> China says its plans could prevent about 1.5 billion tons of annual carbon emissions, more than what’s generated by the U.K., Spain, France and Germany combined
Even if this is an overly-optimistic estimate it's still a colossal step forward!
1 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...
https://environmentalprogress.org/the-war-on-nuclear
Hopefully you don't believe it would be a step too far for the fossil fuel industry that has been responsible for wars and regime change and cartel behavior going back over a century to subvert or create fake environmental movements to keep their competition down.
It would be more outlandish to believe the fossil fuel industry isn't a major driving force behind the anti-scientific anti-environmental anti-nuclear movement. Follow the money.
Now if you have millions of square kilometres of desert or uninhabited wasteland you are willing to sacrifice, sure you can plonk fission reactors there and take risks with the inevitable nuclear accident. US and Canada do have but are unwilling to sacrifice (aka NIMBYism). Russia does have but doesn't really need more nuclear power than it already has for it's fairly small population. China and to a smaller extant India do have such wastelands and the population to need nuclear power. If instead they plonk the new reactors in fertile populated areas, they in their turn will learn the hard way from their own accidents.
Now you can and modern reactors do design for "safe" failure. But frankly why bother when Solar and Wind have become so cheap that virtually no new coal plants are being planned in major economies in the last two years.
However given the events, there's a lot of migration out of the surrounding towns and villages outside the exclusion zone due to fear of radiation amd a very marked population decline in the region. Young families don't want to risk raising children in such an area - so the population effects are significantly amplified and towns will go desolate as the older folks who stay pass away.
[1] https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/tokyo-fprint.html
[2] https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/report-of-fukushima-exclu...
If I were choosing somewhere to live, I'd be more worried about the risk of another tsunami which killed 20,000 people than low level background radiation, same with Earthquakes in California, or Tornados in the middle of the US, or Hurricaines in the South East of the US.
Many places in the exclusion zone are about as radioactive as Cornwall, and people pay a premium to live there. There are far more radioactive cities in the world.
There have been two serious nuclear incidents that have rendered land uninhabitable. One was a Soviet reactor that was already outdated at the time it was put to use, the other was the result of a tsunami. The entire field of research has been put on hold since Chernobyl, but the problems that caused the disaster have long since been solved.
Nuclear reactors have several advantages over solar and wind. Not taking up as much space, for one. There's also the ability to work during windless nights without having to install massive battery arrays.
The existing energy grid also isn't prepared for every house generating their own electricity. I know of several cities that simply refuse to connect more solar panels to the grid because the load cannot be distributed. The necessary expansion and reconstruction of the grid is planned to take about thirty years if work starts today.
Solar is great if solar panels are in constant use for over ten years, but advances in technology and deterioration of the panels themselves make many money wise consumers switch out their panels much earlier, sometimes even before they've earned back their production and transportation costs. We're just offsetting the environmental damage, moving it to mining and production facilities in China where we don't have to care.
Wind is the only green technology that I think is actually green enough not to be ruined by private economic incentives, but the NIMBY factor is huge. You're right that Europe is densely populated in comparison, and you need quite a lot of distance from the giant blades to not be affected by the many stressor such plants create, like the constant whooshing, the moving shadows and the constant low hums that come with most of them. Placing them at sea is a great solution for all of those problems, though.
There is no holy grail in energy. We'll go solar if price is more important than the environment, wind if availability is more important than the surrounding inhabitants, or coal and gas when we just need power without all the complaining.
Meanwhile, we'll always be planning some nuclear plants in Europe, because hospitals need radioactive compounds. The current ones are deteriorating but they have to keep operating because nobody wants to build new plants, but at some point we'll either have to build some at some point or not offer certain kinds of care in certain areas anymore.
Data: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38...
In the context it seems pretty clear to me that "increasing CO2" is meant to refer to relative changes, not absolute changes. Playing semantics is a fairly pointless distraction from the actual argument.
So, as I asked before, how would these changes compare to projected decreases, if the nuclear plants were not switched off?
Calling a decrease an increase is something I would call playing semantics.
And you're still ignoring my original question, which I asked from genuine curiosity. I'm getting a strong feeling you prefer to focus on a straw man, because if you look at relative changes your position falls apart. Do prove me wrong.
You've basically taken my point and turned it to mean the exact opposite, so that you can give a smart-ass reply while avoiding the actual question I'm asking. Well done.
"...Germany's current plan where you're decommissioning nuclear to become more "green" yet producing much more carbon dioxide."
It says clearly "decommissioning nuclear, YET producing MORE carbon dioxide". It's not true, and there's no other way around it. I posted an explicit response to this wrong post because I have seen it many times (and unfortunately I am repeating myself here). A lot of pro nuclear people are shaking their heads in dismay because the CO2 numbers in Germany are going up. They are not! I have literally had this very same discussion three weeks ago somewhere else with another person that does not check data.
How you then managed to spin it into a comparison to a fictional parallel universe where the plants are still on and concluded that a decrease is actually an increase I don't know. But it's enough for me for today.
You have not at any point tried to answer my original question. At every point you deflect to a straw man.
> It says clearly "decommissioning nuclear, YET producing MORE carbon dioxide". It's not true, and there's no other way around it.
As I have quite clearly explained to you, this can refer either to absolute or relative changes. It doesn't take a lot of goodwill to decide that they probably meant relative changes, and then from there on you can address issues (such as pros/cons of nuclear) that actually matter, instead of splitting hairs and argue about language.
> A lot of pro nuclear people are shaking their heads in dismay because the CO2 numbers in Germany are going up. They are not!
They presumably are, relative to what they could have been, no? That seems a perfectly good reason to be upset, even if you don't agree with nuclear as the best option. If you immediately lambast people for not using language the way you think it should be used, you are inevitably going to lose a lot of credibility. Goodwill is necessary for a constructive debate, and you're not really showing that here.
> How you then managed to spin it into a comparison to a fictional parallel universe where the plants are still on and concluded that a decrease is actually an increase I don't know.
If you're having trouble understanding the concept of a relative change, perhaps this is not the best discussion to be involved in. Far too often I see people comment loudly and denounce their opponents as idiots, when it is in fact themselves that don't fully understand the nuances and complexities.
Germany is investing heavily in green energy, but green energy won't be able to provide the necessary energy for years to come. Switching to their objectively worse power sources, both in terms of carbon emissions and release of radioactive compounds to the surrounding environment, was a stupid move based on nothing more than FUD.
Secondly, I posted somewhere else, but the German tax payers are since 2017 on the hook for an estimated $170B of costs for the disposal of old nuclear waste from the plants. Greenpeace has criticized the deal as inadequate since the costs will likely be higher. The way I see it, a lot of money was saved by switching them off, and that money can be used for something else. The problem of nuclear waste is unsolved in most of the world, including the US, where there are already reports that the temporary storage is leaking. Another thing to consider.
But those are mostly just opinions and what ifs. Crucially however, you are assuming that green energy can't provide for years and that they switched to an objectively worse power source. It's just not true: they rely less on coal now then they did 10 years ago, and have increased the renewable part to 45% (from 30% just five years ago). The amount of coal in use now is at a historic minimum both in terms of the percentage and the absolute amount.
Data: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... (coal is represented by brown and gray)
It's the classic outsource stuff to other nations and claim victory tactic that helps nobody.
Data: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153533/umfrag...
There seems to be quiet bimodal distribution of CO2e estimates for carbon. Some are like 5 other >100 in the same unit.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Nucl...
OK, but the same applies to wind turbines. I don't see a lot of Teslas hauling wind turbines down I-80. Let's not set up double standards just for nuclear.
However the primary benefit to nuclear, beyond its acceptable carbon emissions, is that functioning as a base load removes a lot of the difficultly with building enough battery infrastructure to enable solar power to power peak load and through the night. This is particularly the case for service based economies whose peak load is often after dark.
This is about investing and creating incentives. So IMHO Germany shouldn't build new plants and France shouldn't get EU funding for their existing ones and everyone, but especially these wealthy countries should focus on truly sustainable energy.
Every euro spend on a "transitional" does not go towards the truly sustainable technologies.
We won't have many euros left if we need to fight climate change effects while we wait for new technologies. We need to use the technology we already have. In addition to that, in parallel, we also need to find enough land owners that are willing to have a wind turbine in their proverbial back yard. And in parallel install solar panels on available surfaces. And introduce (pumped, battery, etc.) energy storage. We need all of it.
Renewables don't have a money problem, it's a political and humanitarian problem. It literally costs money to have money (ask your bank), so the big money owners want to invest it. It's well known that solar panels and wind turbines pay for itself easily and are very low risk (lower even than an index fund if you operate more than a single device).
Nuclear isn't so simple, but has unique advantages. We don't have the luxury to play politics around whether nuclear is renewable or not, it's low on greenhouse gases and doesn't require a lot of land per MWh. No point delaying further while we debate for another five years about whether we should really fund this not-truly-renewable technology.
For gas, I mostly agree with you because that's an ongoing emission source with much higher greenhouse gas emissions. Building new gas plants isn't going to get us very far (even if its merits vs. alternatives need to be weighed on a case-by-case basis).
But nuclear is different from gas: it's a calculable emission source for the initial construction, and over its lifetime will be orders of magnitude lower, in the same ballpark as wind and hydro.
I'd love to go with only truly renewable sources (not that "renewables" like wind and solar have renewable or long-lived hardware, but it's a good start). I just don't see that as an option in densely populated western Europe. I'm happy that the EU looks at merits here rather than ideologies.
Its advantages are dwindling compared to solar/wind/battery/pumped hydro/demand shaping.
It requires gargantuan subsidies to even exist.
For instance, the nuclear industry in the US has barraged us with propaganda about how really incredibly safe it is and how overregulated they are but insurers will still refuse to insure a nuclear plant unless 99% of the liability for accident cleanup is placed on taxpayer shoulders.
Its main advantage is that it can mitigate some of the costs of maintaining a nuclear arsenal. This is realistically why the US, UK and France keep it but Germany doesnt think it's worth it.
These three elephants in the room: cost, accident liability and nuclear arsenals are invariably absent from media discussions about nuclear power in the US largely because of who drives the discussion.
While Nuclear is not cheap, it will be cheaper than the effects from un-softened climate change.
While Nuclear is difficult to maintain and if an accident happens it is bad, but the damage and affected area can be easily calculated.
While Nuclear waste storage costs money and has to be secure for a long time, the chance that we as humans will be able to recycle the nuclear waste in 200-500 years is fairly high. On the other hand once shit hits the fans with climate change shit really hits the fan but with the quantity of New York City's total sewage from the last 5 decades.
The thought that we will be able to recycle nuclear waste in 200+ years is more reliable than any promise Elon Musk has ever given.
Is it cheaper than demand shaping/wind/solar/grid-scale batteries though? That's the real question.
As far as I can see that answer may be yes in one specific circumstance - when you already have a nuclear plant with another 5+ years of life left. i.e. when the insane capex is a sunk cost.
In all other instances it only really comes close if you assume the risk of nuclear disaster is close to zero or if you pretend that the precipitous fall in solar/wind/battery prices didnt happen yet.
I believe that’s the wrong question to ask. We need nuclear to be cheaper and more attractive than coal and oil (and later natural gas).
If grid scale batteries ever become a viable thing and cheaper than nuclear then that’s just great and eventually the nuclear plants can be phased out in favour of those.
In the meantime however we need to get rid of coal and oil, because that’s where the overwhelmingly most emissions are.
Ok. So, what if that already happened?
>In the meantime however
The meantime is past. Arguably it lasted until latest 2020 which was the last time grid scale batteries were expensive. 2014 was the last time solar or wind were expensive.
Meanwhile, if you tried to commission a new nuclear plant now it wouldnt be running until 2030 earliest and possibly later (hinkley point C will take 20 years).
A new battery/wind/solar farm usually takes a year and theyre still plunging in price.
Nevertheless nuclear energy is a steady and reliable source of large amounts of energy, just like coal and oil. By having a few of those, the grid operator can greatly decrease their need for grid-scale batteries, thus enabling more grids to deploy them faster, paving the way for more solar/wind.
This is not a competition between renewables and nuclear. They aren't enemies.
CO2 is the enemy, we must focus on that.
Point well taken about how long the nuclear projects take, that's why natural gas a bridge is important.
I want purely renewable energy just as much as you but I'm highly skeptical that it is possible or even desirable to build out all the capacity we need in just solar/wind/hydro in the short amount of time we have. Everything that helps, helps. Until the point where it doesn't and then that's the time to address that.
They kind of are. They are competing for limited investment and they are not complementary.
Nuclear power is not a "battery". It's an extraordinarily expensive way to produce a fixed amount of power whether it's needed or not.
You trade ~20% extra reliability for 3x the cost.
>I'm highly skeptical that it is possible or even desirable to build out all the capacity we need in just solar/wind/hydro in the short amount of time we have
Nothing can do it in the short amount of time that we have to save us from 2C.
Diverting limited resources to nuclear won't speed the transition up though, it'll slow it down.
Government might better focus on clamping down on frivolous waste of resources such as cryptos (both waste of hardware, energy and most valuably talent).
Hmm, I think one should also add other factors.
Space Requirements for Wind and solar. To generate the same amount of energy as a nuclear power plant a lot of space is needed for Wind and Solar.
Resources to Produce Batteries, Solar Panels and Wind mills. Battery production requires a fuck ton of water. With impeding Water shortages this is suboptimal.
How many Solar Panels and Wind mills can we produce daily? Not just construction and installation on site, but also mineral mining for the Solar panels. And then how many factories can produce these, and can that be scaled up? How many construction workers are there and how many on site installation can be completed.
We need 1200 wind turbines to replace an 30year old nuclear power plant. Windturbine = 3mW, Nuclear power plant = 1.2GW
Just to cover our current demand of electrical energy we need a ton of wind turbines and solar panels. Than add to that every other industry that needs to switch to electricity, Transportation, Chemical Industry, Steel Industry, heating etc. This would quintuple our electrical energy consumption.
Hornsea two provides as much as a nuclear plant, with vastly lower cost and built about 15x faster. It's 165 x 8 MW turbines.
It was planned, executed, built and brought online before Hinkley point C even laid the first brick at ~45% of the cost and a load factor of about 65% (to nuclears 80) due to the greater reliability of wind with large turbines.
>mineral mining for the Solar panels
You mean going to the beach?
With such arguments, there really is no point having a discussion. You know that's not the advantages I was referring to (since they're in the very next sentence you're quoting) and you're ignoring that completely.
The question of who insures nuclear plants (always taxpayers) is likewise something else that is always curiously whitewashed out of American media.
Most of the advantages other than the nuclear arsenal one, on the other hand, are repeated frequently and are very well known.
This is not quite correct.
The first decision to phase-out nuclear was made around the year 2000 [1]. Its initial date for the shutdown of the last nuclear reactor was set to be 2022. The plan was agreed upon by the owners of these plans.
Around 2010, this first decision was taken back, and a few months later, Fukushima happened. This led to the second decision to phase-out nuclear.
Only then, eight of 17 reactors were turned off quickly. But this had no major impact, because the switch to renewables was already under way for ten years.
Compare Germany's coal consumption after Fukushima with Japan's, and you'll noticed the difference.
[1] https://wiki.energytransition.org/the-book/policies-for-clea...
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-germany-nuclear-reactors...
Which will increase the pressure upon Gas demand at a time that is probably one of the worst for a long time, let alone the usual winter pressure.
Shame nuclear didn't get that green EU label years ago when, as France could of green lit it's updated nuclear plant program instead of stagnating in limbo at a time in which many of their existing plants are entering end of life and with current timescales, would at best see a few pushed past that or some serious shortfalls in energy production.
As for Germany building new plants, with the public opinion, I would suspect that Germany's nuclear production is something they are happy to offshore to France and buy in that green energy cheaply without any of the political fallout/protests on it's doorstep.