[kartan]

I'm writing this from Japan. I do not have the numbers, but as I cross the country in the Shinkansen I see a sea of solar panels.

Fukushima has been a lesson here. Strategically, Japan has to import it's energy, except for solar energy. With a float of trains electricity is already at the core of their transportation system.

Here, at least, nuclear doesn't look like it's the future.

[s21n]

The growing share of renewables in the mix doesn't mean there's no place for nuclear in the future – it's a false dilemma fallacy. Also, Japan's solar panels may be visually imposing, but they constitute a tiny amount of total energy generation in Japan.

After Fukushima Daiichi disaster Japan shut down all it's reactors and switched to fossil fuels, not renewables, and this is the most tragic outcome of the disaster.

Neither nuclear nor renewables could entirely replace fossil fuels, we desperately need both. Hopefully Japan is restarting it's nuclear reactors (5 reactors were restarted in 2018) and investing in renewables, but I'm afraid it's still not enough.

[petre]

Offshore wind is a good bet for Japan but it has to be supplemented with base load power coming from nuclear or geothermal. I think they have resources for geothermal being a volcanic island.

[charlesju]

I was interested in your statement, and a brief search on wikipedia says that Japan has slowly been restarting their nuclear power plants and is planning on growing nuclear power as a total percentage of power over the next several decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

I don't think the sentiment on nuclear power, even after Fukushima, is as clear cut as you're presenting.

[fogetti]

It's very clear cut. The sentiment is the same. I don't know where you got it that it's not clear cut. The only thing which is not clear from your article is how will Abe and his corny friends shove their nuclear-friendly world-of-view down the Japanese people's throat.

And your claim that Japan is planning on growing might mislead some readers to think that they are expanding the nuclear capacity in Japan. Which is not the case at all. They signed the Paris agreement and unlike the US they try to keep their promise. But they are not expanding any capacity to do this. They simply restart their reactors (which by the way if they might be able to do so is to be seen).

What actually happened is that they started to decommission the Genkai 1, Mihama 1 and 2, Shimane 1 and Tsuruga 1 reactors while they completely abandoned the plan to build Fukushima Daiichi Unit 7 & 8 for obvious reasons among others.

So if anything than the exact opposite can be said that you implied: Japan is slowly but surely phasing nuclear energy out.

[roenxi]

Can you pick out a particular section?

I'm about as pro-nuclear as they get, but the Wikipedia articles seem to support a story of the Japanese government shutting down nuclear and being very tentative restarting the existing reactors [0].

It is difficult to guess what is going on in a country that doesn't report in English, but the info in Wikipedia (mostly a little dated) seems to support a rollback of nuclear. Reduced generation, limited new developments. Either they are using less energy or something else is filling the void left by nuclear plant shutdowns.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#Nuclear...

[charlesju]

"In June 2015, the Japanese government released an energy proposal that includes the revival of nuclear power to account for Japan's energy needs. The proposal calls for an increase of about 20% in nuclear energy by 2030.[2] This reverses a decision by the previous Democratic Party, the government will re-open nuclear plants, aiming for "a realistic and balanced energy structure"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan

[nickik]

People live in a fantasy world when thinking about solar. Solar is nicely visible and gives people a worm heard.

The reality is that solar is a tiny part of global energy and even in countries like Japan it did not even come close to replacing nuclear.

Japan will have nuclear future because they simply have to much capacity already. However the poplar nature of nuclear politics makes it a problem, they will continue to be import depended and fossil fuel for many years to come.

[misiti3780]

Not sure why you are getting downvoted --- solar and wind account for 1.5% of total, taken from Enlightenment Now by Steve Pinker:

> A second key to deep decarbonization brings up an inconvenient truth for the traditional Green movement: nuclear power is the world’s most abundant and scalable carbon-free energy source. Although renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind, have become drastically cheaper, and their share of the world’s energy has more than tripled in the past five years, that share is still a paltry 1.5 percent, and there are limits on how high it can go. The wind is often becalmed, and the sun sets every night and may be clouded over. But people need energy around the clock, rain or shine. Batteries that could store and release large amounts of energy from renewables will help, but ones that could work on the scale of cities are years away. Also, wind and solar sprawl over vast acreage, defying the densification process that is friendliest to the environment.

[fogetti]

Net wind energy percentage in Germany in 2017 was 18.9%. And that's a fact. Which clearly voids your argument. Yes, there are limitations how high it can go and I don't expect it to be anywhere near 100%. But it's clearly a huge source of energy already and it will increase even more in the coming years.

The reason why it totals 1.5% is because it costs money to replace existing power sources and the lobby power of the coal industry is still huge. It has nothing to do with solar energy itself.

[eukgoekoko]

I wouldn't call Germany's Energiewende a success story since Germany has the highest electricity prices in EU: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

You may call it "the lobby power" but there seems to be no choice for the heavy industry than to use coal, thanks to nuclear phase-out.

[crdoconnor]

German coal usage has been on the decline since 2013.

It's actually become something of a political issue (because of the lost jobs).

In 2010-2013 renewables apparently couldn't keep up. Since 2014 they appear capable of replacing all other end of lifed power plants.

[pgeorgi]

> the highest electricity prices in EU

The renewable parts of that is bound to go down: As part of the push to renewables, when spinning up capacity, you get prices guaranteed for 20 years. The different to market rates is spread across the whole market ("EEG Umlage", "renewable energy law contribution").

But: that law is approaching 20 years now and so in 2021 the first installations will drop out of that subsidy scheme. Prices and guaranteed rates were dropping ever since, and so will the subsidies - with a delay of 20 years.

> there seems to be no choice for the heavy industry than to use coal

Comparing the numbers in 2000 and 2017 (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung#Bruttostromerze...), coal used to account for more than 50% of power generation in 2000, down to 36.6% in 2017. Even in absolute numbers to account for the rise in total power production, coal is less in 2017 than in 2000. Petrochemicals are up from 9.5% to 14.1% though.

Non-regenerative power was 436.5 TWh in 2017, down from 538.7 TWh in 2000.

[eukgoekoko]

The stats you have provided are the numbers for the whole electricity generation, while I was talking of the heavy industry alone. I am not an expert, but AFAIK for steelmakers in particular it is crucial to have a reliable constant power supply, which neither solar nor wind can provide (let alone steel production itself relies on coal).

[ThomPete]

18% at a horrible cost and not for all uses of energy. The german energy politics is a diaster. You are confusing reality with potential. Most countries get energy outside their own countries just like Denmark who are even higher on wind but still had to get coal based energy from germany because of the lack of wind this summer. Solar and wind isnt even close to solving actual energy needs which includes transportation one of the biggest co2 immitors.

And no realistic fuelcell technology or disrributed grids.

[mr_toad]

Germany can import French power. That’s a big part of the reason they can get away with a low base capacity and avoid price spikes.

[petre]

And French power is something like 70% nuclear. Germany is basically relying on neighbouring countries and coal for base load.

[philipkglass]

France does not have enough nuclear capacity for high winter electricity demand and it has too much nuclear capacity relative to domestic demand in temperate weather. It ends up reliant on imports from Germany in winter time and exports surplus electricity at times of low demand. As I write this, France is importing 6.7 GW from Germany: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/

If France were forced to disconnect from its neighbors, its electricity would be more expensive and/or more emissions-intensive. It would need more fossil combustion to deal with seasonal demand swings and/or it would get less utilization out of its nuclear reactor fleet. The same goes for Germany, of course: electrically isolating itself would also increase costs/emissions. Germany and France both rely on international electrical connections to improve utilization of their non-combustion electricity sources. Both use imports to meet part of their electricity demands. Both are net electricity exporters over the course of a full year.