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Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th

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SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2023, 08:27:01 pm ---But that still makes Germany reliant on importing energy. There is a large geopolitical aspect to having your own energy supply.

--- End quote ---

Of course. Precisely.
What makes you think that Germany, or any EU country for that matter, actually wants to be self-reliant?

Neutrion:

--- Quote from: Kleinstein on April 17, 2023, 07:04:31 am ---
--- Quote from: daqq on April 16, 2023, 09:00:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2023, 06:34:15 pm ---That doesn't mean thermal storage isn't on the radar but only for hot water / heating purposes.
--- End quote ---
There is a concept out there that could do this in theory: https://helioscsp.com/mit-proposes-pv-to-discharge-energy-from-2400c-silicon-thermal-storage/
I'm guessing pretty bad total efficiency, though the output might be utility heat + electricity?

In other news, seems not all German politicians had their brains scooped out when it comes to energy:
https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-energy-nuclear-bavaria-idUKL1N36I0J7

--- End quote ---
In theory thermal storage at very high temperature could work, but it would be low effiviency when converting back to electricty. At the very high temperatures the stress to the matrials can also be quite substantial. It would also only work on a relatively large scale to keep the heat loss reasonable.

For the idea to restart the residual German NPPs: this makes relatively little sense and also the power companies don't think it is practical, as a restart would take 1-2 years at least.
The plants would need a major revision and there are not even regulations and thus no plans or preparations for that.
The idea of a restart is more like a pre-election idea of someone who is not in charge nor running for the relevant position.  So this is just for publicity.

--- End quote ---

Well, if Söder would be smart, and the studies from last summer are conclusive regarding the costs, and other issues, than he could initiate a local referendum. Because it would still have more democratic mandate than the Governments Atom-exit. Other states could follow where the last and newest NPPs are. (And just turned off.)
Because the only "argument" that speaks for the current shut down is :" because the government decided to do so".
So if its cheaper to run them for an extra 5-10 years, than renewables on the similar scale than neihter democratic or  cost argument are present for an early shutdown.


--- Quote from: nctnico on April 18, 2023, 08:27:01 pm ---But that still makes Germany reliant on importing energy. There is a large geopolitical aspect to having your own energy supply.

--- End quote ---
Fun fact is that Germany is on average energy (electricity) exporter. So the minimum policy in this situation would be to at least, to agree to not alow energy exports from coal. So to really have that capacity as a backup for emergency. And until the 2030 coal-exit, there is still many years left where it would make sense to import at least nuclear electricity from France (or renewables from other sources), instead of burning coal, if France manages to repair their NPP soon.  But I don't know about any such agreement.

psychoacoustic:
At least according to https://www.smard.de/page/home/topic-article/209944/210326, in Q1 2023, Germany had a net export of 8785 GWh. AFAICT, daily production from the 3 remaining Nuclear power plants was roughly 70 GWh/day, so even without those the overall flow should still be outwards.

I also found the projections on renewables interesting: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sachgebiete/Energie/Unternehmen_Institutionen/ErneuerbareEnergien/ZahlenDatenInformationen/EEStatistikMaStRBNetzA.pdf

BravoV:
The Green party is destroying the host ... and also will be dragging France and Hungary too. >:D

psychoacoustic:
Ah yes, those evil Greens...

...that weren't in power when the deadline for turning off the AKWs was decided. It was a Government of CDU/CSU and FDP. It was also their work (with generous help of the SPD) to get Germany addicted to cheap russian gas. Thanks Gerhardt!

Look. Turning off the the Nuclear Powerplants was a _political_ decision. Right or wrong, it's what the majority of people _at the time_ wanted. As others have pointed out already, the parties in power probably _didn't_ think this is a good idea, but they also wanted to get votes from that segment of the population.

I'm quite disappointed(?) by the absolutism in this discussion.  There are good arguments for turning the power plants off (long-term storage, cost, safety...), good arguments for keeping them running (reduction of CO2 emissions, base load stabilization, ...) good arguments for (and against) building new ones.

While scientists and engineers can work out these arguments, it's the job of the media to keep the discussion factual, and thus let "the public" make up their minds. This should incentivize the politicians chasing votes to do what at least a significant portion of the people actually want. I'm dreaming, I know.

But if we as engineers (which I would hope on this forum would be the most vocal) dismiss every argument as either "links-grün versiffter Quatsch" or "paid shill for the nuclear lobby", well, then the base for any discussion is lost.

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