As everyone is praising Germany with good weather and temporarily increased use of renewables, the same people rarely notice that France *also* has renewable and combined with nuclear their energy sectors is extremely low-carbon (30 gCO2eq/kWh) - Germany never goes below 150.

@kravietz
such calculation often omit the externalized costs of nuclear energy. A study by the French government concluded that a Fukushima style disaster would cost them €430bn, which is more than plant operators and insurance companies can pay, meaning the state will have to cover it.
https://fr.reuters.com/article/topNews/idFRPAE91601Q20130207

The ecological/social/health impacts of uranium mining and the somewhat unsolved problem of waste disposal have to be considered as well.
http://www.afrol.com/articles/36725

@guenther

Regarding mining, you are certainly aware that any modern renewable energy technology (solar panels, wind turbines, batteries) requires vast amounts of rare earth metals which are... mined. And since they co-exist with radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium, radium, they result in radioactive mining waste too.

@kravietz solar panels are made of silicon, the second most common element in the earth's crust.

As for rare earths, it's not like we wouldn't need them if we built more nuclear plants instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element#Uses

@guenther

But since we're now most concerned with CO2 emissions, it makes sense to compare the energy sector emissions of various countries. Germany for example is boasting all the time about #Energiewende yet it emits on average 5x more CO2 than France... yet it's bullying France to abandon #nuclear

@kravietz i'm not saying that our (germany's) government doing a particulary great job at the energiewende (cutting subsidies for renewables while creating monetary incentives for buying new cars).

@guenther

You want a good example of decarbonization? Here you go:

@kravietz yes, and now they are replacing the nuclear plants with safer and cleaner alternatives.

@guenther

You mean French? No, they keep nuclear as their base load and *add* more wind and solar.

Which is precisely why on good weather days - when Germany is boasting about 150 gCOeq/kWh - France achieves 30 gCOeq/kWh.

But on bad days of dunkelflaute Germany goes well above 300, while France or Sweden remain at 60.

Once again, this graph says it all.

@kravietz

https://www.power-technology.com/comment/renewable-energy-to-lead-the-capacity-mix-over-nuclear-power-in-france-by-2028/

> The government has also announced to bring down the nuclear power generation to 50% of the net generation by 2035. The plan is to decommission around 14 nuclear reactors by 2035 and fill the gap by renewable energy sources.

@guenther

Absolutely, because nuclear *fission* is going to be eventually decommissioned when nuclear fusion goes into production. Not incidentally, the first large fusion reactor ITER is scheduled to go "first plasma' in France in 2025 and first production (DEMO) goes live by 2030.

Obviously, Greenpeace is protesting against nuclear fusion too - they say it's "unrealistic". Except it's way more realistic than hydrogen or power-to-gas.

@kravietz oh i don't have anything against fusion research, i implicitly assumed we were talking about fission because that's the one everyone is using at the moment (and what you're arguing for if you present today's France as a role model)

But betting on fusion turning out to be ready within the necessary time frame is a risky bet as well.

@guenther

> betting on fusion turning out to be ready

Sure, let's instead bet on hydrogen technology that is not even close to ITER in terms of technological readiness.

Again, if you don't understand why German grid is installing more gas power, this is exactly the reason. They've been terrorised not to use the only zero-emissions stable source, so they use the closest one.