Amtsschreiber

Amtsschreiber t1_j40as01 wrote

Reply to comment by Akiasakias in Germany exported more electricity to its neighbours than it imported in 2022, even with an energy crisis at home, thanks to more weather-driven renewable power and greater demand from France by green_flash

> Put that shit in Spain and import it. Much cheaper, much more efficient.

Yeah, because the last year has taught us that it's totally no problem to depend on another country for half of your energy needs.

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Amtsschreiber t1_it339v7 wrote

Reply to comment by Senyu in German leader warns against 'worldwide renaissance' for coal by Wagamaga

> but it seems silly to think renewables can supplement 100% of our needs 24hrs a day everyday.

Nobody said that this is the goal.

The thing about nuclear power that is that it's very expensive to build a power plant. But once you've built it the fuel and running cost is quite low, but only if you actually use the power plant on high load most of the time.

Now let's assume you've build enough wind, solar and hydro power plants that you need nothing else for about 80-90% of the time. What would you use for the remaining 10-20% of dark and windless days? Certainly not nuclear power because it's way too expensive to build a nuclear power plant and then only use it sometimes. That's what I meant by saying that renewables and nuclear power are not compatible for economic reasons.

What you want are power plants that are cheap to build, so it's okay when you only run them once in a while. And when you only need them 10% of the time it's okay if the fuel is a bit more expensive. And the answer here is natural gas which perfectly complements renewables (you just don't want to be too dependent on a single, evil country for your gas source). On days with a large surplus of renewable power you can even run electrolysis to create clean hydrogen which you then store and you in those same gas power plants later on. And exactly that's Germany's plan which requires no nuclear, no coal and eventually less and less natural gas from the ground.

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Amtsschreiber t1_it2zq50 wrote

Reply to comment by FreezingRobot in German leader warns against 'worldwide renaissance' for coal by Wagamaga

As is tradition on Reddit there can't be any article about Germany and energy without some completely uninformed person pointing out that nuclear power is the answer.

Germany is going full renewables which isn't really compatible with nuclear power for simple economic reasons.

The current energy crisis in Europe has nothing to do with a lack of nuclear power, except for France where nuclear power is actually the reason for their energy crisis.

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