Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo... then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
244 points (87.2% liked)
World News
32323 readers
743 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Don’t import Reddit’s extremely ignorant takes on nuclear power here, please. Nuclear power is a huge waste of money.
If you’re about to angrily downvote me (or you already did), or write an angry reply, please read the rest of my comment before you do. This is not my individual opinion, this is the scientific consensus on the issue.
When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.
If you’re about to lecture about “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, save your keystrokes - the majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable. Again, this isn’t my opinion, you can look it up and find a dozen sources to back up what I am writing here.
This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream of thorium fusion breeding or whatever other potential future tech someone will probably comment about without reading this paragraph.
Again, compared to nuclear, renewables are:
Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. It is 100% worth researching for future breakthroughs. But at present it is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.
Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on nuclear power should be spent on renewables instead.
Thorium reactors were made those in the 60s, they weren't pursued because thorium can't make nuclear bombs.
World's first commercial thorium reactor approved in China
Yeah, it's still commercial-scale, not a "pipe dream" or "not viable with current tech."
"not viable" is different from "impossible", it just means that it's gonna be too expensive and not worth doing compared to, yknow, just spending the money on renewables instead.
The article itself said it's still counting in future tech advances. Just because the alpha test is done at full size is different than being commercial scale imo. But we shouldn't even be judging power plants success on how well they can make profits, so whether it's commercial scale or not should not be relevant. Unfortunately it is, but the article gives no indication that it is commercially viable with current tech. Just that it physically exists.
Nobody is saying that a thorium reactor can't be built, I'm saying it's a waste of money, energy, time and resources that would be better spent on renewables, and that the energy produced would be both more expensive and more environmentally damaging than the same power generated by renewables.
Based on what? And how can you possibly make that claim with any confidence if nobody's built one until now?
They've been a technology that we've known about since the 1960s... we determined in the 60s it wasn't as efficient as uranium.
We also determined in the 1960s that solar power was a pipe dream and it would never be efficient enough on a large scale to be worth investing in.
Maybe don't use an Appeal to Antiquity.
Sourcing scientific research from 1960 is not an appeal to tradition and you know that perfectly well.
In response to your other point:
1960 - Hoffman Electronics creates a 14% efficient solar cell. 1961 - "Solar Energy in the Developing World" conference is held by the United Nations. 1962 - The Telstar communications satellite is powered by solar cells. 1963 - Sharp Corporation produces a viable photovoltaic module of silicon solar cells. 1964 - The satellite Nimbus I is equipped with Sun-tracking solar panels. 1964 - Farrington Daniels' landmark book, Direct Use of the Sun's Energy, published by Yale University Press. 1967 - Soyuz 1 is the first manned spacecraft to be powered by solar cells 1967 - Akira Fujishima discovers the Honda-Fujishima effect which is used for hydrolysis in the photoelectrochemical cell. 1968 - Roger Riehl introduces the first solar powered wristwatch. 1970 - First highly effective GaAs heterostructure solar cells are created by Zhores Alferov and his team in the USSR. 1971 - Salyut 1 is powered by solar cells. 1973 - Skylab is powered by solar cells. 1974 - Florida Solar Energy Center begins.
What a surprise, you’re wrong. Who could have seen that coming?