Instead of getting rid of coal, renewables would reduce but insure a long term dependency to coal though which sounds even worse.

We need to stop thinking short term which is the reason why we're in trouble in the first place.

You can't back this up with anything because you can't see the future. There is a lot of research being done on that, and it's a lot less conclusive than your comment. Think about that.

What we know from the past is that nuclear in 70 years hasn't done squat to eliminate the dependency on fossil fuels. This is simply a fact.

What we need short-term is decarbonization, and renewables are the cheapest and fastest way to do that. If you can't get rid of coal completely, you can then pick the slowest and most expensive solution that is nuclear. But it needs to be the last, not the first thing you do.

>There is a lot of research being done on that, and it's a lot less conclusive than your comment. Think about that.

You can't bet the future on unknown tech which might never exist. That's just R&D. Otherwise we can talk about nuclear fusion which unlike the magical battery tech, we actually know that it exists

> What we know from the past is that nuclear in 70 years hasn't done squat to eliminate the dependency on fossil fuels. This is simply a fact.

France is the most decarbonized developed country in the world thanks to that. The country is already half way there. Nobody came even close, that's a fact.

Talking is cheap, the results regarding renewables just aren't there.

> What we need short-term is decarbonization, and renewables are the cheapest and fastest way to do that.

Running the coal and gas plants full speed like Germany does in winter isn't a viable decarbonization strategy.

They are even worse than nothing because they require tremendous investment upfront and then you are locked up with fossil fuels. There's a reason why the gas producers are lobbying for renewables.

Like I said, people more credible than you have made claims it's possible. Whether or not it's true is a matter of debate, or in the end the proof is in the pudding. That something is not possible, what you're saying is just not the case. You also have a misconception of things that exist and don't exist.

Germany does not run coal and gas plants full speed in the winter. Wind energy ticked over coal for the first quarter of 2023 [1].

Even if it did, Poland is currently backing up their nuclear with 100% coal, in the winter and summer, for the next 10 years at least. It will continue to pump co2 into the atmosphere and do as much damage as Germany will do for the next ~30 years, if Germany's coal use does not go down. But it will go down, it's on pace to reach 80% renewables in 2030. Poland is on pace to reach 30% coal in 2040. The damage done by spending money on nuclear first can never be recovered from. It might even be too late for the world by then. Think about that.

The world will deploy 400GW of solar this year alone, and the growth will not decelerate any time soon. That is about 60 1GW reactor's worth of electricity. Talk really is cheap.

[1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2023/06...

> Like I said, people more credible than you have made claims it's possible. Whether or not it's true is a matter of debate, or in the end the proof is in the pudding. That something is not possible, what you're saying is just not the case. You also have a misconception of things that exist and don't exist.

Exactly, the proof is in the pudding and right now well, it's not there. Those magic storage solution don't exist, not even in theory.

> Germany does not run coal and gas plants full speed in the winter. Wind energy ticked over coal for the first quarter of 2023 [1].

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/news/2022/publi...

Germany went from 300TWh of fossil fuel production to 200TWh of fossil fuel production which is only a third of the way there.

This relatively small decrease has costed around 2x the French nuclear plants in its totality already and took 15 years. Let's just say that the numbers aren't great.

And ironically, that's just the start of their problems, since the new renewables have a pretty low durability, they are 0% of the way of their 2050 goals. Everything they installed already will have to be reinstalled again, they will understand the meaning of an exponential curve pretty soon.

There's a reason they are pushing so hard for dodgy financing in the EU, they see themselves the curve ahead.

> The world will deploy 400GW of solar this year alone, and the growth will not decelerate any time soon. That is about 60 1GW reactors worth of electricity. Talk really is cheap.

Well no that isn't because those panels require dirty backups and will only last 1/4 of the lifetime of the plant and I'm being generous.

Talk is cheap indeed, the results just aren't there.

> The damage done by spending money on nuclear first can never be recovered from

The damage one by spending money on renewables can never be recovered, the country is then locked to fossil fuels to smooth out the load. Fossil fuels and renewables are two sides of the same coin and go together.

That's the reason why all the major gas producers are onto it.

Those numbers are great because when Germany started the costs for renewables were astronomic. Even in 2012 when Germany deployed a then unthinkable 10GW+ of solar it was probably the most expensive electricity source. But now it is the cheapest -- and fastest way to deploy clean energy. So in that case, what lock in? If you decarbonize a lot more a lot faster, you will have more money to spend on nuclear. Lock in happens with nuclear first -- by the time you're done you're broke, didn't accomplish as much and it's anyway too late. That's rational only if you're really bad with numbers.

The renewables industry is on an astronomic trajectory. From zero to saving the world, and it will succeed where nuclear has failed for 70 years. Precisely the reason why fossil fuels and nuclear are two sides of the same coin: highly dependant on lobbying and corruption. Nuclear failed even before carbon emissions were an issue and this green relabeling is its last lifeline. But because it already failed, it won't suddenly miraculously succeed. All of the former climate deniers are now on the nuclear bandwagon because they know this will buy the most time for fossil fuels. Here is one: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/09/renewable-energy...

I am an engineer he says, nuclear is the only option. Ten years ago he was a high member of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition that sued the government to prevent it from claiming climate change is dangerous.

Nuclear requires dirty backup during construction which is always very long. I don't understand why this is so difficult to understand. It's doubtful if it can ever make up for that delay between deploying renewables and nuclear. So it's a net negative.

> So in that case, what lock in?

The lock in to fossil fuel in Germany and other renewable heavy countries is pretty clear and nobody can deny that. The Russian war was a slap in that fossil fuel oriented strategy, it's time to learn some lessons about past failures.

> The renewables industry is on an astronomic trajectory. From zero to saving the world, and it will succeed where nuclear has failed for 70 years. Precisely the reason why fossil fuels and nuclear are two sides of the same coin: highly dependant on lobbying and corruption.

Haha, may I remind you what happened in Germany and France? The Russian government financed renewable lobbying to keep the dependency on the Russian gas, and unfortunately for us, that worked. Even Greenpeace themselves sold Russian gas as part of their renewable strategy.

> But because it already failed, it won't suddenly miraculously succeed.

Germany's renewable strategy failed multiple times already, and every time it fails, they double down financially. We're pretty deep into sunken cost fallacy and I hope other countries aren't stupid enough to follow them in the hole they dug themselves in.

> Nuclear requires dirty backup during construction which is always very long.

And renewable require dirty backups as long as they exist, easy to see why it's worse and why gas producers are pushing for it and hate nuclear plants.

The Russian war has only accelerated renewables deployment on the EU level, including making it easier legally to get permits. Because now also politically there is no time to wait to get off fossil fuels. Your data is faulty and you make bad judgements.

The Energiewende has brought real change not only to Germany, but to the whole world. It's pretty much the reason all developed countries deploy only renewables and do that for the last couple years. Considering it's the only real chance the world has right now, it was a huge success.

Oh yeah sure, for Germany I don't doubt it, they are doubling down and want to build even more gas pipelines. I think it's a lost cause and I don't think they will wake up until a real grid failure happens. For the other EU countries, there's now some pretty big thinking on the gas+renewable strategy which was promoted during the past decade and now came to a dead-end.

The EU will add around 70GW [1] of renewables this year, again a strong increase to last year, which again was a strong increase to the year before. You can come up with any conclusion if you don't know the facts.

What's crazy though is that smart people predicted this would happen before it happened [2]. I am not that smart, but it takes also a certain talent to live in the present and not realize what is happening. You will wake up in a very different world a few years from now.

[1] https://www.pv-tech.org/eu-to-add-69gw-renewables-capacity-i... [2] https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/putins-war...

This is clearly some very bad news, these will lock-in fossil fuel removal and will prevent decarbonization.

I was thinking that the full gas+renewable strategy was over but indeed maybe not yet...

I guess the visit Von Der Leyen to the Azerbaijani dictator also sets up the tone of the strategy for the future, swapping one dicatatorship to the other to keep the gas running.