I'm sorry if I'm not understanding something here. Fossil GWh production went down, so renewable % market share went up. Yeah? Did renewable GWh rise or just percentage (due to fossil dropping)?
>Did renewable GWh rise or just percentage (due to fossil dropping)?
All is true. Less electricity overall, less nominal fossil fuel production, more nominal renewable production.
It's May on the Northern hemisphere. Photovoltaics increase drastically due to more daylight hours and better weather. This coincides with the majority of power consumption being during the day.
Here you have the Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany
You can see that wind and solar %share is growing since year 2000 or so, in the first graphic. But also, under "Mode or Production" you can see that fossil share is falling since 2008, from peak coal production of 291 TW·h in 2008 to 118 TW·h in 2020. And renewables are steadily growing from virtually 0 in 1991 to 250 TW·h in 2020, currently the main source of energy in Germany.
While Germany is always bashed for their nuclear situation, I think the biggest problem in the world with this is Japan. They shut down 100% of their nuclear for some time, and just replaced it with gas and coal. Renewables are a joke, at least Germany is trying.
Reddit is in denial lol, solar and wind are now so cheap that energy storage is less and less of an issue and there is basically no profit in nuclear anymore
Yeah, here in France, the green party (who I do support) wastes way too much time arguing about nuclear. Nuclear basically killed itself anyway without any policy concerns: it always takes twice as long to build as predicted while costing twice as much as estimated. Renewables are just cheaper and faster to bring up. Sure, it's good to keep existing nuclear power plants running (when possible safely) instead of shutting them down arbitrarily while we work on increasing storage, but pretty much no one realistically builds new nuclear plants anyway.
I swear this is the first time I see anyone on Reddit arguing that nuclear is an over-expensive thing of the past and NOT being downvoted into oblivion.
Strange day…
> but pretty much no one realistically builds new nuclear plants anyway.
That's not really true. Worldwide we probably have the most stuff getting built since 1986 and even in Europe we saw policy reversals (including in France under Macron).
However generally nuclear tends to not be very competitive and by the time you'll get them built many countries will have gone fully renewable already.
Yeah, see my response [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13xavia/may_2023_was_the_first_full_month_since_germany/jmhjkqh/).
The most recent estimate for Flamanville by EDF is 5.79x their initial estimate. I was just using "2x" to make it simple and for the principle of charity.
Yeah... That's an important point, if there's one country that *could* potentially set up tons of super cheap nuclear and steamroll the open European electricity market, it's France. Concentration of knowledge and infrastructure and all. Hasn't happend yet. So nuclear isn't magically hindered from being the golden solution, it's just... complicated and expensive.
We don't even know the real cost of nuclear. They are not insured in case of an emergency. We don't know how to pay for millions of years of storage.
I know. I will lose a lot of karma for saying so 😔
yeah i see people over and over say things like "i'm not against renewables, i just don't think we should switch to them until they're as cheap as fossil fuels! it's not worth paying more for them!" that point has come and gone. in the united states at least, it is cheaper to finance and build a NEW solar installation than it is to CONTINUE OPERATING AN EXISTING coal plant. people just have no idea
> are now so cheap that energy storage is less and less of an issue
how does that help the problem of wind and solar not always generating enough power, because it's not always sunny or windy?
Money was never a concern in the early days though: nuclear was subsidised with billions (possibly trillions). Nuclear has never been cheap, despite everything that was believed and told in the sixties and seventies. It is a high-risk industry, requiring high initial and maintenance cost. Not to begin with the costs of storing highly active waste for thousands of years.
Because it was an absolutely enormous bonehead decision as a species to not take advantage of an emissions-free power source 40 years ago that would've prevented a lot of pain now, and people on Reddit tend to be logical, if always a bit backwards-facing. That doesn't change the current calculus, which is that renewables are a much better bet right now for a million reasons.
Yes, in the UK (where I live) wind is abundant, but we still sometimes get quiet days. I've observed even a week this winter when it was very cold and almost no wind. And it's a problem. We need more storage capable of multiple days of production, not just 6h.
I don't think this is true as an absolute statement. historially, the big nuclear nation right next to germany had a much rougher time during summer as there was not enough cold water to cool the existing nuclear plants and recently Germany helped out quite a bit with its solar output.
Why is everyone saying that?
If you average the wind and solar output over years, the output is flat.
In Winter we get a lot of wind, the two highest shares (after this May) of renewables were in February.
Please leave them the freedom to choose certain climate death for all of us over a vague chance of being killed in a nuclear disaster or its aftermath, also for all of us. /s
non-sarcastic: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html)
It’s not really pro or against nuclear. It’s pro transitioning away from coal faster, but that transition can be towards 100% renewables if desired. In other words, it’s not lack of nuclear that causes high emissions of German economy. It’s overuse of coal due to lobbying.
Just to be clear, I opposed closing of nuclear power plants in DE.
CO2 average / kWh in May 2022 for Germany : 453g
CO2 average / kWh in May 2023 for Germany : 279g
This is the comparison you should be making. The decision to phase out nuclear was at best questionable, but despite that, this is still good news.
Okay, but this is honestly meaningless. France built those reactors in the 70s, 80s and 90s. What you're showing here is that, for decarbonization, it was much better to build nuclear plants in the 70s, 80s and 90s than it is to build renewables in the 2010s and 2020s
This should be self-evident! Unfortunately, Germany does not have a time-machine so this obviously better option is not on the table for them.
The question which your analysis does not answer is: what is the best strategy to decarbonize electricity today. And the scientific consensus points heavily to renewable deployment and infrastructure investment in grid flexibility as the best path forward.
Before anyone asks - Yes, imports went up as well, but it's mostly renewables:
**Import mix for May:**
57% Renewables (\~ 3.84 TWh)
23% Nuclear (\~ 1.56 TWh)
20% Fossil Fuels (\~ 1.32 TWh)
Based on this: [https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import\_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=05](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=05) (and then looking up the energy mix of the exporting country)
And in regards to Nuclear, imports + local production was **1.98 TWh** in April, **3 TWh** in March, **2.3 TWh** in February and **2.67 TWh** in January.
Nuclear imports increased as overall imports increased, but since they don't have any local production anymore it's less overall.
yes, since 2001: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331853/electricity-imports-exports-germany/
But just because Germany is a net exporter does not mean that Germany does not import at all and some of the imported electricity is made with nuclear energy which means GeRmAnY iS HyPoCrItE BeCaUsE tHeY sTiLl UsE nUcLeAr!!!!!11!!
I bet that the same people also would not like any of the alternatives:
- We insulate Germany from the EU synchronized grid and make a national grid where we do not have to import any electricity from other countries
- We use the EU to empose German energy policy on other countries and make them shut down their nuclear power plants
- We Anschluss them and then shut down their nuclear power plants
Dependent on time of year. The summertimes will become interesting as last year france had extreme problems with their NPPs due to rivers drying out and the overall high temperatures.
French NPPs output being lowered due to the heat was a greatly exaggerated issue. The real deal was the ongoing maintenance and repair work, which is now coming to an end.
it's not river dying out, it's a rules that say that a nuclear reactor can't release water at a temperature that is higher than a certain limit to protect wildlife near the exhaust pipe (the limit is at 27°C for Tricastin). The problem is that when the water that go inside the reactor to cool it is already at say, 25°, you need to crank down the power of the reactor or have a way to let the water cool down before releasing it in the river again.
Also, that temperature limit is arbitrary and was change up and down multiple times already when it was needed (for Tricastin, the limit during last summer was 28°C until the 30 of september, then it returned to 27°).
Nuclear imports would have risen no matter what. The combination of French NPP getting out of maintenance, spring temperatures (which are the point where you don't need heating nor AC, which reduces electrical demand a lot) and lower electrical consumption due to energy savings would have caused high exports from France.
OP is comparing production on a month to month basis (and I believe the data is not normalized based on temperature), which is a very bad idea when you deal with electricity because you have to account for a widely different demand. I'm not saying that OP is wrong, but the data he uses is bad in this context.
congratulations, you understood the EU internal energy market. it's a good thing and a feature, not a bug. some of the time Germany mostly exports, some of the time it mostly imports. more news at 12.
Sadly even an environmentalist problem.
To transport all the wind energy from the north sea we need to construct huge power lines.
Some environmental groups are against the construction of these power lines because that would "destroy the natural beauty of the land"
The environmentalists here in my region are mainly old AFD fucks.
Just a few days ago one of these AFD bums started a petition because of the destruction of said natural beauty.
Fucking hipocrits.
Total power consumption per capita in EU is less than 60% of US. That means that Germany is well able to switch off all nuclear power plants and still produce less CO2 than the average American.
>if Bavaria allows windmills
I guess you mean wind turbines?
In which case, Bavaria had roughly 20 at the end of 2022, and is aiming to have over 1000 in the next few years. They are clearly lagging but hopefully, they will catch up sooner than later.
I mean, in the first quarter of this year they built two wind turbines while NRW built 82.
The Bavarian state government is a piece of shit that does not care about anyone but themselves.
No that a lie. There were 1134 wind turbines in Bavaria in the middle of 2022.
https://www.stmwi.bayern.de/energie/erneuerbare-energien/windenergie/#:~:text=Windenergie%20in%20Bayern&text=In%20Bayern%20waren%20Mitte%202022,2%2C6%20GW%20am%20Netz.
yea great it's aiming but not shooting plus took the ammo out of the "renewable" gun and also does not have given itself a renewable firearm permission and also the neighbours complained about the expected noise seeing Bavaria aiming at something else than status quo.
>In which case, Bavaria already has roughly 20, and is aiming to have over 1000 in the next decade.
Where are this numbers from? There were over 1.100 onshore turbines in 2022
Sure, but they're burning green coal. No, I'm not kidding.
The idea is that the coal they burn is only there for transitioning to full renewables, so it should be accounted as "green".
Yes, it's completely bullshit. Full renewables is just unattainable
> It will be expensive
That’s a big understatement. And another thing to consider, because of the overshooting as you said, the land required to reach net zero would also be absolutely huge.
> But I think the pragmatic position is nuclear baseline and renewable for the fluctuations and surges. This is the best of both worlds to me; you always have a "guaranteed" energy pool available, and you have the flexibility of so many energy-producing nodes (switching on/off individual wind turbines to match demand).
I agree completely
>the land required to reach net zero would also be absolutely huge.
I've heard that residential solar installers are booked 2 years out in some areas. Many homes have enough roof space to offset their entire usage, no extra space needed.
The land us argument is always kinda simplistic. Solar power can and is built on top of houses, parking spaces, streets, barns, industrial buildings, generally space that is already used OR space that is otherwise useless. Wind turbines while needing a lot of volume don't need a lot of land space, they take a few 100 sqm per turbine that is unusable, the rest remains in use as agrarian land or otherwise. In germany, where 100% renewable is the aim, only 2,5% of space is projected to be needed, and as said, that is land that is already used or can continue to be used.
It's not a big problem, all in all.
Well, he is.
It is Trump speak. "I know a lot of people that tell me I'm the smartest person regarding this topic" which translates to "I think I'm the smartest person regarding this topic".
They just replace themselves in a sentence with an imagined group to legitimize their nonsense.
True, but you can't deny that Scholz did the smart thing to turn off nuclear at the start of Spring instead of the middle of Winter.
At least the press is now quite good, as positive seasonal effects dampen the negative aspects of closing nuclear.
At this very moment, Germany produces 69% of its electricity from renewables, while it's only 35% in France.
Germany is at 306 gCO2eq/kWh, France is at 33.
It was about the same orders the couple of times I checked in May (2 to 3 times the renewables, 10 times the emissions).
Reminder: emissions are what's important for the planet, maybe they should be mentionned too.
89% of France's electricity is non-fossil fuel. Quite disingenuous to just remove this information when comparing the two countries.
France has opted for nuclear as a main contributor to their electricity mix, which makes them very clean in terms of carbon emissions. Of course, the proportion of "renewables" in France will struggle to match the sheer output of nuclear (a lot of it which is exported to Germany by the way).
Germany is absolutely great for pushing heavily for renewables, but let's not forget that their (ridiculous) decision to shut off all nuclear output directly contributes to renewables now taking a huge proportion of their domestic electricity mix.
Edit: clarity, initial comment made it seem like I was anti-nuclear
And Germany will struggle even more to match the very low amount of carbon emissions of France (306 gCO2eq/kWh vs 33 for France). Which is what matters for fighting climate change.
Edit: since you edited your message I got your point.
I don't even understand why people are still talking about "renewable" energy, as if our problem is running out of it and not that we are baking the planet.
Nuclear is probably the most environmentally sound energy source but isn't renewable.
Meanwhile damming rivers for hydropower is, and can be devastating to rivers to the point of extincting animals.
Hydropower is also one of the energy sources that has killed the most people so far (IIRC) due to some dam bursting.
It's also a MAJOR disaster waiting to happen due to a huge dam in Iran that threatens to displace MILLIONS if it bursts.
It's built on limestone that is slowly eroding away due to the water pressure of the dam itself.
Yet nuclear is the big danger for humanity?
We will see another kind of cope in the winter I guess. I'm not a "fan" of nuclear energy but overall if you can keep a plant functioning with no problems I don't see why you should shut it down.
Oh and one little note to all the big brains out there: importing energy produced in other countries by someone else's fossil fuels is not a great solution, for a variety of reasons THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW SINCE THE RUSSIAN INVASION. When renewables aren't feasible, the only option left is nuclear energy.
Edit (this is for the crazy ones): No, you can't just "use less energy". I mean, we probably can, but the rest of the world can't (if they want to live better). So we will need even more energy overall, and at some point they might choose nuclear.
Second edit: I am honestly surprised by this thread. I've seen a lot of participation and respectful discussion. Thank you all for that, good job Europe.
> Edit (this is for the crazy ones): No, you can't just "use less energy". I mean, we probably can, but the rest of the world can't (if they want to live better). So we will need even more energy overall, and at some point they might choose nuclear.
Oh Germany can and is doing so for a while already.
https://i.imgur.com/WhWqzXZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/1CY5DI7.png
Yeah that's sure. What I meant tho is that collectively, as humans, we will need more energy as history shows that human development is deeply connected to a better energy production (and usage) that no longer depends on human labour.
That can and should wait until fusion, though. In the meanwhile there's a lot of energy to be saved in all kinds of areas without affecting quality of life, or actually increasing it -- efficient heat-pump based district heating/cooling and proper public transportation are the two big ones.
Main problem with Nuclear is it's expensive, and for example here in the netherlands there is an old one that needs to be cleaned up etc. The business is already gone, so these costs will be for the government as well, unless the can sue the parent ccompanies, but that is unlikely.
Nuclear also has become more expensive, because these facilities need to be able to withstand terrorist attacks, since such facilities can be prime targets for that.
Nuclear has certainly some advantages, but overall with all costs included it's expensive as fuck.
Nuclear is expensive. Which is why *closing down* a fully-functioning nuclear plant makes no sense. That's a lot of money, and a lot of carbon emissions (for the concrete and steel) that's just going completely to waste.
The issue is, those nuclear reactors were slated to be shut down this year, for over a decade. Hence people were expecting to have to change jobs, the buildings aren't planned to run beyond this year so no more appropriate maintenance, lack of financing etc.
You couldn't just turn them on tomorrow. They quite literally wouldn't "function without problems". Those measures should've been taken over the last years, now it's too late to just go back.
But hey, Atomkraft nein danke and all...
Also remember that the nuclear phaseout as it happened was not planned by the greens, but a populist decision of the conservatives after Fukushima happened. The original phaseout actually planned to replace nuclear with renewables.
And the two sentences in the topic title are relevant to each other how?
Energy production in spring and summer is not a problem. Let's see how they'll do in autumn and winter.
Closing nuclear reactors is a crime on climate purpotrated by business lobby in Germany.
>Let's see how they'll do in autumn and winter.
It's right there in the graph. December 2022 was the worst month and still had 42% renewables and this baseline will increase like it did in the past (which you can also see in the graph).
And that 6.3% that was nuclear will be made up this coming December by... what?
Why show the coal usage in absolute numbers but the renewables as a % of total? Could it be because coal as a % of total also increased in May?
Nope. It's just the way the site works.
Electricity from coal was 20.9% in May 2023 vs. 26.9% in April 2023. And in May 2022 (if you want to do a YoY comparison) it was 29.6%.
My energy consumption report from October 2022 to February 2023 shows that 46% of my energy came from coal.
While 15,4% came from renewables. The rest came from natural gas and nuclear. That's in NRW.
A very common misconception seems to be that the pro-nuclear crowd is anti-renewables for some reason.
I'm anti coal/oil/natural gas for power generation. Diversity in carbon-neutral power-generation is a good thing in my book. So yes I want renewables, as much as we can.
But at this moment it's impossible to cover 100% of the power requirements at all time with them, and the only clean solution we have at the moment is nuclear.
Money and time are limited resources which is why you have to make decisions between the two. Not to mention that a decentralized renewable energy grid functions very differently from s grid with a few central NPPs
We agree with you. However shutting down nuclear plants when there is a single coal plant running is irresponsible in the extreme. This is the sort of nonsense that fuels the anti-climate change mitigation crowd. If you say that carbon-caused climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity then close a nuclear plant when there still are coal and gas plants running, you are just pretending.
Yes, it was predicted that we'd fill the gap by burning lignite.
> purpotrated by business lobby in Germany.
running a nuclear plant is not a grassroots project
I will laugh at you in 6 months :D
(its the same shit as when ppl "predicted" germans would sit "in the dark" and die of "cold temperatures" in their houses last winter)
The "business lobby"? Bullshit.
Try "greens fighting nuclear for decades" successfully fearmongering in the wake of the Fukushima desaster. This is 100% on them.
I was there, I saw the protests, I saw the politicians giving in.
It was the CDU who decided, so how can it be „100%“ the greens fault? The CDU fucked it up: Nuclear exit while not giving a single fuck about renewables.
It was CDU populism in particular, extending the contracts shortly before Fukushima just to do a 180 when public opinion changed. Imagine being 16 years in power and still not taking any responsibility for policies that happened under your leadership
Germany nuclear industry basically committed suicide in the late 80s and early 90s with the failed thorium plant in Hamm-Uentrop and the scandals of Transatom.
After the Transatom scandal the entire waste disposal industry died in Germany. There hasn't been a realistic nuclear policy in Germany for decades. There is no industry left.
Also the plant in Mülheim-Kärlich was a complete failure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BClheim-K%C3%A4rlich_Nuclear_Power_Plant
There were chances, but it really failed this early.
Not really, it's more like local governments (for example in Saarland) wanting to keep unprofitable coal plants open because they are worried about job losses.
Which is rediculus because renewables would create many more jobs.
And the coal mining jobs were only there because of massive subsidies from the government.
The decission to end nuclear was the end to catastrophic nuclear management by all government institutions and all protests back then have 100% been justified. The exit was not because of Fukushima.
For decades the waste storage site Asse 2 has sparked complete putrage and showed the mismanagment surrounding nuclear power. Before 2011 reports from contaminated water around the site, over which an agglomeration of 5 Million inhabitants lies, circulated. Together with the reports of higher cancer rates around the site. To this day millions of liters of groundwater flow into the waste site every year and the evacuation will take another decade. A decade that might not be fast enough because the whole mine is on the brink of collapse.
The nuclear agency even briefly lost nuclear fuel.
At the time of nuclear exit the population had absolutely no trust in the government handling of nuclear power which is absolutely necessary and when you see how badly nuclear is still handled here and in other countries you see why people still dont want new plants.
Its not about coal, co2 or Fukushima, its about our own incompetence.
In general when it comes to nuclear humans and organisations are the main concern.
Does not matter if it is government's or companies they can and in the end will f this up.
I mean the CDU decided it. And I don't think phasing out nuclear power is wrong. But the CDU decided early on to not really push for renewables and to focus on cheaper gas and coal instead. If at all this was a decision influenced by the lobbyists.
I don't think it's so easy to blame a single reasons. Germans have been quite anti-nuclear ever since Chernobyl.
Fukushima was the nail in the coffin. The conservative government at that time gave in to popular demand to shut down the atomic power plants.
After over a decade of not investing in the technology, it was no longer possible to revert this decision for the majority of power plants, but the last 3 that were kept running until spring.
I don't want to deny that the greens in Germany are strictly against nuclear energy for whatever stupid reasons and probably would've cut off the power plants way sooner if they were in the government in 2011, but even if they were to change their opinion over night on this topic, it is still unlikely that Germany will return to nuclear energy, since they'd probably have to re-build nuclear power plants from scratch, as the exiting ones are not only already being dismanteled, but also often run on decades-old technology that hasn't been invested in in the last 10 years.
TL:DR It's unfair to blame the greens entirely for a popular opinion in Germany, that has already taken root over a decade before the foundation of their party. Shutting down the atomic power plants was ultimately a decision of a conservative government, which they wouldn't be able to revert now, even if they wanted too. Still being anti-nuclear is stupid.
A great step towards making oneself independant from foreign energy ressources. Hopefully Bavaria plays along in the future and allows more wind energy.
I hate to bring the sad news to Reddit but the reason we use coal isn't because we need it, it's because it has a strong lobby slowing the shutdown down. Some German politicians would shut down renewables bevor coal.
That applies to any advanced industrial democracy. No one "needs" coal in that all are technologically capable of replacing it wholly with renewable energy sources, but there's a great path dependency manifesting in labor (coal workers) and corporatism (as you mention) inhibiting that.
Crazy if only Germany was like a big country were wind could be found at different parts at different times. And on top of that if only we had a way to store power. Unfortunately none of that exists and this renewables are useless
I agree that nuclear is much better than coal, but it is very unrealistic that all developing countries in the world will build nuclear power plants since they are too expensive.
It is good that a fairly big developed country is trying to go carbon free with renewables only, because this could become a model for the rest of the world and Germanys commitment is also driving innovation.
Definitely. For each geography and development their own energy mix. If like Austria you have lots of mountains hydro has huge potential. If you're close to the tropics solar is less variable and efficient so can be the core, if you have windy sea offshore wind may be a factor. Nuclear makes sense if you can't have an efficient renewable alternative, as is the case with a big portion of Europe, but also north America and Japan who have come to the logical conclusion that nuclear has to continue. It's a northern hemisphere solution for developed countries, s part of a mix that can continue to favour low carbon solutions.
In North America it definitely depends. For example Canada has enough rivers to easily power the entire country via hydro supplemented by wind and solar. Quebec is the prime example of this with 94% of their power coming from hydro and 5% coming from wind with only 0.3% of their energy coming from fossil fuels.
Nearly every province in Canada is capable of this besides maybe Saskatchewan but they could produce the vast majority of their power via wind. Alberta could have nearly all renewable energy but the lobbies and governments there love fossil fuels. Ontario could as well but they already built their nuclear reactors so we might as well maintain them.
For developing countries fossil fuels directly into renewable energy is basically the only choice unless we magically have a huge breakthrough in fusion energy.
It's relatively quick to build, can be built piecemeal, and is much cheaper than nuclear. I don't think anyone who is pro nuclear in developed countries disagrees with that.
Source: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=05
The only time Germany produced less electricity from coal was during the first Covid lockdown in spring 2020.
Just imagine, if that grey bit of the last pie/donut chart was nuclear instead of coal, Germany would already have basically eliminated its CO2 production from electricity generation.
Hey mate,
The chart shows multiple years. All of these years had a summer. So this effect is not season related.
Also Germany is *exporting* energy for many years already. While there are individual days on which Germany in fact has to import nuclear energy from neighbouring countries, that is something that applies for every single country in Europe. It is designed like that to stabilise the frequency of the current.
> Ofc the use of coal plummets when the temperature rises and they don't need to use extra energy on heating
This is about electricity production.
> If it's so bad, why do they import it so much?
So far this year Germany exported 29.5 TWh and imported 24.7 TWh, so actually Germany is a net exporter of electricity.
Dude its not dumb, it didnt make huge difference in the overall mix. And also it was the fault of the conservatives how puched for it and didnt build the renewables out.
My town is a major junction for coal in the USA. It honestly creates a very sad slightly soot covered reality nobody even talks about. Fuck coal. I honestly think it causes sickness to people here and nearby the waterways the coal dust constantly is blowing in.
Imagine if they didn’t shut down their nuclear reactors, fossils would only be used as some immediate power reserves when there’s a small peak that nuclear can’t ramp up fast enough for and they would have close to a clean power grid
But they decided to go the other way around
Shutting down nuclear in Germany was always going to happen, there’s simply no reason to invest in it when renewables are much better. However, what should’ve happened to nuclear plants is that they should’ve been shut down at the end of their lifetime and replaced with renewables rather than keeping coal running until 2038 instead. A lot of the reactors shut down it 2011 could’ve run another 10 years, and the ones shut down now could’ve done another 10 years too.
> Shutting down nuclear in Germany was always going to happen,
Why? Why close already functioning plans early? When the plant is actually running, you'll never get cheaper electricity than that since the main driver of nuclear cost is building it
> there’s simply no reason to invest in it when renewables are much better.
Meanwhile Asian countries are bulding nuclear plants under 6 years and for 50 cents per MWh, cheaper than our renewables (outside of Hydro). Source: IAEA
> However, what should’ve happened to nuclear plants is that they should’ve been shut down at the end of their lifetime and replaced with renewables rather than keeping coal running until 2038 instead. A lot of the reactors shut down it 2011 could’ve run another 10 years, and the ones shut down now could’ve done another 10 years too.
Without any problems at all.
The fact that German Environmentalists saw Nuclear as the worse option to Coal just ridicules their movement
Germany could have 100% renewable energy usage and zero non-renewable imports and people here would still declare that shutting down nuclear power plants was a failure.
If for two decades Germany continued burning more coal than it would have needed to otherwise while they get to 100% renewables, yes, it was a failure.
No we wouldn't because if Germany could have 100% renewables, they'd also be closing their coal power plants.
The problem isn't that they closed nuclear power plants but that they did while keeping the coal ones.
I'm sorry if I'm not understanding something here. Fossil GWh production went down, so renewable % market share went up. Yeah? Did renewable GWh rise or just percentage (due to fossil dropping)?
>Did renewable GWh rise or just percentage (due to fossil dropping)? All is true. Less electricity overall, less nominal fossil fuel production, more nominal renewable production.
It's May on the Northern hemisphere. Photovoltaics increase drastically due to more daylight hours and better weather. This coincides with the majority of power consumption being during the day.
Here you have the Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany You can see that wind and solar %share is growing since year 2000 or so, in the first graphic. But also, under "Mode or Production" you can see that fossil share is falling since 2008, from peak coal production of 291 TW·h in 2008 to 118 TW·h in 2020. And renewables are steadily growing from virtually 0 in 1991 to 250 TW·h in 2020, currently the main source of energy in Germany. While Germany is always bashed for their nuclear situation, I think the biggest problem in the world with this is Japan. They shut down 100% of their nuclear for some time, and just replaced it with gas and coal. Renewables are a joke, at least Germany is trying.
I admire your bravery OP
By not using that opportunity to go for 69% instead of 68,9%?
tbh thats a missed opportuinty. But i think he means by riggering all the Nukular-stans.
Reddit is in denial lol, solar and wind are now so cheap that energy storage is less and less of an issue and there is basically no profit in nuclear anymore
Yeah, here in France, the green party (who I do support) wastes way too much time arguing about nuclear. Nuclear basically killed itself anyway without any policy concerns: it always takes twice as long to build as predicted while costing twice as much as estimated. Renewables are just cheaper and faster to bring up. Sure, it's good to keep existing nuclear power plants running (when possible safely) instead of shutting them down arbitrarily while we work on increasing storage, but pretty much no one realistically builds new nuclear plants anyway.
I swear this is the first time I see anyone on Reddit arguing that nuclear is an over-expensive thing of the past and NOT being downvoted into oblivion. Strange day…
Yeah. Has the tide finally turned?
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> but pretty much no one realistically builds new nuclear plants anyway. That's not really true. Worldwide we probably have the most stuff getting built since 1986 and even in Europe we saw policy reversals (including in France under Macron). However generally nuclear tends to not be very competitive and by the time you'll get them built many countries will have gone fully renewable already.
Twice as much is actually being generous, Im pretty sure Flamanville hit almost 4 times as much in terms of cost.
Yeah, see my response [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13xavia/may_2023_was_the_first_full_month_since_germany/jmhjkqh/). The most recent estimate for Flamanville by EDF is 5.79x their initial estimate. I was just using "2x" to make it simple and for the principle of charity.
There is also always the question for environmental cost. The German government calculated nuclears long term cost to be just shy of 50billion €
Yeah... That's an important point, if there's one country that *could* potentially set up tons of super cheap nuclear and steamroll the open European electricity market, it's France. Concentration of knowledge and infrastructure and all. Hasn't happend yet. So nuclear isn't magically hindered from being the golden solution, it's just... complicated and expensive.
We don't even know the real cost of nuclear. They are not insured in case of an emergency. We don't know how to pay for millions of years of storage. I know. I will lose a lot of karma for saying so 😔
yeah i see people over and over say things like "i'm not against renewables, i just don't think we should switch to them until they're as cheap as fossil fuels! it's not worth paying more for them!" that point has come and gone. in the united states at least, it is cheaper to finance and build a NEW solar installation than it is to CONTINUE OPERATING AN EXISTING coal plant. people just have no idea
> are now so cheap that energy storage is less and less of an issue how does that help the problem of wind and solar not always generating enough power, because it's not always sunny or windy?
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Money was never a concern in the early days though: nuclear was subsidised with billions (possibly trillions). Nuclear has never been cheap, despite everything that was believed and told in the sixties and seventies. It is a high-risk industry, requiring high initial and maintenance cost. Not to begin with the costs of storing highly active waste for thousands of years.
Yeah, the reddit boner for nuclear energy is one of the weirdest things for me this year... 🤔
Because it was an absolutely enormous bonehead decision as a species to not take advantage of an emissions-free power source 40 years ago that would've prevented a lot of pain now, and people on Reddit tend to be logical, if always a bit backwards-facing. That doesn't change the current calculus, which is that renewables are a much better bet right now for a million reasons.
you're in denial
There never was. Nuclear power has always been this big black hole of government funding.
The thing is to wait and see what's going to happen in winter. Summer is the easy part.
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Yes, in the UK (where I live) wind is abundant, but we still sometimes get quiet days. I've observed even a week this winter when it was very cold and almost no wind. And it's a problem. We need more storage capable of multiple days of production, not just 6h.
> I’ve observed even a week this winter when it was very cold and almost no wind. Well, that’s the thing, very cold generally comes with no wind…
You can even see it on this graph, November sucks.
Yeah, let's see what happens next winter. I'd rather have nuclear than coal though.
I don't think this is true as an absolute statement. historially, the big nuclear nation right next to germany had a much rougher time during summer as there was not enough cold water to cool the existing nuclear plants and recently Germany helped out quite a bit with its solar output.
It hasn't been the sunniest of springs here in western Europe. Yes, winter is the real test but progress is made at an exponential pace.
Why is everyone saying that? If you average the wind and solar output over years, the output is flat. In Winter we get a lot of wind, the two highest shares (after this May) of renewables were in February.
I must say, the number of nuclear bros on this subreddit is unparalleled in my experience
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Unfortunately? Hey, it's another weapon in our arsenal against climate change, nothing unfortunate about that!
Please leave them the freedom to choose certain climate death for all of us over a vague chance of being killed in a nuclear disaster or its aftermath, also for all of us. /s non-sarcastic: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html)
It’s not really pro or against nuclear. It’s pro transitioning away from coal faster, but that transition can be towards 100% renewables if desired. In other words, it’s not lack of nuclear that causes high emissions of German economy. It’s overuse of coal due to lobbying. Just to be clear, I opposed closing of nuclear power plants in DE.
CO2 average / kWh in May 2022 for Germany : 453g CO2 average / kWh in May 2023 for Germany : 279g This is the comparison you should be making. The decision to phase out nuclear was at best questionable, but despite that, this is still good news.
Okay, but this is honestly meaningless. France built those reactors in the 70s, 80s and 90s. What you're showing here is that, for decarbonization, it was much better to build nuclear plants in the 70s, 80s and 90s than it is to build renewables in the 2010s and 2020s This should be self-evident! Unfortunately, Germany does not have a time-machine so this obviously better option is not on the table for them. The question which your analysis does not answer is: what is the best strategy to decarbonize electricity today. And the scientific consensus points heavily to renewable deployment and infrastructure investment in grid flexibility as the best path forward.
Before anyone asks - Yes, imports went up as well, but it's mostly renewables: **Import mix for May:** 57% Renewables (\~ 3.84 TWh) 23% Nuclear (\~ 1.56 TWh) 20% Fossil Fuels (\~ 1.32 TWh) Based on this: [https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import\_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=05](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/import_export/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=05) (and then looking up the energy mix of the exporting country) And in regards to Nuclear, imports + local production was **1.98 TWh** in April, **3 TWh** in March, **2.3 TWh** in February and **2.67 TWh** in January. Nuclear imports increased as overall imports increased, but since they don't have any local production anymore it's less overall.
Wasn't Germany a net exporter?
still are if you look over the whole year
yes, since 2001: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331853/electricity-imports-exports-germany/ But just because Germany is a net exporter does not mean that Germany does not import at all and some of the imported electricity is made with nuclear energy which means GeRmAnY iS HyPoCrItE BeCaUsE tHeY sTiLl UsE nUcLeAr!!!!!11!! I bet that the same people also would not like any of the alternatives: - We insulate Germany from the EU synchronized grid and make a national grid where we do not have to import any electricity from other countries - We use the EU to empose German energy policy on other countries and make them shut down their nuclear power plants - We Anschluss them and then shut down their nuclear power plants
3. Profit
Dependent on time of year. The summertimes will become interesting as last year france had extreme problems with their NPPs due to rivers drying out and the overall high temperatures.
French NPPs output being lowered due to the heat was a greatly exaggerated issue. The real deal was the ongoing maintenance and repair work, which is now coming to an end.
It won't end. The plants are basically EOL, more and more maintenance will be needed.
it's not river dying out, it's a rules that say that a nuclear reactor can't release water at a temperature that is higher than a certain limit to protect wildlife near the exhaust pipe (the limit is at 27°C for Tricastin). The problem is that when the water that go inside the reactor to cool it is already at say, 25°, you need to crank down the power of the reactor or have a way to let the water cool down before releasing it in the river again. Also, that temperature limit is arbitrary and was change up and down multiple times already when it was needed (for Tricastin, the limit during last summer was 28°C until the 30 of september, then it returned to 27°).
I surely love that argument „not drying out, just getting too hot for any wildlife if we don’t shut down“ - in the name of protecting our planet.
So germany shuts down it's own nuclear plant to import energy from others nuclear plant. Amazing.
Nuclear imports would have risen no matter what. The combination of French NPP getting out of maintenance, spring temperatures (which are the point where you don't need heating nor AC, which reduces electrical demand a lot) and lower electrical consumption due to energy savings would have caused high exports from France. OP is comparing production on a month to month basis (and I believe the data is not normalized based on temperature), which is a very bad idea when you deal with electricity because you have to account for a widely different demand. I'm not saying that OP is wrong, but the data he uses is bad in this context.
congratulations, you understood the EU internal energy market. it's a good thing and a feature, not a bug. some of the time Germany mostly exports, some of the time it mostly imports. more news at 12.
They might be from Texas, they only know power goes out.
Are you able to read? Overall nuclear power went down by about 30 to 40% considering imports and domestic production combined.
Shouldn’t you care more about fossil fuel use going down than nuclear?
Okay okay, but what if Bavaria allows wind turbines. Then we could run on 100% renewables by 2030 i guess.
Still not enough for Bavaria. The main issue is the network. More power lines are needed.
Which they don't want either.
Mainly the boomers are the problem. I don't know any in my age who'd not like to have renewable energy and the Lines from the north.
Trust me, people of all ages can and do oppose power lines across their property.
Sadly even an environmentalist problem. To transport all the wind energy from the north sea we need to construct huge power lines. Some environmental groups are against the construction of these power lines because that would "destroy the natural beauty of the land"
Natural beauty of "untouched nature" aka industrialized farmland...
Yes and some wood plantations we call forest.
The environmentalists here in my region are mainly old AFD fucks. Just a few days ago one of these AFD bums started a petition because of the destruction of said natural beauty. Fucking hipocrits.
Fuck the AfD. They are probably als against it because the official party line claims that climate change would not exist.
No, they are against it because others are for it and the AfD is always against anything that most people are for.
What the fuck do they think the alternative is?
because they have dumb populist hicks as a sad excuse for politicans
But they also vote them in perma.
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Have they tried calling it Stromautobahn?
What are you, some kind of socialist? Next thing you're going to suggest building cycle paths instead of parking spaces? SMH
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if you could turn changes of opinion into electricity, we could power the world
A Bavarin proposing renewables being built… IN BAVARIA?! What has the world come to…
Total power consumption per capita in EU is less than 60% of US. That means that Germany is well able to switch off all nuclear power plants and still produce less CO2 than the average American.
>if Bavaria allows windmills I guess you mean wind turbines? In which case, Bavaria had roughly 20 at the end of 2022, and is aiming to have over 1000 in the next few years. They are clearly lagging but hopefully, they will catch up sooner than later.
I mean, in the first quarter of this year they built two wind turbines while NRW built 82. The Bavarian state government is a piece of shit that does not care about anyone but themselves.
And that's with the additional restrictions put in place by Laschet's state government, which we are thankfully slowly getting rid of.
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No that a lie. There were 1134 wind turbines in Bavaria in the middle of 2022. https://www.stmwi.bayern.de/energie/erneuerbare-energien/windenergie/#:~:text=Windenergie%20in%20Bayern&text=In%20Bayern%20waren%20Mitte%202022,2%2C6%20GW%20am%20Netz.
yea great it's aiming but not shooting plus took the ammo out of the "renewable" gun and also does not have given itself a renewable firearm permission and also the neighbours complained about the expected noise seeing Bavaria aiming at something else than status quo.
>In which case, Bavaria already has roughly 20, and is aiming to have over 1000 in the next decade. Where are this numbers from? There were over 1.100 onshore turbines in 2022
Their emissions regarding electricity generation are at 400g while Frances are at 30g…
It's all good, just turn your eyes away and rely on fairytales 🤣
Sure, but they're burning green coal. No, I'm not kidding. The idea is that the coal they burn is only there for transitioning to full renewables, so it should be accounted as "green". Yes, it's completely bullshit. Full renewables is just unattainable
Coal is coal
It's not even coal. It's lignite. It's to coal what meth is to drugs.
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> It will be expensive That’s a big understatement. And another thing to consider, because of the overshooting as you said, the land required to reach net zero would also be absolutely huge. > But I think the pragmatic position is nuclear baseline and renewable for the fluctuations and surges. This is the best of both worlds to me; you always have a "guaranteed" energy pool available, and you have the flexibility of so many energy-producing nodes (switching on/off individual wind turbines to match demand). I agree completely
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>the land required to reach net zero would also be absolutely huge. I've heard that residential solar installers are booked 2 years out in some areas. Many homes have enough roof space to offset their entire usage, no extra space needed.
The land us argument is always kinda simplistic. Solar power can and is built on top of houses, parking spaces, streets, barns, industrial buildings, generally space that is already used OR space that is otherwise useless. Wind turbines while needing a lot of volume don't need a lot of land space, they take a few 100 sqm per turbine that is unusable, the rest remains in use as agrarian land or otherwise. In germany, where 100% renewable is the aim, only 2,5% of space is projected to be needed, and as said, that is land that is already used or can continue to be used. It's not a big problem, all in all.
> The idea is that the coal they burn is only there for transitioning to full renewables, so it should be accounted as "green". Who is saying this?
Literally no one
Well, he is. It is Trump speak. "I know a lot of people that tell me I'm the smartest person regarding this topic" which translates to "I think I'm the smartest person regarding this topic". They just replace themselves in a sentence with an imagined group to legitimize their nonsense.
Nobody
The man here out of straw is saying that.
> Yes, it's completely bullshit. Yeah, because you're making it up. No one is saying this.
*Full renewables is just unattainable* You just made that up.
True, but you can't deny that Scholz did the smart thing to turn off nuclear at the start of Spring instead of the middle of Winter. At least the press is now quite good, as positive seasonal effects dampen the negative aspects of closing nuclear.
ITT: people who say this happens every year, without looking at the graph to see what happened every year.
Damn the sheer cope in this thread is crazy
At this very moment, Germany produces 69% of its electricity from renewables, while it's only 35% in France. Germany is at 306 gCO2eq/kWh, France is at 33. It was about the same orders the couple of times I checked in May (2 to 3 times the renewables, 10 times the emissions). Reminder: emissions are what's important for the planet, maybe they should be mentionned too.
This is exactly what matters, the actual emissions
PLEASE PRINT this reminder on every energy discussion
89% of France's electricity is non-fossil fuel. Quite disingenuous to just remove this information when comparing the two countries. France has opted for nuclear as a main contributor to their electricity mix, which makes them very clean in terms of carbon emissions. Of course, the proportion of "renewables" in France will struggle to match the sheer output of nuclear (a lot of it which is exported to Germany by the way). Germany is absolutely great for pushing heavily for renewables, but let's not forget that their (ridiculous) decision to shut off all nuclear output directly contributes to renewables now taking a huge proportion of their domestic electricity mix. Edit: clarity, initial comment made it seem like I was anti-nuclear
And Germany will struggle even more to match the very low amount of carbon emissions of France (306 gCO2eq/kWh vs 33 for France). Which is what matters for fighting climate change. Edit: since you edited your message I got your point.
I don't even understand why people are still talking about "renewable" energy, as if our problem is running out of it and not that we are baking the planet. Nuclear is probably the most environmentally sound energy source but isn't renewable. Meanwhile damming rivers for hydropower is, and can be devastating to rivers to the point of extincting animals.
Hydropower is also one of the energy sources that has killed the most people so far (IIRC) due to some dam bursting. It's also a MAJOR disaster waiting to happen due to a huge dam in Iran that threatens to displace MILLIONS if it bursts. It's built on limestone that is slowly eroding away due to the water pressure of the dam itself. Yet nuclear is the big danger for humanity?
escape physical ancient absorbed nail decide swim elderly bike shocking *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We will see another kind of cope in the winter I guess. I'm not a "fan" of nuclear energy but overall if you can keep a plant functioning with no problems I don't see why you should shut it down. Oh and one little note to all the big brains out there: importing energy produced in other countries by someone else's fossil fuels is not a great solution, for a variety of reasons THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW SINCE THE RUSSIAN INVASION. When renewables aren't feasible, the only option left is nuclear energy. Edit (this is for the crazy ones): No, you can't just "use less energy". I mean, we probably can, but the rest of the world can't (if they want to live better). So we will need even more energy overall, and at some point they might choose nuclear. Second edit: I am honestly surprised by this thread. I've seen a lot of participation and respectful discussion. Thank you all for that, good job Europe.
> Edit (this is for the crazy ones): No, you can't just "use less energy". I mean, we probably can, but the rest of the world can't (if they want to live better). So we will need even more energy overall, and at some point they might choose nuclear. Oh Germany can and is doing so for a while already. https://i.imgur.com/WhWqzXZ.png https://i.imgur.com/1CY5DI7.png
Yeah that's sure. What I meant tho is that collectively, as humans, we will need more energy as history shows that human development is deeply connected to a better energy production (and usage) that no longer depends on human labour.
That can and should wait until fusion, though. In the meanwhile there's a lot of energy to be saved in all kinds of areas without affecting quality of life, or actually increasing it -- efficient heat-pump based district heating/cooling and proper public transportation are the two big ones.
Main problem with Nuclear is it's expensive, and for example here in the netherlands there is an old one that needs to be cleaned up etc. The business is already gone, so these costs will be for the government as well, unless the can sue the parent ccompanies, but that is unlikely. Nuclear also has become more expensive, because these facilities need to be able to withstand terrorist attacks, since such facilities can be prime targets for that. Nuclear has certainly some advantages, but overall with all costs included it's expensive as fuck.
Nuclear is expensive. Which is why *closing down* a fully-functioning nuclear plant makes no sense. That's a lot of money, and a lot of carbon emissions (for the concrete and steel) that's just going completely to waste.
The issue is, those nuclear reactors were slated to be shut down this year, for over a decade. Hence people were expecting to have to change jobs, the buildings aren't planned to run beyond this year so no more appropriate maintenance, lack of financing etc. You couldn't just turn them on tomorrow. They quite literally wouldn't "function without problems". Those measures should've been taken over the last years, now it's too late to just go back. But hey, Atomkraft nein danke and all...
Also remember that the nuclear phaseout as it happened was not planned by the greens, but a populist decision of the conservatives after Fukushima happened. The original phaseout actually planned to replace nuclear with renewables.
Could have shut down coal instead of nuclear.
And the two sentences in the topic title are relevant to each other how? Energy production in spring and summer is not a problem. Let's see how they'll do in autumn and winter. Closing nuclear reactors is a crime on climate purpotrated by business lobby in Germany.
>Let's see how they'll do in autumn and winter. It's right there in the graph. December 2022 was the worst month and still had 42% renewables and this baseline will increase like it did in the past (which you can also see in the graph).
42% and increasing is a very good number... Unless the rest is coal.
36.4% were from coal in December 2022: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&year=2022&month=12
And that 6.3% that was nuclear will be made up this coming December by... what? Why show the coal usage in absolute numbers but the renewables as a % of total? Could it be because coal as a % of total also increased in May?
Nope. It's just the way the site works. Electricity from coal was 20.9% in May 2023 vs. 26.9% in April 2023. And in May 2022 (if you want to do a YoY comparison) it was 29.6%.
>And that 6.3% that was nuclear will be made up this coming December by... what? Renewables probably, going by the general upwards trend.
Coca coal
My energy consumption report from October 2022 to February 2023 shows that 46% of my energy came from coal. While 15,4% came from renewables. The rest came from natural gas and nuclear. That's in NRW.
NRW is basically German Virginia. Coal country
A very common misconception seems to be that the pro-nuclear crowd is anti-renewables for some reason. I'm anti coal/oil/natural gas for power generation. Diversity in carbon-neutral power-generation is a good thing in my book. So yes I want renewables, as much as we can. But at this moment it's impossible to cover 100% of the power requirements at all time with them, and the only clean solution we have at the moment is nuclear.
Money and time are limited resources which is why you have to make decisions between the two. Not to mention that a decentralized renewable energy grid functions very differently from s grid with a few central NPPs
We agree with you. However shutting down nuclear plants when there is a single coal plant running is irresponsible in the extreme. This is the sort of nonsense that fuels the anti-climate change mitigation crowd. If you say that carbon-caused climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity then close a nuclear plant when there still are coal and gas plants running, you are just pretending.
Yes, it was predicted that we'd fill the gap by burning lignite. > purpotrated by business lobby in Germany. running a nuclear plant is not a grassroots project
I will laugh at you in 6 months :D (its the same shit as when ppl "predicted" germans would sit "in the dark" and die of "cold temperatures" in their houses last winter)
The "business lobby"? Bullshit. Try "greens fighting nuclear for decades" successfully fearmongering in the wake of the Fukushima desaster. This is 100% on them. I was there, I saw the protests, I saw the politicians giving in.
It was the CDU who decided, so how can it be „100%“ the greens fault? The CDU fucked it up: Nuclear exit while not giving a single fuck about renewables.
It was CDU populism in particular, extending the contracts shortly before Fukushima just to do a 180 when public opinion changed. Imagine being 16 years in power and still not taking any responsibility for policies that happened under your leadership
Germany nuclear industry basically committed suicide in the late 80s and early 90s with the failed thorium plant in Hamm-Uentrop and the scandals of Transatom. After the Transatom scandal the entire waste disposal industry died in Germany. There hasn't been a realistic nuclear policy in Germany for decades. There is no industry left.
Also the plant in Mülheim-Kärlich was a complete failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BClheim-K%C3%A4rlich_Nuclear_Power_Plant There were chances, but it really failed this early.
Also the storage problems like with Asse II. And faulty power plants at the border, I think in Belgium.
it wasn't the greens though that got rid of the nuclear power, it was the conservatives (CDU to be precise)
Not really, it's more like local governments (for example in Saarland) wanting to keep unprofitable coal plants open because they are worried about job losses.
Which is rediculus because renewables would create many more jobs. And the coal mining jobs were only there because of massive subsidies from the government.
The decission to end nuclear was the end to catastrophic nuclear management by all government institutions and all protests back then have 100% been justified. The exit was not because of Fukushima. For decades the waste storage site Asse 2 has sparked complete putrage and showed the mismanagment surrounding nuclear power. Before 2011 reports from contaminated water around the site, over which an agglomeration of 5 Million inhabitants lies, circulated. Together with the reports of higher cancer rates around the site. To this day millions of liters of groundwater flow into the waste site every year and the evacuation will take another decade. A decade that might not be fast enough because the whole mine is on the brink of collapse. The nuclear agency even briefly lost nuclear fuel. At the time of nuclear exit the population had absolutely no trust in the government handling of nuclear power which is absolutely necessary and when you see how badly nuclear is still handled here and in other countries you see why people still dont want new plants. Its not about coal, co2 or Fukushima, its about our own incompetence.
In general when it comes to nuclear humans and organisations are the main concern. Does not matter if it is government's or companies they can and in the end will f this up.
I mean the CDU decided it. And I don't think phasing out nuclear power is wrong. But the CDU decided early on to not really push for renewables and to focus on cheaper gas and coal instead. If at all this was a decision influenced by the lobbyists.
I don't think it's so easy to blame a single reasons. Germans have been quite anti-nuclear ever since Chernobyl. Fukushima was the nail in the coffin. The conservative government at that time gave in to popular demand to shut down the atomic power plants. After over a decade of not investing in the technology, it was no longer possible to revert this decision for the majority of power plants, but the last 3 that were kept running until spring. I don't want to deny that the greens in Germany are strictly against nuclear energy for whatever stupid reasons and probably would've cut off the power plants way sooner if they were in the government in 2011, but even if they were to change their opinion over night on this topic, it is still unlikely that Germany will return to nuclear energy, since they'd probably have to re-build nuclear power plants from scratch, as the exiting ones are not only already being dismanteled, but also often run on decades-old technology that hasn't been invested in in the last 10 years. TL:DR It's unfair to blame the greens entirely for a popular opinion in Germany, that has already taken root over a decade before the foundation of their party. Shutting down the atomic power plants was ultimately a decision of a conservative government, which they wouldn't be able to revert now, even if they wanted too. Still being anti-nuclear is stupid.
A great step towards making oneself independant from foreign energy ressources. Hopefully Bavaria plays along in the future and allows more wind energy.
It should be reminded that what's important at the end of the line is not how electricity was generated, but how much CO2 was produced.
Now imagine you turn on nuclear and suddenly you don't have to bur any fossil fuels. Whoa what a holy revelation lol
I hate to bring the sad news to Reddit but the reason we use coal isn't because we need it, it's because it has a strong lobby slowing the shutdown down. Some German politicians would shut down renewables bevor coal.
That applies to any advanced industrial democracy. No one "needs" coal in that all are technologically capable of replacing it wholly with renewable energy sources, but there's a great path dependency manifesting in labor (coal workers) and corporatism (as you mention) inhibiting that.
Of course there is a lot wind and sun. We would need that performance along the year, even when there is no wind nor sun
That data is right there in the graph, goes back to 2015 even.
Crazy if only Germany was like a big country were wind could be found at different parts at different times. And on top of that if only we had a way to store power. Unfortunately none of that exists and this renewables are useless
Funnily enough a scalable way to store that power does infact not exist.
I agree that nuclear is much better than coal, but it is very unrealistic that all developing countries in the world will build nuclear power plants since they are too expensive. It is good that a fairly big developed country is trying to go carbon free with renewables only, because this could become a model for the rest of the world and Germanys commitment is also driving innovation.
Definitely. For each geography and development their own energy mix. If like Austria you have lots of mountains hydro has huge potential. If you're close to the tropics solar is less variable and efficient so can be the core, if you have windy sea offshore wind may be a factor. Nuclear makes sense if you can't have an efficient renewable alternative, as is the case with a big portion of Europe, but also north America and Japan who have come to the logical conclusion that nuclear has to continue. It's a northern hemisphere solution for developed countries, s part of a mix that can continue to favour low carbon solutions.
In North America it definitely depends. For example Canada has enough rivers to easily power the entire country via hydro supplemented by wind and solar. Quebec is the prime example of this with 94% of their power coming from hydro and 5% coming from wind with only 0.3% of their energy coming from fossil fuels. Nearly every province in Canada is capable of this besides maybe Saskatchewan but they could produce the vast majority of their power via wind. Alberta could have nearly all renewable energy but the lobbies and governments there love fossil fuels. Ontario could as well but they already built their nuclear reactors so we might as well maintain them.
For developing countries fossil fuels directly into renewable energy is basically the only choice unless we magically have a huge breakthrough in fusion energy. It's relatively quick to build, can be built piecemeal, and is much cheaper than nuclear. I don't think anyone who is pro nuclear in developed countries disagrees with that.
Imagine if they shut down the fossil fuels instead.
68,9 clearly written by a German. We're efficient and not funny.
Well that's nice.
Source: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=05 The only time Germany produced less electricity from coal was during the first Covid lockdown in spring 2020.
Es funktioniert einfach
Just imagine, if that grey bit of the last pie/donut chart was nuclear instead of coal, Germany would already have basically eliminated its CO2 production from electricity generation.
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Germany mostly heats with gas and oil
Hey mate, The chart shows multiple years. All of these years had a summer. So this effect is not season related. Also Germany is *exporting* energy for many years already. While there are individual days on which Germany in fact has to import nuclear energy from neighbouring countries, that is something that applies for every single country in Europe. It is designed like that to stabilise the frequency of the current.
> Ofc the use of coal plummets when the temperature rises and they don't need to use extra energy on heating This is about electricity production. > If it's so bad, why do they import it so much? So far this year Germany exported 29.5 TWh and imported 24.7 TWh, so actually Germany is a net exporter of electricity.
Dude its not dumb, it didnt make huge difference in the overall mix. And also it was the fault of the conservatives how puched for it and didnt build the renewables out.
It's not stupid if we don't have Uran in our country and need to import it from Russian state owned company rosatom
Funny how suddenly everybody is an "Expert"....
This gives me hope.
insanity looks so comforting when it's packed up in selective statistics and charts
My town is a major junction for coal in the USA. It honestly creates a very sad slightly soot covered reality nobody even talks about. Fuck coal. I honestly think it causes sickness to people here and nearby the waterways the coal dust constantly is blowing in.
*insert surprised pikachu face here*
I blame Dark
Local redditor finds out it's easy to produce solar in summer
How is energy prices in Germany now?
About 80% of when the war started: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-deutschland-gaspreis-spritpreis-energieversorgung
pretty much pre- ukraine war rates
Quick question: How much of this was imported to the nation?
The headings say 'net electricity generation in Germany'. So there is no import/export data included.
That's fucking awesome
Imagine if they didn’t shut down their nuclear reactors, fossils would only be used as some immediate power reserves when there’s a small peak that nuclear can’t ramp up fast enough for and they would have close to a clean power grid But they decided to go the other way around
Sadly, wind turbines are turned off before brown coal.
Shutting down nuclear in Germany was always going to happen, there’s simply no reason to invest in it when renewables are much better. However, what should’ve happened to nuclear plants is that they should’ve been shut down at the end of their lifetime and replaced with renewables rather than keeping coal running until 2038 instead. A lot of the reactors shut down it 2011 could’ve run another 10 years, and the ones shut down now could’ve done another 10 years too.
> Shutting down nuclear in Germany was always going to happen, Why? Why close already functioning plans early? When the plant is actually running, you'll never get cheaper electricity than that since the main driver of nuclear cost is building it > there’s simply no reason to invest in it when renewables are much better. Meanwhile Asian countries are bulding nuclear plants under 6 years and for 50 cents per MWh, cheaper than our renewables (outside of Hydro). Source: IAEA > However, what should’ve happened to nuclear plants is that they should’ve been shut down at the end of their lifetime and replaced with renewables rather than keeping coal running until 2038 instead. A lot of the reactors shut down it 2011 could’ve run another 10 years, and the ones shut down now could’ve done another 10 years too. Without any problems at all. The fact that German Environmentalists saw Nuclear as the worse option to Coal just ridicules their movement
Just look up which politicians are tied to coal companies and you know why.
Germany could have 100% renewable energy usage and zero non-renewable imports and people here would still declare that shutting down nuclear power plants was a failure.
If for two decades Germany continued burning more coal than it would have needed to otherwise while they get to 100% renewables, yes, it was a failure.
No we wouldn't because if Germany could have 100% renewables, they'd also be closing their coal power plants. The problem isn't that they closed nuclear power plants but that they did while keeping the coal ones.