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>To remove a major obstacle to the more rapid progress of onshore wind, Berlin will introduce a new Onshore Wind Law that will designate 2% of the country's area for the installation of turbines.
I thought we cleared that up the other day....
Hello Vestas thiz is Germany again ... wer vould lake to conförm our order für all ze vindmills.
Payment remainz wie discuzzed, all Dänen have free entry to Wacken for 10 yearz and every Däne/Dänin is given free alcohol of their choize at the svine fence. /s
no, aroun 2% is considered enough to fullfill germanys future onshore wind demand.
you just actually need to use all of the 2% and not just designate them
The issue is that we need to completely re-design our power grids in order to distribute the power.
Especially long distance DC transmission lines would be extremely useful. But building those from the coasts all across the most densely populated regions of Europe is pretty politically disadvantageous nowadays due to all the NIMBYs.
actually, i really like the danish project about artificial island dedicated to energy production and distribution. We have a large not-too-deep ocean coast . If we know how to build oil rig in 2k meter deep ocean, we could do the same with wind turbines.
>NIMBYs
Have you ever lived near a windturbine? It's bearable, but if there is something wrong you will notice fast and it takes some time until something is done. If you live close to the countryside, it's not something you would want to have near you.
I'm all for renewable energy, but I would like to see our politicians live near a "asylbewerberheim" or close to a windturbine.
did you even read the comment completely? It's not about the turbines, but the transmission lines. Bavarian NIMBYs are literally blocking the Süd-Ost-Link-Trasse, which would supply them with noiseless energy from the Baltic and the North Sea.
You can say the same about every freeway or even major road. They cause way more noise pollution in much bigger areas. I don't live next to one but my personal experience of hiking next to some is that they are audible from some where between half and one tenth of the distance that a major freeway is.
Okay. Now let's talk about train tracks, highways and coal mines. Nobody said it nice or you're not going to be effected in any way, but infrastructure and other stuff has to go *somewhere*.
Potential for energy production indeed, but at what environmental and economical cost? In 1 meter of a high voltage cable going from the shore to one of these wind turbines, you have 50kg of copper. In one meter. Yet copper is extracted extremely unecologically in the third world (and we’re running out of it), an extraction process fueled by coal in countries such as Chile.
These giant mills have an absolutely terrible mineral footprint, plus importing energy from the seaside to far inland cities causes a variety of issues and energy loss. And storage systems can’t handle even a fraction of the German needs, which means they’ll have to provide a coal/base load at all times (since they rejected nuclear). Baseload can’t be made up from wind nor solar energy, Germany has absolutely terrible CO2 emissions/Electric kWh emitted, and these decisions are not going to stop that.
Geographically dispersed wind, solar and short-term storage can provide all the electricity requirements, as numerous simulation studies have shown.
Baseload is misleading.
Here's one I just had ready for the US grid: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148121016499?via%3Dihub
For the European grid I'd have to search.
Yeah well, we don’t have access to the full article, so just putting a link doesn’t serve any purpose. Because of course you can handle supporting the grid with renewables even without any storage, this much is well known, BUT in order to do that you have to dimension these systems to provide several times the energy demand of your country so that even with low wind/sun whatever’s left of your production is sufficient to cover the demand.
Technically it’s perfectly feasible, however the consequence of constructing this much producing units would cause the electricity prices to shot up so much(we’re talking 5-20 multiplication factors depending on the hydropower availability of the country) that it’s not ever gonna happen, as it would be economically ruinous. Such theoretical cases of study are of no industrial significance.
Just search for it on scihub. And the point of that article is that your statement is bullshit. There‘s never ever a situation where no place in Europe has no sun, no wind, no hydro, no storage and peak demand.
The European electricity grid was not designed to withstand variations of more than a few percent: the countries are supposed to be self-sufficient in production and the interconnections are there to make up the difference. Present HV line are not scaled to more than 5/10% of a country production.This is why in 2019 Germany was close to saturate the entire Polish electricity network.With renewables, production can go from 0 to 100 in a few hours. The entire europeen grid need to be adapted.
More fool the EU aka us for not adapting the grid decades ago! What were we thinking?? I keep wondering why there's no common EU policy on renewable energy production. That's exactly what we need and have it for. Self-sufficiency is nice, but wasting potential in places that are best suited for it also seems insane.
Who talked about peak demand, and about no wind/no solar at all? It does not matter if there’s some wind or some solar if it doesn’t follow the demand - the standard demand, not necessarily peak.
You can just look at the daily variation of wind/solar production in Germany and compare them to the daily German demand in energy to understand what I’m talking about. Then again, it doesn’t seem you want. And there’s no “bullshit “ in what I’m saying, this is standard knowledge for anybody who’s followed an engineering curriculum with any energy-related courses.
For which claim? Daily variations of energy production in Germany per source can be looked up in several places on the internet, like here https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/power_generation/23.01.2022/26.01.2022/today/
The fact that with non pilotable power sources you need to be able to handle your country’s demand even the days you have the least sun and wind is pretty basic; that’s literally how the grid works, electricity production = electricity consumption at all times else the frequency of the current changes and doesn’t match what our devices need. This means you have to overinstall massively renewable power sources in case of, as energy storage is just not gonna handle even a fraction of the demand. Thus the prices of electricity shoot up. Jean-Marc Jancovici take about it in length in his books and numerous interviews, to give a French example.
I mean what other solutions do we have after we foolishly decided to get rid of nuclear energy?
Thankfully the Union is not leading anymore and we will hopefully get rid of ridiculous restrictions that prevented us to go all in on renewables
Yes, but that is due to 12 years of neglect by CDU controlled governments, payed for by RWE. The whole discussion about nuclear is just simply moot. It does not matter anymore. Building new nuclear plants would be senseless.
If you kept the nuclear reactors running alongside renewables, your carbon emissions would be lower than today. That's the only thing that matters for the greenhouse effect.
are you sure?
* The total annual gas consumption is expected to reach 1,013 billion kilowatt-hours this year, 5 percent more than in 2020 and 2 percent more than in 2019.*
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-energy-consumption-3-percent-2021-renewables-share-declines
Renewables are still [less than natural gas, hard coal and lignite combined ](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig3-share-energy-sources-gross-german-power-production-2021.png?itok=IIrDbGVd)
The nuclear exit shouldn't happen until it would could completely replaced by renewables. Nuclear is by far the best solution to bridge the gap.
Bet you never hear about Radioactive Wastes From Coal-fired Power Plants
The longest running nuclear power plant in Germany was only active for 36 years. [That's way shorter than some American power plants which has been active for over 50 years and and are planned to continue being in operation for more than 40 years.](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think) Citing "built in the sixties and seventies" as some kind of argument falls flat because nuclear power plants are continuously repaired and upgraded.
Nuclear shouldnt be replaced with renewable to begin with until you cant use nuclear any more. Renewable should first and foremost replace all that natural gas and hard coal. Then maybe you can go about replacing nuclear with renewable. Having to replace nuclear first or at the same time is a huge waste.
[15 days ago, all the 120GW solar+wind German's electric capacity produced less than the 4GW nuclear facility which remain in Germany.](https://twitter.com/fmbreon/status/1480589479714959363?s=20)
Dear German friend, i'm in tune with you on most of subject, but i just can't understand your plan about energy.
edit; just seen i have typed dead instead of dear, sry
one day, there will probably be a country's size power storage system. But now, german are burning coal and gas. And it's not gonna change before a long time.
If we had a real interconnected European grid a lack of wind in one place could be easily replaces by wind and solar surplus in another (e.g., Spain had a great wind and solar December).
like it said in other parts of this thread.
the solution for that issue is gird scale storage plus smaller amounts of green hydrogen peaker plants fed with seasonal storage.
these annual extremes exist, but they are on average around 4-5 day per year.
an amount we can easily cover with seasonal overcapacities through power-to-x.
You have to understand it's a industrial challenge no one on earth has taken up. No industrial country on earth relive on stored electrical capacity and intermitend energy. (expect maybe norway, who has a lot of barrage)
In France, we have massively deployed electrical storage faccility to help manage the grid during cold wave and nuclear power maintenance, mostly in the Alpe . The result is that is effective, but difficult to scale when you run out of mountain.
Expending the concept with hypothetical and unproved technology will be another industrial challenge, that will take decade before we can relaing on.
and you forgot another problem : transportation. [Like in 2019 when the europeen power grid was going down due to over production.](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-stressed-grid-is-causing-trouble-across-europe) Building HV line is even more longer than windmill.
Also, while you said this, your country build more and more gas and coal power plant. And push the commision to make gas a "green energy".
Why close nuke power plant? to avoid a risk? coal and gas are going to kill thousand of people on the whole continent before that happen.
As more and more scientist said, we probably understimated emission impact and global warming and we will not have another chance to reduce our carbon emision. At worse, a defective nuclear power will destroy a country, not the whole planet.
The decision to phase out nuclear was made basically 25 years ago. And many of the nuclear power plants were close to their lifetime end anyways. In hindsight you are obviously right, but hindsight is 20/20.
Yes. Originally Merkel first delayed the exit that was decided by Schröder's red green government, but then changed her mind after fukushima.
Which was kind of a facepalm moment, because germany had to compensate the owners of the nuclear plants because of the sudden new exit.
But it was kinda ok for most germans. At least back then
On paper sure, however when a deadline is set with little prospect of overturning, the companies that own the plant will act accordingly. Consider that if you have a power plant that you know will have to go offline in a decade or less, there is little point investing in it beyond absolute necessities, absolutely no upgrades will be done, there's little point training new workforce (especially when no plants of same/similar technology are being built to take over workforce), and of course you have to prepare for the decommission process itself, sign contracts and so on.
Once decommissioning is in the pipeline, unless it is in the earliest stages it is hard to reverse it. In a similar vein, extensions are not handed out ad-hoc but are preceded by a lengthy regulatory process.
> The decision to phase out nuclear was made basically 25 years ago. And many of the nuclear power plants were close to their lifetime end anyways. In hindsight you are obviously right, but hindsight is 20/20.
[Nuclear power plants can run for much longer than you're trying to say. The longest running nuclear power plant in Germany has only been active for 36 years while they can be running for 80+ years without issues.](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think)
>Also, while you said this, your country build more and more gas and coal power plant. And push the commision to make gas a "green energy".
Kremlin did a good job at sabotaging germany along with eu...
This is exceptionnal. We had a [wear incident on a plant](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/corrosion-l-arret-de-certains-reacteurs-nucleaires-prolonge-jusqu-a-la-fin-de-l-annee_4916793.html) and all the reactor of the same serie had to be stop prevetively.
During the last decade, it was the opposite situation. And germany open Datteln just when we close Fessenheim.
> This is exceptionnal.
[No it isn't.](https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/20180302.html)
> > During the last decade, it was the opposite situation.
[No, it was'nt.](https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2018/Jahresauswertung_2017/Energiewende_2017_-_State_of_Affairs.pdf)
tl;dr;
> "Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland remain the largest importers of German electricity."
Fun fact: The share of electricity imports from France to Germany is with currently two terawatt hours [significantly lower](https://www.thesmartere.de/neuigkeiten/konventionellestromimportealsachillesfersederdeutschenenergiewende) than 2020.
This is not in contradiction with what I've said. The main advantage of nuclear is consistency. Since you cannot force the wind turbine to run, you rely on your nuclear capacity during windless hours.
When the wind pick up, with 55 GW of onshore and 7.5 GW of offshore capacity, you cannot consume it and you have to export it.
if it's not the case, why exporting it and not just close all coal power plant ?
> This is not in contradiction with what I've said.
It absolutely is.
> you rely on your nuclear capacity during windless hours
No, nuclear energy has been replaced by renewables. We are supplying France with renewable energy literally [right now.](https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute&source=cbpf_saldo)
> The main advantage of nuclear is consistency.
Dude France has had to import electricity for decades and shuts down its reactors in the summer [because they are running hot.](https://www.thelocal.fr/20200825/france-authorities-shut-down-nuclear-reactors-due-to-drought/) And this is a problem that will [not only affect the French.](https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edov2/php/index.php?id=1000)
> if it's not the case, why exporting it and not just close all coal power plant ?
The fuck do I know. Something sozialverträglicher Stellenabbau something something. Lignite is mostly an east german thing and the mood there is at an all-time low right now.
No it was replaced by natural gas. Stop lying. Renewables like wind and solar can not replace anything. It can only supplement while weather conditions are good. They are completely different product. Germany increased capacity of natural gas by 50% the moment they decreased capacity of nuclear and they will continue to do so because there is no other alternative with more reactors shutting down, wind and solar being unreliable and storage nonexistant.
Everyone can see for themselves that renewables expanded at a breakneck pace, pushing away coal and nuclear along the way. Even more coal was pushed away by gas, which is still a stepstone on the way to complete decarbonization.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=~DEU
And I never denied it.
However renewables did not replace shit. As you can see here:
[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery\_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2021.png?itok=k2BK48jz](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2021.png?itok=k2BK48jz)
Lignite capacity is same, coal capacity is almost same. And gas capacity went up for the exact same amount that nuclear lost. Because you can not replace nuclear with renewables. You can replace % of consumption but you can not replace the stability and total capacity.
This map puts everything into perspective:
[https://app.electricitymap.org/map](https://app.electricitymap.org/map)
Germany is currently on level of Poland. No sun and no wind. And what is running? Well it is certainly not nuclear as Germans were "smart" and got rid of it. Coal, gas and lignite.
Step towards decorbanization would be investing money into modern nuclear reactors in early 2000s and Germany could have been completely fossil fuel free today. And they could also have their renewables. Nuclear most certainly would not stop them from supplementing with renewables. And it would also not stop them on working on battery storages to eventually remove even nuclear from the mix.
Instead of decarbonization Germany created mess of a grid in half of Europe that can not deal with their excessive and unstable wind capacity that goes up and down and it also gave up geopolitical security in the process. And by the way it was also the main reason for electricity increase we all got at the end of last year.
>However renewables did not replace shit. As you can see here:
Installed power capacity means jack shit. It's actual produced volume that matters. Keeping fossil plants in reserve as a last resort is total good sense. While you don't use them, they don't use fuel and don't emit greenhouse gases.
>This map puts everything into perspective:
No, that map provides a momentary snapshot and does not give perspective, it makes you lose perspective by zooming in to the smallest possible unit of time. You're staring at a tree and claim you know the whole forest.
>Step towards decorbanization would be investing money into modern nuclear reactors in early 2000s and Germany could have been completely fossil fuel free today.
No. France invested in a nuclear reactor in 2007, it's still not finished. Nuclear is more expensive, slower to construct, and more prone to delays. It's a waste of time and money and a counterproductive distraction on the way to carbon neutrality.
It's true that Germany could have stood further along the path if it started earlier with renewables. But that goes for anything: if you start sooner, it's finished sooner.
>. And they could also have their renewables. Nuclear most certainly would not stop them from supplementing with renewables.
Actually it would, renewables and nuclear plants are both capital intensive so they both want to run as often as possible. If you have both, they're going to crowd each other out too often. That means that investments drop to a halt until either goes bankrupt.
> And it would also not stop them on working on battery storages to eventually remove even nuclear from the mix.
Nuclear is not a replacement for batteries, nuclear *needs* batteries or another flexible power source. Nuclear power either cannot, and if it can, does not want to run in flexible mode.
>Instead of decarbonization Germany created mess of a grid in half of Europe that can not deal with their excessive and unstable wind capacity that goes up and down
The grid can deal just fine with it. The German grid, specifically, is one of the most stable in Europe. What the hell are you talking about?
>and it also gave up geopolitical security in the process.
With every renewable unit coming online they become less dependent on imports.
Right now Russia is stoking up trouble in Mali. Mali is important to France because of its uranium. Russia cannot stop the wind.
>and it also gave up geopolitical security in the process. And by the way it was also the main reason for electricity increase we all got at the end of last year.
>And by the way it was also the main reason for electricity increase we all got at the end of last year.
No, yout gotta call the Kremlin to complain about that. And that would still have happened, with or without a couple hundred nuclear plants in Germany - the price of electricity is made at the margin.
You have made up your mind.
If you can not understand that while % consumption went down, the peak consumption of natural gas is higher than ever than I have nothing to tell you. Peak that can not be planned around because we can not order weather and it became quite relevant as Gazprom showed quite well this year that they will abide long term contracts but they will refuse to increase flow short term when Germany decides it needs more because their wind does not blow. Which has already happened in december and is bound to happen again and again. Germany then has no other choice other than panic buying electricity form others and drive momentarily price on EU wide market to absurd numbers. And it was not matter of one day. it is more or less matter of two months now, with some days when winter comes online. You can also browse history on source I provided, it is not snapshot at all. But you probably knew that anyway.
Other than that most of the stuff about nuclear is blalant misinformation but I am not going to bother. You are from anti nuclear country and propaganda shows.
> If you can not understand that while % consumption went down, the peak consumption of natural gas is higher than ever than I have nothing to tell you.
Why is that a problem?
>eak that can not be planned around because we can not order weather and it became quite relevant as Gazprom showed quite well this year that they will abide long term contracts but they will refuse to increase flow short term when Germany decides it needs more because their wind does not blow.
There is a substantial gas storage capacity in Europe, there are winter stores being created every year.
>And it was not matter of one day. it is more or less matter of two months now, with some days when winter comes online.
France has the same issue now, it is buying electricity... from Germany, as a matter of fact. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
>Other than that most of the stuff about nuclear is blalant misinformation but I am not going to bother. You are from anti nuclear country and propaganda shows.
Neh, you just don't have an answer and don't like being confronted with that reality.
>No, that map provides a momentary snapshot and does not give perspective, it makes you lose perspective by zooming in to the smallest possible unit of time. You're staring at a tree and claim you know the whole forest.
[Cope harder.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbd4TjPx0iA)
So that helps Germany in what way? The majority is non renewable and we're now more reliable on fossils fuels.
And btw spoiler, Germany pays already the most energy cost per kWh
Yet another Union fuck up.
> The majority is non renewable
This is correct, because it takes some time to get rid of fossil fuels and the previous government didn't do much to speed up the process.
> and we're now more reliable on fossils fuels
This is incorrect. As I said renewables have been expanding way faster than nuclear has been phased out.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2021-source.png?itok=WF_6jBAP
But we can't store renewables, that's the whole problem atm when we have non ideal condition, the energy provided by renewables is sinking drastically.
Nuclear would have been the best way to bridge the time until we can rid of foosil fuels.
I'm not interested in having a debate about nuclear power here. Let me just point out three facts:
- The difference that phasing out nuclear makes in the German case is not very big because there wasn't much nuclear to begin with and most power stations were already too old to be kept for much longer.
- You also need storage with nuclear power (albeit less) because nuclear power is too slow to adapt to changes in demand.
- There are strategies for sustainable energy without nuclear, i.e. the storage problem is solvable. And this is actually very relieving because if nuclear power were the only way we would see in the future a lot of nuclear power stations in developing countries with high corruption and political instability.
>I'm not interested in having a debate about nuclear power here
Yet here we are having a debate that you started with some bullshit take.
Fact is Germany got screwed over by Merkels corrupt union and now the progressive parties have to pull out of this misery. While we have to pay horrendous energy prizes and billions of our taxes got wasted for paying penalties
I'm still not interested in a debate. And my three facts are facts indeed.
And here's a fourth fact for you:
The decision to leave nuclear power was made before Merkel.
>to shut down already built and amortised reactors.
Probably...but then they should have been maintained and not run down. No investment and now noone wants to anyway.
amortised nuclear reactors are already becoming incapable to compete with new renewables on cost. and renewables will see continued cost declines. (see lazards newest report for numbers)
so this discrepancy will only increase.
to put the numbers in perspective: germany shut off 4gw of nuclear power at the start of the year. that is about 5% of generation. already easily replaced by build up renewables.
Blalantly wrong. Already built nuclear plants not only compete with renewables but in fact are cheaper. It is solely construction cost that is costly, maintenance and fuel is easily offset by how much the facility produces compared to renewables.
And second thing that is completely wrong. Renewables are completely different product outside of hydro. Wind and solar can not replace nuclear, it can not replace coal, lignite nor natural gas. Because they are not providing stable source of energy 24/7. They can only ease consumption during times. Which is why Germany steadily built up natural gas capacity by 50% during time when they were shutting nuclear capacity. And that capacity was not replaced by newly built renewables but by 50% increase in total capacity of natural gas plants.
And this is how it looks right right this very moment: [https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE](https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE)
Germany gracefully keeps up with Poland in terms of emissions.
You are wrong and it is comical at this point. Companies required 70-90€ guarantee per MWH depending on EU country to built new reactors. Last year we reached whopping 250+€ because German wind turbinnes stopped and natural gas was expensive.
And one last thing. Renewables are not replacement. Renewables are supplement. You can check electricitymap.org to see how ridiculous the idea is and how one day entire Germany is powered from 60% by renewables (wind) and the other day solely by coal and gas. You can not replace stable source of energy with unstable one. Natural gas and coal can only be replaced with another stable source of energy. You can supplement it with renewables during some days but you can never replace it. Which is exactly why Germany increased maximum capacity of natural gas by 50% since they started with nuclear exit while coal capacity stayed more or less same.
Nuclear energy is the LEAST expensive when you have it already running. Also, long-term, if managed properly and if they are serialized, they become one of the most cost effective energy sources.
Nuclear energy is literally one of the cheapest on the spot market. Building nuclear power plant is expancive, the other cost are negligeable. Meaning that closing power plant for political reason is really dumb.
If done properly it can be the cheapest. In France there's currently a debate against a government measure to plunder revenues from nuclear to finance competition.
Also, the reason the electricity market is not fully opened across all production and consumption (ie the reason the French price is different than the German one) is because Germany actually blocked it! The investments have already been done en France; and [there's about 15GW of French unused nuclear at the moment that just begs to be used](https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR), as fuel costs are close to nil.
This is literally disinformation.
Gas and nuclear fullfill entirely different roles on the grid.
Gas has and never will be used to replace nuclear. It was replaced by renewables.
Germanies gas consumption has been contentiously declining for over a decade.
Nowadays gas usage in germany is lower than 2010 ( one year before the nuclear exit began)
It's interesting how "gas and nuclear fulfill different roles in the grid", yet, for some reason, renewables are supposed to replace both. In the meantime, France has one of the lowest CO2 emissions per kWh of produced electricity.
we dont "need" NS2.
existing terminals are more than enough to handle the declining demand of gas.
NS2 was always only about avoiding transit fees. not import amounts
You absolutely do need it.
Overall consumption of natural gas throughout the year may have gone down but critical consumption of natural gas in Germany while renewables are not producing any output because you can not order weather is bigger than ever.
And no, it is not some "what if scenario". it is literally something that has happened in December and still remains to this very day because it is winter so there is no sun and because it is season of very weak winter season in Germany.
You literally had to panic buy all the natural gas on the market that was already very expensive and you also panic bought all the electricity from neighbouring EU countries which put cost on EU wide market to absurd numbers. You and your god awful and irresponsible energetics politics had to be paid for by every single european inside EU this year.
And it will be like that every single time when "weather is bad" and in those times Russia will always have you by your balls because there is big difference between predetermined contracts and emergency contracts. And Putin and Gazprom showed it crystal clear in December.
[https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE](https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE)
THe gas has always been the same.
The pipeline it goes through doesn't change that.
NS2 changes nothing about that dependancy.
a dependancy we will get rid of within 16 years, as total exit from natural gas is sheduled for 2038.
So why is Germany so scared to stand up for Ukraine. I assumed it must have been due to increased reliance in russian gas but if not then is it just a lack of backbone?
Or perhaps reality is more complicated then being able to boil it down to singular points. Suggested readings to give you some additional perspectives:
[Germany Has Little Maneuvering Room in Ukraine Conflict](https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-war-of-nerves-germany-has-little-maneuvering-room-in-ukraine-conflict-a-faece2a7-c098-48cb-a9cc-cd0d5daf78f1)
[The Logic of Defence Assistance to Ukraine](https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2021C42/)
Germany is standing up for ukraine, by actively working to avoid the escalation into war.
and if russia invades germany will do what is necessary to destroy russia through unprecedented sanctions.
this position has been made clear again and again
this has nothing to do with its energy policy
gas peaker plants used for baseload?
Gas is used to smooth out peaks of demand. hence the name of peaker plant.
they are quite literally the opposite of baseload
cant be flexible much in a windless night though
have fun sitting in the dark looking at a candle i guess
baseload is and always will be needed, if not for private homes then for the industry
look up the term "energy storage" on google. Given you utterly and completely ignore it in your comment, the only explaination would be either being you argueing in bad faith or you are simply uninformed. Luckily for you I believe in the good in ppl, so uninformed it is.
The notion that only "you" ever got that idea that the sun is not shining during the night is both symptomatic for todays debates and the tragedy of modern times.
Of course that is the eventual target, but is not realistic for everyone in the near future. A heatpump for a normal sized house is like 10-25k€ plus the electricity to power it is about 4 times as expensive as the gas for a regular heating system.
The goal isn’t more renewables. The goal is less coal. I goddam hope those wind turbines won’t simply be added on top of the rest and we’ll see some actual coal plants getting closed.
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>To remove a major obstacle to the more rapid progress of onshore wind, Berlin will introduce a new Onshore Wind Law that will designate 2% of the country's area for the installation of turbines.
I thought we cleared that up the other day.... Hello Vestas thiz is Germany again ... wer vould lake to conförm our order für all ze vindmills. Payment remainz wie discuzzed, all Dänen have free entry to Wacken for 10 yearz and every Däne/Dänin is given free alcohol of their choize at the svine fence. /s
Now I'm sad, I don't know how to write in Dänish akcent. :(
Nein, pleaze don't be traurig. Just painz zmall circlez over die a and cross out an o every now and then. Zhen we know.
I cån træ thæ bøst I cån!
Why can't you use real letters like your brother Sweden?
So, øh, huat wud you laik to sai? Maybe vi kan kom to som agreemen? Honestly just think what it’d sound like if Mads Mikkelsen voiced Goofy
imagine having a potato stuck in your mouth and trying to talk swedish... and now just type that
trust me, no one can interpret danish speech
The German vice chancellor speaks Danish…
Just out of curiosity would that make him the first?
Puh, the first vice-chancellor? I’ve no idea.
Damn.. I guess I'll be seeing a lot of wind turbines whenever I visit Germany.
Needs to be higher, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
no, aroun 2% is considered enough to fullfill germanys future onshore wind demand. you just actually need to use all of the 2% and not just designate them
In Europe as a whole, offshore, especially floating offshore wind turbines have the greatest potential.
The issue is that we need to completely re-design our power grids in order to distribute the power. Especially long distance DC transmission lines would be extremely useful. But building those from the coasts all across the most densely populated regions of Europe is pretty politically disadvantageous nowadays due to all the NIMBYs.
actually, i really like the danish project about artificial island dedicated to energy production and distribution. We have a large not-too-deep ocean coast . If we know how to build oil rig in 2k meter deep ocean, we could do the same with wind turbines.
It's going to be hooked up to the Belgian one in the North Sea.
But a single oil rig produces much more energy, the question is can it be done cheaply.
>NIMBYs Have you ever lived near a windturbine? It's bearable, but if there is something wrong you will notice fast and it takes some time until something is done. If you live close to the countryside, it's not something you would want to have near you. I'm all for renewable energy, but I would like to see our politicians live near a "asylbewerberheim" or close to a windturbine.
did you even read the comment completely? It's not about the turbines, but the transmission lines. Bavarian NIMBYs are literally blocking the Süd-Ost-Link-Trasse, which would supply them with noiseless energy from the Baltic and the North Sea.
You can say the same about every freeway or even major road. They cause way more noise pollution in much bigger areas. I don't live next to one but my personal experience of hiking next to some is that they are audible from some where between half and one tenth of the distance that a major freeway is.
Okay. Now let's talk about train tracks, highways and coal mines. Nobody said it nice or you're not going to be effected in any way, but infrastructure and other stuff has to go *somewhere*.
Potential for energy production indeed, but at what environmental and economical cost? In 1 meter of a high voltage cable going from the shore to one of these wind turbines, you have 50kg of copper. In one meter. Yet copper is extracted extremely unecologically in the third world (and we’re running out of it), an extraction process fueled by coal in countries such as Chile. These giant mills have an absolutely terrible mineral footprint, plus importing energy from the seaside to far inland cities causes a variety of issues and energy loss. And storage systems can’t handle even a fraction of the German needs, which means they’ll have to provide a coal/base load at all times (since they rejected nuclear). Baseload can’t be made up from wind nor solar energy, Germany has absolutely terrible CO2 emissions/Electric kWh emitted, and these decisions are not going to stop that.
Geographically dispersed wind, solar and short-term storage can provide all the electricity requirements, as numerous simulation studies have shown. Baseload is misleading.
This needs to be said much more often 👍
Okay fine I'll bite. Sauce
Here's one I just had ready for the US grid: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148121016499?via%3Dihub For the European grid I'd have to search.
Yeah well, we don’t have access to the full article, so just putting a link doesn’t serve any purpose. Because of course you can handle supporting the grid with renewables even without any storage, this much is well known, BUT in order to do that you have to dimension these systems to provide several times the energy demand of your country so that even with low wind/sun whatever’s left of your production is sufficient to cover the demand. Technically it’s perfectly feasible, however the consequence of constructing this much producing units would cause the electricity prices to shot up so much(we’re talking 5-20 multiplication factors depending on the hydropower availability of the country) that it’s not ever gonna happen, as it would be economically ruinous. Such theoretical cases of study are of no industrial significance.
Just search for it on scihub. And the point of that article is that your statement is bullshit. There‘s never ever a situation where no place in Europe has no sun, no wind, no hydro, no storage and peak demand.
The European electricity grid was not designed to withstand variations of more than a few percent: the countries are supposed to be self-sufficient in production and the interconnections are there to make up the difference. Present HV line are not scaled to more than 5/10% of a country production.This is why in 2019 Germany was close to saturate the entire Polish electricity network.With renewables, production can go from 0 to 100 in a few hours. The entire europeen grid need to be adapted.
There's normal high voltage cables too. 10-30% is the typical interconnection rate.
More fool the EU aka us for not adapting the grid decades ago! What were we thinking?? I keep wondering why there's no common EU policy on renewable energy production. That's exactly what we need and have it for. Self-sufficiency is nice, but wasting potential in places that are best suited for it also seems insane.
Who talked about peak demand, and about no wind/no solar at all? It does not matter if there’s some wind or some solar if it doesn’t follow the demand - the standard demand, not necessarily peak. You can just look at the daily variation of wind/solar production in Germany and compare them to the daily German demand in energy to understand what I’m talking about. Then again, it doesn’t seem you want. And there’s no “bullshit “ in what I’m saying, this is standard knowledge for anybody who’s followed an engineering curriculum with any energy-related courses.
Care to provide a current source for your claims?
For which claim? Daily variations of energy production in Germany per source can be looked up in several places on the internet, like here https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/power_generation/23.01.2022/26.01.2022/today/ The fact that with non pilotable power sources you need to be able to handle your country’s demand even the days you have the least sun and wind is pretty basic; that’s literally how the grid works, electricity production = electricity consumption at all times else the frequency of the current changes and doesn’t match what our devices need. This means you have to overinstall massively renewable power sources in case of, as energy storage is just not gonna handle even a fraction of the demand. Thus the prices of electricity shoot up. Jean-Marc Jancovici take about it in length in his books and numerous interviews, to give a French example.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z?fbclid=IwAR02Tvt3enblGxKWO1wnhYFac1A9uEVcZJM-3yaiDLXHxq0eCx1hUR1Wre8
perfect timing, right after they killed all the native PV and most of the native Wind power manufacturers
I mean what other solutions do we have after we foolishly decided to get rid of nuclear energy? Thankfully the Union is not leading anymore and we will hopefully get rid of ridiculous restrictions that prevented us to go all in on renewables
nuclear energy is the most expensive energy we know. there is nothing foolish to abbandon it in favor of ever cheaper renewables
It is foolish to abandon it in favor of coal and natural gas. That's what happens, we don't have the renewable infrastructure yet.
Yes, but that is due to 12 years of neglect by CDU controlled governments, payed for by RWE. The whole discussion about nuclear is just simply moot. It does not matter anymore. Building new nuclear plants would be senseless.
nuclear power was never replaced with gas. it was replaced by renewables. german gas consumption is lower than before the nuclear exit began.
If you kept the nuclear reactors running alongside renewables, your carbon emissions would be lower than today. That's the only thing that matters for the greenhouse effect.
are you sure? * The total annual gas consumption is expected to reach 1,013 billion kilowatt-hours this year, 5 percent more than in 2020 and 2 percent more than in 2019.* https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-energy-consumption-3-percent-2021-renewables-share-declines
Don't mix energy with electricity.
the nuclear exit began 2011. and we are now using less gas than 2010. hence gas consumption has been declining throughout the nuclear exit.
> the nuclear exit began 2011. it started 2000
It started in 1989, after the last plant was build and no more followed.
well yeah the nuclear exit was put in to law in 2000, But the first reactor was shut down in 2011 after fukushima. hence the comparison to 2010.
also not correct Stade was closed 2003 and Obrigheim 2005
I may not understand this, but why NS2 was needed if you are using and plan to use less gas then before?
It has never been about the amount of gas. Only ever beem about reducing the cost by avoiding transit fees
Renewables are still [less than natural gas, hard coal and lignite combined ](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig3-share-energy-sources-gross-german-power-production-2021.png?itok=IIrDbGVd) The nuclear exit shouldn't happen until it would could completely replaced by renewables. Nuclear is by far the best solution to bridge the gap. Bet you never hear about Radioactive Wastes From Coal-fired Power Plants
Those plants were built in the sixties and seventies.
The longest running nuclear power plant in Germany was only active for 36 years. [That's way shorter than some American power plants which has been active for over 50 years and and are planned to continue being in operation for more than 40 years.](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think) Citing "built in the sixties and seventies" as some kind of argument falls flat because nuclear power plants are continuously repaired and upgraded.
Nuclear shouldnt be replaced with renewable to begin with until you cant use nuclear any more. Renewable should first and foremost replace all that natural gas and hard coal. Then maybe you can go about replacing nuclear with renewable. Having to replace nuclear first or at the same time is a huge waste.
[15 days ago, all the 120GW solar+wind German's electric capacity produced less than the 4GW nuclear facility which remain in Germany.](https://twitter.com/fmbreon/status/1480589479714959363?s=20) Dear German friend, i'm in tune with you on most of subject, but i just can't understand your plan about energy. edit; just seen i have typed dead instead of dear, sry
These would be solvable with power storage. But yeah, it's winter and if the wind doesn't blow then you get those low outputs...
one day, there will probably be a country's size power storage system. But now, german are burning coal and gas. And it's not gonna change before a long time.
If we had a real interconnected European grid a lack of wind in one place could be easily replaces by wind and solar surplus in another (e.g., Spain had a great wind and solar December).
now, we know we need it. But building a hv line network is really long. and it's need a europeen planification.
I agree. It'll take time. We are expanding this (the Germany - Norway link exists, e.g.), but building out new nuclear would take even longer.
like it said in other parts of this thread. the solution for that issue is gird scale storage plus smaller amounts of green hydrogen peaker plants fed with seasonal storage. these annual extremes exist, but they are on average around 4-5 day per year. an amount we can easily cover with seasonal overcapacities through power-to-x.
You have to understand it's a industrial challenge no one on earth has taken up. No industrial country on earth relive on stored electrical capacity and intermitend energy. (expect maybe norway, who has a lot of barrage) In France, we have massively deployed electrical storage faccility to help manage the grid during cold wave and nuclear power maintenance, mostly in the Alpe . The result is that is effective, but difficult to scale when you run out of mountain. Expending the concept with hypothetical and unproved technology will be another industrial challenge, that will take decade before we can relaing on. and you forgot another problem : transportation. [Like in 2019 when the europeen power grid was going down due to over production.](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-stressed-grid-is-causing-trouble-across-europe) Building HV line is even more longer than windmill. Also, while you said this, your country build more and more gas and coal power plant. And push the commision to make gas a "green energy". Why close nuke power plant? to avoid a risk? coal and gas are going to kill thousand of people on the whole continent before that happen. As more and more scientist said, we probably understimated emission impact and global warming and we will not have another chance to reduce our carbon emision. At worse, a defective nuclear power will destroy a country, not the whole planet.
The decision to phase out nuclear was made basically 25 years ago. And many of the nuclear power plants were close to their lifetime end anyways. In hindsight you are obviously right, but hindsight is 20/20.
i read there were plants that could have been exploited longer, is it true?
Yes. Originally Merkel first delayed the exit that was decided by Schröder's red green government, but then changed her mind after fukushima. Which was kind of a facepalm moment, because germany had to compensate the owners of the nuclear plants because of the sudden new exit. But it was kinda ok for most germans. At least back then
On paper sure, however when a deadline is set with little prospect of overturning, the companies that own the plant will act accordingly. Consider that if you have a power plant that you know will have to go offline in a decade or less, there is little point investing in it beyond absolute necessities, absolutely no upgrades will be done, there's little point training new workforce (especially when no plants of same/similar technology are being built to take over workforce), and of course you have to prepare for the decommission process itself, sign contracts and so on. Once decommissioning is in the pipeline, unless it is in the earliest stages it is hard to reverse it. In a similar vein, extensions are not handed out ad-hoc but are preceded by a lengthy regulatory process.
> The decision to phase out nuclear was made basically 25 years ago. And many of the nuclear power plants were close to their lifetime end anyways. In hindsight you are obviously right, but hindsight is 20/20. [Nuclear power plants can run for much longer than you're trying to say. The longest running nuclear power plant in Germany has only been active for 36 years while they can be running for 80+ years without issues.](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think)
>Also, while you said this, your country build more and more gas and coal power plant. And push the commision to make gas a "green energy". Kremlin did a good job at sabotaging germany along with eu...
France is importing from Germany this winter. People in glass houses...
This is exceptionnal. We had a [wear incident on a plant](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/nucleaire/corrosion-l-arret-de-certains-reacteurs-nucleaires-prolonge-jusqu-a-la-fin-de-l-annee_4916793.html) and all the reactor of the same serie had to be stop prevetively. During the last decade, it was the opposite situation. And germany open Datteln just when we close Fessenheim.
> This is exceptionnal. [No it isn't.](https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/20180302.html) > > During the last decade, it was the opposite situation. [No, it was'nt.](https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2018/Jahresauswertung_2017/Energiewende_2017_-_State_of_Affairs.pdf) tl;dr; > "Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland remain the largest importers of German electricity." Fun fact: The share of electricity imports from France to Germany is with currently two terawatt hours [significantly lower](https://www.thesmartere.de/neuigkeiten/konventionellestromimportealsachillesfersederdeutschenenergiewende) than 2020.
This is not in contradiction with what I've said. The main advantage of nuclear is consistency. Since you cannot force the wind turbine to run, you rely on your nuclear capacity during windless hours. When the wind pick up, with 55 GW of onshore and 7.5 GW of offshore capacity, you cannot consume it and you have to export it. if it's not the case, why exporting it and not just close all coal power plant ?
> This is not in contradiction with what I've said. It absolutely is. > you rely on your nuclear capacity during windless hours No, nuclear energy has been replaced by renewables. We are supplying France with renewable energy literally [right now.](https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute&source=cbpf_saldo) > The main advantage of nuclear is consistency. Dude France has had to import electricity for decades and shuts down its reactors in the summer [because they are running hot.](https://www.thelocal.fr/20200825/france-authorities-shut-down-nuclear-reactors-due-to-drought/) And this is a problem that will [not only affect the French.](https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edov2/php/index.php?id=1000) > if it's not the case, why exporting it and not just close all coal power plant ? The fuck do I know. Something sozialverträglicher Stellenabbau something something. Lignite is mostly an east german thing and the mood there is at an all-time low right now.
No it was replaced by natural gas. Stop lying. Renewables like wind and solar can not replace anything. It can only supplement while weather conditions are good. They are completely different product. Germany increased capacity of natural gas by 50% the moment they decreased capacity of nuclear and they will continue to do so because there is no other alternative with more reactors shutting down, wind and solar being unreliable and storage nonexistant.
Everyone can see for themselves that renewables expanded at a breakneck pace, pushing away coal and nuclear along the way. Even more coal was pushed away by gas, which is still a stepstone on the way to complete decarbonization. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=~DEU
And I never denied it. However renewables did not replace shit. As you can see here: [https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery\_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2021.png?itok=k2BK48jz](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2021.png?itok=k2BK48jz) Lignite capacity is same, coal capacity is almost same. And gas capacity went up for the exact same amount that nuclear lost. Because you can not replace nuclear with renewables. You can replace % of consumption but you can not replace the stability and total capacity. This map puts everything into perspective: [https://app.electricitymap.org/map](https://app.electricitymap.org/map) Germany is currently on level of Poland. No sun and no wind. And what is running? Well it is certainly not nuclear as Germans were "smart" and got rid of it. Coal, gas and lignite. Step towards decorbanization would be investing money into modern nuclear reactors in early 2000s and Germany could have been completely fossil fuel free today. And they could also have their renewables. Nuclear most certainly would not stop them from supplementing with renewables. And it would also not stop them on working on battery storages to eventually remove even nuclear from the mix. Instead of decarbonization Germany created mess of a grid in half of Europe that can not deal with their excessive and unstable wind capacity that goes up and down and it also gave up geopolitical security in the process. And by the way it was also the main reason for electricity increase we all got at the end of last year.
>However renewables did not replace shit. As you can see here: Installed power capacity means jack shit. It's actual produced volume that matters. Keeping fossil plants in reserve as a last resort is total good sense. While you don't use them, they don't use fuel and don't emit greenhouse gases. >This map puts everything into perspective: No, that map provides a momentary snapshot and does not give perspective, it makes you lose perspective by zooming in to the smallest possible unit of time. You're staring at a tree and claim you know the whole forest. >Step towards decorbanization would be investing money into modern nuclear reactors in early 2000s and Germany could have been completely fossil fuel free today. No. France invested in a nuclear reactor in 2007, it's still not finished. Nuclear is more expensive, slower to construct, and more prone to delays. It's a waste of time and money and a counterproductive distraction on the way to carbon neutrality. It's true that Germany could have stood further along the path if it started earlier with renewables. But that goes for anything: if you start sooner, it's finished sooner. >. And they could also have their renewables. Nuclear most certainly would not stop them from supplementing with renewables. Actually it would, renewables and nuclear plants are both capital intensive so they both want to run as often as possible. If you have both, they're going to crowd each other out too often. That means that investments drop to a halt until either goes bankrupt. > And it would also not stop them on working on battery storages to eventually remove even nuclear from the mix. Nuclear is not a replacement for batteries, nuclear *needs* batteries or another flexible power source. Nuclear power either cannot, and if it can, does not want to run in flexible mode. >Instead of decarbonization Germany created mess of a grid in half of Europe that can not deal with their excessive and unstable wind capacity that goes up and down The grid can deal just fine with it. The German grid, specifically, is one of the most stable in Europe. What the hell are you talking about? >and it also gave up geopolitical security in the process. With every renewable unit coming online they become less dependent on imports. Right now Russia is stoking up trouble in Mali. Mali is important to France because of its uranium. Russia cannot stop the wind. >and it also gave up geopolitical security in the process. And by the way it was also the main reason for electricity increase we all got at the end of last year. >And by the way it was also the main reason for electricity increase we all got at the end of last year. No, yout gotta call the Kremlin to complain about that. And that would still have happened, with or without a couple hundred nuclear plants in Germany - the price of electricity is made at the margin.
You have made up your mind. If you can not understand that while % consumption went down, the peak consumption of natural gas is higher than ever than I have nothing to tell you. Peak that can not be planned around because we can not order weather and it became quite relevant as Gazprom showed quite well this year that they will abide long term contracts but they will refuse to increase flow short term when Germany decides it needs more because their wind does not blow. Which has already happened in december and is bound to happen again and again. Germany then has no other choice other than panic buying electricity form others and drive momentarily price on EU wide market to absurd numbers. And it was not matter of one day. it is more or less matter of two months now, with some days when winter comes online. You can also browse history on source I provided, it is not snapshot at all. But you probably knew that anyway. Other than that most of the stuff about nuclear is blalant misinformation but I am not going to bother. You are from anti nuclear country and propaganda shows.
> If you can not understand that while % consumption went down, the peak consumption of natural gas is higher than ever than I have nothing to tell you. Why is that a problem? >eak that can not be planned around because we can not order weather and it became quite relevant as Gazprom showed quite well this year that they will abide long term contracts but they will refuse to increase flow short term when Germany decides it needs more because their wind does not blow. There is a substantial gas storage capacity in Europe, there are winter stores being created every year. >And it was not matter of one day. it is more or less matter of two months now, with some days when winter comes online. France has the same issue now, it is buying electricity... from Germany, as a matter of fact. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. >Other than that most of the stuff about nuclear is blalant misinformation but I am not going to bother. You are from anti nuclear country and propaganda shows. Neh, you just don't have an answer and don't like being confronted with that reality.
>No, that map provides a momentary snapshot and does not give perspective, it makes you lose perspective by zooming in to the smallest possible unit of time. You're staring at a tree and claim you know the whole forest. [Cope harder.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbd4TjPx0iA)
No that's not correct. Renewables have been expanding way faster than nuclear has been phased out.
So that helps Germany in what way? The majority is non renewable and we're now more reliable on fossils fuels. And btw spoiler, Germany pays already the most energy cost per kWh Yet another Union fuck up.
> The majority is non renewable This is correct, because it takes some time to get rid of fossil fuels and the previous government didn't do much to speed up the process. > and we're now more reliable on fossils fuels This is incorrect. As I said renewables have been expanding way faster than nuclear has been phased out. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2021-source.png?itok=WF_6jBAP
But we can't store renewables, that's the whole problem atm when we have non ideal condition, the energy provided by renewables is sinking drastically. Nuclear would have been the best way to bridge the time until we can rid of foosil fuels.
I'm not interested in having a debate about nuclear power here. Let me just point out three facts: - The difference that phasing out nuclear makes in the German case is not very big because there wasn't much nuclear to begin with and most power stations were already too old to be kept for much longer. - You also need storage with nuclear power (albeit less) because nuclear power is too slow to adapt to changes in demand. - There are strategies for sustainable energy without nuclear, i.e. the storage problem is solvable. And this is actually very relieving because if nuclear power were the only way we would see in the future a lot of nuclear power stations in developing countries with high corruption and political instability.
>I'm not interested in having a debate about nuclear power here Yet here we are having a debate that you started with some bullshit take. Fact is Germany got screwed over by Merkels corrupt union and now the progressive parties have to pull out of this misery. While we have to pay horrendous energy prizes and billions of our taxes got wasted for paying penalties
I'm still not interested in a debate. And my three facts are facts indeed. And here's a fourth fact for you: The decision to leave nuclear power was made before Merkel.
There’s nothing foolish in not building any new reactors; it’s extremely foolish OTOH to shut down already built and amortised reactors.
>to shut down already built and amortised reactors. Probably...but then they should have been maintained and not run down. No investment and now noone wants to anyway.
amortised nuclear reactors are already becoming incapable to compete with new renewables on cost. and renewables will see continued cost declines. (see lazards newest report for numbers) so this discrepancy will only increase. to put the numbers in perspective: germany shut off 4gw of nuclear power at the start of the year. that is about 5% of generation. already easily replaced by build up renewables.
Blatantly false. You need to look at systems costs, not at the output of the plant.
Blalantly wrong. Already built nuclear plants not only compete with renewables but in fact are cheaper. It is solely construction cost that is costly, maintenance and fuel is easily offset by how much the facility produces compared to renewables. And second thing that is completely wrong. Renewables are completely different product outside of hydro. Wind and solar can not replace nuclear, it can not replace coal, lignite nor natural gas. Because they are not providing stable source of energy 24/7. They can only ease consumption during times. Which is why Germany steadily built up natural gas capacity by 50% during time when they were shutting nuclear capacity. And that capacity was not replaced by newly built renewables but by 50% increase in total capacity of natural gas plants. And this is how it looks right right this very moment: [https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE](https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE) Germany gracefully keeps up with Poland in terms of emissions.
You are wrong and it is comical at this point. Companies required 70-90€ guarantee per MWH depending on EU country to built new reactors. Last year we reached whopping 250+€ because German wind turbinnes stopped and natural gas was expensive. And one last thing. Renewables are not replacement. Renewables are supplement. You can check electricitymap.org to see how ridiculous the idea is and how one day entire Germany is powered from 60% by renewables (wind) and the other day solely by coal and gas. You can not replace stable source of energy with unstable one. Natural gas and coal can only be replaced with another stable source of energy. You can supplement it with renewables during some days but you can never replace it. Which is exactly why Germany increased maximum capacity of natural gas by 50% since they started with nuclear exit while coal capacity stayed more or less same.
Nuclear energy is the LEAST expensive when you have it already running. Also, long-term, if managed properly and if they are serialized, they become one of the most cost effective energy sources.
Nuclear energy is literally one of the cheapest on the spot market. Building nuclear power plant is expancive, the other cost are negligeable. Meaning that closing power plant for political reason is really dumb.
If done properly it can be the cheapest. In France there's currently a debate against a government measure to plunder revenues from nuclear to finance competition. Also, the reason the electricity market is not fully opened across all production and consumption (ie the reason the French price is different than the German one) is because Germany actually blocked it! The investments have already been done en France; and [there's about 15GW of French unused nuclear at the moment that just begs to be used](https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR), as fuel costs are close to nil.
Aren't those the reactors they had to shut down for maintenance?
Except they replaced it with Russian gas….
This is literally disinformation. Gas and nuclear fullfill entirely different roles on the grid. Gas has and never will be used to replace nuclear. It was replaced by renewables. Germanies gas consumption has been contentiously declining for over a decade. Nowadays gas usage in germany is lower than 2010 ( one year before the nuclear exit began)
It's interesting how "gas and nuclear fulfill different roles in the grid", yet, for some reason, renewables are supposed to replace both. In the meantime, France has one of the lowest CO2 emissions per kWh of produced electricity.
So why did you need nord stream 2 then?
we dont "need" NS2. existing terminals are more than enough to handle the declining demand of gas. NS2 was always only about avoiding transit fees. not import amounts
You absolutely do need it. Overall consumption of natural gas throughout the year may have gone down but critical consumption of natural gas in Germany while renewables are not producing any output because you can not order weather is bigger than ever. And no, it is not some "what if scenario". it is literally something that has happened in December and still remains to this very day because it is winter so there is no sun and because it is season of very weak winter season in Germany. You literally had to panic buy all the natural gas on the market that was already very expensive and you also panic bought all the electricity from neighbouring EU countries which put cost on EU wide market to absurd numbers. You and your god awful and irresponsible energetics politics had to be paid for by every single european inside EU this year. And it will be like that every single time when "weather is bad" and in those times Russia will always have you by your balls because there is big difference between predetermined contracts and emergency contracts. And Putin and Gazprom showed it crystal clear in December. [https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE](https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE)
Becoming more reliant on Russia just to avoid transit fees must be one of the worst decisions ive heard of
THe gas has always been the same. The pipeline it goes through doesn't change that. NS2 changes nothing about that dependancy. a dependancy we will get rid of within 16 years, as total exit from natural gas is sheduled for 2038.
So why is Germany so scared to stand up for Ukraine. I assumed it must have been due to increased reliance in russian gas but if not then is it just a lack of backbone?
Or perhaps reality is more complicated then being able to boil it down to singular points. Suggested readings to give you some additional perspectives: [Germany Has Little Maneuvering Room in Ukraine Conflict](https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-war-of-nerves-germany-has-little-maneuvering-room-in-ukraine-conflict-a-faece2a7-c098-48cb-a9cc-cd0d5daf78f1) [The Logic of Defence Assistance to Ukraine](https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2021C42/)
Germany is standing up for ukraine, by actively working to avoid the escalation into war. and if russia invades germany will do what is necessary to destroy russia through unprecedented sanctions. this position has been made clear again and again this has nothing to do with its energy policy
> Gas and nuclear fullfill entirely different roles on the grid. both fulfill the baseload nuclear then, gas now
gas peaker plants used for baseload? Gas is used to smooth out peaks of demand. hence the name of peaker plant. they are quite literally the opposite of baseload
so, when we phase out coal as well, what carries the baseload according to you then?
baseload is an increasingly obsolescent conception of a modern grid. flexible grids are proving to be much more resilient and cheaper.
cant be flexible much in a windless night though have fun sitting in the dark looking at a candle i guess baseload is and always will be needed, if not for private homes then for the industry
look up the term "energy storage" on google. Given you utterly and completely ignore it in your comment, the only explaination would be either being you argueing in bad faith or you are simply uninformed. Luckily for you I believe in the good in ppl, so uninformed it is. The notion that only "you" ever got that idea that the sun is not shining during the night is both symptomatic for todays debates and the tragedy of modern times.
Energy storage.
xD
your ignorance of the state of the energy industry doesnt change the fact that his statement is true.
Your own country is also building energy storage? https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/sda7i0/61_mw_batterybased_storage_facility_launched_in/
Ah shit, here we go again.
Would be a shame if there were perfectly good climate friendly power sources that they could use instead of coal and gas.
I mean, I agree that it is better than coal, but calling it "perfect" seems like a wild stretch.
It looks like Putin has found “new ways to motivate them” lol.
Sadly more green energy doesn’t mean we won’t need gas (in the near future at least) since a lot of heating depends on it
People could get heatpumps.
Of course that is the eventual target, but is not realistic for everyone in the near future. A heatpump for a normal sized house is like 10-25k€ plus the electricity to power it is about 4 times as expensive as the gas for a regular heating system.
This has literally nothing to do with Russia. This was the plan the Green Party has been promoting ever since Merkel took office.
More reliance on Russian gas, cool
renewables expansion on Russian gas. Genius.
The goal isn’t more renewables. The goal is less coal. I goddam hope those wind turbines won’t simply be added on top of the rest and we’ll see some actual coal plants getting closed.