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German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against new nuclear power
(www.reuters.com)
Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo... then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
Yes, what you are missing is reality.
You can either build renewables to replace fossil fuels in the next years (and if the build-up doesn't work as fast as you want to then it will takes a a few years more to reach zero), getting less and less every day. Or you can build new nuclear reactors and just keep burning coal full steam for 5 years, 10, 15, probably 20. And then you reactors are finally online, but electricity demand has increased by +100% (and further increasing...) so you burn more coal for another 5, 10, 15, or 20 years...
The exact same thing happens btw right now in basically every single European country that promotes nuclear. Because nobody is building enough capacities to actually cover the minimal required base load in 2-3 decades (electricity demand until 2050 will raise by a factor of 2,5 at least - because most countries today only cover 20-25% of their primary energy demand with electricity but will need to raise that to close to 100% to decarbonize other sectors; so we are talking about about a factor of 4-5, minus savings because electricity can be more efficient). They just build some and pretend to do something construtive, while in reality this is for show and they have basically given up on finding a solution that isn't let's hope the bigger countries in Europe save us.
For reference: France -so the country with optimal conditions given their laws and regulations favoring nuclear power and having a domestic production of nuclear reactors- announced 6 new reactors with an option for up to 8 additional ones and that they would also build up some renewables as a short-term solution to bridge the time until those reactors are ready. That's a lie. They need the full set of 14 just for covering their base load for their projected electricity demand in 2050 and that's just ~35% of ther production with the remaining 65% being massive amounts of renewables (see RTE -France' grid provider- study in 2021). Is this doable? Sure. It will be hard work and cost a lot of money but might be viable... But already today the country with good pre-conditions and in-house production of nuclear reactors and with a population highly supportive of nuclear can't tell it's own people the truth about the actually needed investments into nuclear (and renewables!), because it's just that expensive. (Another fun fact: The only reason why their models of nuclear power vs. full renewables are economically viable is because they also planned to integrate huge amounts of hydrogen production for industry, time-independent export (all other countries will have lower production and higher demand at the same time by then) and as storage. So the exact same thing the usual nuclear cult here categorically declares as unviable when it's about renewables.)
Nothing you said other than expenses is an argument against nuclear. If anything, the take from you argument is that we should construct even more nuclear, not less.
Yes, nuclear taking too long to build is not argument, it just means we should have started building them already.
If that's your take why is exactly nobody doing it? Oh, yeah. Because nobody has a clue how to actually pay the massive (and mostly paid in advance) costs.
Yet a lot of countries are proudly planning to build nuclear soon™ instead of those silly renewables, when what they actually would need to do is building much more nuclear than they are planning right now while also building massive amounts of renewables.
You are not actually wrong. Building more nuclear right now is an option. Building-up storage and infrastructure instead is the other viable one. Building massive amounts of renewables is needed in both cases.
The moment you show me countries starting nuclear in proper amounts right now, while also building and planning the needed increase in renewables alongside I will cheer for them. (For reference: energy demand increasing by a factor of at least 2,5 with ~35% production capacity needed for a solid base load means your minimal goal for nuclear capacities right now should be ~100% of todays demand...)
But as basically no country seems to be able to manage that investment the only option is storage and infrastructure. Is it costing the same in the end? Maybe? Probably? We don't know actually as decade long predictions for evolving technologies are not that precise (just look at the cost development of solar in the last decade for example). We know however that this is a constant investment over the same time renewables are build up to provide 100% coverage (PS: the actual numbers would be 115% to 125% btw... based on (regional) diversification of renewables and calculating losses through long-term storage).
Again: I'm not against building nuclear (and renewables!) right now, if that's your plan. I am however very much about the bullshit that is going on right now, where it's more important to show how smart you are by building some nuclear capacity (with the math not adding up at all) while laughing about others building renewables and spouting bullshit how it's just a scam to burn fossil fues forever.
Contrary to the popular narrative between building up renewables and storage and building just some nuclear capacities and some token renewables -if at all- it's not the former countries that are running on ideology with no actual real world plan.
As already said above: I totally support France' plan for 14 new reactors build until 2050, with a lot of renewable build-up at the same time. Because that's a workable plan. But that they already have problems publically justifying the bare minimum requirement of 14 reactors and the renewable up-build is a symptom of a larger problem. And basically every other country planning new nuclear power right now isn't even close to this scale and just living in a fairy tale world... or just providing an token effort while hoping for other bigger countries to solve the issue for them in the end.
I completely agree that more countries should be following France's lead in simultaneously building lots of renewables and nuclear plants. Unfortunately the anti nuclear crowd are very vocal in a lot of countries so everyone spends all their time arguing about whether to invest in nuclear or not instead of just getting on with it.
Funny how you completely ignore basically my whole comment.
Countries being anti-nuclear and going for a storage solution are not the problem as they have a workable plan.
Countries like France are not the problem as the same applies there.
The problem is there are basically no pro-nuclear countries like France. Only ones trying to bullshit their way out of the issue with talk about their nuclear plans when those plans are completely insuffcient. It feels like nuclear nowadays is the new homeopathy - just do a little bit of symbolic action and then firmly believe in it and all will be well. And to confirm your believe for everyone to see talk shit about renewables as they are "obviously just a scam for ideologically damaged idiots fearing nuclear"...
Yeah, that's one of the most funny things to me in this debate. People are calling of all kind of radical measures to combat climate change, but when it comes to nuclear power somehow "too expensive" is a valid argument.
And the worst, is all the other decisions in Germany lately. They stopped nuclear completely and replaced it by coal. Right now they are tearing down wind turbines, to mine for coal in that spot etc.
So all the arguments talking about "nUcLeAr iS eXpEnSiVe" are missing the point in Germany by a magnitude that is hard to grasp....