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The Coming Energy Turnaround In Germany
An anonymous reader writes "Germany has decided to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 and embark on an energy turnaround that focuses on large increases in sustainable energy production. What will it take in terms of investments, and will it mean cost hikes for German consumers? Will it really mean more jobs in the 'green energy' sector? Quoting: 'Total investment over the next decade for such an energy turnaround is estimated to be roughly €200 billion (or almost $290 billion). ... At the moment, more than 20 new coal-fired power plants are being planned or already under construction; together, they would achieve a total output of 10 gigawatts and could, in terms of power supply, replace nuclear power plants that are still operational. But coal-fired power plants do not fit into the concept of the sustainable energy turnaround that the government has put forward.'"
coal-fired power plants do not fit into the concept of the sustainable energy
You're just not thinking long-term.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Solar doesn't produce anything at night.
Don't limit yourself to solar panels. They have solar collectors that concentrate energy onto molten salt that never cools. Energy is added during the day but small amounts of heat are used to power turbines throughout the day/night.
http://inhabitat.com/worlds-first-molten-salt-solar-plant-produces-power-at-night/
Unless/until we can develop some form of industrial scale fusion, any of the base load options (nuclear, gas, coal, oil) are going to be necessary and will come with a serious environmental price tag attached. Solar and wind need to be developed and widely used but absent some miracles in battery technology and/or transmission losses (high temp superconductors) they will have limits.
If Germany wants to use fossil fuels instead of nuclear that is their prerogative but they are simply trading one problem for another one, possibly worse than the original. I don't really understand what they think they will accomplish other than to mollify people who are (reasonably or unreasonably) terrified of nuclear fission.
I agree. This story is such an excellent example of why environmentalism can be so dangerous and *must* be subjected to intense criticism, not adopted automatically "because that's what we should all do, right?".
It plays on people's fears, causes them to act irrationally and in the end can achieve environmentally negative results - as in the case of Germany introducing 20 new coal power-plants - the same that we've been so fighting so many years to get rid off, since they pollute the air and deplete non-renewable resources. (Yeah, my country neighbors with Germany, so I actually care about the resulting pollution.)
Yay! Progress... :(
Like all decisions driven by irrational fears, this is a bad move.
Germany already has some of the highest electricity prices in Europe (22 Cents/kWh versus 12 Cents/kWh in France, for example) and switching to super-expensive solar power and unstable wind turbines will prove to be eye-wateringly expensive, especially since there's very little energy storage capacity (eg. storage basins) and the existing energy transport infrastructure (ie. pylons across the country) is proving to be rather inadequate and has to be upgraded, naturally at huge economic and political cost (read: lots of NIMBY demonstrations).
Germans are very unrealistic about a lot of things (I'm German, BTW), and I think a lot of people are going to come down with a loud thump in this country when they're finally presented with the inevitable sky-high bills for all this energy utopia.
Hard figures: I'm reckoning on electricity prices of around 30 Cents/kWh in 5 years or so.
My 30 cents to the discussion.
Cheers,
Gerald
Wind gusts do not cause power surges. Modern Turbines and windmills (the ones with the hundred foot long wings) spin at very low RPM. In high winds brakes are applied to keep the speed down because rapid rotation would destroy the windmill.
I just don't understand why people like you bring up a couple weaknesses of renewable energy then walk away like the only answer is non renewable fossil fuels. The real answer is sustainable energy production that uses multiple renewable sources. Base load from geothermal and nuclear, then you handle summer peak air conditioning load with PV and solar thermal, add in some wind for ~10% of base load, maybe some wave power for a few more percent. Some renewable gas generation from waste digestion (sewage or other organic waste), throw in Hydro where it's available and you have a system that's no entirely dependent on a single source of fuel. Not only that but you don't export several hundred billion dollars a year to hostile countries buying dino by-product to burn.
Energy generation is a national defense issue. Burning coal has made fish uneatable due to mercury content. Fossil fuels will run out someday and it is in the national interest to move away from non-renewable sources of energy because in the long run they will run out.
Right, because nobody ever solved the problem of "how to clean a mirror", and plants like SEGS that have been operating for over a quarter century without a significant drop in efficiency, they're just lies and propaganda.
In fact, the *newest* section of SEGS is 21 years old, and still going strong.
This will mean more and more hydrocarbons will have to be used to sustain the German economy. This is a hysterical political response from form uniformed and misguided environmental do gooders. I made an earlier post in another article about thorium reactors. These have no where the dangerous consequences of uranium/plutonium reactors. Thorium reactors have already been built in the US. But the reason why they never went commercial is because you cannot produce nuclear weapons from them in a practical sense.They better hope that fusion becomes viable soon. But I doubt it. People need to be more educated themselves and stop listening to lying politicians and self serving demagogues of fanciful ideologies.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
Except that it's not a level playing field. Fossil fuels get heavily subsidized. According to this, (which I have not independently verified or checked sources on) solar would be cheaper if that was turned around.
At the very least "less optimal economy" seems like disingenuous or stupid way to judge the cost/benefit to me. The costs of global warming, asthma, coal-related deaths, and smog would massively tilt the scale in favor of green. We've let the economists and corporations convince us that fossil fuels' external costs will never ever ever have to be paid off though, just as we let economists and irresponsible politicians convince us that deficits don't matter.
They aren't really dropping nuclear, they are exporting it across the Rhine to France. The analysis I've seen is the only way the Germans keep up with historic demand growth short of tanking their economy is to build more interconnects to France and let the French operate those horrible nuclear plants.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
All you say is very interesting but how does it get me re-elected?
That's why it's happening now, but it couldn't have happened without decades of attacks on nuclear power by some environmentalists.
are we glossing over that the "fraction of the time of current nuclear waste's lifespan" STILL exceeds the current lifespan of nearly every... modern nation?
It would be like if the "West Francia" had to bury nuclear waste. What, never heard of them? well gosh. I'm sure that pile of deadly, weapons-grade nuclear waste they left behind is around here *somewhere*.
The Canadian CANDU reactors can extra huge amounts of energy out of the waste from American reactors, and even more from disused nuclear weapons. The newer CANDU designs are even more efficient, less expensive (do not require enriched fuel) and have twice as many safety layers as other designs. They also attain higher uptimes because they can be refuelled without a shutdown (this part of the design also means that they cannot melt down, because new fuel must be constantly added to maintain criticality)
So, Japan got hit by an earthquake and the reactor failed, shit happens, without risk there is no gain...
There's acceptable risks and unacceptable risks. Locating a nuclear plant on a seashore, next to a fault line, is not an acceptable risk, it's downright dumb. We've done the exact same thing here in the USA with a nuclear plant in California that was on the shore and right next to a fault line.
If you're going to do totally stupid stuff like this, you shouldn't be using nuclear power at all. Leave it to someone smarter, like the French, who apparently don't do these idiotic things and have been running tons of nuclear plants safely for decades.
There is a LOT more to the Pickens story than environmentalist meddling, tax breaks, and ROI. The whole project was a smokescreen, behind which Pickens was attempting to build a water supply business. Do a bit of googling, you'll be amazed at the guy's chutzpah.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I live in Germany, and I've been following this closely.
First of all, a former government had already decided on a stop on nuclear power, at a much earlier date. The current government reversed that as one of the first major things. It took Fukushima and a huge public outcry for them to reconsider.
So that's the first scam - those who are now hailed as the ones leading Germany into a brighter, greener future had to be forced to walk that path.
The main replacements for the nuclear plants will be coal plants. Which, as everyone familiar with the subject, put out not only more CO2, but also more radiation. Their advantage is that they are less likely to fail catastrophically with nuclear fallout. That's the second scam - energy generation in Germany will actually be a lot less clean and less green.
The choice to go with coal is mostly due to the responsible people clinging to the "baseline" concept, which says you need a certain amount of power stations that output the same amount of electrical energy no matter what the time of day, climate, temperature, season, etc.
That's the third scam, because it is an outdated model. With 21st century technology and systems, the variability of alternative energy sources can be compensated over types or distances and easily create a reliable baseline equivalent. However, those are distributed, decentralized systems, and the technology and business models of big power corporations are designed for large, centralized power stations. They need time to change (if they even want to), and the government has been nice to give them that time. Did anyone yell "campaign contributions"? Please... you have such a bad image of politicians...
Viewed as a whole, the entire thing is a game to stay in power and to find a middle way to please both the corporate sponsors and the voting public. But it has no vision, no conviction and no drive. With the next election, or if public opinion changes, everything will be up for grabs again.
When you read something about politics that mentions a far-future date, always count how many elections are inbetween now and then...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Just because Rome has fallen, that doesnt mean that we forget where the Colosseum is.
"His name was James Damore."
Maybe, but Germans are still trying to find their nuclear waste that East Germany "treated" before the fall of the wall. They do know it is buried somewhere, nobody has a clue where.
Cloudy, yes. But the UK's reputation for being foggy comes from the 19th century when our cities were heavily polluted, due to coal-fired steam power being the primary source of energy. Fogs were frequent because they would form around the soot particles produced. It's not the case today.
Besides, we have a long coastline for our land area compared to the US, a bunch of strong tidal races, plenty of opportunity for wave energy, and in Shetland we have the most efficient wind farms in the world. Solar isn't even on our radar.
"Candle makers across Europe are building up their inventory."
As indeed they should be. If any large country in the world has the will and technical ability to make renewable energy work, it is Germany. But I simply don't see how they can pull this off. Wind has major limitations. Germany is too close to the pole for solar to provide much power in Winter. They don't have large undeveloped hydro resources. They don't have that much in the way of oil. They might have 20 years worth of natural gas at current consumption levels (and might not), but they will burn through that pretty quickly if they use it to replace existing power sources. Germans are already pretty energy efficient.
I wish them luck. Really. But I don't think this is going to end well.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I don't see how you could possibly argue that a modern plant design, with safety mechanisms in place that would have withstood the Japan quake and tsunami by passively stopping reactors in the quake -- yeah, they don't melt down because a loss of power causes things to shut down, they actually require power and stability to keep them going instead of needing those to stop -- and reactors that would turn our hundreds-of-centuries-dangerous nuclear waste into hundreds-of-years-dangerous nuclear waste, could possibly be a bad idea.
The problem is that the reactors you're talking about do not exist yet. Yes they are very neat on paper and everybody would like to have these, however you don't have in your briefcase the plans for a 1GW such reactor that one could start building tomorrow and operating in 3 years. So what you're really advocating is research, arguing that the benefits will be tremendous. Well I'm all for research, but then going this way I can't help thinking that solar power too has a tremendous potential and would benefit a lot from research. Sun is bathing the Earth on average with 5000 times the current total energy consumption of humanity, so if we could tap 0.2% of that input somehow we would kind of have solved the energy problem of humanity once and for all. Isn't this a nice perspective too? Sure there are technical challenges along the way (energy storage, long-distance distribution, smart grid, etc), but not necessarily infinitely more complex or impossible to solve than with nuclear power. So unless somebody comes with an argument convincing me that renewable energy cannot possibly be a solution to our energy needs, I will lean towards them because they have one hell of an advantage: they are intrinsically clean, renewable and safe, contrary to nuclear power which may become almost clean and safe after risk mitigation.
Which brings me to the other reason why I think nuclear reactors are a bad idea: what is going to happen once I say "ok nuclear is the way of the future, let's build NPP all over the world"? What "they" will build is not the nice and shiny reactors that you're talking about, what they are going to build is the cheapest piece of crap they'll be able to get away with, cutting as many corners as humanely possible, bribing as many politicians as necessary along the way, twisiting as many regulations as the creativity of their lawyers will permit. It's even worth than that: their gauge to decide how much "over-security" they are doing at any particular point in time is wether any serious accident happened lately or not. If not, some pointy-haired boss will show up with a plan to "cut costs" that will basically boil down to grind security measures until the next major accident happens, at which point the cycle restarts, just like it did with Fukushima, Deep Water Horizon, Bophal and countless others. The Mafia will keep on dumping nuclear waste in the ocean, in fact they're going to do it more and more, and China will start doing it too, trust me on this, western countries did dump a lot of nasty things in the ocean too in the past. And heck why on Earth wouldn't they do it?
So this is why I argue that even "a modern plant design, with safety mechanisms [...]" is very probably a bad idea: the scientists and engineers that promote and push for these technologies and would like to see the world covered in NPP are definitely meaning well and understandably frustrated at the current status quo which is the worst possible situation, and I personally trust (most of) them; however the guys who ultimately will be in charge of the completion of the plan I do not trust, I know these guys don't give a single molecule of shit about me, my children or my grand-children, they will do whatever to line their pockets and let us die face in the mud; they