Europe to retaliate over US Sanctions....on Russia

[Deleted]

This means you're asking your voters to not only pay more for electricity but that also a larger part of their taxes go towards keeping these plants alive, tax payer money that could have gone elsewhere.

Just out of curiosity how much money do you think energiwende costs?

[Acidbaron]

Just out of curiosity how much money do you think energiwende costs?

The difference however is that renewable energy is going to go down in price, technology advances and private investments both are expensive to maintain with state subsidies that is true however the future for both is vastly different.

[Kiri]

Providing energy. Its more reliable than renewables
Also the idea that nuclear stiffles renewables is basically acceptance that despite all the downsides you mention its still preferable than renewables.

How are they more reliable? Or do you just mean the whole 'when the sun doesn't shine we can't get any solar power' argument that is always tossed around in this context? Because I have not really seen much evidence of that, given how electrical grids work (note that I am talking about macro-level considerations here). Renewable energies are not as unreliable than some people will want you to think, though nuclear plants are more reliable still. That is one of the points they have in their favour. In other aspects, they fall behind renewables. A government has to choose between policy goals and plot a course accordingly. In this case, European governments have different priorities than other countries.


As for the stifling, that has less to do with being preferable and more with path dependency/baseload and price.
Base load in this context means that nuclear plants and to a lesser extent coal plants are only efficient when they produce at least a certain minimum load. For example, a nuclear power plant takes long to 'boot' and it is costly to switch it on and off. It basically runs all the time, if it can. That means that in a situation with established energy sources, new sources have a hard time establishing themselves. Since there are already enough power plants to satisfy the energy needs, creating more means wasting energy. No matter how little environmental damage renewable energies cause, as long as it is greater 0 the overall effect on the environment is negative. Without conventional energy sources going off the grid, it is hard for new ones to be established. And since nuclear power plants are massive investments, the ones owning them will fight tooth and nail against being replaced.
That is one way how emerging renewable energy sources are stifled and leads directly into the other, more important one: the price.
Sellers of nuclear power are very willing to reduce the price in order to stop renewables from taking their market share.
Economies of scale are in play here, as well as the necessity to improve on green tech to reduce costs and in turn reduce price.
It is always cheaper to keep using plants you already have instead of building new ones unless the new ones can produce energy massively cheaper.
The negative externalities of nuclear power are often not paid for by the energy companies causing them, which means that it is not reflected in the price. That does not mean they vanish, though, just that someone else will have to pay for them.
With all of that, you will find that nuclear plants can offer energy more cheaply than renewables can, at least until they are fully established.

Those are factors that make it hard for countries to let go of nuclear power. With that in mind, it is actually more telling that some of them are doing just that.

Edit:

Just out of curiosity how much money do you think energiwende costs?

It costs a lot. It likely would not be worth it if you only compare the production costs of fossil fuels and renewables, at least not for years, mayhap decades. The thing is though that it reduces other costs. But that is mostly due to negative externalities not being included in said costs. There are studies like the one from standford ( https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/...SStatesWWS.pdf ) that put a price tag on them and calculate that for the US at least, a full move towards renewable energies would save a lot of money in health costs and environmental damages. Obviously less for Germany, but if you included these costs and benefits, the Energiewende pays for itself within years.

[Noradin]

http://www.politico.eu/article/bruss...sia-sanctions/



Of course can't have the EU be affected by Russian sanctions. Gotta buy that cheap Russian gas right Merkel?

No the point is that we cannot give the US control over European energy supply.
Trump isn't trying to sanction Russia here, he is trying to force Erope to depend on the US so US firms can make more profit.

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How about the US puts America First and keeps their nose out of EU business?

These sanctions are an attempt to force europe to bu US products.

[CostinR]

No the point is that we cannot give the US control over European energy supply.
Trump isn't trying to sanction Russia here, he is trying to force Erope to depend on the US so US firms can make more profit.

Trump isn't creating this bill.

[Shalcker]

The difference however is that renewable energy is going to go down in price, technology advances and private investments both are expensive to maintain with state subsidies that is true however the future for both is vastly different.

You think nuclear cannot go down in price too if you scale it in same manner?

There are plenty of possible technology advances available in nuclear too, like getting closed fuel cycle ironed out (which would also solve large part of waste problem).

[Noradin]

Incredibly stupid and a perfect example of feelz>realz

And that gives the US justification to sancion them for this?
Because these "sanctions" are targeted at the EU not at Russia, Russia and the crimea are just the pretext the US uses here.

[Elba]

All of yours points could very well apply to France as well. Where is France right now? Oh right, they have some of the lowest emissions in the world and are the biggest energy exporter in the EU.

The idea that Germany increasing it's nuclear power capability until renewable energy is viable enough is not a good plan is just a bunch of lies.

The German people hate nuclear power. Embracing nuclear energy would cost massive votes.

[Noradin]

Nuclear being better than renewables is deffo not a reason to close them down lol.

Germany being usave for nuclear plants due to eartquakes is a good reason not to build new ons, though, so is not having a secure place to store the waste.

[Elba]

America is imposing sanctions on Russia because they annexed Crimea, upended the entire post World War 2 order in Europe and even now stand with tens of thousands of troops that threaten Ukraine.

Ukraine is not an EU member, so...

[Deleted]

Germany being usave for nuclear plants due to eartquakes is a good reason not to build new ons, though, so is not having a secure place to store the waste.

Germany is not at any significant risk for earthquakes.
It's an imaginary concern.

[Noradin]

Just out of curiosity how much money do you think energiwende costs?

That is not a lot if it gets countries like China to reduce emissions earlier due to reduced installment costs.
Do you think you could have made these countries change this much by simply promising that money as a price? Certainly not.
They needed to get gently tricked into it. Like what happened in China.

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Germany is not at any significant risk for earthquakes.
It's an imaginary concern.

Yes, everything that does not fit your narrative is purely imaginary.
Go look at a map. Some places in Germany have eartquakes daily, and it is not guaranteed damages will stay minor forever just because nothing big happened for a few decades.

[Deleted]

That is not a lot if it gets countries like China to reduce emissions earlier due to reduced installment costs.

As a part of energiwende several nuclear reactors are being shut down ahead of schedule.
That part is just a complete waste of money.

[Noradin]

Trump isn't creating this bill.

Fair enough, still looks like something right up his alley.

[Deleted]

Yes, everything that does not fit your narrative is purely imaginary.
Go look at a map. Some places in Germany have eartquakes daily, and it is not guaranteed damages will stay minor forever just because nothing big happened for a few decades.

https://www.cedim.de/english/1017.php
yeah those isolated red spots are very scary in the 99% green germany.

[Noradin]

As a part of energiwende several nuclear reactors are being shut down ahead of schedule.
That part is just a complete waste of money.

I'd agree, but then some of those should have been shut down ages ago but got undeserved extensions as to produce a bit more profit.

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https://www.cedim.de/english/1017.php
yeah those isolated red spots are very scary in the 99% green germany.

Good work picking that particular slice of Germany. Wonder why they picked that part?
Unfortunately some of those plants are exactly where those red spots are located.

[Deleted]

Reliability is on its way to being a non-issue with wider coverage and more types of sources added to the grid, as well as the increase in diverse storage facilities. If anything, renewables are a lot more reliable, because instead of one huge point of failure that would drag the whole grid down all at once, you get hundreds of small provider, where anyone going offline will only cause minor effects. (Since, by their nature, renewables' plants are low-output-high-count system

Nope, several of these are not solvable, because there will be Years where there is less sunshine, and Years with less wind - These variations are so great its completely unfeasible to have sufficient redundancy.

Also: The Energiewende has been a process that has its roots in the 1970s (and even before), and direct political involvement started around the early 90s. Since that time Germany has worked towards reforming its energy production and pumped massive amounts of money into it, as well as whole industries that only became viable after goals were made definitive through laws and contracts. If you do a 180 now, you not only would render billions in investments nullified, but probably also face considerable backlash in the form of reparations and fees for breaking such contracts. You need to factor all these costs into a re-build of the nuclear infrastructure, and THEN also undo decades of anti-nuclear biased reporting, AND come up with final storage solutions for spent rods that won't violate the regulations and laws that are well in place, and wouldn't change no matter how much you wanted it.

The unnecesary Nuclear shutdowns were instituted after keen physicist Angela Merkel started worrying if a Tsunami in the Baltic could cause damage to a German reactor like in Fukushima.
(something that is literally impossible).
And what's worse, Fukushima is a literal non-event.
More people die monthly installing solar power.

Having been one of the countries that directly felt the impacts of Chernobyl also makey lobbying for nuclear a very difficult task here, since as everywhere, your everyday's people aren't nearly educated enough to understand the differences between badly schooled russian personnell and century old reactors and German standards.

Yes, because as we know we should care about what the idiots think about complex political issues.

[Cybran]

Migrant crime on the rise, Poland in political row with Germany, USA is unhinged, Italy's economy going down further, etc.


The EU downfall is shaping up really well.

[Deleted]

With how our climate is evolving here, I'd wage we'll get a lot more sunshine and wind over the next few decades, and you still dismiss storage solutions which are especially active in development the last few years.

Storing extra energy over Years.
Not days, or even months, Years.

[Deleted]

Because... you expect a nuclear winter that blocks out the sun for a decade? And a stand-still of earth that would stop all winds? How do you arrive at such scenarios?

There is a normal yearly variance of how much sun and wind any country gets.

You also didn't comment on my main point in the last paragraph. Without considering this, all other talk is nothing but hot air. (If we continue like this, we might even get to power us from that!)

Maybe politicians should try to explain to people that nuclear isn't dangerous, instead of placating the paranoid delusions of the voters.