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
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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.
Germany literally just shut down their existing nuclear plants and replaced them with fossil fuels.
So even if what you're saying were true (and I'd happily sit here and punch holes in it if I thought you were actually open to an argument - anti-nuclear people somehow seem to think that you can build all the solar/wind farms and transmission lines you want without running into the same endless messy regulatory battles you get with nuclear), none of it would be relevant here because the plants were already built and already working and responsible for like 1/8 of Germany's electrical production - it wasn't a cost decision, it was a bullshit anti-nuclear one.
Also: the graph at the top shows the growth in Germany's installed wind capacity in Germany leveling off - do you think that's happening because they just don't feel like building any more wind power, or is it possible they're running into some limits on how much they can generate efficiently that way?
Given this thread is about new nuclear, I'm not sure why you are making up beliefs about what someone else in the thread believes. Personally a fan of old nuclear plants since their biggest expense (financial and likely ecological) is making them, so keeping them running is good as long as we are relying on fossil fuels.
Why just speculate on it while insinuation someone is wrong about something when you could look it up? From what I can gather, it looks like administration/licensing delays, court cases, and rules limiting how close they can be to residential buildings (apparently 10 times the height of the turbine) are the main contributors to the slowdown.
Also, solar is still growing more quickly and 2023 is having quicker growth in wind than last year (which was itself an increase from the previous year), so the trend being shown may already be outdated. Granted, inflation apparently are an issue now (not when the slowdown happened, but now as the rate of wind installation is increasing). And the rate of increase isn't enough imo, but building new nuclear instead of using the same resources to build solar or wind at this point means relying more on fossil fuels.
He is, in fact, arguing against keeping existing plants running too. (I suspected he believed this and he did indeed)
These... don't seem like crazy rules; I don't know how this works in other legal systems but in the US every little podunk wind installation in a residential area is going to be tied up in years of lawsuits over this sort of thing.
I don't think it is the same resources, that's part of my point. I don't think there's a finite pool of money here; the limitations on solar / wind have as much to do with raw materials and suitable locations as anything else, if nuclear provides an additional path to getting carbon-free energy on line (and with the added benefit of not needing to worry about storage, which is going to bring its own rat's nest of location + raw material problems once we get to it) then we ought to be encouraging it as well.
At no point have I said that we should shut down nuclear power plants that are still running effectively, I must request that you redact your false claims, I do not appreciate these libellous remarks. I explained reasons behind why nuclear power plants are decommissioned. I'm sure you understand that no-one believes that nuclear power plants should be built once and run forever and ever.
Nuclear has more location issues than renewable. Do you think people want a nuclear plant in their backyard?
It's the same issues of will, money, and location that limit both. Why waste all of those on nuclear in 20 years when the grid is unstable today?