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Switzerland Votes To Abandon Nuclear Power In Favor of Renewables (bbc.com)
Slashdot reader bsolar writes: Swiss voters approved a new energy strategy proposed by the government. Under this new policy no new nuclear power plant will be built and the five existing nuclear power plants will continue operating and will be shut down at the end of their operating life (expected to last about 20-30 years). The plan is to offset the missing nuclear energy production by renewables and lower energy consumption.
Though one-third of the country's power comes from nuclear energy, the BBC reports that more than 58% of the voters "backed the move towards greener power sources." One Swiss news site notes that "regions where the country's five nuclear reactors are situated rejected the reform with clear majorities."
Though one-third of the country's power comes from nuclear energy, the BBC reports that more than 58% of the voters "backed the move towards greener power sources." One Swiss news site notes that "regions where the country's five nuclear reactors are situated rejected the reform with clear majorities."
not this again.
http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210
I agree to an extent. Slowly phasing out existing plants where the financial investment was already made could be smarter than simply turning them off and building intermediary coal plants to buffer the transition.
However, there is one thing to observe: Transition, where it is taken on, is happening at rate faster than anyone predicted, simply because setting up a windmill or a solar array is so much less hassle than building an nuclear fission cycle that follows all the required regulations. So we'd have to look very carefull if even existing nuclear cycles are cost effective vis-a-vis contemporary alternatives. Modern day stuff like Elon Musks solar roof and the powerwall basically pay for itself with current energy costs. No need to lug nuclear fuel and waste about anymore. The only infrastucture needed for larger off-shore windparks and desert-bound solar-arrays that isn't in existance are powerlines. And even those are cheaper and less fuss than NF, even if you put them into the ground.
If we de-throne the power cartels and allow for decentralised power we'd see all nuclear plants put into hybernation-mode faster than expected, simply because it's too much hassle to maintain them for regular throughput. I'd expect nuclear plants to simply be repurposed as storage facilities for their own waste.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Will ask what caused the 3rd planet to become like the 2nd? They will conclude three fatal mistakes sealing the fate of the planet :
1) the dominance of internal combustion engines over electric
2) a retreat from nuclear power after something called Fukushima
3) the race was not smart enough to get fusion power working in time
Pretty much says it all.
It's true enough, the measure passed (FWIW, I voted against it). It's a stupid, knee-jerk reaction, still a follow-on from Fukushima.
However, in the current European political climate, constructing new nuclear reactors isn't possible anyway. People are too risk averse, there's far too much NIMBY-ness, we *still* don't have a proper solution for long-term waste storage (more NIMBY-ness), fuel-reprocessing barely exists - the whole situation is just impossible. The UK claims they're going to build some new nuclear plants: buy your popcorn now, because it's going to be long show, and most likely they will never happen.
So forbidding new plants from being built here doesn't really matter. And anyway, the law can just as easily be changed back, should the political climate for nuclear improve.
No, the biggest problem with the vote that happened yesterday are subsidies: More subsidies for renewables, more subsidies for renovating old buildings, replacing heating systems, etc.. These subsidies totally distort the market, and there are already people speculating on them, because apparently they will be retroactive. Also, it's kind of hilarious: some of the subsidies are to correct the damage done by previous subsidies. When the nuclear plants were originally built, the government subsidized electrical (resistance) heating systems, because electricity was going to be so cheap. Now, it will pay you to get rid of your electrical heating system and put in something else. And in 20 or 30 years, it will be something else again. Stupid.
The worst aspect of these subsidies is: they are, in the end, just income redistribution. Why does Hans get money from Fred, just because Fred has a new house and Hans bought an old one? Or because Fred invested in a good heating system, and Hans bought a crappy one that he now wants to replace?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
So based on a single paper using their computer model, in Australia if they reduce the energy consumption to a bare minimum, increase the energy efficiency of houses and appliances, and they invest about $22 billion every year until 2030 the 100% renewable energy option will be "just" $7-10 billion more expensive that the fossil fuel one. Sounds good to me.
60% of the electricity generated in Switzerland comes from hydro., a bit less than 40% nuke. But this only accounts for about 15% of domestic consumption.
The rest is bought from the Germans (burning lovely polluting brown coal) and the French, who have an abundance of cheap nuke electricity...(about the only country in the world that got its nuclear power generating strategy right)
So, yeah, this is a very "green" decision!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I remember the day after this speech came out. All the news was about those poor translators who had to try and either look incompetent or break their ethical responsibility to translate faithfully and make the president make sense.
Which part of "for nearly all" did you miss?
France burns very little coal through the year to generate electricity, unlike its neighbour Germany which burns over 170 milion tonnes of mostly brown coal each year.
As for hydro yes France also gets a chunk of its electricity supply from that source, mostly from the French Pyrenees, assuming it's been raining or snowing sufficiently. They also have a small tidal barrage power station as well as some grid solar in the south of the country and some wind farms.
Right now, as I type this France's electricity demand is about 50GW. Of that 40GW is supplied by nuclear power and about 8GW comes from hydro. They are getting a grand total of 350MW from coal right now, 3GW from gas and 4.1GW from solar plus some power from other generating sources such as biomass and wind.
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk...
Yes that does add up to more than 50GW. France is exporting 3.5GW to Spain, 2.5GW to Italy, 2GW to Britain and 350MW to Switzerland while importing about 1GW from Germany. It almost always exports more electricity than it imports by a significant amount because it doesn't cost any more to keep the reactors running at full power since the fuel is cheap. Saying that they tend to refuel their reactors during the summer on a staggered basis as demand reduces so some of their nuclear capacity drops out at that time.
France has a higher demand per capita for electricity than most other European countries since their nuclear-generated electricity is cheap and so they use it for heating homes and other buildings and for industrial processes rather than burning lots of imported gas. That's why their carbon load per capita is way lower than virtually any other comparable European nation.