Germany is bringing back some of its coal power plants online ahead of the winter season amid concerns about a potential shortage of natural gas supplies. Germany has cracked down on its coal power plants as part of transitioning out from fossil fuel energy. However, as the Russia-Ukraine war dented gas supplies from Moscow and […]
A lot of misleading words to try to escape the fact that coal and nuclear largely fill the same role in electrical grids. Every megawatt of nuclear power you turn off is a megawatt of coal you cannot without risking grid stability. That is the fundamental math here until you’ve eliminated coal from your power grid. Germany has failed to do so as a direct result of their policies around nuclear power, while numerous other electrical grids have successfully phased out or nearly phased out coal.
You mean other countries like the UK burning gas in a gas crisis and now opening new gas and oil drilling? Or countries like France who restarted their coal power plants about a year ago as a reserve should they not manage to bring all reactors back online in time. Or Ireland running on gas, coal and even oil? Or Poland (mostly coal)? Or Czechia with coal and nuclear but zero renewables because that doesn’t fit with the nuclear agenda? Or Slovakia (nuclear and imported coal power from Poland)?
Are these the numerous countries you are talking about? Countries btw that don’t actually have a grid… it’s all one grid. Guess who they all fall back to in emergencies? Yes, not France who can only export a steady amount of excess energy in warm months but the other big electricity exporter in Europe.
The only countries with an actual working plan are the lucky ones with massive hydro potential. All the others are failing. Those with a reneable plan because they are drowned in propaganda and those with a nuclear plan because they lie to themselves and don’t build even close to enough nuclear power to ever base their electricity production on it. But that’s okay. In 20, 30 or 50 years they can still all get their deficit covered by imports because nobody actually has a choice with a connected European grid or everything breaks. With some good lobbying they might even force Germany to still burn fossil fuels for them while pointing fingers.