Comment on Can somebody please explain why the world hasn't gone nuclear yet?
iii@mander.xyz 5 days agoThe worlds production of storage isn’t even sufficient to power germany for a week. Hence why germany is, till date, heavily dependent on gas. Mostly US liquified natural gas, and russian pipeline gas.
To me, it’s a surprising statement that, for the same amount of money, one can buy something that doesn’t exist. 🤔
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
I am not arguing that nuclear should have been phased when it was, as that resulted in more coal and gas, but that clinging to it now is a mistake.
Building a new nuclear power plant in Germany would take a decade if things went well. Until then grid battery storage can mature and demand adjustment projects can be rolled out. It’s probably also easier to convince germans to accept pumped hydro where they live over nuclear.
iii@mander.xyz 5 days ago
Sadly, others have argued so and still are. Here in Belgium they’re still trying to close existing, running nuclear power generation. In favour of subsidised “emergency” gas generation 🙄
In my experience, people tend to severily under estimate the size of the storage problem. After 20 years of energy transition, we’re worse of then we started. We’ll see more and more blackouts. The latter being good for the environment ofcourse.
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Why would we need to store energy for more than an day? We only need to smooth out the difference between supply and demand.
The mayor advantage of the European grid is the disconnectedness over long distances. There are always enough places where the sun shines or the wind blows.
iii@mander.xyz 4 days ago
I’d say the disconnectedness cross-border is a disadvantage as the grid already is saturated (1). It can be windy in poland, the generated power can’t make it to france.
7 days is an understatement if going solar + wind + storage is the plan. Germany has longer periods of no sun and no wind on record.