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German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against new nuclear power
(www.reuters.com)
Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo... then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
Yes, what you are missing is reality.
You can either build renewables to replace fossil fuels in the next years (and if the build-up doesn't work as fast as you want to then it will takes a a few years more to reach zero), getting less and less every day. Or you can build new nuclear reactors and just keep burning coal full steam for 5 years, 10, 15, probably 20. And then you reactors are finally online, but electricity demand has increased by +100% (and further increasing...) so you burn more coal for another 5, 10, 15, or 20 years...
The exact same thing happens btw right now in basically every single European country that promotes nuclear. Because nobody is building enough capacities to actually cover the minimal required base load in 2-3 decades (electricity demand until 2050 will raise by a factor of 2,5 at least - because most countries today only cover 20-25% of their primary energy demand with electricity but will need to raise that to close to 100% to decarbonize other sectors; so we are talking about about a factor of 4-5, minus savings because electricity can be more efficient). They just build some and pretend to do something construtive, while in reality this is for show and they have basically given up on finding a solution that isn't let's hope the bigger countries in Europe save us.
For reference: France -so the country with optimal conditions given their laws and regulations favoring nuclear power and having a domestic production of nuclear reactors- announced 6 new reactors with an option for up to 8 additional ones and that they would also build up some renewables as a short-term solution to bridge the time until those reactors are ready. That's a lie. They need the full set of 14 just for covering their base load for their projected electricity demand in 2050 and that's just ~35% of ther production with the remaining 65% being massive amounts of renewables (see RTE -France' grid provider- study in 2021). Is this doable? Sure. It will be hard work and cost a lot of money but might be viable... But already today the country with good pre-conditions and in-house production of nuclear reactors and with a population highly supportive of nuclear can't tell it's own people the truth about the actually needed investments into nuclear (and renewables!), because it's just that expensive. (Another fun fact: The only reason why their models of nuclear power vs. full renewables are economically viable is because they also planned to integrate huge amounts of hydrogen production for industry, time-independent export (all other countries will have lower production and higher demand at the same time by then) and as storage. So the exact same thing the usual nuclear cult here categorically declares as unviable when it's about renewables.)
is it true that in reality we can only build renewables OR nuclear? i feel like that's not reality.
I'm reality, the world is burning and both techs will mitigate. instead of resisting nuclear, renewable advocates ought to go after fossil fuel subsidies
Really the entire goal should be both renewables and nuclear. Nuclear provides a reliable baseline that isn't dependent on weather conditions, is incredibly safe, and will last a long time at the cost of large upfront construction costs. Renewables are great for main power generation and can be used for small scale or large scale power generation and built quickly, but they need the weather to be optimal to generate optimal power. They also need to be mantained and replaced more often, which can be covered by that baseline nuclear provides. Since we don't have advanced enough power storage to use renewables exclusively due to their drawbacks, nuclear would be great for replacing coal and oil power plants to supply it when the renewables aren't able to do all of the work.
You forgot the large costs of operating, the large costs of maintaining, the large costs of nuclear waste disposal and the large costs of deconstruction of nuclear plants.
Yeah, other than that it's a great viable way for few very large companies to make great guaranteed profits as the tax payer will take care of the risks.
I honestly thought operational/maintenance costs were lower per unit of power in nuclear than wind/solar. Is that incorrect?
No that claim isn't backed up by any sources I could find. Sounds fringe attitude to me. It's a good thing that people study this as their job and advise the legislative branch because it's complicated. When I looked up the levelized* cost of energy I had a hard time finding sources that agreed with each other. In particular, the nuclear societies were skewing the data, but the same with certain German think tanks claiming the exact opposite. Debate all around. Hydro FTW.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/wang-k2/
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants
I would love to say we can build renewables and nuclear. But let's look at the actual reality: Not only are most countries with a nuclear plan lacking proper amounts of renewables (because for more than a decade an anti-renewable streak was part of nuclear lobbyism - see the amount of people here or anywhere else hallucinating about "expensive renewables" when their own model of electrity generation needs those renewables (and even some storage) to be viable), it's even worse. Most of these countries aren't even able to build nuclear on the proper scale they would need.
So no, there is no technical reason we can't build both.
But real-world experience right now shows us that most can't even get the proper build-up of nuclear alone done. Explaining to their heavily desinformed voters why they need to build massive capacities and also need to build even bigger amounts of renewables seems to be indeed impossible right now.
The other thing is time frame. If the already agreed upon climate goals give you a remaining co2 budget for another 6 or so years, you can indeed not start building nuclear now. That would have been a wonderful idea a decade or even longer ago.
There is actually only one undisputable thing we need to do right now: build up renewables and massively so. To stretch out the remaining budget (via constantly reducing CO2 emission quickly) to 1-2 decades and use that time to a) either build up storage and infrastructure or nuclear base load. The difference is that the infrastructure and storage can be build in steps alongside renewables while the nuclear base load would need to start today. And most countries seem unable to do it, with the deciding factor being costs. Costs they would also mostly need to pay now in advance.
In reality we can't build nuclear at all since we will have no water. Ask the French if you need details...
Maybe if you beg China really hard they'll sell you molten salt reactors https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3224183/china-gives-green-light-nuclear-reactor-burns-thorium-fuel-could-power-country-20000-years
Nothing you said other than expenses is an argument against nuclear. If anything, the take from you argument is that we should construct even more nuclear, not less.
Yes, nuclear taking too long to build is not argument, it just means we should have started building them already.
If that's your take why is exactly nobody doing it? Oh, yeah. Because nobody has a clue how to actually pay the massive (and mostly paid in advance) costs.
Yet a lot of countries are proudly planning to build nuclear soon™ instead of those silly renewables, when what they actually would need to do is building much more nuclear than they are planning right now while also building massive amounts of renewables.
You are not actually wrong. Building more nuclear right now is an option. Building-up storage and infrastructure instead is the other viable one. Building massive amounts of renewables is needed in both cases.
The moment you show me countries starting nuclear in proper amounts right now, while also building and planning the needed increase in renewables alongside I will cheer for them. (For reference: energy demand increasing by a factor of at least 2,5 with ~35% production capacity needed for a solid base load means your minimal goal for nuclear capacities right now should be ~100% of todays demand...)
But as basically no country seems to be able to manage that investment the only option is storage and infrastructure. Is it costing the same in the end? Maybe? Probably? We don't know actually as decade long predictions for evolving technologies are not that precise (just look at the cost development of solar in the last decade for example). We know however that this is a constant investment over the same time renewables are build up to provide 100% coverage (PS: the actual numbers would be 115% to 125% btw... based on (regional) diversification of renewables and calculating losses through long-term storage).
Again: I'm not against building nuclear (and renewables!) right now, if that's your plan. I am however very much about the bullshit that is going on right now, where it's more important to show how smart you are by building some nuclear capacity (with the math not adding up at all) while laughing about others building renewables and spouting bullshit how it's just a scam to burn fossil fues forever.
Contrary to the popular narrative between building up renewables and storage and building just some nuclear capacities and some token renewables -if at all- it's not the former countries that are running on ideology with no actual real world plan.
As already said above: I totally support France' plan for 14 new reactors build until 2050, with a lot of renewable build-up at the same time. Because that's a workable plan. But that they already have problems publically justifying the bare minimum requirement of 14 reactors and the renewable up-build is a symptom of a larger problem. And basically every other country planning new nuclear power right now isn't even close to this scale and just living in a fairy tale world... or just providing an token effort while hoping for other bigger countries to solve the issue for them in the end.
I completely agree that more countries should be following France's lead in simultaneously building lots of renewables and nuclear plants. Unfortunately the anti nuclear crowd are very vocal in a lot of countries so everyone spends all their time arguing about whether to invest in nuclear or not instead of just getting on with it.
Funny how you completely ignore basically my whole comment.
Countries being anti-nuclear and going for a storage solution are not the problem as they have a workable plan.
Countries like France are not the problem as the same applies there.
The problem is there are basically no pro-nuclear countries like France. Only ones trying to bullshit their way out of the issue with talk about their nuclear plans when those plans are completely insuffcient. It feels like nuclear nowadays is the new homeopathy - just do a little bit of symbolic action and then firmly believe in it and all will be well. And to confirm your believe for everyone to see talk shit about renewables as they are "obviously just a scam for ideologically damaged idiots fearing nuclear"...
Yeah, that's one of the most funny things to me in this debate. People are calling of all kind of radical measures to combat climate change, but when it comes to nuclear power somehow "too expensive" is a valid argument.
And the worst, is all the other decisions in Germany lately. They stopped nuclear completely and replaced it by coal. Right now they are tearing down wind turbines, to mine for coal in that spot etc.
So all the arguments talking about "nUcLeAr iS eXpEnSiVe" are missing the point in Germany by a magnitude that is hard to grasp....
Ontario Canada constructed 20 reactor units between 1965 and 1994. While the CANDU units are no doubt different from the designs used by France, 14 in 26 years is certainly achievable. This does not mean renewables should be disregarded, but both options should be pursued.
We must do both. I don't see why people keep claiming they are mutually exclusive. Let's build nuclear. Let's build wind, solar, hydro. We should protest increases in fossil fuels, but it's irrelevant specifically what green energy people are betting on to replace it
This is an interesting take, and I learnt from it. Would you mind sharing one or two of your references?
I had a heated discussion the other day on this topic, and I wish to know more.
On the other hand, I don't really understand your statement that nobody is seriously building reactor lately.
China has started building new reactors. They are not planning but effectively doing it. Am I missing something?
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/30/how-china-became-king-of-new-nuclear-power-how-us-could-catch-up.html
China is building new nuclear plants, but they are building way more coal plants as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/china-coal-plants-climate-goals-carbon
You literally have no idea what you're saying.