Imho it’s a good thing to not block other countries approach to clean power from a german perspective.
However, there is just no way new nuclear power makes any sense for German grid. Just last week we had negative prices for _every_ day during peak demand (yes, peak demand is usually around noon, it’s just not visible because there is so much solar self-consumption)
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
What‘s really needed is more batteries. At lot more batteries soon.
>What‘s really needed is more batteries. At lot more batteries soon.
Germany would have one of the biggest batteries on the continent if they controlled Lake Geneva @ ~341bn liters of water.
Pumped hydro storage is infinitely superior to Li-ion battery storage where it is available. Batteries are good for instantaneous response but lack the stability of water turning a large mass.
Solar creates a difficult environment for base load generators such as hydro, nuclear and nat gas. When it's sunny they nuke the price down to zero or negative but produce nothing when it is not sunny. As evidenced by Spain's recent blackouts you need a healthy mix of generation because renewables are seasonal in nature and not very stable compared to a large mass spinning at the correct frequency.
fyi, the root cause of the Spain blackout (not blackout) is not yet known.
I won't deny that solar and wind make things harder, but linking the recent blackout to renewables without the facts is only done by fossil/nuclear propaganda orgs and their useful idiots.
The Spanish network had much wilder days before and did not break down. First insights point to possible design flaws in the network.
"healthy mix of generation" is quite funny to read, thinking about nuclear and coal which are not too healthy for the people living close to the plants :-D
Germany is old, and paying its pensions from however the taxed economy is currently running. And its addicted economically to russian gas.
The piggybank is spent, the "make belief can come true by the power of surplus money" philosophy ran out of steam as idealistic projects have to be payed for by holding back on the pensioner feeding trough. The generation that bend it all to their will finally ran out.
The Pixie dust is called China. BNEF is tracking 7.9 TWh of annual battery manufacturing capacity for the end of 2025 [1]. Chinese manufacturers' all-in costs for BESS are now down to $66/kWh and still dropping [2]. We (or at least China) have crossed the "knee" of the exponential for battery production, and loads of people don't seem to realize this.
Inflexible generation getting fined for inflexibility leads to innovations like running two shifts of coal generation. The UK pioneered it in their now totally shut down coal plants and Australia is now implementing it.
Good. If Germany wants to do its own thing, then so be it, but they shouldn't be allowed to block / disincentivize other EU members from using nuclear power.
If we want to incentivize "clean" tech, we should go by an objective metric, such as co2 emissions per kilowatt-hour (where nuclear power is even less emitting than PV/Wind over its total lifecycle)
First of all, of course one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU. That's the whole point of the EU.
Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2.
Handling of this waste is often overlooked when looking at the costs or CO2 footprint.
And that does not even touch the associated risks.
> First of all, of course one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU
Blocking other countries tends to make member states hate each other, which isn't good for the EU.
> Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2
You literally just put them inside steel concrete casks [1] after they were in a pool for a few years. You can even hug those casks safely. Whereas the CO2 is in the air we breathe and in the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming.
> one country should be able to influence other countries in the EU.
Who pays decide (Germany is the first financial contributor), that's business as usual.
> Whereas the CO2 is in the air
In the UE the question is how much renewables and how much nuclear will be built, and their (dubious) compatibility. Very few want to see more fossil fuel.
The "nuclear waste is a solved challenge" is funny, as experts explicitly state that there is no safe solution (due to risks induced by seismotectonics, intrusions, casks imperfections...).
«“The Germans are telling us: we will be very pragmatic on the issue of nuclear power,” said a senior French diplomat involved in the talks. This meant that “all the biases against nuclear power, which still remain here and there in EU legislation, will be removed.” “This will be a sea-change policy shift,” said a German official.»
Will it really?
https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Level... is a little unusual, it shows the cheapest nuclear power to be as cheap as the most expensive PV+battery. Still, it's difficult for me to see how this policy change will really change anything.
A real change would require a commitment against market-based production/sale of electricity, e.g. a quota such that power generators using PV/batteries were allowed to produce at most x% of the power in the EO.
Yes, it will. As they are currently drafted, the EU energy regulation forces France to invest in renewable and shift away from nuclear it already has to avoid missing the mandated European target as nuclear is not considered renewable. Currently France is being routinely fined despite providing Europe with a ton of clean energy.
Btw, not "all" nuclear is not considered renewable. Making use of the full fuel life cycle through breeder reactors would count as renewable nuclear energy.
China installs about as much new solar capacity each year as the rest of the world combined. They manufacture the most PVs and have access to the cheapest PVs for that reason. Yet, they also have installed more new nuclear capacity (by far) than the rest of the world combined. Not only they do that, but they also have more nuclear plant being built right now, and more being already approved. Nuclear power is expensive because of the initial construction cost, and that is expensive because we forgot how to build. China didn't.
China is building more nuclear power than the rest of the world, but it's not even remotely keeping up with their renewable buildouts [1]. Mostly this is because renewables like PV modules are built in a factory using standardized mass-production techniques, and nuclear plants (currently) are not.
Important Context: Power companies were paid by the state to shut down their nuclear power plants, of course they want free money for not producing anything.
You quote a PV-lobbying firm as your source, what do you expect?
Also LCOE is just not adequate to compare these two, as you have additional storage and transmission costs for intermittent, weather-dependent sources, whereas most nuclear power plants can be online providing full capacity more than 90% of the time.
LCOE does not account for that.
This IEA report uses a metric that includes those system costs (value-adjusted LCOE, VALCOE) and it shows nuclear energy is definitely competitive. Especially if managed well and power plants aren't prematurely shut down due to political reasons, like they were in Germany.
Competitive now? Or competitive in the near future? All of the components of renewables, including PV modules and storage, seem to be following an inverse exponential in price. This does not seem to be true of nuclear. It's easy to make conservative assumptions that leave you with a bunch of financially unsustainable infrastructure. This would be a total disaster.
The anti-nuclear bullshit needs to stop. Germany got it wrong.
German power generation is some of the dirtiest in the world. In 2024 321g CO2eq/kWh. Right now at the time of posting, literally they're emitting 1/2 a kilogram of C02 for one kilowatt-hour.
Meanwhile France, the country Germany claims is not producing "clean" energy: 2024 27g CO2eq/kWh. Time of posting, 95.7% of their electricity is from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar.
If you like nuclear, ask yourself the following questions:
- Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.)
- Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents?
- Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site?
- Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
- Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
If you can answer all these questions with a clear yes, continue to promote it. If not, please don't!
> - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
As opposed to subsidies of intermittents [0]?
> - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
Russia has a large share of enrichment capacity [1], and conversion to HEX [2]. But they don't control the uranium resource, having only an 8% share of the market [3].
> - Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.)
Those studies are about as credible as links between Autism and vaccines...
> - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents?
I would not care, there are no negative health benefits.
> - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site?
Absolutely. Tax revenue and jobs for the area with no negative effects that you wouldn't have with other construction either.
> - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
You are plainly misinformed, as a matter of fact EDF even had to sell their power at a loss way below market rate to their competitors due to the goverment.
> - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
Nice cherry picking when Canada and Australia are even bigger exporters. Sure, why not trade with them.
Germany sets the tone in Europe (at least financially) and used to refuse to pay for nuclear power which (since Fukushima) it does not want at home and which, deployed in other nearby nations, exposes it to risk.
I suspect a trade/swap: Germany will obtain something from France in return.
Indeed, however it was loosing traction to the point of "The phase-out plan was initially delayed in late 2010, when during the chancellorship of centre-right Angela Merkel, the coalition conservative-liberal government decreed a 12-year delay of the schedule".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Chang...
Protests weren't as strong as they used to be, and didn't change anything.
Then the Fukushima major nuclear accident happened (march 2011), the population demanded a quick nuclear phase-out, and no subsequent government even only attempted to neglect it ( https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 ).
Readit News
However, there is just no way new nuclear power makes any sense for German grid. Just last week we had negative prices for _every_ day during peak demand (yes, peak demand is usually around noon, it’s just not visible because there is so much solar self-consumption) https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
What‘s really needed is more batteries. At lot more batteries soon.
Germany would have one of the biggest batteries on the continent if they controlled Lake Geneva @ ~341bn liters of water.
Pumped hydro storage is infinitely superior to Li-ion battery storage where it is available. Batteries are good for instantaneous response but lack the stability of water turning a large mass.
Solar creates a difficult environment for base load generators such as hydro, nuclear and nat gas. When it's sunny they nuke the price down to zero or negative but produce nothing when it is not sunny. As evidenced by Spain's recent blackouts you need a healthy mix of generation because renewables are seasonal in nature and not very stable compared to a large mass spinning at the correct frequency.
I won't deny that solar and wind make things harder, but linking the recent blackout to renewables without the facts is only done by fossil/nuclear propaganda orgs and their useful idiots.
The Spanish network had much wilder days before and did not break down. First insights point to possible design flaws in the network.
"healthy mix of generation" is quite funny to read, thinking about nuclear and coal which are not too healthy for the people living close to the plants :-D
[1] https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-batt...
[2] https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/24/what-are-the-implicatio...
What was the price at midnight? Afaik there were days last year when Germany peaked at 1000 EUR/MWh at night.
Burning coal for negative prices is not a good thing.
If we want to incentivize "clean" tech, we should go by an objective metric, such as co2 emissions per kilowatt-hour (where nuclear power is even less emitting than PV/Wind over its total lifecycle)
Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2. Handling of this waste is often overlooked when looking at the costs or CO2 footprint.
And that does not even touch the associated risks.
Blocking other countries tends to make member states hate each other, which isn't good for the EU.
> Secondly, the waste products of nuclear reactors are much more problematic than CO2
You literally just put them inside steel concrete casks [1] after they were in a pool for a few years. You can even hug those casks safely. Whereas the CO2 is in the air we breathe and in the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming.
How is this "more problematic"?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
Who pays decide (Germany is the first financial contributor), that's business as usual.
> Whereas the CO2 is in the air
In the UE the question is how much renewables and how much nuclear will be built, and their (dubious) compatibility. Very few want to see more fossil fuel.
The "nuclear waste is a solved challenge" is funny, as experts explicitly state that there is no safe solution (due to risks induced by seismotectonics, intrusions, casks imperfections...).
It's the "Asse II mine" joke all over again: "there will be no problem" followed by "Ouch! Err...". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine#History
Deleted Comment
Will it really?
https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Level... is a little unusual, it shows the cheapest nuclear power to be as cheap as the most expensive PV+battery. Still, it's difficult for me to see how this policy change will really change anything.
A real change would require a commitment against market-based production/sale of electricity, e.g. a quota such that power generators using PV/batteries were allowed to produce at most x% of the power in the EO.
Yes, it will. As they are currently drafted, the EU energy regulation forces France to invest in renewable and shift away from nuclear it already has to avoid missing the mandated European target as nuclear is not considered renewable. Currently France is being routinely fined despite providing Europe with a ton of clean energy.
The situation is beyond silly.
Btw, not "all" nuclear is not considered renewable. Making use of the full fuel life cycle through breeder reactors would count as renewable nuclear energy.
I was only thinking about new investment.
[1] https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-la...
Important Context: Power companies were paid by the state to shut down their nuclear power plants, of course they want free money for not producing anything.
It looks as if some citizens want it. https://anschalt-konferenz.de/english/
Also LCOE is just not adequate to compare these two, as you have additional storage and transmission costs for intermittent, weather-dependent sources, whereas most nuclear power plants can be online providing full capacity more than 90% of the time.
LCOE does not account for that.
This IEA report uses a metric that includes those system costs (value-adjusted LCOE, VALCOE) and it shows nuclear energy is definitely competitive. Especially if managed well and power plants aren't prematurely shut down due to political reasons, like they were in Germany.
https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
German power generation is some of the dirtiest in the world. In 2024 321g CO2eq/kWh. Right now at the time of posting, literally they're emitting 1/2 a kilogram of C02 for one kilowatt-hour.
Meanwhile France, the country Germany claims is not producing "clean" energy: 2024 27g CO2eq/kWh. Time of posting, 95.7% of their electricity is from nuclear, wind, hydro, solar.
Sources:
* https://www.nowtricity.com/country/france/
* https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/
- Would you want to raise kids living close to a plant? (with higher likelihood of childhood leukemia etc.)
- Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents?
- Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site?
- Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
- Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
If you can answer all these questions with a clear yes, continue to promote it. If not, please don't!
As opposed to subsidies of intermittents [0]?
> - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
Russia has a large share of enrichment capacity [1], and conversion to HEX [2]. But they don't control the uranium resource, having only an 8% share of the market [3].
[0] https://archive.is/J9s7Z
[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
[2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
[3] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
Those studies are about as credible as links between Autism and vaccines...
> - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste processing plant such as Le Hague or Sellafield, with all the incidents?
I would not care, there are no negative health benefits.
> - Would you want to live close to a nuclear waste disposal site?
Absolutely. Tax revenue and jobs for the area with no negative effects that you wouldn't have with other construction either.
> - Would you want to pay much more for electricity than would be possible using cheaper sources than nuclear, either directly, or hidden through taxes (as in France)?
You are plainly misinformed, as a matter of fact EDF even had to sell their power at a loss way below market rate to their competitors due to the goverment.
> - Do you want your country to import uranium from countries such as Russia or Niger, and depend on them?
Nice cherry picking when Canada and Australia are even bigger exporters. Sure, why not trade with them.
Dead Comment
I suspect a trade/swap: Germany will obtain something from France in return.
Protests weren't as strong as they used to be, and didn't change anything.
Then the Fukushima major nuclear accident happened (march 2011), the population demanded a quick nuclear phase-out, and no subsequent government even only attempted to neglect it ( https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561 ).