Laying out key priorities for the EU’s upcoming Clean Industrial Deal, German Economy State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Monday (30 September) he wants the Commission to prioritise renewable energy, taking a tough line on nuclear power and France’s renewable targets.
Alongside a quicker roll-out of renewable energy facilitated by “further exemptions from [environmental impact] assessments,” Giegold outlined several other German priorities for the EU’s upcoming strategy.
Based on the 2030 renewable energy targets, the EU should also set up a 2040 framework, complemented by new, more ambitious targets for energy efficiency, he said.
“It should include new heating standards, a heat pump action plan and a renovation initiative,” he explained, noting a heat pump action plan was last shelved in 2023.
Hydrogen, made from renewables, should be governed by a “a pragmatic framework,” the German politician stressed, reiterating calls from his boss, Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), to delay strict production rules into the late 2030s.
And my personal wishlist would be to kick the German lobbyists out of the room. Solar is great, but wind is a dead end. Nuclear is clean enough and the waste hysteria is overblown, there isn’t all that much radioactive waste to manage.
It’s one of the few things the Chinese government actually got right.
Wind energy covered 19% of EU electricity production. More than twice as much as solar. The total costs per energy produced are on the same level like coal and nuclear is more than twice as expensive.
It is the strongest renewable energy source. It seems like you know very little about energy production.
I don’t doubt the energy production of wind, only the (non monetary) cost of area.
Wind power has a very low area impact. The existing impact mainly affects birds. Otherwise wind turbines can be built directly on fields where the area used is just a few square meters for the towers base.
Additional interesting stats, especially regarding statement on the safety of nuclear energy and waste:
IAEA-database of nuclear and radiological incidents
Note that although the list which is linked above gives an impression of the spread, diversity and frequency of incidents and accidents with nuclear power plants radioactive transports, it is not a complete list of all nuclear incidents and accidents; different national regulators have different regimes as to which incidents to report to the IAEA and which not.
One article on nuclear energy in the UK from May 2024 says:
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK’s nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money…The waste itself includes 110,000 tonnes of uranium, 6,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuels & about 120 tonnes of plutonium. – Source
[Edit typo.]
A related article with interesting stats on the world’s nuclear power plants: the U.S. and France have the largest fleet, but China Is rapidly building new nuclear power plants as the rest of the world stalls
“There are probably not more than seven countries that have the capability to design, manufacture and operate nuclear power plants,” Cui Jianchun, the Chinese foreign ministry’s envoy in nearby Hong Kong, said during an official visit to the plant. “We used to be a follower, but now China is a leader.”
And yet, China is still building out solar, wind, and coal faster.
That’s despite nuclear having a lot of advantages in China:
- high level of centralization (even SMRs produce 0.5TW)
- high level of governmental involvement in economy (which means huge investments can be a lot easier)
- low level of governmental transparency (which means you don’t have to deal with NGOs or Nimbys)
- rapidly increasing demand for electricity (which creates an incentive to build as much supply as possible)
- first-class universities (for independent R&D)
- large land mass (which is useful both for mining and disposal)
- lax environmental policy (same)
Seems more like a german french beef.
I’m all for renewables and let’s kick nuclear out when we have enough of them (and the tech tunuse them ofc.) to scrap oil, coal & gas.
clean
kick nuclear out
Sure…
Nuclear ain’t clean when you don’t have a solution for spent Uranium Rods.
We don’t have a solution for all the CO2 in the atmosphere, yet we happily continue burning fossil fuels at record levels.
And I wonder what exactly you think the danger is of radioactive waste. We have excellent methods of getting it into caskets safely. Maybe don’t dig it out of its casket and eat it? Then you’ll be fine.
Not to mention the dozens of ultra deadly forever chemicals we use by the tons in industrial processes. We store them perfectly fine and they pose a much greater risk to people of they were to come into contact with it.
It’s like we have this thing that guaranteed kills millions every year and causes so much suffering, but we keep on using it because the alternative might have some downsides. It’s so weird.
And where do you store that casket? That still leaks radiation.
But yeah both have downsides (nuclear and coal/gas/oil) so we need to force more Renewables.
