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Germany’s emissions hit 70-year low as it reduces reliance on coal
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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That's the part I don't get... How could it have been higher while they had nuclear plants??
It seems like nuclear started being phased out in the early 2000s, and wind only started getting phased in, in like the 2000s and with a bit of solar getting phased in around 2010.
Fossil fuels seemed to take up more than half of their energy mix till like 2008 ish (?), and only really starting to drop off around 2016.
Although now I'm also kinda wondering what their total energy usage/ production was during that time now.
Graph showing GDP, energy consumption, and emissions since 1991
Because nuclear renewables replaced a lot of nuclear power, Germany was a net electricity exporter, but that turned around, and electricity consumption is down a lot.
Nuclear is not the only way to provide clean energy.
Then other parts of the economy. Electricity makes up a quarter of Germanys emissions. Gas boilers, combustion engines and so forth all emit a lot, but they are not something, which can be replaced with a nuclear power plant. That takes other systems like heat pumps, electric cars and so forth. Since that makes up most of the emissions changes in those areas matter a lot more then the electricity system.
So you’re saying it could have been even lower
I'll have you know that Uranium is green (sometimes).
Yup, coal is though, comes from plants, so much greener. So glad they closed the big bad nuclear plants so they could be more reliant on green coal. The air itself is cleaner now.
Hope you realize that green energy also requires a ton of mining and construction.
Ah yes, clean gas from green wells and mines..
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/06/revealed-1000-super-emitting-methane-leaks-risk-triggering-climate-tipping-points
You should educate yourself more..
https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU
You are right that mining is dirty as hell and if we only consider the ecological impact of mining then nuclear is a much better solution than renewables energy.
For the whole world to transition to renewables energy the production of copper will need to be multiplied by 2.7 in 2040 compared to 2020 levels, rare earth by 7.3, lithium by 42 ! ...
Uranium mining is terrible for environment but so is copper mining, cobalt mining, lithium extraction ... Since uranium is so dense energetically we only need a very tiny amount of it to produce electricity so overall the mining impact of nuclear is much lower than renewables energies.
The amount of copper and other minetals used for renewable energy is way higher than nuclear, these have to be mined too.
I'm not advocating for nuclear but there is so much disinformation around it that does not help the debate.
One day... I hope while I'm still kicking.