Posted on 08/04/2022 7:40:13 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has raised the possibility of lengthening the life of the country's nuclear power stations. Berlin's decision to get rid of the plants has come under question amid energy security concerns.
The German chancellor on Wednesday said it might make sense to extend the lifetime of Germany's three remaining nuclear power plants.
Germany famously decided to stop using atomic energy in 2011, and the last remaining plants were set to close at the end of this year.
However, an increasing number of politicians have been arguing for the postponement of the closures amid energy concerns arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The issue divides members of Scholz's ruling traffic-light coalition.
Nuclear power accounted for 13.3% of German electricity supply in 2021. This was generated by six power plants, of which three were switched off at the end of 2021. The remaining three — Emsland, Isar and Neckarwestheim — were due to cease operation at the end of 2022.
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
YA THINK ??????
Russia is shutting down Natural gas shipments to Germany. Now, drought is making it so difficult to barge coal to power plants that Germany is burning 2/3rds Russian coal coming in by rail.
Now, drought is also causing France to cutback their nuclear plants because of the lack of cooling water.
The technical term for Germany’s situation is: Screwed.
Part of this problem...once they said solar and wind were going to be chief ways of energy-production, you needed something to ‘back’ them up. Since coal and nuke energy were regarded as ‘evil’....they were busy building natural gas energy plants (probably around 12-percent of the grid is this back-up method now).
So with the natural gas crisis going on...they screwed up royally.
There’s three additional nuke plants which were closed in late 2021, and speculation going on that they also will be brought back.
Adding to this....growing interest in allowing fracking (forbidden in Germany since 2016).
I should add...this week, the futures market in Germany for power is going to four times the current cost level. Lot of political anxiety surging right now.
Dummkopf Gruns
Dummkopf Gruns
Sounds like they owe Putin a big THANK YOU.
The increase in natural gas prices has affected the demand for wood pellets.
There are electric generation plants that formerly burned coal that have been retrofitted to burn wood pellets. These bulk pellet users have driven up the world wide price of pellets.
So, companies that have typically been bagging them for North American sales are reconsidering bulk shipment instead. It all comes back to what pays the most money.
and along the same lines, I’m considering not chopping one of my legs off.
“Part of this problem...once they said solar and wind were going to be chief ways of energy-production, you needed something to ‘back’ them up. “
When it comes to power generation, diversity is a strength. Having a mix of hydroelectric, nuclear, natural gas, coal, and renewables gives a nation options when one fuel source is in short supply or a particular type of equipment is out of service. Of course a strong grid is also essential to transmit the power from the production site.
Did common sense drop on someone’s head ? LOL
Putin will be disappointed, he paid good money to the greens to insure this did would not happen.
Well, Duh.
I don't get your sentence. How can hydroelectric, nuclear, natural gas, coal be in short supply? The only ones I know of is solar (clouds) and wind (no wind). Please explain to this novice.
Big wind
and Big sun
when winter comes
can’t get it done
Pebble bed reactor. Small, mobile, safe, and can generate enough power for a large city. That should have been the “new green” energy plan.
In a well designed utility system, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You need diverse power generation supplies. Sometimes you have drought and cannot count on your hydro supply. Sometimes you have coal delivery interruptions and cannot count on coal. Power plants go down for scheduled and forced outages (equipment failures). You have war and political instability interrupting contracted gas supplies.
Of course, all the German problems are self-inflicted. Shutting down their nukes, stopping coal mining in the Ruhr area, stopping fracking, depending on Russia and, worst of all, wanting to believe wind and solar were the next big thing in energy. They just didn’t click their ruby slippers together enough for wind and solar to make it.
Yep!
Germany eventually will be better off without Russias gas,
Russia not so much
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