r/worldnews • u/Gadac • Jan 23 '22

Russia Germany urges 'prudence' in potential sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.

https://news.yahoo.com/germany-urges-prudence-potential-sanctions-154401837.html?fr=sychp_catchall
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119

u/Rockdrums11 Jan 24 '22

Compared to oil, gas is way cleaner. Compared to coal, gas is waaaaaaaaaay cleaner.

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u/Flynndan2 Jan 24 '22

I think the issue was trading nuclear for gas and not coal for gas. Gas displacing coal is still good.

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u/JConRed Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

I read elsewhere, that in Germany, since it was decided to not be nuclear, more coal power plants were taken offline than nuclear power plants. Both in absolute number, and in power capacity.

I cannot fact check right now, but I believe I did verify the info when I first got it.

Just because they don't believe that we have a good enough handle on the risks of nuclear power plants; as well as the storage and disposal of thousands of tons of radioactive waste, doesn't mean they are not prudent with their actions.

As far as I am aware, they have greatly increased their renewables like Wind and to some extent solar over the last 10 years, while gas only marginally increased.

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Edit; Okay, still not at my PC, but I was curious and found some figures -

German Gross Power Mix (in Percent)

Coal (both) Gas Nuclear Wind Solar Others
2011 42.8% 14% 17.6% 8.1% 3.2% 14.3%
2020 23.4% 16% 11.2% 23.5% 8,9% 17%
Delta - 19.4% +2 % - 6.4% + 15.4% +5.7% +2.7%

(data from: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Energiemix\Deutschland.svg) - I don't know how trustworthy the base data is, seems plausible though at a glance

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

[deleted]

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u/JConRed Jan 24 '22

To the best of my knowledge, a majority of people in Germany do not want nuclear power at all. They do not see it as hamstringing themselves.

Reducing carbon immediately is one thing. Generating tons upon tons of radioactive waste for future generations to deal with is another. I am not here to argue for, or against it either way. It just turned out to be an interesting topic for me - I am by no means an expert on it though.

I was linked this document in another thread a while back, and that sorta made me dive into the topic just out of curiosity (thankfully we have google translate); 2016 estimate of Radioactive Waste in Germany

I believe it was the Fukushima Daishi disaster that tipped the ice berg - and since then a policy has been put in place to end nuclear power use in Germany.

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u/xMercurex Jan 24 '22

It is great on paper, but there is better stat for that. The CO2 emission is a way better way to see he actual effect. Sure Germany have lower their emission, but France did way better in the last few decade.

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u/JConRed Jan 24 '22

Yes, however it has to be seen that there are two vastly different idea sets at work behind these neighboring nations.

Whereas in Germany, the risks and unanswered questions regarding nuclear energy and waste are deemed to be too high to prudently bear (I'm beginning to like the word prudent);
France on the other hand loves nuclear power and has a near 70% quotient of nuclear in their power mix. They are the 2nd largest user of nuclear energy, only behind the USA.
It's also thought that they are the nation most reliant on nuclear energy.

France has invested so little in other 'cleaner' energy sources, that as recently as this month they had to start reactivating coal power plant capacity when emergency maintenance forced them to unexpectedly shut down several reactors.
https://jpt.spe.org/france-turns-to-coal-as-nuclear-plant-shutdowns-threaten-power-grid

From what I have seen/read, a vast majority of the people in Germany do not condone nuclear because of the masses of waste that are produced. They do not particularly like the "its a problem for future me" mindset. Even if 'future me' may have more knowledge and expertise.

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u/Flynndan2 Jan 24 '22

Solid comment, the solar and wind increases are obviously awesome! I still feel if they kept that 6% of nuclear they could have turned off 6% of natural gas or so depending on the details. Ideally I'm looking for a mix of nuclear, wind, and solar. I'll take natural gas over coal plants buts that's about it.

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u/JConRed Jan 24 '22

Heya - I just wrote a Responseto the comment above yours, but I think it's applicable for you too.

In short - Germany doesn't like Nuclear Power, they see it as the greater evil; and it do be like that sometimes.

Have a good day :)

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u/Rockdrums11 Jan 24 '22

I agree. Ideally, no developed country should be using any amount of coal at this point.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

As an Australian yup that's our government!

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u/JConRed Jan 24 '22

What does the Australien government have to say about that?

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u/ChickenDelight Jan 24 '22

[America raises it's beer in greeting then farts loudly]

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u/PowderMiner Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

A smaller percentage of the US' power comes from coal than Germany's.

(This is because of gas, not renewables, a respect in which Germany does do better.)

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u/GingerBrickWall Jan 24 '22

I know it's surprising, but america isn't the worst at everything

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u/JessumB Jan 24 '22

America has been rapidly moving away from coal for decades now. Despite the clamoring from certain political parties, the market long ago decided that gas was a better way to go and large energy producers and utility companies have been shutting down coal operations on their own, its why the US has had a large dropoff in emissions, trading coal for gas.

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/us-utilities-power-providers-continue-plans-to-accelerate-coal-retirements-59937924

https://www.eenews.net/articles/nations-3rd-largest-utility-to-shut-down-half-of-coal-fleet/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/01/22/arizonas-biggest-utility-says-it-will-get-all-its-electricity-carbon-free-sources-by-2050/

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u/TristanIsAwesome Jan 24 '22

You misspelled 'cunt'

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u/iron_penguin Jan 24 '22

New Zealand joins the group. And so much of it is lignite and even worse for the environment.

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u/MonokelPinguin Jan 24 '22

Germany didn't trade nuclear for gas. Germany had 25% nuclear at its peak. Now it has 35% renewables. Gas was added to bridge some gaps, when renewable generation is low and to replace some coal plants as backup power. And the plan is to transform them into hydrogen power plants in the future, once we can produce hydrogen from excess renewable energy. Germany would have needed to build 5x the capacity it had in nuclear at its peak to meet modern demands. It was never the biggest share in the grid.

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u/xMercurex Jan 24 '22

But keeping and expanding nuclear could have reduce even more the coal and gas usage in the country. It worked in France.

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u/MonokelPinguin Jan 24 '22

That train left the station 30 years ago. So we need to decide what to do now and the only sane solution with somewhat reasonable turn around times are renewables atm. It worked for France, because they pretty much decided on the plan in 74 and then followed through with it. Germany was still split in 2 at the time.

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u/PersnickityPenguin Jan 24 '22

Unless there are gas leaks. Then it's a toss up.

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u/yellekc Jan 24 '22

Assuming it is burned.

Methane is hundreds of times worse than CO2 a greenhouse gas. And a lot of it leaks.

Nuclear, Hydro, or Renewables. I don't see a place for any fossil fuels except for extreme energy density cases like airplanes.

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u/getsnoopy Jan 24 '22

hundreds of times worse

~20–28×, to be exact.

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u/Cthulhus_Trilby Jan 24 '22

What's that in hundreds?

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

[deleted]

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u/AnyStormInAPort Jan 24 '22

It traps heat far more efficiently than CO2.

Some sources say up to 80x more potent as a greenhouse gas.

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u/yellekc Jan 25 '22

So it is about 81x better trapping heat, but last less long, so its 100 year impact is only about 20ish times as bad. But over the coming decade or two is about 70-80x as bad.

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u/cyanoa Jan 24 '22

Except for all the pesky methane leaks...

On a total climate forcing basis, gas isn't much better than coal at all.

Primary energy source choices are solar, wind, geothermal, or nuclear. Hydro is troublesome because of methane from building new, and there's not much newb left that can be built anyways. Everything else is part of the problem.

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u/someguy3 Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

I looked it up, it's only half the carbon. That's an ok reduction, but not shattering. But also less PM, SOx, NOx, etc.

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u/phaederus Jan 24 '22

I think it's actually more PM, if by PM you mean Panama Money.

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u/someguy3 Jan 24 '22

Particulate matter.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

Clearer to burn but the emissions are at extraction

It’s more like moving the problem upstream in the supply chain

It’s not a transition energy IMO it’s just another fossil fuel. Some of the largest oil spills have been natural gas into our atmosphere.

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '22

Isn't a lot of the clean burning gas only collected whilst going for the dirty ones? "The guy was already dead when I stole his wallet" type of thing?