[pydry]

France didn't decarbonize deliberately and they did it 50 years ago decades before anybody paid any attention to global warming.

Meanwhile theyre becoming progressively more aware of the extreme costs of staying nuclear - costs they kept halfway reasonable by neglecting maintenance which is now biting them back.

[trashtester]

> France didn't decarbonize deliberately and they did it 50 years ago decades before anybody paid any attention to global warming.

Whether or not France did or did not decarbonize deliberatly is secondary to the fact that they DID decarbonize.

On the other hand, when Germany set out to decarbonize, they SHOULD look have looked at historical data for what actually produced the desired outcome. But instead they chose to replace their nuclear power with wind power, while keeping fossil power the same.

[pydry]

>keeping fossil power the same.

This is a lie. By all measures it has reduced.

[trashtester]

In 1990, Nuclear power contributed to about 1800PJ/15000PJ of primary energy consumption, or about 12%.

Last year, solar+wind was 6%, or half that.

Then there is a large chunk from "biomass", which is all sorts of stuff, some good for the environment and some that are as dirty as most fossil fuels, but labeled "biomass" to greenwash them. (One of the worst cases, at least globally, would be firewood, especially in terms of local polution.)

At best, "renewables" can be counted to 17.2% for 2022, at worst it's about 6%.

Also, in absolute terms, total energy consumption in Germany has gone down, for several different reasons, but that would have happened anyway, it's not due to wind and solar.

> By all measures

In other words, it really depends on what measures you look at whether or not my statement was true.

I suppose I could be been more concise, though. What I meant, was that new clean energy (meaning primarily wind + solar) has AT BEST only replaced the clean nuclear energy that was available in 1990.

So in terms of available clean energy, simply maintaining those plants (or replace them when they could no longer be maintained) would have provided the same benefit as the massive investments in wind and solar (and those biomass types that are clean).

Still, a reduction in gross consumption is also a good thing, and _some_ of this may be connected to the increase in prices.

Then again, simply enforcing a carbon tax would achive the same.

[locallost]

Correct. France built its reactors after the oil crises of the early 70s to guarantee its energy independence. The irony being those same plants failed at the time of the biggest energy crises since then.

[illiarian]

> The irony being those same plants failed at the time of the biggest energy crises since then.

They didn't fail.

[locallost]

They failed. A quarter was out because of faulty pipes and another quarter was out because of planned maintenance. France had to rely on its neighbors to keep its lights on, and became a net importer of electricity for the first time in decades. And I repeat during the biggest energy crisis in 50 years, which was the entire reason for their existence. Can't fail in a worse way.

[illiarian]

> costs they kept halfway reasonable by neglecting maintenance.

That is not how you keep costs reasonable. You're just postponing them until they become unreasonable.