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Germany set to miss net zero by 2045 target as climate efforts falter
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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If your goal is reliable carbon-free power, it's not obvious that renewables will work out. We basically have to build these enormous continent-spanning machines in order to maintain uptime regardless of weather conditions.
It might be possible in the US and Europe, large regions that will hopefully remain politically stable, but it's never been done before. By comparison, we have built reliable nuclear power plants. Is it really so obvious who is the mechanic and who is the random guy?
It is, I've not seen a single academic study show otherwise. Not the west, nor China, have shown scepticism towards renewables. But there's plenty of that when it comes to the nuclear question. Just look at HPC and SWC in the UK. Companies won't touch it unless the UK government guarantees they make a profit. Not a long term profit. A profit before the project is completed. They want an advance. Then there's the US, over-budget and delayed. Finland, over-budget and delayed. France, over-budger and delayed. EDF prefer their renewables investments than their nuclear ones, mainly because half their nuclear plants are unreliable, and nobody wants to waste more money on them.
I agree that building wind/solar is currently profitable and reduces emissions. Incremental progress is politically easy.
I remain skeptical that following this strategy will ever eliminate fossil fuels, because people will turn to them whenever renewables are underperforming. They'll see the price uncertainty and stick with gas because it works. We won't demolish the power plants because they're still needed 10 days a year. The fossil infrastructure will keep on chugging, just at a reduced scale. We'll eliminate 80% of CO2, and continue to cook ourselves with the last 20%. It's human nature to lose interest when the problem gets hard. Look how long it's taking to deploy IPv6, and that's relatively easy.
We should invest in the hard problem now, so fission can actually take us carbon-negative in 30 years. Maybe fusion will save the day, but that's a gamble, and it's really not that much better than Gen IV fission.
Fusion, has been a promise made by nuclear for decades, much like the car industry's promise of green fuels. In the meantime, the university of Stanford semi-regularly updates a paper showing a transition to 100% for the world. It's made possible now, particularly with the innovations done by renewables companies improving efficiency in production, recycling, and AI made available for demand prediction. And we have been investing in nuclear, for many decades. A small kickstart in the renewables industry has built a giant global realistic renewables push. Everyone's happy with renewables. Governments, energy companies, insurance companies. Nuclear will remain a promise and a giant drain on resources.