German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

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German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by bjn » Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:44 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Apr 12, 2022 5:52 pm
bjn wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 8:53 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 11:36 am


Germany's refusal to reactivate/prolong the life of existing reactors is particularly indefensible. Though it might take a year or so to get reactors back online, building gas infrastructure to avoid dependance on Russia takes time, too, and unlike that approach, reactivating/maintaining reactors cuts out the carbon cost, and the geopolitical worries that they would just be transferring their dependence to a different tyrannical petrostate.
Most of the gas on Germany is used for industrial process heat or space heating, so even if they used no gas fired electricity generators they’d still need gas to stop people freezing in winter. You can’t flip to heat pumps and electrical process heat in a time scale less than a decade.

Given they are where they are, what would be the best use of resources you propose to spend on getting end of life nukes working again (which will probably take more than a year)? Would you be better off throwing them crash programs for household insulation to drastically reduce the need for that gas in the first place.
Responding again with a link to some actual numbers

Germany uses about a third of its gas for power generation. Their current policy of shutting down functional reactors will increase that demand substantially, making them more dependant on gas from Putin's Russia and other petro-tyrants. If they instead reversed that policy and reactivated reactors, it would generate enough power to effectively eliminate the use of Russian gas imports, and largely eliminate the use of gas for power generation in general, reduce carbon emissions and reduce air pollution, given they are, at present, still intending to burn coal for the rest of the decade. With the reactors already existing and just requiring a little work to get them running again, there is no equivalent investment that could do so much good for weaning Germany off Putin's exports and carbon emissions in such a timescale.

Since the Bucha atrocities were discovered, Germany has sent a billion and a half euros to Putin to pay for gas. Fuel imports are one of the few things preventing the Russian economy - and thus war machine - from collapsing.

The German Green Party is effectively willing to put convenience and anti-nuclear paranoia ahead of opposition to climate change and genocide. I'm often dumbstruck by the sheer selfishness of western political movements across the ideological spectrum. This is one of those occasions.
My main point was that you ignored the opportunity costs of keeping those reactors running. If you spend resources on X you don't have those resources to spend on Y, where Y may be a much better way of achieving what you want to do. To me it looks like you've made an automatic assumption that keeping those nukes going no matter what it costs and no matter how long it takes is the best option. Keeping those German nukes going may be the nuclear engineering equivalent of a squirt of WD40 and smack with a hammer, in which case fine, but it may take years and multiple billions. I've looked and I can't find any good estimates as to the viability and costs of keeping them running beyond waffle and speculation.

When you look at what Russia earned from its exports in 2021, oil and oil products netted them nearly 22 times what gas did. Those ratios will have changed somewhat as the price of gas has skyrocketed, but even so, if you want to hurt Russia economically, you should be prioritising turning off the oil taps.

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Re: German energy policy

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:34 am

bjn wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:44 am
EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Apr 12, 2022 5:52 pm
bjn wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 8:53 pm

Most of the gas on Germany is used for industrial process heat or space heating, so even if they used no gas fired electricity generators they’d still need gas to stop people freezing in winter. You can’t flip to heat pumps and electrical process heat in a time scale less than a decade.

Given they are where they are, what would be the best use of resources you propose to spend on getting end of life nukes working again (which will probably take more than a year)? Would you be better off throwing them crash programs for household insulation to drastically reduce the need for that gas in the first place.
Responding again with a link to some actual numbers

Germany uses about a third of its gas for power generation. Their current policy of shutting down functional reactors will increase that demand substantially, making them more dependant on gas from Putin's Russia and other petro-tyrants. If they instead reversed that policy and reactivated reactors, it would generate enough power to effectively eliminate the use of Russian gas imports, and largely eliminate the use of gas for power generation in general, reduce carbon emissions and reduce air pollution, given they are, at present, still intending to burn coal for the rest of the decade. With the reactors already existing and just requiring a little work to get them running again, there is no equivalent investment that could do so much good for weaning Germany off Putin's exports and carbon emissions in such a timescale.

Since the Bucha atrocities were discovered, Germany has sent a billion and a half euros to Putin to pay for gas. Fuel imports are one of the few things preventing the Russian economy - and thus war machine - from collapsing.

The German Green Party is effectively willing to put convenience and anti-nuclear paranoia ahead of opposition to climate change and genocide. I'm often dumbstruck by the sheer selfishness of western political movements across the ideological spectrum. This is one of those occasions.
My main point was that you ignored the opportunity costs of keeping those reactors running. If you spend resources on X you don't have those resources to spend on Y, where Y may be a much better way of achieving what you want to do. To me it looks like you've made an automatic assumption that keeping those nukes going no matter what it costs and no matter how long it takes is the best option. Keeping those German nukes going may be the nuclear engineering equivalent of a squirt of WD40 and smack with a hammer, in which case fine, but it may take years and multiple billions. I've looked and I can't find any good estimates as to the viability and costs of keeping them running beyond waffle and speculation.
The main estimate I've seen is that reactivating the deactivated reactors will get them generating power by next autumn. Cancelling the deactivation of existing reactors, meanwhile, will prevent demand for gas increasing. Simply put, their isn't any alternative approach that so quickly delivers a reduction in dependence on gas from petrotyrants and also reduces Germany's carbon output.

The truth of the matter is that pushing renewables has meant accepting a major role for gas. Germany's decision to phase out nuclear was paranoid and irrational, and their promise to increase renewables left them dependant on gas. The world warned them, and they did it anyway, even agreeing to build more pipelines after the initial invasion of Ukraine. German politicians are now offended by the idea that they should suffer economic consequences for making stupid decisions rather than continue to fund a regime that is committing genocide, even though every estimate I've seen for the consequences in question is rather less than the consequences Germany pushed on Greece.

Thankfully, a lot of the German public seem to be better on this - not only do opinion polls show more people think the government hasn't done enough than has, a majority also supports at least pausing the nuclear phaseout.

As it stands, Germany is sending billions to Russia because they are dependant on gas for, among other things, power generation. They still intend to switch off functioning nuclear reactors that are not at the end of their design life, which will increase their demand for gas. The German government still wants to choose the luxury of making nonsensical decisions to please idiotic Greens over the moral necessity of cutting off funds to Putin's regime.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by WFJ » Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:38 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:34 am

As it stands, Germany is sending billions to Russia because they are dependant on gas for, among other things, power generation. They still intend to switch off functioning nuclear reactors that are not at the end of their design life, which will increase their demand for gas. The German government still wants to choose the luxury of making nonsensical decisions to please idiotic Greens over the moral necessity of cutting off funds to Putin's regime.
Why are you pinning this decision on the Greens? Even the FDP are not pushing for keeping the nuclear plants open.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:47 pm

WFJ wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:38 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:34 am

As it stands, Germany is sending billions to Russia because they are dependant on gas for, among other things, power generation. They still intend to switch off functioning nuclear reactors that are not at the end of their design life, which will increase their demand for gas. The German government still wants to choose the luxury of making nonsensical decisions to please idiotic Greens over the moral necessity of cutting off funds to Putin's regime.
Why are you pinning this decision on the Greens? Even the FDP are not pushing for keeping the nuclear plants open.
I'm not pinning it specifically on the Green party, but on European paranoid anti-nuclear Green activism in general for choosing to abandon a safe and effective method of generating very low carbon electricity in response to an incident where one (1) person died due to radiation exposure after a nuclear plant was hit by a tsunami that killed nearly twenty thousand people, in so doing increasing their dependence on coal, with its associated high carbon emissions and lethal air pollution, and gas, which is also relatively carbon intensive and increased to Germany's dependence on Russian gas.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by WFJ » Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:38 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:47 pm

I'm not pinning it specifically on the Green party, but on European paranoid anti-nuclear Green activism in general for choosing to abandon a safe and effective method of generating very low carbon electricity in response to an incident where one (1) person died due to radiation exposure after a nuclear plant was hit by a tsunami that killed nearly twenty thousand people, in so doing increasing their dependence on coal, with its associated high carbon emissions and lethal air pollution, and gas, which is also relatively carbon intensive and increased to Germany's dependence on Russian gas.
The German planned nuclear phase-out long precedes Fukushima. It was initially the Greens who were responsible 20 years ago when they were last in coalition with the SPD, but has since become pretty much a political consensus. At the last election I think only the AfD stood on reintroducing it, although a few Union and FDP politicians have been in favour. Merkel briefly planned to cancel the phase-out, but she changed her mind after Fukushima.

It's not a decision I would have agreed with, but it's long since been made and was a popular decision. Even since the invasion there is no big push for nuclear. I know there was one poll that showed a tiny majority in favour of keeping the remaining plants running, but even that would probably evaporate once it became clear how little difference it made to Russian gas imports.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:53 pm

WFJ wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:38 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:47 pm

I'm not pinning it specifically on the Green party, but on European paranoid anti-nuclear Green activism in general for choosing to abandon a safe and effective method of generating very low carbon electricity in response to an incident where one (1) person died due to radiation exposure after a nuclear plant was hit by a tsunami that killed nearly twenty thousand people, in so doing increasing their dependence on coal, with its associated high carbon emissions and lethal air pollution, and gas, which is also relatively carbon intensive and increased to Germany's dependence on Russian gas.
The German planned nuclear phase-out long precedes Fukushima. It was initially the Greens who were responsible 20 years ago when they were last in coalition with the SPD, but has since become pretty much a political consensus. At the last election I think only the AfD stood on reintroducing it, although a few Union and FDP politicians have been in favour. Merkel briefly planned to cancel the phase-out, but she changed her mind after Fukushima.

It's not a decision I would have agreed with, but it's long since been made and was a popular decision. Even since the invasion there is no big push for nuclear. I know there was one poll that showed a tiny majority in favour of keeping the remaining plants running, but even that would probably evaporate once it became clear how little difference it made to Russian gas imports.
It being a popular decision isn't really the point here, it's a stupid decision, and given just how much money Germany is sending to Russia as they commit genocide, it is a selfish and immoral one. It is putting the luxury of being able to make inefficient choices for idiotic ideological reasons above the needs of a country that is currently fighting for its very survival.

The estimates I've seen show that phasing out the remaining reactors would increase gas imports from Russia by 30%.

Reactivating the viable reactors needlessly shut down would eliminate the use of gas in electricity generation, and reduce gas demand to the point Russian gas could be completely eliminated, with other sources sufficient to cover non-electricity gas usage.

Germany is currently paying Russia upward of a hundred million euros a day for gas, and in so doing directly financing the Russian regime's atrocities.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by WFJ » Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:02 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:53 pm

It being a popular decision isn't really the point here, it's a stupid decision, and given just how much money Germany is sending to Russia as they commit genocide, it is a selfish and immoral one. It is putting the luxury of being able to make inefficient choices for idiotic ideological reasons above the needs of a country that is currently fighting for its very survival.
But it was a decision made 20 years ago. You can't apply 2022 moral values to a decision made then. Virtually all energy decisions involve making deals with countries with questionable morals. Making plans to deal with Russia then was no more selfish or immoral than many other possibilities.

The current arguments have nothing to do with ideology. They are economic, just as they are for all other countries. The only difference for Germany is starting from a more dependent position.
The estimates I've seen show that phasing out the remaining reactors would increase gas imports from Russia by 30%.
Relative to what base and when?

Russian gas imports will decrease. The arguments are over how quickly they can be brought to zero. Current estimates are mid 2024, but some think it could be sooner. Extending the nuclear plants will bring this point forward but the various economists I have seen discuss this think it will not move this forward by too much. Most of the short-term reductions that will be made come from reducing gas use for power generation, but there is a limit to how much this can be reduced.
Reactivating the viable reactors needlessly shut down would eliminate the use of gas in electricity generation, and reduce gas demand to the point Russian gas could be completely eliminated, with other sources sufficient to cover non-electricity gas usage.
You mean cancelling the shutdowns? Reopening closed reactors could not help at all as it would take far too long. Even if they could be up and running and producing energy today they could not eliminate gas for electricity, just decrease it. Completely eliminating gas from electricity generation would require years of infrastructure investment. The plan is to eliminate Russian gas, but again the question is when.
Germany is currently paying Russia upward of a hundred million euros a day for gas, and in so doing directly financing the Russian regime's atrocities.
Yes. This is bad. Ideally everyone would stop using Russian gas and oil immediately, but that is not possible without a lot of pain for many countries.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by Lew Dolby » Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:40 pm

I assume all those claiming nuclear is safe weren't in what's now Cumbria in the 50s and 60s when sheep were destroyed rather than sent to market and the truth about the leaks weren't admitted for 30 years.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:45 pm

Lew Dolby wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:40 pm
I assume all those claiming nuclear is safe weren't in what's now Cumbria in the 50s and 60s when sheep were destroyed rather than sent to market and the truth about the leaks weren't admitted for 30 years.
Nuclear causes 0.7 deaths per terawatt hour.

Natural gas and Coal, which Germany opted for because of scaremongering about Nuclear cause 2.8 and 24.6 deaths per terawatt hour respectively.
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Re: German energy policy

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:58 pm

WFJ wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:02 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:53 pm

It being a popular decision isn't really the point here, it's a stupid decision, and given just how much money Germany is sending to Russia as they commit genocide, it is a selfish and immoral one. It is putting the luxury of being able to make inefficient choices for idiotic ideological reasons above the needs of a country that is currently fighting for its very survival.
But it was a decision made 20 years ago. You can't apply 2022 moral values to a decision made then. Virtually all energy decisions involve making deals with countries with questionable morals. Making plans to deal with Russia then was no more selfish or immoral than many other possibilities.
Germany's dependence on Russian imports isn't just because of bad decisions made two decades ago, it is because of bad decisions made over a long period of time, despite extensive warnings about how bad they were. They didn't just choose their path, they stuck to it even as it became clear what the consequences would be.

In February, before Putin's full scale invasion, Germany thought there was enough war in Ukraine to prevent the export of anything more than a few helmets to Ukraine's defenders. They did not think that level of war was enough to stop building additional pipelines to increase that dependency.

They could have asked any Eastern European, or just observed what Russia was doing in Ukraine from 2014 onwards and adjusted their course. Such dependency was a choice. So, I would add, was sticking with coal - which leads to hundreds or thousands of excess deaths every year from air pollution - while abandoning nuclear, which does not.

The estimates I've seen show that phasing out the remaining reactors would increase gas imports from Russia by 30%.
Relative to what base and when?
Relative to existing levels, hence why I quoted it as a percentage increase.
Russian gas imports will decrease. The arguments are over how quickly they can be brought to zero. Current estimates are mid 2024, but some think it could be sooner. Extending the nuclear plants will bring this point forward but the various economists I have seen discuss this think it will not move this forward by too much. Most of the short-term reductions that will be made come from reducing gas use for power generation, but there is a limit to how much this can be reduced.
2024 is a year after reactors that have already shut down could be back in service and generating power.
Reactivating the viable reactors needlessly shut down would eliminate the use of gas in electricity generation, and reduce gas demand to the point Russian gas could be completely eliminated, with other sources sufficient to cover non-electricity gas usage.
You mean cancelling the shutdowns? Reopening closed reactors could not help at all as it would take far too long. Even if they could be up and running and producing energy today they could not eliminate gas for electricity, just decrease it. Completely eliminating gas from electricity generation would require years of infrastructure investment. The plan is to eliminate Russian gas, but again the question is when.
Reportedly they could be generating power before your date for cutting of Russian gas imports
Germany is currently paying Russia upward of a hundred million euros a day for gas, and in so doing directly financing the Russian regime's atrocities.
Yes. This is bad. Ideally everyone would stop using Russian gas and oil immediately, but that is not possible without a lot of pain for many countries.
The estimates I've seen are between a hundred and a thousand euros per capita per annum.

How does that compare to the damage Germany insisted Greece suffer due to austerity?

How does that compare to the fifty percent economic shrinkage Ukraine is suffering due to the invasion that money for gas funds?

How does that compare to the human cost of that invasion?
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Trinucleus » Sat Apr 16, 2022 6:18 pm

Lew Dolby wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:40 pm
I assume all those claiming nuclear is safe weren't in what's now Cumbria in the 50s and 60s when sheep were destroyed rather than sent to market and the truth about the leaks weren't admitted for 30 years.
We learn from mistakes or bad practice, like we do when there's a plane crash, so safety is always getting better

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by WFJ » Sat Apr 16, 2022 6:42 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:58 pm
WFJ wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:02 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:53 pm

It being a popular decision isn't really the point here, it's a stupid decision, and given just how much money Germany is sending to Russia as they commit genocide, it is a selfish and immoral one. It is putting the luxury of being able to make inefficient choices for idiotic ideological reasons above the needs of a country that is currently fighting for its very survival.
But it was a decision made 20 years ago. You can't apply 2022 moral values to a decision made then. Virtually all energy decisions involve making deals with countries with questionable morals. Making plans to deal with Russia then was no more selfish or immoral than many other possibilities.
Germany's dependence on Russian imports isn't just because of bad decisions made two decades ago, it is because of bad decisions made over a long period of time, despite extensive warnings about how bad they were. They didn't just choose their path, they stuck to it even as it became clear what the consequences would be.

In February, before Putin's full scale invasion, Germany thought there was enough war in Ukraine to prevent the export of anything more than a few helmets to Ukraine's defenders. They did not think that level of war was enough to stop building additional pipelines to increase that dependency.

They could have asked any Eastern European, or just observed what Russia was doing in Ukraine from 2014 onwards and adjusted their course. Such dependency was a choice. So, I would add, was sticking with coal - which leads to hundreds or thousands of excess deaths every year from air pollution - while abandoning nuclear, which does not.
I agree closing functional nuclear plants before their end-of-life [end-of-lifes, end-of-lives?] was an environmental mistake. Coal is also supposed to be being phased-out but the federal and various state government are dragging their arses over that. That part is actually quite fortunate, at least for the current situation, as it is one of the reasons why reducing gas for electricity will be the easy and quick part of reducing Russian energy dependence.

However the discussion is about what should happen now and whether extending (or apparently now even reopening) nuclear plants will help Ukraine, and whether not doing it is evil, immoral etc.
The estimates I've seen show that phasing out the remaining reactors would increase gas imports from Russia by 30%.
Relative to what base and when?
Relative to existing levels, hence why I quoted it as a percentage increase.
Where are you getting that figure from, and when should it happen? Russian gas use will be decreased. It will increase in the winter obviously, but year-on-year should have decreased.
Russian gas imports will decrease. The arguments are over how quickly they can be brought to zero. Current estimates are mid 2024, but some think it could be sooner. Extending the nuclear plants will bring this point forward but the various economists I have seen discuss this think it will not move this forward by too much. Most of the short-term reductions that will be made come from reducing gas use for power generation, but there is a limit to how much this can be reduced.
2024 is a year after reactors that have already shut down could be back in service and generating power.

Reducing gas use for electricity generation is not the problem in the long term. That can be minimised to a low level very quickly, so the reactors will be useless by the time they are ready. They could be used to reduce coal faster, but that is a separate argument as I do not think getting off Russian coal will be an issue.
Reactivating the viable reactors needlessly shut down would eliminate the use of gas in electricity generation, and reduce gas demand to the point Russian gas could be completely eliminated, with other sources sufficient to cover non-electricity gas usage.
You mean cancelling the shutdowns? Reopening closed reactors could not help at all as it would take far too long. Even if they could be up and running and producing energy today they could not eliminate gas for electricity, just decrease it. Completely eliminating gas from electricity generation would require years of infrastructure investment. The plan is to eliminate Russian gas, but again the question is when.
Reportedly they could be generating power before your date for cutting of Russian gas imports
But, as above, after gas for electricity has already been minimised.
Germany is currently paying Russia upward of a hundred million euros a day for gas, and in so doing directly financing the Russian regime's atrocities.
Yes. This is bad. Ideally everyone would stop using Russian gas and oil immediately, but that is not possible without a lot of pain for many countries.
The estimates I've seen are between a hundred and a thousand euros per capita per annum.

How does that compare to the damage Germany insisted Greece suffer due to austerity?
I don't know. Do you want to bring up the Holocaust, unrestricted U-Boot activity and the Blitz too?
How does that compare to the fifty percent economic shrinkage Ukraine is suffering due to the invasion that money for gas funds?

How does that compare to the human cost of that invasion?
Many countries are still paying money to Russia, this is not unique to Germany. All (or at least most) western countries are reducing this, but not stopping immediately. Germany is in a more difficult position because of past decisions, and whether they were immoral in your view or not, they do not effect the morality of decisions made now. They certainly do not effect the usefulness of extending or reopening nuclear plants.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by warumich » Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:41 pm

My knowledge of European energy policy is about ten years out of date, but I did once use to work in the field; specifically on public opinion of energy policy so here's my 0.02 dollars.

I have myself been hugely frustrated by German attitudes towards nuclear power (as well as a few other lower carbon energy technologies), but to characterise it as silly is unwarranted - one can have a different view without denigrating others. As with any subject, public (and political) views are shaped by social, historical and political contexts. German views on nuclear power are very much shaped by the country's pretty unique position during the cold war, being split in the middle and thus the most likely battleground if the war were to ever break out into a hot one. Second, unlike in some other countries, green politics was already pretty mainstream at a time when climate change was just one of several pressing issues, rather than the issue, accordingly the non-climate environmental issues surrounding nuclear power (what to do with spent nuclear fuel etc) have usually been seen as more pronounced in Germany than in other countries. Third, high profile nuclear disasters like Fukushima, even if they didn't amount to much loss of life, enhance public perception of the dangers of the technology (it's not so much about what happened, but about what could have happened). Public risk perception rarely is just about calculation, it's as you may imagine way more complicated, and there's tons of books and peer-reviewed articles written on this. Nuclear disaster is usually cited as the paradigm example of what Paul Slovic has called "dread risk", i.e. risks that are low in probability but high in potential catastrophic outcome; they tend to worry us more than other risks that are on average just as deadly (or less). It's the same reason people worry more about terrorism than about crossing the road. The fact that Russian forces have almost caused more nuclear disaster in their recent adventures will only have enhanced the dread factor. Fourth, ending dependence on Russian gas supplies is great but needs to be seen in the context of what we're planning to replace this with - as far as I know one of the biggest exporters of nuclear fuels before the war was, guess who. On this point I don't really know how much difference this makes, or if it's easier for other countries to make up the shortfall. I hear that US and Australia have big uranium deposits, though we'd have to chase some inconvenient natives off their ancestral lands to get at it - even then it'll still need a lot of processing, not sure the capacity to do that is there yet if we take Russia out of the picture. So it'll take some time to get that up and running, and I understand the German green position to be that if we're going to have to wait anyway we're better off investing in proper green energy. Happy to be schooled different here if anyone knows better.

It takes a long time for perceptions to shift, though if the polls people quote here are true (I haven't followed German news much ever since the Spiegel went subscription only), then we're already in the middle of quite an extra-ordinary turn around. I'm pretty sure you know more about German arms donations than me, so I'm not going to argue on that (btw despite the slight irritation in my post here, I appreciate your more technical posts and have learned a lot from them). But I'm pretty sure I don't need to highlight the social and historical context to that, but again within that backdrop the shift we have seen both in political and public opinion has already been remarkable, even if I'm sure it's not enough yet.

As for Germany's other sins, well yes, I was just as outraged at how they handled the Greek debt crisis as you. Not entirely sure why this comes up here other than to shore up the narrative that Germans are selfish. To balance that, consider that in early March when the UK was still only handing out visas to family members if they queue up at the local embassy, my uncle already had a random Ukrainian family living in his spare room.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Herainestold » Sat Apr 16, 2022 8:03 pm

If you put X € into re-starting nukes or green energy, which brings in more power more quickly?
Green energy is safer and cheaper in the long run, so it seems like that is the way to go.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by bjn » Sat Apr 16, 2022 8:40 pm

I think this is getting a off topic, and possibly worth another thread.

That said, here is the German electricity generation mix over time, the big changes are coal dropping by about half since 1990 (from ~300TWh to ~150TWh), while renewables have gone up by over 200TWh, with nukes in a steady decline since 2006. Gas has gone up by about 40 TWh, much less than the decline in either nukes or coal.

FWIW, Germany is a net exporter of around 20 TWh per year.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 17, 2022 12:04 am

Lew Dolby wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:40 pm
I assume all those claiming nuclear is safe weren't in what's now Cumbria in the 50s and 60s when sheep were destroyed rather than sent to market and the truth about the leaks weren't admitted for 30 years.
I assume all those claiming that nuclear is not safe have never heard of Aberfan and do not realise that coal is far more dangerous. Nothing is safe - things are only more or less dangerous and the safety record of nuclear power is really quite good (especially when considering that many countries use civil nuclear power as a cover for military purposes so may take risks that are not strictly necessary for mere power generation).

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Lew Dolby » Sun Apr 17, 2022 10:38 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 12:04 am
Lew Dolby wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:40 pm
I assume all those claiming nuclear is safe weren't in what's now Cumbria in the 50s and 60s when sheep were destroyed rather than sent to market and the truth about the leaks weren't admitted for 30 years.
I assume all those claiming that nuclear is not safe have never heard of Aberfan and do not realise that coal is far more dangerous. Nothing is safe - things are only more or less dangerous and the safety record of nuclear power is really quite good (especially when considering that many countries use civil nuclear power as a cover for military purposes so may take risks that are not strictly necessary for mere power generation).
I think you're ignoring half my original post which was about the secrecy. People can see mine waste heaps they can't see radiation.
WOULD CUSTOMERS PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SITTING ON THE COUNTER BY THE BACON SLICER - AS WE'RE GETTING A LITTLE BEHIND IN OUR ORDERS.

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Post by Woodchopper » Sun Apr 17, 2022 1:11 pm

I've split posts from the last couple of days into this thread.

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Re: German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by Woodchopper » Sun Apr 17, 2022 1:57 pm

I had a look around and this appears to be a fairly detailed and and comprehensive account of the issues from the German perspective.
https://www.energiezukunft.eu/wirtschaf ... as-teil-1/

Here are what appear to be the key points.

- About 19% of German gas imports are used to generate electricity, or about 188 TWh in total.

- Of those 188 TWh, about 120 TWh are used in combined heat and power (CHP) plants. As well as generating electricity, those CHP plants also provide community heating and hot water. That heating can't be replaced by electricity generated from nuclear power without building lots of new infrastructure.

- That leaves circa 70 TWh of gas which is only used to generate electricity (which accounts for about about 12% of imports from Russia) . In theory it could be substituted for nuclear power.

- However, Germany has invested heavily in renewable energy. One issue is that production of solar and wind power is affected by the weather, and most importantly this variation is unpredictable (beyond a few days). Gas fired power plants are flexible and can their output can be raised or lowered over the time needed. Nuclear isn't as flexible. They generally produce power at a constant level. This means that nuclear power can't replace the flexible output that is needed to compensate for variable and unpredictable supply from renewable sources.

They also mention several other practical problems which would apply if someone wanted to reverse the phaseout policy:

a) It would be necessary to procure more nuclear fuel which takes about 1.5-2 years between ordering and delivery.

b) There should have been a full ten year safety review in 2019. This requirement was waived as the nuclear plants were due to be phased out anyway. But if they are to run for longer then that review will need to be undertaken. The review would delay when the plants could restart.

c) There would need to be a change in legislation, and the current plant operators are unwilling to take over liability risks which would have to be borne by the federal government.

d) Personnel have been laid off and would need to be re-hired or re-trained.

e) It would be necessary to procure new spare parts. This is a problem as some were sourced from Russia.

f) The above five points could perhaps be managed, but that would cost a large amount of money which would be better spent on other things.

But to reiterate, the main problem is that nuclear energy can't substitute for CHP plants and as a stopgap for solar and wind power. So points a) to e) aren't that important.

Anyway, I'm just summarizing the what was written. I have no expertise in the area so I can't argue whether or not its correct.

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Re: German energy policy

Post by EACLucifer » Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:19 pm

warumich wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:41 pm
My knowledge of European energy policy is about ten years out of date, but I did once use to work in the field; specifically on public opinion of energy policy so here's my 0.02 dollars.

I have myself been hugely frustrated by German attitudes towards nuclear power (as well as a few other lower carbon energy technologies), but to characterise it as silly is unwarranted - one can have a different view without denigrating others.
I assure you I am holding back my scorn as much as possible when describing a policy of increasing economic dependence on Putin right up until the start of this year.
It takes a long time for perceptions to shift, though if the polls people quote here are true (I haven't followed German news much ever since the Spiegel went subscription only), then we're already in the middle of quite an extra-ordinary turn around. I'm pretty sure you know more about German arms donations than me, so I'm not going to argue on that (btw despite the slight irritation in my post here, I appreciate your more technical posts and have learned a lot from them). But I'm pretty sure I don't need to highlight the social and historical context to that, but again within that backdrop the shift we have seen both in political and public opinion has already been remarkable, even if I'm sure it's not enough yet.
The shift is welcome, but it is still quite insignificant compared to other countries - so far the radically smaller nation of Estonia has given more. The offer of between one and two billion in aid ringfenced for buying German arms is good, but so far there hasn't been much sign of willingness to supply the heavy arms Ukraine is particularly after right now, including so far no approval for the transfer of Leopard 1s.

But for all the talk of Germany being reluctant to supply arms for historical reasons and so on, Germany is a major arms exporter, including extensive supply of arms to non-democratic governments. They aren't alone in this by any stretch, but one reason it's so frustrating Germany has dragged their heels over this is because a nation's attitude on this matters a lot more when it is a major arms manufacturer and exporter, notably home of Rheinmetall and Hechler and Koch.
As for Germany's other sins, well yes, I was just as outraged at how they handled the Greek debt crisis as you. Not entirely sure why this comes up here other than to shore up the narrative that Germans are selfish. To balance that, consider that in early March when the UK was still only handing out visas to family members if they queue up at the local embassy, my uncle already had a random Ukrainian family living in his spare room.
Absolutely. The British government's policy towards refugees - Ukrainian and otherwise - is selfish, immoral and inhumane, as I have said previously.

And to be entirely clear, there are two things I want to emphasise about my criticism of Germany and other countries;

I am criticising the policies and decisions of governments, not the population of those countries.

I am not trying to be proportionate and criticise all countries here in proportion to their role, I am trying to use one country as an example of a problem that is not limited to that country. Germany is not the only country that put money above morals - the London's finance sector welcomed dirty money, and France exported thermal optics to Russia even after the 2014 invasion, citing pre-existing contracts, to give just a couple of other examples.
Last edited by Stephanie on Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: changed thread title

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Re: German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by WFJ » Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:21 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 1:57 pm
- Of those 188 TWh, about 120 TWh are used in combined heat and power (CHP) plants. As well as generating electricity, those CHP plants also provide community heating and hot water. That heating can't be replaced by electricity generated from nuclear power without building lots of new infrastructure.
This is what I was referring to somewhere above when I said it would take years of infrastructure investment to reduce gas from all sources used for power generation to zero. I've heard that roughly 10% of German homes are heated by these Fernwärme systems, although in some places that comes from coal or waste incineration.

One other factor against extending nuclear I have heard relates to how each energy source is used. As well as providing a base level of generation, Gas, along with coal, is used for ramping up generation at peak demand times. This cannot be done as effectively with nuclear.

There is also some spare capacity in coal generation production that can be used to get gas produced power down without nuclear, although that has its own environmental problems, those are separate to getting off Russian gas.

In general power generation is not seen as an issue when it comes to getting off Russian gas. It is heating in the winter and industry that are the problems, so nuclear is a red herring.

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Re: German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by EACLucifer » Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:44 pm

WFJ wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:21 pm
In general power generation is not seen as an issue when it comes to getting off Russian gas. It is heating in the winter and industry that are the problems, so nuclear is a red herring.
Germany. Still. Uses. A. Quarter. Of. It's. Gas. For. Power. Generation. And. Is. Planning. To. Shut. Down. Reactors. That. Currently. Generate. Power. And. Thus. Create. Further. Demand. For. Power.

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Re: German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by bjn » Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:55 pm

WFJ wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:21 pm
One other factor against extending nuclear I have heard relates to how each energy source is used. As well as providing a base level of generation, Gas, along with coal, is used for ramping up generation at peak demand times. This cannot be done as effectively with nuclear.
You can make nukes load follow, the fleet of French reactors have this capability, but it drives up the cost of electricity. One reason is that the cost of nukes is mainly in capital and not much in operations. So if you are only using your reactor (say) 50% of the time, you have to cover that capital cost with fewer kWH, so doubling the price you need to charge to stay solvent (actually it's worse than that as you should also factor in the cost of capital while that plant sits idle). The second issue is that if you are regularly thermally cycling a GW power plant, you have to make it much more robust than if you only turn it up and down a handful of times over its lifetime.

Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels basically means we need to electrify nearly everything, and one of the harder things to solve is winter heating in higher latitude countries. When we replace gas boilers with electric heating (whether heat pumps or resistive), you need a whole lot of extra generation only for the cold months. That means either you have expensive generation plant sitting round most of the year doing nothing, or you need shed tonnes of storage (whether hydro, H2, batteries or pixie dust) you charge up over the rest of the year (whether by nukes, renewables or pixie dust). This is why insulating the f.ck out of everything should be the highest priority when it comes to energy policy in Europe, as you completely side step the need to generate a whole bunch of those kWh in winter. We know how to build such things as passive houses, and we know how to insulate current building stock, there is very little will to do it though. One of my pet hates is the British obsession with quaint old school brick and mortar draughty as all hell 'quaint' buildings. Small 'c' conservatism gorn mad.

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Re: German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by WFJ » Sun Apr 17, 2022 3:14 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:44 pm
WFJ wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:21 pm
In general power generation is not seen as an issue when it comes to getting off Russian gas. It is heating in the winter and industry that are the problems, so nuclear is a red herring.
Germany. Still. Uses. A. Quarter. Of. It's. Gas. For. Power. Generation. And. Is. Planning. To. Shut. Down. Reactors. That. Currently. Generate. Power. And. Thus. Create. Further. Demand. For. Power.
Today. But. This. Is. Not. The. Hard. Part. To. Reduce. So. Shutting. Down. Reactors. Will. Make. Little. Difference. To. Gas. Requirements. It. Will. Be. The. First. Thing. That. Is. Minimised.

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Re: German energy policy (split from The Invasion of Ukraine)

Post by WFJ » Sun Apr 17, 2022 3:20 pm

bjn wrote:
Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:55 pm

Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels basically means we need to electrify nearly everything, and one of the harder things to solve is winter heating in higher latitude countries. When we replace gas boilers with electric heating (whether heat pumps or resistive), you need a whole lot of extra generation only for the cold months. That means either you have expensive generation plant sitting round most of the year doing nothing, or you need shed tonnes of storage (whether hydro, H2, batteries or pixie dust) you charge up over the rest of the year (whether by nukes, renewables or pixie dust). This is why insulating the f.ck out of everything should be the highest priority when it comes to energy policy in Europe, as you completely side step the need to generate a whole bunch of those kWh in winter. We know how to build such things as passive houses, and we know how to insulate current building stock, there is very little will to do it though. One of my pet hates is the British obsession with quaint old school brick and mortar draughty as all hell 'quaint' buildings. Small 'c' conservatism gorn mad.
Yes most new build in Germany follows Passivhaus, but I am stuck living in my old draughty apartment in a 100+ year old building. Still it looks nice, but I think next winter will be very expensive unless I move.

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