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Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
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Someone:

--- Quote from: vad on April 12, 2023, 11:42:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 12, 2023, 02:29:11 pm ---You would commit to 5-10 years of extension, and hope we have solved the issues with renewables by then.

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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.
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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:

--- Quote from: BravoV on April 13, 2023, 03:16:52 am ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 12, 2023, 11:58:33 pm ---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?
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According to the Great Goddess Greta Thunberg.  >:D


--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 12, 2023, 11:58:33 pm ---Seriously?
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Why not ? Spoke at the podium of United Nation conferences, UN summits, many mores and even Nobel prize nominated, what could go wrong ?  :-//  :-DD

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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... >:D

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.


--- Quote from: Halcyon on April 13, 2023, 03:20:41 am ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 12, 2023, 11:58:33 pm ---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?

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It's a complete and utter pipe dream.


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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:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 13, 2023, 09:31:20 am ---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.

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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.
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