Germany makes U-turn on nuclear energy policy, keeping two plants as backups

[Vorastra]

So you're saying that the EU is buying LNG from Ukraine, who then sources it from Russia?

To be fair, sounds like a bit of a win-win... EU gets to fund Ukraine, and all Ukraine have to do is take their cut off the top.

The only thing Ukraine is paid for is traversal fees.
Conveniently leaves out that it funds Russia more.
Absolute state of copium.

 

[ToxicBunny]

The only thing Ukraine is paid for is traversal fees.
Conveniently leaves out that it funds Russia more.
Absolute state of copium.

So you are agree that Ukraine are paid for doing pretty much fsckall.... I think thats a win-win for the EU and Ukraine really.

 

[ForceFate]

So you're saying that the EU is buying LNG from Ukraine, who then sources it from Russia?

To be fair, sounds like a bit of a win-win... EU gets to fund Ukraine, and all Ukraine have to do is take their cut off the top.

Where does Ukraine buy gas?

 

[Vorastra]

So you are agree that Ukraine are paid for doing pretty much fsckall.... I think thats a win-win for the EU and Ukraine really.

It's a win-win that the EU is funding Russia more than they're funding Ukraine, and Ukraine is helping to fund the dudes that are busy attacking them.
Sweet Ukrainian win, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do you think traversal fees cost more than the LNG being transported.

Is this copium blindness?

 

[Temujin]

China buying cheap from russia, EU buying expensive from china

China Is Quietly Reselling Its Excess Russian LNG To Europe | OilPrice.com

China has been quietly reselling Russian LNG at a major mark up to gas-hungry European customers

oilprice.com

#stickingittoputin

 

[Vorastra]

China buying cheap from russia, EU buying expensive from china

@ToxicBunny: This is a win for the EU actually.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Where does Ukraine buy gas?

Russia... so yes, make it a Win-Win-Lose deal in reality since they still fund Russia, but you don't swing an entire continents energy supply in short order, it takes years to make it all shift.

 

[ToxicBunny]

@ToxicBunny: This is a win for the EU actually.

Nah, that one is a loss in reality...

But a loss with a valuable end-goal ultimately.

 

[rvZA]

Well, the world's best leader did see this coming and did issue warnings back in 2018....

Trump accused Germany of becoming ‘totally dependent’ on Russian energy at the U.N. The Germans just smirked.​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accused-germany-becoming-totally-dependent-russian-energy-un-germans-just-smirked/

Naturally the Fake News Media did not like it either

Trump is exaggerating Germany’s reliance on Russia for energy​

Trump is exaggerating Germany's reliance on Russia for energy

Trump claimed Germany could soon get 70 percent of its energy from Russia, but the forecast is doubtful.

www.cnbc.com

What a great leader he was! Just a shame they did not listen to his warnings.

So, naturally now, let them have cake.

 

[ForceFate]

Well, the world's best leader did see this coming and did issue warnings back in 2018....

Trump accused Germany of becoming ‘totally dependent’ on Russian energy at the U.N. The Germans just smirked.​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/25/trump-accused-germany-becoming-totally-dependent-russian-energy-un-germans-just-smirked/

Naturally the Fake News Media did not like it either

Trump is exaggerating Germany’s reliance on Russia for energy​

Trump is exaggerating Germany's reliance on Russia for energy

Trump claimed Germany could soon get 70 percent of its energy from Russia, but the forecast is doubtful.

www.cnbc.com

What a great leader he was! Just a shame they did not listen to his warnings.

So, naturally now, let them have cake.

 

[Vorastra]

The keeping it on for winter
Where are they sourcing their oil from now

Not Russia...

Russian oil still flowing to Europe via waters off Greece

Vessels made 41 ship-to-ship transfers over six months: Nikkei analysis

asia.nikkei.com

 

[Johnatan56]

So luckily we have the NREL which is a US government sponsored institution and they've done their own GHG life cycle emissions investigation.

Who is NREL?

Life Cycle Assessment Harmonization

www.nrel.gov

Oooo, I like them.

Let's check some of their findings?

Wind, looking very good!

View attachment 1378979

Solar PV, hmmmmm

View attachment 1378981

Concentrated solar, ok not bad

View attachment 1378985

Nuclear, wow would you look at that.

View attachment 1378987


See @Johnatan56 I can do this too

Sorry, had the tab open, got distracted and forgot to reply.

Why not post the graph with all of them?


That article is from 2011/12, solar/wind efficiency is substantially better since then, lots of previously "rare"/more harmful materials are no longer used.

There are many potential con-sequential effects of deployment of nuclear power not typically considered in the majority of attributional nuclear LCAs, and these effects could increase or decrease previously published estimates of life cycle GHG emissions. Another issue is truncation error that is often inherent in process-based LCAs, which form the majority of LCAs (but not estimates) considered in this article. In this respect, the middle to upper end of the range exhibited in this article may be closer to the true life cycleGHG emissions than those estimates at the lower end

And this also makes the paper worthless for modern:

Another potential limitation to our results is that the studies passing our screens do not represent a statistically independent sample.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x

Study also states missing decommissioning, half the process.

I also never argued nuclear had high CO2 emissions, just more than solar/wind.

 

[Vorastra]

Sorry, had the tab open, got distracted and forgot to reply.

Why not post the graph with all of them?

I did post all of them. As individual graphs so people could see the better defined y-axes. All together the median lines are quite close.

That article is from 2011/12, solar/wind efficiency is substantially better since then

Efficiency has nothing to do with the materials used to build them which would account for most of their life cycle CO2 count since wind and solar essentially produce literally zero CO2 during use.

Or do you mean manufacturing efficiency? If so, ok by how much? It would have to be over 50% manufacturing efficiency in the last 10 years. From what I know of solar PV. The price has gone down mostly due to economies of scale on the materials-procurement side.

, lots of previously "rare"/more harmful materials are no longer used.

If you say so. The issue is the pollution that comes from mining, production, and product life-time, in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And this also makes the paper worthless for modern:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x

Study also states missing decommissioning, half the process.

I must be missing something. They don't completely leave out decommissioning as defined under MLCF. Some datapoints have it taken into account, and even then not fully because they physically have no examples of a fully decommissioned nuclear power station to measure thus why a lot of them are incomplete.
Maybe I'm not seeing the section you're mentioning. Which page am I looking at?

I also never argued nuclear had high CO2 emissions, just more than solar/wind.

Exactly. You argue that nuclear has no use next to wind and solar and is basically not in contention, when in reality nuclear should be preferable to solar.

 

[ForceFate]

Russian oil still flowing to Europe via waters off Greece

Vessels made 41 ship-to-ship transfers over six months: Nikkei analysis

asia.nikkei.com

Phased terminations. Not everything came to a complete stop the day the sanctions were announced. Until recently, the US was still receiving materials from Russia.

 

[Johnatan56]

Or do you mean manufacturing efficiency?

It would have to be over 50% manufacturing efficiency in the last 10 years. From what I know of solar PV. The price has gone down mostly due to economies of scale on the materials-procurement side.

Yes, since the materials changed quite a bit, and you also need to factor in source of power used to manufacture them.
Solar went from ~12-16% efficiency average to ~20-22% (look at mostly thin film).

Following the article sources, since can't find any wind analysis in that online library document, there are two wind articles:

1. Dolan, S.L. and Heath, G.A. (2012), Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Utility-Scale Wind Power. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16: S136-S154. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00464.x
Which states:

Published estimates ranged from 1.7 to 81 grams CO2-equivalent per kilowatt-hour (g CO2-eq/kWh), with median and interquartile range (IQR) both at 12 g CO2-eq/kWh. After adjusting the published estimates to use consistent gross system boundaries and values for several important system parameters, the total range was reduced by 47% to 3.0 to 45 g CO2-eq/kWh and the IQR was reduced by 14% to 10 g CO2-eq/kWh, while the median remained relatively constant (11 g CO2-eq/kWh). Harmonization of capacity factor resulted in the largest reduction in variability in life cycle GHG emission estimates.

So median at 11g CO2-eq/kWh in 2012, would hazard a guess it's lower now.

2. White, S. W. and G. L. Kulcinski. 1999.‘Birth to death’ analysis of theenergy payback ratio and CO2gas emission rates from coal, fission,wind, and DT fusion power plants.UWFDM-1063. Madison, WI,USA: University of Wisconsin

I highlighted the 1999 figure there, so can regard that book as worthless for modern wind turbine construction.
I would consider the 2012 article you linked as irrelevant/incorrect based on that, not sure how they managed to publish the paper on wind efficiency, guess it was allowed as summary paper that was focused on nuclear, so they didn't really check wind side.

And in terms of wind turbine efficiency, just tried to find a 2012 turbine, there the jumps are about 2010ish, 2016 again:

And then there's a jump to ~50% more by 2025, thoughh we have probably exceeded that with offshore. Note that I purposefully looked for average rated output, not MW, this is average output for the year per turbine, just so you can see the difference in efficiency.

If you say so. The issue is the pollution that comes from mining, production, and product life-time, in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You'd need to factor it in as nuclear would need that to keep producing power, and the biggest CO2 production would be construction and decommission of the plant, outside of mining, processing, and delivery of uranium (which should be lower than coal, but you have the added effect of radiation).

Efficiency has nothing to do with the materials used to build

Yes it does as it's rated as per kWh produced, if more efficient, more power produced for less materials.

Exactly. You argue that nuclear has no use next to wind and solar and is basically not in contention, when in reality nuclear should be preferable to solar.

I do argue it, look at the cost of nuclear, the timeline to build it, and the danger aspects of it. It does not compete with solar/wind + battery nowadays. Even CSP beats it since about early 2020.
I'm not arguing about the CO2 output of nuclear being bad, the emissions levels are generally fine, but the statement of it is less than solar/wind is wrong.