Germany Set To Miss Net Zero By 2045 Target as Climate Efforts Falter (reuters.com) 188
An anonymous reader shares a report: German goals to cut greenhouse emissions by 65% by 2030 are likely to be missed, meaning a longer-term net zero by a 2045 target is also in doubt, reports by government climate advisers and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) show. The European Union has sought to be a climate leader and Germany has set itself more ambitious targets than the bloc as a whole, but in many countries politics and the economic crisis have pushed the climate crisis down the agenda. Germany, Europe's largest economy, aims to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 65% by 2030 compared with 1990. Last year its CO2 levels were already 40% below the 1990 level, but the new reports said that was not enough.
"The expected overall reduction is probably overestimated," Hans-Martin Henning, the chairman of a council of climate experts that advises the government, said in a statement on Tuesday. The German government has ordered 130 measures in various sectors. The buildings and transport sectors in particular are failing to implement them, the council of government climate advisers' report said. The buildings sector is expected to be 35 million tonnes of CO2 short of target by 2030, while the transport sector is expected to have excess emissions of between 117 million and 191 million tonnes compared with the government target. Tuesday's advisers' report coincided with another from the UBA that found that Germany cannot become climate neutral by 2045 on the basis of planned and existing government climate policy.
"The expected overall reduction is probably overestimated," Hans-Martin Henning, the chairman of a council of climate experts that advises the government, said in a statement on Tuesday. The German government has ordered 130 measures in various sectors. The buildings and transport sectors in particular are failing to implement them, the council of government climate advisers' report said. The buildings sector is expected to be 35 million tonnes of CO2 short of target by 2030, while the transport sector is expected to have excess emissions of between 117 million and 191 million tonnes compared with the government target. Tuesday's advisers' report coincided with another from the UBA that found that Germany cannot become climate neutral by 2045 on the basis of planned and existing government climate policy.
Maybe..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't have traded all their nuke plants for fossil fuel ones?
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Schroeder was totally corrupt, that's clear, but do we have any real evidence that Merkel was corrupt rather than just stupid?
Re:Maybe..... (Score:5, Insightful)
And more fantasies from the nuclearly deranged. Do you have any working brain cells?
It doesn't take much nuclear belief to see that building pipelines from Russia for gas rather cables from Scotland and Morocco for electricity was a bad idea. Also noticing that Schroeder, Germany's chancellor when they committed to this stupidity is the currently the chairman of the board for Nordstream makes it pretty clear who's paying him for his success in destroying Germany's energy security.
The most amazing thing is that the German Greens largely opposed the shutdown of nuclear plants on Merkel's schedule whilst the German conservatives committed to it utterly before they had built reasonable electricity interconnect. Germany's biggest problem isn't even the connection from the North coast to Scotland and Norway where energy could come from. The internal connection from the North of Germany to the South is even worse than that.
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The most amazing thing is that the German Greens largely opposed the shutdown of nuclear plants on Merkel's schedule whilst the German conservatives committed to it utterly before they had built reasonable electricity interconnect.
That's actually pretty interesting to hear. It's hard for us to understand German politics if we don't speak German.
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And more fantasies from the nuclearly deranged. Do you have any working brain cells?
It doesn't take much nuclear belief to see that building pipelines from Russia for gas rather cables from Scotland and Morocco for electricity was a bad idea. Also noticing that Schroeder, Germany's chancellor when they committed to this stupidity is the currently the chairman of the board for Nordstream makes it pretty clear who's paying him for his success in destroying Germany's energy security.
The most amazing thing is that the German Greens largely opposed the shutdown of nuclear plants on Merkel's schedule whilst the German conservatives committed to it utterly before they had built reasonable electricity interconnect. Germany's biggest problem isn't even the connection from the North coast to Scotland and Norway where energy could come from. The internal connection from the North of Germany to the South is even worse than that.
The thing about Germany's nuke plants is that they were EOL anyway, they were old and it was hideously expensive to try to extend their life.
Now the gas issue, yeah, not the smartest thing to do but Merkel and the CDU were under pressure from fickle German voters to do the cheapest thing possible, it's not that we didn't know Russia was untrustworthy (British topical news program "Have I Got News For You" had a caricature of Putin turning of Europes gas supply in it's opening credits from 2012) it was ju
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Have you read the summary at all? It's not the electricity plants that are missing the goal. It's heating houses and driving cars.
If you ask the German population if something should be done to help the climate, most people will agree. But as soon as you tell them they need to invest money from their own pockets to replace their gas heating with a heat pump and improve the insulation of their houses and stop driving more than 130 km/h, many say f*** off.
Valid reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you read the summary at all? It's not the electricity plants that are missing the goal. It's heating houses and driving cars.
If you ask the German population if something should be done to help the climate, most people will agree. But as soon as you tell them they need to invest money from their own pockets to replace their gas heating with a heat pump and improve the insulation of their houses and stop driving more than 130 km/h, many say f*** off.
To be fair, much of German housing was heated with natural gas, and after Nord Stream went away the German people had to decide between climate goals and freezing to death.
The climate last winter was particularly mild, which prevented a lot of Germans prevent freezing to death, but they really can't rely on having such incredibly good luck a second time.
I think freezing to death might to be a valid reason to throw climate goals out the window, at least temporarily.
Do you agree or disagree?
Climate change policy will, in a more general sense, always be competing with safety and security. This is obviously a facet of human motivation [wikipedia.org] that the climate change activists don't seem to address. Or even recognize.
You say that people aren't taking the climate threat seriously, that they aren't doing enough, that they don't consider it enough of a threat... but in reality there are more pressing threats, and people will - quite reasonably - want to deal with first.
Threats such as malaria.
Taking malaria as an example, we could just about eliminate the human suffering from malaria with a relatively small investment ($10b over 10 years). To put this in perspective, most deaths from malaria are children, and it is most definitely *not* unreasonable to believe that the health of your child today is more important than the health of the climate in 50 years.
That example can be used as an analogy to just about everything else in the world related to climate change.
It's a risk, but not an immediate one, and there are more immediate risks that are more serious that we have to take care of first.
As an example, I don't think the people of Ukraine are in any way interested in climate change policies.
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"it is most definitely *not* unreasonable to believe that the health of your child today is more important than the health of the climate in 50 years." ... more important, to *whom* ?
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To be fair, much of German housing was heated with natural gas, and after Nord Stream went away the German people had to decide between climate goals and freezing to death.
To be fair if Germany had decided in 2014 to start to decouple from Russia rather than buoy they economy on cheap Russian gas while funding Putin's war machine, this wouldn't be a problem now. They had 8 years to figure out what to do, instead they leaned in.
Re:Valid reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody was ever in any danger of "freezing to death" in Germany. In France, on the other hand....
The poster was saying that Germans would have froze to death if they hadn't used their gas heaters. I think you wanted to deflect your rage on France by mentioning that in 2022, France has to import ~3% of its electricity from neighbors (source [euractiv.com]). However:
- electricity has nothing to do with gas heaters... I think you are mixing up your rants here
- France has been a net exporter for the last 50 years, to countries like Germany for instance
- you might want to check the numbers for the first half of 2023 [bloomberg.com]. France is lead electricity exporter in Europe, and German actually imported more than it exported... Back to normal I guess.
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Nobody was ever in any danger of "freezing to death" in Germany. In France, on the other hand....
The poster was saying that Germans would have froze to death if they hadn't used their gas heaters.
That is an utterly stupid statement. These "gas heaters" are not portable units or the like. They are fixed installations used by default. Of course, if you do not turn on your standard heating method, you may freeze to death. But that statement has no information value whatsoever.
- electricity has nothing to do with gas heaters... I think you are mixing up your rants here
You think wrongly. In _France_ most domestic heating is electrical. In Germany, it is not. Details matter.
France has been a net exporter for the last 50 years, to countries like Germany for instance
Not for the last 2-3 years or so for high-usage times. Yes, sure, they dump their surplus electricity at low prices when nob
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In _France_ most domestic heating is electrical.
No. I told you times and times before: you need to stop thinking that the world works according to your wildest dreams.
In France, most domestic heating is gaz [voltalis.com]. Data from the ADEME (french energy-related body) actually shows:
- 44% of households using gas
- 30% using electricity
- 13% using fioul
Details matter.
Yes. Truth does to. Stop saying things that you "think" are true, without checking them first, or providing sources for them.
Not for the last 2-3 years or so for high-usage times. Yes, sure, they dump their surplus electricity at low prices when nobody really needs it because they cannot reduce what their nukes produce (nukes are sloooow to react) and a nuke that does not have its electricity used needs to SCRAM.
You do realize you can check import/export status and times for any country, right? Like for F
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As to your numbers: Citation needed.
You do realize you can check import/export status and times for any country, right? Like for France, you can do so here [rte-france.com]. They are exporting at all times, and also during high-usage times as you say.
And then you look at, say, numbers from December 2022 and discover you are full of shit.
Hence France sometimes _pays_ for people to take its electricity.
You are describing the situation of renewables, which not only have grid priority
Nope. Renewables you can just let idle. Not possible for Nukes except if planned long in advance. Power generated by nukes _needs_ to be consumed immediately or things go to hell.
During high-usage times, France has been paying through its nose to buy electricity because it cannot produce enough. Details matter.
Yet they enjoy lower prices and emit ten times less CO2eq/kWh than Germany. Facts matter.
They do not. They pay a lot more than in Germany, but the real cost gets hidden. Nuclear power and electricity in general is massively subsidized by the government in France.
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Citation needed.
I provided them. Just click on the links, it's not that hard.
And then you look at, say, numbers from December 2022 and discover you are full of shit.
In 2022, France imported ~3% of its electricity. That was the only year in the last 50 years, and so far 2023 looks like a good year for them [bloomberg.com] with them being the top exporter in Europe for the first half of 2023, and Germany going back to its importer habit. Just look at the pattern for the last 6 months, you will see that most days, France has to send electricity (~2 nuclear power plants equivalent) to Germany. That is what I am saying, not sure
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Citation needed.
I provided them. Just click on the links, it's not that hard.
The electrical heating ones. You did not provide them.
And then you look at, say, numbers from December 2022 and discover you are full of shit.
In 2022, France imported ~3% of its electricity.
Sooo, I catch you in an obvious extreme lie, point you to the specific data (in your own source!) and you just move the goalposts. Nice. The fuck _look_ at december 1st, 2022 and then claim again that France "always" exports electricity. I dare you.
Nope. Renewables you can just let idle. Not possible for Nukes except if planned long in advance.
As said, and I already provided you with sources:
- nuclear can go spool down to 30% in ~30 mins.
That statement is meaningless. Spool down from what? Which nukes can do it? Can they spool up again and how fast? Also, planning intervals for electricity in Europe was 10 minutes the last time I checked. Fact
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_look_ at december 1st, 2022 and then claim again that France "always" exports electricity. I dare you.
I will repeat what I said, because you seem to have comprehension issues: France has been a net exporter of cheap electricity for the last 50 years, EXCEPT in 2022 (more precisely the months of July/August, and November/December, if I recally correct), when they had to import ~3% of their electricity consumption, or 16.5ish TWh (they used ~445TWh in 2022). That data can be sourced from here [euractiv.com] for instance.
So yeah, MOST days (not always), France exports electricity. And MOST years (98% of the last 50 years), t
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You claim was "always".
Mate, you are the one claiming "always". Citation needed.
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A country like France will only import electricity because they have no choice.
You are right on this one. A country like France will only import electricity when they have no choice, which based on the last 50 years, occured in 2022 only. A 98% yearly electricity exporter status is something other countries should try to aim. Germany could try that (talking about Germany because this is the country in question on this story).
Nuclear is very expensive when not running.
At least you are making us laugh. So... run it?
This means that for 5 years running they could not generate enough electricity at high-use times on quite a few days and had no choice but to import.
Yes, this is how the electricity market works: sometimes you import, sometimes you export. Then you can have a look
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It's heating houses and driving cars.
To be fair, the summary (and linked article) lump the "transport sector" together. Which include cars, electric passenger trains and freight. And even if they can make inroads into the fossil fuel consumption by switching to electric vehicles, now they have to charge them from a coal plant. Same for switching home heating to heat pumps.
Face it: Most of the green technology that people are hanging their hopes on depend on electric power. Get that wrong and they are screwed.
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...and stop driving more than 130 km/h, many say f*** off.
that's why you're trying to whip that through now with such fervor right now, isn't it. While there's still plenty of ICU cars around, because this argument would fly right out of the window once there's enough electric cars. And compared to other things that could be done even now, that speed limit thing is a rounding error, even within the context of Germany, which in turn is a rounding error globally.
It's not the CO2 is it, really, nor is it "safety". Its the unbearable fact that people are free to jud
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Oh hello, haven't seen some of your dumb opinions in a while :)
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Only if you are stupid and have no clue how things work. Which, to be fair, true for all people that are still nuclear fans against all reason.
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You do realize that we are winning right? There are more nuclear plants being designed and built than ever. You are aware the 4th gen plants have been approved.
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Maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't have traded all their nuke plants for fossil fuel ones?
I would make the No Nukers man gist arrays of capstans to generate the missing power. This wouldn't be totally carbon free, because your food always involves some carbon generation, but it would get Germany to net zero faster than belching lignite.
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Possibly. But nuclear power or lack of it has nothing to do with the problems being reported in this story.
The reason Germany will miss its building sector goals is that legislation needed to meet the goal has been blocked. Germany currently has a coalition government between the Social Democrats, Greens, and FDP, a small center-right party. FDP has used its kingmaker position in the coalition government has to block anti-fossil fuel legislation. So -- even if Germany made *all* of its electricity by nucle
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It is impossible to reduce carbon emissions to the levels they are proposing without completely destroying our economy and our entire society.
I hear this kind of thing said all the time, but I don't think I've ever seen any justification for it.
The fact is that we've *already* become much better at generating a buck of economic growth with less CO2 than we were even twenty years ago [iea.org]. The US generates 40% less CO2 per dollar of GDP than it did twenty years ago. China generates 43% less CO2 per dollar. You're not going to here me say this very often, but here goes: well done, China.
And this is just what the human race can accomplish when it's no
same for all others (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they will be missed. No country will make that deadline, because see the cost that occur to prevent the problem, but not the cost that happen when the problem arrived. You see this everywhere, on every scale. Politicians too, and they only need to worry about the next election season
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Are you SURE no other country can meet deadlines? I hear France is generating a LOT of carbon-free power.
But yes, too many countries have been co-conspirators with Gazprom & friends to replace one carbon-free energy with other, meanwhile keeping (increasing in some cases) oil & gas usage. And in China, coal is actually subsidized, and other forms of mass pollution are encouraged or ignored.
Once the 'free passes' are cancelled, we can have an honest blame game.
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> Are you SURE no other country can meet deadlines? I hear France is generating a LOT of carbon-free power.
There's a lot more to the problem than electricity. Even if they went 100% carbon-free electricity (which Nuclear isn't unless you ignore the industry needed to support it) they would still fall short. They need to realize cuts to other sectors, especially transportation which is ~30% of their total emissions.
They're struggling too [euractiv.com].
=Smidge=
Re:same for all others (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they went 100% carbon-free electricity (which Nuclear isn't unless you ignore the industry needed to support it)
Which is true for all energy sources, even solar/wind. That's why we are calling them low-carbon energy sources, not "magically 0 carbon energy sources".
They're struggling too.
However, their strategy seems to bear better fruits than the one from Germany. Just look at this Cumulative CO2 chat for the 2 countries [ourworldindata.org]. France emitted 40 billion tons of CO2, while Germany is at 93 billion. They emitted 2.1 times what France emitted, with only 1.2 times the population of France.
And look at the graph: Germany emissions have been increasing exponentially since 1960-70, while France's one has a less pronounced increase.
France still has work to do though, especially in the transportation sector.
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Those are cumulative emissions, not yearly emissions. In fact, both Germany and France are reducing their yearly emissions per capita. [countryeconomy.com]
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Those are cumulative emissions, not yearly emissions.
Yes, that was the point. To show that Germany could have reduced their emissions the same as France 50 years ago, but instead they choosed this very year:
- to close their last nuclear plants in advance (they were only 20-30 years old, could have produced electricity for 60 years)
- to fight ICE ban and gas heaters ban
And it was also an answer to the remark from Smidge saying that "France is struggling too". Whereas in reality, yes they need to do more, but there is not point trying to deflect the failure of
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Re: same for all others (Score:2)
That's expected. If you start from higher, you have more opportunities for reduction.
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Meanwhile, Germany's per capital emissions are dropping faster than France's.
From a much higher level. You can't spin this as Germany somehow doing better.
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Meanwhile, Germany's per capital emissions are dropping faster than France's.
If that was true, this wouldn't be a surprise as they are starting from much higher.
However, it turns out that it is not even true [ourworldindata.org] (you should really try sourcing your assertions with actual data). As you can see, both graphs follow the same pattern. If we look at the CO2 emissions per capita for the time range 2000-2021, we can see:
- that Germany went from 11.03t/capita to 8.09t/capita, which means a 27% reduction
- that France went from 6.93t/capita to 4.74t/capita, which means a 32% reduction
I don't know
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The industrial output of Germany is incidentally also 2.1 times higher.
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The industrial output of Germany is incidentally also 2.1 times higher.
If only that was true. But yet again, another Germany fanboy fails to provide any source to back up his claims.
Let me fix that for you [ourworldindata.org]:
- GDP/capita of Germany is only 10% more than GDP/capita of France
- share of manufacturing in GDP is 23% for France and 26% for Germany. Where is that 2.1 times higher that you are claiming again?
You can even have a look at other sources [europa.eu]. But they are all saying the same thing: Germany emits 2.1 times the amound of CO2 than France per capita, with a lot less to show for it.
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It is true, France fanboi [brookings.edu].
Germany is 7% of the global manufacturing, France is 3%.
The numbers are a couple of years old, but France failed to become an industrial powerhouse in the meantime despite all the nukes they had.
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Of course they will be missed. No country will make that deadline, because see the cost that occur to prevent the problem, but not the cost that happen when the problem arrived. You see this everywhere, on every scale. Politicians too, and they only need to worry about the next election season
Your glass is obviously half empty. I, on the other hand, am actually amazed that they got this far:
According to the naysayers back in the 1990s getting CO2 emissions to 40% of what they were back then was supposed to cause an economic cataclysm and covering north of 40% of Germany's energy consumption with renewables [cleanenergywire.org] was supposed to be an insurmountable engineer challenge, ... and yet, here we are. Furthermore:
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Your glass is obviously half empty. I, on the other hand, am actually amazed that they got this far:
According to the naysayers back in the 1990s to 40% of what they were back then was supposed to cause an economic cataclysm and covering north of 40% of Germany's energy consumption with renewables [cleanenergywire.org] was supposed to be an insurmountable engineer challenge, ... and yet, here we are.
I agree with you that a reduction of 40% is amazing, but I have to kvetch that dropping emissions by 40% of what they were is not the same as getting CO2 emissions to 40% of what they were. So, no, they're not there yet.
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The Paris Agreement, with 110 countries signing on, still requires a reduction by 45% by 2030 and net zero by 2050. The overall prospects currently are not that great, but a number of countries might well reach their goals. Some like the UK, Sweden, Denmark, France, New Zealand and Hungary even have legal commitments.
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China is five years ahead of its goal to hit peak emissions and then drop to net zero.
Germany's problem is that it's cold, everyone uses gas for heating, and converting to electric heating is a big cost that nobody has a good solution for.
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About 6%, but distributed very unequally across the country.
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Thanks to the "Green" Party (Score:5, Informative)
Their irrational aversion to any form of nuclear power generation whatsoever has not only dumpstered Germany's climate goals by forcing them onto burning dirty lignite coal, but from a national security perspective utterly gutted Germany's energy independence and made them reliant on imports. The "plan" was to rely on Russian LNG while renewables amiable to the Greens like solar and wind were phased in, but then Ukraine happened and welp! Just utter incompetence.
Re:Thanks to the "Green" Party (Score:5, Insightful)
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And French nuclear power wasn't able to make up the difference.
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Nuclear doesn't replace gas in most instances. Gas is burned for heat. Electric heating is possible, but it's expensive to retrofit to existing German houses.
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Not wanting the most expensive source of electricity available to mankind [reuters.com] is quite rational:
What is funny is that while they didn't want the more expensive form of electricity known to man, they sure embraced it. Coal that is. When you calculate all the damage that coal has done to the planet and then factor in the health effect, you really can't calculate it, now can you. I'm sure Germany didn't want to embrace this most expensive form of energy, but they did.
Yeah, I know you meant it as a hit piece on nuclear energy. But you should do more research before posting bullshit.
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You do realize the "report" you linked is written by an anti-nuclear activist [wikipedia.org], right. But I guess he is unbiased of course.
I take it you will also want the waste dumped in your back yard?
Sure, if that means I can dump all the equivalent CO2 and pollution from fossil fuels in your backyard.
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You do realize the "report" you linked is written by an anti-nuclear activist [wikipedia.org], right. But I guess he is unbiased of course.
I take it you will also want the waste dumped in your back yard?
Sure, if that means I can dump all the equivalent CO2 and pollution from fossil fuels in your backyard.
First off, when did I advocate for fossil fuels? Secondly, literal quote from that Reuters article:
Renewables not only beat nuclear on price, they also beat all fossil fuels on price except nat-gas and that's assuming there isn't a war raging on somewhere that's driving nat-gas prices through the roof. Nobody
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Secondly, literal quote from that Reuters article:
"The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189."
Mate, you are quoting a sentence from reuters, citing an anti-nuclear report... Reuters is just reporting, they don't say anything about the validity of the source.
If you want to take quotes out of their context, the article also says:
"The WNA said in an emailed statement that studies have shown that nuclear energy has a proven track record in providing new generation faster than other low-carbon options, and added that in many countries nuclear generation provides on average more low-carbon power per year
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It's not just Reuters. The cost of electricity from new nuclear plants in the UK is published by the government. Reuter's figure is about right, based on what Hinkley Point C is getting.
Similarly, you can look at the contracts for wind and solar too. Onshore wind is subsidy free now, and The Netherlands only offers off-shore wind a short term loan to cover capital costs for a few years.
At this point I don't think anyone can realistically argue that renewable energy not vastly cheaper than nuclear. You could
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At this point I don't think anyone can realistically argue that renewable energy not vastly cheaper than nuclear. You could argue that we still need "base load", or that the amount of storage needed for renewables increases the cost, but not that nuclear itself is in any way cheap.
Well, you have your answer. It all depends what you include in the cost.
The best metric would be to compare the VALCOE [wikipedia.org], or Value-adjusted levelized cost of electricity, "which includes both the cost of the electricity and the value to the electricity system".
A lot of actual reports show that nuclear is on-par with solar/wind [windows.net] (page 48 of the report for a quick to understand graph). Or to say it in a more realistic way: solar/wind finally caught up with the low price of nuclear, after decades of subsides (yes
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Your own link points out the huge flaw in VALCOE - it is based on daft assumptions like nobody simply adding more solar panels to cover peak demands, or more widespread wind.
If we are not allowed to make reasonable, cost effective, and necessary changes to the grid and to how we handle demand, we can't get to net zero anyway. So the question becomes, do you make the changes designed to make nuclear competitive (by raising the cost of renewables), or do you go for plentiful, low cost energy?
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or do you go for plentiful, low cost energy
Oh, you mean nuclear then. I thought you were advocating for an all-renewable grid, but I guess I misunderstood.
To be fair, I am not saying we should for an all-nuclear option. Hydro is preferable when available. PHES is also a good option to complement nuclear for peaking [wikipedia.org]. Some solar/wind because diversifying your mix is always good, and it will make the nuclear fuel last longer (provided the nuclear plants are ran in load-following mode like in France).
The main change I would make actually, is to make nuc
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How is nuclear a cheap option? Have you seen how much it costs and how long it takes to build?
That's the other issue with nuclear. We can't reach our climate goals if we rely on it. Take Germany, they want to be net zero by 2045. If they start building nuclear plants today, the first ones will be coming online around around 2043.
So they keep burning fossil fuels until nuclear starts to come on stream, and then have a year or two max to convert their entire economy over - replace gas heating with electric, r
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That's the other issue with nuclear. We can't reach our climate goals if we rely on it.
We can't reach climate goals if we only rely on renewables though. Take Germany, with all their investments (500 billion), and a 30 years headstart they will still not be netzero by 2045. Actually, in 2045 they will still emit more CO2eq/kWh than France.
If they start building nuclear plants today, the first ones will be coming online around around 2043.
Unless *gasps* we manage to build nuclear plants in 4-5 years, like China is doing (with 50 of them online, and 150 more that will be online by 2035). Why do Chinese engineers/builders have to be better than us? In those 4-5 years time, build as many renewab
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The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29â"$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.
Renewables not only beat nuclear on price, they also beat all fossil fuels on price except nat-gas and that's assuming there isn't a war raging on somewhere that's driving nat-gas prices through the roof. Nobody wants astronomic nuclear energy prices and nobody (except you perhaps) wants nuclear waste in their back yard either. Until nuclear can solve both problems it won't be viable without massive state subsidies (as is the case in nuclear energy poster child country, France, for example).
I've seen those numbers before and they're nonsense. How much is a MWh of solar power at night, again?
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How much is a MWh of solar power at night, again?
Priceless.
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How much is a MWh of nuclear when the power plant has to be shut down for months due to the coolant water being too hot? How much is a MWh of nuclear when the power plant operator actually has to pay for waste disposal and insurance?
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How much is a MWh of nuclear when the power plant has to be shut down for months due to the coolant water being too hot?
It has nothing to do with coolant water being too warm. It was river water that was deemed too warm to release condensed water. And it only affected like 5 plants for a week last year. So months is a lie.
The solution is simple. Dig ditch. Fill with water. Let water cool. Release water
How much is a MWh of nuclear when the power plant operator actually has to pay for waste disposal and insurance?
In the US both of those are included in the cost. Nuclear energy has public insurance which has never been used, and they have paid 10x the required funds for used fuel(aka waste).
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First off, when did I advocate for fossil fuels?
Historically opposition to nuclear results in more fossil fuels. That is still true today. So your opposition to nuclear is the same as being an advocate for fossil fuels.
Just for the record Germany pays way more for electricity than France while being 9x dirtier.
nuclear waste
The biggest non-problem in the world. Zero people have ever died from used fuel(nuclear waste from a nuclear power plant). Zero. We could take all of it and place it in a building the size of a Walmart. All of it! It decays exponentially
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The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.
You have to also consider the much lower capacity factor for solar and wind, plus the additional cost of storage and/or spinning reserves. If you are honest about the cost of actual dispatchable power the numbers are much closer.
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You don't need a lot of storage or reserve if you have a lot of renewable energy. The wind is always blowing somewhere, you just need enough geographic distribution and enough turbines to make sure you can always hit your minimums.
There is some added cost to over-building of course, but it also opens up the possibility of producing low cost hydrogen fuel or doing water desalination when there is cheap excess energy available.
Plus a lot of storage will be at consumer level, i.e. vehicles. Combined with shift
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The German strategy is fossil fuel heavy. Every MW of renewable requires 1.14MV of fast reacting fossil backing according to EU research. http://www.nber.org/papers/w22454
Renewables are good only if used in combination with Nuclear or some form of storage which doesn't exist yet. Otherwise they only cut emissions by about 40%.
Germany is at this point now so pushing ahead become more and more expensive.
Power is valuable only when you need it, during the day you don't need light however at nightime it's a dif
But new reports say it's not enough... (Score:2)
In short, no matter what you do, no matter how pure your motives.
No matter how doggedly you chase this car, it's NEVER enough.
For these people "Kill everyone on the planet and let nature recover without us" is a "lazy half-measure".
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No, most people arent as crazy as you clearly are.
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Cut back on the drugs. You are deranged.
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The really effective way to achieve zero is to kill about 7 of the 8 billion people.
The way things are going, this will happen all by itself.
Speaking of deranged... You are like those nutbars standing on the street corner with a "The End is Near" sign.
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Speaking of deranged... You are like those nutbars standing on the street corner with a "The End is Near" sign.
If that is your level of perception, then there really is no point in speaking to you. You do not have what it takes to understand things.
Why is transportation missing? (Score:3)
New fossil fuel cars will be banned by 2035 [reuters.com]. So by 2030 I expect most new cars will be EVs (who wants to buy a dead tech?). There will still be a decent fraction of ICEs on the road, but it should be plummeting.
And as bad as their policy of getting rid of nuclear and trying to go pure solar + wind is, EV charging is one of the things that can actually take advantage of those more intermittent power sources.
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So by 2030 I expect most new cars will be EVs (who wants to buy a dead tech?)
You'd be surprised.
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New fossil fuel cars will be banned by 2035 [reuters.com]. So by 2030 I expect most new cars will be EVs (who wants to buy a dead tech?).
Not really. Maybe you missed the news, but Germany (them again? must be a coincidence) turned around earlier this year [sae.org] and managed to lobby the European Union enough so that by 2035 there will still be ICE being sold, as long as they run on e-fuels. Of course, there is no real way to make sure that a car runs on e-fuels only, but hey, on paper it looks good. And it's just standard "foot-in-the-door" tactic so that the date gets pushed back in a few years, and nobody complains much.
It also means that any ICE
Well, gee (Score:2)
Poor strategy (Score:3)
The strategy for carbon reduction which Germany has adopted has significant shortfalls.
German is using renewables in combination with Fast Reacting Fossil generation (FRF). The paper "Bridging the Gap" http://www.nber.org/papers/w22454 has shown for every MW or renewables 1.14% or FRF is required so in fact you're having to build 2 power generation systems, one which is low carbon and the other which has high CO2 emissions. The paper was funded by the European Union.
While Germany's relationship with Russia was amicable this wasn't overly expensive however it is now both expensive and dirty.
To meet climate goals a power storage breakthrough has to occur or Germany will need nuclear power. Otherwise Germany's carbon emissions and electrical costs will remain amongst the highest in the Europe and the world.
German please do the world a favour and turn your reactors back on and start building more. Germany had some of the best reactors in the world and was a shining beacon to the rest of the world on how to weave technology into a carbon free future. But now they just have gas...
Meanwhile Germans spend 4.5 billion ... (Score:2)
... man hours per year in traffic jams and complain about a few dozen youths gluing themselves to the road. Talk about a complete disconnect from reality. ... A bit like some gun enthusiasts in the US complaining about any regulation despite the US having a serious problem with shootings, way more than any other "1st world" country.
All the while every car in use in Germany is occupied by 1.2 people on average. Cars that are increasing in weight and size every year. Totally bizarre and not sustainable by a l
Genuine question (Score:2)
As far as I'm aware, NO country is anywhere really near their targets, pretty much ever.
This article says "Germany will miss 2045 targets"...I'm guessing that's a little unfair as pretty nearly ALL countries will miss these targets.
Or am I mistaken?
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Replacing the cleanest+safest source of power known to mankind with the dirtiest+causing most deaths one just screams "good leadership" to me.
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Perhaps they'll share their amended plans with us when they've worked them out.
You know that some developped countries already emits a tenth of what Germany does per kWh? Sweden, Norway, France... They can share with you what is working and what's not, and they have done that actually (since 50 years for some of them): hydro/nuclear and some solar/wind to help. The problem is that Germany can't do much hydro, and as they don't like nuclear they basically decided to try and do something that has no chance of working in the timeline that we have.
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The really effective way to achieve zero is to kill about 7 of the 8 billion people.
The way things are going, this will happen all by itself. The survivors will have a thoroughly unpleasant planet left though.
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Well one of you has already admitted that to achieve a carbon neutral planet with only solar and wind, that they would be willing to sacrifice millions of people to keep it nuclear free. To see you supporting this wouldn't surprise me.
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Why are you pushing your demented fantasies? And why would anybody use only solar and wind? Apparently you do not even understand the very basics of electricity generation. _You_ clearly are part of the problem because you are a reality-denier.
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The view from the psychopaths [Re:It's Just To...] (Score:2)
The really effective way to achieve zero is to kill about 7 of the 8 billion people. Its pretty much only people that make this pollution, so that's the obvious way.
The obvious way to control population is birth control. The only reason internet assholes propose "We have to kill people" is because they want to make the side that they're pretending to favor appear to be psychopaths.
Go away, troll.
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Now, yes, people would on average be a bit poorer - but that would mostly be rich people not having that extra billion or so
*ah-ha-ha-ha*.... oh wait, you're serious? ... really?
When ever in the history of man has the wealthiest cohort (for argument's sake synonymous with political ruling class) ever given up their gains in the face of economic or ecological pressure? Money is fungible and tends to flow across borders, and so often (indistinguishably close to P=1.0) they simply walk with their cash, bonds, or bullion to the nearest non-cooperating entity (and there's always someone wiling to accept a cut of the wealth to stick i
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*ah-ha-ha-ha*.... oh wait, you're serious? ... really?
Not actually an arguement against me...
Note how I said that would be how it would work, not that the very processes you mention do indeed mean that it isn't going to happen that way.
So odds are pretty solid that the wealthily won't agree to be comparably less rich even if total wealth goes down. Sure they'll have fewer champagne bottles on the yacht, but to get there everyone will have less ENERGY in total, which means less FOOD in total, and it's unlikely to be distributed in the manner which you suggest. The result for the lowest quintile or peoples is likely poverty, starvation and death.
We're well into the point that getting enough food is easy so long as warlords and conflict aren't involved. The level of work necessary is more like the richest rich take one less private plane flight, which can easily pay to outfit said poor people with enough solar panels to mostly make them carbon neutral. Or a couple feet
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Alack, alas, no. Did you perhaps take any courses in recognizing sarcasm?
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If only the earth had a built-in cooling cycle that precipitated an ice age every 100,000 years, and if only it were due soon.
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Just repost it. That is what I do.
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