I'll clarify what I meant for your benefit. Germany has constructed a lot of new renewable power in the past two decades, which is great, but they prioritized shutting down nuclear power plants instead of fossil fuelled power. Because of this, they still get ~50% of their electricity from fossil fuels, which is not so great.

If they instead had prioritized phasing out fossil fuelled power plants, that number would've been more like 20-30%, and more crucially, they could've phased out their entire fleet of coal power plants. Ergo, criticism of German energy policy is entirely justified.

[–] Blake@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You replied to my comment. My comment simply stated that investing in building nuclear power plants is a waste of money that is better spent on renewables. You said that criticism of my comment was justified because Germany could choose between either renewables and coal, or renewables in Nuclear. I am asking you to support your claim. I am not inviting you to move the goalposts. If you replied to my comment and said criticism of my comment was justified and then started talking about something else unrelated to my comment then I don’t really know what to tell you?

[–] Iceblade02@lemdit.com 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

...and your comment replied to one criticising German energy policy, hence the context of "the criticism being justified". The bad policy decisions have already been made (from 2005-current) and it does seem like Germany will be stuck with coal power for quite some time because of their poor policymaking.

The question was not about the price of building new nuclear power, but of maintaining old plants, and existing nuclear) power provides incredibly cheap, green energy. Simply put, my "claim" as you want to put it, Germany could have rid themselves of coal power with the help of the VRE they invested ln, but instead shut down their old nucler plants. The "proof" is no more difficult than studying their energy profile for the past 20 yrs.

In hindsight, the OC was somewhat rude towards you in particular, which I don't agree with, but alas.

Anyway, you seem to want to discuss future electricity solutions rather than the existing one, and I'd happily have a separate discussion on what mix of green energy sources ought to be used, if you'd like.

IMO based on what I have read over the years, optimal green energy mixes land on 40-70% VRE depending on regional climate factors, with the rest filled out by dispatchable sources such as hydropower, geothermal, biomass and nuclear power plants.

[–] Blake@feddit.uk -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My comment was a response to someone calling me stupid for saying that nuclear power spending was a waste of money. Because it is a waste of money.

What you’ve read over the years is almost right, if you take “nuclear” out of the sentence you’ve pretty much got it.

[–] Iceblade02@lemdit.com 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The reason they were annoyed is that they were referring to keeping old nuclear plants running, and you are pointing to the costs of new nuclear.

-and the reason that nuclear is in the sentence is that access to the energy sources within it depends on geography. Filling up those last 30-60% of the energy mix with hydropower, geothermal and biomass is simply not possible in some areas, which is where nuclear comes in, regardless of whether we look at the most pessimistic cost estimates (which you are doing).

[–] Blake@feddit.uk 0 points 1 year ago

The article is called “German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against new nuclear power“, not “ German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against keeping old nuclear plants running”, so no, this is just shifting the goalposts.

And nope, you’re wrong, 100% renewable power across the entire planet is absolutely viable and would be much cheaper than involving nuclear. I have proven this again and again and again in this thread, but here’s a starting point for you:

The majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

There are other sources all throughout this thread to back up this claim, and no one has posted any sources to dispute it.

We’re done here. Have a pleasant evening.