... how do we do it concretely and in a socially acceptable way?
I think I mixed it up a bit (statements from Marvinius and Scout) but roughly I understood that they are against "too much" renewables. At least that was the general tone I could read out. Renewables are not suitable for base load because of strong fluctuations and we would need massively other sources to cover "calm wind" and so on, and that would be done via fossil fuels... And therefore we would be less emissions-intensive/cheaper if we left out the renewables stuff (or did not push it so massively) and relied more on nuclear for the base load. This is now my summary, so maybe I am putting words into their mouths that they did not mean that way, hence the inquiry and also the question whether these are assumptions or if there is somewhere more to read about this. By the way, I find it interesting how the theses here partially overlap from different sides. "If we had not hastily phased out nuclear, we would have fewer problems right now" vs "If we had not messed up the expansion of renewables, we would have fewer problems right now". Also, somewhere here was something like "We used to be leading in (research on?) nuclear power plants, but we gave that up". You can say the same about wind and solar energy as well ;) By the way, I would not want to be a politician right now. In the short term, I see neither more nuclear nor renewables as a quick solution for the coming winters. That means we are somehow back with fossil fuels, which nobody really wants in the long term and where to get them from right now is definitely not trivial. "Just open the pipeline" sounds simple, but completely ignores the geopolitical pressure currently involved (and domestically that would not be uncontroversial either). We do have certain alliances and just ignoring what is wanted there… well... not trivial anyway and possibly not without consequences. And getting it from elsewhere is also not that easy (and probably currently with massive surcharges). In addition, it is currently also a dilemma that massive money is being invested into interim solutions that nobody wants long term. But we probably can’t get around that right now (because the "should have" train has already left).but nuclear power is the last thing one wants in connection with renewables
Above all, I misread and responded to your "nuclear+fossil" with "nuclear+renewables"... It was probably my biological autocorrect. Sorry.I think I mixed it up a bit (statements from Marvinius and Scout)
Yes... I'm not really involved in that. But what timeframes are assumed for the planning, environmental impact assessments, and construction of liquefied gas terminals and the associated fleet of ships? And how much does the kWh cost that comes here in such a roundabout way from whichever rogue states (including the USA! see yesterday’s reports)? I’ll take a guess: for the time, energy, and money currently being invested, we could have built renewables AND paid for heat pumps for the people who then wouldn’t get gas anymore. But yes. That’s just my gut feeling.Also, a dilemma right now is that a massive amount of money is being poured into interim solutions that nobody wants in the long run. But it seems we can't avoid that at the moment (because the "should have done it earlier" train has already left)
Honest question: do you have any Google term or something where someone calculates how many "emergency fossil" power plants might still be needed?
Otherwise I roughly understand your suggestion as "nuclear for the base load, fossil for the peak"? (And the Greens are stupid because they don’t want nuclear) I find nuclear problematic insofar as there are human beings operating it and errors can be fatal, and we still simply have no plan where to store the waste for the next millennia. That we might have fewer problems right now (with exploding gas prices) is probably (although as far as I know, fuel rods also partly come from Russia…)
Admittedly, I was only on it for five minutes - but the trend is not towards 1:1 but towards 1:0.1. That also aligns with the wind/sun statistics from various institutes. So no - we don’t need more or fewer "shadow" power plants than before. It’s annoying, but that’s how it is. With nuclear power, by the way, it’s even worse, as France is currently demonstrating: they currently need 28 shadow nuclear power plants to compensate for the failure of the light nuclear power plants. If it stays this hot, another six will go offline... You have to want that (to pay for)."Shadow power plant" is one of the keywords.
True. Nuclear power plants that do not exist also cause no problems. I always recommend to everyone who raves to me about them not to invest in photovoltaic systems, but in Bill Gates. He has enthusiastically beaten the drum for it, but has not yet invested a single penny himself...And I see NPPs dispassionately: either we build them here, preferably such of the 4th generation (liquid salt, thorium), none of the problems you mentioned exist here anymore.
"Shadow power plant" is one of the keywords.
It depends on what type of renewable energy it is, which region it concerns, and how well it is connected to other regions at the high-voltage level (which is increasingly lacking!). Also, the question is what availability is expected: are 6 minutes of outage per year tolerable or is it 6 hours or even 6 days?
How much load can be dropped in a supply-oriented manner, such as industry or heat pumps (they also receive a discount for this)?
Balancing regionally in a large interconnected grid might work with wind but not anymore with photovoltaics, since the output even within core Europe with 2 time zones is fairly well correlated. That is; at least between 8:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. our time during the winter half-year, nothing happens across all of Europe. For every MW of photovoltaics, one MW must also be provided elsewhere. That’s just how it is!
The whole thing is then a stochastic model. For wind power and a grid quality like today, it is generally assumed that for 1 MW of wind power 0.85 MW of reserve capacity is needed. For photovoltaics, as mentioned, it is close to 1.0 MW.
That means that on top of the famous "1 cent per kWh" there are still costs for providing capital and materials for the shadow power plants including their standby losses. Without these, there would be no grid of known quality but rather something like South Africa (with daily brownouts lasting hours, which in our winter would probably be even longer). Cheap is cheap... you can reduce this factor especially with wind by spreading it out geographically, as already mentioned by . Good. But for that, a well-developed interconnected grid is needed, and as of today, it is practically fully utilized in Central Europe. An expansion is urgently needed. In Germany alone, we would need over 10,000 km at the high-voltage level and about 30,000 km at the medium-voltage level. Only about 1,000 km of high-voltage lines have been realized within 10 years. Calculate that upwards...
No. First honestly say: 100% renewables in the next 20 years is utopian. Run both types of generation in parallel, expand renewables pragmatically. Generate as much regionally as possible. Supplement fossil power plants in the form of smaller plants with CHP. Expand the interconnected grid. Import green H2, store blue H2 from surpluses. LNG terminals.
And I see nuclear power plants dispassionately: either we build them here, preferably ones of the 4th generation (liquid salt, thorium), none of the problems you mentioned exist here anymore. If not here, we will simply import electricity from our neighbors (then gladly also from those of the 3rd generation with the problems you described), pay more for it, hey, but at least we can show stance and continue to proudly drive around with the nuclear power-no-thanks sticker, only now on the e-car :p A third alternative would definitely be: large-scale coal power plants with sequestration, i.e., CO2 capture into the earth.
In the end, it is a political decision. RWE and EON are currently building new NPPs in the UK. They surely have no problem selling the electricity generated there to Germany. They gladly take the then generated 100 cents/kWh (fictional). The end price is paid by the little guy anyway. But he also votes for the politics. So the circle closes again.