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Germany to close down (all) nuclear plants. 2

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Skogsgurra

Electrical
Mar 31, 2003
11,815
The coalition decided that all nuclear plants shall be closed latest 2021. Government shall take final decision.

This will cause some really big changes in many circles.

Gunnar Englund
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Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
 
A boost for the Greens ! On a serious note,how will Germany keep pace with its energy requirements for the industries?WE can see major investments in Solar ( any sun shine?) or wind energy farms. Will they go back to coal based power plants?

_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year
 
Germany is too far north, with significantly too much bad weather/cloud cover for realistic solar power for most of the year.

(Unrealistic solar power is always an option for enviro's, but that doesn't produce power either.)

This policy is political "propaganda" only - it will fail and be replaced by the next government unless some other technology is invented and tested and produced and built in the next 8 years. But miracles happen. 8<)
 
Germany is one of the biggest installers of PV panels (through government subsidies). According to Wikipedia they have 17 gW of PV panels installed.
PV panels still produce power even in bad weather, just not as much.
Hydrae
 
Oh, I didn't say they (solar panels) weren't being installed in Germany; nor that those installations weren't being paid for - with money from somebody's budget by demanding tax money from somebody else.

I just maintain that those solar panels will never be economically viable in Germany's environment and in Germany's latitude, compared to any conventional power source. This is a purely political scheme driven by political goals and social ideal for social and political power and money.

Not power production. Not economics. Not for the good of the public.
 
"Not power production. Not economics. Not for the good of the public."

1. Solar powers do produce power.
2. Couldn't agree more.
3. Take a trip to Beijing, see and feel the smog. Without considerations beyond economics the west would still be that way.
Moral: sometimes a bit of environmentalism is "for the good of the public."

Comprehension is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom. And it is wisdom that gives us the ability to apply what we know, to our real world situations
 
We've seen this movie before. Germany mandated closure of all nuclear plants over 10 yrs ago, but had changed their mind last year based on a change in politics. Unless another Fukishima-type catastrophe occurs , the next change in german politics 10 yrs from now will rescind the now popular shutdown of their nukes.

In the meantime, they'll buy electricity from France, which gets its electricity from nuclear plants ( provided the drought subsides).

Politics.
 
Cast M : you got the wrong info. The significant smog in
China is caused (mostly) by the little coal fired stove/heaters used throughout the country (coal compacted into 9" dia, X 12" long hollow cylinder).These things are smoldering away keeping a tea kettle hot anywhere there is space. Actually pretty clever except there are so many of them.
 
they have 17 gW of PV panels installed

Which equals right about 0 gW after sunset. Then they will be getting their power from some other source.

PV will never supply more than a small percentage of total power needs until someone invents or finds the "storage miracle".

If this were to actually happen, it would have the Russians and the French grinning like Chesire cats.




David Castor
 
I wasn't trying to target a specific pollutant, just making the point poor economics does not always equal poor judgement. Thanks for that bit of information though I hadn't heard that. I had always assumed (see where that got me) the vast majority of the smog comes from manufacturing/power generation.

Comprehension is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom. And it is wisdom that gives us the ability to apply what we know, to our real world situations
 
It's actually even worse than that: Solar power is usable only between 9:00 and 15:00 hours (local solar time, noon = 12:00 hour). Even then, you only get 85 - 90% max power between 9:00 and 10:00, and between 14:00 hours to 15:00 hours.

And even this approximation is only good for March-April and Sept-Oct (near the equinoxes). Summer months (that far north (well north of Montreal and Toronto), you can (almost) expand that 6 hour usable solar window by 1-1/2 hours. In winter, reduce that 6 hour window by 1-1/2, and you (might) get 3-1/2 power-generating hours day. Call it 4 hours of actual power generated to be generous. IF (big "IF" there) the skies are clear. No clouds. (Usually, that far north, they aren't.)

So, to get 1 MegaWatt of power per hour for 24 hours in winter, you need to buy and install and hookup 6 MegaWatts of "potential" solar power panels. And the pivoting and solar tracking tower systems for 6 MegaWatts. And the power cables and converters and invertors for those 6 MegaWatts. Remember, you have 1 MegaWatt being delivered during the day for 4 hours. You need 24 MegaWatts delivered through the whole day, but you only have 4 hours to get the power from the sun.

Now, to use that power when the system is not on-line (the remaining 20 hours of the day) you have to to store the power until it is needed. You are getting 5 MegaWatts per hour of power in 4 hours, and you cannot slow or postpone or wait to convert it. You must convert and store the energy immediately. So you need to build and connect and control 5 MegaWatts/hour of "convert electric power to something else somehow" ability. (With a conversion efficiency of 75 - 80%, you really need about 6 Meg's/hour of "conversionability". Somehow. With something you need to design and build.

Then you need to store this 20 Meg's of energy, filling it completely in 4 hours, and emptying that storage "something" over a 20 hour period; until it can begin getting refilled the next morning at 8:00.

Now you need a 1.25 MegaWatt/hour of "something" to that stored "something capability" back into usable energy (remember the 75 - 80% assumed conversion efficiency you lost going in? Well, welcome to the real world - You lose it again coming back out.)

Oh - By the way - you still need a backup 1 MegaWatt of electric power capability for the 1 day in three that it is NOT perfectly and sunny in the winter.

Or you can keep your (existing and already paid for) nuclear plant operating and get - gee whiz - 1200 MegaWatts of power 24 hours a day. Every day of the year.
 
Correction to above:

"In winter, reduce that 6 hour window by 1-1/2, and you (might) get 4-1/2 power-generating hours day. Call it 4 hours of actual power generated to be conservative."
 
>>>Or you can keep your (existing and already paid for) nuclear plant operating and get - gee whiz - 1200 MegaWatts of power 24 hours a day. Every day of the year. <<<

... for 30 or 40 or 50 years.

Then you need a few megawatts 24/7 to keep the used fuel cool,
... for how many years?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
As for storage didn't I hear that in Alaska they have some city-block sized building full of super-caps? That was for storage but I don't recall seeing how much that represented and why they needed it.


Anyone know the typical industrial efficiency of cracking water into H2 and O?

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
This is an interesting political debate, but I'm not sure what it has to do with work-related problem.

I also find it interesting that there appears to be a belief that nuclear and solar are mutually exclusive -- I don't know any requirement, law, physical contstraint or other factor that says that both can't be used -- along with hydro, wind, coal and natural gas. Even fuel oil, though there are much better uses for that.

For what it's worth, the "best" energy policy is to have a variety of sources for power generation such that you're not overly dependent upon one particular type of energy. That is, of course, limited to what is available -- preaching hydro in a place without rivers suitable for dams is not going to work. Preaching solar to a place that has 90 percent cloud cover over a year is not going to work. Preaching coal to a country without coal reserves is not going to work.




Patricia Lougheed

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To MikeH:

You need to keep the spent fuel cool for 10-20 years or:

The Chinese are building a 200 MWt nuclear reactor to run on used fuel from nuclear power stations to generate process heat for district heating and desalination. Essentially an SFP operated as a deep pool-type reactor; it will operate at atmospheric pressure, which will reduce the engineering requirements for safety.[3]



HAZOP at
 
It was good news. I wish they would all be shutdown. Most dangerous carcinogens there are.
 
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