Germany Slowly Getting off Russian Gas By Not Restarting Nuclear

There is some mostly empty talk from Germany about reducing imports of Russian energy.

Germany plans to stop almost all Russian oil imports this year and broadly wean itself off Russian gas by mid-2024.

Germany could restart three nuclear reactors and get off Russian gas this year.

SOURCES- Reuters, Bloomberg
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

23 thoughts on “Germany Slowly Getting off Russian Gas By Not Restarting Nuclear”

  1. BTW it would be helpful if the Dutch rushed their gas production, yes the Earth subside ,but right now more gas would be helpful, very profitable as well.

  2. No,it is the German people who are guilty,we need to punish these people relentlessly for their constant support of fascism throughout their history.
    If they would keep their nuclear plants open that would show they support clean power and do not support Putin,but they don't want clean power and the Germans love a brutal dictator.

  3. Germans and French have always supported Russia,they are the traitors behind the lines,at least the French have the decency to use some simple technology that obviates the need for the masses of coal and gas Germany needs.
    The Germans are a cancer in the free world that needs surgical excising.

  4. Note that I was talking about ENERGY payback times, not financial – solar incentives aren't relevant to those studies.

    If you're implying that energy payback studies are biased for solar, I think you need more relevant evidence than the existence of solar incentives. We have solar incentives to get more of it, faster – same reason we have long had incentives for oil and gas exploration and used to subsidize home mortgages.

    And speaking of incentives, a lot of power companies now want to charge solar customers hefty grid connection fees that they don't charge other customers who use less electricity during daylight hours for other reasons (like being away from home at work).

    And they don't allow solar customers to use their rate plans that charge a lot during peak demand hours and less at night – again, unlike customers who simply use less during peak electric demand hours.

    Think they don't like competition from home solar? Yep.

  5. Thank you for your reply. I have indeed seen similar reports painting a very flattering picture for solar cells.
    However, if those numbers were true there would be no need for all the subventions accompanying solar: Are those numbers you cited account for subventions already? Are those performances measured for high end solar-cells? Does it take into consideration the installation, maintenance, recycling, loss for agricultural surface, storage of energy, complications for the existing electric grid and the associated costs?

    So, these numbers look nice on paper indeed, yet solar energy is still very expensive and impractical for an industrial civilization, even with the subventions and an ultra-favorable legislation.

  6. Full lifecycle energy pay-back time for mono-crystalline PV panels has been estimated between 4.5 and 9 years, with the high end estimate coming from more than 2 decades ago. Presumably there have been some energy economies of scale since that time, so 5 years is probably closer to correct.

    That includes raw material extraction but I think not recycling, since the latter would count against the next generation of panels or other products. Recycling energy ought to be lower than raw material extraction and processing, so in the net this could mean lower long term energy inputs.

    If 5 years to payback is correct, the typical 25 year lifespan estimate would give 20 more years of energy production, though there is some decline in efficiency each year, typically estimated to fall to 80% as efficient by 25 years. Assuming panels get recycled at 25 years, the energy return on energy input falls between 3:1 and 5:1.

    However, I've seen EROI estimates ranging from 2:1 to 9:1 and obviously the energy produced can vary by region, as can lifespan and other factors. A merely positive EROI may not be enough – some studies estimate that an advanced civilization requires 7:1.

    Cadmium/Telluride thin-film panels have some toxic elements, but are getting pretty efficient and have payback times measured in months, with energy pay-back time estimates around 1 year plus or minus 6 months. This seems to indicate that progress in solar technology could hit the 7:1 "civilized" ratio.

  7. I just heard a news item about an armed group plotting to overthrown the German government by destroying the electricity grid. This seems rather redundant, since the German government has been slowly doing that for decades.

  8. Besides the obvious direct funding supplied by fossil fuel companies for to various antinuclear "green" non-profits and these organizations having been aligned with Amory Lovins vision of "microgeneration" using fossil fuels (AKA widely distributed pollution) as a "bridge" to a "renewable" future. I would look to Rod Adams who have covered this extensively over many years in his "smoking gun" series.

  9. Space solar energy is fine for space propulsion. A solar space station redirecting energy toward space vessels would be an amazing progress and a good investment.
    But redirecting it toward earth would never compensate for the energy used to build the station.
    Solar cells on earth are more akin to costly batteries slowly restituting the energy invested in their creation before they have to be discarded (efficiency loss). If you account for all steps of their life-cycle, including end of life treatment, I seriously doubt solar cells are energy-positive in most cases.
    I'm skeptic even Musk's super starship would make a solar station a reasonable investment for regular citizens' usage.

  10. While the german green party loyalists have solarpunk utopia visions clouding their eyes, the reality is typical german green policy is based on restricting lifestyles. So poor people going cold this year due to jacked up gas prices is acceptable in their eyes, rather than restarting all their reactors which would instantly ween them from russian gas (well, reactor restarts would take a few months though, so wouldn't make it for this winter at least). Those politicians deliberately want their citizens to suffer rather than crossing a supposed green moral line.

  11. ESA will stop looking like a clown when proposing an EU SPS when they get around to funding a fully reusable TSTO. Project Themis gets to Falcon 9 equivalent with non reusable upper stages, but is not yet a full reusable TSTO.

  12. I'm for Space Solar, but the already existing nukes are not a problem that will get worse by using them. Indeed, power beaming lets the nukes go full blast all the time, even cheaper.

  13. If they are serious about their anti-CO2 fanaticism and aren't just Putin toadies, they need to seriously think about space solar. Or nukes.

    But given the later is not in the table yet, I'd say they'll just suck it up and bend the knee to king Putin.

  14. Putin funded the anti-fracking movement. This is what happens when you take money from your enemies.

  15. The Average price of MMBTU's in the USA is under $6. In Germany it has been $36 (in USDs). It is heading toward $60. Germans are just going to shiver until Spring.

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