German goals to cut greenhouse emissions by 65% by 2030 are likely to be missed, meaning a longer-term net zero by a 2045 target is also in doubt, reports by government climate advisers and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) show.
We are trying to get more heat pumps installed, but people are still proud of getting a new gas furnace installed in 2023, thus avoiding a potential ban and betting on guaranteed dirt-cheap natural gas for another 20 years.
But either way, nuclear power is history in Germany and it makes absolutely no sense to bring it back. We never had a lot of nuclear power to begin with and the few power plants that could maybe be reactivated with a ton of money and labor are just a drop in the bucket. Building new reactors takes decades from initial planning to going live and nuclear construction projects are notorious for immense cost overruns. Plus, there are only a few construction companies in the world that have the capabilities to build a nuclear reactor and they’re already tied up in other projects. We would need dozens of new reactors built simultaneously and they would still be finished too late to contribute anything meaningful to a carbon-free electrical grid.
At the same time, wind energy is a dirt cheap, proven technology that is much more easily deployed, scales really well, is decentralized and reliable. Yes, it can be intermittent but it’s predictable (weather forecasts exist). And if we had invested a fraction of the R&D budget for nuclear fission and fusion into energy storage technology, it would be a complete non-issue. We have some work to do in that regard, but sodium ion batteries are pretty far in development and should be much cheaper. Iron redox flow and liquid metal batteries also have potential, maybe hydrogen. Demand response will also be a big factor. With flexible pricing during the day, both households and businesses can save a lot of money by using more energy whenever there’s a lot of it and less when it’s scarce.
Your second paragraph could be summed up as: we chose the destination years ago, so there’s no point changing course.
Will wind and solar will be sufficient to replace all the gas with heat pumps, and keep them running every day in the winter? I would also be hesitant to give up gas heat, without understanding where the replacement electricity will be coming from. “Demand response” means that the rich stay warm, while industry migrates to countries with better price stability… or continued CO₂ emission to avoid those outcomes.
Perhaps in the end it doesn’t really matter, since the transmission infrastructure for EU-wide renewables will also be useful for buying nuclear from the countries that are investing now.
Your second paragraph could be summed up as: we chose the destination years ago, so there’s no point changing course.
Which makes perfect sense when you consider that there’s a deadline, we’ve gone a very long way in one direction and going all the way back to take another route would guarantee missing that deadline.
It’s like you’re taking your ship from China to Rotterdam, you’re past the Suez canal, in the Mediterranean and now you decide to turn around and go around Africa after all. It really would be idiotic.
It’s like you’re taking your ship from China to Rotterdam, you’re past the Suez canal, in the Mediterranean and now you decide to turn around and go around Africa after all. It really would be idiotic.
That decision wouldn’t be idiotic if I actually wanted to go to Africa. It takes even longer to turn around from Rotterdam.
In my example, ‘Rotterdam’ is supposed to be the ultimate destination, so it would be equivalent to ‘carbon neutrality’. Changing the destination to ‘Africa’ would be the equivalent to just building nuclear power plants for the sake of it, regardless of whether they help us reach carbon neutrality.
We are trying to get more heat pumps installed, but people are still proud of getting a new gas furnace installed in 2023, thus avoiding a potential ban and betting on guaranteed dirt-cheap natural gas for another 20 years.
But either way, nuclear power is history in Germany and it makes absolutely no sense to bring it back. We never had a lot of nuclear power to begin with and the few power plants that could maybe be reactivated with a ton of money and labor are just a drop in the bucket. Building new reactors takes decades from initial planning to going live and nuclear construction projects are notorious for immense cost overruns. Plus, there are only a few construction companies in the world that have the capabilities to build a nuclear reactor and they’re already tied up in other projects. We would need dozens of new reactors built simultaneously and they would still be finished too late to contribute anything meaningful to a carbon-free electrical grid.
At the same time, wind energy is a dirt cheap, proven technology that is much more easily deployed, scales really well, is decentralized and reliable. Yes, it can be intermittent but it’s predictable (weather forecasts exist). And if we had invested a fraction of the R&D budget for nuclear fission and fusion into energy storage technology, it would be a complete non-issue. We have some work to do in that regard, but sodium ion batteries are pretty far in development and should be much cheaper. Iron redox flow and liquid metal batteries also have potential, maybe hydrogen. Demand response will also be a big factor. With flexible pricing during the day, both households and businesses can save a lot of money by using more energy whenever there’s a lot of it and less when it’s scarce.
Your second paragraph could be summed up as: we chose the destination years ago, so there’s no point changing course.
Will wind and solar will be sufficient to replace all the gas with heat pumps, and keep them running every day in the winter? I would also be hesitant to give up gas heat, without understanding where the replacement electricity will be coming from. “Demand response” means that the rich stay warm, while industry migrates to countries with better price stability… or continued CO₂ emission to avoid those outcomes.
Perhaps in the end it doesn’t really matter, since the transmission infrastructure for EU-wide renewables will also be useful for buying nuclear from the countries that are investing now.
Which makes perfect sense when you consider that there’s a deadline, we’ve gone a very long way in one direction and going all the way back to take another route would guarantee missing that deadline.
It’s like you’re taking your ship from China to Rotterdam, you’re past the Suez canal, in the Mediterranean and now you decide to turn around and go around Africa after all. It really would be idiotic.
That decision wouldn’t be idiotic if I actually wanted to go to Africa. It takes even longer to turn around from Rotterdam.
In my example, ‘Rotterdam’ is supposed to be the ultimate destination, so it would be equivalent to ‘carbon neutrality’. Changing the destination to ‘Africa’ would be the equivalent to just building nuclear power plants for the sake of it, regardless of whether they help us reach carbon neutrality.