[guitarbill]

In light of this, the decision to shut down nuclear power plants by 2022, but keep the coal power plants is, err, interesting? Sure, renewable sources are increasing, but fossil fuels are still the biggest source. I wonder where the energy for electric cars will come from if they truly become popular. Keep in mind that Germany imports energy. So phasing out nuclear power, while still importing from nations running nuclear is somewhat hypocritical (e.g. France has some plants along the border).

Even in Germany, politics are politics and fears are not always rational.

[lispm]

> Keep in mind that Germany imports energy.

Germany imports energy. It also imports electricity sometimes. But Germany actually has a large export surplus for electricity over the last five years - even though several nuclear power plants have been closed. And the surplus is widening.

> So phasing out nuclear power, while still importing from nations running nuclear is somewhat hypocritical (e.g. France has some plants along the border).

Germany has now the largest electricity export surplus in Europe. Germany also has a large electricity export surplus with France.

The German export surplus of electricity in 2017 was 60TWH. 2016 56 TWH, 2015 57TWH. Etc.

https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=import-export...

In money this means an export surplus in 2017 of 1.4 Billion Euro.

Renewable energy is now at 36% for electricity and Germany now for the first time has days where the whole country is powered by renewable electricity.

> e.g. France has some plants along the border

The old french nuclear power plants Germany would like to see closed.

> I wonder where the energy for electric cars will come from if they truly become popular.

Depends where you are, but I live in North Germany and it's possible to have large amount of surplus electricity in one or two decades from wind with buffers (like hydro in Norway which is then transported via HVDC lines to Germany).

[guitarbill]

> Renewable energy is now at 36% for electricity

Great, but my point still stands. Would I like more renewables? Of course! Would I prefer running the nuclear powerplants we already have instead of coal? Yes.

The surplus is great, but just illustrates the issue with renewables. I just wish we could be a bit more truthful about the surplus. Large numbers are nice, but that’s manager level detail. A surplus when you don’t need it and have no way of storing it is useless, and you end up paying people to use electrisity, which has happened. And that’s with only 36% renewable energy. This problem will get worse, not better.

I guess electric cars will be able to store some of that by charging during the day and overnight. But we’re still far away from 100% renewable without electric cars, and just because we’re not burning petrol or diesel doesn’t make electric cars environmentally friendly.

[lispm]

> Would I prefer running the nuclear powerplants we already have instead of coal? Yes.

I would not. But I'm for phasing out coal next.

> A surplus when you don’t need it and have no way of storing it is useless, and you end up paying people to use electrisity, which has happened.

these are rare events. As I said Germany has a surplus export not only in TWH, but also in Euro.

The large exports numbers are not because we have renewable energy we can't store, but because we have too much power plant capacity and the owners don't want to shut them down while they are making money. Thus one can export the surplus production - the power plants are already there and paid.

Also keep in mind, the old days of an energy market which is limited to a country is over. The EU is also about a EU-wide energy market. This transition is ongoing and in the future you will see more of this and you will see whole new electricity networks set up between EU member states - for example connecting all north-sea countries. These networks will also buffer demand spikes. For example upcoming HVDC lines between Norway and Germany will be able to reverse transport directions based on demand or storage priority. Stuff like that is already in the works, like this 1.4GW line between Norway and North Germany

https://www.shz.de/deutschland-welt/wirtschaft/stromkabel-no...

A second line is thought to follow somewhen in the next decade...

> have no way of storing it is useless

Storing electricity will get more important in the future. But the transition phase to 100% renewable is still more than three decades and when storage is REALLY needed might be a decade or more away.

Right now it is more important to deliver surplus energy to regions where this would be needed. But keep in mind that this is also not an infrastructure problem, but also about regions unwilling to import electricity from other regions. Regions are egoistic and they want to benefit from the electricity production without having the negative sides.

For example many regions in Germany were keen to have a nuclear power plant and were happy to profit from electricity sales, but literally not a single region could persuade their population to allow storing of nuclear waste, hosting the dirty parts of the nuclear industry (like reprocessing plants) or setting up some of the 'riskier' nuclear power plants (like breeders).

[baud147258]

But you'll still need coal (or gas/oil) plants with quick start-up times to pick up the slack when the solar/wind won't produce enough.

[matt4077]

Germany heavily subsidised solar power in the 200x timeframe, and was probably the driving force behind the Moore's-Law-like improvements the technology has seen.

The result is that now solar + batteries is actually cheaper than coal (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16258419).

So that seems to be among the most rational and farsighted political decisions, ever.

Nuclear power is politically impossible to sustain in Germany. It's also vastly more expensive than any other major source of power. Those are facts just as hard as any natural science. The world has moved on, and the supposedly irrational environmentalists and politicians have dramatically improved the technology, while all the science fiction enthusiasts are still fetishising nuclear power long after it has become embarrassing.

[franzpeterfolz]

Numbers for 2015 are

82,17 TerraWattHours exported

37,12 TWH imported

91,8 TWH nuclear

187,4 TWH regenerativ energy

The main problem Germany is facing, is the storage of Energy on Sunny, Windy days. Storing this energy in car Batteries would be an extra bonus. Plus, regenerativ energy is going to increase further.

Yes, your absolutely right about the coal plants. And I am pretty sure they are going to be shut down. But the main problem is, nuclear waste will stay for millions of years, while CO2 in the atmosphere will probably vanish in centuries. Not nice but that's the decision to make.

[zuzun]

You can check this interactive fallout map to see why it makes sense for France and Belgium to build them at their eastern border:

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/atomkraft-diese-in...

[baud147258]

I don't speak German so I can't check how the article got his maps, but I don't think the winds in France are mostly West-East. Also I think it's more than just sending the fallout on the other side of the border in the location of the nuclear power plants:

-close to a water source with the Rhine basin -close to where the electricity will be used (Paris and its suburbs on the West side, Germany to sell on the East side, major cities all around) -close to where heavy industry exists (both for use and production of the construction pieces) -Outside of the areas of seismic risk

[vimy]

Interesting map in this regard: https://www.electricitymap.org The countries with the lowest amount of CO2 almost all have nuclear power plants.