Except that it wasn’t according to people actually invested in researching energy matters.
The strategic mistake was and still is, when her party throttles solar and wind in favor for fossils (on a national level) or when they hinder transitioning to EVs.
They’re sabotaging decentralization and renewables wherever possible and make up stories about sunsetted (nuclear) or future (fusion) technologies.
And sleeping on battery technology.
It helped the German car makers and fucked up the efforts of the others, tryin to switch to electric in Europe, so it worked as intended.
Same with their intense propaganda against nuclear power. It hurt cheap power all over Europe (mainly France) while they relied upon cheap Russian gas.
Germany didn’t make any mistakes.
I’d say both are mistakes. Nuclear has a long-term implementation process due to how long it takes to build. Of course solar and wind (and other clean technologies that we’re not even aware of yet) will be the future but there are times where those technologies fall short (cloudy day, no wind). That’s where nuclear could be a base-line option to help us until we find a permanent solution. I know it comes with it’s own challenges but it’s still infinitely cleaner than coal or anything like that.
Of course fusion looks really promising but that technology still needs a lot of time in the oven before it will be usable on a large scale. Nuclear has been proven to work.
Except that nuclear cannot be throttled and is no base line option.
Wind, solar, batteries and gas play well together in central Europe. Other countries have other resources, like water.
In addition hydrogen is complementary for heavy industries and can be produced when all batteries are filled up.
Nuclear can be throttled, we do it all the time.
In electricity generation, it typically can’t be throttled reasonably in a way that allows quick reaction to changing demand. Most reactors’ power output is regulated by changing the chemistry of the coolant, which can only be done gradually, Using quicker control rods for everyday power adjustment rather than only for shutdown and startup, is avoided to avoid uneven, and therefore inefficient fuel burn. While it could be done, it would make nuclear power even more uneconomical than it already is by forcing more frequent shutdowns for fuel changes.
Nuclear load following is routinely done in France. You can see more details here: https://www.nice-future.org/docs/nicefuturelibraries/default-document-library/france.pdf
Like solar, batteries can compensate for the difference between supply and demand.
Batteries don’t scale well at all.
But only if connected to a nuclear power plant?
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that the other options are better. I’m just saying that nuclear can be a good temporary step in between to buy us time to perform the complete transition. And I get what you’re saying about hydrogen but with the issues surrounding drinking water I don’t know if we should really lean on that too much.
The core difference here is: if we speed things up we can increase wind and solar and battery storage in the blink of an eye. Take a look at China’s new capacity.
Nuclear not so much. Combined with the follow up questions of end storage or even getting the cheap uranium (Russia) there is no real reason to debate.
It’s hardly viable as a temporary step when the time to bring a new one online is 20 years. The economics are already bad today and have been trending to be worse every year, while renewables and batteries are trending in the complete opposite direction.
The time for transitionary measures has passed. Renewables and batteries are here today. All we need to do is build it.
New reactors take decades to build. We need to have energy autonomy and move towards net 0 now. We can’t wait for shiny new reactors, which will be ready in 2050, if we start planning now.
Of course fusion looks really promising
Fusion reactors have been constantly 30 years away for deacades.
All nuclear power programmes are really just a reserve of know-how, equipment and manpower to maintain the capability of keeping or developing a nuclear weapons programme. The electricity generation does work, but it really is more of a fig leaf to make the massive expenses and the inherent risks of running nuclear reactors more palatable to the general public. Of course having a relatively weather independent baseline electricity generation capability is a good thing, too, but as all thermal power stations, nuclear power stations aren’t completely weather independent either, as they do rely on large quantities of water for cooling.
Just google where nuclear fuel comes from and then think again, spoilers it’s russia.
Just google where nuclear fuel comes from and then think again, spoilers it’s russia.
Kazakhstan: US$4.5 billion (48.8% of natural uranium exports)
Canada: $3.3 billion (35.6%)
United States: $963.2 million (10.4%)
Niger: $239.5 million (2.6%)
Ukraine: $78.3 million (0.8%)
South Africa: $58.6 million (0.63%)
France: $58.3 million (0.63%)
Russian Federation: $44.8 million (0.5%)
Germany: $4.4 million (0.05%)
Netherlands: $2.4 million (0.03%)
United Kingdom: $188,000 (0.002%)
Indonesia: $164,000 (0.002%)
Switzerland: $56,000 (0.0006%)
Israel: $44,000 (0.0005%)
Belgium: $5,000 (0.0001%)
Canada is a solid partner. Australia also produces a lot, but doesn’t export much (right now). The EU is Kazakhstan’s largest trading partner, and we have great trade relations with them.
Sourcing uranium is not now, nor will it ever be, a problem.
Dude, countries don’t matter here when the actual companies are owned by rosatom.
Rosatom controls about 14 % of global uranium mining output and they don’t hold any trade secrets on enrichment or fabrication. They are a non-issue, and if they ever became an issue, they could quickly be made a non-issue.
South Africa has uranium.
Look at where moth Cobolt or Lithium comes from.
There seemingly is very little to no ethical mining or rare earth metals.
Uranium needs to be processed first, and the major uranium processing facilities Europe has been using are in Russia and this kind of equipment isn’t something you can quickly build yourself.
European capacities are not that small.
https://fissilematerials.org/facilities/enrichment_plants.html
No shit you monster.
- shutting down safe (in Germany) nuclear power plants before the end of their lifetime was a mistake
- not planning new nuclear plants was in the in-between lands, to be decided by experts (I am not one) whether they would be needed for a transition to green energy
- turning back on the “turning back” on nuclear fission(!) energy now would be an even bigger mistake
I despise this corrupt monster so much.
Nuclear seems like a good idea for the future - in cross ocean shipping. Sails have too many limitations and nobody has any ideas for what else could even work (at least not that I’ve seen, everything fails the sniff test). It has only been done in air craft carriers and submarines (and maybe ice breakers?) that I know of so this is more the only idea I can come up with that could work. It needs a lot of effort to make is work in the real world though.
If(!) we get solid power supply going on dry land, maybe hydrogen & fuel cells…
Do we really need to call politicians “monster” here?
Not politicans in general, but this person? Well deserved imo. Are you following for how much shit she is responsible? Alternatively psychopath would work.
You know, if you keep the discourse civil, people will start listening more to you. If you just spew hatred and insult people, nobody will listen to the point of your argument.
You know, if you keep the discourse civil, people will start listening more to you.
Empirically untrue.
Calling v.d.L. a psychopath is not an insult, it’s an observation of her personality.
Our main objective should be to lower barriers for people to generate their own power. When local communities manage their own grids they have faster response times to blackouts or climate events.
Nuclear… what? Families? DNA? Chemistry? “Nuclear” isn’t a noun, nor “digital” or “cyber”.
We have decent universal education and literacy, let’s not imitate the functionally illiterate.
Thank you for not letting it slide.
Can we also work on mass nouns pluralized with an S (eg e-mail), missing delimiters after sub-clauses and lists (the “American Ghost comma”), and also “please bellow find following”?
The link mentions nuclear energy.
Most of the comments here do not understand how democracies work. The green transition has cost Europe hundreds of billions to date in just direct subsidies and investments. Hundreds of billions more in indirect costs. Voters were told it would result in lower energy bills, but bills continue to skyrocket all over Europe. So they feel lied to now. Unless politicians make energy prices considerably cheaper, fast, voters are going to vote for cheaper production methods: gas and nuclear. Nuclear is better for the environment so it would behoove us to get ahead of this. If activists somehow prevent nations from building nuclear, the victory will be entirely pyrrhic. Voters will kill any more green transition investment and go right back to what they know is cheaper.
For posterity, with more costs imputed (volatility, futures pricing, grid restructuring, storage, etc.), LNG is much cheaper than either solar or wind. Also no particulate pollution. In fact, if we were to go 100% renewables (solar and wind) or 100% nuclear, nuclear would be 4-5 times cheaper, and LNG would be up to 14 times cheaper.
I highly doubt that anything nuclear will ever be considered cheap. On paper maybe, but then reality kicks in and projects suddenly take a decade or two longer than planned. Then we have to import fissile material, likely from Kasachstan, who have Putin’s shrivelled little dick so far down their throats. Nuclear will also never be insured. And these Microblocks everyone talks about as the next hot shit? None of those have been built yet. It’s a concept on paper.
Nah. I’m not sold on this.
The alternative is gas, so I hope we can make nuclear cheaper. Projects are completed far faster in Asia, so perhaps we could learn from them. This is the issue which climate activists don’t seem to understand. There is no 100% renewable scenario right now. We’re decades away cost effective grid scale storage technology to smooth volatility. In the mean time we need something to keep the lights on and (with some rare exceptions like locations suitable for hydro) it’s going to be coal, gas, or nuclear. Nuclear is the cleanest of those, but I agree, there are challenges.
If people keep fighting against reducing energy bills, political sentiment is going to keep turning against green energy, and once we reach an inflection point in the EU (and we’re surprisingly close), there is going to be a wave of new coal and LNG projects all over Europe. Either we make electricity much cheaper RIGHT NOW, or we lose this political battle for a generation.
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Actually, we’re not going to need that. There are plenty of papers on how this is a myth.
Getting rid of all nuclear industry was a strategic mistake, but not in terms of electricity generation. Using nuclear energy to generate electricity has never been and will never be economical.
It was a strategic mistake to ditch that gigantic reserve of know-how, equipment and trained personnel, which could have been used for pursuing a military use of nuclear energy, which unfortunately has proven to be necessary due to an ally turned enemy.
It was a strategic mistake to ditch that gigantic reserve of know-how
Germany and the Netherlands have what is needed to build bombs.
Nuclear power is all well and good, but imagine the possible results of a couple of 30k shahed drones hitting the plant, or even an iskander at mach 5. Absolutely not worth the risk.
It’s wasn’t a mistake. You got played. Corrupt politicians and activists canceled investment in nuclear to push Russian gas.
Nuclear has been tripping over it’s own dick for 40 years. Solar is now the more viable option.
I disagree. Next to hydropower (which is limited by geography) it has been the champion of non-fossil electricity generation so far. Still, the fossil fuel lobby is a powerful foe.
Simply put, we should invest in all non-fossil options, and where solar is geographically viable, it is great. In other places however, where peak electricity demand coincides with the coldest, darkest parts of the year dispatchable production is strictly necessary, which is where nuclear shines.
Well but what to do with the waste?
I think in general it is a good source for energy, but unless we find a solution other than storing it somewhere in the earth, we should not use it.
You build breeder reactors or use any of the non-uranium designs that were ignored by countries because they didn’t have weapons grade byproducts.
There are ways to deal with the waste, the problem is always politics/greed as it cuts into the profits. Same is true for other energy sources btw, with coal we happily shoot the waste into the atmosphere and pretend nothing’s wrong with that.
Hydropower has terrible environmental consequences. Emissions aren’t all that matters in terms of the environment.
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I agree with your first sentence but not the rest. It’s not all about energy and emissions. I also want ecosystems and their species to survive and thrive.
