Germany is First Major Economy To Phase Out Coal and Nuclear (bostonherald.com) 240
German lawmakers have finalized the country's long-awaited phase-out of coal as an energy source, backing a plan that environmental groups say isn't ambitious enough and free marketeers criticize as a waste of taxpayers' money. From a report: Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some $45 billion to help affected regions cope with the transition. The plan is part of Germany's 'energy transition' -- an effort to wean Europe's biggest economy off planet-warming fossil fuels and generate all of the country's considerable energy needs from renewable sources. Achieving that goal is made harder than in comparable countries such as France and Britain because of Germany's existing commitment to also phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022. "The days of coal are numbered in Germany," Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said. "Germany is the first industrialized country that leaves behind both nuclear energy and coal." Greenpeace and other environmental groups have staged vocal protests against the plan, including by dropping a banner down the front of the Reichstag building Friday. They argue that the government's road map won't reduce Germany's greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the targets set out in the Paris climate accord.
COVID (Score:2)
This is also part of the COVID stimulus package. Big infrastructure projects, green new deal.
Re:COVID (Score:5, Informative)
This is also part of the COVID stimulus package. Big infrastructure projects, green new deal.
No, the general decision was already taken on January 16th 2020, before Covid19 even became a thing.
Yesterday was just the day where the legislative process started in January was brought to completion.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausstieg_aus_der_Kohleverstromung_in_Deutschland
France.. (Score:4, Informative)
Germany just buys their nuclear power from France, so..... their point is?
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And their natural gas from Russia. If Russia turns off the taps come winter, Germans will freeze to death. Germany has ceded their sovereignty to other countries in return for being "green".
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And their wood pellets from America. [vox.com]
Re:France.. (Score:5, Informative)
Germany exports way more electricity than it imports: https://de.statista.com/statis... [statista.com]
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But Germany is powering into the future by opening new coal plants to replace nuclear https://www.thenewfederalist.e... [thenewfederalist.eu]
while at the same time setting a distant date for closing them in the hope that unicorns will appear.
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But Germany is powering into the future by opening new coal plants to replace nuclear https://www.thenewfederalist.e... [thenewfederalist.eu]
while at the same time setting a distant date for closing them in the hope that unicorns will appear.
Germany doesn't open new coal plants, energy companies in Germany open them, with the market regulated by the German government.
And they aren't opening plants, it's trivially easy to discover it is plant: https://www.powermag.com/germa... [powermag.com]
What is expected to be the last new coal plant to come online in Germany entered commercial operation on May 30, more than a decade after it was first planned.
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What is expected to be the last new coal plant to come online in Germany entered commercial operation on May 30, more than a decade after it was first planned.
As the rest of the nuclear plants are closed, Germany will find the need for more new coal plants to maintain the industrial baseload.
Don't tell Norway (Score:5, Funny)
That makes Norway not industrialized?
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The scam of clean, reliable and cheap energy?
No the scam of buying nuclear energy at an LCOE three times higher than that of renewables which Norway has in super abundance.
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renewables mean jack shit when its not sunny or windy.
And adding the cost of the vast amount of battery storage that would be required, makes the cost of renewables look a lot less sensible.
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The scam of clean, reliable and cheap energy?
The reality of somewhat clean, sorta reliable, and very expensive energy.
Nuclear is cheap in theory. In reality, most nuke projects go way over budget and schedule slippage means skyrocketing interest costs.
Vogtle, the latest nuke in America, will likely cost four times as much as wind or gas ... once it finally starts producing power, now scheduled for 2022.
Vogtle was supposed to be "proof" that the new standardized AP1000 reactors could be built cost-effectively. Instead, the construction debacle will l
Re: Don't tell Norway (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not cheap at all!
Only if you steal money from us, by not adding the costs of dealing with the waste for literally tens of thousands of years, so we have to pay for it instead.
It is theft and should be punished like theft.
This sort of scheme is fueling likely most of the organised crime, err I mean for-profit psychopath corporations on this planet.
Uh.... wrong. In the US, anyway. (Score:3)
It is not cheap at all!
Only if you steal money from us, by not adding the costs of dealing with the waste for literally tens of thousands of years, so we have to pay for it instead.
It is theft and should be punished like theft.
This sort of scheme is fueling likely most of the organised crime, err I mean for-profit psychopath corporations on this planet.
Not sure who you're railing against, because you are incorrect as far as the US goes.
In the US, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 obligated the Department of Energy to provide long-term storage of nuclear waste, and it funded this mandate with a per-kilowatt-hour tax on nuclear fuel. The funds thus collected paid for about 75% of the Yucca mountain facility construction, with the other 25% paid by the federal government in order to store waste products of nuclear weapons production.
The fund collected fro
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The reality of somewhat clean, sorta reliable, and very expensive energy.
Nuclear is clean. That is the entire point. The IPCC rates nuclear at 12 gCO2/kWh which is comparable to offshore wind. On shore wind is at 11, solar is a 41 and 48. So yes Nuclear is clean.
If you think nuclear is only sorta reliable with 90%+ capacity factor(best in electricity market), then you must think solar and wind with capacity factors less than 30% must be terrible.
And existing nuclear is actually really cheap. Why do you think France has among the lowest energy costs in Europe. Even new n
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Why do you think France has among the lowest energy costs in Europe.
Because France basically only has one power company which is:
a) owned by the state
b) subsidized by the state/government
Ooosp, that was so easy again.
And what CFs have to do with it is beyond me :P
If you produce all your power with nukes, half of them wont have have a high CF, facepalm.
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Wait aren't solar and wind subsidized everywhere? Then why doesn't Germany have lower rates? France has lower rates because nuclear is cheaper in the long term. Total system costs for renewables are quite excessive.
And what CFs have to do with it is beyond me
Climate change is real so carbon footprint is important.
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I quoted the median.
And the low for nuclear is much less than 12.
Re:Don't tell Norway (Score:5, Interesting)
Vogtle was supposed to be "proof" that the new standardized AP1000 reactors could be built cost-effectively. Instead, the construction debacle will likely be seen as the final stake through the heart of nuclear power in America.
China and Korea each built 2 AP1400 (the larger variant) after the AP1000 projects started in the US. Those reactors in Asia have been producing power for several years already. The NRC wanted to kill those AP1000 projects and they did. Nothing about this situation says anything about nuclear or the free market. What they show is the power of a regulator who doesn't want something to work.
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The scam of clean, reliable and cheap energy?
No, the scam of reliable and cheap nuclear PR shills.
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Whatever you do don't click on this link with pictures of DU babies in Iraq [duckduckgo.com]. That's what oxidized depleted uranium does to the human birth process. U238, the same stuff used in fuel rods is used as a WMD that goes on killing forever.
The truth is far more potent than your shallow statements so try not to think about those images before you shill your empty PR.
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The proof is in the pudding. Nuclear energy is by far the most expensive kind here in the UK, and renewable is the cheapest.
Re:Don't tell Norway (Score:5, Insightful)
Smart people. They did not fall for the scam.
That's akin to praising someone with a large inheritance that they were smart for choosing rich parents. You've clearly never been to Norway. Once you get south of Hoth, It has basically two things, rain and mountains. So they have nearly 100% hydropower.
That's not smart, it's sensible, they're collecting the free energy literally falling from the sky. No other country has the geography for such a thing.
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I have been to Norway.
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I have been to Norway.
OK, then I retract what I said: you have no good reason for your foolish comment. Happy now?
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No other country has the geography for such a thing. ... there are plenty.
Spain has, Portugal has New Zealand has Newfoundland has
Re: Don't tell Norway (Score:2)
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!
Lololololol
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The same scam that made the energy in France one of the cheapest in the Eurozone?
Electricity in France is subsidized by taxpayers and is still three times the average cost in America.
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That would mean the average cost in the US is 5 cents. Not very plausible.
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That might be production cost.
But certainly not retail cost for any customer.
And: it does not sound plausible.
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Electricity in France [strom-report.de] is just under $0.17 per kWh. It's not $0.51/kWh in the US.
As far as subsidies, are you sure you don't mean for renewables [forbes.com]? What are the subsidies for electricity from nuclear power in France?
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You got the ratio back-to-front there in a very spectacular way
The retail cost in France is $0.17, USA $0.13 on average (which doesn't match the OP's point) but the actual cost is higher in France, which people still pay in some form or other in general and on average, just not at the point of delivery. That makes energy in France probably 50% more expensive. However, a lot of the cost is in distribution, and the network is very good.
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It is not clear what price you are talking about. Wholesale electricity prices on the market seem similar if no a little bit higher
than in Germany: https://aleasoft.com/european-... [aleasoft.com]
Consumer prices are very high in Germany, due to taxes and levies, and also huge investment. In France it is
in the middle range: https://strom-report.de/downlo... [strom-report.de]
But consumer prices are determined mostly by politics and local markets and tell you nothing about the economics of power production.
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Apparently, your country sucks at managing nuclear waste. The US does too - but that's because of politics, not because of finances. In the US, providers must pay in to a fund to cover all decommissioning and storage costs [nrc.gov], and those payments are made early in the entire plan. It's too bad our politicians shirked their duty and shuttered Yucca mountain, which was the ideal repository of nuclear waste - and already paid for.
But at least we have a fund already existing, paid for 100% by the nuclear produce
Headline Not Accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
Headline: Germany is First Major Economy To Phase Out Coal and Nuclear
Actual: German government says it plans to be the First Major Economy To Phase Out Coal and Nuclear
The first version states what is supposed to be an already accomplished fact ("is"). The second recognizes that government plans for things 18 years in the future don't always come true, among other things...
it is even worst (Score:4, Informative)
Re:it is even worst (Score:5, Informative)
Electricity production Germany in 2019:
Coal: 57 TWh, lignite: 114 TWh, nuclear 75 TWh, gas 91 TWh, oil 5 TWh, renewables: 244 TWh, other 26 TWh, import 40 TWh, export 72 TWh, consumption: 579 TWh,, source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen... [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
So no, Germany does not depend on coal and nuclear electricity from elsewhere. Net exports were 33 TWh.
Re:it is even worst (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nice. Irrelevant but nice.
Note that if the 255TWh of solar/wind/renewables comes at times when Germany doesn't need it, or fails to come at times they really need it, they'll still be importing electricity. Quite possibly from France's abundant supply of always-on nuclear power....
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Germany exports all most all the time and imports more than it exports only on some occasions. But is also has a lot of reserve capacity which it could use.. I never depended on imports from France.
There is a lot of information here:
https://www.energy-charts.de/ [energy-charts.de]
In contrast France always-on nuclear power... is not always on. France then depends on imports when multiple plants go off-line, e.g. in summer when it gets too hot (this is in the news almost regular when there is a heat wave in Europe), or when the
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Re:it is even worst (Score:4, Informative)
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Shit. I bet they never did that math. I guess Germany will be plunged into the dark ages once more, and will have to rely on the burning of witches to provide heat and light.
Or maybe, just maybe, some of that $45b will be spent on new power sources to replace those?
No, that's impossible. They'd only have 18 years to replace those power sources, and they're taking them offline....checks summary.... TODAY!
Re: it is even worst (Score:3)
And that is bullshit too.
We definitely have the resources to go full renewable. The grid just isn't ready right now at this moment. But it will be.
Also, you know you can buy green power from our neighbors too. Like solar power from Spain via low-loss HVDC lines. Or wind from the north sea. (There is no such thing as a non-windy north sea.)
The only thing that annoys me to no end, is how they don't just use large covered pumped-storage hydroelectric dams to store energy for when there is neither enough sun no
Do the math (Score:3)
> The only thing that annoys me to no end, is how they don't just use large covered pumped-storage hydroelectric dams to store energy for when there is neither enough sun nor enough wind
Do the math on that and maybe it will annoy you less.
It's not that unusual, during a particular season, for an entire country to have cloud cover for a week or so. Which means you need about a week of storage. Really you need to be prepared for the very unusual cases too, but we need not get into that now.
Hoover dam is
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No, that's not a fact. Just take a look at Germany's electricity production numbers [energy-charts.de] in different month.
Also, wind and solar capacities are different.
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I concur. Spent a couple days on Wangerooge last summer getting sandblasted. I guess it's a poor man's skin exfoliation treatment?
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Fun fact: as a rule of thumb, where there is no sun, there is wind, and vice versa.
Pretty clear you don't live near the ocean, nor spent any significant amount of time near it. At night is when the wind tends to die down, too [wisc.edu]. So you get that long, on average 12 hour period of low/no sun - exactly at the same time you tend to get low/no wind.
Ummm... no? (Score:2)
Ummm..... would you like to perhaps try and defend that insane statement?
We buy all our oil from offshore, does that make us 100% green also?
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So Germany never needs to buy power from France - ever? Because that's basically what you just stated. If they needed to buy power from France at any time, even if they have an overall annual net export level - then they relied upon French nuclear power. What would have happened if Germany did NOT buy from France when it did? Germany would have gone dark
This is the fallacy of "I exported more than I imported, thus I never needed to import in the first place!" France's production is incredibly constant
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Germany never actually needs to buy power from France because Germany had a huge amount of overcapacity as reserve for decades. The current installed capacity can power about 1.3 Germanies. There are two reasons for Germany to import electrical power from France - one is transit - Germany is exactly at the center of Europe - and the other is that it is sometimes cheaper and the European power grid is completely interconnected.
And as for the French constant reliability, you are, again, talking out of your ar
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Germany will "phase out nuclear and coal" when it stops importing nuclear and coal generated electricity from places like France and Sweden. Exporting the manufacturing you don't like and importing the result is not "phasing out".
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Germany net exported 32 TWh of electicity in 2019. It does not depend on nuclear power from France or Sweden. Repeating that over and over again does not make it true. Actual data: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen... [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
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Oh, it does. Because there's no way to store any meaningful amount of electricity it very much depends on its neighbours to balance its electricity grids against the spikes produced by the wind and solar installations. And if in the end it produces more annually than it consumes does not change that.
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No it does not. It mainly uses its own existing plants (gas, coal, pumped storage) to compensate for variation. Only to a small part it uses imports for this purpose. But - at this time - it does not need to do this as it has enough reserve capacity. Sometimes it makes economic sense.
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oh it will when it gets rid of its coal, lignite and nuclear power plants though, it'll import a whole heap more than that 32TWh.
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Germany net exported 32 TWh of electicity in 2019. It does not depend on nuclear power from France or Sweden.
Then why does it import power at all? Perhaps because its own generation was not sufficient at various times of the year - and thus it needed to depend upon nuclear power from France and Sweden during those times?
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Could be, but this is not really the case. The numbers are public to the hour, but I am a bit tired discussing with trolls at the moment.
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How about adding up the numbers in your graph? Germany exports more than it imports.
BTW: Here is the direct link:
https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/... [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
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Also take a look at this graph. Germany net exported a lot of power in 8 months and net imported a relatively small amount in 4 summer months:
https://www.energy-charts.de/t... [energy-charts.de]
Does it look like it is depend on power from France or Sweden?
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Following up on this a little bit. A point in time where Germany imported a lot of electricity was Mai 23 2019 in the evening, where there was almost no wind and solar production and imports where above 10 GW (this seems very rare):
https://www.energy-charts.de/p... [energy-charts.de]
Does this imply that Germany needed this imports? This seems unlike as conventional production was just 33 GW at this time and - if you go to January - one sees that Germany could ramp up conventional production to about 60 GW. The conclusion is t
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Lying to yourself over and over doesn't make your wishful thinking true.
So stop doing it.
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Which part of we export more than we import do you not grasp?
No. (Score:2)
What part of you still have to import power do you not grasp?
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What looks like an import is actually a transit.
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Again: which part of "we export more than we import" don't you grasp?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
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What's wrong with you?
Germany intends to scrap its coal, lignite and nuclear stations.
OK, but don't assume that means it'll still be able to export all that power, the power its exporting now is because they can burn coal on demand and send it to its neighbours who have discrepancies between supply and demand because they're increasingly using renewables. Once Germany uses renewables too, everyone will have too little all at the same time, and too much all at the same time (roughly).
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And while I am at it (sorry, I can't let your error stand), here is an older article from Fraunhofer ISE, the research institute that provide the data you just misinterpreted:
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/... [fraunhofer.de]
"The data show that Germany has generated over 13 billion euros in revenue from electricity exports over the last ten years. In 2015, Germany’s electricity export surplus amounted to 50 terawatt hours, also a new record."
"Most of Germany’s electricity imports came from France. Here Germany a
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Not insightful.
Simply wrong.
Hint: Headline: Germany is First Major Economy To Phase Out Coal and Nuclear
It is clearly in the future and not accomplished yet :P
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True, but is not unrealistic.In fact I expect the market do drive this forward much faster. In 2019 Germany produced 246.3 TWh of electricity from nuclear (75.1 TWh), coal (57.3 TWh), and lignite (113.0 TWh). It produced 244 TWh of electricity from renewables, which were to a largle extend added in the last 20 years. In 2000 it produced 461.1 TWh of electricity from nuclear (169.6 TWh), from coal (143.1 TWh), and lignite (148.3 TWh), and from renewables only 25.1 TWh. As this transition is not linear, most
what about though (Score:2)
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Fun fact: This is making power plants a profit! (Score:2)
This might actually be the plan of the coal plant operators. ...
How? Well, funny story
Turns out the plant operators get the money they would have made with operating the plants for 30 years at current, very high profits, but in reality, 30 yewrs is the lifetime of a power plant, and most of them are in their last years. So far mor than the plants are worth. Hell, due to most of it being profit, also far more than it costs to build new ones.
So in essence, they get a very large sum of free money from German t
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This is because the goal is to get off coal, rather than to punish coal industry. You may not agree with that goal, but that is the reason the industry is getting a buyout. Think about it as buying a business you don't like and shutting it down, a civilized option over destroying by by force, which starts a war (in this case legal or or even political, like all the sudden all coal plants shut down at once in protest, you know, "go on strike", and/or holding cities not yet off of coal hostage - sorry, the go
Let me put this into perspective (Score:3)
Germany did make the decision to phase out Nuclear Fission and it is happening, that is true.
However, we still have way to many coal plants and the transition is buffered by nuclear fission power we buy from France.
That all being said, it is entirely possible for a country like Germany removing coal and nuclear fission from their energy-buffet. We have huge offshore windparks that are being built but rooftop solar isn't too far yet. The powerlines needed for the energy source transition are also still being built.
Bottom line: Germany could remove coal and nuclear and still be fine. The official policy is to do that. How long that will actually take is up to a few factors. Environmental awareness is one of those things and it's due to climate change and its effects that this process will probably be accelerated.
But right now it hasn't happend yet, it's just official policy and on its way.
Liar. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except it does have to import power from France, because it cannot generate (yet) enough power all the time.
Or would you prefer blackouts when that happens?
On average over the year Germany can produce enough, at present, however averages and peaks are two VERY different things.
Not to mention.. Electric cars ramping up.. better learn to love those wind farms!
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Except this is not really true. Germany produces enough at almost all times and has enough reserve power plants that it could produce enough power for itself at all times. It some points in time it might import more than it exports because this is cheaper, but even this is rare. In fact, there are times where France depends on power imports, e.g. in when multiple plants go off-line at the same time for maintance or because cooling does not work because it is too hot outside.
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which is all well and good, but works only because those power plants are coal, lignite or nuclear and can generate when the renewables are not producing much. They are the ones that are being scrapped.
Germany burns trees instead of coal (Score:3)
From bad to worse.
In related news... (Score:2)
Outsourcing (Score:2)
Joke of a post (Score:3)
Germany killing their nukes would show how foolish they are. And considering that they just opened a new coal plant, this stuff is just like China; FULL OF SHIT.
Re: learn to swim (Score:2)
Northern Germany will disappear under the sea.
What's there to see, anyway?
Hamburg will be on the coast.
Wasn't this the plan all along? *ducks*
I mean, it's expensive enough to live there, why not get a coast line to go with the rent, while you're at it?...
Re: learn to swim (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you heard of dams?
Hint: Half of the Netherlands is already below sea level. Didn't stop them from carving even more land from the sea. In 2100 they probably will have a land border with the former UK. ;)
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If the risk from nuclear is far off in someone else's yard, mission accomplished.
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I'm waiting for the day Ukraine reopens the remaining 3 reactors in Pripyat to sell cheap electricity to Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, which would be closing their NPP because of German green pressure in about a decade.
Not great, not terrible, 36 mSv.
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It's not necessarily hypocritical. People don't want coal because the atmosphere with CO2 and mercury for the whole world. But with nuclear, people don't like nuclear because of NIMBY. If the risk from nuclear is far off in someone else's yard, mission accomplished.
The problem with that argument is that whenever there is NIMBY there is usually a rock solid reason why nobody wants that thing ITBY and in the case of nuclear that reason is potentially cataclysmic levels of radiation ITBY when the plant operator decides to cut all corners on safety in favour of a slightly better bottom line in the running of a nuclear power station that is already massively un-competitive.
Wind.. (Score:2)
I guess thats also why people NIMBY wind farms then.
By your logic there is a good reason they dont want them, other than just 'they dont want them', so they should never be used.
Re: Their Russian natural gas contract must be gre (Score:2)
Sure, until in about 15 years Germany is owned by Russia and obeys Putin or they freeze.
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No problem, Germany is already paying damn near twice for it's electricity than its neighbors because of it's absurd position. They're just crippling their own economy. Reminder coal produces 40% of their power. Idiots.
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Germany has very little black coal, and no source of uranium. Even short of Lebensraum. Surprise us?
They also have no rare earths but they are consuming them like they are going out of style. You can buy LEU very cheaply on the open market. Germany could store a century of fuel in a single Olympic size pool (which if you added a concrete top would technically be sufficient storage). Access to fuel isn't Germany's problem.