{"id":1486678,"date":"2024-08-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1486678"},"modified":"2024-08-29T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T13:00:00","slug":"study-quantifies-germanys-disastrous-switch-away-from-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/study-quantifies-germanys-disastrous-switch-away-from-nuclear-power\/1486678\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Quantifies Germany’s Disastrous Switch Away From Nuclear Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Study Quantifies Germany’s Disastrous Switch Away From Nuclear Power<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

At the dawn of the millennium, Germany launched an ambitious plan to transition to renewable energy.<\/strong> \u201cDie Energiewende\u201d initiated a massive expansion of solar and wind power, resulting in a commendable 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2022 compared to 2002.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But while Energiewende slashed pollution through building out renewable energy sources, it also phased out Germany\u2019s fleet of safe, carbon-free nuclear power plants<\/strong>, a longtime goal of environmental activists afraid of nuclear\u2019s salient \u2013 but in actuality small<\/a> \u2013 dangers. The result, according to a new analysis<\/a> recently published to the International Journal of Sustainable Energy, has been a boondoggle for consumers and for the environment.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2002, nuclear power supplied about a fifth of Germany\u2019s electricity. Twenty-one years later, it supplied none.<\/strong> A layperson might think that cheap wind and solar could simply fill the gap, but it isn\u2019t so simple. Once up and running, nuclear reactors provide reliable, affordable “baseload” power \u2013 electricity that\u2019s available all the time. Ephemeral renewables simply can\u2019t match nuclear\u2019s consistency. <\/strong>And since an advanced economy like Germany’s requires a 100 percent reliable power grid, fossil fuel power plants burning coal and natural gas were brought online to pick up wind and solar\u2019s slack.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The net result of German politicians\u2019 shortsightedness in phasing out nuclear power is a vastly pricier grid. <\/strong>The new analysis shows that if Germans simply maintained their 2002 fleet of reactors through 2022, they could have saved themselves roughly $600 billion Euros. Why so much? Well, in addition to their construction costs, renewables required expensive grid upgrades and subsidies. Moreover, in this hypothetical scenario where nuclear remained, Germany enjoyed nearly identical reductions in carbon emissions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jan Emblemsv\u00e5g<\/a>, a Professor of Civil Engineering at Norway’s NTNU and the architect of the analysis, imagined another scenario out of curiosity. What if the Germans had taken the money spent on expanding renewables and instead used it to construct new nuclear capacity?<\/strong> According to his calculations, they could have slashed carbon emissions a further 73% on top of their cuts in 2022, while simultaneously enjoying a savings of 330 billion Euros compared to the massive costs of Energiewende.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Policymakers in other countries looking to decarbonize their grids should take note.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 08\/29\/2024 – 05:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/energy\/study-quantifies-germanys-disastrous-switch-away-nuclear-power<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Study Quantifies Germany’s Disastrous Switch Away From Nuclear Power Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience, At the dawn of the millennium, Germany launched an ambitious…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1486679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1486678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1486678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1486679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1486678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1486678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1486678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}