[pytester]

It certainly doesn't look like natural gas usage is ramping up:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

>They produce 3x the CO2 of France, despite their commitment against global warming.

That's because France started replacing fossil fuels with nuclear in the 80s. That was the only sensible approach to reducing CO2 in the 80s. This isn't the 80s though.

>In an ideal world, renewable would replace everything. We are not yet in this ideal world

I mean, it's half the cost of nuclear and it doesn't include the risks (however small) of catastrophe.

In an ideal world we could swap out fossil fuels for something clean overnight - obviously it takes about 30 years. The question isn't "what can we replace fossil fuels with overnight", it's "what can take over from fossil fuels?"

[Gondolin]

If I count lignite + coal + natural gas + mineral oil, it goes from 76.9GW in 2010 to 79.3GW in 2019. So it did not go down either. That's because Germany needs a back up energy source for now. It could have gone down by 10GW had Germany closed coal rather than nuclear first.

[pytester]

Yes, maybe they should have closed coal rather than nuclear first between 2010 and 2014.

However, from this point onward it makes little difference. It makes little economic sense to build new nuclear plants given that they are more expensive and no sense to build coal. Renewables are more than capable of taking over as old nuclear and coal plants are phased out.

The issue now is how fast to phase out rickety old nuclear plants and rickety old coal plants.

[lispm]

What does GW measure in this context? Electricity production is usually measured in TWh.

[Gondolin]

This is the production capacity (you are right it is not a good measure), but I was replying based on the graphic.

If I look at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany Germany went from 60% fossil, 23% nuclear, 17% renewable to 49%/13%/38% respectively.

How much further down do you expect fossil to go in ten years? I am pretty sure that by investing both on nuclear and renewable germany could have been at close to 0% right now or in a few years.

[lispm]

We have invested decades ago in new nuclear (pebble bed reactor, breeder, reprocessing, ...) and it was a costly failure. Why should we keep making mistakes?

Look at France, they have zillions Euros to invest to get ONE EPR reactor online. They are losing huge amounts of money on another one they are building in Finland. Germany lost a lot of money on the EPR, too. The EPR France builds in the UK will be the most expensive power plant on the planet with >20bn pounds costs.

> How much further down do you expect fossil to go in ten years?

The projections for 2030 are around 65% electricity from renewable energy.

[Gondolin]

So still 35% coming from fossil if the remaining nuclear plants are shut down. Again, Germany goals and effort are laudable, but you miss my point, it is not about nuclear vs renewable, but nuclear vs fossils as a complement to renewable.

Why didn't Germany close its coal plants first? This would have saved several Metric Tons of CO2 and saved the life of a few thousands people (due to air pollution).

When is Germany going to reach no CO2 emissions? (Expanding nuclear along renewable would have meant it could have reached this goal right now). You talk about the costs of EPR (which exploded I agree), but this is nothing compared to the cost of climate change, which Germany contribute three times more than France. This cost is shared across the world, but this is hypocritical to not take it into account.

[lispm]

> but you miss my point, it is not about nuclear vs renewable, but nuclear vs fossils as a complement to renewable.

I don't miss your point, I just don't think nuclear is a viable complement to renewable in Germany.

> Why didn't Germany close its coal plants first?

Because it wanted to get rid of nuclear first and as fast as possible. The reasons for that is all known and a little research can explain it to you - beyond the believe that it was 'irrational'. It's not that you need to agree with it, but people here had other priorities than you have.

Still CO2 emissions were reduced by 27% from 1990 to 2016.

The next two decades will bring the end of coal-based electricity.

> When is Germany going to reach no CO2 emissions?

When do you stop going to vacations via airplanes? Stop eating meat? Stop driving a car?

> Expanding nuclear along renewable would have meant it could have reached this goal right now

No, nuclear and renewable are not compatible. Nuclear is centralized monopolistic, mostly state-owned form of energy. I sucks up huge amounts of investments and corrupts everything around it.

> This cost is shared across the world

Germany invested into renewable energy and jump-started the PV business. That's equally important.

[ftr45]

>I mean, it's half the cost of nuclear

it's not https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2015/7057-proj-costs-elect...

[pfdietz]

Your report is from 2015. Given how rapidly PV costs have continued to decline (and how major nuclear efforts collapsed with cost explosions since then), that's useless.

[ftr45]

> Your report is from 2015

so ?

>Given how rapidly PV costs have continued to decline (and how major nuclear efforts collapsed with cost explosions since then), that's useless.

you say so, but the one with evidence is me not you

[pfdietz]

https://www.pv-magazine.com/features/investors/module-price-...

Compare 2015 prices to current prices.

Anyone with even cursory knowledge of this area would have know how fast PV prices have fallen.

[ftr45]

that's not the only cost of renewables,look at germany and france https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05...

[pfdietz]

Shellenberger has zero credibility. This is the guy who claimed photovoltaics use rare earth metals.