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Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s special operations forces, was integral to the brazen sabotage operation of the Russia-Germany pipeline, say people familiar with the planning.
Whatever the case, it was a major win for greenhouse gas reductions in Europe. We can thank whoever did it for that.
Well, you might be right, unless you know… umm if it’s replaced by coal.
Germany made a mistake by scrapping nuclear plants plan. Sure, green energy development has been in steady progress but it cannot be a primary source as of now.
The natural gas through the pipelines is not owned by the transit or endpoint country. Same with Nord Stream, Germany is used as distribution hub in central Europe. E.g. after Poland closed their pipeline to Russia, their natural gas supply from Russia was simply transferred via Nord Stream and Germany, from the other side across the border into Poland.
And even with natural gas that stays in German storages, it’s not owned by Germany. It’s owned by private companies that sell it during winter to the highest bidder. German gas storage can supply other countries that have high demand and smaller storage capacities in a cold winter.
So regarding the resource replacement, it depends on the country that uses the natural gas at the end.
Looking at natural gas in Germany, the usage for electricity generation is relatively low (~7-12% over the last 5 years). It’s more often used by the industry and for it’s chemical properties, as well as heating in homes. You cannot just replace that with coal or nuclear ovens. But overall there is a plan to increase the capacity for electricity generation over the next few years as backup for the coal phaseout during low renewable generation. The new gas plants are intended for natural gas and later hydrogen.
No. We didnt make a mistake by scrapping nuclear plants. They are uneconommical and we have no safe storage for the waste they produce. We made a mistake much earlier when we let china buy all our solar tech.
This is not true. Nuclear waste is made almost completely safe by simply shielding it w/ concrete and letting it become less and less radioactive over time. In these cases, the radiation put off by the encapsulated waste gives off less radiation than flying on a plane. ALL of our nuclear waste (in the entire world) could fit in an area smaller than a football field and made inert with concrete.
The waste from fossil fuels floats around us constantly, and is in all of our lungs right now. I know which one I’d rather deal with.
Solar and wind alone cannot save us from climate change. We will continue to need more and more power, and solar and wind are unable to keep up on their own, especially year round. We need to use all of our safer options to replace fossil fuels, including nuclear.
If you’re interested in learning more, Kyle Hill has a very recent video on this exact subject: https://piped.video/watch?v=lhHHbgIy9jU
If you are not convinced yet, watch this video by Real Engineering.
https://youtu.be/UC_BCz0pzMw
His figures are ridiculously optimistic for nuclear, $6000/kW and 6 year construction times.
Flamanville-3 and Olkiluoto-3 were both 12 years over their 5 year construction schedules. They were supposed to cost €3.3B and €3B respectively for 1650MW. Flamanville is expected to end up somewhere over €20B (€12000/kW), and Olkiluoto is somewhere around €11B, only due to ‘not to exceed’ limits in the supply contracts.
Hinkley Point C has gone from £16B to near enough £30B for 3200MW (£9400/kW)
It was the same with Vogtle 3 & 4. The preliminary budget of $12B, was changed initially to $14B at the start of construction. It’s now somewhere around $30B and 7 years late. The two AP1000s have a combined output of 2200MW ($13000/kW).
V.C.Summer 2 & 3 was a similar pair of AP1000s. Costs went from $9B to $23B when the project was cancelled mid-construction.
Wind and solar are far faster to deploy, and typically on or near budget. The new, much cheaper redox flow batteries (100 MW/400 MWh for $266M Dalian, China) are capable of smoothing intermittency in areas without hydro, which can perform a similar function.
Edit. I should add that as of 2021, the global average for onshore wind is roughly $1300/kW. Prices continue to fall as new designs are introduced.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/UC_BCz0pzMw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You absolutely made a mistake scrapping nuclear power. They’re highly economical and could bankrupt the entire energy sector. They produce power at like $5-15/kwhr
Nuclear isn’t just about cost. It provides excellent baseline load power, which most low carbon sources just can’t provide.
Vogtle ended up at roughly $13,000/kW. On shore wind globally is averaging roughly $1,300/kW. Grid-scale batteries are running roughly $3,000/kW, then add in for how much ride-through you expect to need.
Depending on local conditions, you can build out 10x as much wind capacity as you need, or various combinations of wind + solar+ batteries and still end up less expensive and with a faster deployment time than nuclear.
An interesting take on why the nuclear industry stalled. A big picture approach however it says it is not an area for engineering innovation and big is better if you want an economic industry. https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/06/nuclear-energy-free-market-capitalism-arent-compatible/
Lol, no. Électricité de France is being re-nationalized by the French government due to their terrible financials. Areva/Framatome needed cash injections to avoid creditor protection. Westinghouse did have to file for creditor protection and almost took down parent company Toshiba, but they were sold off at a loss to a private equity firm.
Nuclear only looks good on an operational basis. Once you add in construction and refurbishment/decommissioning costs, it looks far worse.
Not really. That was methane that escaped straight into the atmosphere. It was a climate disaster.
Sigh…
Nations will not stop using fossil fuels as long as it remains the cheapest option.
Coal power is being killed in Australia by renewable energy as it is comparatively cheap to install and has ridiculously low operating costs.