Denmark’s wind farms generated 140% power needs on July 9

[Simon_Jester]

Why is it that you CAN take a world average of the safety of nuclear power, that includes 1950s-era reactors run by ham-handed incompetents, and compare it to new reactor designs which don't incorporate the dangerous features of the old ones?

Because work safety and ecological impact is better in Germany than say in China, whereas the nuclear power companies have proven themselves to be ham-handed incompetents, so there is no reason to give them special treatment from the other incompetents.

Firstly, a modern reactor design reduces the ability of even incompetent managers to cause a disaster. The fundamental problem with the old designs wasn't so much a lack of safety as such, as that there was a lack of "idiot-proof" design and of "fail-safe" systems that would be safe if they stopped working. We now have a good idea of how to fix that.

But again, in one area (nuclear) you are still in the position of comparing high-risk old reactors to low-risk new reactors, and claiming that the new reactors are unacceptably dangerous because at other times and placed, the old reactors were dangerous.

And yet in another area (deaths caused by installation and maintenance of renewables), you are doing the exact opposite. You are saying that we can't compare high-risk installation in Third World countries to low-risk installation in Germany. Or that if we do so, we can't then claim that there is any significant risk associated with the installation in Germany.

Now, aside from the point that this is inconsistent...

Just how many billions of euros is it worth spending extra on the all-renewable Energiewende, compared to a cheaper Energiewende that does not involve wending your way away from nuclear power at the same time that you try to get rid of fossil fuels?

And given that we treat those billions of euros as a cost savings, is it really that hard to get results using those same billions to educate the public about what hazards a modern reactor does and does not present? And to reform the German power industry, or create a state-run organization, capable of operating nuclear facilities competently?

I honestly suspect that including nuclear power, and spending what it takes, accepting the costs it takes, to get acceptance of nuclear power and to get acceptably safe nuclear power, would be worth it.

And the insistence on not doing this, the stubbornness, is going to cost the Germans a great deal of money, both government money and costs passed on to the customer. It will extract a price in ecological damage caused by the need to construct energy storage facilities. And even if the all-renewable Energiewende "works" in the sense that it achieves its stated goals, it will very likely involve a great deal of Germany's electricity being imported from foreigners who still use fossil fuels or nuclear power, which entirely defeats the purpose of the project!

[madd0ct0r]

can this pages long tangent about german nuclear power be split into its own thread?

[Thanas]

Simon, you read like all the people who whined and ached about how no modern country could ever logically satisfy its energy requirements by renewables. I am not interested in discussing things further with you on this, the program works, it will continue to work no matter what small minds think about it.

can this pages long tangent about german nuclear power be split into its own thread?

Why? This tangent started once somebody got on his high horse on how nuclear power is obviously so much better than those dirty renewables. It is directly related to the main subject of the thread.

[madd0ct0r]

becuase german nuclear power and danish wind power don't really overlap, high horses aside. And that bloody horse rides into every renewables news thread we have, and I'm bored of re-arguing it every time.

[blowfish]

Why is it that you CAN take a world average of the safety of nuclear power, that includes 1950s-era reactors run by ham-handed incompetents, and compare it to new reactor designs which don't incorporate the dangerous features of the old ones?

Because work safety and ecological impact is better in Germany than say in China, whereas the nuclear power companies have proven themselves to be ham-handed incompetents, so there is no reason to give them special treatment from the other incompetents.

You know the world nuclear numbers do include things like Chernobyl and Fukushima right? So even counting the largest humanly possible fuckups it's still much safer than other power sources we consider acceptable. Again, between 20000 and 70000 people get killed by coal power plants in Europe every year, which apparently is acceptable since opposition to coal focuses on "it's bad for the climate" and not on "it's literally killing people right now". Even assuming the worst realistic estimates for nuclear, all nuclear power plants and all nuclear power accidents on Earth ever have killed less people than we kill for electricity in the EU every couple of years. German nuclear power plant operators would have to be more gung ho and less competent than the idiots at Chernobyl for me to start worrying, which would be a major achievement

e: in addition, don't forget that the raw materials used to produce nuclear power plants, hydro dams and reservoirs, or wind turbines tend to come from not-Germany with worse environmental and work safety standards. Unless outsourcing problems to ignore them is the point of the exercise, the state of German work safety and regulation is not all that matters.

[blowfish]

Oh well, can't edit more paragraphs into my previous post anymore...

Simon, you read like all the people who whined and ached about how no modern country could ever logically satisfy its energy requirements by renewables. I am not interested in discussing things further with you on this, the program works, it will continue to work no matter what small minds think about it.

For certain definitions of "works" (the graph is cribbed from a yearly summary the renewable energy Fraunhofer institute puts on its website and shows €/MWh in red and MWh wind output in blue, it looks similar after 2012).

I'd be surprised if we manage to have a more than 60% renewable grid in the mid term without building ridiculous amounts of storage, not counting biomass. Something has to provide the rest.

[Simon_Jester]

Surely not. The plan will, after all, work. With no new environmental impact from giant storage lakes. Reliably. Consistently.

Because it... will. Right? If we're all confident enough and don't voice any criticisms, I'm sure they'll find a way to massage the numbers until the plan works.
________________

To connect this back to the OP, my compliments to the Danes on being able to fit out their country with enough wind turbines to power the whole nation on a windy day. It is a very wise adaptation to the unique features of their homeland (flat with a long coastline bordering the North Sea). They made a good series of decisions and it's obviously paid off.

I just hope nobody living in a country that is not like Denmark (say, because it has more heavy industry, less steady wind, et cetera) decides that they can succeed by doing exactly what Denmark did.

Because one of the lessons of ecology and the history of human adaptation to environment is that what works in one place may not work in another place with different natural resources and opportunities. I just got done rereading Jared Diamond's Collapse, which may have spurred me to ramble about this a bit. Because he talks at some length about how people often come into an unfamiliar territory that looks superficially similar to home, try to manage its land and resources exactly the way they would do at home, and suffer as a result.

Mistakenly emulating a country that has done a brilliant job of exploiting resources that few countries in the world can match might be the modern equivalent of such a mistake, in this era of globalization.

I mean, no one in their right mind would assume that because Iceland gets most of its electricity from geothermal and hydroelectric power, that anyone could do so. Most countries aren't a small, steep, rocky island perched on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, after all.

[aerius]

The numbers don't work, period, no matter how much they're massaged. Many reports have been done, they all reach the same conclusion.
http://www.aegent.ca/newsletters/WindNu ... Study.html

Cost Summary
At a unit price paid of about $56.50/MWh, the 82.8 million MWh of current annual nuclear output has an annual cost of about $4.7 billion.

For the theorized 34,000 MW of wind generation and 10,000 MW of natural gas-fired generation, the total annual cost is about $12.4 billion, resulting in a combined unit cost of about $150/MWh.

The total additional cost to replace current nuclear output with wind and natural gas would then be $7.7 billion or about $93/MWh on each unit of nuclear output. When this 165% increase is spread across all Ontario consumption, the tax-exclusive increase for most Ontario consumers would be about $56/MWh or 5.6 cents/kWh. On provincial-average residential consumption of 800 kWh/month, the annual, HST-inclusive increase would be $632.

Conclusion
Aside from generating electricity from a different source of energy, wind energy and nuclear energy have a number of fundamentally different characteristics. No one could seriously propose replacing all of Ontario's current nuclear capacity with wind, but considering such a strategy helps to illustrate the differences in these types of generation, and illustrates how the design and development of Ontario's generation mix must balance a number of complex constraints.

And then there's the matter of scale. Just one of our nuke plants produces more energy in a year than what Denmark uses. Same thing if you took the combined output of the Adam Beck and Robert Moses hydroelectric plants on the Niagara river. And yet that's barely enough electricity to keep the lights on in the city I live in, and the same is likely true of the major European cities.

[blowfish]

The issue isn't so much that it's completely impossible for renewable energy to provide 100% of a country's electrical needs. The issue is that it's not worthwhile for many countries (arguably including Germany, and due to its small land area also likely Denmark) because it's needlessly costly and not the most practical way to provide climate friendly energy.

To put it another way, it would be physically possible to power the country with hamster wheels, given sufficient investments in miniature generator technology, hamster breeding, and pet food production. It's still not a good idea.

[Thanas]

Surely not. The plan will, after all, work. With no new environmental impact from giant storage lakes. Reliably. Consistently.

Because it... will. Right? If we're all confident enough and don't voice any criticisms, I'm sure they'll find a way to massage the numbers until the plan works.

Indeed, because our energy organizations are used to massaging the numbers. Why, after all, they managed to massage all the numbers for nuclear. Do you know that their claims for cost do not include up to 10 years of inactivity due to legal challenges before a reactor would go online? Nope, that is not included in any statistic by the nuclear lobby. Given that prior and current experience I am sure they can massage the numbers.

Or not and like every other little mind who has been proven wrong in history (A talking string? Nonsense) the critics will just have to deal with it.. Or German energy will be slightly more costly but better in terms of emissions, which is another thing the German people are willing to accept. So it is their sovereign choice and you will not change it.

Nuclear energy is dead in Germany. I know this hurts all the castor-cuddling people out there but they don't matter in elections. The Energiewende is happening.

[blowfish]

Indeed, because our energy organizations are used to massaging the numbers. Why, after all, they managed to massage all the numbers for nuclear. Do you know that their claims for cost do not include up to 10 years of inactivity due to legal challenges before a reactor would go online? Nope, that is not included in any statistic by the nuclear lobby. Given that prior and current experience I am sure they can massage the numbers.

That is more of an indictment of the German nuclear licensing process. Other countries manage to nuke plants with less legally-imposed breaks in construction. For instance, we could properly fight it out for the reactor design and then licensing the thing to be plopped down in a dozen identical installations.

Or not and like every other little mind who has been proven wrong in history (A talking string? Nonsense) the critics will just have to deal with it.. Or German energy will be slightly more costly but better in terms of emissions, which is another thing the German people are willing to accept. So it is their sovereign choice and you will not change it.

Nuclear energy is dead in Germany. I know this hurts all the castor-cuddling people out there but they don't matter in elections. The Energiewende is happening.

I, for one, look forward to smugly saying "told you so" in twenty years when it becomes obvious the sovereign choice of the German people turned out to be us shooting ourselves in the foot.

As always, Germany is good at making a show of being ecologically conscious while being embarassingly inefficient at actually doing ecologically relevant things.

[salm]

Why?

More generally, the point is that you can't just decide to ignore the difficulty of making a system work, when you decide that system is 'better' than the one you have. Sure, it would be 'better' for me to live in a mansion than to live in my apartment, but if I can't afford the mansion, it doesn't matter.

Most importantly because there is will to dedicate resources towards an electrical car while there is almost no will to dedicate resources to a flying car. People want electrical cars just like they want renewables.

Building a 100% renewable energy economy, without importing electricity form another country's DIRTY NUKES or fossil fuel power plants, and with making due allowance for the extra cost of storing surplus energy for days when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining at full strength, is going to get very costly. Costly on a scale where you have to seriously think about what else you could have done with the money if you were willing to go nuclear.

Costly yes. Worth it? Well, that´s what everybody has to decide for themselves and it appears that a lot of people have decided that it is worth it.

Unless I am badly wrong, building nuclear plants is competitive in terms of cost per megawatt of generating capacity relative to wind, and superior to a number of other renewables. In which case it certainly ends up making sense to use nuclear power to generate a 'base load' and rely on stored energy from renewables to carry you through the peak demand periods.

You'd need the energy storage system anyway in a 100% renewable economy. And unlike the renewables, you CAN ramp up power production from the nuclear reactors in an emergency, even if it does take time to do so.

The price of nuclear energy is something I´m having a lot of trouble finding out. There are gazillions of statistics that show that nuclear is cheap and there is the same amount that show that nuclear is expensive. There are plenty of statistics that show that wind is cheaper than nuclear. Some even claim that solar is cheaper (usually claiming since 2013).

Complaints about nuclear energy statistic usually include the fact that the price of what it costs to build a German nuclear plant are not public and therefore have to be estimated. Furthermore it is critisized that such statistics often use the prices of when the nukes were built 30 years ago ignoring increased cost of labour and saftey standards of today. Further problems are that some statistics don´t include the costs of storing the waste. In fact statistics by the power plant owners never include these costs because storage of waste is paid with tax payers money. Sometimes they don´t include dismantling consts. They don´t include insureance costs. And so on.

So, if somebody knows how to calculate the true cost of German nuclear power produced by a hypothetical plant built within the next 10 or so years I´d be very interested.

This will leave Germany dependent on foreign suppliers for electricity, probably at inflated prices.

Also, it's grossly irresponsible to say "nuclear power isn't safe because I heard a rumor, so I'll let someone else run the nuclear power plant and just buy the electricity from them!"

First, I´m not arguing that nuclear isn´t safe. I think it is very safe.
Second, I´m not saying that being dependant on foreign suppliers is good. I´m saying that if the Energiewende is going to fail, which is entirely possible, we won´t have some sort of doomsday scenario because we´ll be able to import power from other places until the shortage is taken care of by, for example, building a nuclear power plant or whatever possibilities we´ll have then.

[LaCroix]

So basically, the argument why Energiewende won't work is "If you build a system big enough, it's much more expensive than nuclear"? (While, as salm already stated, there is still so much hidden cost that you probably should actually triple the price of nuclear power to get better numbers)

All this "economic best" reasoning is ignoring the fact in that Germans, like many Europeans, are accepting the fact that they will pay more for "clean" energy and are willing to do it. Just as they are willing to pay double or triple the usual price for "organic" food or "Fair trade" articles. Not everyone is living according to the capitalist "cheaper is better" dogma.

(Especially since monthly energy cost in Germany is about 30€/month/capita. They can afford this to raise a lot and still be fine.)

[salm]

Ghetto Edit:
Sorry, some of the quote in my post above have the wrong name, mine, in the quote tags. They should contain Simon Jesters name.

[blowfish]

So basically, the argument why Energiewende won't work is "If you build a system big enough, it's much more expensive than nuclear"? (While, as salm already stated, there is still so much hidden cost that you probably should actually triple the price of nuclear power to get better numbers)

Same for renewables, since calculations typically ignore large scale storage installations, restructuring the power grid, etc. Essentially, everyone's numbers are overly optimistic.

All this "economic best" reasoning is ignoring the fact in that Germans, like many Europeans, are accepting the fact that they will pay more for "clean" energy and are willing to do it. Just as they are willing to pay double or triple the usual price for "organic" food or "Fair trade" articles. Not everyone is living according to the capitalist "cheaper is better" dogma.

In addition to economic reasons (and I'd like Germany to continue to provide cheap energy to industry contributing to us staying rich), nuclear has lower ecological impact due to resource and land use. Similarly, organic farming is not necessarily great for the environment either if you've been following the recent land sparing vs land sharing debate (i.e. organic farms that function as habitats vs. large protected entirely unused areas separate from farms that exist only to provide yields), which is another thing I was referring to when saying that Germany is great at appearing ecologically conscious but not actually effective at conservation.

[salm]

So, blowfish, are you saying that you used the price of nuclear power as an argument for nuclear without actually knowing the price?

[aerius]

So basically, the argument why Energiewende won't work is "If you build a system big enough, it's much more expensive than nuclear"? (While, as salm already stated, there is still so much hidden cost that you probably should actually triple the price of nuclear power to get better numbers)

Part of it cost, but there's also complexity and systems integration to consider. Renewables, other than hydroelectric, are highly variable and non-dispatchable, which then requires a very sophisticated electrical grid with highly complex monitoring & control systems to balance generation, load, and storage to keep it stable. It's pretty much the worst of all possible worlds; a system that's less stable, more complex, and with more points of failure compared to a conventional power grid. You can throw all the money in the world at it but it won't change anything, it's like trying to make a gasoline engine more reliable & durable than a diesel. Ain't gonna happen, the diesel is inherently simpler and more robust.

[blowfish]

So, blowfish, are you saying that you used the price of nuclear power as an argument for nuclear without actually knowing the price?

I'm saying that power companies' numbers aren't the only source you should use. There are, however, renewable projects and nuclear projects for which prices are known (and I'm assuming that Germany wouldn't fuck up building projects even more badly than Areva in Finland).

[Thanas]

(and I'm assuming that Germany wouldn't fuck up building projects even more badly than Areva in Finland).

You do know that we built a nuclear reactor which never went online due to safety faults, right?

[aerius]

You do know that we built a nuclear reactor which never went online due to safety faults, right?

How the hell did you guys manage that? It goes against nearly every preconception of Germans that I have (mind you, most of those come from the stories my parents told me of their time there in the 70s). Man, maybe you guys shouldn't be playing with atoms afterall.

[blowfish]

Assuming you're referring to the Schneller Brüter:

I wasn't alive when that mess went down, but currently even German anti-nuclear websites just say "waaah Plutonium" (i.e. the main point of having a breeder in the first place) as the main reason it's particularly horrible rather than pointing out it would be more likely to have an accident - were there any worries of that sort beyond the inevitable outcry against anything nuclear in Germany?

That said I'm very sad Germany in particular and many nations in general never carried out a breeder development programme to its conclusion so that now we're looking at Russia as the only country to have built successful breeders while France and Japan are running slowly walking in circles and India and China belatedly notice that, hey, burning already-existing nuclear waste in a reactor would be cool.

[Thanas]

You do know that we built a nuclear reactor which never went online due to safety faults, right?

How the hell did you guys manage that? It goes against nearly every preconception of Germans that I have (mind you, most of those come from the stories my parents told me of their time there in the 70s). Man, maybe you guys shouldn't be playing with atoms afterall.

Sheer incompetence. Like I said, none of the stereotypes of German industry apply to the nuclear industry. The nuclear industry survived because it was anti-competitive (no competition at all) and because they were friends (read: corruption) with local and regional politicians. It is not an industry that grew organically and culled itself by competition. It was a series of monopolies.

There is another famous case of an even bigger nuclear reactor that cost even more, which too was build without having a building permit - and on a fault line as well.
Thing went offline after only having been online for 30 months.

Cost over 4.5 Billions in EUR to build and then tear it down.

That is the German nuclear industry, building reactors without building permit and forgetting about nuclear waste they stored in barrels "somewhere" for decades.

I wasn't alive when that mess went down, but currently even German anti-nuclear websites just say "waaah Plutonium" (i.e. the main point of having a breeder in the first place) as the main reason it's particularly horrible rather than pointing out it would be more likely to have an accident - were there any worries of that sort beyond the inevitable outcry against anything nuclear in Germany?

Das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen verweigerte allerdings die Betriebsgenehmigung, gegen den Wunsch der damaligen Bundesregierung. Die Bundesregierung hätte zwar nach Atomrecht per Weisung die Genehmigung erzwingen können, wollte aber die alleinige Verantwortung für das sicherheitstechnisch kontrovers diskutierte SNR-Projekt nicht übernehmen. Der für die Baugenehmigungen zuständige NRW-Sozial- und Arbeitsminister Friedhelm Farthmann hielt die Inbetriebnahme für nicht vertretbar, da die Risiken nicht kalkulierbar seien. Die vormaligen Errichtungsgenehmigungen waren auch nur unter Vorbehalt erteilt worden.

Never mind the technological issues - they built the damn thing before even having a final building permit.

But Kalkar is only one thing, it is not as if the nuclear industry hasn't ignored elemental safety procedures. (see above)

[madd0ct0r]

Assuming you're referring to the Schneller Brüter:

I wasn't alive when that mess went down, but currently even German anti-nuclear websites just say "waaah Plutonium" (i.e. the main point of having a breeder in the first place) as the main reason it's particularly horrible rather than pointing out it would be more likely to have an accident - were there any worries of that sort beyond the inevitable outcry against anything nuclear in Germany?

That said I'm very sad Germany in particular and many nations in general never carried out a breeder development programme to its conclusion so that now we're looking at Russia as the only country to have built successful breeders while France and Japan are running slowly walking in circles and India and China belatedly notice that, hey, burning already-existing nuclear waste in a reactor would be cool.

Australia o's looking into it. UK had mox production at Sellafield

[Purple]

Honestly, I have newer in my life seen a better argument for keeping key sectors such as energy production nationalized.

[blowfish]

Sheer incompetence. Like I said, none of the stereotypes of German industry apply to the nuclear industry. The nuclear industry survived because it was anti-competitive (no competition at all) and because they were friends (read: corruption) with local and regional politicians. It is not an industry that grew organically and culled itself by competition. It was a series of monopolies.

Arguably, the rest of the German construction industry is (has gotten?) just as bad. There's Stuttgart 21, BER, a bunch of dams in the last decade, ...
It's kind of like the famously on-time Deutsche Bahn which nowadays has become very good at estimating how late its trains will be instead

There is another famous case of an even bigger nuclear reactor that cost even more, which too was build without having a building permit - and on a fault line as well.
Thing went offline after only having been online for 30 months.

Cost over 4.5 Billions in EUR to build and then tear it down.

That is the German nuclear industry, building reactors without building permit and forgetting about nuclear waste they stored in barrels "somewhere" for decades.

I wasn't alive when that mess went down, but currently even German anti-nuclear websites just say "waaah Plutonium" (i.e. the main point of having a breeder in the first place) as the main reason it's particularly horrible rather than pointing out it would be more likely to have an accident - were there any worries of that sort beyond the inevitable outcry against anything nuclear in Germany?

Das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen verweigerte allerdings die Betriebsgenehmigung, gegen den Wunsch der damaligen Bundesregierung. Die Bundesregierung hätte zwar nach Atomrecht per Weisung die Genehmigung erzwingen können, wollte aber die alleinige Verantwortung für das sicherheitstechnisch kontrovers diskutierte SNR-Projekt nicht übernehmen. Der für die Baugenehmigungen zuständige NRW-Sozial- und Arbeitsminister Friedhelm Farthmann hielt die Inbetriebnahme für nicht vertretbar, da die Risiken nicht kalkulierbar seien. Die vormaligen Errichtungsgenehmigungen waren auch nur unter Vorbehalt erteilt worden.

Never mind the technological issues - they built the damn thing before even having a final building permit.

But Kalkar is only one thing, it is not as if the nuclear industry hasn't ignored elemental safety procedures. (see above)

There was probably the view that "preliminary building permit" meant "final building permit coming up, still filling out the forms, which may take a couple of days months years". The article says that the NRW minister wasn't sure about the risks, which is somewhat unspecific and unless substantiated has probably been said by somebody about every nuclear reactor on the planet.

The planning issues and building reactors on faults thing is dumb, but the answer is "ask the Geologischer Dienst to produce a map of safe areas, and don't allow politicians to start messing around till it's done" and not "no nuclear power ever because we built political prestige projects in a disorganised way".

Honestly, I have newer in my life seen a better argument for keeping key sectors such as energy production nationalized.

Yes, same for water and other utilities. Have fun with legal battles though.