General > General Technical Chat
Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 22, 2023, 05:01:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 22, 2023, 04:12:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 22, 2023, 03:24:45 pm ---A lot of the third world countries have excellent opportunities to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen is the new oil
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Or, using hydrogen as an intermediate product, synthetic fuels which can be transported using existing oil transport infrastructure.
Anywhere with excess solar and wind production and good enough grid, this can be done. Efficiency will colossally suck, but it doesn't matter if the power would be wasted otherwise.
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Also keep in mind that solar panels that are installed near the equator in desert areas receive twice as much radiation from the sun compared to those installed in central Europe. So even when losing half the energy due to conversion losses, you still end up with the same cost per kWh because the generating side is twice as productive for the same investment.
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... only if the conversion to fuel is with zero investment. The key is to make this cheap as well. PV panels are quite affordable already.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 22, 2023, 05:10:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 22, 2023, 05:01:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 22, 2023, 04:12:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on April 22, 2023, 03:24:45 pm ---A lot of the third world countries have excellent opportunities to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen is the new oil
--- End quote ---
Or, using hydrogen as an intermediate product, synthetic fuels which can be transported using existing oil transport infrastructure.
Anywhere with excess solar and wind production and good enough grid, this can be done. Efficiency will colossally suck, but it doesn't matter if the power would be wasted otherwise.
--- End quote ---
Also keep in mind that solar panels that are installed near the equator in desert areas receive twice as much radiation from the sun compared to those installed in central Europe. So even when losing half the energy due to conversion losses, you still end up with the same cost per kWh because the generating side is twice as productive for the same investment.
--- End quote ---
... only if the conversion to fuel is with zero investment. The key is to make this cheap as well. PV panels are quite affordable already.
--- End quote ---
I agree PV panels are very affordable already (both due to lowering prices and increasing efficiency -which is great-) but adding storage is still costly. Currently most consumer PV owners use the grid as a 'battery' but at some point that will stop and you'll be forced to pay for storage in order to maximise the ROI of your solar panels. You can't just look at generation costs alone. You need to take into account storage and distribution costs and that will paint an entirely different picture.
Kleinstein:
The conversion of electricty to hydrogen is relatively simple and should not be a big cost factor.
The cost for storage is still not that well known - so far more like an upper limit for batteries and the hydrogen path. How much storage is needed depends on a lot of factors, like the local demand, production mix and the grid capacity. Especially the pumped hydro part is very position dependent. So it is not an universal price.
Nuclear power would also need some storage / backups, if used for more than a small fraction (like 20 %).
Hydrogen is still not that easy to transport. So ideally some of the more energy intensive productions (aluminum, some chemistry, glass) would move. The aluminum production moves to were electricity is cheap - that is nothing new. It is way easier to transport than hydrogen.
Especially at the favorable locations the renewables could get away with less storrage as they are more preductable there. So it is not just more energy from the same PV panels, but also a more regular supply.
I am afraid some energy intensive industries will no longer be competative in central Europe.
nctnico:
In the NL the debate is to put the new nuclear power plants near energy intensive industries or not. One of the problems is that creating high quality products is not something you can move to low cost countries very easely. For example.: Tata steel in the NL produces some very high quality steel products that can't be sourced from China. Additionally there is also more focus on sourcing products with a low CO2 footprint. IIRC I have read some news articles saying that there might be CO2 footprint dependant import taxes for products made abroad to level the playing field.
Neutrion:
--- Quote from: Simon on April 21, 2023, 06:01:21 pm ---
--- Quote from: Neutrion on April 21, 2023, 05:48:00 pm ---
And what is the guarantee that a politician understands anythig the expert says? What is the guarantee, that a very broad spectrum of experts are consulted, instead of a lobby group? That there is a debate?
Dictatorships are basically based on your argumentation. No joke.
And the only example wehere this (let the people decide) system is working is Switzerland. I don't see them as hopeless. Rather the pseudo democracies. I see big changes in Europe which are qiet possibly against the will of the population.
And if you would mention the big democratic trauma, the BRRRR... you know what :) . The problem there was rather not having to have a second voting, when the circumstances were clear. If people still would wanted to have it, they could have voted accordingly.
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I am not saying that the politicians would get it right, but at least there would be some semblance of trying and this would be publicly scrutinized even if through later leaks. But I have no confidence at all in a democratic vote.
People seem to confuse democracy with what is right. Just because it is what the majority wanted does not make it right. the majority are never going to be knowledgeable on the issue so the result will be just pop luck, no better than the politicians.
Yes I am scared by a recent vote where even I voted the wrong way. I am not angry with those that told lies and I did not vote on those anyway. I am angry with those that just said: "this is a really bad idea - trust us". The result was I did not. I did try to seek out information but as a simple citizen with limited time and not knowing where to start it was impossible. Did any news channels bother to make programs that just explained the facts? NO! did anyone make say a YouTube series that gave information? NO! All we got was debates between people with opinions praying on peoples fears, at no point did someone say: "look guys it works like this, now make up your own mind if you think this is worth while. Now if we change you get this, now make up your minds if that is what you want". No the public discourse was reduced to political silos having a mud slinging match in an attempt to scare people to vote one way or the other.
I doubt very much that any issue or debate would be held properly, it's just .... people..... 90% are too stupid to know what is good for them. That is after all the reason why we have a political system, someone has to make the decision. OK you don't like those politicians, but, the majority voted for them so basically truth and reasonableness are fucked either way.
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--- Quote ---I am not saying that the politicians would get it right, but at least there would be some semblance of trying and this would be publicly scrutinized even if through later leaks.
--- End quote ---
And what that scuritnizing means at the end? Basically nothing else as if a bad vote had to be scrutinized, with the difference, that in the last case the decision would had come from a democratic decision, and there would be much more public scrutiny BEFORE the decision.
--- Quote ---But I have no confidence at all in a democratic vote.
--- End quote ---
So you don't belive in democracy? Or why do you have confidence of people voting on dozens of complex issues in 4 years intervalls and making it right, while not trusting the same people on deciding one single issue?
--- Quote ---Did any news channels bother to make programs that just explained the facts? NO! did anyone make say a YouTube series that gave information? NO! All we got was debates between people with opinions praying on peoples fears, at no point did someone say: "look guys it works like this, now make up your own mind if you think this is worth while. Now if we change you get this, now make up your minds if that is what you want". No the public discourse was reduced to political silos having a mud slinging match in an attempt to scare people to vote one way or the other.
--- End quote ---
What you describe here are rather symptomps of a country where the culture is giving up more and more the concept of democracy, because the population is getting used to the fact that they don't have a possiblity of voting on anything meaningful, so they don't have to follow whats happening. (The proposed internet reforms and the silence around them showing also in that direction.)
Many people in Britain did not have the slightest clue what the EU is. I have talked to many britons who belived that health care is only free in Britain within the EU. (And these were not the most uneducated people, I have to add.) And similar nonsense.
When peolple are getting used to the fact that they don't have a say, they will stop reading some news, because why the hack should they? They can't have a say on any policy, that is the job of the politicians.
In Switzerland they vote 4-5 times a year, and I don't remember any of this wrecking the country. Even we in Hungary did have a few referendums, and none of those were disastrous.
--- Quote ---I doubt very much that any issue or debate would be held properly, it's just .... people..... 90% are too stupid to know what is good for them. That is after all the reason why we have a political system, someone has to make the decision. OK you don't like those politicians, but, the majority voted for them so basically truth and reasonableness are fucked either way.
--- End quote ---
Well OK, but why waist so much money on different political partys, and voting? The same people surely can't decide what the total complexity of politcs was during many years, so let just be one group of expert to decide, and than they could also have longer planning times. Like 5, and 20 years :)
When you vote for persons, but don't have a say on anything, than you basically trust those up there to be smarter than you. In Russia and China for example I thik they are following and always followed the very same logic. They also have oppinion polls. But than people also can have the bad oppinion, just because they are uninformed, it is not that important anyway, but if it was getting important, than you can "educate" them.
I don't hate politicians, but there is a difference when the politicians are not allowing the public to decide on anything, and when they are.
Someone said this in the old days:"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
I only know the B... referendum where a nation comletely screwed itself, but it as I said it was rather the missing of a second referendum the main issue, and by not letting the people vote would only lead to UKIP running the nation now, until they are having a majority to alow a vote.
Again politicians followed a decision which in its true form was not supported by the majority.(probably)
--- Quote from: switchabl on April 21, 2023, 06:08:34 pm ---
--- Quote from: Simon on April 21, 2023, 05:30:52 pm ---I am confused. I was led to beleive that the people voted for this.
--- End quote ---
There was never a referendum if that is what you mean. In 2000, a social democrat/green coalition goverment first decided to phase out nuclear energy by around 2020 and change to PV and wind. A conservative government reversed that plan in 2010, then more or less reinstated it in 2011... Last year, the last 3 remaining plants were due to be decomissioned but after much debate it was decided to move the deadline by a few months because of the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the fear that there might be energy shortages during the winter.
--- End quote ---
And here we go again. A coalition(not even a party with a majority) spd/green wants to do something. No chance for a referendum on it, but they loose an election. So you ask why did they loose it, but of course no one has a clue. Maybe because of this. So an other party gets into power which didn't want to do it, but then suddenly they change their mind and do it. Can we call this as a representation of the will of the people?
And than the 2015 issue and now the drogliberalization as well, which will create even more tension not just in Germany but in the whole EU....
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