On NPR the other day, while discussing a different topic, a commentator threw out the line that Germany has greatly(?) increased its use of coal since they turned off their nukes. Has there been any analysis of how their usage has changed in the last few years? I would find it a minor disaster if they’ve increased coal usage.
Yes, that is what is happening:
Numbers for German electrical production are available for 2011 to 2013 from https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/EconomicSectors/Energy/Production/Tables/GrossElectricityProduction.html
Total electrical production has gone from 613.2 billion kWh to 633.6 billion kWh in that time.
Nuclear generation:
2011: 108.0 billion kWh
2012: 99.5 billion kWh
2013: 97.3 billion kWh
Coal generation: (the Germans separate brown coal, or lignite, from heavy coal, but I’ll just lump both together.)
2011: 262.5 billion kWh
2012: 277.1 billion kWh
2013: 286.0 billion kWh
So while the Germans have shut down 10.7 billion kWh of nuclear generation, they’ve added 23.5 billion kWh of coal generation to account for more than the 20.4 billion kWh they’ve added total.
Interestingly, Germany’s also shut down a lot of natural gas generation in the last few years.
Why are they doing this? Is it really good public policy to decide to increase dependence on fossil fuels in this day and age?
Because nuclear power scares dumb people.
I don’t normally think of Germans as dumb people, but shutting down their entire nuclear energy program is very dumb.
Same with the Japanese, although I have a certain level of sympathy for them given that they went through a recent catastrophe. The Germans don’t have that excuse, which makes their policy all the more baffling. Their neighbors in France have set a world example for nuclear, generating 75% of their power from it.
What has the world come to when we are forced to admire the French? :eek:
Thanks for the info. Something that adds to the bafflement (for me) is that I thought Germany was attempting to be carbon-neutral in the near future. It disappoints me that it was so easy for them to make such a dumb decision.
Hah!
Not a fan of Classical music, wine, cheese, existential poetry, or fine dining, I take it?
Right, but aside from all that, the Mirage fighter jets, and Eva Green, what have the French done for us?!
Aqueducts?
New and exciting forms of sex? Certainly we get none of that from the Germans.
Which raises the question: What do they do with their nuclear waste?
They reprocess the spent fuel rods to recover the usable fuel still remaining in them. The remaining radioactive isotopes are vitrified and stored in temporary storage until the long-term geologic storage site is completed.