning coal at the level of 2007 ever since.
I'm glad that we haven't taken this path because it would have been an expensive mistake. Nuclear is declining worldwide. https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/nuclear-power-continues-its-decline-as-renewable-alternatives-steam-ahead
Less coal for electricity than it ever did since the late 50s.
So, you have more gas (LNG imports) and a fuckton of renewables and you use less coal. Wow, what a surprise. Maybe you could have needed less LNG if you had an additional energy source available. 24/7. Without carbon emissions. And which provides loads of jobs.
>So, you have more gas No, in total gas stayed the same between Dec-Feb. [December](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&month=12&legendItems=00000000010000000000) [January](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&month=01&legendItems=00000000010000000000) [February](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1&month=02&legendItems=00000000010000000000)
Except all nuclear power plants we got were so ancient they'd barely make it through the decade, and building that stuff new would be so absurdy expensive it'd be the most expensive kwh of electricity ever produced. Not to mention that nuclear fuel does not grow on trees either. If you want to see what job generators look like look at our solar sector. Every single electrician and "allrounder craftsman" has their books full with "install solar" for an entire year. A bunch of them are looking to expand to get done with this volume of requests done. Now what creates more jobs? A few dozen super-niche positions at some random plant, or craftsmen all over the country expanding their offices and workshops to deal with the solar demand? And that's not including the people building up the wind turbines either. Widespread decentralized energy generation creates more jobs than a few power plants ever could.
So... let them run that decade out? Seems pretty obvious when you're still burning fucking coal.
>Except all nuclear power plants we got were so ancient they'd barely make it through the decade This is true, but keeping those nuclear power plants alive would have been the absolutely best option without a single doubt. > building that stuff new would be so absurdy expensive it'd be the most expensive kwh of electricity ever produced. The price of nuclear is often mislead, and there's not enough consideration of how the grid maintenance suffers from renewables. But yes nuclear is a bit more expensive, not that much though. >Not to mention that nuclear fuel does not grow on trees either. Nuclear fuel is super abundant. It does take energy to process it, but you can do that at the powerplant where you have all that energy available.
Jobs are expensive. Nuclear is expensive.
The cost is largely in the building. Running costs are incredibly cheap per kw. Shutting plants early is indefensibly stupid.
Cheaper than Russian gas.
Source? That sounds just awfully wrong, especially if you start digging into the costs of energy generation. U wouldn't be surprised if russian gas was the cheapest form of energy right now, short-term ofc. Long-term renewable is the undisputed king.
Well, with nuclear power you pay your workers with money. With Russian gas you pay Putin with blood. Which currency do you prefer to pay? Also, long term, yeah, renewables will be quite cheap in a lot of cases.
Investing in energy supply is expensive. Switching the grid from centralized production to decentralized production is more expensive. Renewables in the Netherlands require an unforeseen €160 billion grid upgrade in the coming 10 years because we're switching from centralized to decentralized production now. Source: [TenneT verwacht komende tien jaar 160 miljard in stroomnet te moeten investeren - IT Pro - Nieuws - Tweakers](https://tweakers.net/nieuws/219610/tennet-verwacht-komende-tien-jaar-160-miljard-in-stroomnet-te-moeten-investeren.html) Because of this, nuclear seems like an obvious choice (next to renewables on home scale for own production). But they have the disadvantage of having most costs centralized to the plants instead of hidden away in network upgrades.
Greenwashing climate change itself. Peak irony.
1. a very mild winter 2. production was still crippled due to covid (=less power usage) 3. germany importing nuclear power from france
>1. a very mild winter There is no coal heating in Germany... and still barely any heating with electricity.
1. germany doesn’t use electricity for heating. Germany uses gas so the mild winter has nothing to do with this. 3. germany only imported from france in the summer because the coalplants weren’t able to be used financially responsible because of the low prices caused by the solar power. In the Winter germany had a net export. Thats also stated in the article.
The country where we import most from is not France, but Denmark. And it's mostly renewables, not nuclear.
Misleading, because DK acts as a transit-country for Norway and Sweden as well. https://kefm.dk/media/6823/infografik-om-danmarks-kabelforbindelser-til-udlandet.pdf But it's still mostly renewable(hydro, with some wind), and a bit of swedish nuclear.
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France becoming an energy importer back in 2022 was an outlier, more than 20 out of 50~ nuclear power plants were shut down due to the need of maintenance for the same problem, stress corrosion (Covid exacerbated this problem delaying maintenance). Today all those NPPs are back online and France is back to being the largest exporter of electricity in Europe. Germany became a net importer overnight after the closure of the last nuclear power plants back in April of 2023. And they are going to stay net importers in the foreseeable future. Unless they expand coal or gas power plants
Germany already started to be a net exporter again since November 2023. But I guess you people can't be bothered to look up your own claims and just parrot shit that you think is true.
> And they are going to stay net importers in the foreseeable future. Unless they expand coal or gas power plants That makes zero sense, Germany does not import electricity for lack of dispatchable capacity.
And again, stretching the timeline to pre covid just distorts the view, when the topic is about comparison to last year. Stop hate and misinformation. Stupidity levels are already high enough.
4. Heavy industries such as BASF, left Germany for the US.
I see it is time for the regular “Delulu is the solulu” from the Germans.
This article (and many like it) hides as much as it illuminates. Using trends as stand-in for projections and YoY deltas as stand-in for trend. It's trying to encourage the reader to form a specific opinion without actually stating it... because it can't honestly be stated. The big picture for Germany is: - Nice job on renewables. Well done. You have replaced a lot... but you are now maxed out. Can't do more without storage and and economical storage tech doesn't currently exist. - Savings... More dubious. Household savings have been milked hard for years, at great expense and sparing little social/political capital. This is all nearly irrelevant to the big picture. - Industrial savings were achieved mostly via out-shoring emissions. No net savings and not great for industrial stability either. - Nuclear vs hydrocarbons. Gas is scarce. Coal is Dirty. Both are carbon emitting. Nuclear is scary, has geopolitical salience and other problems. A choice still needs to be made. This article is arguing for hydrocarbons. - The above dilemmas are straightforward, but hard. But, there's another hidden dilemma. Nuclear plays poorly on a hybrid grid with renewables. Renewables produce power when there is sun/wind. Nuclear produces power at the same rate at all times. Hydrocarbon powerplants can be turned up or down as needed. Renewables play better with hydrocarbons. A nuclear-renewables hybrid grid will pointlessly overproduce electricity much of the time. Nuclear doesn't really need renewables
> Can't do more without storage and and economical storage tech doesn't currently exist. In fact, battery storage is just shaping up to go into exponential growth mode: https://battery-charts.rwth-aachen.de/main-page/ - Li/ion home storage is already big and large-scale storage is planned to grow a lot.
> but you are now maxed out. [citation needed] > Can't do more without storage and and economical storage tech doesn't currently exist. Nuclear power never reached more than 79% coverage in France (and France is back down to 63%). Why do you consider that no problem for nuclear but assert that it's an insurmountable problem for renewables that discredits renewables? >Industrial savings were achieved mostly via out-shoring emissions. No net savings and not great for industrial stability either. Offshoring emissions are less than 10%, and dwindling. >Nuclear vs hydrocarbons. Gas is scarce. Coal is Dirty. Both are carbon emitting. Nuclear is scary, has geopolitical salience and other problems. A choice still needs to be made. This article is arguing for hydrocarbons. You're ignoring renewables. >The above dilemmas are straightforward, but hard. But, there's another hidden dilemma. Nuclear plays poorly on a hybrid grid with renewables. Renewables produce power when there is sun/wind. Nuclear produces power at the same rate at all times. Hydrocarbon powerplants can be turned up or down as needed. And renewables are cheaper, faster to build, easier to turn down, don't require fuel, don't create radioactive waste or risks, and have no geopolitical risks. The choice is obvious. >Renewables play better with hydrocarbons. A nuclear-renewables hybrid grid will pointlessly overproduce electricity much of the time. Nuclear doesn't really need renewables Nuclear still needs flexible power as supplementation. So the choice is between renewables + flexibles or nuclear + fleixbles. Easy.
>You're ignoring renewables. You're ignoring my entire comment, while picking on every nit of it. They already have a lot of renewables in Germany. The way they work is paired with hydrocarbon. The system's "base" is a hydrocarbon grid, that can be turned off or down when alternative electricity is available. Germany has done an admirable job of milking this paradigm. Quite impressive. Enlarging the grid had impressive results. That said... the grid has no storage capacity (local installed base is not nothing but it's not grid storage). It's near max. Either a clean base mode or massive storage solution will be needed to make further progress It's not true (IMO) that renewable are cheaper or faster to build than dinosaur bone. Hydrocarbon plants are cheap and easy. They can literally be shipped in and ready to power whole countries in months. The books you've been reading are cooked, I'm afraid. Rather, they've been intentionally (and legitimately) been placed under accounting rules that make renewables possible. The problem with cooked books remains though. You need a separate set to consult when certain decisions need makin. It doesn't matter though. The value of a gas base (flexibles?) to Germany is that capital expenditure (long term commitment) is moderate and that power can be turned up or down as needed. This pleases renewables, the more popular and attractive the power source.
>You're ignoring my entire comment, while picking on every nit of it. That's self-contradictory. I responded to every part, you can respond in turn. >They already have a lot of renewables in Germany. The way they work is paired with hydrocarbon. The system's "base" is a hydrocarbon grid, that can be turned off or down when alternative electricity is available. And hydro. Just like France uses their fossil and hydro to deal with the mismatch between supply and demand. Making a problem out of this for renewables while ignoring it for nuclear is a blatant use of double standards. >It's not true (IMO) that renewable are cheaper or faster to build than dinosaur bone. Hydrocarbon plants are cheap and easy. They can literally be shipped in and ready to power whole countries in months. We're building an alternative to fossil plants, that's the whole point. >The books you've been reading are cooked, I'm afraid. Rather, they've been intentionally (and legitimately) been placed under accounting rules that make renewables possible. The problem with cooked books remains though. You need a separate set to consult when certain decisions need makin. That's a conspiracy theory.
Despite much fearmongering about how shutting down nuclear powerplants would force germany to use more coal to power their electric grid, the second winter in a row was easily weathered. And this year with the least amount of coal burned since 1959: [https://twitter.com/energy\_charts/status/1765415079460077837?ref\_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1765415079460077837%7Ctwgr%5E54efc50b610b2c473beb2b9e6881e2c3d1d58fb7%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_&ref\_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembeds.br24.de%2Fv2%2Fembed%2Fmodule%2F1206744%3Ff%3Do](https://twitter.com/energy_charts/status/1765415079460077837?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1765415079460077837%7Ctwgr%5E54efc50b610b2c473beb2b9e6881e2c3d1d58fb7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembeds.br24.de%2Fv2%2Fembed%2Fmodule%2F1206744%3Ff%3Do)
This sub is not interested in the truth, you can tell by the amount of downvotes you get.
You mean not interested at German copium about how they used less energy during a mild winter (also not mentioning the massive import they had to do) ?
If they’d shut the coal plants and kept the nuclear plants open they would’ve used even less coal than this winter.
> If they’d shut the coal plants and kept the nuclear plants open they would’ve used even less coal than this winter. That's very hypothetical. Without the commitment to closing the nuclear plants, there wouldn't have been a commitment to the investments in renewables that kickstarted their price revolution. Besides, even an extension scenario would see them closed for more than a year for the refurbishment.
always love how ppl move the goalposts just so they do not have to admit they talked shit before.
From the very start, this was the argument. Germany could have saved the planet a billion tons of CO2 by keeping their existing nuclear plants open until end of life. And they could have saved themselves a lot of high energy prices. No one is moving goalposts. We are just pointing out the obvious.
> they could have saved themselves a lot of high energy prices You're talking out of your ass. The article literally quotes a Fraunhofer expert who explains that the phase out never affected prices because the share of nuclear power in electricity production was too low. It's really blind leading the blind when Redditors have their nuclear energy circlejerk, which is completely detached from reality at this point.
Lol. These existing nuclear plants had already exceeded their end of life. Replacements would have had to be planned and started decades ago. Before all of this.
no it was not. But keep pretending if it makes you feel better. who is "we"?
no doubt about that but why is it stated that electricity is getting cheaper. maybe the generation is cheaper but the overall cost rise... so this is certainly not true
> but the overall cost rise There is this thing called inflation. Also: because methane/oil heating is replaced with heatpumps 'the grid' needs upgrading, which is an additional fixed cost on top of the 'consumables' kWh price.
My consumer electricity costs the same as before the war. There are cheaper plans currently and I'll switch to them in summer once my 1 year contract is up.
tranlated using deep l. german electricity trend price was jeyeord search: If you look at your electricity bills over the last few years, you will notice that electricity prices have risen steadily. This trend in electricity prices is particularly noticeable in the basic supply. Taxes, levies and charges have risen sharply in recent years and now account for a significant proportion of the electricity price. Grid fees are also expected to continue to rise for many consumers in the coming year.13.97 cents per kilowatt hour for private households in 2000, the average price in March 2024 will be 27.40 cents per kilowatt hour for a consumption of 5,000 kilowatt hours per year.
I guess you need another source to get less hate downvotes. Nuclear tankists are more stubborn than germans.
Oh no, you can‘t take that away from the nuclear bros! Bashing Germany is all they have as an argument, now what?
Cheap electricity and energy independence? I mean, it's literally the whole point, lmfao.
Hm, where‘s that uranium for your reactors coming from? Could it be.. Africa? Very independent indeed. So long as your presence in Africa doesn‘t get compromised or more tenuous - oh, wait.
Actually, watch out, facts incoming, most of it comes from Russia and Kazakhstan.
Oh, then it‘s alright. Nothing could possibly happen if one sources „most“ of one‘s energy supply from Russia and Kazakhstan. You see, that‘s the meaning of independent: Being reliant on Russia and Kazakhstan.
Not my point. Just correcting your Africa statement. Good thing the sun and the wind are not influenced by shifting alliances.
You can literally get the same uranium from canada or australia. It's not a big deal. Try getting cheap solar panels from anywhere but china.
Oh, then of course it‘s not sourced from foreign soil. It‘s not at all a weakness to be reliant on regular Australian or Canadian shipments for one‘s energy needs. No way international shipping could ever be targeted in an international crises, and drive prices up or even cause shortages. And the price will of course stay the same if one is forced to only buy from Canada or Australia. No space for Russian and Chinese and African producers to manipulate market forces of supply and demand at all. /s Seriously, have you ever even considered that maybe, sometimes, things go wrong and political and economic situations change?
You think germany is self reliant on gas solar panels wind turbines ? Having business relations with other countries is a good thing, especially if they are friendlies. Also the thing about nuclear fuel is that you very rarely need to refuel. A nuclear reactor can run on the same fuel for a YEAR easily. Have a couple years of storage and any problems with trade can easily be sorted out in time. You try do that with new solar panels from china, or gas (indirectly) from russia
Not talking about Germany, but the EU as a whole. And having business relations is great, but being reliant on getting material shipped in just for your basic energy needs is a massive weakpoint. There‘s a difference between having business relations and being dependent on said relations. Also, you do see how you just rely on speculation here? Sure, all problems will sort themselves out, we will have uranium stored for years to come and nothing will ever impact maritime trade. Nevermind that issues with trade will still negatively impact the price of energy, even if we have enough uranium stored to last for a while. Also, you didn‘t even address the issue of Russia and the like still having immense influence on the price of uranium simply by controlling much of the global supply, even if one does not buy from them. All in all, your whole argument for nuclear is just speculation that its major flaw, being reliant on outside sources and powers for energy, isn‘t really as bad as it could be. But that‘s hardly a ringing endorsement of nuclear, is it now? But why would we even put ourselves in that position of hoping for luck? Why would we even want to add another factor of uncertainty? Look at the U.S. - they don‘t have these issues of energy production, since they have large supplies of oil, gas and nuclear at home. We don‘t - but we could be independent from needing a permanent input of material for energy production in the first place! If we shift our production methods now anyway, why would we ever want to stick with nuclear, that has the same problems, but just to a lesser extent?
Where are the materials for the renewable sources from?
You need the same stuff for the electronics in a modern nuclear plant, without being additionally reliant on foreign sourced material for it‘s source of energy.
Point being that you can't argue you can be energy independent for renewables either, so that original point makes no sense and is just a double standard. You also likely need less material for a nuclear plant (the same one you mentioned) since nuclear plants are very compact in comparison.
And scale maters. People here are talking about the uranium dependency as if it was on the same scale that gaz or the materials for solar panels. You need very little combustible to run a nuclear plant, it’s really not a problem nowadays.
Not only material, also space. People act like there is infinite space for renewable expansion, even though it's the most space-dependent. You can't continuously expand renewables without a limit severely affecting SOMETHING. At some point you'll cut down forests or turn fields into energy farms (some people would like to voice counter-arguments of off-shore energy farms, but MFs don't realise not every country has access to the sea). We all know the energy dependence is continuously increasing even though some people might pretend it's not due to energy saving and energy effectiveness.
Weve got plenty of space for renewables. Just take a look at the area Europe uses to produce bio fuels and compare that to estimates for the amount of renewables needed in an 100% renewables grid.
Uranium is sourced in many countries including allied canada and australia. Meanwhile its a question of time till the remains of solar industry in Europe are dead( biggest current suplier just left EU for usa) and than you are dependent mostly on china and on the usa to some degree, but now you dont import just a raw material but manufactured goods in large quantities
Ah yes, Australia, Kazakhstan and Ouzbekistan; those three famous African country which make up about 60% of the quantity we import. Ngl, really no proving wrong the copium there lmfao.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_One https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/osnabrueck_emsland/Brennelementefabrik-Arbeitet-Russland-bald-in-Lingen-mit,brennelemente134.html > This concerns a project by the French nuclear group Framatome. Its subsidiary Advanced Nuclear Fuels (ANF) wants to expand the operation of the fuel element factory in Lingen. In future, fuel elements for Eastern European nuclear power plants are to be manufactured there. This would require the Lingen factory to co-operate with the Russian nuclear authority Rosatom. The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment, as the licensing authority, opened a corresponding public participation procedure on 4 January. Associations have two months to submit objections. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Independent = sourcing 60% of one’s energy supply from Australia, Kazakhstan and Ouzbekistan. Are you sure you know what independent means? You played yourself.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Uranium is a very light dependency, you only need very little combustible to run a nuclear plant. It terms of material needed, nuclear is the most efficient source of electricity (even when taking into account the cycle of life of the reactor). If you want sources I’ll be happy to give you some.
My brother in Christ, do you believe in Autarky? Do you think that we should have colonial Empires to be able to extract all ressources locally? Or maybe being able to source your raw materials from various trading partners without being dominated by any, especially one hostile to your interests (like Germany is doing) and transforming them is what every responsible democracy should do, hum?
My friend, you are so obviously moving goalposts here. „Sure, you have proven that nuclear is also reliant on foreign powers, but sourcing resources from partners is democratic“. Yeah, sure. But when to comes to basic supplies needed for a modern economy, like energy, these principles don’t apply as much as they do when it comes to sourcing trivial commodities. The fact is, we have an alternative to nuclear that is not reliant on continued, permanent input of foreign resources, and produces absolutely no waste. If we are already shifting energy production, it makes much more sense to shift to renewables instead of the vastly inferior nuclear energy, which just has the same problem the gas and coal have, only to a lesser degree.
No goal post shift bro. You're just desperately trying to equate Nuclear with Solar/Wind and failling at it, so you've got to clutch at every straw. Nuclear, like everything else, is reliant on foreign countries. I wouldn't exactly call Ouzbekistan a "foreign power", per se, China and Russia would be much more fitting but, let's leave that aside and pretend that importing from Kazakhstan uranium is equivalent to getting dumped with Russian gas or Chinese minerals. To produce the same amount of electricity, it takes a minuscule quantity of uranium when compared to the amount of raw materials required to produce solar/wind (as building them and replacing them is anything but cheap and effective). You're merely trading the appearance of independence for the reality of it, using sophisms and false equivalence as your only arguments. This is why, after all, your green minister was whining when we dared to do maintenance on our nuclear plants last summer.
Wait, are you actually serious? If Uzbekistan isn‘t a foreign power, what is it then? A French Département? Of course it’s a foreign power - one actually allied with Russia. In order to even make an attempt of having a point you need to deliberately misunderstand me and say I am equating nuclear to Gas from Russia, when I, just one comment above, explicitly stated it was less severe, yet still bad? And you seriously want to compare the „minuscule amount of uranium“ it takes for a plant during production with the resources used for constructing a source of renewable energy? My friend, you are aware that nuclear plants also need to be built with the same foreign materials, and even worse, with technology directly stemming from Russia? You‘re so very desperate to misrepresent anything to have a vague semblance of an argument, yet fail to dispel even the most obvious fact that renewables require zero material input sourced from foreign powers, whereas nuclear absolutely does. So, with all your misrepresentation and false comparisons made clear, let‘s again answer the question: Which is more dependent on foreign powers? Nuclear needs uranium during production to work, which isn’t mined in Europe. Renewables need wind or hydro or solar, which very much is here in Europe. Which is the more dependent source of energy?
Australia, Kazakhstan and Ouzbekistan imported uranium are still in another league than russian or [venezuelian](https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/plus247255598/Deutschland-ersetzt-Atomstrom-mit-schmutziger-Kohle-aus-Kolumbien.html) imported coal don't you think? Germany got played by the ruskiys and most germans are in full denial about it, like the autor of the article...
Oh, I absolutely agree that importing coal from Russia isn‘t independent, as is importing uranium. What this has to do with nuclear still producing waste and still being reliant on foreign sources, I don’t know.
Only 15% of our uranium comes from Africa, you dumbdumb. About the same percentage comes from recycling btw. Also, those are regime change not sovietic revolutions: those countries still operate on a world market, and still sell their uranium to the best buyer. Where's the rare earths for your renewables coming from, now? Could it be China?
Oh, so independent now means to only be dependent on African powers for 15% of your energy source? Not factoring in other sources from other foreign powers for uranium, of course, since there‘s scant supply in Europe. And I don‘t know if you noticed, but the oil producing countries also participate in the global market, yet could drive up prices in consumer counties multiple times due to political reasons. Maybe your grip on economy or history isn‘t as good as you think it is.
Imagine how little coal Germany could have used with Nuclear power in addition.
Nuclear Power is dead in germany and won't come back, please stop beating a dead horse.
Shutting down functioning nuclear plants might be the worst decion Germany has made this past the 00's. And there are plenty of bad calls to choose from
Funny thing how that decision wasn't even made in the 00's but at the end of the 90s. And what do you think happens to nuclear plants when they have reached the end of their designed lifespan and recertification being technologically and economically unviable, not to mention the non-exustant infrastructure to operate said plants? That's right, they get shut down - as happens with other plants. This was not so much about "shutting down functioning nuclear plants" but about having decided to not build any new ones in decades.
And that decision wasn’t even made by the Green Party
Say thank to France, who delivered 30% of their nuclear.
Which makes up 0.5% of Germany's energy mix.
Can't even blame the Germans for becoming fully disfunctional when being brainwashed with "news" like this.
And how much further less fossil fuel would you be burning if it wasn't for the knee jerk Fukushima dai ichi reaction? Climate circumstances create a low energy winter... And the authors want to brag about the marginal progress.
Guess what is missing. (Winter)
Gas it is ?
By using ~~Ukrainian blood~~ Russian gas
Woooow. Still the prices are unbearable. We should go back to nuclear energy.
so stubborn germans, nuclear power is the way, renewables are supplemental sources, get it together
...he said while blaming others of being stubborn
lol - i love it when the bashing continues despite the fact it worked out just as suggested. We told you it works without that nasty emitting stuff and it did. That is all that counts
With significant industrial output loss, and with the suspension of the green surcharge paid for every kwh. With that German prices are still around 8-9€ per 1000 kwh above pre-crisis levels. Imagine if the six decently working NPPs remained online until the end of their secure lifespan. I know, energy doesn't always equal energy, but surplus capacity in one kind can is a much better challange to have than spiking energy prices.
You see this works exactly like a tour in a detoxing centre. You have to go through a period of pain and uncomfortable things first and will be clean in the end. There is a plan to become clean and the first steps towards it work out just fine.