
Germany to close all of its coal-fired power plants over the next nineteen years - ____Sash---701_
https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-coal-power-20190126-story.html
======
lixtra
Dupe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19007493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19007493)

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ThePhysicist
Deciding to turn off all nuclear power plants within a few years as a response
to the Fukushima accident was probably the biggest mistake the German
government made in the last decade, and one of the reasons we're reliant on
coal so much right now. The decision was purely emotional as well, as
unfortunately much of the environmental politics here is. It's sad that we
lost our position as one of the leading countries in Europe regarding
renewable engergy (baring smaller Skandinavian countries with lots of natural
energy resources) and are now a laggard that's reliant on brown coal for our
energy needs.

Addendum: I'm not against turning off nuclear power plants (I think we should
eventually), I just don't agree with the time frame we chose for this. Letting
plants run for a few more years wouldn't significantly increase cumulated
accident risk and would have a significant effect on our CO2 emissions.

~~~
ec109685
Why couldn’t something like Fukushima or worse happen to Germany’s nuclear
plants?

~~~
ThePhysicist
Of course it could happen here in Germany as well, still I don't understand
how an accident caused by two extreme environmental catastrophes (really
strong earthquake + record-setting tsunami) changes the accident risk for
nuclear power plants in Europe. Also, turning off our nuclear power plants
didn't make us much safer, as our neighbors have plenty of them just near our
border, some of which (Tihange, Cattenom), are much older and unsafer than the
plants we turn off here.

Not saying that it's a bad decision to turn off nuclear power plants, just
saying the decision should be based on science not emotion.

~~~
TomK32
Don't blame the quake and tsunami. Its water did take out the generators
needed for the coolants, the plant was wide open for such an accident. NAIIC
found the accident to be forseeable and that TEPCO failed to meet basic safety
requirements. TEPCO even had two internal studies on the risk of Tsunamis and
how to defend against them but management ignored those warnings. If those
warnings aren't enough. Japan's coast is full of physical markers from past
Tsunamis, indicating the top of those waves and where the safe ground begins.
[https://99percentinvisible.org/article/tsunami-stones-
ancien...](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/tsunami-stones-ancient-
japanese-markers-warn-builders-high-water/)

~~~
episodeiv
That, however, needs to be part of the risk calculation as well, in my
opinion. Even when there's enough technological solutions to make something
like nuclear power sufficiently safe, you can still count on human greed or
ineptitude to screw things up.

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adrianN
By 2038. That's incompatible with the Paris agreement.

As a reaction to ongoing protests the government has started a so-called
Climate Cabinet, that's working on plans to reduce GHG emissions sufficiently
to limit warming to below 2°. They're supposed to present their results in
about a month.

Incidentally, Friday's For Future is calling for a global climate strike on
September 20th. Probably there is a demo in your city too. Join if you can.

~~~
quonn
We (the people of Munich) tried to get our local coal plant to close in 2022.
We voted last year and the outcome was essentially ignored. Now it will shut
down in 2030. Too little, too late. And Munich could have afforded it easily.

~~~
tjansen
But to replace it with what? I assume not with solar and wind, as that would
mean that you won't have electricity on windstill nights.

~~~
adrianN
Solar, wind, storage and an improved grid. It's always windy somewhere.

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esotericn
Great news, but 19 years. Man.

Things take time, I get that. But we're getting close to human lifespans
there.

The world in the year 2000 was such a different place in so many ways. It's
difficult to imagine what 2038 looks like.

Nineteen years ago, top end computing hardware was something like a Pentium
III. Windows XP had not yet been released.

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donmb
That article is from January 2019 and it's not correct. There are no plans in
Germany to shut down coal power plants completely.

------
eecc
Oh stop and for a moment think at the effort to rebuild all our homes to
highly energy efficient standards. Replace all conventional heating systems
with heat pumps. Redesign cities to remove sprawl and car-centered lifestyles
in favor of public transport, disseminated centers. Reorganize consumer supply
chain around home delivery and less wasteful routes.

I see plenty plenty GDP coming from all this work, perhaps the only problem is
that it wouldn’t land in the pockets of the current lobbyist crop

------
asutekku
Finally. The coal plants in germany were pretty unfortunate considering how
much EU cares about the environments (even if some people don’t agree with it
that much)

~~~
tannhaeuser
The EU as such doesn't care that much about coal. For example, Poland,
Germany's neighboring country, has a high percentage of it's power come from
coal, and no short-term plans to change that/no alternative energy source. The
flip side of Germany abandoning coal is that energy has to be imported, and
energy prices are among the highest (or actually the highest) in Europe.

------
lota-putty
More Coal stats: [https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-
sites/en/global/c...](https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-
sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-
review-2019-coal.pdf) PDF

Germany best coal reserves have depleted; 20 years is a long time.

------
abhikarthick
On the other part of the world ->
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/climate/coal-adani-
india-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/climate/coal-adani-india-
australia.html)

------
sawaruna
> JAN. 26, 2019

------
lnsru
So now will Germany depend on Russian gas, coal power imported from Poland and
nuclear power imported from France? Can an industrial nation depend on
imported electricity? For me this looks like pipe dream. I can guarantee,
after this insanity Germany will have most expensive electricity in EU (after
much richer Denmark as it is now): [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics)

Edit: typos

~~~
bayesian_horse
Well, if you refuse to look at the details, everything looks like a pipe
dream.

In reality, Germany still exports electricity to "nuclear powered" France.

The plan to stop coal plants does not count on higher energy imports,
particularly not in the form of electricity.

~~~
realusername
> In reality, Germany still exports electricity to "nuclear powered" France.

France imports very cheap electricity from Germany when wind/solar works very
well and exports very expensive electricity when wind/solar works badly. It's
a pretty much balanced trade between the two in terms of electricity but it's
far from balanced in monetary terms, Germany pays the non-stability of their
grid at a high price.

~~~
lispm
> France imports very cheap electricity from Germany when wind/solar works
> very well

or when nuclear doesn't deliver enough electricity. Like in cold winters (high
demand) or hot summers (low production).

~~~
realusername
There's no such problems in France right now. There's much lower consumption
in the summer, it's the time planned for maintenance, producing more would be
useless and I don't recall any issue with the winter load.

~~~
lispm
> it's the time planned for maintenance

also unplanned maintenance, overheating rivers, drying rivers, ...

Google is your friend:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-
nucle...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-nuclear-
reactors-shut-down-edf-europe-heat-wave-a8477776.html)

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/30/heatwave-may-
for...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/30/heatwave-may-force-
nuclear-power-shutdown-france-cooling-water/)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-
supply/germany-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-
supply/germany-powers-france-in-cold-despite-nuclear-u-turn-
idUSL5E8DD87020120214)

[https://energytransition.org/2017/01/france-cant-meet-its-
ow...](https://energytransition.org/2017/01/france-cant-meet-its-own-power-
demand/)

~~~
realusername
> also unplanned maintenance, overheating rivers, drying rivers, ...

Those are a very small number of reactors and not affecting in anyway the
grid, it's totally planned, you do get clickbait article every year though. By
the way, they are only being stopped by regulation as well, not any technical
problem.

Additionally, renewables had more severe issues at the moment from the
heatwaves, above 25 degrees, solar panel outputs drops a lot and generally
there's not much wind either during this kind of weather to compensate.

[https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1153624647243620355](https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1153624647243620355),
Here is the electricity production in France for this summer, there's
definitely one source of electricity working better than the others during
heatwave...

I don't know why people keep bringing this up, it's an non-issue and it's
never been one.

~~~
lispm
> Those are a very small number of reactors and not affecting in anyway the
> grid, it's totally planned, you do get clickbait article every year though.
> By the way, they are only being stopped by regulation as well, not any
> technical problem.

What do you think regulation is for?

> Additionally, renewables had more severe issues at the moment from the
> heatwaves, above 25 degrees, solar panel outputs drops a lot and generally
> there's not much wind either during this kind of weather to compensate.

We were breaking a lot of records with renewable energy here in Germany
lately...

~~~
realusername
> What do you think regulation is for?

Those regulations are there to save fishes, they're not related to nuclear
plants, coal plants also have the same issue. That's to save wildlife. If you
don't care about fishes, the plant technically works.

Since there's a need for maintenance anyway and less demand, that's not worth
killing the fishes with warmer water.

~~~
lispm
A nuclear power plant does not work 'technically', if it harms the
environment.

~~~
realusername
I mean we're going in circles here, it's not needed to start those plants in
summer anyway so...

~~~
lispm
Sure, you can always import German electricity.

~~~
realusername
The reason those plants are not needed (as I said multiple times they are not)
is because you have 50% share of electricity heating. And you obviously don't
need any heating in summer...

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louwrentius
Renewable is not stable, what do they add to offset this risk, gas powered
plants?

~~~
avip
EU grids are interconnected. They will buy electricity from neighbors.

~~~
realusername
The neighbors generally have very similar wind/solar patterns so that's not
going to help much. Currently when that happens, they just buy electricity
from France at a high price like the other neighbors.

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trilila
This is potentially good news for Europe, as I am sure Germany will force
other countries to follow suit. Most likely using a diktat given via the EU
commission.

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derekdahmer
In 2016, nuclear + coal made up 30% of their energy production (including
exported energy) so that’s a pretty big chunk to replace in 20 years.

[https://energytransition.org/2017/01/renewable-energy-
produc...](https://energytransition.org/2017/01/renewable-energy-production-
stagnates-in-germany-in-2016/)

~~~
quonn
Your replaced your whole comment and now the replies don‘t make sense anymore.

~~~
derekdahmer
Whoops I replaced it in 2 minutes and thought I got away with it.

