No nuclear power any more: Germany
April 15, 2023 11:48 AM Subscribe
Shut them down: In about 3 hours Germany will shut down their last 3 nuclear power plants. There's still open questions on how or where to dismantle them, esp. the highly radioactive fuels
But chances are renewable power can take over. Things are, of course, still complicated: A lot of energy is now produced by carbon positive power plants. France is glad to help, but since their own nuclear power plants are having a hard time, imports electric power back from Germany produced burning that gas. Background of this is of course former german chancellor Angela Merkel from conservative party CDU pushing for the nuclear exit after Fukushima, mostly against her own party's agenda.
PS: I'm kinda glad Germany never was a nuclear power in THAT sense.
But chances are renewable power can take over. Things are, of course, still complicated: A lot of energy is now produced by carbon positive power plants. France is glad to help, but since their own nuclear power plants are having a hard time, imports electric power back from Germany produced burning that gas. Background of this is of course former german chancellor Angela Merkel from conservative party CDU pushing for the nuclear exit after Fukushima, mostly against her own party's agenda.
PS: I'm kinda glad Germany never was a nuclear power in THAT sense.
Yeah but this is the first step to Germany becoming a SUN power
posted by glaucon at 12:13 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by glaucon at 12:13 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm not surprised: a nuclear power plant makes a heck of a target in an attack by a country that doesn't seem risk averse to hitting nuclear power plants.
posted by AlSweigart at 12:51 PM on April 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 12:51 PM on April 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
Back in the seventies, some of my more hippyish friends took to wearing "Nuclear power? Nein, Danke!" badges. Seems it's come true at last.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:57 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 12:57 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
As I write this on a sunny spring afternoon with zero demand for A/C the marginal price in California is -1.5c/kWh thanks to all the rooftop solar operators like me pumping out 5 to 10kW with no one to use it.
Still, power costs an arm and a leg in California since solar is not a complete solution yet.
Gotta love Diablo Canyon pumping out that 2.1GW of power all day, every day. Gavin and the statehouse gave it another 5 year lease on life out to 2030 but hopefully by then we'll have the solar + battery situation sorted out; in a cursory review of the daily output graphs it appears that yesterday was one of the first days California got more power out of batteries during the entire evening duck curve crunch than D.C.'s happy baseline.
Worthy (for Californians at least) of another fpp itself is something that has flown under the radar this week; one, the state's very generous net metering arrangement was closed to new applicants yesterday, and 2) thanks to AB205 the state utility agency is going to cook up some monthly flat fees on everyone, with the mandate to have higher income households explicitly subsidize lower income households.
Thanks to the 30% IRA tax credit last year I was able to put up panels that produce 120% of my annual demand (worth ~$400/mo at 30c/kWh) for a $200/mo loan payment for 12 years.
I was only producing 10 - 15kWh/day during the winter, not enough to run a heat pump; 10kWh is what I typical charge up my car per day via the 120V connector from 9am -> 4pm . . .
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:58 PM on April 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
Still, power costs an arm and a leg in California since solar is not a complete solution yet.
Gotta love Diablo Canyon pumping out that 2.1GW of power all day, every day. Gavin and the statehouse gave it another 5 year lease on life out to 2030 but hopefully by then we'll have the solar + battery situation sorted out; in a cursory review of the daily output graphs it appears that yesterday was one of the first days California got more power out of batteries during the entire evening duck curve crunch than D.C.'s happy baseline.
Worthy (for Californians at least) of another fpp itself is something that has flown under the radar this week; one, the state's very generous net metering arrangement was closed to new applicants yesterday, and 2) thanks to AB205 the state utility agency is going to cook up some monthly flat fees on everyone, with the mandate to have higher income households explicitly subsidize lower income households.
Thanks to the 30% IRA tax credit last year I was able to put up panels that produce 120% of my annual demand (worth ~$400/mo at 30c/kWh) for a $200/mo loan payment for 12 years.
I was only producing 10 - 15kWh/day during the winter, not enough to run a heat pump; 10kWh is what I typical charge up my car per day via the 120V connector from 9am -> 4pm . . .
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:58 PM on April 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
Looks like Sting's anti-nuclear pro-coal pro-labor song from the '80s has finally triumphed, despite containing inaccuracies about radioactive elements.
posted by credulous at 1:09 PM on April 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by credulous at 1:09 PM on April 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is what happens when an environmental movement decides to ignore environmental science. In the long term, they might be able to replace it all with renewable energy... but in the short to medium term, this will mean a lot more coal and natural gas being burned. Bad, bad idea.
posted by ThisIsAThrowaway at 1:10 PM on April 15, 2023 [42 favorites]
posted by ThisIsAThrowaway at 1:10 PM on April 15, 2023 [42 favorites]
nuclear power could be part of an anti-fossil power mix. i think it's a mistake that americans are reflexively anti. i could be wrong!
posted by j_curiouser at 1:30 PM on April 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 1:30 PM on April 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's an incredibly short-sighted move pushed by the German Green party... who should be able to look at the numbers and see Germany's increasing dependency on coal.
posted by schmudde at 1:38 PM on April 15, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by schmudde at 1:38 PM on April 15, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is exactly as nuclear should be: part of the transition to renewables. This involves maintaining or decommissioning existing nuclear power plants. Thank you for your service, nuclear power.
Though we (unless your Finnish) still haven't come up with a solution for nuclear waste. We've only had a half century to work on it though, maybe politics will get better over the next 50 years.
The accident that damaged Three-Mile Island's TMI-2's reactor core happened on March 28, 1979. They plan on finishing the clean up by 2037. That's only a decade and some change away. Not bad for a partial meltdown.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:54 PM on April 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
Though we (unless your Finnish) still haven't come up with a solution for nuclear waste. We've only had a half century to work on it though, maybe politics will get better over the next 50 years.
The accident that damaged Three-Mile Island's TMI-2's reactor core happened on March 28, 1979. They plan on finishing the clean up by 2037. That's only a decade and some change away. Not bad for a partial meltdown.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:54 PM on April 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
This is exactly as nuclear should be: part of the transition to renewables.
But in this case not all power will be replaced by renewables. More coal and gas will be burned.
posted by Pendragon at 2:05 PM on April 15, 2023 [14 favorites]
But in this case not all power will be replaced by renewables. More coal and gas will be burned.
posted by Pendragon at 2:05 PM on April 15, 2023 [14 favorites]
We've only had a half century to work on it though
Two thirds.
posted by biffa at 2:24 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Two thirds.
posted by biffa at 2:24 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Look at the way red states are being run right now, and reflect that it’s only going to get worse in the short and medium run — and that in the long run the US may simply collapse along with the rest of technologically 'advanced' civilization.
Do you really want to generate many tons of highly poisonous waste which could and would spread through a technologically unsophisticated culture virtually undetectably, and will be a deadly as well as subtly genome degrading danger for tens of thousands of years?
posted by jamjam at 3:11 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Do you really want to generate many tons of highly poisonous waste which could and would spread through a technologically unsophisticated culture virtually undetectably, and will be a deadly as well as subtly genome degrading danger for tens of thousands of years?
posted by jamjam at 3:11 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Do you really want to generate many tons of highly poisonous waste which could and would spread through a technologically unsophisticated culture virtually undetectably, and will be a deadly as well as subtly genome degrading danger for tens of thousands of years?
I'm not sure if you are talking about nuclear power or just US manufacturing in general.
posted by srboisvert at 3:19 PM on April 15, 2023 [15 favorites]
I'm not sure if you are talking about nuclear power or just US manufacturing in general.
posted by srboisvert at 3:19 PM on April 15, 2023 [15 favorites]
Do you really want to generate many tons of highly poisonous waste which could and would spread through a technologically unsophisticated culture virtually undetectably, and will be a deadly as well as subtly genome degrading danger for tens of thousands of years?
An excellent argument against burning coal, which in addition to the well-known greenhouse gases, also releases radioactive material, in a much less controlled manner than nuclear power plants.
Commissioning new nuclear power is a non-starter, but unless it's taken offline for renewable power, decommissioning currently existing nuclear power is worse for the environment than fossil fuels.
posted by explosion at 3:21 PM on April 15, 2023 [17 favorites]
An excellent argument against burning coal, which in addition to the well-known greenhouse gases, also releases radioactive material, in a much less controlled manner than nuclear power plants.
Commissioning new nuclear power is a non-starter, but unless it's taken offline for renewable power, decommissioning currently existing nuclear power is worse for the environment than fossil fuels.
posted by explosion at 3:21 PM on April 15, 2023 [17 favorites]
I feel like this FPP is missing a huge part of the story: coal power generation is massively increasing in Germany due to the nuclear shutdown. This is putting Germany much further behind on its Paris agreement goals. Shutting nuclear power plants down at this juncture is a bad, bad thing.
posted by rednikki at 3:23 PM on April 15, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by rednikki at 3:23 PM on April 15, 2023 [24 favorites]
Lazard have just published their annual report on comparative costs for electricity generation. This is the standard report that everyone in the industry uses.
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.
Per MWh generated, ignoring subsidies, in the US, and taking into account storage costs for renewables, solar costs US$46-102, wind costs $42-144, nukes cost $141-221.
Nukes are about twice the price or worse right now. End of argument. We're done.
No wait... US subsidies make solar and wind even cheaper. Down maybe as far as $31 for solar and $12 for wind. Then we're looking at higher interest rates for the next half-decade, which will make nukes cost even more due to the greater debt costs as nukes are slower to build.
In fact, renewables are getting so cheap that new renewables are cost-competitive with existing nukes. It can be literally cheaper to build new solar & wind and storage than it is to keep an existing nuke plant going. And if they aren't cheaper today, they will be in just a few years.
That's what's driving all of this transition. It's the money. What else were you expecting?
posted by happyinmotion at 3:40 PM on April 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.
Per MWh generated, ignoring subsidies, in the US, and taking into account storage costs for renewables, solar costs US$46-102, wind costs $42-144, nukes cost $141-221.
Nukes are about twice the price or worse right now. End of argument. We're done.
No wait... US subsidies make solar and wind even cheaper. Down maybe as far as $31 for solar and $12 for wind. Then we're looking at higher interest rates for the next half-decade, which will make nukes cost even more due to the greater debt costs as nukes are slower to build.
In fact, renewables are getting so cheap that new renewables are cost-competitive with existing nukes. It can be literally cheaper to build new solar & wind and storage than it is to keep an existing nuke plant going. And if they aren't cheaper today, they will be in just a few years.
That's what's driving all of this transition. It's the money. What else were you expecting?
posted by happyinmotion at 3:40 PM on April 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
Back in the seventies, some of my more hippyish friends took to wearing "Nuclear power? Nein, Danke!" badges.
We had a relative that worked for Siemens Nuclear in Germany and our badges were a little different.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:44 PM on April 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
We had a relative that worked for Siemens Nuclear in Germany and our badges were a little different.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:44 PM on April 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
I have a really stupid question. How do we know wind and solar won’t be compromised by climate change causing changes in weather patterns?
posted by haptic_avenger at 4:18 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by haptic_avenger at 4:18 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sun's probably still going to work.
posted by figurant at 4:23 PM on April 15, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by figurant at 4:23 PM on April 15, 2023 [15 favorites]
January 9 this year was a pretty crappy production day (2" of rain all day – my panels only collected~ 1kWh) in California with the natgas peaker plants having to run all day, pretty rare.
I checked the power output during the big fires in Sept 2019, too. Doesn't look like production was affected too much.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:36 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I checked the power output during the big fires in Sept 2019, too. Doesn't look like production was affected too much.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:36 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Good. Nuclear reactors are a terribly dirty technology when we don't have a way to deal with waste. They have also proven to be a safety hazard time and time again, if not a military target for Russia and other terrorist groups. Renewables already do a better job and are operationally and militarily safer.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:38 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:38 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
How do we know wind and solar won’t be compromised by climate change causing changes in weather patterns?
The impact of climate change on electricity generation is pretty well-studied, coz there are billions of dollars of assets at risk.
Depending upon where you are, you can expect hotter, wetter, stormier weather events. This affects traditional generation just as much as it affects renewable generation. For example, France's summer 2022 heat wave meant that some nuclear reactors couldn't operate as the rivers their cooling water came from were too hot.
The main difference is that solar and wind tend to be distributed, rather than single large facilities. That reduces the risk from specific storms as the damage tends to be localised.
In the longer term, some areas might see more prolonged summer sunshine. That'll give you a drought but at least your solar will work well. Some areas will see changes in rainfall. That's an issue for hydro dams but some will get more water, some will get less. So that's a wash. Generally places will be warmer. That reduces electricity demand in winter coz less heating, but increases demand in the summer for more AC. But all of these changes are pretty slow, so the changes needed are pretty manageable.
posted by happyinmotion at 4:40 PM on April 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
The impact of climate change on electricity generation is pretty well-studied, coz there are billions of dollars of assets at risk.
Depending upon where you are, you can expect hotter, wetter, stormier weather events. This affects traditional generation just as much as it affects renewable generation. For example, France's summer 2022 heat wave meant that some nuclear reactors couldn't operate as the rivers their cooling water came from were too hot.
The main difference is that solar and wind tend to be distributed, rather than single large facilities. That reduces the risk from specific storms as the damage tends to be localised.
In the longer term, some areas might see more prolonged summer sunshine. That'll give you a drought but at least your solar will work well. Some areas will see changes in rainfall. That's an issue for hydro dams but some will get more water, some will get less. So that's a wash. Generally places will be warmer. That reduces electricity demand in winter coz less heating, but increases demand in the summer for more AC. But all of these changes are pretty slow, so the changes needed are pretty manageable.
posted by happyinmotion at 4:40 PM on April 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
a nuclear power plant makes a heck of a target in an attack by a country that doesn't seem risk averse to hitting nuclear power plants.
Everything else aside, Russian striking anything in Germany would precipitate World War 3. Any damage resulting from their target being a nuclear plant would be wholly beside the point and very much the least of your concerns.
posted by aramaic at 4:49 PM on April 15, 2023 [19 favorites]
Everything else aside, Russian striking anything in Germany would precipitate World War 3. Any damage resulting from their target being a nuclear plant would be wholly beside the point and very much the least of your concerns.
posted by aramaic at 4:49 PM on April 15, 2023 [19 favorites]
"Seeking to counter assertions that the nation's nuclear plants are vulnerable to attacks like the one on the World Trade Center, 19 prominent nuclear experts have concluded that a reactor containment building could easily withstand the force of a jetliner crash."
all said, this is good news for Germany.
posted by clavdivs at 5:14 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
all said, this is good news for Germany.
posted by clavdivs at 5:14 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just a note that "Big Think" appears to be owned and operated by the Charles Koch Institute, of Koch brothers infamy.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:21 PM on April 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:21 PM on April 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
THAT EMBARRASSING!
here's CBS
though my original source is my dad who worked for companies that would scare the Koch Bros.
But the SIN is not Citing that with two other sources, a SIN.
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
here's CBS
though my original source is my dad who worked for companies that would scare the Koch Bros.
But the SIN is not Citing that with two other sources, a SIN.
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive
That is in part because nuclear opponents have succeeded in making nuclear expensive, by wrapping it up in environmental review and other red tape. Surely much of it is appropriate. I’m certainly not qualified to say. It’s just that it’s not intrinsically expensive. Nuclear power is expensive the same way building housing in San Francisco is expensive.
posted by chrchr at 6:15 PM on April 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
That is in part because nuclear opponents have succeeded in making nuclear expensive, by wrapping it up in environmental review and other red tape. Surely much of it is appropriate. I’m certainly not qualified to say. It’s just that it’s not intrinsically expensive. Nuclear power is expensive the same way building housing in San Francisco is expensive.
posted by chrchr at 6:15 PM on April 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
It's been 10 years, but I'm still stewing about SONGS (San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station) shutting down, as it was about 2 GW of sweet sweet carbon-free power.
The story of why it shut down is rather interesting - the stories I've read suggest that when replacing the steam generator condensor tube whatchamajiggers, some young engineers thought "oh, we can improve that by about 10%" by putting in more tubes.
Turns out, the lack of tubes in the old steam exchanger was a design choice by older, wiser, engineers.
New tubes went in, and quickly vibrated themselves to death, and the whole plant was written off as uneconomical.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 6:55 PM on April 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
The story of why it shut down is rather interesting - the stories I've read suggest that when replacing the steam generator condensor tube whatchamajiggers, some young engineers thought "oh, we can improve that by about 10%" by putting in more tubes.
Turns out, the lack of tubes in the old steam exchanger was a design choice by older, wiser, engineers.
New tubes went in, and quickly vibrated themselves to death, and the whole plant was written off as uneconomical.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 6:55 PM on April 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, this is true,
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.
but only sort of - it needs context:
NEW nuclear power plants are uneconimcal. No question. Solar, Wind, Storage, and Transmission improvements are better cheaper.
However, keeping old Nuke plants running (and/or possibly extending their life a little longer) is a different argument, which I think is the topic of this FPP.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 7:00 PM on April 15, 2023 [13 favorites]
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.
but only sort of - it needs context:
NEW nuclear power plants are uneconimcal. No question. Solar, Wind, Storage, and Transmission improvements are better cheaper.
However, keeping old Nuke plants running (and/or possibly extending their life a little longer) is a different argument, which I think is the topic of this FPP.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 7:00 PM on April 15, 2023 [13 favorites]
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.This is correct in some ways but it’s incomplete because neither of the major renewable sources has guaranteed availability. Wind is good at covering solar at night but there are periods where wind output is low - this paper estimates 5 consecutive days per year – and until there’s robust storage for those kinds of timeframes, that guarantees that the grid will be burning natural gas or coal.
This problem gets worse when you start to think about home heating: a key part of reducing emissions will be getting rid of fossil fuel home heating, but that means a sag in generating capacity in a cold winter will quite literally kill people, and that’s going to be disastrous for decarbonization given how much money fossil fuel companies spend on propaganda.
None of that means that building new nuclear plants instead of, say, storage for massive solar overproduction or geothermal, etc. but it does make a pretty strong case for trying to keep nuclear plants online anywhere doing so allows you to decommission coal first.
posted by adamsc at 7:35 PM on April 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
The waste issue is not nearly as much of an issue as some people like to make it out to be. Once it's in dry cask storage it is incredibly well protected. These are containers stronger than the transport containers, which themselves have literally been tested by being hit by a freight train and left to burn for hours without leaking.
It's annoying and not robust against a total collapse of civilization along with the loss of any knowledge about what they are scenario where some future people have the means to hack at them for prolonged periods of time without interference, but in terms of basically anything else they're as safe as rocks. Safer than many rocks, actually.
We absolutely should not be directing significant resources towards building new nuclear plants. It's fine to build one or two at a time in a given region just to prevent a recurrence of the situation that made the most recently built ones impossibly expensive, but an all our building spree that takes money that would otherwise go to renewables makes no sense. We should not be decommissioning existing plants until sufficient wind and solar capacity exists to completely offset the power being generated, however. The cost of the increased carbon emissions required to generate that electricity far outweighs the cost of keeping all but the most decrepit reactors going.
As usual, though, we assume that the externalized costs of carbon emissions will be borne by someone else, so we don't give a shit. Fear that flies in the face of the facts wins yet again. More people will die from particulate, NOx emissions, and other issues caused by burning more fossil fuels so certain countries can shut down their nuclear plants than would die from several Fukushima scale incidents. Same with cancers. Probably several Chernobyls, actually, but I don't have exact numbers to hand at the moment so I'm not 100% confident in the latter.
Nuclear power could be dangerous, but under the regulatory framework that exists in countries that use it, it just isn't. All the commercial nuclear power incidents in the entire history of nuclear power have caused less harm to people than is caused by one large coal plant. We know this because radiological incidents are incredibly carefully tracked. It's simply not possible to hide.
posted by wierdo at 7:48 PM on April 15, 2023 [24 favorites]
It's annoying and not robust against a total collapse of civilization along with the loss of any knowledge about what they are scenario where some future people have the means to hack at them for prolonged periods of time without interference, but in terms of basically anything else they're as safe as rocks. Safer than many rocks, actually.
We absolutely should not be directing significant resources towards building new nuclear plants. It's fine to build one or two at a time in a given region just to prevent a recurrence of the situation that made the most recently built ones impossibly expensive, but an all our building spree that takes money that would otherwise go to renewables makes no sense. We should not be decommissioning existing plants until sufficient wind and solar capacity exists to completely offset the power being generated, however. The cost of the increased carbon emissions required to generate that electricity far outweighs the cost of keeping all but the most decrepit reactors going.
As usual, though, we assume that the externalized costs of carbon emissions will be borne by someone else, so we don't give a shit. Fear that flies in the face of the facts wins yet again. More people will die from particulate, NOx emissions, and other issues caused by burning more fossil fuels so certain countries can shut down their nuclear plants than would die from several Fukushima scale incidents. Same with cancers. Probably several Chernobyls, actually, but I don't have exact numbers to hand at the moment so I'm not 100% confident in the latter.
Nuclear power could be dangerous, but under the regulatory framework that exists in countries that use it, it just isn't. All the commercial nuclear power incidents in the entire history of nuclear power have caused less harm to people than is caused by one large coal plant. We know this because radiological incidents are incredibly carefully tracked. It's simply not possible to hide.
posted by wierdo at 7:48 PM on April 15, 2023 [24 favorites]
Nuclear power - my opinion is it will almost always be way too expensive, too centralized, and the waste will be an issue (at least in foreseeable future). However I think shutting down functional nuclear power plants without replacing it with renewable energy is a very poorly though out idea.
People who go on about how nuclear energy is treated unfairly and will somehow will be our saviour if we would just loosen regulations or fund more research really don't seem serious to me about dealing with climate change.
posted by GiantSlug at 8:35 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
People who go on about how nuclear energy is treated unfairly and will somehow will be our saviour if we would just loosen regulations or fund more research really don't seem serious to me about dealing with climate change.
posted by GiantSlug at 8:35 PM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
New nukes aren’t happening on any sort of meaningful scale without massive government subsidies. It costs billions to build a plant, and 5-10 years if all goes well. In this age of quarterly returns ruling business, how many companies are going to be eager to commit a capital investment that may run into 11 figures, knowing they won’t see a penny of return for at least over half a decade? If you’re building power, you can build a lot of wind or solar - a LOT - and start selling that power within a much, much shorter timescale. You can also put natural gas generators online much quicker than nuclear for a smaller investment. We can talk about the emissions of nuclear vs natural gas vs solar/wind all we want, but nukes are ridiculously expensive to build and shareholders don’t like looking past this quarter.
posted by azpenguin at 8:41 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 8:41 PM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Germany’s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.
Source: Our World In Data
I wonder how that number will go now that Germany replaces more nuclear with coal.
Remember too that Germany largely relies on fossil fuels for transportation and home heating. Thus decarbonization of those sectors demands substantial increases in electrical production — roughly on the order of 2x. How are we going to do that, given we've never met our already-modest targets for new solar and wind? We've removed our ability to meet climate goals with domestic power production.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:12 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Source: Our World In Data
I wonder how that number will go now that Germany replaces more nuclear with coal.
Remember too that Germany largely relies on fossil fuels for transportation and home heating. Thus decarbonization of those sectors demands substantial increases in electrical production — roughly on the order of 2x. How are we going to do that, given we've never met our already-modest targets for new solar and wind? We've removed our ability to meet climate goals with domestic power production.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:12 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
It’s a bit disingenuous to say that Merkel pushed for nuclear exit. The first nuclear exit law was passed in 2000 under the SPD / Greens coalition. In 2010 the CDU / FDP coalition under Merkel took it back, then after Fukushima in 2011 they went back to the original phase out. The same cabinet sabotaged the booming solar market in Germany.
So this has been going on for a long time and at this point nuclear power in Germany is more of an emotional point than a practical one. Nuclear power was just 6% of the electricity mix while renewables went from 40% in 2021 to 44% in 2022 (numbers from the government report Jahresbericht Energisversorgung 2022). That growth in renewables was pretty usual for the last couple years. Coal is up because nuclear power is phased out, but more so because the gas supply from Russia has been cut. Renewables should be able to compensate for both in a few years.
Nuclear power is extremely expensive to build and expensive to run. Once you factor in storing hazardous waste for a couple hundred thousand years it becomes stupidly expensive to run. To me civilian nuclear power only makes sense if you want to run a military nuclear program and take civilian power as a byproduct.
posted by the_dreamwriter at 1:17 AM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
So this has been going on for a long time and at this point nuclear power in Germany is more of an emotional point than a practical one. Nuclear power was just 6% of the electricity mix while renewables went from 40% in 2021 to 44% in 2022 (numbers from the government report Jahresbericht Energisversorgung 2022). That growth in renewables was pretty usual for the last couple years. Coal is up because nuclear power is phased out, but more so because the gas supply from Russia has been cut. Renewables should be able to compensate for both in a few years.
Nuclear power is extremely expensive to build and expensive to run. Once you factor in storing hazardous waste for a couple hundred thousand years it becomes stupidly expensive to run. To me civilian nuclear power only makes sense if you want to run a military nuclear program and take civilian power as a byproduct.
posted by the_dreamwriter at 1:17 AM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
neither of the major renewable sources has guaranteed availability.
No power stations have guaranteed availability. Literally none. If we look at the UK's ten nuclear reactors right now, two are switched off so capacity is about 80%. This time last week it was about 67%.
posted by biffa at 2:14 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
No power stations have guaranteed availability. Literally none. If we look at the UK's ten nuclear reactors right now, two are switched off so capacity is about 80%. This time last week it was about 67%.
posted by biffa at 2:14 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Biffa, isn't your availability point only correct in a pedantic word-play sense? I mean, if we waved a magic wand and replaced the remaining 2/3 of Germany's electricity production (coal, gas, biomass, usw.) with wind & solar, we'd have widespread and frequent blackouts, right? And the more we electrify our heating and transportation sectors, this scenario becomes sharply worse and relies on even more fantastical magic?
posted by daveliepmann at 2:27 AM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by daveliepmann at 2:27 AM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wind is good at covering solar at night but there are periods where wind output is low - this paper estimates 5 consecutive days per year
I really like nukes and even I would probably prefer to run gas peakers a couple of weeks a year than build new nuke plants.
a key part of reducing emissions will be getting rid of fossil fuel home heating, but that means a sag in generating capacity in a cold winter will quite literally kill people
That's true either way. The difference between the forced air gas heat my house has now and a heat pump is that I'd need a 12-15kW generator instead of the 6kW that came with the house.
If we're concerned about availability let's start working on the infrastructure behind power satellites.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:01 AM on April 16, 2023
I really like nukes and even I would probably prefer to run gas peakers a couple of weeks a year than build new nuke plants.
a key part of reducing emissions will be getting rid of fossil fuel home heating, but that means a sag in generating capacity in a cold winter will quite literally kill people
That's true either way. The difference between the forced air gas heat my house has now and a heat pump is that I'd need a 12-15kW generator instead of the 6kW that came with the house.
If we're concerned about availability let's start working on the infrastructure behind power satellites.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:01 AM on April 16, 2023
Good. Nuclear reactors are a terribly dirty technology when we don't have a way to deal with waste. They have also proven to be a safety hazard time and time again, if not a military target for Russia and other terrorist groups. Renewables already do a better job and are operationally and militarily safer.
Nuclear power stations have actually turned out to be the only power infrastructure in Ukraine not to be a target of Russia bombardment so you should probably drop that bit of hyperbole.
posted by srboisvert at 5:34 AM on April 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Nuclear power stations have actually turned out to be the only power infrastructure in Ukraine not to be a target of Russia bombardment so you should probably drop that bit of hyperbole.
posted by srboisvert at 5:34 AM on April 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
I really like nukes and even I would probably prefer to run gas peakers a couple of weeks a year than build new nuke plants.I mean, me too, but that’s mostly due to the lengthy delays of building nuclear plants so it seems like a fairly different situation when you’re talking about plants which already exist unless there’s no viable way to retrofit them. We still need to figure out other options but this should be a “do both” situation focused on time to turn off anything which burns fossil fuels.
The biggest win seems like it’s going to come from storage tech. We’re on track to have electricity be basically free on sunny days and if we can expand the various grid scale storage options like pumped hydropower that might get us close to where we no longer need peaker plants.
That's true either way. The difference between the forced air gas heat my house has now and a heat pump is that I'd need a 12-15kW generator instead of the 6kW that came with the house.That’s still significant but also not everyone uses forced air. I know multiple people who use heating oil specifically because they are worried about winter power outages, and while that’s not a huge part of carbon emissions it’s the kind of thing we do need to figure out over time.
posted by adamsc at 5:35 AM on April 16, 2023
Calm down, people!. I'm personally for something mild and middle of the road...... like one world government, 20%+ tax on total world expenditure to build renewable plants by national armies and forced conscription of the populace over a 20-30 year period.
Even that won't save us! We need all the non-carbon power sources we can.
.....even the framing "nukes" is abhorrent and plays into know-nothing, anti science sentiment.
When you hear the word "nuke" you conflate nuclear weapon with nuclear power plant.
Here is the world's energy use chart. Note we are using more power and building more fossil fuel plants every year. The percentage of renewables is increasing but it is being DWARFED by increasing consumption. Every year we continue to burn more carbon than the last, and our rate is INCREASING.
We're doomed on this path and solar/wind will. not. save. us.
posted by lalochezia at 5:47 AM on April 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Even that won't save us! We need all the non-carbon power sources we can.
.....even the framing "nukes" is abhorrent and plays into know-nothing, anti science sentiment.
When you hear the word "nuke" you conflate nuclear weapon with nuclear power plant.
Here is the world's energy use chart. Note we are using more power and building more fossil fuel plants every year. The percentage of renewables is increasing but it is being DWARFED by increasing consumption. Every year we continue to burn more carbon than the last, and our rate is INCREASING.
We're doomed on this path and solar/wind will. not. save. us.
posted by lalochezia at 5:47 AM on April 16, 2023 [4 favorites]
Biffa, isn't your availability point only correct in a pedantic word-play sense?
How do you figure? Someone introduced the concept of guaranteed availability. I pointed out that it's misleading since no power station, of any type, fits that description. That's significant since it means any selection of generators needs to have additional capacity in order to have a margin between available capacity and peak demand. That is, there has always been a need for additional capacity, even in the centralised (fossil or nuclear) thermal generation model.
Currently, the variable renewables need some flexible response to demand in the system, but that has also been true of thermal power, since coal and nuclear are very slow in response to demand variation. Anti-renewables people often try to imply this needs to be 100% of the renewables capacity but both modelled systems and actual systems show this to be a far lower percentage. In future more storage and demand side management looks likely to mean the number is even lower.
posted by biffa at 6:11 AM on April 16, 2023
How do you figure? Someone introduced the concept of guaranteed availability. I pointed out that it's misleading since no power station, of any type, fits that description. That's significant since it means any selection of generators needs to have additional capacity in order to have a margin between available capacity and peak demand. That is, there has always been a need for additional capacity, even in the centralised (fossil or nuclear) thermal generation model.
Currently, the variable renewables need some flexible response to demand in the system, but that has also been true of thermal power, since coal and nuclear are very slow in response to demand variation. Anti-renewables people often try to imply this needs to be 100% of the renewables capacity but both modelled systems and actual systems show this to be a far lower percentage. In future more storage and demand side management looks likely to mean the number is even lower.
posted by biffa at 6:11 AM on April 16, 2023
To me, drawing an equivalence between "we take a rotating minority of our reactors off-line for scheduled maintenance" and "solar power is negligible in Germany for half the year" or "wind power is highly variable" is pedantic word-play, genau.
Decarbonization requires a whole lot of electricity. Coal is shockingly awful. We don't have time for these games.
posted by daveliepmann at 7:49 AM on April 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
Decarbonization requires a whole lot of electricity. Coal is shockingly awful. We don't have time for these games.
posted by daveliepmann at 7:49 AM on April 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
Sun's probably still going to work.
The push for solar in Germany would make a lot more sense if their solar index wasn’t terrible. And the reason solar is cheap is because China has made a strategic investment in the category due to their high need for energy and their low domestic supply of oil and gas, combined with their relatively high solar index. I imagine we will see a repeat of 2022 embargo hesitancy if the South China Sea conflicts go hot.
Wind power is comparatively better for Germany, but doesn’t have the same benefits of scale as far as I know. It won’t be cheap and will take time, but should still be done. And reasonably, Germany is already well on that path, with wind being its top renewable source.
posted by pwnguin at 9:30 AM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
The push for solar in Germany would make a lot more sense if their solar index wasn’t terrible. And the reason solar is cheap is because China has made a strategic investment in the category due to their high need for energy and their low domestic supply of oil and gas, combined with their relatively high solar index. I imagine we will see a repeat of 2022 embargo hesitancy if the South China Sea conflicts go hot.
Wind power is comparatively better for Germany, but doesn’t have the same benefits of scale as far as I know. It won’t be cheap and will take time, but should still be done. And reasonably, Germany is already well on that path, with wind being its top renewable source.
posted by pwnguin at 9:30 AM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
DW : Bavaria mulls reopening nuclear plant under state control
Bavarian Premier Markus Söder on Sunday proposed that his southern German state could assume control of the Isar 2 nuclear power plant, which was permanently taken off the grid, along with two other remaining power stations shortly before midnight.posted by JoeZydeco at 10:34 AM on April 16, 2023
To me, drawing an equivalence between "we take a rotating minority of our reactors off-line for scheduled maintenance" and "solar power is negligible in Germany for half the year" or "wind power is highly variable" is pedantic word-play, genau.
Well its not, as I have already explained. All generation requires back up, which adds to overall costs. You haven't explained why I am wrong, you just repeated that you didn't like it. Variable RE generators require some back up, just as firm generation does. Its likely more for variable RE but its not a huge amount. There are countries with high penetration of variable RE (like 30-50%) and they don't have black outs. Do you think they have got to that level without considering what is needed in terms of back up, integration, grid management, plus the options for mitigation?
posted by biffa at 11:15 AM on April 16, 2023
Well its not, as I have already explained. All generation requires back up, which adds to overall costs. You haven't explained why I am wrong, you just repeated that you didn't like it. Variable RE generators require some back up, just as firm generation does. Its likely more for variable RE but its not a huge amount. There are countries with high penetration of variable RE (like 30-50%) and they don't have black outs. Do you think they have got to that level without considering what is needed in terms of back up, integration, grid management, plus the options for mitigation?
posted by biffa at 11:15 AM on April 16, 2023
How do we know wind and solar won’t be compromised by climate change causing changes in weather patterns?
Fwiw, this was just a quick point in the tv series Extrapolations. The most recent episode mentioned solar and wind power going bust by 2068. The reasons aren't quite clear, although air quality in the episode's setting (San Francisco) is horrendous, and characters mention no longer being able to see stars or sunsets, so that might gesture at solar's decline there.
posted by doctornemo at 11:25 AM on April 16, 2023
Fwiw, this was just a quick point in the tv series Extrapolations. The most recent episode mentioned solar and wind power going bust by 2068. The reasons aren't quite clear, although air quality in the episode's setting (San Francisco) is horrendous, and characters mention no longer being able to see stars or sunsets, so that might gesture at solar's decline there.
posted by doctornemo at 11:25 AM on April 16, 2023
actually turned out to be the only power infrastructure in Ukraine not to be a target of Russia bombardment so you should probably drop that bit of hyperbole .
posted by clavdivs at 1:48 PM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 1:48 PM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Nuclear power stations have actually turned out to be the only power infrastructure in Ukraine not to be a target of Russia bombardment
At least with the mainstream media I consume, that isn't what I'm hearing.
So, I think you'll need a citation, please.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:56 PM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
At least with the mainstream media I consume, that isn't what I'm hearing.
So, I think you'll need a citation, please.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:56 PM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
BASF broke ground after spending nearly $1B in 2022 to accelerate moving its plastics production to Louisiana this last January.
Part of Germany's strategy is simply moving its energy (and labor?) intensive industry elsewhere. It's not household demand at the bottom of this stuff.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:51 PM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Part of Germany's strategy is simply moving its energy (and labor?) intensive industry elsewhere. It's not household demand at the bottom of this stuff.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:51 PM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Environmentalists have been blamed for the downfall of nuclear energy but I think it's going to come out that the main driving force behind it is the US military and CIA. A world where most power comes from nuclear plants makes deterrence much harder, as suddenly everyone is importing tons of uranium. Likewise there were big fears about "dirty bombs" so they didn't even really want nuclear to become widespread in the US.
This was likely accomplished by 1. members of the military and CIA meeting with regulators and pushing them to raise the regulatory burden. 2. preferential undercover funding of environmental groups opposed to nuclear power rather than those neutral towards it.
posted by hermanubis at 3:53 PM on April 16, 2023
This was likely accomplished by 1. members of the military and CIA meeting with regulators and pushing them to raise the regulatory burden. 2. preferential undercover funding of environmental groups opposed to nuclear power rather than those neutral towards it.
posted by hermanubis at 3:53 PM on April 16, 2023
That feedstock was also its energy supply? Literally the same pipelines, unless I misunderstood what I read. Which could be.
Maybe I worded it wrong, but part of the strategy is managing demand on what of that is available. Turning less of it into widgets helps.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:59 PM on April 16, 2023
Maybe I worded it wrong, but part of the strategy is managing demand on what of that is available. Turning less of it into widgets helps.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:59 PM on April 16, 2023
nuclear opponents have succeeded in making nuclear expensive, by wrapping it up in environmental review and other red tape. Surely much of it is appropriate. I’m certainly not qualified to say. It’s just that it’s not intrinsically expensive.
Nuclear power is generally let off from providing for the full cost of decommissioning as well as not having to cover the full cost of associated risks (the state limits its total costs for a major disaster). So it should often be more expensive.
posted by biffa at 5:16 PM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Nuclear power is generally let off from providing for the full cost of decommissioning as well as not having to cover the full cost of associated risks (the state limits its total costs for a major disaster). So it should often be more expensive.
posted by biffa at 5:16 PM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Environmentalists have been blamed for the downfall of nuclear energy but I think it's going to come out that the main driving force behind it is the US military and CIA. ...
1. members of the military and CIA meeting with regulators and pushing them to raise the regulatory burden. 2. preferential undercover funding of environmental groups opposed to nuclear power rather than those neutral towards it.
Funnily enough, I've heard people attribute these things to Russian agents. I don't see how the US non-proliferation interest applies to European states that already have working nuclear power and are already under the NATO umbrella. Almost a non-sequitor and maybe 2020 is the year the left wakes up and realizes America isn't the only bogey man waking the earth.
It seems pretty clear that shutting down civilian nuclear will make Germany more dependent on fossil fuels for quite a while. The obvious benefactor of this move is the Russian energy sector, and it seems pretty clear Gerhard Schröder, who to served on the boards of Gazprom and Rosneft, and as manager of Nord Stream 2, had substantial influence on regulators by way of being the guy in charge of German policy.
posted by pwnguin at 5:28 PM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
1. members of the military and CIA meeting with regulators and pushing them to raise the regulatory burden. 2. preferential undercover funding of environmental groups opposed to nuclear power rather than those neutral towards it.
Funnily enough, I've heard people attribute these things to Russian agents. I don't see how the US non-proliferation interest applies to European states that already have working nuclear power and are already under the NATO umbrella. Almost a non-sequitor and maybe 2020 is the year the left wakes up and realizes America isn't the only bogey man waking the earth.
It seems pretty clear that shutting down civilian nuclear will make Germany more dependent on fossil fuels for quite a while. The obvious benefactor of this move is the Russian energy sector, and it seems pretty clear Gerhard Schröder, who to served on the boards of Gazprom and Rosneft, and as manager of Nord Stream 2, had substantial influence on regulators by way of being the guy in charge of German policy.
posted by pwnguin at 5:28 PM on April 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Euro greens don't want nukes. I think they're wrong on the tradeoffs, at least through the medium term, but it's also been the sentiment long enough that I don't ascribe it to direct outside influence. Though that inclination is definitely vulnerable to incentivized alignment. As it were.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:38 PM on April 16, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:38 PM on April 16, 2023
German politicians popping champagne to celebrate their energy policy victory while the #1 energy source in the country is coal, second place is natural gas, and third place is tied between wind (yay!) and (greenhouse-gas-releasing) biomass. (Source; results will vary over time.)
Shameful.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:05 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Shameful.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:05 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
These plants contributed less than 10% of Germany's energy supply. Is the reaction more about what Germany's use of nuclear power meant for proponents of its destigmatization and expansion in other countries?
posted by Selena777 at 6:31 AM on April 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 6:31 AM on April 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Maybe I worded it wrong, but part of the strategy is managing demand on what of that is available. Turning less of it into widgets helps.
The widgets will still get made, they're just getting made outside of Germany now. Germany's reputation for being the economic powerhouse of Europe was built on the fact that they still have/had a manufacturing industry. Increases in energy costs are going to make some of that manufacturing go away, and it seems like Germany will be burning more fossil fuels to try and meet that demand.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:57 AM on April 17, 2023
The widgets will still get made, they're just getting made outside of Germany now. Germany's reputation for being the economic powerhouse of Europe was built on the fact that they still have/had a manufacturing industry. Increases in energy costs are going to make some of that manufacturing go away, and it seems like Germany will be burning more fossil fuels to try and meet that demand.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:57 AM on April 17, 2023
Selena, nuclear provided close to a third of our electricity supply before they started the long process of shutting it down.
For me it's about air quality and ability to decarbonize.
Air quality: it aggravates me deeply that there's a coal power plant in my city. I don't have the time to run the numbers (see my 1,100/year link above) but isn't that plant killing my neighbors, giving my child's schoolmates asthma, and contributing to everyone's hacking cough in winter? Or take Rostock, a former DDR city. They rightly take pride in their tram network, partly on environmental grounds — they put green skins on the trams advertising that it's a grün mode of transport. Do they understand it's powered by a coal plant puffing death into their city air? Why didn't we shut these down instead, or at least first?
On decarbonization: does anyone have even the faintest clue how to shut down our coal or gas plants now? How are we going to switch to electric cars and electric heat? We need more carbon-free electricity, a whole lot more, and they shut down the most scalable carbon-free source! I can't dig up the source right now but as I recall we've missed our targets for building new wind farms either every year or almost every year. Getting wind production to 30% was a real struggle and it doesn't look like it's getting easier. Do we really think that we can get to 200+% within a decade? Two, three? Ever? What other electricity source do we have in winter? It seems we've resolved ourselves to either buying electricity from abroad (meaning, coal or gas or nuclear by proxy), or keeping our coal & gas plants running until the end of the century.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:27 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
For me it's about air quality and ability to decarbonize.
Air quality: it aggravates me deeply that there's a coal power plant in my city. I don't have the time to run the numbers (see my 1,100/year link above) but isn't that plant killing my neighbors, giving my child's schoolmates asthma, and contributing to everyone's hacking cough in winter? Or take Rostock, a former DDR city. They rightly take pride in their tram network, partly on environmental grounds — they put green skins on the trams advertising that it's a grün mode of transport. Do they understand it's powered by a coal plant puffing death into their city air? Why didn't we shut these down instead, or at least first?
On decarbonization: does anyone have even the faintest clue how to shut down our coal or gas plants now? How are we going to switch to electric cars and electric heat? We need more carbon-free electricity, a whole lot more, and they shut down the most scalable carbon-free source! I can't dig up the source right now but as I recall we've missed our targets for building new wind farms either every year or almost every year. Getting wind production to 30% was a real struggle and it doesn't look like it's getting easier. Do we really think that we can get to 200+% within a decade? Two, three? Ever? What other electricity source do we have in winter? It seems we've resolved ourselves to either buying electricity from abroad (meaning, coal or gas or nuclear by proxy), or keeping our coal & gas plants running until the end of the century.
posted by daveliepmann at 10:27 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Going to have to fly my 'Atomkrafft? Nein, danke.' flag again!
posted by kylefreund at 11:21 AM on April 17, 2023
posted by kylefreund at 11:21 AM on April 17, 2023
Nuclear power is generally let off from providing for the full cost of decommissioning as well as not having to cover the full cost of associated risks (the state limits its total costs for a major disaster). So it should often be more expensive.
Thanks for the hearty laugh. At least in the US, the only part of this that is true is the third party liability cap. Which, in the interest of completeness has not been raised to account for inflation since it was instituted, which it absolutely should have been. Excluding the R&D (which commercial power companies did contribute toward, but paid nowhere near the full freight), nuclear power is pretty much the only industry that doesn't get to externalize its costs. Operators are required to set aside funding for decommissioning at a per-kilowatt rate and similarly pay a per kilowatt fee to the government for the eventual disposal of high level waste. They also pay a fee for the quasi-reinsurance provided by the government in addition to the required quarter billion of private insurance they are required to carry.
By contrast, to pick another form of generation with similar issues of being able to cause widespread devastation and eventual need for decommissioning, commercially owned hydropower dams pay only for whatever insurance they see fit and are not required to set aside anything to remove the dam when it eventually silts up or becomes structurally unsound. Moreover, the level of oversight is orders of magnitude greater for nuclear power than any others. Coal and hydro being the greatest beneficiaries here, but coal by a mile.
It's not at all uncommon for fly ash ponds to leak or even burst entirely with devastating impacts downstream what with all the heavy metals and other poisons being washed into streams and rivers that linger pretty much forever without even the common decency of having a half life so they eventually go away as well as the shorter term impact of the ash particles choking off entire ecosystems until enough finally gets washed downstream that it is spread out enough not to be a visible problem.
Nuclear is more expensive than wind and solar, even accounting for the battery storage that will eventually be required, but it would look a hell of a lot better compared to fossil fuels if they had to pay for the costs they get to externalize even in a world where carbon emissions were magically not an issue.
The nuclear industry in the US is now getting subsidies intended to tip the scales toward keeping reactors running as they age, but that's precisely to avoid the even greater cost of the carbon emissions that would result from shutting the more economically marginal plants down. I'd rather do it the other way around, by forcing fossil generators to pay the full cost of their operation, but the powers that be have decided that relative stability in electricity rates is more important than the conceptual simplicity of letting all forms of generation cost what they actually cost so that the data is right there to smack us in the face rather than requiring interpretation to get to the real story.
posted by wierdo at 11:32 AM on April 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thanks for the hearty laugh. At least in the US, the only part of this that is true is the third party liability cap. Which, in the interest of completeness has not been raised to account for inflation since it was instituted, which it absolutely should have been. Excluding the R&D (which commercial power companies did contribute toward, but paid nowhere near the full freight), nuclear power is pretty much the only industry that doesn't get to externalize its costs. Operators are required to set aside funding for decommissioning at a per-kilowatt rate and similarly pay a per kilowatt fee to the government for the eventual disposal of high level waste. They also pay a fee for the quasi-reinsurance provided by the government in addition to the required quarter billion of private insurance they are required to carry.
By contrast, to pick another form of generation with similar issues of being able to cause widespread devastation and eventual need for decommissioning, commercially owned hydropower dams pay only for whatever insurance they see fit and are not required to set aside anything to remove the dam when it eventually silts up or becomes structurally unsound. Moreover, the level of oversight is orders of magnitude greater for nuclear power than any others. Coal and hydro being the greatest beneficiaries here, but coal by a mile.
It's not at all uncommon for fly ash ponds to leak or even burst entirely with devastating impacts downstream what with all the heavy metals and other poisons being washed into streams and rivers that linger pretty much forever without even the common decency of having a half life so they eventually go away as well as the shorter term impact of the ash particles choking off entire ecosystems until enough finally gets washed downstream that it is spread out enough not to be a visible problem.
Nuclear is more expensive than wind and solar, even accounting for the battery storage that will eventually be required, but it would look a hell of a lot better compared to fossil fuels if they had to pay for the costs they get to externalize even in a world where carbon emissions were magically not an issue.
The nuclear industry in the US is now getting subsidies intended to tip the scales toward keeping reactors running as they age, but that's precisely to avoid the even greater cost of the carbon emissions that would result from shutting the more economically marginal plants down. I'd rather do it the other way around, by forcing fossil generators to pay the full cost of their operation, but the powers that be have decided that relative stability in electricity rates is more important than the conceptual simplicity of letting all forms of generation cost what they actually cost so that the data is right there to smack us in the face rather than requiring interpretation to get to the real story.
posted by wierdo at 11:32 AM on April 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
French nuclear woes stoke Europe's power prices (Reuters, Aug 2022)
They can't cool their nukes anymore now their rivers run dry, which is one of the things making power so exquisitely expensive in Germany.
Also, did anyone else watch that security-cam feed from that Ukraine nuclear plant being shelled, around a year ago? Sitting on the couch at 3AM watching maybe the next Czernobyl being livestreamed was... weird.
Also, I read a lot that Germany's renewable sector was crippled by the previous government / fossil lobby and that's why it's lagging now.
posted by yoHighness at 1:17 AM on April 18, 2023
They can't cool their nukes anymore now their rivers run dry, which is one of the things making power so exquisitely expensive in Germany.
Also, did anyone else watch that security-cam feed from that Ukraine nuclear plant being shelled, around a year ago? Sitting on the couch at 3AM watching maybe the next Czernobyl being livestreamed was... weird.
Also, I read a lot that Germany's renewable sector was crippled by the previous government / fossil lobby and that's why it's lagging now.
posted by yoHighness at 1:17 AM on April 18, 2023
PS (German satire) Conservative politicians glue themselves to road in front of nuclear plant to protest decommissioning
posted by yoHighness at 1:27 AM on April 18, 2023
posted by yoHighness at 1:27 AM on April 18, 2023
(Disclosure: After 15 years of developing renewable assets, I've become sufficiently convinced of the need for nuclear that I've recently taken a job which involved building a new one. So make of that what you will!)
I'm a bit surprised they went through with this given the collapse of Russian oil and gas. Maybe once you start mothballing something as complex as a nuclear power plant, you can't stop, and they'd already began the decommissioning before Ukraine was invaded?
&
It's an incredibly short-sighted move pushed by the German Green party... who should be able to look at the numbers and see Germany's increasing dependency on coal.
You have to understand the German political context here. These decisions were made by the previous Union government under a particular set of circumstances which may not repeat themselves. The current coalition is very fragile and only the Greens are really committed to this. 60% of the German public is now against the immediate shutdown. If they don't do it now, the government could fall at any moment and then there is a good chance the decision would be reversed and there would never be a shutdown.
Also, especially the older Greens are actually anti-nuclear activists first, not environmentalists who happen to also be anti-nuclear. To the minds of a substantial part of the membership, shutting down nuclear is the point of the party.
The constraint here was fuel - more Konvoi fuel could have been ordered in made in a few months as a rush order (but hard because of shortfall in industry exc. Russia) but it wasn't so there was not option to keep them running. Spare parts are also ordered years or months in advance so keeping a planned end-of-life plant running can be hard if you haven't planned for the spares you'll need. Anyway, they could have kept them open but not decided to do so the night before.
Lazard have just published their annual report on comparative costs for electricity generation. This is the standard report that everyone in the industry uses.
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.
That report also shows the marginal operating cost of existing nuclear - which is much lower than any alternative and is the correct number to use for making a decision on existing generation. LCOE applies to new plants only.
It is also the case that LCOE collapses a lot of information into one number which represents one very particular set of circumstances and doesn't look into other things *at all*. You cannot use LCOE alone to make investment decisions.
If you want to claim that you don't need nuclear on your grid because renewables + batteries will do the trick then fine, I've come to the conclusion (and grid / energy modelling is something I have done professionally) that nuclear is probably necessary for most places but others disagree with me. BUT... to take some of the world's best operating plants off a grid that still has lignite and coal running is fucking bonkers. How is any country supposed to take Germany's lead on climate action?
Whether grids benefit from nuclear (which indeed remains expensive) depends on a lot of modelling inputs, the main one being the correlation between sun and wind output. The fact that they are "variable" is not enough, as others have pointed out, all sources of electricity suffers outages including nuclear. You really need to explicitly model the covariance between different sources and how that varies.
This is because anti-correlation between i.e. wind and solar reduces the amount of backup that the wind+solar system needs. You also need to model the time distribution because from a storage point of view, there is a huge difference between:
a) random variability with no correlation between sequential half-hourly production
b) actual variability which is heavily correlated in time - if there is no wind right now, there is probably no wind 30 minutes from now
That temporal correlation drives a massive storage demand.
Well its not, as I have already explained. All generation requires back up, which adds to overall costs. You haven't explained why I am wrong, you just repeated that you didn't like it. Variable RE generators require some back up, just as firm generation does. Its likely more for variable RE but its not a huge amount. There are countries with high penetration of variable RE (like 30-50%) and they don't have black outs. Do you think they have got to that level without considering what is needed in terms of back up, integration, grid management, plus the options for mitigation?
The GB grid routinely has above 50% and Ireland's grid is set up to be able to run at up to 70%, both are planning to have grids that can handle up to 95% by 2030. (That's peak capacity, not energy production over the year).
For the GB grid, we actually have specific numbers for capacity de rating factors. That's because the GB grid operates a capacity market which legally has to allow wind and solar to participate on a level playing field basis, so the system operator calculates the typical output of those technologies at time of greatest system stress (which happens to be when those technologies are less likely to be operating at high production due to their dominance of the grid)
Currently these are:
Onshore wind 8.2%
Offshore wind 12.11%
PV 1.56%
The current UK nuclear fleet (mostly reaching end of life except for SZB) is rated at 80%
A CCGT plant is at 90%.
If you were to add more CCGT, that 90% would stay about the same, if you were to add more PWR reactors the nuclear would converge on typical PWR availability which is also between 90% and 95%.
If you add more VREs, those respective numbers go down - that's because they are correlated over space and time in a way that nuclear and gas outages are not. The above numbers are for this year but from the T-4 auctions. I would expect offshore wind to go down and down as offshore output goes up because it will become a bigger and bigger part of the grid.
However... in both countries the plan is to grow total renewables capacity while keeping dispatchable fossil fuel based generation around at the same level and just using them less. That works up to a point but:
1) The GB grid has half hour periods where its notional 25GW+ of renewables (vs 32GW average grid load over the year / 60GW system peak) produces <>Nuclear power is generally let off from providing for the full cost of decommissioning as well as not having to cover the full cost of associated risks (the state limits its total costs for a major disaster). So it should often be more expensive.
At least in the US and UK, nuclear plants are required to set aside a decommissioning reserve and/or making annual payments to their governments to pay for long term high level waste storage. Something that as wierdo points out, nobody else has to do.
We treat radioactive waste like it is totally sui generis when it really is not.
High level waste is dangerous in a genuinely novel way, hazard at a distance, for 400 to 600 years (not the untold millennia often mentioned) after which it is contact handleable (can be safely moved with just thin gloves). Yes it remains toxic because of alpha and beta emission if inhaled or swallowed but that is not a special kind of toxicity, that is a poisonous heavy metal like mercury or chromium or lead. There is a frankly comical bifurcation where every other kind of waste is spaffed into the atmosphere like we were a species of puffball mushrooms and industrial particulates were our spores, absolute wild abandon but radioactive waste is magical, every atom has to be accounted for, a leak of tritiated water with barely more tritium in it than natural rainwater is a big deal.
We invent these ludicrous fairytales about needing to store waste in such a way that in no conceivable way could there be any measurable harm to any living thing over the tens of thousands of years required to decay to local background, completely ignoring the fact that many places have much higher natural backgrounds and a whole creative writing endeveaor about genetically modified cats and "no worthy deed is commemorated here" poetry springs up. Meanwhile our entire civilisation operates with a time horizon where we think of 2050 as our long term and we are hard at work doing immense and measurable harms to everyone starting immediately but oh no, nuclear is special, radioactivity is a magical harm, and an entire different set of rules has to be invented and followed.
posted by atrazine at 5:02 AM on April 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
I'm a bit surprised they went through with this given the collapse of Russian oil and gas. Maybe once you start mothballing something as complex as a nuclear power plant, you can't stop, and they'd already began the decommissioning before Ukraine was invaded?
&
It's an incredibly short-sighted move pushed by the German Green party... who should be able to look at the numbers and see Germany's increasing dependency on coal.
You have to understand the German political context here. These decisions were made by the previous Union government under a particular set of circumstances which may not repeat themselves. The current coalition is very fragile and only the Greens are really committed to this. 60% of the German public is now against the immediate shutdown. If they don't do it now, the government could fall at any moment and then there is a good chance the decision would be reversed and there would never be a shutdown.
Also, especially the older Greens are actually anti-nuclear activists first, not environmentalists who happen to also be anti-nuclear. To the minds of a substantial part of the membership, shutting down nuclear is the point of the party.
The constraint here was fuel - more Konvoi fuel could have been ordered in made in a few months as a rush order (but hard because of shortfall in industry exc. Russia) but it wasn't so there was not option to keep them running. Spare parts are also ordered years or months in advance so keeping a planned end-of-life plant running can be hard if you haven't planned for the spares you'll need. Anyway, they could have kept them open but not decided to do so the night before.
Lazard have just published their annual report on comparative costs for electricity generation. This is the standard report that everyone in the industry uses.
It's very simple - nukes are very expensive and getting more expensive, renewables & storage are cheaper and keep getting cheaper.
That report also shows the marginal operating cost of existing nuclear - which is much lower than any alternative and is the correct number to use for making a decision on existing generation. LCOE applies to new plants only.
It is also the case that LCOE collapses a lot of information into one number which represents one very particular set of circumstances and doesn't look into other things *at all*. You cannot use LCOE alone to make investment decisions.
If you want to claim that you don't need nuclear on your grid because renewables + batteries will do the trick then fine, I've come to the conclusion (and grid / energy modelling is something I have done professionally) that nuclear is probably necessary for most places but others disagree with me. BUT... to take some of the world's best operating plants off a grid that still has lignite and coal running is fucking bonkers. How is any country supposed to take Germany's lead on climate action?
Whether grids benefit from nuclear (which indeed remains expensive) depends on a lot of modelling inputs, the main one being the correlation between sun and wind output. The fact that they are "variable" is not enough, as others have pointed out, all sources of electricity suffers outages including nuclear. You really need to explicitly model the covariance between different sources and how that varies.
This is because anti-correlation between i.e. wind and solar reduces the amount of backup that the wind+solar system needs. You also need to model the time distribution because from a storage point of view, there is a huge difference between:
a) random variability with no correlation between sequential half-hourly production
b) actual variability which is heavily correlated in time - if there is no wind right now, there is probably no wind 30 minutes from now
That temporal correlation drives a massive storage demand.
Well its not, as I have already explained. All generation requires back up, which adds to overall costs. You haven't explained why I am wrong, you just repeated that you didn't like it. Variable RE generators require some back up, just as firm generation does. Its likely more for variable RE but its not a huge amount. There are countries with high penetration of variable RE (like 30-50%) and they don't have black outs. Do you think they have got to that level without considering what is needed in terms of back up, integration, grid management, plus the options for mitigation?
The GB grid routinely has above 50% and Ireland's grid is set up to be able to run at up to 70%, both are planning to have grids that can handle up to 95% by 2030. (That's peak capacity, not energy production over the year).
For the GB grid, we actually have specific numbers for capacity de rating factors. That's because the GB grid operates a capacity market which legally has to allow wind and solar to participate on a level playing field basis, so the system operator calculates the typical output of those technologies at time of greatest system stress (which happens to be when those technologies are less likely to be operating at high production due to their dominance of the grid)
Currently these are:
Onshore wind 8.2%
Offshore wind 12.11%
PV 1.56%
The current UK nuclear fleet (mostly reaching end of life except for SZB) is rated at 80%
A CCGT plant is at 90%.
If you were to add more CCGT, that 90% would stay about the same, if you were to add more PWR reactors the nuclear would converge on typical PWR availability which is also between 90% and 95%.
If you add more VREs, those respective numbers go down - that's because they are correlated over space and time in a way that nuclear and gas outages are not. The above numbers are for this year but from the T-4 auctions. I would expect offshore wind to go down and down as offshore output goes up because it will become a bigger and bigger part of the grid.
However... in both countries the plan is to grow total renewables capacity while keeping dispatchable fossil fuel based generation around at the same level and just using them less. That works up to a point but:
1) The GB grid has half hour periods where its notional 25GW+ of renewables (vs 32GW average grid load over the year / 60GW system peak) produces <>Nuclear power is generally let off from providing for the full cost of decommissioning as well as not having to cover the full cost of associated risks (the state limits its total costs for a major disaster). So it should often be more expensive.
At least in the US and UK, nuclear plants are required to set aside a decommissioning reserve and/or making annual payments to their governments to pay for long term high level waste storage. Something that as wierdo points out, nobody else has to do.
We treat radioactive waste like it is totally sui generis when it really is not.
High level waste is dangerous in a genuinely novel way, hazard at a distance, for 400 to 600 years (not the untold millennia often mentioned) after which it is contact handleable (can be safely moved with just thin gloves). Yes it remains toxic because of alpha and beta emission if inhaled or swallowed but that is not a special kind of toxicity, that is a poisonous heavy metal like mercury or chromium or lead. There is a frankly comical bifurcation where every other kind of waste is spaffed into the atmosphere like we were a species of puffball mushrooms and industrial particulates were our spores, absolute wild abandon but radioactive waste is magical, every atom has to be accounted for, a leak of tritiated water with barely more tritium in it than natural rainwater is a big deal.
We invent these ludicrous fairytales about needing to store waste in such a way that in no conceivable way could there be any measurable harm to any living thing over the tens of thousands of years required to decay to local background, completely ignoring the fact that many places have much higher natural backgrounds and a whole creative writing endeveaor about genetically modified cats and "no worthy deed is commemorated here" poetry springs up. Meanwhile our entire civilisation operates with a time horizon where we think of 2050 as our long term and we are hard at work doing immense and measurable harms to everyone starting immediately but oh no, nuclear is special, radioactivity is a magical harm, and an entire different set of rules has to be invented and followed.
posted by atrazine at 5:02 AM on April 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
Thanks guys, I appreciate you all: There was some incredibly insightful feedback in this.
It is always a very complicated balance.
As far as I can tell, all that radioactive waste was in a (russian, just in case that's not clear) mine before it was refined to be fuel. Maybe whoever enjoys that cheap energy should just pay for it to be sent back into that same mine - if it was susceptible to harm unrefined before, maybe it's not so bad once spent with less total energy output as waste.
Wind power plants kill a lot of people, too: Someone needs to climb up and lubricate stuff like every second year, and there are accidents. Coal and gas are even bigger killers. And all the estimated nuclear power accident deaths combined pale compared to some hydro power dam failures.
I don't like posting: It is not my style. I prefer lurking and thinking about stuff just for myelf.
But I'm glad I made an exception, also yeah flame is never wise... if you see my name and shake your head: That is my point.
posted by flamewise at 12:07 PM on April 18, 2023
It is always a very complicated balance.
As far as I can tell, all that radioactive waste was in a (russian, just in case that's not clear) mine before it was refined to be fuel. Maybe whoever enjoys that cheap energy should just pay for it to be sent back into that same mine - if it was susceptible to harm unrefined before, maybe it's not so bad once spent with less total energy output as waste.
Wind power plants kill a lot of people, too: Someone needs to climb up and lubricate stuff like every second year, and there are accidents. Coal and gas are even bigger killers. And all the estimated nuclear power accident deaths combined pale compared to some hydro power dam failures.
I don't like posting: It is not my style. I prefer lurking and thinking about stuff just for myelf.
But I'm glad I made an exception, also yeah flame is never wise... if you see my name and shake your head: That is my point.
posted by flamewise at 12:07 PM on April 18, 2023
Nuclear power stations have actually turned out to be the only power infrastructure in Ukraine not to be a target of Russia bombardment
Still waiting for a cite on this, while people play favorite games.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:13 PM on April 18, 2023
Still waiting for a cite on this, while people play favorite games.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:13 PM on April 18, 2023
Leaked documents showed that Ukraine was the only one shelling any nuclear plants. Or at least adjacent to it.
posted by Iax at 11:39 PM on April 18, 2023
posted by Iax at 11:39 PM on April 18, 2023
Right now, Russia is devoting very significant resources to a detailed and in depth — and above all, clandestine — survey of off-shore power generating installations in the North Sea.
Almost indisputably, in my opinion, in preparation for an aggressive war against the EU, Scandinavian countries, and the UK.
I would say that Western governments should impose a moratorium on shutting down power plants of any kind that are still capable of producing power, nuclear or not, until the threat of war subsides.
posted by jamjam at 12:44 AM on April 19, 2023
Almost indisputably, in my opinion, in preparation for an aggressive war against the EU, Scandinavian countries, and the UK.
I would say that Western governments should impose a moratorium on shutting down power plants of any kind that are still capable of producing power, nuclear or not, until the threat of war subsides.
posted by jamjam at 12:44 AM on April 19, 2023
Leaked documents showed that Ukraine was the only one shelling any nuclear plants. Or at least adjacent to it.
If you're going to do this, then don't distort it.
“The idea was that this would be an infantry-only battle. They wouldn’t be able to use artillery against us, as this is a nuclear plant,” the officer said. Drawn from select units of Ukraine’s military intelligence, GUR, and including the Shaman battalion, the Kraken Regiment and the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, even the youngest among his brothers-in-arms were already battle-hardened. Yet none of them expected the resistance they would face at the power plant.
“The Russians built a very dense defence, they mined everything,” the officer said. “When we were approaching they even pulled up tanks and artillery and started firing at us right on the water.”“
...
This is our artillery and Himars working. Here they are shelling us in the water, on the Dnipro River,” the officer narrated as he showed video of the assault to The Times, explaining how his patrol boat had probed Russian defences on the bank for weaknesses.
The river next to the plant is also adjacent to it.
Let's keep in mind that Putin was also literally trying to freeze the country to death, and the Russian occupation had already thrown safety to the wind, imperiling the whole region (including significant parts of Europe).
Before the raid Russian troops had tortured staff responsible for the safe operation of the reactors, plant workers said, increasing the risk of the type of human error that caused catastrophe at Chernobyl. Two days before the assault, on October 17, Energoatom reported that Oleh Kostyukov and Oleh Oshek, two senior employees essential to the reactor’s safe operation, had been abducted by Russian troops, raising the hazard level still further.
By October each of the seven pillars of nuclear safety had been violated at the plant, according to the IAEA, which said the presence of Russian troops on its territory was inviting disaster. President Zelensky’s administration had appealed to the United Nations to help evict Putin’s forces, but weeks of diplomacy had failed to resolve the risk. Ukraine decided to take matters into its own hands.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:33 AM on April 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you're going to do this, then don't distort it.
“The idea was that this would be an infantry-only battle. They wouldn’t be able to use artillery against us, as this is a nuclear plant,” the officer said. Drawn from select units of Ukraine’s military intelligence, GUR, and including the Shaman battalion, the Kraken Regiment and the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, even the youngest among his brothers-in-arms were already battle-hardened. Yet none of them expected the resistance they would face at the power plant.
“The Russians built a very dense defence, they mined everything,” the officer said. “When we were approaching they even pulled up tanks and artillery and started firing at us right on the water.”“
...
This is our artillery and Himars working. Here they are shelling us in the water, on the Dnipro River,” the officer narrated as he showed video of the assault to The Times, explaining how his patrol boat had probed Russian defences on the bank for weaknesses.
The river next to the plant is also adjacent to it.
Let's keep in mind that Putin was also literally trying to freeze the country to death, and the Russian occupation had already thrown safety to the wind, imperiling the whole region (including significant parts of Europe).
Before the raid Russian troops had tortured staff responsible for the safe operation of the reactors, plant workers said, increasing the risk of the type of human error that caused catastrophe at Chernobyl. Two days before the assault, on October 17, Energoatom reported that Oleh Kostyukov and Oleh Oshek, two senior employees essential to the reactor’s safe operation, had been abducted by Russian troops, raising the hazard level still further.
By October each of the seven pillars of nuclear safety had been violated at the plant, according to the IAEA, which said the presence of Russian troops on its territory was inviting disaster. President Zelensky’s administration had appealed to the United Nations to help evict Putin’s forces, but weeks of diplomacy had failed to resolve the risk. Ukraine decided to take matters into its own hands.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:33 AM on April 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by kickingtheground at 12:08 PM on April 15, 2023 [20 favorites]