k8wk1

Nextcloud is great.

However, at least in my case selfhosted version is rather slow even with enough hardware and recommended tuning.

The amount of annual subsidies is around $2 billion. It's a tiny number for a country as large as Japan. Their GDB is $4 trillion per year.

5PJ is not that large, only 1.4 TWh.

Low electricity costs are a problem for all electricity plans, not only nuclear.

Renewables are even more susceptible to this because the weather affects all renewable plants of the same type similarly across wide geographic areas, so there will be times when they all generate more than is needed and nothing can be done about it. What's worse, the output is unpredictable, so there's little opportunity for some business to base its operation on renewable electricity generation patterns.

At least the weekend demand drop is predictable, so businesses can use this predictable opportunity to reduce their costs and thus reduce the impact the weekends have on the profitability of nuclear and similar dispatchable plants.

Wind and solar are only possible because they use the rest of the grid as effectively a giant battery. When the sun shines and/or the wind blows, someone else needs to reduce the electricity generation. The end result will be that during good weather the price of electricity is zero, and during any other time the price of electricity is high to pay for unused capacity and additional wear and tear on the equipment due to additional power cycling.

We are already seeing this in Germany[1], where electricity prices are also becoming zero[2] during parts of the day. The problem with renewables will become apparent only once the reserves of easily dispatchable electricity generation is used up across Europe to balance renewable generation.

[1] - https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-...

Also, the reason this is only possible at all is that Germany uses the rest of Europe as a giant battery to manage the non-dispatchability of renewables. The import-export balance often changes by as much as one third of Germany consumption in 12 hours [1].

The electricity prices are also becoming zero[2] in Germany during parts of the day, which is a great outcome only on the surface. As this progresses, the consequence will be that renewable electricity producers aren't getting paid during their prime generating hours. This means even more subsidies will be required going forward to bring additional production. It will become more apparent once the reserve of easily dispatchable electricity sources is fully tapped to balance renewables across Europe. We will see very high prices during mornings and evenings and whenever it's cold and dark. The fossil fuel plants that are turned on during these periods will need to earn enough to address the additional wear due to quick power cycling and to keep being maintained for the rest of the time when they are unused.

[1] - https://www.smard.de/page/en/marktdaten/78?marketDataAttribu...

[2] - https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-...

> hydrogen fuel cells are technically batteries and have absurdly high energy densities.

The devil is in the details - this is only partially right. Hydrogen has absurdly high energy densities when considering weight, however when considering volume it has absurdly low density. The low volumetric density is one of the primary barriers to hydrogen adoption.

Fuel cells is not a problem. Hydrogen storage is. Hydrogen is just a very nasty material, it leaks through everything, makes steel brittle and requires extreme pressures to store it at meaningful density. Combine the last two problems together and it's easy to see why there are significant technological barriers to hydrogen adoption.

> What utter bullshit. Most countries could do so.

Unfortunately when wishes and hard reality meets for a fight, the reality wins.

In this case failure modes of renewable-only policy are not obvious, but this doesn't mean they don't exist. Claiming otherwise is just wishful thinking.

> This is patently false.

It's not false, it's just probably not easy to understand.

It's easy to understand if we consider a hypothetical situation where the nuclear power plant is running AND Germany still keeps all other renewable plans. Since the demand does not change, what other generation would not be running in this case? It is coal and gas.

Thus, by shutting down nuclear, several coal or gas power plans are running instead of idling somewhere.

> What? Supplying nearly half of a country's energy needs is now a sign of failure?

Success in this case is replacement of dirty electricity generation and not using the rest of Europe as a giant battery to solve the unpredictability of renewable generation. The limits of easy renewable deployments are becoming exhausted and it will become much harder to increase the share of renewables even more.

I think we agree that it's great that Germany runs so many renewables already. But long-term objective is much more and it's not clear that it will be achieved.

It's not even that all the nuclear power plants failed. It was a combination of a choice to defer maintenance due to Covid, and also a choice to stop every power plant to address a new possible fault regardless of whether it impacts the specific power plant or not. The latter is a sensible choice given the zero risk tolerance, but it is nevertheless a choice.

Renewables won't power everything, bulk electricity prices are already becoming zero across Germany when the weather for renewables is good. Once this is widespread, further subsidies will be required for additional renewable generation.

The current renewable build out across Europe so far tackled the easiest problem - replacement of other sources of electricity during times when the Sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Going the other ~70% of time will be much harder.

The obvious downside of this decision is that nuclear generation that has been shut down is replaced by coal and gas.

Also it's not a given that the renewable strategy will succeed. The bulk electricity prices are already going down to zero across Germany at random times when the weather is good. Which means the renewable energy business don't get revenue when they generate the most electricity. As a consequence even more subsidies are required to further increase the share of renewables.

There are many different consensuses. In this case the most important consensus is what is the opinion shared by the operators of electricity grids and the like, because ultimately they will need to match energy supply and demand.

Their consensus is that specifically batteries are completely nonviable for long-term balancing of intermittent energy sources. Physics simply do not add up.

This would still cause hydrogen embrittlement which results in cracked steel pipes.

There are also 2 EPR designs producing electricity in China since 2019, so your sources aren't correct.

Hinkley point construction started 2017, not 2008. In 2008 even the site wasn't picked yet.

I think you should also consider tens of millions of people who lived under Russian boot in USSR itself and Warsaw pact countries. It appeared that wealth inequality is lower because there was no free press and thus no way to see it. People who waited years to be able to get a permission to buy a car or an apartment had no way to make their situation known.

A significant part of populations lived relatively well just because of their place in the society. The lack of free press caused them to think that everyone lives like them. However this was the exact consequence of the oppression of the rest of society.

This spanned countries: USSR extracted production from one set of countries and subsidized others. The populations of the latter group naturally saw the collapse of USSR as a bad thing since their standard of living became lower.

The fact that there were certain parts of the world that lived better under USSR does not make suffering of other people a good thing.