[godelski]

Fun fact. Nuclear power can technically load follow. It just generally isn't a good idea because it isn't very cost effective to not be running your nuclear power plant at all times. Also fun fact, nuclear power is really useful for high energy intensive operations such as splitting oxygen and hydrogen atoms from one another.

Side note: The France story is much more complicated. It doesn't sell narratives well, but what can I say, truth is complicated. It's not going to fit into this comment, but it has to do with regulations, covid, Ukraine, Germany, lack of European self-sufficiency, economics, and so much more. It's best to not bring up France's recent nuclear fiasco unless you're willing to get into the weeds, because otherwise you'll just start a fight by anyone who knows a bit more but still not the full story (which means multiple people will argue confidently and a clusterfuck ensues). With no doubt, France has blame to play. But to give just a push to find more info, remember that inspections and maintenance are scheduled quite far in advance. That many had been pushed off because of a global pandemic, and then war broke out. One could say this was quite a series of unfortunate events. Yes, blame France, but placing all blame on France is like destroying all farms except for one and then blaming that farm for famine when it got overrun by pests (even if it was entirely that farmer's fault, was it?)

[cycomanic]

I think the point is that people often point to France as "look it works" (while simultaneously saying "there Germany terrible") when the reality is that no France doesn't just work (and yes failure modes are always about multiple disadvantages coincidences, all the other stuff is usually covered).

[godelski]

Saying France "works" or "doesn't work" isn't so straight forward, but I definitely lean more towards the "it works" side. I mean it is a net exporter of energy and is only rivaled by Sweden in terms of emissions per kWhr (Sweden has a lot of hydro, which is great, but not available to everyone. Can also be dangerous, see Banqiao, but that's not very relevant tbh). Germany on the other hand has 6x the emissions. They've been making great strides, but still have yet to be able to remove themselves from their coal and gas addictions (gas is potentially worse than typical accounting but let's use official numbers to keep fair). That is also what put them at the mercy of Russia (and consequently several other EU countries who depended on either Russia or Germany for power, which increased demand from French power), but also can be seen as a strategic move politically since trade partners are less likely to go to war but it can also be leverage. As you might see, this is in fact a pretty complicated clusterfuck. But we can all agree that German electricity is procured at 6x the emissions of French electricity. Success does depend upon which metrics you care about, but if we're talking climate, emissions are definitely one of the most important ones. A big issue is that Germany is often viewed as a mover and role model in the climate space but even by EU standards they are one of the worst offenders (doubly so if you bin the countries by economic size. i.e. Poorer countries have worse emissions). So I get why people push back against Germany because while we should congratulate them for their large rollout of renewables we should still criticize them for their emission levels and inability to actually match what others have done (even many with little to no nuclear, see UK)

You may find this site useful strictly for the electricity and subsequent emissions side. It'll be insufficient for total emissions though (as that includes many things beyond electricity) and certainly isn't adequate for understanding geopolitics or other things. I suggest poking around, using the emission tab per region (defaults on production) and also changing the time scale to at least 30 days to be a more accurate view of this specific question we're addressing.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR

[cauch]

I liked you first comment about things being complicated and that "good" or "bad" is difficult to tell because people will give more importance to the partial elements they see.

Unfortunately, you've done just that in this last comment.

One detail that I see too often with people advancing similar arguments than you here is that they just take two countries and compare them if it was two lab experiments done within the same conditions and repeated sufficiently to bring conclusive results.

There are plenty of elements about that: the way France and Germany are industrialised is pretty different so what worked/did not work for one does not mean it would have worked or not for the other, maybe if Germany would have followed the same path as France the German specificity would have made Germany emitting 8x more instead of 6x (or not, of course), maybe the German way had 60% chance of success and bad luck failed while the France way had 40% chance of success and lucky then they did not failed (not saying it's the case, just that it's tricky to pretend getting lessons from what happened), maybe one country had pushed itself in a corner and will struggle on the last few yards while the other had a worst initial score because they were paving the road (again, not saying it's the case), maybe the success of France relied on having Germany going that way (who knows how the French nuclear park would have evolved if they had Germany that would have provided electricity with exactly the same characteristics and fulfilling the same needs on the same market but having the same drawbacks on the same market), ...

It does not mean we cannot get lessons, but the lessons you bring (or the method itself) are just invalid: no, looking at the electricity map today is just not a way to conclude which strategy is the best. And everyone who reasons like that is just muddying the water rather than being helpful.

[godelski]

> Unfortunately, you've done just that in this last comment.

I think you're reading into my comment too much. I was just explaining some of (certainly not all) absurd amounts of complexity. I was very careful to frequently stress that there are many valid metrics to use to compare, and that none of them are complete. Even my statement is just some complexity and no conclusions.

Certainly I don't think France and Germany should have taken the same path. This is the specialization I was discussing.

> looking at the electricity map today is just not a way to conclude which strategy is the best.

Definitely not something I claimed. I even was careful to stress that this is a very limited metric. And of course not, because they're different countries. Specialization requires complementary strategies, coalitions. So I'm not sure why we'd measure at that abstract of a level (country to country with industry, energy, economics, and such) because you just can't. You can only compare parts at a time and even adding several dozen more metrics you won't be even remotely whole.

[cauch]

Sorry if I have misunderstood. But I still don't understand the reason you put the electricity map website and saying "I suggest poking around ... to be a more accurate view of this specific question we're addressing", this website is 100% useless for that discussion, due to effects I've mentioned.

You also said "we should still criticize them [germany] for their emission levels and inability to actually match what others have done ", which seems to be exactly what I was talking about: "inability to actually match what others have done" is pretty much saying that if 2 countries spend as much effort and goes into the same strategy, they will match.

Maybe you don't think like that (in which case, my bad), but a lot of people do and your previous comment is very not well written to not amplify this way of thinking by implying this logic is sound.

[godelski]

The website is purely to see electric energy production (note the care or words). It is but one of many metrics, which I think we both agree aren't even enough to adequately answer the question of "country emissions" but is the part of that conversation that most people are familiar with.

But I think we need context, as that's likely where things got lost. C0llusion's comment above my "fun fact" comment was the critical aspect. They got causality wrong in their final point. Last year (2022) France's output was ~70% of their 10 year average. I think they confused 50% with their goal for only 50% dependence on nuclear power. The cracks is also a bit weird because while not wrong, it isn't complete and not the causal issue since all nuclear power plants have cracks in the same way all damns do. Here's a "short" writeup by world nuclear[0]. It also briefly mentions how France wanted to be energy independent post oil crisis. But for complexity sake, we can't say counterfactually that Germany made the "wrong" move (or "right") one because you can make an argument about geopolitics and Germany's strategy. If their actions did starve off war then that's a better climate strategy. To complex for me to speculate tbh, just recognizing that it's part of the equation.

I think a big difference in our framing is that you're putting things as if there is a universally optimal strategy by a single nation. Even strictly just on the energy domain. The world is just too complex and it is a multi-agent system that isn't zero sum. Strategies don't work like that when there's so much coalition building. And it is hard for me to properly explain what I'm thinking in just a few comments. I think unfortunately I have a different view than most are used to and so I'm still trying to figure out how to handle the inference gap. I do sincerely appreciate the reinforcement and if you have any additional advice in how I can better communicate. I truly take this idea of complexity to heart, it is a core belief of mine. And if we're being honest, climate is one of the most complicated existential crises that humans have faced. Certainly no single person is able to understand even a relatively complete story except from orbit. But details matter so much that I think we do a great disservice ignoring the complexities (not just around climate). What I can't figure out how to communicate correctly yet is how to discuss a metric but not imply that it is the only thing we should look at. If you have any suggestions I'd really appreciate it. Not sure how to juggle a ton of things but pause to talk about one because talking about everything all at once is fucking chaotic and I'm already verbose as it is. I'm not sure how well this came off but I hope you can see that there's a communication breakdown (admittedly I'm not doing a great job).

[0] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...