Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th

[james_s]

After a four or five years when the spent fuel assemblies are transferred to dry storage, this is just a couple of kilowatts, i.e., not worthwhile. For example, this storage cask is rated for a maximum of 39 kW total heat load.

That's over 130k BTU/h in heat, enough to heat several average homes. It's a shame that heat can't be harvested for heating things.

[daqq]

After a four or five years when the spent fuel assemblies are transferred to dry storage, this is just a couple of kilowatts, i.e., not worthwhile. For example, this storage cask is rated for a maximum of 39 kW total heat load.

That's over 130k BTU/h in heat, enough to heat several average homes. It's a shame that heat can't be harvested for heating things.

It probably could, but in the grand scheme of things it's very small and moving a really huge and weighty cylinder that requires special handling somewhere to the middle of a city where such heat might best be used would probably cost more than the heating bill for a whole village. And your local scrap "collectors" would be just too tempted and since they can't read anyway...
Funnily enough there are RTGs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator ) - generators that harness decay heat and convert it into useful power. Mind you, they are in really special applications. And it's not decay heat of random spent fuel rods but of specific isotopes specially chosen.

[Neutrion]

And how much outage would mean the refuelling? If the aim is to make it work for another 1-2 years?  Would the costs, risk or time to do it enormus?

And what if that decision had been made immediately after the government got the results of the studies regarding the possible enlenghtening of the usage of the plants?

If there would be a political will, could it be made economically feasible in a timeframe and for costs that would beat power to gas initiatives (or maybe renewables)during the same time period?

Refueling for 1-2 years would not make much sense. Usually the fuel is in the reactor for some 3-4 years with exchanging something like 1/3 every 12-18 months or so. So if they would order new fuel it would be more like for 3-4 years at least - ideally longer to have a mix of old and new rods as the reactors are planed to work with. They may keep a little of the old fuel, but likely not much as the really run it to the end with not much juice left. The unusual fuel mix may need extra certification.

The other point is that the reactors are over-due for a major revision / inspection. They are currently running on extensions/exceptions from the normal rules. So not just the normal short outage to change the fuel, but more like 6 months or langer to check and replace parts that wear-out and upgrade to current standards where needed. A point here is that the replacement parts are no longer planed for and possibly even the machines / molds to make them may no longer be availabe, as they did not plan to ever do this revision anymore. Chances are the mechanics origianlly trained for this job also have a new job. With short notice the revision would likely take longer than normal. So the time (1-2 years) to order an manufacture new fuel may not even be the limiting factor. With the extra effort if would likely not make much sense to restart for only 1 fuel load.

The unlikely scenario to extend the plant life would be some 1-3 years to get them ready for a restart and than maybe 6-10 years, or what ever is left of the planed 40 years of design life. A much shorter time may not be worth the effort.
I don't see a political will for such a longer term commitment and all the regulatory effort for only 3 reactors.

So to sum it up:
It is technically not feasible to run them for an extra 1-2 year, but would be possible to run them for a longer term.
You mention the posibble issue regarding the aviability of some tools etc., but I suppose the studies which were made during last summer were there exactly to ansver that question. Possibly also the costs. Are they publicly aviable?
So in this case because the coal phase-out is planned to 2030, there could be still a useful 3-4 years until subtitution by renewables. (Or the French. (Or to fulfill AP new-speak guidelines "people experiencing frenchness"))
In that case we still don't know whether the population really supports coal instead of nuclear for a few extra years, so this decision can not be blamed on democracy as this scenario was not included in any parties program before the war, and the greens are in clear minority by the number of voters.
Are the coal plants be there to run only in emergency situations, or will they take over the whole base load 4 GW? continuously?

[Siwastaja]

These plants are designed to operate safely for much more than half a century. It's not that extending the operational life by "a few years" is any problem. It's extension after extension after extension after extension which gradually becomes a problem. AFAIK, this practice is being critiqued in the USA.

but if checks, maintenance, etc. have been planned to the deadline and personnel already moved on I suspect it is not a quick or small task to do

Of course it isn't. You would pay for the political mistake of early shutdown of all nuclear, and no, you would not extend by just 1-2 years, realistically the problem isn't also going away in just 1-2 years. You would commit to 5-10 years of extension, and hope we have solved the issues with renewables by then. And don't get me wrong, the track record with renewables is not that bad. It's getting there. Struggling was and is to be expected.

Now if politicians could commit to say 10 years, then re-recruiting the staff, getting new fuel etc. makes a lot more sense than for 1-2 years. The cost is still higher than what it would have been if the replacement planning was done more carefully to begin with, but that's the price you need to pay.

A large bill has been paid anyway. Finnish taxpayers subsidized Russian's natural gas by over 10 billion € through German gas customers. But because Finland is now basically bankrupt, Germans need to start paying their own energy bills (like we have always done).

[vad]

You would commit to 5-10 years of extension, and hope we have solved the issues with renewables by then.

Nuclear power plants operate as baseload plants and as load-following power plants. Renewable sources are intermittent and weather- and time-of-day dependent. They are not a replacement for nuclear power.

Shutting down NPPs would either lead to more power generation from coal and natural gas, or result in blackouts.

[SiliconWizard]

And in any case, even 10 years is not reasonable. Who really thinks we can have "renewables" at a level that can make us get rid of nuclear (+ all the horribly polluting like coal) within 10 years?
Seriously?

[james_s]

Idealistic people that have no real grasp of just how much energy is required to run modern society.

[BravoV]

Who really thinks we can have "renewables" at a level that can make us get rid of nuclear (+ all the horribly polluting like coal) within 10 years?

According to the Great Goddess Greta Thunberg. 

Seriously?

Why not ? Spoke at the podium of United Nation conferences, UN summits, many mores and even Nobel prize nominated, what could go wrong ?   

[Halcyon]

And in any case, even 10 years is not reasonable. Who really thinks we can have "renewables" at a level that can make us get rid of nuclear (+ all the horribly polluting like coal) within 10 years?
Seriously?

It's a complete and utter pipe dream.

Even down here where the sun shines brightly and about 1 in 3 homes on average have solar panels, "only" about 30% of our power comes from renewables. It's no where near the capacity to support reliable, sustained baseload.

Maybe AU can buy the reactors from Germany for cheap? 

[james_s]

Solar panels bring their own problems too. I'm not suggesting they're not worth it, but there is a significant environmental cost to mining and transporting the materials, manufacturing the panels, packing, transporting, delivering and installing the panels, and then all the equipment that goes into a complete system. Ultimately they will probably offset this and then some over the life of the panels but it is still something to consider.

[Someone]

You would commit to 5-10 years of extension, and hope we have solved the issues with renewables by then.

Nuclear power plants operate as baseload plants and as load-following power plants. Renewable sources are intermittent and weather- and time-of-day dependent. They are not a replacement for nuclear power.

Ah that old baseload furphy, which from a different perspective is "those ridiculous oil tanker scale dinosaur plants couldn't operate flexibly and they had to convince the market to use energy when no-one wanted it". Which applies exactly the same to solar, girds now routinely having an excess of energy in the middle of the working day except the pricing mechanisms haven't caught up yet.

"unreliable" renewable energy can replace 90% or more of an electricity grid... cheaper than any other source:
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/energy-data-modelling/
CSIRO GenCost has been finding the same results year on year, variable renewables + storage is the economic winner if you have a rational and open market (which we do not). That other 10% or less can come from hydro (world average is 7% with room to grow and co-locate/integrate storage) or your choice of other generators.

[SiliconWizard]

Who really thinks we can have "renewables" at a level that can make us get rid of nuclear (+ all the horribly polluting like coal) within 10 years?

According to the Great Goddess Greta Thunberg. 

Seriously?

Why not ? Spoke at the podium of United Nation conferences, UN summits, many mores and even Nobel prize nominated, what could go wrong ?   

Well, I know this very tight "schedule" is all part of the UN's 2030 crap. So we HAVE to absolutely hit this 2030 date, or else...

As to solar panels, they are "good" for small-scale use, but not a solution for larger plants IMO. There are much better ways to use solar energy than solar panels if you have enough area.

[Siwastaja]

It is funny how nuclear is now rebranded as reliable and good baseline production.

In reality, nuclear is nearly as much special snowflake stuff as renewables. Just the exact pattern is a bit different.

Case in point: In Finland in 1970's when the fourth NPP was under political consideration (to be finally finished in 2009 2023), serious plans were being made for using lakes for pumped hydro storage, because it was realized that the production and consumption do not meet. Distributed energy storage in hot water (night time heating at households) was pushed in 1980's and is still in use.

This was seen as a drawback of nuclear, which is true:  too much nuclear is simply too much. All nations relying on nuclear power use significant amounts of fossil fuels in the mix, always more than half.

It was and still is known that nuclear power needs to be supplemented with fossil fuels! It's the exact same case with renewables.

You can detect who's a brain-turned-off nuclear fanboy by simply observing this rebranding where nuclear has somehow become the reliable all-around base production with imaginary potential of reducing fossil fuel use without drawbacks or limitations; which would be all great unless there were those nasty renewables which supposedly increase fossil fuel use.

In reality, wind power specifically is the market bully, while nuclear is that special snowflake victim who gets seriously hurt at every possible opportunity and who has to ask for a safe space to be artificially arranged because they can't compete in the free market. Both renewables and nuclear rely on supplement by fossils, and for both, the amount of fossils can be reduced by arranging energy storage or flexible load management. Therefore the whole "boohoo renewables bad because need fossils or storage" is just blame shifting, nothing else. We really need the storage and load management solutions anyway.

And in any case, even 10 years is not reasonable. Who really thinks we can have "renewables" at a level that can make us get rid of nuclear (+ all the horribly polluting like coal) within 10 years?
Seriously?

It's a complete and utter pipe dream.

Except you are totally wrong, it's far from a "complete and utter piper dream". All you need to do is to take look at the current status:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Germany_electricity_production.svg

Open your eyes and extrapolate even in a conservative way, and you will see what I mean; if you are ready to accept being wrong.

The amount of actual, successful renewable energy production in Germany surprises everybody, every time. The excuse is always, "it can't keep doing that because energy can't be stored, it will stay marginal". Yet the share continues rising and hasn't been marginal for years, and there are no signs of it slowing down.

No, it won't be magically 100% in 10 years, but I do believe (based on actual data) it is enough to actually turn off the nuclear plants by then, in Germany.

[Halcyon]

No, it won't be magically 100% in 10 years, but I do believe (based on actual data) it is enough to actually turn off the nuclear plants by then, in Germany.

On one hand you call me wrong. On the other you claim this.

I never claimed that renewables couldn't replace the nuclear power output (in Germany). But if you think it'll replace coal, gas and other forms of non-renewable energy anytime soon, perhaps it's you who needs to "open your eyes" (as you say).

[Siwastaja]

Well, the claim was:
* Get rid of nuclear + coal
* Within 10 years

And your claim it's a "complete and utter pipe dream". In reality, it is something which is possibly nearly reachable. Getting rid of all fossils was not in the original claim, just the most polluting coal.

Probably not quite there to get the coal to zero, but it's not "complete and utter pipe dream", but a remotely realistic scenario supported by current data as ambitious but not utterly impossible target.

You are just being emotional and failing to look at the data.

And in the end, it is ridiculous to make it a nothing-or-all question. The negative effects (to people and environment) of fossil fuels scale linearly with the amount of their use. The idea of having to go to zero is a complete strawman.

[tom66]

Nuclear power plants operate as baseload plants and as load-following power plants. Renewable sources are intermittent and weather- and time-of-day dependent. They are not a replacement for nuclear power.

Shutting down NPPs would either lead to more power generation from coal and natural gas, or result in blackouts.

If only there was some kind of mechanism to store energy.  Ah well, I guess that will never ever be invented, and we'll always need base load.

[Vovk_Z]

Local news, Sako can't boost ammunition production, TikTok is using all electricity.

Just to those that don't know yet: I prefer funny cat videos over bullets 

It's all funny, but only until you need bullets. 

[tom66]

Open your eyes and extrapolate even in a conservative way, and you will see what I mean; if you are ready to accept being wrong.

The amount of actual, successful renewable energy production in Germany surprises everybody, every time. The excuse is always, "it can't keep doing that because energy can't be stored, it will stay marginal". Yet the share continues rising and hasn't been marginal for years, and there are no signs of it slowing down.

This!  So true.

In the UK, in 2013, the installed wind capacity was around 10GW.  Now, in 2023, it is approaching 30GW.

On a particularly gusty day we are already looking at all night time load being wind provided, and within another decade it is possible there will be weeks when renewable energy is providing power exclusively.

[Neutrion]

Here you can check how it works out for Germany with renewables:
https://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/agorameter/chart/power_generation/10.04.2023/13.04.2023/today/

Quiet well, and yes 10 years ago we were hearing the same arguments as: But solar is expensive, wind needs government subsidies. Well here we are they are more competitive than the others, just needed some kick in.
The only problem was I think, that  the power to gas initiatives were running too slow, and that it was not made sure that the nuclear plants were not going to be substituted by coal what sadly happened.

If hydrogen production will be ramped up as fas as it hapened with wind and solar, than in ten years not much fossil fuels will be needed if anything at all.
BTW in Sweden the first experimantal steel plant running on hydrogen is already built, so hopefully not even the heavy industry will need any fossil fuels, and hopefully non green material imports into the EU will be taxed according to their enviromental footprint.

The plan was I suppose to substitute the coal with gas during these years, but the war kicked in the door unfortunately. I hope that at least as much extra investment will flow into the hydrogen production as into the arms race. Or rather much more.

Base load can be minimized both with heat pumps, enviroment-dependent tariffs, and the rest can be handled by power to gas plants.
In Germany as you can see the base load is around 50GW now and even during bad nights already 20 procent of it is renewable, on better nights almost 50%.

Nuclear plants as Kleinstein described are not worth to build to run on 50% duty cycle.

Any similar graphs fo the UK anyone?

[MT]

Who really thinks we can have "renewables" at a level that can make us get rid of nuclear (  all the horribly polluting like coal) within 10 years?

According to the Great Goddess Greta Thunberg. 

Seriously?

Why not ? Spoke at the podium of United Nation conferences, UN summits, many mores and even Nobel prize nominated, what could go wrong ?   

Well, I know this very tight "schedule" is all part of the UN's 2030 crap. So we HAVE to absolutely hit this 2030 date, or else...

As to solar panels, they are "good" for small-scale use, but not a solution for larger plants IMO. There are much better ways to use solar energy than solar panels if you have enough area.

Greta uber alles in der welt!

Greta Thunberg Says Germany Should Keep Its Nuclear Plants Open.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-11/greta-thunberg-says-germany-should-keep-its-nuclear-plants-open?leadSource=uverify wall

[nctnico]

Nuclear power plants operate as baseload plants and as load-following power plants. Renewable sources are intermittent and weather- and time-of-day dependent. They are not a replacement for nuclear power.

Shutting down NPPs would either lead to more power generation from coal and natural gas, or result in blackouts.

If only there was some kind of mechanism to store energy.  Ah well, I guess that will never ever be invented, and we'll always need base load.

In the NL the plan is to use hydrogen to store energy. Including to serve as a base load for 2 new NPPs

[asmi]

And your claim it's a "complete and utter pipe dream". In reality, it is something which is possibly nearly reachable. Getting rid of all fossils was not in the original claim, just the most polluting coal.

Probably not quite there to get the coal to zero, but it's not "complete and utter pipe dream", but a remotely realistic scenario supported by current data as ambitious but not utterly impossible target.

You are just being emotional and failing to look at the data.

And in the end, it is ridiculous to make it a nothing-or-all question. The negative effects (to people and environment) of fossil fuels scale linearly with the amount of their use. The idea of having to go to zero is a complete strawman.

Yes it is, just give it a couple of more years until all industry moves out of Europe into US and China, and you can live in your green utopia This is what happens when you make decisions based on ideology instead of common sense.

[Siwastaja]

Yes it is, just give it a couple of more years until all industry moves out of Europe into US and China, and you can live in your green utopia This is what happens when you make decisions based on ideology instead of common sense.

This is an engineering forum. You can go somewhere else if you want to label people into identity politic bins instead of talking about the reality, engineering and numbers.

What you call "common sense" is especially dangerous. Energy production and consumption is far beyond something that can be engineered using "common sense". (How do you even explain nuclear power with "common sense"?) It requires rigorous engineering and scientific approach. Which you clearly seem to hate, and it's your loss.

It is exactly you, and only you here, who makes decisions based on ideology, because that is what your "common sense" really is. I make decisions based on engineering, research, and facts.

[asmi]

This is an engineering forum. You can go somewhere else if you want to label people into identity politic bins instead of talking about the reality, engineering and numbers.

What you call "common sense" is especially dangerous. Energy production and consumption is far beyond something that can be engineered using "common sense". (How do you even explain nuclear power with "common sense"?) It requires rigorous engineering and scientific approach. Which you clearly seem to hate, and it's your loss.

It is exactly you, and only you here, who makes decisions based on ideology, because that is what your "common sense" really is. I make decisions based on engineering, research, and facts.

It's funny how ideologs like to project No, what I'm saying is hard facts, not ideology. But then again, we're talking about the very same country which believed they are the Arians - the superior race - not too long ago on historical scale. So I'm not surprised how easily they got indocrinated into believing into all this green energy nonsense.

Note that it wasn't me who went into ad-hominem attacks This is what happens when ideologs run out of rational arguments.

[Neutrion]

This is an engineering forum. You can go somewhere else if you want to label people into identity politic bins instead of talking about the reality, engineering and numbers.

What you call "common sense" is especially dangerous. Energy production and consumption is far beyond something that can be engineered using "common sense". (How do you even explain nuclear power with "common sense"?) It requires rigorous engineering and scientific approach. Which you clearly seem to hate, and it's your loss.

It is exactly you, and only you here, who makes decisions based on ideology, because that is what your "common sense" really is. I make decisions based on engineering, research, and facts.

It's funny how ideologs like to project No, what I'm saying is hard facts, not ideology. But then again, we're talking about the very same country which believed they are the Arians - the superior race - not too long ago on historical scale. So I'm not surprised how easily they got indocrinated into believing into all this green energy nonsense.

Note that it wasn't me who went into ad-hominem attacks This is what happens when ideologs run out of rational arguments.

So far you did not provide any technical counterarguments, just the runt against the germans in general.