I don’t know why people keep pretending that wind and solar are some magic bullet. Both have lots of problems of their own, and it’s certainly not clear that they can provide energy production backbone for an industrial nation. There’s a reason China is a leader in both nuclear and renewables. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I have no proof but I wouldn’t be surprised if the coal industry was indirectly lobbying for renewables. “Renewable energy” might have been the final nail in the coffin to make earth succumb to pollution while nuclear was somehow ignored.
Actual fridge temp IQs still repeating narratives about nuclear safety and nuclear waste are possibly the most environmentally damaging groups of the 21st century.
The reactors built in the 1970ties had massive delays and costs overruns making it politically nearly impossible to justify new constructions. One can argue (as the article does) that this isn’t inherent to the technology itself (but it conveniently leaves out examples of massive cost overruns and delays from this millennium), but this is what mostly killed nuclear power in the west.
They are not (a magic bullet), but indirectly claiming (as you do in the OP) that the choice is either nuclear or coal (& gas) is highly misleading, and the main reason why Germany is not able to reduce their coal mining is because they bet on cheap gas for electricity production (which was meant to replace the coal). Nuclear was never a vital part of the German energy mix, and shutting down decades old reactors that were scheduled for decommissioning anyway did not make any significant difference. For nuclear to make a difference they would have had to start constructing new reactors 10+ years ago, but they rather built new gas plants.
Nuclear was never a vital part of German energy mix because Germany was predominantly reliant on cheap energy from Russia. The choice was never between nuclear and renewables, both were just lip service while Germany kept guzzling fossils to fuel its industry. And if nuclear can’t be built fast enough now, there’s little chance renewables can.
The key point is that Germany never had any interest in moving off fossils, and now it’s doubling down on coal like it’s the height of 19th century.
This is not true. Germany was reliant on coal (locally mined lignite and imported regular coal) and in the last 20 years or so they made the deliberate decision to try and replace the coal with natural gas.
In the early 2000 they were on a good track to replace a large percentage of the coal electricity production with solar and wind energy, but then the new conservative government under Merkel took power and deliberately killed that off to please their big business energy producers. That was a purely political choice and technically it would have been perfectly feasible to switch to near 100% renewables for electricity production if the installation capacity would have been retained.
I’d like to see actual sources showing total energy consumption in Germany, including all the industry, and how that would be met with 100% renewables today even if the plans from 2000 weren’t shelved.
I very specifically stated electricity production. Full replacement is sadly not possible as long as the structure of society is as it is. Please learn to read :p
You do realize that industry relies on electricity production. In fact, industry tends to account for far higher electricity consumption than domestic use.
Yes and Germany is already able to cover 100% electricity needs (including industry) with renewables on windy and sunny days, despite the massive lack of storage and political sabotage of new installations and transfer capacity.
The industries with some problems right now are those that need fossil fuels either directly as inputs or because it was cheaper than electricity to heat with it and thus their existing large scale equipment doesn’t work with electricity.
Like I said, let’s see the actual lifecycle numbers that include the total energy consumption per year, the energy costs of producing and maintaining the renewables, as well as the cost of energy storage for days when it’s not sunny or windy. The compare these totals with the renewable infrastructure outputs. You’re doing a lot of hand waving here.
I don’t know why people keep pretending that wind and solar are some magic bullet. Both have lots of problems of their own, and it’s certainly not clear that they can provide energy production backbone for an industrial nation. There’s a reason China is a leader in both nuclear and renewables. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I have no proof but I wouldn’t be surprised if the coal industry was indirectly lobbying for renewables. “Renewable energy” might have been the final nail in the coffin to make earth succumb to pollution while nuclear was somehow ignored.
Actual fridge temp IQs still repeating narratives about nuclear safety and nuclear waste are possibly the most environmentally damaging groups of the 21st century.
I recommend reading this: https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/nuclear-power-is-too-slow
The reactors built in the 1970ties had massive delays and costs overruns making it politically nearly impossible to justify new constructions. One can argue (as the article does) that this isn’t inherent to the technology itself (but it conveniently leaves out examples of massive cost overruns and delays from this millennium), but this is what mostly killed nuclear power in the west.
They are not (a magic bullet), but indirectly claiming (as you do in the OP) that the choice is either nuclear or coal (& gas) is highly misleading, and the main reason why Germany is not able to reduce their coal mining is because they bet on cheap gas for electricity production (which was meant to replace the coal). Nuclear was never a vital part of the German energy mix, and shutting down decades old reactors that were scheduled for decommissioning anyway did not make any significant difference. For nuclear to make a difference they would have had to start constructing new reactors 10+ years ago, but they rather built new gas plants.
Nuclear was never a vital part of German energy mix because Germany was predominantly reliant on cheap energy from Russia. The choice was never between nuclear and renewables, both were just lip service while Germany kept guzzling fossils to fuel its industry. And if nuclear can’t be built fast enough now, there’s little chance renewables can.
The key point is that Germany never had any interest in moving off fossils, and now it’s doubling down on coal like it’s the height of 19th century.
This is not true. Germany was reliant on coal (locally mined lignite and imported regular coal) and in the last 20 years or so they made the deliberate decision to try and replace the coal with natural gas.
In the early 2000 they were on a good track to replace a large percentage of the coal electricity production with solar and wind energy, but then the new conservative government under Merkel took power and deliberately killed that off to please their big business energy producers. That was a purely political choice and technically it would have been perfectly feasible to switch to near 100% renewables for electricity production if the installation capacity would have been retained.
I’d like to see actual sources showing total energy consumption in Germany, including all the industry, and how that would be met with 100% renewables today even if the plans from 2000 weren’t shelved.
I very specifically stated electricity production. Full replacement is sadly not possible as long as the structure of society is as it is. Please learn to read :p
You do realize that industry relies on electricity production. In fact, industry tends to account for far higher electricity consumption than domestic use.
Yes and Germany is already able to cover 100% electricity needs (including industry) with renewables on windy and sunny days, despite the massive lack of storage and political sabotage of new installations and transfer capacity.
The industries with some problems right now are those that need fossil fuels either directly as inputs or because it was cheaper than electricity to heat with it and thus their existing large scale equipment doesn’t work with electricity.
Like I said, let’s see the actual lifecycle numbers that include the total energy consumption per year, the energy costs of producing and maintaining the renewables, as well as the cost of energy storage for days when it’s not sunny or windy. The compare these totals with the renewable infrastructure outputs. You’re doing a lot of hand waving here.