Germany shutting down nuclear reactors

[dansan]

2.7 TWh - what is that? Irelands weekly power usage?
The buffers needed are for some hours only (to compensate wind fluctuations etc). Atm there is only 1 way to store really much energy: in hydrogen. But that is kind of to dangerous in most places and has (should?) never been done at that scale. It's really clean ("green") though.

Concerning baseline:
As >50% is done by coal+gas baseline is a given.
I think it will get interesting in the future, when they try to reduce coal.
I hope they finally stop putting money into nuclear power research...
With a time frame of 10y to shutdown all nuclear power plants, a lot of research will go into solving these (rather obvious) problems.

Edit1:

Nuclear power has been treated like a pariah and receives hardly any investment in Germany,

Nope - it has been supported for 40y heavily politically and economically.

where as renewable energy is being heavily invested in from a small baseline. That's the explanation.

Yep - and they will continue to do so - the right thing to do.

Edit2:

So why not shut down the coal plants instead? Coal power has been proven to chuck up tonnes of CO2, SO2, cause acid rain, puts mercury in the atmosphere, thorium and uranium... It's a disaster.

I totally agree with you.
I guess it's politically and economically much more difficult.
It is definitely an ultraimportant task to replace as much coal as possible, and to reduce the number of personal cars too.

[HeavyLancer]

The buffers needed are for some hours only (to compensate wind fluctuations etc). Atm there is only 1 way to store really much energy: in hydrogen. But that is kind of to dangerous in most places and has (should?) never been done at that scale. It's really clean ("green") though.

There are plenty of other options for storage, they're just all expensive. Vanadium-redox-flow batteries, flywheels and conventional batteries like lead-acid and lithium are all options. None of them are ideal solutions - renewables need a storage technology breakthrough before they will become remotely reliable on their own.

I hope they finally stop putting money into nuclear power research...
With a time frame of 10y to shutdown all nuclear power plants, a lot of research will go into solving these (rather obvious) problems.

So if there was research into nuclear power plants that burnt existing nuclear waste and were safer, you would stop that? What if I said the same of renewables, which has had good money chased after bad for the last 30 years?

So why not shut down the coal plants instead? Coal power has been proven to chuck up tonnes of CO2, SO2, cause acid rain, puts mercury in the atmosphere, thorium and uranium... It's a disaster.

I totally agree with you.
I guess it's politically and economically much more difficult.
It is definitely an ultraimportant task to replace as much coal as possible, and to reduce the number of personal cars too.

I'll quote George Monbiot on this then:

The case against abandoning nuclear power, for example, is a simple one: it will be replaced either by fossil fuels or by renewables which would otherwise have replaced fossil fuels. In either circumstance, greenhouse gases, other forms of destruction and human deaths and injuries all rise.

[KDR_11k]

Well, to us nuclear disasters and all the other issues with nuclear power are far worse than global warming.

[Gota]

Woow 6th page..Dont stop guys we need to get to 10.

[exciter]

Well, to us nuclear disasters and all the other issues with nuclear power are far worse than global warming.

You're right ;D
Look at this:







All against nulcear power (~20.000 people), but I never saw any comparable demonstration "against global warming"...

[PicassoCT]

ape algorithms - trust on them to solve nearly any fortreeable problem in the nearby future.

[knorke]

I never saw any comparable demonstration "against global warming"...

happens all the time. Though the only picture worth posting is this:

600 strip naked on glacier in global warming protest

And related to energy production, there are lots of protests that target coal powerplants and demand moar winds.

"protect the climate, stop coal"

[yanom]

why???how will they replace the power that 17 nuclear stations are generating?

fusions :D :D :D