Thursday 14 July 2022

Germany’s energy catastrophe

Renewables: take 400-500 times as much land as nuclear, for the same energy generation. This is a key issue in places like Japan and Europe. Indeed, pretty much anywhere.

Nuclear is safe, in operation and in handling of waste. Yet people think the opposite. Because “Greens” have scared them.

I wonder: Why do Greens hate Nuclear? I suspect their fear is real. Just that it’s not science based.

This article also links to Michael Shellenberger, who was an early environmentalist in California who came to realise that renewables would not solve the problem. Nuclear can. “Why renewables can’t save the planet”. 

ADDED: those that say we can store with batteries, three things: (i) Elon Musk, who has put his money where his mouth is on battery power by building mega factories, now believes that batteries can’t help, long term, with storage, for more than a few minutes per day. (ii) Making batteries is really dirty. (iii) Getting rid of dead batteries is really dirty. 

One of the links is to the article that California would be carbon neutral now if it had invested in nuclear power instead of renewables. I’ve said the same about the world. We’d be carbon neutral, at least on electricity production, if we’d gone nuclear. And it would’ve been cheaper. 

Related:

It’s over for Germany”.

"German government lied about nuclear"