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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If you had just said this and stopped writing then you'd have saved yourself time and embarrassment. I can dunk anytime, anywhere on whatever arguments you dream up, because definitionally if you're arguing with me about this then you have no idea what you're talking about. It's a fool-in-a-barrel type of situation, really.
Anyways, enough merry-making, to the meat of your comment:
Nuclear power has huge cost implications, economically and politically, which make it less viable. If Germany had built renewables instead of nuclear, would they have turned off the renewables that were producing the cheapest, cleanest energy ever known, with zero fuel costs and minimal maintenance costs? You make my argument for me.
The decommissioning of the german nuclear power plants was planned in 2011 because nuclear is a waste of resources. German scientists know this as well as I do. You're the one arguing with them.
"Nuclear energy is also often more expensive than wind and solar power, there are no longer any real advantages with nuclear energy.” - Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin. “Nuclear power plants are a hindrance to the energy transition. They are not able to run in stop-and-go mode and cannot really compensate for power fluctuations that arise when using solar and wind energy. With Germany looking to expand solar and wind power very rapidly over the next few years, now is a good time to shut down nuclear reactors to make way for renewable energy,” he said.
“In the German context, the phase-out of nuclear energy is good for the climate in the long term. It provides investment certainty for renewable energy; renewables will be much faster, cheaper and safer than expansion of nuclear energy,” - Niklas Höhne, a professor the mitigation of greenhouse gases at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
I think you're referring to the emergency recommissioning of German coal power plants in response to Russian gas being held hostage over the Ukraine war? It's not like they went "meh fuck the climate lol lets just turn off nuclear and put on the old coal burner for old time's sake".
And this is why I said I don't think you're open to an argument. But I'm not actually trying to argue with you about this, to the extent I'm arguing here it's for the benefit of other people reading who are perhaps a tiny bit less pig-headed than you are. Which is great, because I don't have to actually persuade you of anything but simply to give other people an alternative perspective to yours.
Yes, because they're still tied up in anti-nuclear politics. (hardly a phenomenon unique to Germany)
"Often more expensive" "no longer any real advantages" according to a "professor of renewable energy" who doesn't actually seem to have anything against them except that somehow he wants to "make way for renewable energy" which he somehow perceives an existing, functional nuclear plant as a hindrance to? Again, politics.
"Provides investment certainty for renewable energy" is likewise a weak / hypothetical / pie-in-the-sky argument - show me where existing nuclear power plants are actually getting in the way of new renewables.
"Replaced them with fossil fuels" natural gas is also, y'know, a fossil fuel. Even the anti-nuclear people cited in one of your articles admit that the lifecycle emissions of a gas plant are 4x as high as a brand new nuclear plant. Coal is even worse, sure, but even absent the Ukraine situation they'd be producing a lot more carbon with a very, very thin justification.
Watch this, I can make you ragequit this entire argument with this one comment with like a 90% confidence rate:
Prove either of these two statements as false:
Either that or you can loftily declare yourself above this argument, state that I am somehow moving the goalposts, say that “there’s no point, I’ll never change your mind” or just somehow express some amount of increduiity at my absolutely abhorrent behaviour by asking you such a straightforward question? You may also choose “that’s not the question I want to talk about, we should answer MY questions instead!”
But go ahead and prove me wrong, I’ll be waiting!
I'll cheerfully concede both of those statements, I just don't think they result in you winning the argument.
It's not clear that we can build enough renewables fast enough, or that we can build storage capacity fast enough when we do; you cite vague studies that suggest we might be able to do, but that's all they are. I'd rather not bet everything on that and then discover in 20 years that we made the wrong bet.
According to the anti-nuclear group cited in one of your articles, nuclear produces about 4x the CO2 emissions of solar but 1/4 the emissions of natural gas. (1/8 those of coal) And it also assumes we can't improve on that any, even though there is a tremendous amount of money + research going on right now on lowering CO2 emissions from construction materials like concrete and steel. (perhaps we don't have any of those improvements up and running for in 20 years, but meanwhile those shiny nuclear plants are getting rid of 3/4 of the CO2 from the natural gas plants they're replacing)
Obviously those points are the entire crux of the whole argument lmao.
Ah, what a gentleman! Since you've been so sporting, I'll indulge you.
You can go ahead and try to prove this statement false:
Again, I’m arguing we do both. And anyway this is a volume question, not a construction time one (enough renewables fast enough) - I’m OK with waiting 20 years for new nuclear plants if in 20 years we get a fuckton of them.
You need lunch and you can choose between a nutritious and tasty $5 sandwich from an independent deli or a $10 expensive mass-produced sandwich from a chain. The independent deli is tastier, cheaper, and healthier, and it's easier for you to get since it's on your way to work.
Or you could just get both for no good reason if you want I guess.
Hey, this you?
Woah! What happened to those goalposts? I could have sworn they were here a second ago.
I'm gonna wait for your response to my other question to properly address this one since they're so intrinsically linked.