There were great strides in increasing the overall percentage of renewable power. If the proportion of nuclear power had stayed constant, that would mean usage of coal could have been reduced even further than it already has been, which helps fight climate change.
That's not how it works. Energy production is a huge market with lots of political corruption and huge amounts of money involved.
Nuclear AND coal is both owned by a few monopolistic companies. In Germany there were four regions for electricity production and these four companies each owned one: basically all production and distribution of electricity.
None of these companies had any interest to invest in renewable energy or to open up their markets for competition. Politicians were given jobs in these companies after their political career.
It took literally decades to break up this system and the Energiewende was the first movement towards open energy markets, competition and renewable energy production. It's a system which takes decades to reform and rebuild. Whether nuclear or coal is first to go out is a minor issue over that time scale.
The money invested into renewable created a lot of effects which will drive down electricity prices in many other countries much faster than nuclear will do. Germany served as a first example how to build up technology, increase efficiency, etc. For example, the real benefit for solar will not be in Germany, but in many other countries which have lots of sunshine and lots of ways to deploy that kind of lower tech - compared to extremely complex nuclear technology.
It’s not at all a minor issue. These are real emissions that will continue to exist which didn’t need to. You’ve made zero argument to refute that fact.
> These are real emissions that will continue to exist which didn’t need to
They won't continue. Renewable will replace them much faster than nuclear could. Nuclear simply does scale much slower and much more expensive than nuclear.
While the statements you made might coincide with reality, you don't support any of them with an actual credible source. And you ignore the fact that you keep comparing bleeding edge tech to 50 year old tech to prove that the old one shouldn't be researched and improved, a line of argumentation that makes no sense. You insist nuclear should be gimped by not doing any research and then use that as an argument for it not performing well enough now. The tech is old because politicians are weary of promoting research into improving nuclear tech (not talking about "holy grails" like cold fusion) due to the stigma associated with the "nuclear" label and losing their average Joe constituents.
By your own line of argumentation research in renewables should stop because coal and oil are cheaper and scale much better than them. If you can't keep your reasoning consistent it's not much of a reasoning. 20 years ago people like you insisted that electric tech in cars doesn't make sense because it was tried around the 1900s and didn't take off, proof that it should not be researched further.
In the meantime in 2013 the BARD Offshore 1 400MW wind turbine farm cost 3bn Euros and for a long time it cost ratepayers 2m Euros per day by not supplying most of the planned energy. So you see, anything can be disastrous if you don't do it right. If you don't invest in technology don't complain that it's not up to date. You don't blame technology for the blunders of mega-project management unless you're doing it in bad faith or truly have little understanding of the topic.
> * A record 165 GW of renewables were added to the world’s power grids in 2018, up from 157 GW added the previous year. The nuclear operating capacity increased by 9 GW6 to reach 370 GW (excluding 25 GW in LTO), a new historic maxi- mum, slightly exceeding the previous peak of 368 GW in 2006.
> * Globally, wind power output grew by 29% in 2018, solar by 13%, nuclear by 2.4%. Compared to a decade ago, non-hydro renewables generate over 1,900 TWh more power, exceeding coal and natural gas, while nuclear produces less.
> * Over the past decade, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 88%, wind by 69%, while nuclear increased by 23%. Renewables now come in below the cost of coal and natural gas.
That's today.
If you want more research into Nuclear (which has research in the range of hundreds of billions since the 50s) then you need to say: where, what for and with what goal.
Currently it's clear that the investing even more money into nuclear won't bring any breakthrough with visible effects in the next 20 years.
> it's clear that the investing even more money into nuclear won't bring any breakthrough with visible effects in the next 20 years
The world will never become carbon neutral with PV and wind turbines. Our needs grow much faster than this tech will, short of an unexpected breakthrough, much like the one nuclear is still looking for and might actually be closer. It's just a great stopgap solution.
Your assumption (mind you, not a fact) that it will never happen does not preclude the investment in nuclear tech. We invested in PV for decades before they became anything near economically feasible. And they're not great for places that don't have the land to spare and/or are far away from the places that do. Not great when you are at the mercy of (ever changing) weather and climate.
But as usual your quotes have nothing to do with my point - that renewables projects can be astonishingly expensive too (nuclear level expensive for some wind turbines) and underdeliver, or that the reason there's no nuclear research has nothing to do with lack of potential but with preconceptions that it must be dangerous. So it's a self inflicted wound where you oppose improving nuclear tech and then you blame it for being old and inefficient. You are part of the reason we don't have good nuclear.
And to highlight the dissonance of your point you insist that there should be no investment in new nuclear tech because old tech is expensive and doesn't scale compared to renewables. And then insist we should invest in new renewables even if they are more expensive and don't scale as well as fossil. How is that? You either invest in the tech that scales and is cheap, or you don't. Or perhaps you invest in the technology that shows promise. And scary-nuclear-label aside, nuclear tech always showed a lot of promise, if only people like you didn't shoot it in the foot and then whined that it's limping.
Just google for "breakthrough in nuclear power" and see what advancements have been made even with a strong opposition of the uneducated. Now imagine what could be achieved if it actually received some solid support. In the meantime we're burning coal.
> The world will never become carbon neutral with PV and wind turbines.
That's your assumption. Fact is: currently only renewable has a chance to make an actual impact for the next 30 years.
> that renewables projects can be astonishingly expensive
That was long ago and in the case of German offshore the reason was that the technology was challenging (because of deep and rough water in the North Sea) and needed to be developed and deployed. Today scaling it is a bit easier and more cost effective. Solar (PV) was also expensive in the first years, but it was always clear that mass-production would bring prices down.
> the reason there's no nuclear research has nothing
There is nuclear research.
> you insist that there should be no investment in new nuclear tech because old tech
No, I insist that there is no need to invest in DEPLOYMENT of nuclear, because the current nuclear has been proven to be a dead end.
> insist we should invest in new renewables even if they are more expensive and don't scale as well as fossil
No I insist to invest in renewables, because they are the cheapest and fastest way to REPLACE fossil.
> And scary-nuclear-label aside, nuclear tech always showed a lot of promise, if only people like you didn't shoot it in the foot and then whined that it's limping.
Nuclear has totally shown its own failure: remember Russia? Worst security. Remember Japan? Fully nuclear. One event took out ALL reactors. Remember the US? No expansion of Nuclear despite having all the technology in the last 30 years. Remember France? A single reactor under construction in last 20 years. Late and cost explosion. 70 years and no storage solution. 70 years and the cost building them is increasing. In the US, in France, ... in core nuclear power countries.
> Now imagine what could be achieved if it actually received some solid support
You believe in Santa Claus. Look around. Read the 'Nuclear World Report' and it paints a bleak picture.
The problem here is that you seem to be arguing a point I’m not making. I’m speaking only to the decisions regarding prioritizing decommissioning nuclear over coal. Let’s ignore the future and deal only with what has already happened, because it requires no suppositions. The German public and politicians have decided to prioritize the phase out of nuclear over coal, both before and after the accident in Japan. This is a fact, it’s not up for debate. It’s supported both by public policy positions, public sentiment, and by looking at the percentage of energy coming from each production method. This has negative consequences for climate change.
That’s all that I’m saying here. I’m an overall supporter of the Energiewende, I’d be happy for renewables to replace both coal and nuclear. The issue is as renewables become a bigger share you can shutter coal or you can shutter nuclear capacity that renewables are replacing. Germans chose to prioritize shuttering nuclear, and that’s the wrong choice.
> Germans chose to prioritize shuttering nuclear, and that’s the wrong choice.
Actually it was not. There was no choice.
The problem is that you neglect the context. There are a bunch of actual problems which made getting rid of nuclear faster than coal the only way.
1) there was no choice. No one asked what should we replace with renewable. The renewable energy movement developed out of the opposition to a full Atomstaat (a nuclear state) and the risk of nuclear accidents in a densely populated country/europe.
2) there was no way it could have been decided to replace coal first. Coal is the only large primary energy source in Germany. By far. Hard coal and lignite. The whole industrialization of Germany was based largely on coal. Thus whole regions were living from that. And some still are. There is much larger opposition to replace coal than nuclear because people earn(ed) their living from it and there was (and still is) a large political lobby for it. This lobby is not from the greens. it took decades to close hard-coal mines and it takes decades to close lignite mines. Basically when the workers retire. Not because renewable energy fans like that, but because the opposition from some political parties and the industry is strong. Remember when environmentalists were recently protesting against lignite mining in Germany? Political impact: not much. In the current federal government are conservatives and social-democrats - both with large coal lobby groups.
3) Technically fossil fuel plants are slightly more flexible than nuclear power plants and mix better with renewable energy.
4) since coal is the only large domestic primary energy source at that time (very little natural gas, very little oil, uranium mining was dirty and on the way out, not much hydro, very little renewable deployed, ...) it was seen helping with energy independence.
5) France went in into nuclear technology early because that was a side effect of the creation of nuclear technology for the military. Germany didn't have military nuclear infrastructure, was late to the nuclear build-up and does have no ambitions for its own production of nuclear weapons - though that was featured when conservative politicians and technology fans decided to build up nuclear technology. Thus nuclear power was also an easier target to break up the grip of the four big electricity companies on their monopolistic market (each exclusively owned distribution and production in a large area of Germany). If you look at France, they haven't build-up similar large amounts of non-hydro renewables.
So the claim that Germany did make the wrong choice is completely neglecting the actual history: there simply was no choice and we are lucky that we were able to start the replacement of at least one of the problematic technologies and that this gave us an idea of the path to further reduce coal. There are still areas where we have even less progress: traffic and heating.
1.) of course there was a choice. That’s what all of this was, a concrete plan, none of this was organic. A choice was made to be nuclear-free, and not coal free. This is what set the stage for larger reductions of nuclear than coal as renewables grew. This was absolutely a choice.
2.) this absolutely may be what’s underpinning the preference. I’ve never really made a claim about why the choice was made, only pointed out it was the wrong choice from an environmental perspective. But let’s not pretend this was some nefarious lobbyists, the German people were behind prioritization of closing nuclear as well.
3.) Sure, although we both know this doesn’t justify the decision as it’s not a big enough issue to really matter.
4.) Right but we aren’t talking about plans to build new nuclear plants, we are talking about what that already exists gets decommissioned, coal or nuclear. So this is irrelevant.
5.) Again, not relevant to which of existing power generation capabilities you phase out.
You really seem unwilling to engage on the point being made here.
There was no choice. There was no question at that time what to phase out and there would have been no political majority to exit coal. The most important goal of the environmental movement (and which lead to the red/greens government and to the exit decision) was to exit nuclear and to find an alternative to that.
> You really seem unwilling to engage on the point being made here.
Same. You are trying to rewrite history.
2) + 4) + 5) are not irrelevant: these were jobs, industry, tradition, political influence, etc.
You seem to think that decisions on energy politics exists in a vacuum, independent of reality and historic context.
The political discussion to exit coal in Germany only started to get traction a few years after 2010.
It's like asking why the US didn't fly to the more interesting Mars instead of the Moon. There simply was no choice when that decision was made. Constructing a choice in hindsight is just rewriting history.
This isn't really going anywhere, so I'll say my last bit on this and you can feel free to have the last word on the subject if you'd like.
You seem to be identifying the constituencies that exist for the outcome that happened, and seem to be saying that because they existed it simply couldn't have been any other way. This is sort of tautological - in a sense yes, it couldn't have been any other way because it happened the way it did. Nobody made an arbitrary decision on this, nobody flipped a coin. But of course those constituencies weighed various factors, and made choices. That they made a choice does not mean it couldn't have been any other way or was correct. That's a bizarre way to look at history. It would essentially render all analysis and criticism of past decision-making moot. "Well it had to be that way, because the people who made the decisions made the decisions because factors existed that influenced them to do so!" I mean yeah, welcome to every subject in the history of the world.
But the specific question being replied to here was, "how does nuclear energy help with climate change?" from OP, obviously specifically in the context of the article. In that context, it's completely fair and correct to critique the decisions made as I and others have done, and it's frankly completely irrelevant what other constraints there were politically or practically.
And even if we do take those into account, it's fine to be critical of the decisions. You are right, there wasn't a huge appetite to take on coal in Germany until well after there was one to take on Nuclear. And that's something that's rightly criticized. Nobody forced people to embrace their goofy "Atomkraft, Nein Danke" crap.
> how does nuclear energy help with climate change?
and the answer is: it doesn't. Simply because it does not scale to make anywhere near of the needed impact in the next 50 years. Nuclear production will struggle to keep it's current levels for the next two decades. Renewable does expand rapidly.
Draw the trend curves for energy consumption, deployment of production and you'll see that nuclear is a costly mistake. That's just basic mathematics.
"Atomkraft, Nein Danke" was the rational reaction to investing billions into the wrong energy landscape.
Location: Bremen, Germany until August; Fort Collins Colorado after that.
Remote: Preferred. I most frequently work with clients in the US and London.
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: 15 years of experience. Python for web development and data engineering, React, Docker, AWS, Terraform. Excited about DevOps and using tooling and processes to increase velocity and stability.
This is not at all my experience. I'm an American living in Germany who pretty regularly goes to the Alps, the roads are nothing remarkable. The amount of infrastructure built in the Alps is remarkable, but Americans are not going to bat an eye at the road conditions in the mountains of Europe, nor are they comparable to what people are talking about here.
That's true if you are a tourist in Alps, but as a native you'd know some really dodgy mountain roads that your clunker could climb without much trouble, but no American would ever attempt them without a proper 4x4 and life insurance. There is also a factor of underestimating distances due to latitude differences, i.e. Europe is drawn much larger and US much smaller than it should be in comparison, so looking at a map is very deceiving.
This was essentially my route as well. My wife got a two year postdoc position in Germany. I actually gave them over a month of notice, since I had a rather unique position and I knew they had trouble hiring me. After a few weeks my boss confessed they weren’t sure what they were going to do, and I actually hadn’t put any thought into finding a new job, so we agreed on me doing remote.
Willing to relocate: Sadly no, but it's not difficult to travel regularly to Berlin and London, or other nearby cities. I work often with companies in the UK and US.
Senior Developer. I've been doing mostly data engineering and full stack web dev for the past couple of years, often at the same places. I'm a big fan of utilizing DevOps-oriented processes and tools to help streamline dev processes and delivery quality software on time.
Assuming n isn't very large, I don't see why. People will spend sometimes days in on-site interviews. A simple coding challenge can tell you a lot about a developer and provide a shared basis for discussion in a subsequent interview. Of course "build a CMS from scratch" is ridiculous but simple simulated bug fixing and small feature additions that mimic real life work can be quite useful and not time consuming.
As someone who has spent a lot of time implementing & arguing for work sample based hiring, the hardest part is getting places to remove the useless interviews from their filter process.
Very few devs given the choice between 8 hours of interviews & 7 hours of work sample/1 hour of interview will choose the former. But companies just add the work sample & leave the interviews defeating the point.
This is exactly it. I had burned myself out to the point that I was almost completely unable to work, to the point that I actually was concerned I might need to find a new type of work. Getting all the above in line (or at least to varying levels of better) were key to getting me back to being productive. I still, like everybody I think, have good days and bad days, but I'm back on a sustainable level of productivity overall.
I travel quite frequently between the EU and the US and occasionally elsewhere - I've never seen a new OK button when I arrive in a new location. Can you provide an example of this?
