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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
Don’t import Reddit’s extremely ignorant takes on nuclear power here, please. Nuclear power is a huge waste of money.
If you’re about to angrily downvote me (or you already did), or write an angry reply, please read the rest of my comment before you do. This is not my individual opinion, this is the scientific consensus on the issue.
When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.
If you’re about to lecture about “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, save your keystrokes - the majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable. Again, this isn’t my opinion, you can look it up and find a dozen sources to back up what I am writing here.
This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream of thorium fusion breeding or whatever other potential future tech someone will probably comment about without reading this paragraph.
Again, compared to nuclear, renewables are:
Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. It is 100% worth researching for future breakthroughs. But at present it is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.
Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on nuclear power should be spent on renewables instead.
Wow I'm surprised to see people are actually downvoting you and arguing about this. It's common knowledge that the cost, impact, and build-time of new nuclear plants makes them a poor choice for energy. Not only is wind/ solar cheaper, it's faster to build.
Redditors are unbelievably brainwashed in this topic, and a lot of Redditors moved over to Lemmy. I have dragged this metaphor to water countless times before, and when I suggest that they could consider drinking, they just arrogantly declare that I don't understand the facts around liquids, that I don't have any basis for my claims that they should drink it, and that by arguing that people should drink more water, I somehow supporting Coca-Cola.
It's also common knowledge that the more often you build something, the lower its price tends to go as that knowledge spreads. It's part of the reason it's so expensive to build trains in the US and so cheap in South Korea and Spain.
This famously isn’t true for nuclear power. It just keeps getting more expensive.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526
And this research was done before Fukushima, which increased costs even further.
This is just more reasons to prioritise the already cheaper renewables, isn't it?
Also worth noting are the centralization and security risk aspects of nuclear
You can have this copy/paste from like 5 minutes of googling. You can also run your own study yourself by just googling "average kwh price nuclear" and "average kwh price wind" and see how it looks. You can also google "average co2 eq emissions total lifetime nuclear" and likewise for wind/solar PV. This is extremely simple stuff, guys. I am basically saying, "lentils are cheaper than steak" and you're asking for citations.
2022 Electricity ATB Technologies and Data Overview, annual technology baseline:
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315
Wow look isn't it crazy how nuclear is the most expensive one?
Mycle Schneider, author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report: "Nuclear power plants are about four times as expensive as wind or solar, and take five times as long to build. When you factor it all in, you're looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant."
Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power, published in nature energy: "We find that larger-scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to associate with significantly lower carbon emissions while renewables do. "
This chart is from the "Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems," I wonder whether they might be a wee bit biased. It also puts the "consequential cost to health, environment and climate" of nuclear as higher than coal, which is bananas, and their data on lifecycle carbon emissions from nuclear comes from a noted anti-nuclear group (and the article even admits as much).
"When you factor it all in, you’re looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant." Cool, let's start building a whole bunch of them right now and then worst-case in 20 years we'll have too much electricity.
"In the next 10 years, nuclear power won't be able to make a significant contribution" I appreciate your optimism but we are deeeeeefinitely not going to come anywhere close to phasing out fossil fuels in power generation in 10 years; we're not even going to be done with fossil fuels on days that are particularly sunny in the solar cell areas and particularly windy in the wind power areas.
The Fraunhofer ISE is a reaseach institut with a focus on solar. It is very well respected and I would be very suprised if they where biased here.
Why would we waste money on nuclear when we could build renewables instead? It makes NO sense. Renewables are cheaper and cleaner.
Because nuclear is pretty cool whereas renewables are less awesome. Think about it, the nuclear symbol ☢️ is much more interesting and cooler than the renewable ♻️ symbol. We all know this is what really matters.
Well now you're back to arguing about new construction instead of keeping existing plants running.
Also, we can build both. Surely you appreciate that there are other factors slowing the speed of the energy transition besides the availability of capital, and that while nuclear has its own roadblocks, many of them are different from + don't overlap or compete with those standing in the way of renewables.
Capital (money) and capital (political) are the only roadblocks between us and a 100% renewable future. So no, there's no value to wasting either of those on nuclear when they could be more wisely proportioned to renewables. Pretty much the only resource that nuclear consumes that isn't consumed by most renewables would be uranium. I'm willing to just go ahead and say we can leave that one in the ground.
and this is a short intro to why a (60%/40%) split between renewables and nuclear may be the most accessible fossil free solution, and why the value of adding more variable renewables to a grid falls sharply the closer you get to 100%.
Also, the last article you posted is paywalled.
I hate when people say “stop importing it from Reddit” like half of us didn’t migrate from there.
What the fuck did you expect to happen? Reddit didn’t believe that. The users that participated in the site did.
Although I agree with this comment, this is exactly what the covidiots said. "Just google it". If you want us to believe your controversial opinion, you're going to want to take the time to add the most credible sources you can find to back you up.
Thorium reactors were made those in the 60s, they weren't pursued because thorium can't make nuclear bombs.
ignoring the redditspeak, you haven't addressed my point at all.
You didn't really make a point, you randomly mentioned that Thorium reactors were made in the 60s and stated something irrelevant to do with nuclear weapons. I don't care whether Thorium was or was not researched, nor why that may or may not have been the case - Thorium-based nuclear reactors are not at present a viable source of electricity generation.
A 2010 National Nuclear Laboratory report concluded the thorium fuel cycle 'is likely to have only a limited role internationally for some years ahead' and concluded claims for thorium were 'overstated'.
Even if thorium technology does progress to the point where it might be commercially viable, it will face the same problems as conventional nuclear: it is not renewable or sustainable. And that's A LONG way off.
"A 2010 National Nuclear Laboratory report" "for some years ahead"
It's 2023, "some years ahead" is, y'know, now. 13 is "some." Quite a few, actually.
A battery of tests were performed on the economics of mitigating the impending climate disater. These tests indicated that nuclear is a huge waste of money (p<0.05) (Blake, 2023)
Hahaha :)
I’m on my phone, dude, I’m not gonna juggle a dozen sources on this tiny screen and crappy keyboard just to prove you wrong, you’re more than capable of using Google to find the facts yourself. I challenge you to prove me wrong. You can even cite some hilariously biased source like World Forum of Nuclear Investor Funds or something, those ones are always fun because they’re like “oh with our super cool advanced new nuclear reactor that doesn’t exist, it’s as good as solar or wind for almost 150% of the cost!! :)”
And the argument vanishes into thin air...
2022 Electricity ATB Technologies and Data Overview, annual technology baseline:
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315
Wow look isn't it crazy how nuclear is the most expensive one?
Mycle Schneider, author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report: "Nuclear power plants are about four times as expensive as wind or solar, and take five times as long to build. When you factor it all in, you're looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant."
Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power, published in nature energy: "We find that larger-scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to associate with significantly lower carbon emissions while renewables do. "
I mean IDK if Rueters meets your rigorous standards for journalistic excellence (or why you can't just google something so simple) but here you go new nuclear is more expensive and and worse for the environment than renewables.
I agree with you on nuclear being more expensive as all facts point that way and future nuclear technology, but i dont understand how we could transition to a 100% renewable energy sector, It would be good if you could give a citation or explanation for that. Diverse and distributed source is how we get an energy secure grid, renewables could help with the distributed source part, but when it comes to diversity the popular renewable technologies wind and solar are very limited, both of these source cant power a base load without batteries (this applies mostly to solar, but wind too has low output at night). Also there is this issue witj managing generation and demand (Nuclear too have issue with this as its not possible to quickly adjust nuclear power generation like other conventional spurce). A full renewable energy grid would depend on batteries, currently we have much limitation with batteries. Mature technologists of acid based batteries require huge areas, and lithium based ones would require rare lithium which its mining alone would cause alot of pollution, and relying on other alt battery technology itself would be a long stretch as its development and commercialisation to usable form would take years to achieve as the same case afforable future nuclear technology.
Other alt renewable energy like geothermal could help with base load (not sure, someone could correct me if this is not the case), but itsnt possible everywhere. The same goes for tidal plant as it depends on geography and specific time of day. With this scenarios if we were to move to a 100% renewable grid then, the price for energy will increase at night time in a way that i think could reach nuclear energy rate.
A 100% renewable grid would need a lot of batteries and that too could drive the price up and possibly contribute to climate change. Also solar panel manufacturing is a very intense process with a lot of carbon impact, i read this on a text during my academics (havent checked the source for this other than that).
Okay, now factor in environmental costs.
…which is hugely worse for nuclear? What is your point?
Nuclear power plants require eye watering amounts of concrete.
They require continuous (and ever-increasing) extraction of fissile matter such as uranium ore (a limited resource, by the way - if we used nuclear power instead of fossil fuels we would run out pretty quickly, too, all things considered).
Nuclear power also consumes (and irradiates) vast quantities of water.
They are huge nightmares for biodiversity as they are massive projects usually flattening large swathes of land.
They produce waste which is not only irradiated and hazardous but also a major security risk, so it has to be safeguarded… and/or sealed into a hole in the ground where it will remain a risk for years to come.
The building projects themselves are astronomical in scale and require huge quantities of materials to be shipped by fleets and fleets of trucks followed by a lot of industrial work. Then in a couple of decades the site has to be decommissioned which is even more work.
Estimates for the lifetime emissions (extraction, commission, operation, etc.) CO2EQ of nuclear power are commonly thought to be between 60-100g per kWh. Solar power is somewhere in the region of 20-40g per kWh, and wind is somewhere around 10-20g per kWh.
So again, no, nuclear energy is not what we want. Support ONLY renewables. Nuclear power is wasteful.
What do you know that countries with state funded labs full of scientists haven't figured out?
Nothing? That's my point. They HAVE figured this out. Get your head out of your ass and take an opportunity to actually learn something instead of just being aggressively wrong on the internet. The only people in the industry who think we should provision nuclear power plants are those who would financially benefit from continued investment in nuclear. Just look it up.
If renewables are the answer, why does germany still rely on lignite? If it was figured out, wouldn't they be exporters of carbon free energy to Europe? (France is!) Instead of resisting nuclear, renewable advocates ought to go after fossil fuel subsidies. Fighting nuclear gives lignite "the green light."
Objectively not. Precious metal mining is more than a thousand times worse for the environment than Uranium or Thorium mining.
Sure, in the 1950s. Modern nuclear reactors can be built in existing Coal plants. Most reactor types don't require any additional shielding besides what is already present.
We have mined enough Uranium to power the entire world for the next 10,000 years; there is currently enough Uranium in just known mines for the next 1,000,000 years of current global power usage. And that's just Uranium. Thorium is a viable technology with the first reactors already online for commercial use.
No, it doesn't. This is just outright a lie, one I have no idea where you got. The internal loop never leaves the building, the external loop is never irradiated.
They have a smaller impact than solar or wind farms, by a factor of 100.
They produce less toxic waste than Coal power plants, and all of the world's projected nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years fits into existing facilities.
This is the exact same for renewables, worse, arguably, since wind farms have to be off shore to be efficient and cargo ships are more than a thousand times worse for the environment than any form of overland transport.
Germany literally just shut down their existing nuclear plants and replaced them with fossil fuels.
So even if what you're saying were true (and I'd happily sit here and punch holes in it if I thought you were actually open to an argument - anti-nuclear people somehow seem to think that you can build all the solar/wind farms and transmission lines you want without running into the same endless messy regulatory battles you get with nuclear), none of it would be relevant here because the plants were already built and already working and responsible for like 1/8 of Germany's electrical production - it wasn't a cost decision, it was a bullshit anti-nuclear one.
Also: the graph at the top shows the growth in Germany's installed wind capacity in Germany leveling off - do you think that's happening because they just don't feel like building any more wind power, or is it possible they're running into some limits on how much they can generate efficiently that way?
This claim is patently false.
Sorry, but this comment is so full of false information.
If you are able to read German or use a translator I can recommend this interview where the expert explains everything and goes into the the details.
https://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Deutschland-ist-kein-Strombettler-erklaert-Bruno-Burger-von-Energy-Charts-im-Klima-Labor-article24357979.html
Claiming that Germany is fucked after shutting down nuclear for good is repeating the talking points from the far right here. Don't be that guy.
That's completely false.
More like 2-3%
Not exclusively, but the high price of nuclear is one of the main points in the decision
Because the graph stops in 2022. The growth now is accelerating and even more so for solar power which OP conveniently does not show us
https://strom-report.com/photovoltaik/
Given this thread is about new nuclear, I'm not sure why you are making up beliefs about what someone else in the thread believes. Personally a fan of old nuclear plants since their biggest expense (financial and likely ecological) is making them, so keeping them running is good as long as we are relying on fossil fuels.
Why just speculate on it while insinuation someone is wrong about something when you could look it up? From what I can gather, it looks like administration/licensing delays, court cases, and rules limiting how close they can be to residential buildings (apparently 10 times the height of the turbine) are the main contributors to the slowdown.
Also, solar is still growing more quickly and 2023 is having quicker growth in wind than last year (which was itself an increase from the previous year), so the trend being shown may already be outdated. Granted, inflation apparently are an issue now (not when the slowdown happened, but now as the rate of wind installation is increasing). And the rate of increase isn't enough imo, but building new nuclear instead of using the same resources to build solar or wind at this point means relying more on fossil fuels.
If you had just said this and stopped writing then you'd have saved yourself time and embarrassment. I can dunk anytime, anywhere on whatever arguments you dream up, because definitionally if you're arguing with me about this then you have no idea what you're talking about. It's a fool-in-a-barrel type of situation, really.
Anyways, enough merry-making, to the meat of your comment:
Nuclear power has huge cost implications, economically and politically, which make it less viable. If Germany had built renewables instead of nuclear, would they have turned off the renewables that were producing the cheapest, cleanest energy ever known, with zero fuel costs and minimal maintenance costs? You make my argument for me.
The decommissioning of the german nuclear power plants was planned in 2011 because nuclear is a waste of resources. German scientists know this as well as I do. You're the one arguing with them.
"Nuclear energy is also often more expensive than wind and solar power, there are no longer any real advantages with nuclear energy.” - Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin. “Nuclear power plants are a hindrance to the energy transition. They are not able to run in stop-and-go mode and cannot really compensate for power fluctuations that arise when using solar and wind energy. With Germany looking to expand solar and wind power very rapidly over the next few years, now is a good time to shut down nuclear reactors to make way for renewable energy,” he said.
“In the German context, the phase-out of nuclear energy is good for the climate in the long term. It provides investment certainty for renewable energy; renewables will be much faster, cheaper and safer than expansion of nuclear energy,” - Niklas Höhne, a professor the mitigation of greenhouse gases at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
I think you're referring to the emergency recommissioning of German coal power plants in response to Russian gas being held hostage over the Ukraine war? It's not like they went "meh fuck the climate lol lets just turn off nuclear and put on the old coal burner for old time's sake".