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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jea685d wrote

Renewables have been a boon to the Russian gas industry. It's a scheme that doesn't work, because if you don't have mountains, what the fuck do you do with on windless winter days? Answer: you import gas.

The safe, carbon-free solution is nuclear.

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Kaz_55 t1_jeak1n9 wrote

lol, of course somebody has to push the usual "renewables are a conspiracy pushed by the soviets rusians" BS narrative, curtesy of the nuclear industry.

Yeah no, nuclear isn't a solution to anything. Nuclear is an obstacle that isn't needed and a massive waste of money and resources.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSKBN1W909J

https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html

https://spectator.clingendael.org/en/publication/nuclear-energy-too-costly-and-too-late

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity

https://www.lazard.com/media/sptlfats/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-150-vf.pdf

Nuclear wouldn't even be able to provide global baseload capacity, while renewables can easily be scaled to provide for total global capacity. They are basically the only other source that could.

And it's so "safe" that the sector basically wouldn't exist without special legal constructs [see Price-Anderson in the US for exmaple) that absolve the industry from any responsibility regarding these "non-existent" risks:

>The Price-Anderson Act, which limits utility liability in the event of nuclear accidents, is totally out of sync with US energy goals because it places a heavy thumb on the scale of resource acquisition, favoring the wrong type of assets (high risk, high cost) in the current economic environment. In an uncertain environment, financial risk analysis teaches that the investor should preserve options and value flexibility by keeping decisions small and preferring investments with low, more predictable risks and short lead times. With their high risks, large sunk costs, long lead times, and extremely long asset lives, nuclear reactors are the worst type of assets to acquire at present.

https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/the-us-government-insurance-scheme-for-nuclear-power-plant-accidents-no-longer-makes-sense/

https://thebulletin.org/2011/10/nuclear-liability-the-market-based-post-fukushima-case-for-ending-price-anderson/

Oh yeah, "of course" renewables don't work. I guess that's way all the experts point out why going 100% renewable is totally possible?

>Recent studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and desalination well before 2050 is feasible. According to a review of the 181 peer-reviewed papers on 100% renewable energy that were published until 2018, "[t]he great majority of all publications highlights the technical feasibility and economic viability of 100% RE systems." A review of 97 papers published since 2004 and focusing on islands concluded that across the studies 100% renewable energy was found to be "technically feasible and economically viable." A 2022 review found that the main conclusion of most of the literature in the field is that 100% renewables is feasible worldwide at low cost.

>Existing technologies, including storage, are capable of generating a secure energy supply at every hour throughout the year. The sustainable energy system is more efficient and cost effective than the existing system. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated in their 2011 report that there is little that limits integrating renewable technologies for satisfying the total global energy demand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

😂

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Harinezumisan t1_jebkibr wrote

Perhaps with thorium it could but somehow that development seems to be stuck sadly.

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Kaz_55 t1_jebslq1 wrote

No. As per the paper cited in the article:

>In the following section, we will now articulate an important limit to scalability that applies to all forms of nuclear power, whether fusion or fission, uranium or thorium.

The scalability issue is inherent to nuclear technology. Nuclear is many things, but not a solution to terrestial power generation let alone is it gonnasave us from global warming. Renewables are the only source of electricity that is actually scalable.

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Harinezumisan t1_jebvetj wrote

We don't need a solution but solutions. A benign nuclear solution would be a part. But of course nuclear is tiny compared to hydro etc ...

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Kaz_55 t1_jedwu53 wrote

>A benign nuclear solution would be a part.

There is no "benign nuclear solution". Nuclear is hands down the most expensive and impractical way to phase out fossil fuels. It is neither econimically viable nor can it compete with renewables in scalability or the timeframe needed to replace fossil fuels.

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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jeb38q3 wrote

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map

Currently:

France: 40g gCO₂/kWh thanks to nuclear

Germany's Energiewende: 250 g — and it's a good day, they've been at around 400g most of the winter when there was no wind across Europe.

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Kaz_55 t1_jebgdcs wrote

You do realize that this doesn't actually adress any of the inherent issues with nuclear - industry as well as technology - that I pointed to, right? Using your logic I can simply point to Iceland to invalidate everything you have asserted so far.

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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jebmyt0 wrote

I'm pointing you to real time data from right now, where nuclear produces dozens of actual gigawatt of carbon-free power and wind+solar sucks and fails to meet demand that has to be covered by gas and coal, but hey, don't let facts get in the way of your pie in the sky schemes where solar makes sense in Northern Europe and anticyclonic events don't affect the whole continent.

Also re levelized cost of electricity, do you know what the lowest sell PRICE of that wonderful Danish wind power is on the market? It's almost 0€. Not because it's cheap, but because it's next to worthless when there's plenty of wind as there's too much supply and nothing to do with it. And you know what the Danes have to do when there's no wind? They have to buy hydro from Norway at outrageous prices, because there's huge demand.

My point? The levelized cost of intermittent renewables WITHOUT pricing in storage or alternatives is just a fucking lie. Nuclear does the job, it's doing the job right now.

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Kaz_55 t1_jebsri0 wrote

>I'm pointing you to real time data from right now

And I have just done the same with reneweables, so your argument is invalid.

Maybe ask yourself why you have opted for a strawman instead of actually adressing any of the points brought up.

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da2Pakaveli t1_jebdr9s wrote

Gotta wonder why so many CDU politicians sit in various supervisory boards of fossil fuel companies? Coal plants were doubled down on and modified. The truth is that Merkel and her party slowed the energy transition drastically because they hate how wind farms make the landscape worse

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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jebl3v2 wrote

Wind farms don't work when there's no wind. That was the case in early december across the whole of Europe, when incidentally solar farms weren't producing much.

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Helkafen1 t1_jebn6f9 wrote

Renewable-based systems will be much larger than just wind and solar farms. They also plan to store weeks worth of clean fuels.

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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jebnrm7 wrote

> They also plan to store weeks worth of clean fuels.

They plan, some time, maybe, somehow.

Nuclear works now. There's also a way to have cheap, nearly free nuclear: not fucking closing perfectly working plants.

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Helkafen1 t1_jebp0ah wrote

Europe has already enacted policies to support green hydrogen. It's not just a plan. The Inflation Reduction Act in the US does the same.

It's also important to remember that we can reach a ~90% renewable energy system without these fuels. We don't need them immediately. We'll need them mostly in the 2030s and 2040s.

> Nuclear works now.

Does it, though? The three recent European nuclear projects (Flammanville, Hinkley Point C, Olkiluoto 3) are all financial disasters plagued with massive delays.

Strong agreement about keeping existing nuclear plants online.

Edit: grammar

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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jebth4e wrote

> Europe has already enacted policies to support green hydrogen. It's not just a plan

Green hydrogen does not exist at this time. Therefore, it's just a plan.

> Does it, though? The three recent European nuclear projects (Flammanville, Hinkley Point C, Olkiluoto 3) are all financial disasters plagued with massive delay

There's about 100 GW of already installed capacity. That's 100 GW more capacity on windless winter days than non-hydro renewables.

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MightyH20 t1_jedw0r0 wrote

Germany, has progressed farther on the COP target and CO2 reduction and agreement as opposed to France though.

Electricity is just a quarter of total energy consumption.

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marcusaurelius_phd t1_jedwdsg wrote

My alcoholic neighbour has done a lot of progress, he's decreased his drinking a lot more than I have (I don't drink).

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MightyH20 t1_jee6cbs wrote

Your example is irrelevant since France already has lower targets. And yet, Germany has progressed more as opposed to France in % reduction.

COP target Germany: cut 65% emissions from 1990 emission level. Current emissions from 1050 to 675 million tonnes. Reduction = 36%

COP target France: cut 40% emissions from 1990 emission level. Current emissions from 400 to 300 million tonnes. Reduction = 25%.

Not only is France behind in the progress to meet targets, the emissions in absolute numbers are way less too.

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Sol3dweller t1_jedxji0 wrote

This is satire, right?

Russia is the perfect example for your policy recommendation: no renewables, but doubled the nuclear power output since 1998.

Here is how the share of low-carbon electricity developed respectively over the past 20 years. In the EU it increased from 48.2% to 60.5%, while in Russia it increased from 34.4% to 40%. In relative terms that's a growth of 16.3% in low-carbon share in Russia, and a 25.6% growth in the EU.

Consumption of gas for primary energy peaked in the EU in 2010 before Fukushima at 4,228 TWh. It's use declined over the past decade to 3,966 TWh in 2021.

The EU decreased its nuclear power output since 2010, Russia increased it (in terms of primary energy from 454 TWh in 2010 to 558 TWh in 2021). But Russia also increased its gas consumption from 4,239 TWh in 2010 to 4746 TWh in 2021.

So you have: Russia implementing your policy advice, expanding nuclear power and shunning solar+wind, and the EU decreasing nuclear power output and expanding solar+wind. But these examples do not seem to support your conclusion. Rather the other way around, the example with increased nuclear power output also increased gas consumption, while the one with increased solar+wind decreased it.

Renewables are a shock to the fossil fuel providers, as they are eating into their market shares. Not only in the EU, but on a global scale: in 2011 fossil fuels constituted 86.16% of primary energy consumption globally, ten years later this share wass decreased to 82.28% in 2021.

This article discusses this aspect more specifically for Russia:

>Russia is the world’s top exporter of both oil and gas, and the third largest oil producer making it a major extraction powerhouse. According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) revenues from oil and gas-related taxes and export tariffs accounted for 45% of Russia’s federal budget in January 2022. > >This makes its economy uniquely vulnerable to the impact of disruptions, and suggested that in order to assert itself in a context of looming economic decline, it may resort to increasing aggression (both internal and external). Once Russia’s oligarchy saw peak oil demand in the rear view mirror, it would get increasingly aggressive and aim to maximize short-term extraction and cash flow. Given Russia’s preeminent position in the fossil fuel system, its recent expansionist history, and the likelihood of oil prices crashing down to the $20/barrel level by the end of the 2020s (which Seba predicted in Clean Disruption), Seba assessed that it was one of the top candidates for increasing geopolitical instability.

So you have declining fossil fuel consumption in the EU since 2006 (decreased from 15,103 TWh to 11,759 TWh in 2021), and increasing renewable power output. And you conclusion from that is that the renewable power is a boon to the fossil fuel providers?

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goodsam2 t1_jeehqlb wrote

Natural gas is highly dispatchable which is probably why Germany went high renewable and high natural gas. Sun stops shining turn on natural gas.

But it's just a symbiotic relationship that will end eventually. Batteries are becoming cheaper intra-day options.

We are going to be testing higher and higher limits of how much of the super cheap solar and wind can be on the grid and then fill in with dispatchable gaps which can be filled in by hydro, natural gas, biomass, batteries or firm which is nuclear, geothermal, coal. Reducing the higher CO2 options.

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