[xienze]

Because transitioning over to green technology is a decades-long project, it's not something you can just snap your fingers and make happen, as many countries are discovering. You still need non-renewable energy sources to fill in the gaps that renewables currently have.

[Krasnol]

You don't have to transition completely in decades. You can start today. Meanwhile building a single nuclear reactor is a "decade-long" project, you can't start today and in the end you're still left with an old and expensive tech while the green tech moved ahead rapidly during the same time.

Germany managed to replace almost half of their generation in 2 decades: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-renewable-powe...

When they started out the technology was terrible and managed to do all that despite a just recently retired government which did everything to stop further expansion.

[xienze]

> You don't have to transition completely in decades. You can start today.

Yes, I agree. If you start today, you’ll be done in decades. The boneheaded move is to start a green energy transition and immediately start decommissioning existing nuclear power plants and stonewall creating new ones by throwing up your hands and saying “well it’ll take forever to build them.” By the way, have you ever considered why it takes so long to build nuclear power plants? It’s a political and environmental special interest problem, not a technical one.

At the end of the day, when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, you still have to generate power somehow. Until the day that problem is solved (that’s the “decades” part), you want something like nuclear power to fall back on.

[Krasnol]

I don't know why you're ignoring my reality example. Germany is part of a EU wide market and it just works. Also it's not like you put all your wind on one spot. There is always wind somewhere for example.

The idea that it's an "political, environmental and special interest" problem while we're watching several nuclear plants being FAR over budget and over due being constructed in pro-nuclear countries proves that your argument is false.

So basically: everything you wrote there is wrong...why are you doing this?

[trashtester]

> There is always wind somewhere for example.

There is always wind somewhere. But grid capacity is not free, in fact it is quite expensive. Let's say, on a given day, the only place in Europe with reasonable winds would be west of Cadiz, transporting all that power through Spain, Portugal and France to cover the needs of all of Europe, would require immensive grid capacity expansion. And even with super-high-voltage, the losses before the power reaches Estonia would be huge.

Also, if this load causes a brownout in Spain, due to improper maintaince, for instance, all of Europe could go dark, cold and stop moving (in a time after fossil fuels).

(I can imagine seeing this from space during some cold winter night around 2045, all the lights in Western and Central Europe disappear at once. Only Norway and parts of Sweden can be seen, since they have their hydro power.)

In other words, while a better grid can mitigate _some_ of the variability of renewable supply, you still need massive expansion of storage capacity when you stop using natural gas, especially when you switch heating and transportation to use electricity too.

Seen from the outside, it surely looks like the German population has been seriously misled.

[g8oz]

>>Seen from the outside, it surely looks like the German population has been seriously misled.

And yet their sacrifice essentially kick-started the global solar industry. The world owes a round of applause to the German tax payer.

[Krasnol]

> There is always wind somewhere. But grid capacity is not free, in fact it is quite expensive.

No it's not...as I said several times over: IT'S ALREADY WORKING and has been for years...

> Also, if this load causes a brownout in Spain, due to improper maintaince, for instance,

This is not the US here. We have the most stable grid on the whole planet. Countries do maintain their networks here.

> In other words, while a better grid can mitigate _some_ of the variability of renewable supply, you still need massive expansion of storage capacity when you stop using natural gas, especially when you switch heating and transportation to use electricity too.

Sure more storage is nice. Especially if you want to profit locally but it's not something which would make true green energy possible NOW. Because: as I said several times over: IT'S ALREADY WORKING. We have been "pumping" massively energy into storage in the alps. Now with NordLink we do the same in the other direction too. It's all there.

> Seen from the outside, it surely looks like the German population has been seriously misled.

This must seem so if you're completely uninformed or even misinformed as you have shown here. In fact though as g8oz says: you should be thankful for us showing the world that true green future technology can be made to work and power a high tech and densely populated country. We'll keep on showing you and those countries which WASTE taxpayer money on nuclear just that.

[trashtester]

> This is not the US here.

I live in Europe. The grid in Europe is not designed to transport 100% of electricity needs from one edge of the continenent to the other. Most energy produced in Europe is still renewable or nuclear, and it is produced relatively close to where it is consumed, for the most part.

> We have been "pumping" massively energy into storage in the alps.

The storage capacity of electricity in the alps is tiny compared to total electricity consumption.

> Now with NordLink we do the same in the other direction too.

Nordlink has is getting seriously unpopular in Norway, even if it is only 1400MW out of a total installed capacity in Norway of 37GW.

What is working in Europe is fossil fuel plants and nuclear plants, oil for transportation and, in most plases, fossil fuels for heating. Wind and solar is still a tiny percentage (around 10%) of total energy consumption in Europe. Maybe in 20 years it will be 25%.

At best.

[trashtester]

> Germany managed to replace almost half of their generation in 2 decades: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-renewable-powe...

Still, only 16% of Germany's total energy consumption comes from renewables:

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

If Germany wants to replace all uses of fossil fuels for heating, transportation, industrial use, etc, with renewables, HUGE investments remain.

In particular, giving up the ability to smooth out variations in production without the use of fossil fuels will be extremely costly, unless the cost comes down by at least a factor or 50.

[Krasnol]

> Still, only 16% of Germany's total energy consumption comes from renewables:

Sure but this has nothing to do with nuclear.

Germany heats with gas and oil. We don't even have 5% electrical heating here.

> In particular, giving up the ability to smooth out variations in production without the use of fossil fuels will be extremely costly,

It's not even close to how costly nuclear is and will continue to be for GENERATIONS.

Germany is connected to the most stable continental grid on this planet. Something other "developed" countries like the US can only dream of. Germany has been expanding their national grid and will continue to do so. Also we have build up renewable energy for the whole world. Paying for it. So don't worry. We'll manage. It's the rest of the world you have to worry about since they're stuck in the past. Especially France with their single source which is a rotting fleet run by a bankrupt state company eating up taxpayer money with no end in sight.

[trashtester]

Germany, for all it's renewables, let out significantly more greenhouse gases per capita than surrounding countries, such as France.

> It's not even close to how costly nuclear is and will continue to be for GENERATIONS.

Modern nuclear plants are designed to last for a minimum of 60 years, and can be renewed to last another 40.

Modern wind turbines as well as most solar panels have an expected lifetime of around 25 years.

> Also we have build up renewable energy for the whole world. Paying for it.

Germany even pays Denmark to shut down their wind power on days when production is high, to make the statistics of German renewable production look prettier.

Germany is still using fossil fuels for most of their energy.

> Also we have build up renewable energy for the whole world.

Norway has been on 100% renewable electricity since forever, and unlike Germany, Norway actually uses electricity for heating. Fossil fuel heating was banned in Norway i 2020. So Norway uses electricity for everything, meaning the population is not willing to pay German prices for much longer. Most likely, the Norwegian government will have to strangle exports through Nordlink and similar cables in the coming winter, if prices remain high.

Norway did NOT need German help for that.

On the other hand, Norway also provides Germany with a large percentage of Germany's fossil fuel needs, both natural gas and oil (most of the imports not coming from Russia comes from Norway).

[Krasnol]

> Germany, for all it's renewables, let out significantly more greenhouse gases per capita than surrounding countries, such as France.

This has also nothing to do with nuclear.

The reason we have so much dirt is in the name of the commission which is responsible for the COMPLETE phaseout of coal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Growth,_Structur...

> Modern nuclear plants are designed to last for a minimum of 60 years, and can be renewed to last another 40. Modern wind turbines as well as most solar panels have an expected lifetime of around 25 years.

What does that have to do with the sentence you've quoted? They don't leave us with radioactive waste, we have no space to put away. "Modern" is also relative in this case since before you have one of those "new" reactors running, renewable tech made several technological jumps and most of "new" is still in development and/or of questionable use/improvement like SMRs: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2111833119

> Germany even pays Denmark to shut down their wind power

Why do you even bother quoting me when you're not answering to this?

> Norway has been on 100% renewable electricity since forever, and unlike Germany, Norway actually uses electricity for heating.

Good for Norway. What do you suppose? Give an electric heater to 95% of all German households? I mean seriously...what is this?

Btw: while Norway runs green, they dig for oil and gas and sell it to others making all the good on the environment bad again.

> Norway did NOT need German help for that.

Nobody said they need it. It's one of the batteries for the rest of the grid. This is how the grid works.

[trashtester]

>> Germany, for all it's renewables, let out significantly more greenhouse gases per capita than surrounding countries, such as France.

> This has also nothing to do with nuclear.

When comparing to France, it has EVERYTHING to do with France using Nuclear, where Germany still uses a lot of gas and coal.

> They don't leave us with radioactive waste, we have no space to put away.

Don't believe the propaganda about nuclear waste. The volume of high grade waste is tiny, and it remains super-dangerous for much less time than people realize. And low-grade waste is mostly less dangerous than car-exhaust.

> "Modern" is also relative in this case

Gen3 reactors are safe enough, if not already over-engineered for safety in many cases.

>> Germany even pays Denmark to shut down their wind power

> Why do you even bother quoting me when you're not answering to this?

You were bragging of Germany paying, I confirmed that Germany was paying.

> What do you suppose? Give an electric heater to 95% of all German households?

If Germany is serious about getting rid of fossil fuel based heating/cooking etc, they could do like Norway, gradually ramp up taxes of natural gas for heating to a level just above the price of electricity. After 10 years at that level, switching becomes easy. Norway started this 20 years ago, and when fossil fuels were banned in 2020, most had already transitioned.

> Btw: while Norway runs green, they dig for oil and gas and sell it to others making all the good on the environment bad again.

That's one way to see it. If the environmentalist movement in Norway gets their way, Norway will shut down the oil and gas production asap. Realists would say that as long as Europe depends on fossil fuels, it's better that they get it from Norway, than being even more dependent on dictatorships in OPEC+Russia.

Anyway, Germany is in a similar situation with its car industry. Is Germany responsible for the polution generated by German-produced cars? Or do you put all the blame on the oil-producer?

> Nobody said they need it. It's one of the batteries for the rest of the grid. This is how the grid works.

Actually, Norway has very little capacity for pumped storage. If Europe can sell us power on windy days, we can temporarily shut down our hydro plants on those days, and export a similar amount when there is less wind in the North Sea.

But with Europe currently being so low on production capacity, this balance has turned into significant net exports for Norway. The effect of that to the average Norwegian is similar to what it would be if Germany simply banned natural gas heating overnight. Electrical ovens cost almost nothing compared to the electricity itself.

As long as the price differenc between Germany and Norway remains as high as it is, there is no way Norwegian consumers will be willing to pay German prices. Switching back to fossil fuels for heating is not an option here, so consumers are stuck with consumption that is 2-4x higher than most countries.

So be careful about depending on Norway to be part of the grid for much longer. It's simply not in the best interests of the Norwegian population anymore.

[petre]

Yeah, we've seen how it (hasn't) worked out for Germany.