52
German power mix may get dirtier for 1st non-nuclear winter
(www.reuters.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
52 points (69.4% liked)
Europe
8324 readers
1 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
How is nuclear energy "still fossil"?
It isn't but it has all the same downsides as fossil fuels in terms of being dependent on some countries for fuel imports, extraction being extremely environmentally damaging, limited supply,...
It is a limited resource we dig out of the ground in countries we don't want to be depending on, because to do it in our own countries is too dirty for us. Then we use this bound energy and convert it into heat we release into the atmosphere. The only thing missing for being technically "fossil" is that it's originated from organic matter.
Short from that, it definitively classifies as not renewable, not sustainable, dangerous, not climate neutral, expensive, antquiated idea. And in the sense of being an antiquated idea at least, it is "still fossil".
It is not fossil, but i agree that we should switch over to use the term renewable instead, because that's the goal.
It is not, but if you spout lied loud enough some people believe you.
Except your wrong. It's the most expensive form of energy generation. The question is are you just dumb or saying wrong stuff on purpose. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
The levelised cost doesn't take into account the need to offset intermittence, which is the big fucking problem that the entire population of Germany seems to be ignoring.
Ah yes you don't have the exact same problem with nuclear because energy usage never fluctuates. But even if it would takes 10 times more money to store solar energy it still would be cheaper than nuclear.
Rare earths for batteries are a bottleneck, especially if you want to electrify transport too.
No they aren't. There are so many different battery types that don't use any rare materials. You can store heat in salt. SALT
Yes and we absolutely should, but Germany is going to have to build a shit ton more storage and generation capacity to make that work. Also different storage technologies have different discharge rates, while traditional batteries can provide instant, short lasting and much needed frequency regulation, heat-based batteries take time to respond but can operate for prolonged periods. This is also a really complex balance to reach.
Again, not saying there isn't space for renewables: my ideal grid is 40% nuclear 60% renewable.
but I'm not certain we can grow storage and production with the rate of increase in demand by purely using renewables. Especially given the future need for air conditioning, and green hydrogen production for industrial processes like steelmaking.
We're in the midst of a climate crisis, and my only and primary goal is to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. The statistics show clearly that Germany's phase out of nuclear had done the opposite. The wrong decision was made: these plants should have at least been maintained, and, in my opinion, moderately expanded. The EU should have developed an EU-wide nuclear fuel reprocessing and storage programme, and we could be much closer to climate neutrality and relative energy independence today.
Scheiße, I've upset the Germans.
That needs more than a lunatic on an online board.