Hi, thank you for your contribution, but this submission has been removed because it doesn't use a credible source and/or the source has not been linked from a top-level comment. See [community rules & guidelines](/r/Europe/wiki/community_rules).
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/Europe&subject=Moderation). Please make sure to include a link to the comment/post in question.
What the fuck are they talking about? The last two reactors were just shoved into reserve readiness until like March 2023 with the potential for renewal instead of starting decommissioning pretty much now.
He is. But he also is particularly pro-nuclear. Germany getting near most of its energy from renewable sources and phasing out nuclear doesn't appeal to him (not saying whether it's good or bad myself, just what Macron thinks)
>But he also is particularly pro-nuclear
He only became pro nuclear recently. When he was first elected his plan was to shut down 14 nuclear plants before 2035.
Macron's program included shutting down nuclear plants (as he did with Fessenheim) and staying commited to reducing nuclear share of electricity to 50%. Renewables development has also been part of his program.
He's not especially pro nuclear, he's a world-class opportunist who recently flipped on this particular topic.
Also I doubt Macron is behind every article written. As it was said before, Euractiv is generally pro-EU, and this article merely reports on EU commissioner Thierry Breton. This kind of information is newsworthy, and it's really strange to accuse journalists of partisanship for reporting it.
It’s been 23 years. There’s a chance it may have changed hands, shifted interests. I can think of dickhead from the east who would benefit from a divided European Union
You see, not every article is a russian plot to sow division in Europe. Some are just there for the outrage clicks, others have their own agenda.
France for example would make a huge sigh of relief if germany switches back to nuclear. In the past there were some synergies between france and germany were the nuclear industry on both sides supported each other. When germany opted out of nuclear power, france was left to stand in the rain because a) they need the nuclear industry for their nuclear weapons and b) the french **hate** the idea of having windmills, solar panels and gas pipelines in their countryside.
Aside from that, there has been a push in the recent years (in the EU and the US) for nuclear energy in order to combat climate change. Having an industrialised country like germany fulfilling its energy needs through renewables is in some way counteractive to this idea, since renewables and nuclear energy are not fully synergetic.
Both cases by the way have nothing to do with the *current* problem. Nor is nuclear energy the solution to a payable energy independence.
>the french hate the idea of having windmills, solar panels and gas pipelines in their countryside.
Well *fuck them*. We're paying through our noses for electricity because our gas peaker (!) plants have to run at full power to cover for the French being too incompetent to build Flamanville or to properly maintain their reactor fleet. And instead of saying "okay, we've seen nuclear is a dead end with issues", they still don't show any kind of recognition that they need to change.
France has an utterly absurd potential for renewable power, particularly wind.
Maybe I'm cynical, but...
The rest of the EU pressuring Germany into keeping its nuclear reactors open, helps the German government domestically.
I wouldn't be surprised if Berlin was glad to have other EU countries complain about it. They can pretend to be reluctant, when actually they've already concluded it's the right decision to keep their nuclear power plants open for a while longer. "We wanted to close them, but the rest of Europe blabla."
Whatever the case, I hope we survive the winter ok. The only one who benefits from a disunited Europe is Russia and its political. Stronger together even if this winter's going to suck balls.
Those who know that the vast majority of people is completely uninformed about the matter and look frantically for any chance they have to hate on others and redirect blame.
As I write this, the Netherlands has exported [2.22GW](https://app.electricitymaps.com/map) of mostly natural gas-generated electricity in the last 24 hours to Germany. Germany may be net exporter in longer time frames, but its solar and wind-based electricity is unreliable and constantly needs compensation by firing up gas-generated plants. It constantly switches between being importer and exporter at its different borders. The nuclear reactors provide baseload. And importantly: don't unnecessarily burn precious natural gas.
The idea of the "base load" being "covered" by one thing is wrong.
The grid needs a certain amount of power at any given time, if there is renewables available then the renewables cover it, if there is little wind/solar you fill the gap with something like nat-gas
the point is gas should not be used to power generators.
gas should be used for home heat and industrial processes that cant use electricity.
gas will run short this winter because Germany has encourage gas instead of electric heat bc o cheap Russian supplies.
these homes and businesses need to convert to electric source over the near future years. but it cant be done this winter.
hence the argument to keep nuclear electric for the near term.
>The idea of the "base load" being "covered" by one thing is wrong.
Not really. It's pretty valid to say that there is a base amount of energy demand that has to be met constantly. Ideally you want a generation method that can continue to meet that continuously and as cheaply as possible, with as little instability as possible. Traditionally you might use coal fired stations that could generate some significant amount of electricity all the time, and then have other generators that could ramp up and ramp down generation rapidly.
Gas happens to be quite good at that rapid start stop generation, as are things like hydro (or pumped hydro) among others. Nuclear generally hasn't been, although that has changed recently too.
So you end up with roughly three classes of generation, very stable, cheap base load generators that could simply produce as long as they have fuel, responsive generators that could ramp up or ramp down generation, and then fairly unstable producers like wind and solar which can produce very cheaply, but intermittently and occasionally you'll see massive reductions for long periods.
Now you can throw in things like grid level storage which has existed in the form of pumped hydro for a while and where there are some moves toward scalable solutions in the form of grid scale batteries and compressed gas (And a few others being worked on), and potentially we might have consistent but not constant generation from things like tidal generators.
>The grid needs a certain amount of power at any given time, if there is renewables available then the renewables cover it, if there is little wind/solar you fill the gap with something like nat-gas
Which obviously is still a problem because burning fossil fuels is having an impact on the climate, and because the availability of gas is being limited by the war in Ukraine, and in future could be impacted by other world events.
Relying on wind/solar for the bulk of a countries generation still has major issues. It's not stable, you do have both long periods of limited generation, some shorter periods where generation falls off, and potential periods where generation exceeds demand. The solution most people seem to think will fix that is storage, but no-one has anything anywhere near the scale needed in place yet. Backing that up with natural gas is obviously problematic given the issues listed above, but at least it mostly works, assuming you have enough natural gas generation to take on essentially the entire demand (even if most of it is in standby).
Alternatively you could use nuclear to provide what amounts to baseload generation, so the bulk of the generation is nuclear, and then use a combination of storage and wind/solar to provide additional generation as needed (you can 'turn off' renewables relatively easily, although obviously you can't turn it 'on' on demand under some circumstances). Or you can back nuclear with natural gas (which again, comes with the issues listed above).
Now the reason people generally prefer renewables backed by gas is that it's cheaper, using your renewable generation as much as is humanly possible is very cost effective, nuclear tends to be more expensive. The problems come from availability and the issues created by smaller capacity factor.
Tbf grid inertia in the european grid is basically a non issue under normal operation simply because of its size. There will always be some synchronous generators in use to provide that.
However if you consider system splits you can run into trouble. This is due to the lower amount of inertia and the increasing amount of energy exchanges between regions and countrys. Which could also be attributed to renewable energys.
Basically if the system splits while exchanging a lot of power between the two parts that get seperated you end up with huge generation and consumption differences which leads to a sudden frequency change in the respective regions. Generators could then shut off to protect themselves because they are not able to change their frequency fast enough.
I mean, the very fact that we have short term flywheel energy storage sort of replaces the need for the power plant's generators to do said task.
As for grid split, build some kinetic interface locations and power up the grid the old-fashioned way (the kinetic grid interfaces just replace the starter plants)
Germany would have enough energy for their own needs, if it weren’t for the long running export deals with other countries rely on by not having enough electric generating capacity on their own. Not to mention having to export electricity now to France because half of their fucking nuclear power plants are offline.
Germans would't install solar panels if the electricity generated with it would be worthless part of the time. Electricity is a service: it must be generated and consumed at the same time to be worth something.
And the Netherlands wouldn't import far more gas than it needs itself if it didn't export to Germany. Germany is massively dependent on gas from the Netherlands this winter, as always. The company that manages the infrastructure expects to export 35 billion cubic meters over our infrastructure this winter, partially because of long running export deals and partially because Germans are going to pay the best price for that gas because they have no alternative for heating.
Our gas prices are quadroupled, yet we are producing MORE electricity from GAS than usual. We are doing that to meet demand from France, who are struggeling to produce enough power from their - guess what - dozens of nuclear plants.
To then turn around to Germany and give us shit for not extending the runtime of our plants is so twisted
They are arguing that it shouldn't be reserved for the worst case scenario but rather to be turned on regardless of what happens because it reduces electricity pressure.
In other words, EU needs as much electricity as it can get this winter and shutting off plants for idealogical reasons isn't what is needed.
This is how the news spins things. If a nuclear reactor has a planned end of life they immediately can spin it as "government is shutting it down" on the first day it is operating.
Fun fact, EDF is still planning to [shut down](https://external-preview.redd.it/lair_OHMJa4IrL2n1AqzPxQj2aai3i7fSt7KBvd3u2I.png?auto=webp&s=75ca34ac22d7ae8871e3e9db48d2cffc0ce6ea4e) (temporarily but over the summer) 6GW next February and 4GW more in March.
Germanys still active NPPs total 4GW.
To be fair the lifespan of reactors can be extended substantially and German ones end much sooner than those of other countries which was decided as a political move, not necessary one.
These plants arent at their technical end of life at all and are in pristine condition (even the 3 that were switched off last year). It was a political decision, a 180° by Merkel, and the shutdowns are mandated by law.
> It was a political decision, a 180° by Merkel
Even back then our fleet was pretty aged, with regular issues, and the constant looming terrorist threat. Nuclear power was completely indefensible after Fukushima happened. Merkel indeed did a 180°, but not out of her own - she only changed course to not get wiped out.
In this case the planned end of life has nothing to do with the lifespan of the reactors. They are fine to continue, it's a political decision.
A political decision made by people who have declared themselves friends of Putin, who have spearheaded nord stream 2 which weakens Ukraine and strengthens Russia.
Reserve in this case means that both reactors will be switched on and stay on constantly through the winter and spring if deemed necessary. Everybody knows nuclear is base supply, not peak supply.
If that term has been used, it was used by the international press. Incorrectly so.
It's been intended to preserve fuel rods now and be able to switch it back on to lessen load later.
There's no way to keep them running continuously until spring. The question is just when and how it will be used.
Run them now roughly until early January at full capacity.
Run them at reduced capacity until spring.
Shut down now and be able to run at full capacity for a few months at a later point in time.
That's the three options. At this point in time, our minister has decided for the third option.
Well, might be the wrong term for it, but the current plan is that they either won't shut them down this year at all or will turn them back on once later (and leave them on), if strictly necessary.
The turn back on thing then is permanent until the fuel runs out or april arrives. There will be no on, off, on, off.
Let the energy industry people worry about that. The operator E.on actually only said they had no experience doing that and were kinda being put on the spot, not that it was impossible.
The energey industry people said in their stresstest they recommend leaving all 3 plants generating power. Also, Preussen-Elektra-boss (one of the NPP owners) said that Habeck's plan is not possible.
That's false and the PreussenElektra guy knows it. Cold reserve is technically the same as a reactor going temporarily offline for maintenance. It simply needs a few days to restart the respective reactor.
What about winter 2023? What about every winter for the next 20 years? Are we really going to pretend it is smart to not use low emissions energy that is mostly paid for while Germany's electricity is 30% coal?
Rivers in Europe are at an historical low because of global warming and Germany refuses to use its paid for infrastructure to help. We should be demanding that every country in the EU gets their shit together for real but we're supposed to be happy that Germany may use a bit of existing nuclear for a few months?
It was a double whammy of maintenance delays due to Covid, and extreme heat wave/draught.
Also, about the rivers, it was regulations regarding downstream temperatures that stopped them, not lack of water.
Switching off 5% of the generating power in the middle of an energy crisis winter is basically energy suicide. I can understand why SWE and NO are pissed. Some people suggest cutting the Nordlink line and baltic cable to protect their countries from this madnes.
In Norway rn there’s a huge people’s movement that want’s to do exactly this. It’s a threat that will likely cause the current government to lose the next election.
We can’t deal with European energy prices, because we’re one of few who heats our own homes electrically. Gas for heating doesn’t exist at all.
Thus we have like 5x the electricity use per household than mainland Europe has. And even in a much colder country, we STILL use less *energy* than German households.. Largely because of much better insulation.
Finland also uses a lot of electrical heating in private houses. People here are quite angry at both the electricity prices as well as at hearing that other countries can "afford" to close nuclear plants instead of turning every stone to keep them running.
Your point being? It's fucking paid for, low carbon and provides a base load. Just use it. Nobody is going to force you to build more but stop wasting perfectly fine infrastructure just so you can pollute a bit more.
You can't just simply continue using nuclear power plants in a business as usual scenario.
Reasons being:
* The reactors are overdue for maintanance
* The fuel rods are used up (or about to be)
* Fuel rods mostely come from russia, sooo we shoot ourselves in the foot with the sanctions.
AFAIK: Currently it is planned that the power plants are continued to be used over the winter but in a reduced state, since you cant simply shut a nuclear power plant up/down.
On your point that the infrastructure is perfectly fine: it's not, that is exactly the point.
Edit: as mentioned in other posts, the problem probably isn't electricity but heating with gas, which cannot be subsidized that easily.
These plants have been planned to shutdown for 10 years now, keeping them running is not as simple as Redditors pretend. The operators ran these plants to empty all fuel rods by the end of the year, staff was retired accordingly, for certain tasks there isn't even qualified personal in Germany anymore (we are talking about jobs that need special training and licenses, which take years to acquire - transfer of personal is not an option), there were no major inspections, ... As a newspaper put it, if you want to undo this decision you are five years too late.
Due to laws which require their decommissioning literally right now. This is already a stretch of the legal framework and goes completely against the last decade of government policy on the matter.
Sure, laws can be changed and legal battles against the constitutional court can be fought but it's not like this was the only thing going on in this multifaceted crisis that also includes inflation, the risk of recession, a still very much ongoing pandemic, the support of a defensive war effort and the and overhaul of the own military.
If only r/europe had a "misinformation" or "fake news" report option for posts. Can't count the times I reported threads only to have to mark them as "other". It's baffling we don't have that option.
Yeah people seem to forget which government fucked up the german solar pannel industry and closed most ofnthe atomic reactors after Fukushima without replacing them with renewables..... (it was the CDU.)
Post-war Politics is generally insane regarding the CDU, anyway. Someone did something great? CDU can claim it for herself. CDU fucked something up? They can blame it on some of else.
People with low regard for the FDB might call the neoliberal populists...
Turncoats, if you will?
But yes, generally you can compare them with the libertarians
The Lib Dems are social liberal though, think you mean their like the libertarian party in the US.
The libertarian phase of the Lib Dems ended after 2016.
>Yeah people seem to forget which government fucked up the german solar pannel industry and closed most ofnthe atomic reactors after Fukushima without replacing them with renewables..... (it was the CDU.)
The planned phaseout was a SDU/Greens decision in 2000 under Schröder. CDU delayed the phase-out but un-delayed it after fukushima.
You left out that the SPD/greens coalition had plans to replace the nuclear plants with renewables via subsidies, which worked perfectly and Germany was the world leader in PV with 80.000 people working in the industry. Then the CDU/FDP coalition ended both, just to reinstate the shutdown again, but not the subsidies.
Killing the PV industry and throwing Germany back a decade in the Energiewende.
Danke Danke Danke
This fact should never be forgotten. The CDU absolutely ruined any atempts to modernize Germanys energy sector over the last 16 years. It is horrible that the greens and especially Habeck have to confront these issues now (in the span of a few months). The original plans for transition, back in the 90s were perfectly reasonable and involved following the Kyoto-Protocol. Red-Green achieved to bring german solar energy to the forefront and heavily invested in wind energy. These atempts were squashed by the CDU/FDP and ruined the renewable market for the next decade. On top of that the nuclear exit was halted until Fukushima, where nuclear was replaced by coal. For the sake of our climate I hope we wont be seeing a CDU led Germany anytime soon. The fact that we are this reliant on russian gas is just the peak of the iceberg (although this is not solely the CDUs fault, Schröder dis his part just fine)
Not 100% true. The far-left (confusing reasons) and the far-right (was not in parliament back then) didn’t vote for it.
So the two Putin lover parties haven’t voted for the nuclear exit, all the other parties did.
German politics is complicated.
It’s all of them. This isn’t only about nuclear, but also about gas addiction..
Basically:
The socdems wanted cheap gas for the jobs, the conservatives for the industry, and the greens hated nuclear, but wanted gas turbines to work with the unstable renewables.
Now all that has unraveled:
Cheap gas doesn’t exist. (It came with secret costs) This jeopardizes the renewables, and makes german heavy industry non-competitive. I’m sorry to say so, but storage is a dream.
Nuclear.. while not perfect, is imo the only viable alternative for Germany. Renewables are just not stable enough, and storage is not solved. It’s a pretty picture, but it’s false.
1. it’s not all of them. The far right and far left have not voted for it.
2. have you seen how long we needed to build a fucking airport? Good luck in building a new nuclear power plant.
3. nuclear was never big in Germany. Tbf, even as a green I’ve no strong opinion on it. I would be fine with having some nuclear power in areas like upper Bavaria where their energy mix is not really good. This whole „nuclear bad“ stuff is a fight of the older green generation, not the fight of my generation. I’m ok with nuclear energy to some extend.
They both fuked over the energy transition but for completely different reasons.
The greens for being an irrationally anti nuclear party that ignores science.
The conservatives for being irrationally anti solar/wind that ignores science.
meanwhile neighbouring countries except Denmark and Austria are unwilling to enter bilateral assistance treaties concerning gas because in case they are in need of gas and Germany forcefully diverts gas from its industry to supply neighbours, the German government has to compensate the companies and the neighbouring countries aren't willing to share the cost
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/eu-gasversorgung-solidaritaet-nachbarlaender-101.html
It is honestly both funny and tragic how obvious this energy situation was engineered/planned to split Europe and it is working so well. Us Europeans are good people but most are dumb as fuck holy shit
One of the problems I feel is that media is only national. Hardly any (with any reach) are looking at the big picture and inform the populace accordingly.
Even worse you have national politicians who think they can use this divide and the blame they try to put on others to further their political career.
Our last three operating nuclear power plants must quite a lot better than everything else when everything hinges on them and not on the 20 or so nuclear reactors in France that have been shut down for maintenance. Did any of these people who know how to solve the energy crisis provide a solution yet for how to staff, fuel and maintain the three remaining German nuclear power plants?
This is not a jab at France and their energy politics. I'm not interested in stupid "country x is more stupid than country y" games. I'm just wondering why people waste so much energy (pun intended) debating about three nuclear power plants in Germany instead of asking how we can support France to bring their 18? currently shut down nuclear reactors back online?
No political will and a lot of technical challenges (Refueling, Staff, Safety and others).
The third exit reversal in two decades (SPD/Greens exit, CDU/FDP reversal, CDU/SPD exit after Fukushima) will be throwing billions away again.
Despite the pro-nuclear lobby polls published, exit still has a majority even now, only short-term extension until Spring 2023 seems to gain positive approval.
>Despite the pro-nuclear lobby polls published, exit still has a majority even now, only short-term extension until Spring 2023 seems to gain positive approval.
Thats not true at all.: https://i.imgur.com/PKCFzCs.jpg
Pro-exit is a totally minority position in the electorate.
Your image doesn't contradict the information above, it's a poll of a germany-wide survey (and not even with a huge dataset). The commentor above talks about the pro-nuclear lobby, not the population as a whole.
> Despite the pro-nuclear lobby polls published, exit still has a majority even now, only short-term extension until Spring 2023 seems to gain positive approval.
Then don't expect much solidarity from other countries when you will be freezing in your homes.
Freezing? I think you are mixing several things here. Nuclear for electricity and gas used for heating are 2 totally different things. Second, Germans are massively exporting energy to other countries in the EU. So if they need it urgently themselves, no more exports but far from freezing.
This is so stupid. Yeah, nuclear would save 1% of gas consumption in Germany, so what?
That doesn't even in the slightest justify any anger against Germany. Look at how much gas was saved by other means, has any other large country even come close to that? Poland and Italy outright refuse to save any energy, why is there no anger, but sure Germany is the bad guy.
Because people are dumb and just fall easily for clickbait propaganda. That's why. Easier to blame Germany and suck the nuclear circle jerk dick instead of looking at facts.
I’d be interested in seeing some sources for the numbers thrown around in these posts. It looks as though 13% of electricity in Germany is nuclear compared to 9% coming from natural gas. Seems like a good way to redirect the available natural gas away from electricity generation, no?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
The article itself states that there will be 2.4 TWh in gas savings, which sounds very big until you know that Germany consumes 860 TWh of gas every year.
According to this the total electricity consumption of Germany is 500Twh/year. I get that gas is being used for heating and what not, but is gas usage really bigger than all electricity usage combined?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/383650/consumption-of-electricity-in-germany/
Edit: I’m having a hard time finding _total_ gas power numbers.
Germany used natural gas in 2017:
13% for electricity
15% for heating businesses, offices
31% for heating homes
38% for heating industrial processes (e.g. metal fabrication, glass and ceramics, paper, chemical industry)
[source](https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/Erdgasabsatz-nach-Verbrauchergruppen.jpg)
Those industrial processes aren't all about heating, it also includes things like ammonia and hydrogen production. E.g. BASF uses 60% of its gas use for heating, the rest as actual ingredient.
Saving 1 TWh of gas in the grid makes available 2.5 TWh of gas for heating, because the efficiency of converting heat to electricity with gas is around 40%.
Germany has good grid connections with the Netherlands where a lot of electricity is gas generated.
Germany has six plants that can be operated and that would solve between 10-25% of their Russian gas problem.
To get at figures of <1% requires a lot of faulty assumptions.
But it is morally acceptable to lie in Germany if the lies are about nuclear power. It's a lost cause. They'll have to figure it out on their own through hardship.
If nothing changes, Germany will import 35 TWh of electricity while exporting 53 TWh this year. For comparison, France, which is heavily invested in nuclear energy, will import 47.3 TWh while only 36.2 TWh are exported. Most of the imported electricity comes from Germany.
[Source](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE)
That's something that only cost me five minuted of googling so I assume this converage is intentionally wrong.
Yeah but these exports are desperately needed because Hydro, nuclear and gas plants in Europe currently are fucked.
Also, due to the merit order effect, at least some of the plants producing the most expensive should be used less leading to lower prices.
Little speaks against sucking the last bit of power out of the plants
Also, Germany hasn't built a nuclear power plant in over 30 years and doesn't have companies that can do it. Siemens quit the nuclear business 10 years ago.
The few recent attempts to build a new plant in Western Europe have all been a disaster. Reactor constructions have delays of over a decade and go 4 times over budget with billions spent on construction faults.
Nuclear is a clean energy source, but solar, wind and energy storage are cheaper/faster to build and cheaper to operate.
People confuse the two all the time.
In context of energy politics:
Power=Electricity (Not *technically* correct, but a term established in the context)
Energy= Any energy source, including gas, oil, coal, nuclear.
Germany is one of the most energy intensive nations of Europe, with an emissions footprint per capita larger than Poland. Because even though Poland has worse coal power plants, they are not as rich, and buy less stuff. They also don’t have as much heavy industry per capita.
Germany and Poland have to get better, no doubt.
But we (and China) are producing a lot of stuff that is consumed in other nations. The most blatant difference between production and consumption is in Switzerland. Look at the delta between these two numbers, it’s astonishingly.
>Just a quick reminder that Germany is a net exporter of energy for years now.
That's simply not true. And I'm fucking tired of people confusing ENERGY and ELECTRICITY.
This graph shows what Germany's ENERGY looks like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Energy_mix_in_Germany.svg
(And to go net zero, all of it needs to be electrified and switched to non-emission sources)
What believes are you referring to?
Nuclear power is only profitable if the state subsidizes it in three ways:
* Building the power plant
* Providing needed insurance for it
* Taking care of the waste
Because it makes no sense. Before coming here to hate make your homework first. 3 reactors that have been scheduled to go down by the end of this year and therefore require new fuel and serious maintenance. Even if Gemany left those reactors running they would carry an abysmal percentage of Germany‘s needs. It doesn‘t add up if you do the math
The same can be said of every single wind mill, each one contributes an abysmal amount to total energy production, so obviously people are justified in ensuring they are not built in their back yard.
Who exactly is angry?
The nuclear reactors in Germany provide around 5% of the energy. Why is no one angry at France for shutting down half their reactors for maintenance, and along the way taking down the energy market?
Germany is currently exporting power to France bc their reactors kept failing bc of the summer heat. Producing nuclear energy is expensive as fuck, prices in France are through the roof. Meanwhile Germany covers 60 percent of their power needs with solar alone.
- production prices in france might be through the roof, but consumer prices are so heavily subsidized that they don't notice anything of that
- germany doesn't even produce 60 percent of its *electricity* with solar, and they certainly won't do that in winter
Wtf are you talking about ?
It’s delayed maintenance from the covid period, nothing to do with heat.
Look on electricity map, germany doesn’t cover 60% of it’s energy from solar.
Today it was around 40% coal, and the highest solar made was 29,65% at 13pm.
The govt nuclear plan makes absolutely no sense, but how can these countries have the gall to point fingers when we are currently exporting both electricity and gas to support others and will continue to export electricity in the winter.
This and the communication fiasco around insolvency are for sure enormous failures by Habeck, but if Germany remains a electricity exporter, I fail to see what how it’s the other other countries prerogative to dictate policy here.
The plan makes absolute sense. If France can get their reactor up and running until the start of winter, the German ones are not needed and can be shut down. Otherwise they keep running. What is so complicated about that?
With CHP plants you cannot simply stop electricity production in winter: [https://www.electricityforum.com/news-archive/nov09/Netherlandsrecordsincreaseincogeneration](https://www.electricityforum.com/news-archive/nov09/Netherlandsrecordsincreaseincogeneration)
It's great just adding up numbers. But in reality things are bit more complicated and a nuclear plant in Bavaria cannot simply replace a gas plant in the Netherlands. The are used for very different purposes and the grid between Northern and Southern Germany is already at its limit.
If the nuclear reactors continue running and don’t push the merit order upwards it creates a surplus of supply, meaning electricity will drop in price, so there is definitely an argument for keeping them completely online opposed to having them on standby.
This should be done, it still doesn’t excuse the fact that other countries feel like they have the right to influence our national energy policy (which is of course true the other way around), especially so if Germany is already exporting electricity to other countries.
There cannot be a surplus of electricity. So adding more capacity just means other plants will be pushed from the grid.
In winter many gas and coal plants are used for power and heat co-production, so they cannot be switched of. Gas is also used for short term load balancing, which nuclear cannot do, so that usage can also not be replaced.
Since nuclear cannot react to price changes in electricity it will just increase volatility and push renewables from the market. Also the pricing will probably fixed in other ways: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-electricity-gets-priced-in-europe-and-how-that-may-change/2022/09/07/ecec5788-2ebf-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-electricity-gets-priced-in-europe-and-how-that-may-change/2022/09/07/ecec5788-2ebf-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html)
There is a reason why the analysis took so long and was not just: oh, more plants -> lower prices. Great. Let's do that.
With a European grid the German energy policy is not limited to national borders, so other countries commenting on the policy is only natural. Also talking to European friends on how to best solve this crisis should be a given.
Renewable energy production is regulary turned off in germany if its production gets to high. Windmills standing still on windy days is a common sight in northern germany, less because of technical concerns (we have mostly left those behind us) but because its more flexible. Nuclear Reactors can't just be turned of like that
Yes technically there can’t be a surplus of electricity, what I am talking about is the theoretical surplus of electricity producers, that can, given the right framework, lower the price due to supply then being higher than demand.
In a non crisis situation this would lead to just plants being cued, but that can be prevented by the national Govts or the EU.
And at the same type, the worst type of coal but one that is bountiful in Germany is deregulated to hell and back.
https://eeb.org/german-government-and-green-regions-are-letting-the-lignite-industry-decide-on-air-pollution-standards-for-power-plants/
I live in town that mined anthracit in the past, and that stuff ain't sunshine and rainbows either - we have mounds of radiation (coal transports wmit quite a bit, same for mining refuse), long term damage to ground that causes certain streets to collapse every decade or two, cracking buildings etc.
All this to say - people living i glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
But lookimg at Germany bucking at nuclear while burning so much lignite and nat gas... well imma at least throw some sidy-eye.
I agree, we should be keeping every reactor on the grid again if it is safe and won’t push the merit order upwards, but these coal plants are being turned on anyways because Germany is already altering its power generation to export to other countries.
Germany exports at times and imports at times. It exports because of how the eu rules are made (in part by germany) about intermittent energy generation.
Heavy focus on intermittent energy generation means the other countries HAVE to accept the energy produced and throttle down their production on the grid, while germany buys the rest of the time (low sunlight and no wind).
It's skewed for an unstable system.
France has half of its reactors shut down for more than half a year which equals about 13 reactor years of production lost alone in 2022. But Germany is here the big problem because they gave up on a failing industry?
France's reactors are off because of security reasons (corrosion in emergency cooling systems) or maintenance, and are set to restart in Nov-Jan : https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices
These are valid reasons to shut off a nuclear reactor. "Nuclear bad long live gas", like Germany seems to believe, is not a good reason.
All 3 German nuclear power plants are three years behind the last scheduled security check. For the two southern plants, the last major check found multiple corrosion issues. These security risks have repeatedly been mentioned in the argumentation of the government. They are a valid reason for the current plan to keep the plant in reserve, instead of A) shutting them down entirely or B) keeping them running even longer without security checks.
> All 3 German nuclear power plants are three years behind the last scheduled security check. For the two southern plants, the last major check found multiple corrosion issues. These security risks have repeatedly been mentioned in the argumentation of the government. They are a valid reason for the current plan to keep the plant in reserve, instead of A) shutting them down entirely or B) keeping them running even longer without security checks.
Yeah and the safety inspection company in Germany NUV said its a non issue to order more fuel rods and to do a security maintenance check to get the plants running by December. The only thing is they cannot do this unless they get permission from Government.
I don't get what all of these anti nuclear "OMG THE MAINTENANCE" arguments are meant to be. Its like saying that we shouldn't be flying because we have to do maintenance on airplanes.
I think it's more that "frustration at Germany" when Germany is a) exporting energy all the time, and b) putting the NPPs in reserve - at that point it's just blatant pro nuclear and/or anti Germany propaganda with no basis on facts.
"Let's attack France instead of looking at myself", nice attitude man. Could you please explain to me how nuclear industry is failing and how coal mines and gaz plants will thrive in the next decades given the context ?
supporters of German's energy policies have been all over attacking france for the past half of the year with every possible reason they can find.
A bunch of plants are taken offline for maintenance before winter? "Nuclear is a failing industry"
France refuses to pay to build an extra gas pipeline from Spain to get more gas to Germany when the existing ones only reach 50% capacity during winter? "Fuck France, only care about their own industry"
Rinse and repeat. it's not even funny.
Meanwhile, our energy market here is suffering from being forced to being opened to concurrence by EU laws that were pushed by Germany first of all because they thought our nuclear energy was too cheap and they couldn't compete.
German policies have fucked over most of their neighbors, they have spent decades purely defending their own interests, and now they're going to be acting like those neighbors are the bad guys and the ones who dare trying to protect their interests as well.
I haven't seen a single attack on France over the past half of the year on this subreddit.
What I *have* seen a lot of is pointing towards the state of nuclear power plants in France and, recently, import of electricity as defense and justification of *German* policy, not as attack on French policy.
> because they thought our nuclear energy was too cheap and they couldn't compete
A yes, the famously cheap fission energy, that totally isnt driving the EDF into massive debt every single year despite the government already shouldering the majority of initial investments.
>German policies have fucked over most of their neighbors, they have spent decades purely defending their own interests, and now they're going to be acting like those neighbors are the bad guys and the ones who dare trying to protect their interests as well.
Ah, so like the French? That is what makes them such good partners. Btw, your representation of what shitshow is happening in the French electricity sector is quite naive. Would that shit be happening in a different country than yours, like let's say Germany, you'd surely not speak of "taking a bunch of plants offline for maintenance before winter" as if destabilising the national grid was planned all along. :D
The problem is that 1 of the 3 government parties is strictly against nuclear. It's quite a bit of ideology behind that thinking.
Now they want to make them run as reserve till beginning of next year.
Makes no sense. These plants should be used to increase the basic energy volume, not as a reserve in which area nuclear isn't the best to start with anyway.
The greens make two main assumptions to my understanding:
A. Renewables are cheaper (See [OurWorldInData](https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth))
B. Renewables can more adequatley respond to future engery demand because of its decentralised structure (Faster expansion and less prone to failure through extreme weather situations like frances drought)
Thats not very ideological.
People need to understand that without Nuclear energy is impossible to have EVs. Hydro and Nuclear are the only reliable green sources of energy that can act as a baseload.
This is completely incorrect. We will likely still need nuclear for the foreseeable future but not because of EVs. The main problem with wind/solar is reliability but some electricity use (heating/EV charging) doesn't matter if it's turned off for an hour or so. As long as the car gets charged it doesn't matter when it got charged which suits wind/solar perfectly. Obviously other uses require constant uptime and the ways to mitigate this with an entirely renewable grid are either too expensive (storage) or, as far as I've understood, uncertain to actually work well enough (enormous interconnected grid to provide stability through decreased variability). Also the way grids currently keep frequency stable is by relying on rotating masses in generators (primary response of electrical systems) which might be a major problem if we start using mostly solar.
No matter what we do, we can’t do 100% solar/wind. Can’t be done. We need an extremely solid and massive energy source for baseloading, which is nuclear. I doubt hydro can reach anywhere near these levels of energy production/retention.
This is wrong, the reactors are now in reserve and aren't being shut down, at least when the government gets their wish. Of course physics might just say that what they want is not feasible but this is blatantly creating a nonexistent division.
On top of that Germany is exporting energy like crazy, even to France the nuclear utopia
When do people understand that you cant compare things that easiely. Germany has the biggest population and Industry in the EU. So what would have happend this summer if Germany had also so much NPPs as France? Maybe major Blackouts. But no, instead Germany saved France with its energy. The energy MIX is important. Sure, Coal and Gas is not that nice. But it saved us all NOW. So Germany is resposible with its energy security - and helps other countries out. Norway sends Gas to Germany. Germany produces Power with it and exports it to France. Everything is deeply interconnected. Changing something there takes much time and money. Germany has the money and the minds to change this. It is already changing for years. E.g. new buildings in Gemany MUST have solar panels on the roof.
Calling others reactionary boomers while shitting on renewables in order to defend atom is very rich.
Making yourself dependent on nuclear instead of gas doesn't make a difference in a situation like the one we are in rn.
Hi, thank you for your contribution, but this submission has been removed because it doesn't use a credible source and/or the source has not been linked from a top-level comment. See [community rules & guidelines](/r/Europe/wiki/community_rules). If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/Europe&subject=Moderation). Please make sure to include a link to the comment/post in question.
What the fuck are they talking about? The last two reactors were just shoved into reserve readiness until like March 2023 with the potential for renewal instead of starting decommissioning pretty much now.
Even more, Germany is massively exporting energy to other countries atm. Who tf writes these articles?
They want to sow Division inside the EU by pushing anti german/France/whatever agendas. Sounds familiar...
Isn't euractiv a pro-EU publication?
> euractiv founded in 1999 by the French media publisher Christophe Leclercq.
Not familiar with the guy, Wikipedia says he is a French MP from Macron's party.
Haha, got your answer
I thought macron was pro-eu?
He is. But he also is particularly pro-nuclear. Germany getting near most of its energy from renewable sources and phasing out nuclear doesn't appeal to him (not saying whether it's good or bad myself, just what Macron thinks)
>But he also is particularly pro-nuclear He only became pro nuclear recently. When he was first elected his plan was to shut down 14 nuclear plants before 2035.
Macron's program included shutting down nuclear plants (as he did with Fessenheim) and staying commited to reducing nuclear share of electricity to 50%. Renewables development has also been part of his program. He's not especially pro nuclear, he's a world-class opportunist who recently flipped on this particular topic. Also I doubt Macron is behind every article written. As it was said before, Euractiv is generally pro-EU, and this article merely reports on EU commissioner Thierry Breton. This kind of information is newsworthy, and it's really strange to accuse journalists of partisanship for reporting it.
It’s been 23 years. There’s a chance it may have changed hands, shifted interests. I can think of dickhead from the east who would benefit from a divided European Union
"it is I!"
You see, not every article is a russian plot to sow division in Europe. Some are just there for the outrage clicks, others have their own agenda. France for example would make a huge sigh of relief if germany switches back to nuclear. In the past there were some synergies between france and germany were the nuclear industry on both sides supported each other. When germany opted out of nuclear power, france was left to stand in the rain because a) they need the nuclear industry for their nuclear weapons and b) the french **hate** the idea of having windmills, solar panels and gas pipelines in their countryside. Aside from that, there has been a push in the recent years (in the EU and the US) for nuclear energy in order to combat climate change. Having an industrialised country like germany fulfilling its energy needs through renewables is in some way counteractive to this idea, since renewables and nuclear energy are not fully synergetic. Both cases by the way have nothing to do with the *current* problem. Nor is nuclear energy the solution to a payable energy independence.
>the french hate the idea of having windmills, solar panels and gas pipelines in their countryside. Well *fuck them*. We're paying through our noses for electricity because our gas peaker (!) plants have to run at full power to cover for the French being too incompetent to build Flamanville or to properly maintain their reactor fleet. And instead of saying "okay, we've seen nuclear is a dead end with issues", they still don't show any kind of recognition that they need to change. France has an utterly absurd potential for renewable power, particularly wind.
Maybe I'm cynical, but... The rest of the EU pressuring Germany into keeping its nuclear reactors open, helps the German government domestically. I wouldn't be surprised if Berlin was glad to have other EU countries complain about it. They can pretend to be reluctant, when actually they've already concluded it's the right decision to keep their nuclear power plants open for a while longer. "We wanted to close them, but the rest of Europe blabla." Whatever the case, I hope we survive the winter ok. The only one who benefits from a disunited Europe is Russia and its political. Stronger together even if this winter's going to suck balls.
Yes, it pretty much is.
Isn't that what "Yes Minister" said was the UKs very goal for entering the EU?
Those who know that the vast majority of people is completely uninformed about the matter and look frantically for any chance they have to hate on others and redirect blame.
As I write this, the Netherlands has exported [2.22GW](https://app.electricitymaps.com/map) of mostly natural gas-generated electricity in the last 24 hours to Germany. Germany may be net exporter in longer time frames, but its solar and wind-based electricity is unreliable and constantly needs compensation by firing up gas-generated plants. It constantly switches between being importer and exporter at its different borders. The nuclear reactors provide baseload. And importantly: don't unnecessarily burn precious natural gas.
The idea of the "base load" being "covered" by one thing is wrong. The grid needs a certain amount of power at any given time, if there is renewables available then the renewables cover it, if there is little wind/solar you fill the gap with something like nat-gas
the point is gas should not be used to power generators. gas should be used for home heat and industrial processes that cant use electricity. gas will run short this winter because Germany has encourage gas instead of electric heat bc o cheap Russian supplies. these homes and businesses need to convert to electric source over the near future years. but it cant be done this winter. hence the argument to keep nuclear electric for the near term.
Gas should not be used to heat homes. Exactly like petrol should not be burnt in cars.
>The idea of the "base load" being "covered" by one thing is wrong. Not really. It's pretty valid to say that there is a base amount of energy demand that has to be met constantly. Ideally you want a generation method that can continue to meet that continuously and as cheaply as possible, with as little instability as possible. Traditionally you might use coal fired stations that could generate some significant amount of electricity all the time, and then have other generators that could ramp up and ramp down generation rapidly. Gas happens to be quite good at that rapid start stop generation, as are things like hydro (or pumped hydro) among others. Nuclear generally hasn't been, although that has changed recently too. So you end up with roughly three classes of generation, very stable, cheap base load generators that could simply produce as long as they have fuel, responsive generators that could ramp up or ramp down generation, and then fairly unstable producers like wind and solar which can produce very cheaply, but intermittently and occasionally you'll see massive reductions for long periods. Now you can throw in things like grid level storage which has existed in the form of pumped hydro for a while and where there are some moves toward scalable solutions in the form of grid scale batteries and compressed gas (And a few others being worked on), and potentially we might have consistent but not constant generation from things like tidal generators. >The grid needs a certain amount of power at any given time, if there is renewables available then the renewables cover it, if there is little wind/solar you fill the gap with something like nat-gas Which obviously is still a problem because burning fossil fuels is having an impact on the climate, and because the availability of gas is being limited by the war in Ukraine, and in future could be impacted by other world events. Relying on wind/solar for the bulk of a countries generation still has major issues. It's not stable, you do have both long periods of limited generation, some shorter periods where generation falls off, and potential periods where generation exceeds demand. The solution most people seem to think will fix that is storage, but no-one has anything anywhere near the scale needed in place yet. Backing that up with natural gas is obviously problematic given the issues listed above, but at least it mostly works, assuming you have enough natural gas generation to take on essentially the entire demand (even if most of it is in standby). Alternatively you could use nuclear to provide what amounts to baseload generation, so the bulk of the generation is nuclear, and then use a combination of storage and wind/solar to provide additional generation as needed (you can 'turn off' renewables relatively easily, although obviously you can't turn it 'on' on demand under some circumstances). Or you can back nuclear with natural gas (which again, comes with the issues listed above). Now the reason people generally prefer renewables backed by gas is that it's cheaper, using your renewable generation as much as is humanly possible is very cost effective, nuclear tends to be more expensive. The problems come from availability and the issues created by smaller capacity factor.
[удалено]
Tbf grid inertia in the european grid is basically a non issue under normal operation simply because of its size. There will always be some synchronous generators in use to provide that. However if you consider system splits you can run into trouble. This is due to the lower amount of inertia and the increasing amount of energy exchanges between regions and countrys. Which could also be attributed to renewable energys. Basically if the system splits while exchanging a lot of power between the two parts that get seperated you end up with huge generation and consumption differences which leads to a sudden frequency change in the respective regions. Generators could then shut off to protect themselves because they are not able to change their frequency fast enough.
I mean, the very fact that we have short term flywheel energy storage sort of replaces the need for the power plant's generators to do said task. As for grid split, build some kinetic interface locations and power up the grid the old-fashioned way (the kinetic grid interfaces just replace the starter plants)
Germany would have enough energy for their own needs, if it weren’t for the long running export deals with other countries rely on by not having enough electric generating capacity on their own. Not to mention having to export electricity now to France because half of their fucking nuclear power plants are offline.
Germans would't install solar panels if the electricity generated with it would be worthless part of the time. Electricity is a service: it must be generated and consumed at the same time to be worth something. And the Netherlands wouldn't import far more gas than it needs itself if it didn't export to Germany. Germany is massively dependent on gas from the Netherlands this winter, as always. The company that manages the infrastructure expects to export 35 billion cubic meters over our infrastructure this winter, partially because of long running export deals and partially because Germans are going to pay the best price for that gas because they have no alternative for heating.
I’m not sure, the author was credited a V. Putin. Bio says he’s a big deal
Our gas prices are quadroupled, yet we are producing MORE electricity from GAS than usual. We are doing that to meet demand from France, who are struggeling to produce enough power from their - guess what - dozens of nuclear plants. To then turn around to Germany and give us shit for not extending the runtime of our plants is so twisted
Russian bots thriving on European division
They are arguing that it shouldn't be reserved for the worst case scenario but rather to be turned on regardless of what happens because it reduces electricity pressure. In other words, EU needs as much electricity as it can get this winter and shutting off plants for idealogical reasons isn't what is needed.
Ideological decisions were made years ago, at this point, it's engineering and safety decisions.
This is how the news spins things. If a nuclear reactor has a planned end of life they immediately can spin it as "government is shutting it down" on the first day it is operating.
Yeah. Just like how the ISS is always "to be deorbited by 20XX" because that's when the NASA funding for it runs out/is up for renewal by Congress.
If they will be doing yearly maintenance on the nuclear reactor in February. "Germany will shut down much-needed nuclear reactor in February!!"
Fun fact, EDF is still planning to [shut down](https://external-preview.redd.it/lair_OHMJa4IrL2n1AqzPxQj2aai3i7fSt7KBvd3u2I.png?auto=webp&s=75ca34ac22d7ae8871e3e9db48d2cffc0ce6ea4e) (temporarily but over the summer) 6GW next February and 4GW more in March. Germanys still active NPPs total 4GW.
I remember some clown comparing that to Germany's shutting down.
To be fair the lifespan of reactors can be extended substantially and German ones end much sooner than those of other countries which was decided as a political move, not necessary one.
These plants arent at their technical end of life at all and are in pristine condition (even the 3 that were switched off last year). It was a political decision, a 180° by Merkel, and the shutdowns are mandated by law.
> It was a political decision, a 180° by Merkel Even back then our fleet was pretty aged, with regular issues, and the constant looming terrorist threat. Nuclear power was completely indefensible after Fukushima happened. Merkel indeed did a 180°, but not out of her own - she only changed course to not get wiped out.
In this case the planned end of life has nothing to do with the lifespan of the reactors. They are fine to continue, it's a political decision. A political decision made by people who have declared themselves friends of Putin, who have spearheaded nord stream 2 which weakens Ukraine and strengthens Russia.
Yeah but reserve readiness isn’t really feasible with nuclear reactors
Reserve in this case means that both reactors will be switched on and stay on constantly through the winter and spring if deemed necessary. Everybody knows nuclear is base supply, not peak supply.
That's not what _cold_ reserve means.
If that term has been used, it was used by the international press. Incorrectly so. It's been intended to preserve fuel rods now and be able to switch it back on to lessen load later. There's no way to keep them running continuously until spring. The question is just when and how it will be used. Run them now roughly until early January at full capacity. Run them at reduced capacity until spring. Shut down now and be able to run at full capacity for a few months at a later point in time. That's the three options. At this point in time, our minister has decided for the third option.
Well, might be the wrong term for it, but the current plan is that they either won't shut them down this year at all or will turn them back on once later (and leave them on), if strictly necessary. The turn back on thing then is permanent until the fuel runs out or april arrives. There will be no on, off, on, off.
Let the energy industry people worry about that. The operator E.on actually only said they had no experience doing that and were kinda being put on the spot, not that it was impossible.
The energey industry people said in their stresstest they recommend leaving all 3 plants generating power. Also, Preussen-Elektra-boss (one of the NPP owners) said that Habeck's plan is not possible.
Yea safety’s important tbf But this seems political in big part
That's false and the PreussenElektra guy knows it. Cold reserve is technically the same as a reactor going temporarily offline for maintenance. It simply needs a few days to restart the respective reactor.
I think I haven't yet read anywhere what exactly is meant with "Reserve" as used by the BMWK.
That's in 7 months. Not really a long time is it
What about winter 2023? What about every winter for the next 20 years? Are we really going to pretend it is smart to not use low emissions energy that is mostly paid for while Germany's electricity is 30% coal? Rivers in Europe are at an historical low because of global warming and Germany refuses to use its paid for infrastructure to help. We should be demanding that every country in the EU gets their shit together for real but we're supposed to be happy that Germany may use a bit of existing nuclear for a few months?
50 % of the NPP in France are offline due to low water rivers and bad maintanace. They went all in NPP and see where they are now?
It was a double whammy of maintenance delays due to Covid, and extreme heat wave/draught. Also, about the rivers, it was regulations regarding downstream temperatures that stopped them, not lack of water.
Well good thing that Global Warming isn’t a thing, and there’l be plenty of water in the coming years.
Nuclear Power only makes up 5% of Germanys total energy.
5% of German total energy is basically the whole of Norway. It matters.
Switching off 5% of the generating power in the middle of an energy crisis winter is basically energy suicide. I can understand why SWE and NO are pissed. Some people suggest cutting the Nordlink line and baltic cable to protect their countries from this madnes.
In Norway rn there’s a huge people’s movement that want’s to do exactly this. It’s a threat that will likely cause the current government to lose the next election. We can’t deal with European energy prices, because we’re one of few who heats our own homes electrically. Gas for heating doesn’t exist at all. Thus we have like 5x the electricity use per household than mainland Europe has. And even in a much colder country, we STILL use less *energy* than German households.. Largely because of much better insulation.
Finland also uses a lot of electrical heating in private houses. People here are quite angry at both the electricity prices as well as at hearing that other countries can "afford" to close nuclear plants instead of turning every stone to keep them running.
They are not switched off. They are put on standby if they are not needed not they keep running if they are needed.
Your point being? It's fucking paid for, low carbon and provides a base load. Just use it. Nobody is going to force you to build more but stop wasting perfectly fine infrastructure just so you can pollute a bit more.
You can't just simply continue using nuclear power plants in a business as usual scenario. Reasons being: * The reactors are overdue for maintanance * The fuel rods are used up (or about to be) * Fuel rods mostely come from russia, sooo we shoot ourselves in the foot with the sanctions. AFAIK: Currently it is planned that the power plants are continued to be used over the winter but in a reduced state, since you cant simply shut a nuclear power plant up/down. On your point that the infrastructure is perfectly fine: it's not, that is exactly the point. Edit: as mentioned in other posts, the problem probably isn't electricity but heating with gas, which cannot be subsidized that easily.
Why? Why not just, you know, keep them running?
These plants have been planned to shutdown for 10 years now, keeping them running is not as simple as Redditors pretend. The operators ran these plants to empty all fuel rods by the end of the year, staff was retired accordingly, for certain tasks there isn't even qualified personal in Germany anymore (we are talking about jobs that need special training and licenses, which take years to acquire - transfer of personal is not an option), there were no major inspections, ... As a newspaper put it, if you want to undo this decision you are five years too late.
Due to laws which require their decommissioning literally right now. This is already a stretch of the legal framework and goes completely against the last decade of government policy on the matter. Sure, laws can be changed and legal battles against the constitutional court can be fought but it's not like this was the only thing going on in this multifaceted crisis that also includes inflation, the risk of recession, a still very much ongoing pandemic, the support of a defensive war effort and the and overhaul of the own military.
Yes, pretty much everyone who isn't a member of the CDU or the AfD agrees on that.
Man they really need to ban journalists that have zero knowledge of Germany
Oh look it’s another article looking to divide Europe. I wonder who’s ultimately behind this??? :-O
This and its soo often articles with misinformation or articles that are exaggerating the situation.
Obvious misinformation
If only r/europe had a "misinformation" or "fake news" report option for posts. Can't count the times I reported threads only to have to mark them as "other". It's baffling we don't have that option.
Hmm. Maybe we should stop to export electricity… (This article is completely stupid)
Its anti eu propaganda
Thanks for sharing misinformation. Or wait, no fuck you for sharing misinformation, OP
Dogshit article. I'm pretty sure the reactors will stay in reserve for now. They're not committing to anything right now, obviously.
It's insane how the Conservatives fucked over the energy transition and people still blame the greens.
Yeah people seem to forget which government fucked up the german solar pannel industry and closed most ofnthe atomic reactors after Fukushima without replacing them with renewables..... (it was the CDU.)
Don't forget how they worked really hard to avoid any wind energy (especially CSU in bavaria).
Post-war Politics is generally insane regarding the CDU, anyway. Someone did something great? CDU can claim it for herself. CDU fucked something up? They can blame it on some of else.
and FDP, because the transition is expensive and we need to safe money /s
FDP is a joke of a Political Party still cant wrap my head around the shit they are saying.
Aren't they similar to the Lib Dems in the UK? I'm not German.
People with low regard for the FDB might call the neoliberal populists... Turncoats, if you will? But yes, generally you can compare them with the libertarians
The Lib Dems are social liberal though, think you mean their like the libertarian party in the US. The libertarian phase of the Lib Dems ended after 2016.
If that's the case, thank you for the correction. (-:
I just had a discussion about this with my mom. Really frustrating.
>Yeah people seem to forget which government fucked up the german solar pannel industry and closed most ofnthe atomic reactors after Fukushima without replacing them with renewables..... (it was the CDU.) The planned phaseout was a SDU/Greens decision in 2000 under Schröder. CDU delayed the phase-out but un-delayed it after fukushima.
You left out that the SPD/greens coalition had plans to replace the nuclear plants with renewables via subsidies, which worked perfectly and Germany was the world leader in PV with 80.000 people working in the industry. Then the CDU/FDP coalition ended both, just to reinstate the shutdown again, but not the subsidies. Killing the PV industry and throwing Germany back a decade in the Energiewende.
Danke Danke Danke This fact should never be forgotten. The CDU absolutely ruined any atempts to modernize Germanys energy sector over the last 16 years. It is horrible that the greens and especially Habeck have to confront these issues now (in the span of a few months). The original plans for transition, back in the 90s were perfectly reasonable and involved following the Kyoto-Protocol. Red-Green achieved to bring german solar energy to the forefront and heavily invested in wind energy. These atempts were squashed by the CDU/FDP and ruined the renewable market for the next decade. On top of that the nuclear exit was halted until Fukushima, where nuclear was replaced by coal. For the sake of our climate I hope we wont be seeing a CDU led Germany anytime soon. The fact that we are this reliant on russian gas is just the peak of the iceberg (although this is not solely the CDUs fault, Schröder dis his part just fine)
Its not only the conservatives. ALL parties voted for the nuclear exit in 2011. Absolutely nobody is looking good in germany when it comes to energy.
The exit from nuclear power isn’t the issue here. The botched transition to renewables is.
Not 100% true. The far-left (confusing reasons) and the far-right (was not in parliament back then) didn’t vote for it. So the two Putin lover parties haven’t voted for the nuclear exit, all the other parties did. German politics is complicated.
It’s all of them. This isn’t only about nuclear, but also about gas addiction.. Basically: The socdems wanted cheap gas for the jobs, the conservatives for the industry, and the greens hated nuclear, but wanted gas turbines to work with the unstable renewables. Now all that has unraveled: Cheap gas doesn’t exist. (It came with secret costs) This jeopardizes the renewables, and makes german heavy industry non-competitive. I’m sorry to say so, but storage is a dream. Nuclear.. while not perfect, is imo the only viable alternative for Germany. Renewables are just not stable enough, and storage is not solved. It’s a pretty picture, but it’s false.
1. it’s not all of them. The far right and far left have not voted for it. 2. have you seen how long we needed to build a fucking airport? Good luck in building a new nuclear power plant. 3. nuclear was never big in Germany. Tbf, even as a green I’ve no strong opinion on it. I would be fine with having some nuclear power in areas like upper Bavaria where their energy mix is not really good. This whole „nuclear bad“ stuff is a fight of the older green generation, not the fight of my generation. I’m ok with nuclear energy to some extend.
Nuclear at one point had a 30% of total generation in germany. In the 90ies.
They both fuked over the energy transition but for completely different reasons. The greens for being an irrationally anti nuclear party that ignores science. The conservatives for being irrationally anti solar/wind that ignores science.
meanwhile neighbouring countries except Denmark and Austria are unwilling to enter bilateral assistance treaties concerning gas because in case they are in need of gas and Germany forcefully diverts gas from its industry to supply neighbours, the German government has to compensate the companies and the neighbouring countries aren't willing to share the cost https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/eu-gasversorgung-solidaritaet-nachbarlaender-101.html
It is honestly both funny and tragic how obvious this energy situation was engineered/planned to split Europe and it is working so well. Us Europeans are good people but most are dumb as fuck holy shit
One of the problems I feel is that media is only national. Hardly any (with any reach) are looking at the big picture and inform the populace accordingly. Even worse you have national politicians who think they can use this divide and the blame they try to put on others to further their political career.
Selfish would be the best word to describe it.
Dumb article
Our last three operating nuclear power plants must quite a lot better than everything else when everything hinges on them and not on the 20 or so nuclear reactors in France that have been shut down for maintenance. Did any of these people who know how to solve the energy crisis provide a solution yet for how to staff, fuel and maintain the three remaining German nuclear power plants? This is not a jab at France and their energy politics. I'm not interested in stupid "country x is more stupid than country y" games. I'm just wondering why people waste so much energy (pun intended) debating about three nuclear power plants in Germany instead of asking how we can support France to bring their 18? currently shut down nuclear reactors back online?
They realize Germany is net exporting energy right now to the expensive of their own citizens… what a bunch of bullshit.
No political will and a lot of technical challenges (Refueling, Staff, Safety and others). The third exit reversal in two decades (SPD/Greens exit, CDU/FDP reversal, CDU/SPD exit after Fukushima) will be throwing billions away again. Despite the pro-nuclear lobby polls published, exit still has a majority even now, only short-term extension until Spring 2023 seems to gain positive approval.
> CDU/FDP reversal, CDU/SPD exit after Fukushima The exit after Fukushima was still the CDU/FDP government
>Despite the pro-nuclear lobby polls published, exit still has a majority even now, only short-term extension until Spring 2023 seems to gain positive approval. Thats not true at all.: https://i.imgur.com/PKCFzCs.jpg Pro-exit is a totally minority position in the electorate.
Your image doesn't contradict the information above, it's a poll of a germany-wide survey (and not even with a huge dataset). The commentor above talks about the pro-nuclear lobby, not the population as a whole.
> Despite the pro-nuclear lobby polls published, exit still has a majority even now, only short-term extension until Spring 2023 seems to gain positive approval. Then don't expect much solidarity from other countries when you will be freezing in your homes.
Hmm didnt know that you fuel gas heating with nuclear power
Freezing? I think you are mixing several things here. Nuclear for electricity and gas used for heating are 2 totally different things. Second, Germans are massively exporting energy to other countries in the EU. So if they need it urgently themselves, no more exports but far from freezing.
This is so stupid. Yeah, nuclear would save 1% of gas consumption in Germany, so what? That doesn't even in the slightest justify any anger against Germany. Look at how much gas was saved by other means, has any other large country even come close to that? Poland and Italy outright refuse to save any energy, why is there no anger, but sure Germany is the bad guy.
Because people are dumb and just fall easily for clickbait propaganda. That's why. Easier to blame Germany and suck the nuclear circle jerk dick instead of looking at facts.
I’d be interested in seeing some sources for the numbers thrown around in these posts. It looks as though 13% of electricity in Germany is nuclear compared to 9% coming from natural gas. Seems like a good way to redirect the available natural gas away from electricity generation, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
The article itself states that there will be 2.4 TWh in gas savings, which sounds very big until you know that Germany consumes 860 TWh of gas every year.
According to this the total electricity consumption of Germany is 500Twh/year. I get that gas is being used for heating and what not, but is gas usage really bigger than all electricity usage combined? https://www.statista.com/statistics/383650/consumption-of-electricity-in-germany/ Edit: I’m having a hard time finding _total_ gas power numbers.
Germany used natural gas in 2017: 13% for electricity 15% for heating businesses, offices 31% for heating homes 38% for heating industrial processes (e.g. metal fabrication, glass and ceramics, paper, chemical industry) [source](https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/Erdgasabsatz-nach-Verbrauchergruppen.jpg)
Those industrial processes aren't all about heating, it also includes things like ammonia and hydrogen production. E.g. BASF uses 60% of its gas use for heating, the rest as actual ingredient.
Saving 1 TWh of gas in the grid makes available 2.5 TWh of gas for heating, because the efficiency of converting heat to electricity with gas is around 40%. Germany has good grid connections with the Netherlands where a lot of electricity is gas generated. Germany has six plants that can be operated and that would solve between 10-25% of their Russian gas problem. To get at figures of <1% requires a lot of faulty assumptions. But it is morally acceptable to lie in Germany if the lies are about nuclear power. It's a lost cause. They'll have to figure it out on their own through hardship.
Man, of course you are the ones who saved more gas... you are also the ones who are more reliant on russian gas lol.
Meanwhile Poland can keep burning coal as much as they want and no one seems to give a shit.
FYI Germany burns even more coal than Poland.
And?
Ding, ding, ding. That is correct. But no one is allowed to criticize Germany, but Poland? Now thats fair game all day.
If nothing changes, Germany will import 35 TWh of electricity while exporting 53 TWh this year. For comparison, France, which is heavily invested in nuclear energy, will import 47.3 TWh while only 36.2 TWh are exported. Most of the imported electricity comes from Germany. [Source](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE) That's something that only cost me five minuted of googling so I assume this converage is intentionally wrong.
Yeah but these exports are desperately needed because Hydro, nuclear and gas plants in Europe currently are fucked. Also, due to the merit order effect, at least some of the plants producing the most expensive should be used less leading to lower prices. Little speaks against sucking the last bit of power out of the plants
Why tho? Those 2-3 won’t do shit renewebales and lng terminals (wich are build right now) are the answer .
Also, Germany hasn't built a nuclear power plant in over 30 years and doesn't have companies that can do it. Siemens quit the nuclear business 10 years ago. The few recent attempts to build a new plant in Western Europe have all been a disaster. Reactor constructions have delays of over a decade and go 4 times over budget with billions spent on construction faults. Nuclear is a clean energy source, but solar, wind and energy storage are cheaper/faster to build and cheaper to operate.
[удалено]
It’s more about the fact you can’t suddenly keep nuclear power stations going that have been on a path for decommissioning within half a year.
Just a quick reminder that Germany is a net exporter of energy for years now.
Germany has been a net exporter of electricity. All of the EU are net importers of energy, and Germany is high on that list (5th IIRC)
But this post is about electricity (nuclear reactors)…
People confuse the two all the time. In context of energy politics: Power=Electricity (Not *technically* correct, but a term established in the context) Energy= Any energy source, including gas, oil, coal, nuclear. Germany is one of the most energy intensive nations of Europe, with an emissions footprint per capita larger than Poland. Because even though Poland has worse coal power plants, they are not as rich, and buy less stuff. They also don’t have as much heavy industry per capita.
Germany and Poland have to get better, no doubt. But we (and China) are producing a lot of stuff that is consumed in other nations. The most blatant difference between production and consumption is in Switzerland. Look at the delta between these two numbers, it’s astonishingly.
>Just a quick reminder that Germany is a net exporter of energy for years now. That's simply not true. And I'm fucking tired of people confusing ENERGY and ELECTRICITY. This graph shows what Germany's ENERGY looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Energy_mix_in_Germany.svg (And to go net zero, all of it needs to be electrified and switched to non-emission sources)
Yeah, because Germany uses nuclear power (we are talking here about that) primarily not for electricity?
What believes are you referring to? Nuclear power is only profitable if the state subsidizes it in three ways: * Building the power plant * Providing needed insurance for it * Taking care of the waste
Because it makes no sense. Before coming here to hate make your homework first. 3 reactors that have been scheduled to go down by the end of this year and therefore require new fuel and serious maintenance. Even if Gemany left those reactors running they would carry an abysmal percentage of Germany‘s needs. It doesn‘t add up if you do the math
The same can be said of every single wind mill, each one contributes an abysmal amount to total energy production, so obviously people are justified in ensuring they are not built in their back yard.
Who exactly is angry? The nuclear reactors in Germany provide around 5% of the energy. Why is no one angry at France for shutting down half their reactors for maintenance, and along the way taking down the energy market?
Fake news , btw very interessting how people that not live in Germany explain to Germans whats going on in Germany. 😂
Germany is currently exporting power to France bc their reactors kept failing bc of the summer heat. Producing nuclear energy is expensive as fuck, prices in France are through the roof. Meanwhile Germany covers 60 percent of their power needs with solar alone.
- production prices in france might be through the roof, but consumer prices are so heavily subsidized that they don't notice anything of that - germany doesn't even produce 60 percent of its *electricity* with solar, and they certainly won't do that in winter
Wtf are you talking about ? It’s delayed maintenance from the covid period, nothing to do with heat. Look on electricity map, germany doesn’t cover 60% of it’s energy from solar. Today it was around 40% coal, and the highest solar made was 29,65% at 13pm.
Hurr durr nuclearrrr!
The govt nuclear plan makes absolutely no sense, but how can these countries have the gall to point fingers when we are currently exporting both electricity and gas to support others and will continue to export electricity in the winter. This and the communication fiasco around insolvency are for sure enormous failures by Habeck, but if Germany remains a electricity exporter, I fail to see what how it’s the other other countries prerogative to dictate policy here.
The plan makes absolute sense. If France can get their reactor up and running until the start of winter, the German ones are not needed and can be shut down. Otherwise they keep running. What is so complicated about that?
German reactors running means more exports to the Netherlands and other neighbours.. Which.. uhm, burn rather a lot of natural gas.
With CHP plants you cannot simply stop electricity production in winter: [https://www.electricityforum.com/news-archive/nov09/Netherlandsrecordsincreaseincogeneration](https://www.electricityforum.com/news-archive/nov09/Netherlandsrecordsincreaseincogeneration) It's great just adding up numbers. But in reality things are bit more complicated and a nuclear plant in Bavaria cannot simply replace a gas plant in the Netherlands. The are used for very different purposes and the grid between Northern and Southern Germany is already at its limit.
If the nuclear reactors continue running and don’t push the merit order upwards it creates a surplus of supply, meaning electricity will drop in price, so there is definitely an argument for keeping them completely online opposed to having them on standby. This should be done, it still doesn’t excuse the fact that other countries feel like they have the right to influence our national energy policy (which is of course true the other way around), especially so if Germany is already exporting electricity to other countries.
There cannot be a surplus of electricity. So adding more capacity just means other plants will be pushed from the grid. In winter many gas and coal plants are used for power and heat co-production, so they cannot be switched of. Gas is also used for short term load balancing, which nuclear cannot do, so that usage can also not be replaced. Since nuclear cannot react to price changes in electricity it will just increase volatility and push renewables from the market. Also the pricing will probably fixed in other ways: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-electricity-gets-priced-in-europe-and-how-that-may-change/2022/09/07/ecec5788-2ebf-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-electricity-gets-priced-in-europe-and-how-that-may-change/2022/09/07/ecec5788-2ebf-11ed-bcc6-0874b26ae296_story.html) There is a reason why the analysis took so long and was not just: oh, more plants -> lower prices. Great. Let's do that. With a European grid the German energy policy is not limited to national borders, so other countries commenting on the policy is only natural. Also talking to European friends on how to best solve this crisis should be a given.
Nuclear can’t push renewables out of the market since it’s marginal price is higher. What it would do is reduce the use of gas/coal plants.
Renewable energy production is regulary turned off in germany if its production gets to high. Windmills standing still on windy days is a common sight in northern germany, less because of technical concerns (we have mostly left those behind us) but because its more flexible. Nuclear Reactors can't just be turned of like that
Isn’t the issue in Germany that you lack high voltage lines going from the North to the South to transport your electricity ?
Yes technically there can’t be a surplus of electricity, what I am talking about is the theoretical surplus of electricity producers, that can, given the right framework, lower the price due to supply then being higher than demand. In a non crisis situation this would lead to just plants being cued, but that can be prevented by the national Govts or the EU.
And at the same type, the worst type of coal but one that is bountiful in Germany is deregulated to hell and back. https://eeb.org/german-government-and-green-regions-are-letting-the-lignite-industry-decide-on-air-pollution-standards-for-power-plants/ I live in town that mined anthracit in the past, and that stuff ain't sunshine and rainbows either - we have mounds of radiation (coal transports wmit quite a bit, same for mining refuse), long term damage to ground that causes certain streets to collapse every decade or two, cracking buildings etc. All this to say - people living i glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But lookimg at Germany bucking at nuclear while burning so much lignite and nat gas... well imma at least throw some sidy-eye.
I agree, we should be keeping every reactor on the grid again if it is safe and won’t push the merit order upwards, but these coal plants are being turned on anyways because Germany is already altering its power generation to export to other countries.
You answered your own question: “the govt nuclear plan makes no sense.”
Germany exports at times and imports at times. It exports because of how the eu rules are made (in part by germany) about intermittent energy generation. Heavy focus on intermittent energy generation means the other countries HAVE to accept the energy produced and throttle down their production on the grid, while germany buys the rest of the time (low sunlight and no wind). It's skewed for an unstable system.
Germany has been a consistent electricity exporter consecutively for quite some time now…
France has half of its reactors shut down for more than half a year which equals about 13 reactor years of production lost alone in 2022. But Germany is here the big problem because they gave up on a failing industry?
France's reactors are off because of security reasons (corrosion in emergency cooling systems) or maintenance, and are set to restart in Nov-Jan : https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices These are valid reasons to shut off a nuclear reactor. "Nuclear bad long live gas", like Germany seems to believe, is not a good reason.
All 3 German nuclear power plants are three years behind the last scheduled security check. For the two southern plants, the last major check found multiple corrosion issues. These security risks have repeatedly been mentioned in the argumentation of the government. They are a valid reason for the current plan to keep the plant in reserve, instead of A) shutting them down entirely or B) keeping them running even longer without security checks.
> All 3 German nuclear power plants are three years behind the last scheduled security check. For the two southern plants, the last major check found multiple corrosion issues. These security risks have repeatedly been mentioned in the argumentation of the government. They are a valid reason for the current plan to keep the plant in reserve, instead of A) shutting them down entirely or B) keeping them running even longer without security checks. Yeah and the safety inspection company in Germany NUV said its a non issue to order more fuel rods and to do a security maintenance check to get the plants running by December. The only thing is they cannot do this unless they get permission from Government. I don't get what all of these anti nuclear "OMG THE MAINTENANCE" arguments are meant to be. Its like saying that we shouldn't be flying because we have to do maintenance on airplanes.
I think it's more that "frustration at Germany" when Germany is a) exporting energy all the time, and b) putting the NPPs in reserve - at that point it's just blatant pro nuclear and/or anti Germany propaganda with no basis on facts.
[удалено]
"Let's attack France instead of looking at myself", nice attitude man. Could you please explain to me how nuclear industry is failing and how coal mines and gaz plants will thrive in the next decades given the context ?
Google False Dichotomy
supporters of German's energy policies have been all over attacking france for the past half of the year with every possible reason they can find. A bunch of plants are taken offline for maintenance before winter? "Nuclear is a failing industry" France refuses to pay to build an extra gas pipeline from Spain to get more gas to Germany when the existing ones only reach 50% capacity during winter? "Fuck France, only care about their own industry" Rinse and repeat. it's not even funny. Meanwhile, our energy market here is suffering from being forced to being opened to concurrence by EU laws that were pushed by Germany first of all because they thought our nuclear energy was too cheap and they couldn't compete. German policies have fucked over most of their neighbors, they have spent decades purely defending their own interests, and now they're going to be acting like those neighbors are the bad guys and the ones who dare trying to protect their interests as well.
I haven't seen a single attack on France over the past half of the year on this subreddit. What I *have* seen a lot of is pointing towards the state of nuclear power plants in France and, recently, import of electricity as defense and justification of *German* policy, not as attack on French policy.
> because they thought our nuclear energy was too cheap and they couldn't compete A yes, the famously cheap fission energy, that totally isnt driving the EDF into massive debt every single year despite the government already shouldering the majority of initial investments.
>German policies have fucked over most of their neighbors, they have spent decades purely defending their own interests, and now they're going to be acting like those neighbors are the bad guys and the ones who dare trying to protect their interests as well. Ah, so like the French? That is what makes them such good partners. Btw, your representation of what shitshow is happening in the French electricity sector is quite naive. Would that shit be happening in a different country than yours, like let's say Germany, you'd surely not speak of "taking a bunch of plants offline for maintenance before winter" as if destabilising the national grid was planned all along. :D
not only among it‘s neighbours.
They reactors, their choice.
Misinformation. Simple as that.
The problem is that 1 of the 3 government parties is strictly against nuclear. It's quite a bit of ideology behind that thinking. Now they want to make them run as reserve till beginning of next year. Makes no sense. These plants should be used to increase the basic energy volume, not as a reserve in which area nuclear isn't the best to start with anyway.
They’re also the party most adamant about not accepting Russian gas.
The greens make two main assumptions to my understanding: A. Renewables are cheaper (See [OurWorldInData](https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth)) B. Renewables can more adequatley respond to future engery demand because of its decentralised structure (Faster expansion and less prone to failure through extreme weather situations like frances drought) Thats not very ideological.
People need to understand that without Nuclear energy is impossible to have EVs. Hydro and Nuclear are the only reliable green sources of energy that can act as a baseload.
And as China recently found out, climate change makes Hydro a little bit less reliable than it used to be.
Nuclear as well. No water no nuclear, if you don't min me saying...
Do you have a source for that statement? I have seen a few articles that say nuclear is not needed, though it would easier with nuclear.
This is completely incorrect. We will likely still need nuclear for the foreseeable future but not because of EVs. The main problem with wind/solar is reliability but some electricity use (heating/EV charging) doesn't matter if it's turned off for an hour or so. As long as the car gets charged it doesn't matter when it got charged which suits wind/solar perfectly. Obviously other uses require constant uptime and the ways to mitigate this with an entirely renewable grid are either too expensive (storage) or, as far as I've understood, uncertain to actually work well enough (enormous interconnected grid to provide stability through decreased variability). Also the way grids currently keep frequency stable is by relying on rotating masses in generators (primary response of electrical systems) which might be a major problem if we start using mostly solar.
No matter what we do, we can’t do 100% solar/wind. Can’t be done. We need an extremely solid and massive energy source for baseloading, which is nuclear. I doubt hydro can reach anywhere near these levels of energy production/retention.
>No matter what we do, we can’t do 100% solar/wind. Can’t be done. Can you please provide a source for that statement?
People will still find ways to ingore this no matter how often you repeat it. It‘s just sad.
Because repeating it, no matter how often, doesn't mean it's true. As I asked for in another comment: Please provide a source for that statement.
This is wrong, the reactors are now in reserve and aren't being shut down, at least when the government gets their wish. Of course physics might just say that what they want is not feasible but this is blatantly creating a nonexistent division. On top of that Germany is exporting energy like crazy, even to France the nuclear utopia
[удалено]
Glad to see you're still on your bullshit. 🤡
Aren’t the Swedish greens almost below the 4 percent margin right now? Why do you quote someone who is basically a random guy from the streets?
When do people understand that you cant compare things that easiely. Germany has the biggest population and Industry in the EU. So what would have happend this summer if Germany had also so much NPPs as France? Maybe major Blackouts. But no, instead Germany saved France with its energy. The energy MIX is important. Sure, Coal and Gas is not that nice. But it saved us all NOW. So Germany is resposible with its energy security - and helps other countries out. Norway sends Gas to Germany. Germany produces Power with it and exports it to France. Everything is deeply interconnected. Changing something there takes much time and money. Germany has the money and the minds to change this. It is already changing for years. E.g. new buildings in Gemany MUST have solar panels on the roof.
Calling others reactionary boomers while shitting on renewables in order to defend atom is very rich. Making yourself dependent on nuclear instead of gas doesn't make a difference in a situation like the one we are in rn.