Source - The colors of the grids represent CO2 emissions
The title is a reference to the 2021 Texas power crisis
Just to stir up some shit: France is green because they have a lot of nuclear power. Which means a lot of energy for basically zero CO2. Germany could have been green, but opted to shutdown their nuclear facilities in what can only be described as a “hurt themselves in confusion” move.
Which means a lot of energy for basically zero CO2.
The problem with nuclear power is there’s just too fucking much of it. You’ve practically got to give that shit away for free. You’re never in a position to squeeze retail electricity consumers for $3000/MwH.
The real meal ticket is down here in Texas, where a handful of gas-powered electric generator companies can form a cartel that fixes prices every time AC demand peaks during the summer. Then you can cash the fuck out by burning $.15 worth of butane for $50.
Germany could have been green, but opted to shutdown their nuclear facilities in what can only be described as a “hurt themselves in confusion” move.
Germany decided to rely on the cheap and abundant natural gas from checks notes, ah shit.
That’s wrong, nuclear doesn’t equal zero CO2, not even close. There are no emissions from producing electric power, but tons of emissions building the plants and reactors, mining the fissile materials (which in large come from Russia, btw), transporting the materials, etc.
Granted, if you’re calculating that into renewables, there are emissions, too, but far less per kWh.
Also, nuclear’s fucking expensive.
And the “hurt themselves in confusion”-move wasn’t to shut down the NPPs (it was originally planned to phase out of coal and nuclear while building up renewables and using gas during the transition), it was to stall the phaseout of coal, expand on gas relying on Russia while halting the expansion of renewables and utterly destroying the PV industry. That’s what a conservative government does to you. Thanks, Merkel.
Edit: fck autocorrect
You are right, but in this specific chart, they don’t include things like building the facilities, mining the materials etc. They just use the CO2 released whilst producing power, which with nuclear is very low. You can click on the chart and zoom in on the data, it’s pretty cool. (This is wrong, see edit)
The whole Germany situation is very complex and I was just jabbing, I live very close to Germany and work in Germany part of the time so I know something about it (but probably not everything). To me phasing out the nuclear wasn’t that much of an issue, but it could have been done way slower to make sure renewables filled the gap. Buying gas from Russia with the war in Ukraine is going on permanently hurt my soul.
Quickly phasing out nuclear is also a big middle finger to the countries in Europe that are looking to expand their nuclear power, but run up against long lead times. They would have gladly bought nuclear energy from Germany, which would mean way shorter lead times and prevent a lot of extra CO2 during construction of new facilities. Whilst building new big nuclear probably isn’t useful in combatting climate change, getting the most out of existing nuclear would have been.
The fuel coming from Russia isn’t as big of a deal to me, as there are plenty of sources around the world to buy from. With the amount of gas we’ve bought from the US recently, we could have easily bought some nuclear fuel as well. Now all these sources have their issues, I don’t like being beholden to the US and places like Niger or Namibia can have human rights issues.
Obviously nuclear isn’t the future and needs to be phased out, but in my mind this meant decades yet and not the rushed phasing out Germany did.
Edit: Just checked the source, they actually do include things like mining of the fuel, construction of the facilities, transport of the fuel etc. into the CO2 calculation. Nuclear just blows everything out of the water in terms of CO2. Only renewables come close, but in terms of CO2 nuclear is the best.
Yes, the map sources try to include the CO2 emissions of all the chain.
When doing that you see that nuclear still has very low emissions. Nuclear is a lot of CO2 emissions for construction but after that there is not much. The fact that most of the French nuclear reactor are almost 40 years old means that the impact of construction is already diluted.
Uranium mining is polluting, yes, but you need so little that it does not really have a big impact on the CO2/kWh ratio. 1kg of natural uranium produce as much energy as 14,000kg of coal !
What is interesting on this map is that right now the green countries either have a lot of nuclear, a lot of hydroelectricity or both. Country with a lot of wind and solar struggle to meaningfully lower their CO2 emissions. I think it will come but right now the backup power used for when solar and wind production are low is often polluting and counterbalance the low emissions of renewable energy.
I think you mean mining fissile materials. Nuclear is not in the same category of emissions as fossil fuels that burn carbon directly…
There are no emissions from producing electric power, but tons of emissions building the plants and reactors, mining the fissile materials (which in large come from Russia, btw), transporting the materials, etc.
That’s technically true, but more a consequence of fossil fuel infrastructure peripheral to the power plant itself. Switch your rail network to full electric and use more electricity in your steel manufacturing (already the predominant modern foundry production technique), you’ll solve a big chunk of this problem.
After that you’re talking about CO2 produced by setting concrete to build the plant, and that’s functionally a push relative to any other power plant that also uses concrete (basically all of them, concrete is popular for a reason). You’re also moving well below the carbon emissions targets we need to hit by 2050, so its an efficient move.
it was to stall the phaseout of coal, expand on gas relying on Russia while halting the expansion of renewables and utterly destroying the PV industry
German domestic firms were making huge margins on Russian gas imports right up until the Ukraine War broke out. That’s a big problem with fossil fuels. They’re still incredibly cheap to mine, with a lot of the cost coming via markups in the retail sector. There’s also a huge incentive to simply import PVs from countries with dirt cheap labor costs. So… mostly China with a bit of Canada thrown in there. Germans, like the Americans before them, no longer want to invest in industrial capital because it has a shit ROI. They want to invest in the FIRE and Tech Sectors, because they’ve got crazy high returns.
So more and more industrial capital keeps getting dismantled, with imports filling the gap. And nobody really seems to care about what this does to domestic security or capacity in the event of supply chain disruptions, because that’s Future Peoples problem and we’re making so much money right now.
This map underrepresents emissions from NPPs. The emissions that are assumed for nuclear are lower than everything you find in literature and are 1/5th to 1/10th of what reputable sources state. That being said, this map is otherwise a great resource and i like it very much.
Really? Because they use the figure given by UNECE, that’s a pretty good source I feel? The report it comes from is also very thorough.
What sources have you seen that state a number 10 times higher? Would be interesting to see where the difference is and what numbers they give for other sources.
It will take some time but I will answer with sources. Can you post the source used in the map i have never been able to find anything that came close.
Germany didn’t shut down nuclear and replace it with coal, no matter how often you read it online.
They shut down nuclear and reduced coal at the same time, while doubling overall output.
To stir up some more shit, nuclear power has the same hidden emissions as lithium and the same political problems as oil, nuclear waste excluded.
Accounting for mining, construction, operation, decommission and disposal, nuclear has less emission that Solar.
The political problems are entirely artificial, fabricated by the fossil fuel competitors and have been soundly disproven.
Nuclear waste is no where near the problem people assume it is. A single plant doesn’t produce more than it can store onsite during it’s entire operation and 100% of all the waste can actually be recycled and ran through newer generation breeder reactors to ‘burn’ the radioactivity and render the resulting ‘waste’ safe as background radiation within a decade or so in a cooling pool. The only reason this isn’t already common practice is nuclear fuel is so abundant it’s not as profitable to do this, It’d be the equivalent of a coal power plant halting using coal for a few weeks so they could shovel in trash from a nearby landfill until it was empty. Less overall power output for less profit.
This is spot on. The economics is what really kills nuclear. The cost to build and operate a plant vs the revenue you get out of it won’t break even until 25/30 years. Compare that to a natural gas plant that’ll be profitable in ~5 years.
You’d think this is the kind of thing where governments would step in with subsidies, but that gets halted due to oil and gas lobbyists.
It’d be the equivalent of a coal power plant halting using coal for a few weeks so they could shovel in trash from a nearby landfill until it was empty. Less overall power output for less profit.
not quite, since you have to reprocess the fuel, and the problem is that it’s cheaper to just manufacture new fuel, so it doesn’t make any financial sense. What’s more likely is modern lead/salt cooled reactors using new fuel, and burning it past what we burn existing fuel. And potentially subsidizing waste reprocessing to burn it as well.
This is also ignoring the refueling operation being standard procedure. So it’s more like a coal plant shipping in trash, which requires finding a source of trash, and one in a large enough quantity, and then burning it through the coal plant (without having to shut it down) and then having to find a source for coal, afterwards. It’s just tedious.
It’s also not “less overall power output” because again, the nuclear plants are simply designed with refueling in mind. So that’s just an unfair comparison.
even if it was fair, nuclear plants have a capacity factor SIGNIFICANTLY higher than most fossil based production plants, and as a result, produce energy more efficiently and reliably over their lifetime.
