They are not (a magic bullet), but indirectly claiming (as you do in the OP) that the choice is either nuclear or coal (& gas) is highly misleading, and the main reason why Germany is not able to reduce their coal mining is because they bet on cheap gas for electricity production (which was meant to replace the coal). Nuclear was never a vital part of the German energy mix, and shutting down decades old reactors that were scheduled for decommissioning anyway did not make any significant difference. For nuclear to make a difference they would have had to start constructing new reactors 10+ years ago, but they rather built new gas plants.
Nuclear was never a vital part of German energy mix because Germany was predominantly reliant on cheap energy from Russia. The choice was never between nuclear and renewables, both were just lip service while Germany kept guzzling fossils to fuel its industry. And if nuclear can’t be built fast enough now, there’s little chance renewables can.
The key point is that Germany never had any interest in moving off fossils, and now it’s doubling down on coal like it’s the height of 19th century.
This is not true. Germany was reliant on coal (locally mined lignite and imported regular coal) and in the last 20 years or so they made the deliberate decision to try and replace the coal with natural gas.
In the early 2000 they were on a good track to replace a large percentage of the coal electricity production with solar and wind energy, but then the new conservative government under Merkel took power and deliberately killed that off to please their big business energy producers. That was a purely political choice and technically it would have been perfectly feasible to switch to near 100% renewables for electricity production if the installation capacity would have been retained.
I’d like to see actual sources showing total energy consumption in Germany, including all the industry, and how that would be met with 100% renewables today even if the plans from 2000 weren’t shelved.
Germany has hit something like 50%* renewable energy production (averaged over a full year), thanks to the €600B+ Energiewende (“energy turn”). This causes a bunch of problems. A big one is grid instability. By subsidizing rooftop solar so much, grid operators often need to pay neighbouring countries to take additional electricity in the early afternoon. During peak load in the mornings and evenings, as well as overnight, the German grid often gets lots of power from those same neighbouring countries. They have higher baseload capacities and can fill the dips between German supply and load. There is basically no storage capacity to speak of to help with these supply/demand gaps. Pumped hydro is all but a no-go due to NIMBYs and environmental protection. Hydrogen generation hasn’t qualified for subsidies and has had to pay the renewables surcharge on electricity, making it too expensive.
Germany also pressures France to drop nuclear, even though the southern Rhine region (big industrial areas) rely on French nuclear to keep the lights on. The Swiss succumbed to German pressure to phase out nuclear. Both countries will be decommissioning reactors well before their> best-before dates. We can only hope that Poland and Czechia don’t succumb to this same pressure to scrap their nuclear plans.
/* It’s also worth noting what Germany and the EU count as renewable. Much of this 50% renewable production (up to 40% if I’m not mistaken) comes from “biomass.” This biomass is in large part wood pellets, which used to be sourced from European sawmill and forestry scraps. Then it got labeled as renewable and valid for subsidies, meaning demand quickly outpaced supply. Who stepped up to meet this newfound wood demand but the US. They plant some quickly growing trees, cut them down as soon as possible, throw them in a shredder, glue and compress them into pellets, and ship them across the Atlantic where the Germans and others burn them. This whole process emits about as much CO2 as coal, yet per EU regulation is CO2 neutral, as the tree ostensibly absorbed just as much CO2 when it was growing as is released by burning.
I very specifically stated electricity production. Full replacement is sadly not possible as long as the structure of society is as it is. Please learn to read :p
You do realize that industry relies on electricity production. In fact, industry tends to account for far higher electricity consumption than domestic use.
Yes and Germany is already able to cover 100% electricity needs (including industry) with renewables on windy and sunny days, despite the massive lack of storage and political sabotage of new installations and transfer capacity.
The industries with some problems right now are those that need fossil fuels either directly as inputs or because it was cheaper than electricity to heat with it and thus their existing large scale equipment doesn’t work with electricity.
Like I said, let’s see the actual lifecycle numbers that include the total energy consumption per year, the energy costs of producing and maintaining the renewables, as well as the cost of energy storage for days when it’s not sunny or windy. The compare these totals with the renewable infrastructure outputs. You’re doing a lot of hand waving here.
Saying the reactors were scheduled for decommissioning anyway isn’t the whole truth and is quite misleading. It was agreed in various private-public meetings and legislative sessions between 2000 and 2010 that the reactors would be decommissioned between 2020 and 2036. The most recent agreement confirming this was reached in 2010 by a Merkel lead government.
Not six months later Fukushima happened. Germany and Merkel (with an academic background in nuclear physics) had a panic attack, and all of a sudden the execution order was fast-tracked: date of death, 31.12.2022. Given the current energy situation a stay of execution was granted to the three remaining reactors until 15.04.2023.
They are not (a magic bullet), but indirectly claiming (as you do in the OP) that the choice is either nuclear or coal (& gas) is highly misleading, and the main reason why Germany is not able to reduce their coal mining is because they bet on cheap gas for electricity production (which was meant to replace the coal). Nuclear was never a vital part of the German energy mix, and shutting down decades old reactors that were scheduled for decommissioning anyway did not make any significant difference. For nuclear to make a difference they would have had to start constructing new reactors 10+ years ago, but they rather built new gas plants.
Nuclear was never a vital part of German energy mix because Germany was predominantly reliant on cheap energy from Russia. The choice was never between nuclear and renewables, both were just lip service while Germany kept guzzling fossils to fuel its industry. And if nuclear can’t be built fast enough now, there’s little chance renewables can.
The key point is that Germany never had any interest in moving off fossils, and now it’s doubling down on coal like it’s the height of 19th century.
This is not true. Germany was reliant on coal (locally mined lignite and imported regular coal) and in the last 20 years or so they made the deliberate decision to try and replace the coal with natural gas.
In the early 2000 they were on a good track to replace a large percentage of the coal electricity production with solar and wind energy, but then the new conservative government under Merkel took power and deliberately killed that off to please their big business energy producers. That was a purely political choice and technically it would have been perfectly feasible to switch to near 100% renewables for electricity production if the installation capacity would have been retained.
I’d like to see actual sources showing total energy consumption in Germany, including all the industry, and how that would be met with 100% renewables today even if the plans from 2000 weren’t shelved.
Germany has hit something like 50%* renewable energy production (averaged over a full year), thanks to the €600B+ Energiewende (“energy turn”). This causes a bunch of problems. A big one is grid instability. By subsidizing rooftop solar so much, grid operators often need to pay neighbouring countries to take additional electricity in the early afternoon. During peak load in the mornings and evenings, as well as overnight, the German grid often gets lots of power from those same neighbouring countries. They have higher baseload capacities and can fill the dips between German supply and load. There is basically no storage capacity to speak of to help with these supply/demand gaps. Pumped hydro is all but a no-go due to NIMBYs and environmental protection. Hydrogen generation hasn’t qualified for subsidies and has had to pay the renewables surcharge on electricity, making it too expensive.
Germany also pressures France to drop nuclear, even though the southern Rhine region (big industrial areas) rely on French nuclear to keep the lights on. The Swiss succumbed to German pressure to phase out nuclear. Both countries will be decommissioning reactors well before their> best-before dates. We can only hope that Poland and Czechia don’t succumb to this same pressure to scrap their nuclear plans.
/* It’s also worth noting what Germany and the EU count as renewable. Much of this 50% renewable production (up to 40% if I’m not mistaken) comes from “biomass.” This biomass is in large part wood pellets, which used to be sourced from European sawmill and forestry scraps. Then it got labeled as renewable and valid for subsidies, meaning demand quickly outpaced supply. Who stepped up to meet this newfound wood demand but the US. They plant some quickly growing trees, cut them down as soon as possible, throw them in a shredder, glue and compress them into pellets, and ship them across the Atlantic where the Germans and others burn them. This whole process emits about as much CO2 as coal, yet per EU regulation is CO2 neutral, as the tree ostensibly absorbed just as much CO2 when it was growing as is released by burning.
Yeah, the whole policy is completely incoherent.
I very specifically stated electricity production. Full replacement is sadly not possible as long as the structure of society is as it is. Please learn to read :p
You do realize that industry relies on electricity production. In fact, industry tends to account for far higher electricity consumption than domestic use.
Yes and Germany is already able to cover 100% electricity needs (including industry) with renewables on windy and sunny days, despite the massive lack of storage and political sabotage of new installations and transfer capacity.
The industries with some problems right now are those that need fossil fuels either directly as inputs or because it was cheaper than electricity to heat with it and thus their existing large scale equipment doesn’t work with electricity.
Like I said, let’s see the actual lifecycle numbers that include the total energy consumption per year, the energy costs of producing and maintaining the renewables, as well as the cost of energy storage for days when it’s not sunny or windy. The compare these totals with the renewable infrastructure outputs. You’re doing a lot of hand waving here.
No, you are trying to change the topic and arguing against a strawman again. Please try for once to read and understand what others are writing :(
Saying the reactors were scheduled for decommissioning anyway isn’t the whole truth and is quite misleading. It was agreed in various private-public meetings and legislative sessions between 2000 and 2010 that the reactors would be decommissioned between 2020 and 2036. The most recent agreement confirming this was reached in 2010 by a Merkel lead government.
Not six months later Fukushima happened. Germany and Merkel (with an academic background in nuclear physics) had a panic attack, and all of a sudden the execution order was fast-tracked: date of death, 31.12.2022. Given the current energy situation a stay of execution was granted to the three remaining reactors until 15.04.2023.