Germany feels fallout amid nuclear shutdown

[FBaggins]

Those on the frontline of Germany’s nuclear power phase-out talk about a daily struggle to keep the lights on. One year after half the country’s nuclear plants were switched off, the government argues that the country’s conversion to electricity from renewable sources over the next decade is on track. But many experts question this and say the transition is proving difficult.

We got through the winter,” says Volker Weinreich, head of the northern control centre for Tennet, the Dutch group which runs one of Germany’s four high-voltage regional networks. “But we were lucky and are reaching the limits of what’s doable.” From a bland, low-rise building on the outskirts of Hanover, Mr Weinreich and his colleagues in 2011 had to step in 1,024 times to circumvent bottlenecks or maintain voltage in Tennet’s cables, which stretch from the North Sea to the Alps. That was almost four times the number of interventions in the previous year.

...snip...

“We got through the cold spell with a very black eye,” says Jürgen Hambrecht, who advised chancellor Angela Merkel as a member of her ethics commission on energy. “We have still got very ambitious goals?...?But everywhere we’re short on implementation, on concrete action.”

...snip...

“We no longer have the reserves that give us real room to manoeuvre in a crisis,” says Mr Weinreich. “What if we’d lost a big plant?” That would force “load shedding”, he says, or turning off the lights in pockets across Europe.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=germany%20feels%20fallout&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCcQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F8925115a-6eb7-11e1-afb8-00144feab49a.html&ei=xthxT7XVDMXi0QGfuuGxAQ&usg=AFQjCNEMGq1Gh-WTfR_1PdU-_uFNdUD8pg

[RobertEarl]

1. They'll be fine

Read that Japan has shut down 52 of its 54 nuke plants. And they still have their lights on. Makes it seem like nuke plants are superfluous.

[FBaggins]

2. You're saying that Japan isn't having trouble?

Then your reading has been incomplete. They're really struggling. Even before shutting down the rest of their plants, they had to order businesses to curtail power usage by 15% (closing factories and/or requiring people to work at night to load-shift)... while business burned even more fossil fuel (running their emergency generators to help close the gap).

The two situations really aren't the same. Germany has a solid grid that they share with much of Europe. They can buy power if they need it to keep the lights on. Japan has never had much of an option (they struggle even to share power from one side of the country to the other). Because of their isolation, they built much more excess capacity into the system.

And now they're using it. You'll see stories posted here about some tiny solar plant opening up or plans for a small geothermal plant... but the reality is that they're burning massive amounts of coal/oil/gas that they didn't need before, and almost all of that that has to be imported. They're economy (already on the rocks) is suffering substantially.

And even with all of that backup fossil generation running full-throttle, there are real concerns about "keeping the lights on" for this summer if they can't get the plants restarted. The government says that they're still about 17 GWs short. Many companies have said that if they have to go another year or two with such power restrictions, they'll move their manufacturing out of the country.

[RobertEarl]

3. Japan is having trouble

Mainly with radiation. Electricity problems are solvable. Radiation kills.

Japan, economically and ecologically is unsustainable. Their debt is the highest in the world, the land overpopulated, and its import deficit huge.

Something was bound to constrain its growth and it looks like Fukushima is just one result of its over-reach.

[RobertEarl]

4. Maybe you know

How much electricity is being used to run the pumps keeping the 52 reactors from blowing sky-high like Fuku?

And how many years will those pumps have to keep running? 10? 20?

When a coal or oil plant is shut down, needed electric use is zero. Right. Not so with nukes.

Japan IS in trouble.

[FBaggins]

6. You're kidding, right?

How much electricity is being used to run the pumps keeping the 52 reactors from blowing sky-high like Fuku?

Comparatively little. It's ridiculous to pretend that the power shortages this coming summer will be because nuclear plants have to circulate a little water. Laughable really.

And how many years will those pumps have to keep running? 10? 20?

You mean if they never turn the reactors back on? Try this one... how long have pumps been running at Chernobyl?

[RobertEarl]

7. But what happens when the power goes out?

http://truth-out.org/news/item/7301-400-chernobyls-solar-flares-electromagnetic-pulses-and-nuclear-armageddon

You have heard of the Carrington Effect, right? How do you stand on the premise made in the link above?

Don't you realize that dismissing Nature is the chief reason Fuku blew sky-high? So what are ya gonna do about it? Germany has taken the proper course by shutting down the time bomb of nuclear PP's. You should, as we all should, be praising Germany for its intelligence and foresight.

[FBaggins]

8. They shift over to backup power.

You have heard of the Carrington Effect, right?

You actually bought that? You really think that EMP isn't a consideration already in nuclear plant design?

[RobertEarl]

9. All I know is

The history of Fuku is that the design did not consider the effects of the earthquake or Tsunami.

So.... I doubt that these 'designers' are up to speed on reality. We have the proof they are living in a dream world.

[FBaggins]

11. Sorry. That doesn't make sense.

It's like saying that when a wheel falls off of a car, it proves that auto designers are "living in a dream world"

It's an excuse to just imagine anything that you would like. What about an asteroid strike or a supervolcano explosion? What about the predicted megatsunami when the Cumbre Vieja on La Palma collapses?

No reactor could survive.

[RobertEarl]

12. You get it?

Nuclear plants will blow sky-high and cause untold damages when they eventually blow up like Fuku did.

That's why the Germans are shutting down their time-bombs. They have decided that there is no nuke design that can be safe for mankind. They have decided that burning the house down to stay warm is dumb.

Elemental, really.

Profits and power ruled the day until the "nuclear safety myth" was Fuku'd. Glad to see reality taking place of that myth.

[FBaggins]

15. Lol... as with so many anti-nukes...

...you have a very "creative" view of reality.

Nuclear plants "will" blow sky high? They "eventually" "blow up like Fuku did"?

So you're really interested in taking action now to save a future tens of thousands of lives from an event that will otherwise kills tens/hundreds of millions of people anyway? (probably including just about all of the people you "saved&quot .

Yes, that is indeed the lesson of Fukushima. Some people will ignore actual events and allow irrational fears to control their lives.

[RobertEarl]

17. Hmmm

I posted a link about the Carrington Effect that humans have survived pre-nukes, and you dismiss is with your doomer idea that an asteroid will kill everyone anyway, so who gives a fuck?

And then you try to put me down saying that saving people from nukes blowing up like Fuku is somehow irrational?

Wow.

Maybe you are unhappy in this group? Are you trying to get kicked out, or what?

[FBaggins]

5. You've got that exactly backwards.

The radiation has yet to kill anyone... a lack of power does kill. There was a substantial increase in heatstroke deaths last summer due to the lack of power.

[dipsydoodle]

10. They'll be fine

just as long as they get power from the French nuclear power stations.

[bananas]

13. It's better than struggling with a meltdown - These rickety old plants don't last forever

Better to shut them down before something bad happens.

[FBaggins]

14. False dichotomy.

Those aren't the only two options.

These rickety old plants don't last forever

Could you do a quick review of all of the major nuclear incidents (say... INES 4 or higher) and let us know which of them were caused by an aging plant just giving out due to those advanced years?

Hoover Dam is now almost 75 years old. Should we shut it down "before something bad happens"? It won't last forever you know.

What happens to Redding, Ca (pop 90,000) if Shasta Dam (67 years old and designed almost a century ago) gives out?

[RobertEarl]

18. rickety old plants don't last forever

No they won't last forever. But as you well know and some folks here won't accept as reality, the waste from the nukes will last several lifetimes, which in a sense, is forever.

[Yo_Mama]

16. Fallout? Surely a poor choice of wording!

Oh, I know you aren't responsible and that it is an idiot headline writer, but still, I just had to object.

They may have a problem pending, because two of the coal plants were supposed to be shut down at the end of the year:
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=8948

They had to reactivate some of the old ones for reserves during the cold snap this year, so I suppose they could always continue them. BNetzA had asked that the closure of the older coal plants be deferred:

In view of possible energy bottlenecks following Germany’s energy policy shift last year (and the immediate shutdown of eight nuclear power plants), the Federal Network Agency asked the government of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) to postpone the closure of E.ON’s four coal-fired power plants, Rheinische Post reported in August 2011. Whether the NRW government will act in favour of E.ON remains to be seen. Due to the recent mild winter, demand could be met. Yet there are calls for new conventional power plants, which can operate in times when renewable energy sources do not generate electricity due to unfavorable weather conditions. As building and operating theses plants in an environment where renewable energy enjoys priority lacks sufficient incentives right now, the question remains if the operating times of older plants like the E.ON plants need to be extended for a certain period.

Realistically, the timing of all this also depends on the completing some of the transmission lines.

I understand that there are some technical, legal and pace-of-building problems, but the new concerns over funding all this now seem to be rising to the surface. The plan requires the new gas plants, and nobody wants to build them. Eventually those transmission lines will surely be completed, and I suppose then they suspect the plants won't run enough to turn a profit. This summer they are supposed to work out a plan to provide incentives so that the gas plants will be built. But surely it will take a few years for them to be completed?