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A comment on Germany's Energy Catastrophe. Parent comment

Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by dna_polymerase on Friday July 15, 2022 @02:25AM (#32105219)
It needs a catastrophic fail ihre for nuclear to become deadly for the masses. Germany replaced the nuclear power plants with coal and gas based plants whose Modus operandi is deadly for the masses.

Even if you want to shutdown nuclear, Germany did it in an extremely stupid.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by flohofwoe on Friday July 15, 2022 @02:45AM (#32105344)
Because a picture says more than a thousand words:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#/medi...

Also:

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...

Nuclear power is mainly being replaced by renewables, not coal or gas.

Natural gas only accounts for 15% of electricity production, the upcoming gap could probably easily be filled with alternatives.

But it's main use isn't electricity, but for heating in private homes and all sort of processes in the industry. About half of all homes are heated with gas, you can't simply flip a switch and replace the gas heating in 20 million homes with electric heating.

TL;DR: the pressing problem that needs solving is how to prioritize private homes versus the industry's use of natural gas, even if nuclear power plants would suddenly spring out of the ground for free, they wouldn't help much with this.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by LunaSea on Friday July 15, 2022 @02:51AM (#32105389)
Oh is that why Germany pressured the EU to qualify gas as "green" energy and block nuclear energy from getting the same qualification?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by turbinerneiter on Friday July 15, 2022 @02:56AM (#32105419)
Except they didn't block that. Both sources are now qualified as green, gas however only as use for easing the transition.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by LunaSea on Friday July 15, 2022 @04:07AM (#32105884)
That's why I wrote "pressured" and not "succeeded". They tried heavily.

Gas isn't a transition to anything.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by VaxWithSex on Friday July 15, 2022 @03:03AM (#32105471)
They actually didn't.

New plants only qualify as "green investments" if and only if they can be used to burn electrolyzed hydrogen in the future.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by LunaSea on Friday July 15, 2022 @04:06AM (#32105881)
Which also isn't "green" in any shape or form.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany's Energy Catastrophe by flohofwoe on Friday July 15, 2022 @05:33AM (#32106342)
It's as "green" as the electricity used for the hydrogen production. The idea is to use hydrogen as energy storage, produced from surplus wind and solar energy.
[ Parent | on HN ]