Electronuclear flexibility (excluding subject wind)

[lilian07]

With the belief in nuclear power flexibility and your analyzes, we are heading straight for a "Matrix" type scenario.
The ends that we are pursuing will gradually cause the loss of humanity by its slavery (slave of systems and machines) at first and then by its disappearance in a second time.
A higher entity, created or not by man, would not spare us.

[Bardal]

"Electro-nuclear flexibility" does not come under the field of belief, but that of rationality; this is demonstrated, proven, is noted by experience and by scientific reasoning, and is communicable and refutable ...

A belief is nothing other than a thought folded in on itself, without any other outcome than itself, non-refutable ...

All this has already been developed at length (by Bachelard for example, or Popper), and is the subject of a very broad consensus ...

This is in no way contradictory to the fact that man, or men, is in no way a being of pure rationality, and is also moved by irrational beliefs or commitments ...

But on a forum, intended essentially for communication, what about all this? If we are not in the field of rationality, what can we exchange? Believes? But we are then in the field of communion, not of communication; or confrontation, not debate ...

Is this what we want?

[Did67]

Article published today on the website of the newspaper Le Monde:

Merkel and Schultz pro-coal and anti-climate


Negotiations between CDU / CSU and SPD in Germany are heading for a new “grand coalition” government. Finally, great ... the two blocs gathered barely 55% of the vote in the last parliamentary elections. Among the subjects of agreement, that of renouncing the objectives planned for 2020 of reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions of the country. Why ? One of the reasons - it is not the only one because electricity is not the only economic sector emitting greenhouse gases, there is especially the massive use of oil for transport and gas for industry and building heating - can be read on the image below (right click to open in new tab to enlarge image):

This is a screenshot of a website under construction aimed at showing greenhouse gas emissions from electrical systems in near real time. Very interesting, especially for Europe where real-time data is more available than elsewhere in the world. It presents the wind potential - the arrows whose direction indicate the direction of the wind and the intensity color. And a table, for each electrical system, of production, exports and imports, and CO2 emissions in grams per kwh.

Coal favored

The image shows the situation on January 12 at 11:47 a.m. The table presented is that of Germany. And the decision of Merkel and Schultz becomes clear. On this winter day, although we are not far from the solar noon, the photovoltaic panels, which Germany has abundantly endowed with almost 40 GW of installed power, provide very little electricity, due to a cloudy sky. Barely 3% of total production. Germany has nearly 50 GW of wind turbines in installed capacity. But, at this time of day, they only produce about 10% of this capacity.

To supply the country, private consumers, public services and industrialists, Germany must therefore produce the majority of its electricity by other means, biomass, hydroelectricity, and nuclear which produces 100% of its capacities, just over 9 GW. But the main part comes from coal (32 GW), used at almost 70% of the installed power (46 GW). And gas. The low share of gas used (only 12% of maximum capacity) also indicates the low place that the climate problem takes in German decisions: it would be enough to switch production from coal to gas plants to significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity system, for a slight increase in price, much lower than the massive additional cost of wind and solar subsidies.

Intermittence and storage

Of course, it would be enough to take another day and another hour to offer the reader a very different situation. On January 1, 2018, with very strong winds, Germany could count on its wind turbines to supply itself with electricity at almost 100% (counting however on neighboring countries with heavy rotating machines to stabilize the frequency ...). In total, in 2017, wind and solar production should approach 20% of production (more in consumption since Germany exports a lot of electricity) after 20 years of massive subsidies, estimated at more than 200 billion d 'euros at least. But the intermittence of these productions and the absence of a massive solution for storing electricity means that we must maintain a large controllable production fleet, in gas and coal, to compensate for the absence of winds and sun. However, by 2022, this controllable production fleet will lose the remaining 9,5 GW of nuclear power, with the final shutdown of the last reactors. It will therefore be necessary to compensate for this loss and only coal or gas power stations are able to do so during periods of time unfavorable to wind turbines and photovoltaic panels.

And that is why CDU / CSU and SPD have included in their government program the abandonment of the objectives of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for 2020. As long as technically and economically operational solutions are not found to store the electricity produced by intermittent renewable energies, it will be necessary to have recourse to controllable means. But Germany could choose to favor gas (imported entirely) to the detriment of coal (imported partly), if the climate were a priority objective. This is clearly not the case. The German government prefers to evacuate nearly 8 people and raze a church to enlarge a coal mine (near Immerath).

[Bardal]

What more can we say, except that everything is going as predicted by experts with some experience of mass production of electricity, and exactly the opposite of what the German Greens and various "environmental" organizations had promised. not just Germans.

The laws of physics are hard headed ... That said, I am not at all happy with the situation ... This is the main positive point of the cop21 which is collapsing ...

May we at least learn from it ...

[sicetaitsimple]

The article is from my point of view fucked up and mixes up a lot of things.

Giving up on 2020 targets when we are at the start of 2018 and talking about a country's CO2 emissions is not to be pro-coal or anti anything, it is just to note that the objective is unattainable ... This one had to be fixed around 2010 (but I don't know exactly for CO2, the objective of penetration of renewables for sure it is 2010), it is not necessarily a crime...

Having said that, you shouldn't dream, even if you are very proactive the penetration of renewables and / or the reduction of CO2 emissions is necessarily very gradual, when you also make a somewhat abrupt decision to leave nuclear in 10 years just becomes impossible.

And above all, we have to think about energy, not just electricity.

[Bardal]

Yes, no doubt, but if we decode the article and the agreement well, that means that the last nuclear power plants will be replaced by coal power plants, with a significant rise in GHG and fine particle emissions ...
This also means that investments in renewable energies will be more limited (this is already partly done for photovoltaics), for economic reasons.
And that also means that the exploitation of lignite will continue, see strengthening ...
Finally, this means that Germany will be even more determined to refuse a carbon tax ...

No, all this is hardly positive, and does not bode well for the future ... The cop21 is dead in Europe ...

[izentrop]

German public opinion is tipping towards the wallet?

In this case, they should keep their nuclear power plants under cover, to bring them out a little more secure in order to finally move in the direction of COP ... 22 see more and electricity more in line with demand.

Besides, they haven't completely turned the nuclear page https://www.futura-sciences.com/science ... ons-61492/

[sicetaitsimple]

German public opinion is tipping towards the wallet?

I do not think that this is really the reason, the Energiewiende has to my knowledge always been the subject of a majority consensus in Germany, even if it is expensive for individuals and small professionals, the large intensive electro industrialists being them largely exempt from "EEG surcharge".

Rather taking into account the physical reality of things, setting very ambitious goals at 10 years is one thing, reaching them 10 years later is another.

[Remundo]

in their limited environment and their culture of industrial production, the Germans cannot reduce their CO40 emissions by 2%.

Desertec, mainly carried by Germany via the DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt + Siemens + Deutsche Bank not exhaustively), failed, so they do not have renewable energies to keep their promise, even if they did great efforts on their transition.

They understand that nuclear power has no future, so they are setting new ones on their historical basis: coal + gas, doing as little harm as possible on their renewable energies.

It would also be more strategic for them to focus on gas as long as it is not too expensive, and to keep their coal reserves for harder times ...

[Did67]

To which is added the fact that, politically, Germany is going through a strange situation, which we do not appreciate in France: the rise of the far right and its entry into parliament was a shock that can hardly be imagined in France (Germany still bears the guilt of Nazism, the invention of the gas chambers, etc.).

Merkel was "generous" with the immigrants, by economic pragmatism (lack of manpower, pension system to be financed by a sustained activity) as much as by conviction (I think she was also sincere, remembering where it comes from - East Germany - and what a lack of freedom is).

And there, it is obliged (at the risk of being banished by its own prarti!) To succeed in a coalition (we say "grand coalition" because they are the two great historical parties!; Except that there, they weigh only a little more than 50% - of the tracks, of the parliamentarians, I don't know exactly) ...

So it is "compromise on all levels". Especially since it's been 3 months already, if I'm not mistaken. That Germany is absent from European debates, etc ...

So I think that the determinisms of this "decision" - which is rather a non-decision - are completely elsewhere !!! I don't think we can get much rational out of it ...

The German Greens are currently totally marginalized, at the political level.