We can import electricity from the European grids we are connected to.
For example my region has recently brought up a 1.4 GW HVDC underwater cable, which can be used in both directions. It connects North Germany to Hydro power in Norway.
We - in Sweden - noticed this when we saw our electricity prices go through the roof due to those interconnects enabling German prices to trickle back up the lines. Thanks to the boneheaded "green" politicos in Germany shutting down nuclear power plants we'll be paying more for our electricity in the coming years. Please, German neighbours, vote out those watermelons and put some sense back in to the Bundestag.
Just to avoid any misunderstandings, the schedule to close all nuclear reactors in Germany by the end of 2022 was set by CDU/CSU together with the FDP. Which then went on to curb the buildup of renewables.
Back? Are you even aware that no party besides a small fascist party want nuclear back or did anything in recent years to stop the exit? The previous Government (today's largest opposition) had 16 years to stop the nuclear exit. They didn't. Even before Fukushima.
I wonder where you got this approach from since you've obviously not come up with it by yourself through research.
> Are you even aware that no party besides a small fascist party want nuclear back
A poll [1] done in 2008 found that 46% of the German population wanted to keep nuclear power online.
A poll [2] done in 2021 found that 53% of respondents saw a role for nuclear power in the "energiewende" (changeover from fossil to other power sources), 22% of them wanted nuclear to play a major role, 31% a smaller role.
In a poll done [3] in 2022 72% of the respondents wanted to postpone the shutdown of the remaining nuclear plants.
If your claim about that small fascist party holds truth the next Bundeskanzler will come from AfD. I guess this is not the case so either those other parties are not in line with their potential constituents or your claim of only AfD - which I assume is the small fascist party you're referring to - wanting nuclear power "back" (which is true by now, it used to be "wants to keep") is in error. Time will tell but in the meanwhile it is to be hoped that the next winter is a mild one.
Due to the same "green" politicos having been in power the last 8 years [1]. The power plants they closed could have been kept in service - they had been recertified up to 2035 - but they closed them anyway. This was a political decision, not one based on demand - support for nuclear power has surged in Sweden - or technological deficiencies.
Nuclear power in Sweden was expensive due to the "effektskatt" [1] (power output tax) which was levied specifically on nuclear power, ostensibly to pay for dismantling nuclear power plants after they were shut down. This tax made up about 25% of the production costs in the end [2].
The taxes and additional payments into the special fund established for this purpose [1] already cover the prospected costs of dismantling all nuclear power stations and treating/storing the waste (spent fuel as well as materials from dismantled reactors). While the additional "effektskatt" has been abolished in 2018 the payments to SKB continue. The total costs are estimated to end up at 171 billion kr allowing for a safety margin and taking price increases into account. Remaining costs as of 2024 are estimated to be 124 billion kr. The fund currently holds 80 billion kr, the additional 'effektskatt' brought in 38.5 billion kr, securities posted by the companies which run the nuclear power stations stand for another 59 billion kr. Payments into the fund continue, the proceeds of which are invested in state bonds and on the stock market. Even without these continuing payments and investments and disregarding compound interest the costs for dismantling current reactors and treating all waste has been paid already. As it stands the plan is for the remaining reactors to run until ~2045 [2]. Payments into the SKB fund will continue so by the time the last reactor is shut down the costs will have been paid several times over.
And yet power plant closures were entirely due to politics, not the cost.
Now the price of energy in Sweden quintuples depending on demand: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1271491/sweden-monthly-w... I am just so glad that the expensive energy is out of the picture. (That was sarcasm, I chose to pay for electricity coming from nuclear, and it's not meanigfully more expensive than other types)
> We can import electricity from the European grids we are connected to.
Ah yes. The magical grid that will surely have the capacity to supply all of Germany's power if suddenly there's night and no wind just in Germany (and nowhere else in Europe, stopping at the border, apparently).
This is rare and currently we have a diverse mix of electricity production. When wind gets more dominant, it will be offshore and connected to a larger North Sea grid. Then storage will be more important and also more viable.
I'd guess that in ten years the max capacity for wind electrical energy in my region (Northern Germany) is around 2 to 3 times larger than the max demand. Thus large scale storage will be build up.
> we have a diverse mix of electricity production.
Yes, yes we do: coal and biofuel (so more burning), and corn for biofuel is taking up 6% of Germany's land area.
> When wind gets more dominant, it will be offshore and connected to a larger North Sea grid
So, some magical future
> I'd guess that in ten years the max capacity for wind electrical energy in my region (Northern Germany) is around 2 to 3 times larger than the max demand.
Max capacity means nothing when production is low.
> Thus large scale storage will be build up.
More magical thinking (there are currently no grid-scale storage solutions that would've survived just one night from the link I provided)
On what day it happened is independent of how often this happens, for how long, with what demand and the amount of other electricity supplies..
> So, some magical future
A nice slogan you have here. It sounds cute, but essentially it is pessimistic and anti-technology.
We heard this twenty years ago. This year the share of renewable energy for electricity production is 50%. In a decade it will be much higher. The prices for deployment are going down. The cost for nuclear is going up, nuclear projects often have huge cost overruns and are slow to deploy. Example: The 'new' Finnish EPR reactor is 8 billion Euros more expensive than planned (up from 3 billion to 11 billion Euros) and 13 years late. Without government invention the building company from France (Areva) would have been killed - it had to take a 5 billion Euro loss from building the power plant with a fixed-price contract.
> Max capacity means nothing when production is low.
A high max capacity means that it makes sense to invest in storage and backup technology.
> More magical thinking (there are currently no grid-scale storage solutions that would've survived just one night from the link I provided)
We also currently have not the wind dependence. In the future this will change with more offshore wind farms.
That has nothing to do with 'magical thinking', it has to do with investments into technology and the created market conditions. Grid scale in the future means that there will be a large amount of storage options, backup supplies and diverse forms of demand steering.
> On what day it happened is independent of how often this happens, for how long, with what demand and the amount of other electricity supplies..
This was a regular sping night in a nation of 80 million people in the middle of Europe. Which means that for a lot of the rest of Europe it was also a quite night.
> It sounds cute, but essentially it is pessimistic and anti-technology.
No. It's realistic. Every time you show problems with intermittent generation by renewables, the answer is "sometime in unknown future we will surely build enough, and enough grid storage to boot".
> The 'new' finnish reactor is 8 billion Euros more expensive than planned
--- start quote ---
Almost three-quarters of hydropower, water, coal and nuclear infrastructure projects were over budget by 49% on average,
Cost overruns are not unique to nuclear. Especially considering how underinvested nuclera has been for the past 20-30 people who keep spreading FUD.
When there's political will, there are results. Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant in China: 6.1 GW nameplate capacity. Built over 14 years at 1 reactor per 6 years. Operational. Estimated cost 16 bln USD.
> We also currently have not the wind dependence. In the future this will change.
I shudder to think about the future where we depend on whether or not the wind will blow at night.
> This was a regular sping night in a nation of 80 million people in the middle of Europe. Which means that for a lot of the rest of Europe it was also a quite night.
Nothing happened. In ten years we have 80% renewable. Again, nothing will happen.
> the answer is "sometime in unknown future we will surely build enough, and enough grid storage to boot".
Look at a nuclear power plant. If one starts building today, the reactor could be ready in 5, 10 or twenty years. In Finnland the EPR was 13 years late.
Renewable can be deployed much faster and more reliable.
> Almost three-quarters of hydropower, water, coal and nuclear infrastructure projects were over budget by 49% on average,
The new Finnish reactor was 3.6 times more expensive than planned. That's a much larger price increase.
> When there's political will,
of a dictatorship
> there are results. Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant in China: 6.1 GW nameplate capacity. Built over 14 years at 1 reactor per 6 years. Operational. Estimated cost 16 bln USD.
Try to do the same in Western Europe...
Btw, China deploys two large coal power plant blocks every week. -> to quote you: "When there's political will, there are results."
Yearly production means nothing on the night when it produces single-digit percentages of its installed capacity, does it?