Berlin Builds a Giant Thermos to Help Heat Homes This Winter (apnews.com) 127
The Associated Press reports on a massive new 150-foot (45-meter) tower going up in Berlin — just to hold 56 million liters (14.8 million gallons) of hot water that "will help heat Berlin homes this winter even if Russian gas supplies dry up..."
"[T]he new facility unveiled Thursday at Vattenfall's Reuter power station will hold water brought to almost boiling temperature using electricity from solar and wind power plants across Germany. During periods when renewable energy exceeds demand the facility effectively acts as a giant battery, though instead of storing electricity it stores heat..." "It's a huge thermos that helps us to store the heat when we don't need it," said Tanja Wielgoss, who heads the Sweden-based company's heat unit in Germany. "And then we can release it when we need to use it.... Sometimes you have an abundance of electricity in the grids that you cannot use anymore, and then you need to turn off the wind turbines," said Wielgoss. "Where we are standing we can take in this electricity."
The 50-million-euro ($52 million) facility will have a thermal capacity of 200 Megawatts — enough to meet much of Berlin's hot water needs during the summer and about 10% of what it requires in the winter. The vast, insulated tank can keep water hot for up to 13 hours, helping bridge short periods when there's little wind or sun....
Berlin's top climate official, Bettina Jarasch, said the faster such heat storage systems are built, the better. "Due to its geographic location the Berlin region is even more dependent on Russian fossil fuels than other parts of Germany," she told The Associated Press. "That's why we're really in a hurry here."
"While it will be Europe's biggest heat storage facility when it's completed at the end of this year, an even bigger one is already being planned in the Netherlands."
"[T]he new facility unveiled Thursday at Vattenfall's Reuter power station will hold water brought to almost boiling temperature using electricity from solar and wind power plants across Germany. During periods when renewable energy exceeds demand the facility effectively acts as a giant battery, though instead of storing electricity it stores heat..." "It's a huge thermos that helps us to store the heat when we don't need it," said Tanja Wielgoss, who heads the Sweden-based company's heat unit in Germany. "And then we can release it when we need to use it.... Sometimes you have an abundance of electricity in the grids that you cannot use anymore, and then you need to turn off the wind turbines," said Wielgoss. "Where we are standing we can take in this electricity."
The 50-million-euro ($52 million) facility will have a thermal capacity of 200 Megawatts — enough to meet much of Berlin's hot water needs during the summer and about 10% of what it requires in the winter. The vast, insulated tank can keep water hot for up to 13 hours, helping bridge short periods when there's little wind or sun....
Berlin's top climate official, Bettina Jarasch, said the faster such heat storage systems are built, the better. "Due to its geographic location the Berlin region is even more dependent on Russian fossil fuels than other parts of Germany," she told The Associated Press. "That's why we're really in a hurry here."
"While it will be Europe's biggest heat storage facility when it's completed at the end of this year, an even bigger one is already being planned in the Netherlands."
Saving Face... (Score:5, Funny)
Mark my words.
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Nice try, but... the Germans drink schnapps, not vodka.
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Germans drink Vodka.
Why would we not?
We even have our own variations, that are called "Korn" (from corn, as many Vodkas are made from grains)
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I'm sure there's a few Scotsmen that drink vodka, too, but I'm not expecting to see a 45-meter vodka storage tower in the middle of Glasgow anytime soon.
And if there are food shortages... (Score:2)
It can be quickly adapted to hold hot soup!
Heats your home how exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it just me or did both the summary and article entirely skip over the explanation of how this hot water is going to be used/consumed?
"The 50-million-euro ($52 million) facility will have a thermal capacity of 200 Megawatts — enough to meet much of Berlin’s hot water needs during the summer and about 10% of what it requires in the winter. The vast, insulated tank can keep water hot for up to 13 hours, helping bridge short periods when there’s little wind or sun."
So does Germany have a hot water pipe running to every house? Will it be re-heated to steam to run generators? Basically how does heat get from the tank to solve Berlins heating / hot water requirements? Will people just stand around the giant tank like in Frostpunk?
"Wielgoss said she was confident that Vattenfall’s customers won’t go cold this winter"
Who or what are "Vattenfall’s customers" and how exactly do they benefit? It's just so vague.
Re:Heats your home how exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, a lot of Berlin has centrally heated piped heating, or they did when I lived there.
Re:Heats your home how exactly? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Heats your home how exactly? (Score:2)
That's an implementation issue. I live in NL and had a centralized hot water pipe ("city heating") since 2003. I've had 2 outages since then (that I know of), all fixed within the hour. I also pay less for it than the equivalent amount of gas, at the moment, because it's more efficient.
The difference is of course how you set it up and organise it.
Re: Heats your home how exactly? (Score:2)
Oh, and another thing: the water is at 70-80 degrees Celsius when it comes out of the pipe, so it's always hot.
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I don't know about Bucharest specifically, but in general, district heating and the water-system are two different systems.
That is because you will always need hot tap-water, but you will not need to heat the house in the summer.
The fresh water-supply carries only cold water -- which gets heated before it reaches the tap.
The district heating system's water is not suitable for drinking or washing. Even if other water is used through a heat-exchanger, that heated water is separate from drinking water.
Re: Heats your home how exactly? (Score:2)
Exactly. Many European towns and cities have a central heating system. This is a great way to use low-grade thermal energy from industrial processes, power plants, etc.. - instead of just heating the local river.
If you have an excess of electricity at certain point in the day, why not?
I just wish tech journalism had better standards, or *any* standards. Screwing up the units. Implying that a massive tank of hot water will get cold in 13 hours. The journalist is...underqualified.
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Yeah, the 13h make no sense at all.
It is probably 130h.
On the other hand: it obviously depends on actually usage. If enough households are connected, and the thing is heated during daytime with excess power, and depleted over night, then 13h might be just the night time.
But there is no way such a thing cools down to an unusable temperature in 13h if no heat is extracted.
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Who or what are "Vattenfallâ(TM)s customers" and how exactly do they benefit? It's just so vague.
That are house holds who have a contract with the Company Vattenfall.
That was easy, or?
Regarding the other question: the water is most likely only used for heating, and yes: many houses are connected to something we call Fernheizung in German (district heating).
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So does Germany have a hot water pipe running to every house?
Yes. Vattenfall Reuter West Powerplant is a CHP plant, which stands for "Combined Heat and Power". This powerplant is connected to the largest district heating network in the world, and as it is provides 878 MW of thermal energy (enough to heat about 60,000 homes in winter directly).
They need to do something because they are a coal power plant and as part of the coal phase out Berlin would not only lose access to electricity but to district heating if this plant shut down.
It's not the only source of distric
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"What you do is buy an old tanker trailer off a truck and bury it in your backyard. Then you fill it with a high temperature oil."
Indeed. The Environment agency and Water protection agency just love it when you bury old rusty oil-tankers filled with oil in your backyard.
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Safety protocols (Score:1)
What would be the effects of 14.8 million gallons of boiling water leaking out of that thing?
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Don't worry, they've surrounded it with a moat filled with crab and lobster.
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They are mutant german hermit crab and lobster, using old 55 gallon oil drums as shells
Re: Safety protocols (Score:2)
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What would be the effects of 14.8 million gallons of boiling water leaking out of that thing?
Far less than the effects of the equivalent tank for a major hazard facility storing petrochemicals, the kind of which exists in practically any reasonably sized city (and many small towns).
Germany isn't new to this. Basically no countries are.
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"What would be the effects of 14.8 million gallons of boiling water leaking out of that thing?"
Clean streets and no weeds for weeks.
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67282.13 quick meters
As opposed to slow meters ?
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Try cubic meters on for size...
They're going to need one (Score:3)
For the rest of Europe, not just Berlin
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The situation isn't that bad for the rest of europe, it's chiefly Germany which will be struggling because of the lack of diversification in their fuel sources for energy, while doing something about diversifying their energy supply is going to take a few years at minimum.
The issue with the energy crisis is that for a heavily industrialised country like Germany, cheap energy plays a huge role in their competitiveness and that in turn keeps them exporting. This will all change for them now, and it's not look
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The situation isn't that bad for the rest of europe, it's chiefly Germany which will be struggling because of the lack of diversification in their fuel sources for energy
No, it is all of Europe.
As most of the Gas Europe consumes came from Russia.
Or do you have the silly believe that France's gas usage is fulfilled out of thin air? Or Netherlands?
That hasn't worked out very well for them, it just demonstrates one rule for the inner circle of the EU, and different rules for the rabble.
Sorry that is simply fal
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You seem to be on a real mission trying to absolve Germany of any and all indiscretions it has had that has dragged Europe into this mess. I think the question of being an idiot or a slashdot troll is more pertinently asked of yourself.
Funny you mention France and Netherlands, for those two countries, Russia isn't the largest supplier of gas.
Netherland's energy trade [europa.eu] France's energy trade [europa.eu]
Come on, this data is a google search away, or are you just trying to create a false narrative? To share blame square
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Germany did not drag anyone into "this mess".
Germany is simply the entrane point for North Stream I and North Stram II into Europe.
Perhaps you can read that up.
Should I read the bits where other countries were critical about Germany funding Putin with Nord Stream 2, for many years, or is that irrelevant? How about reading about Gerhard Schroeder and his rosneft board seat, should I read up more about that and his involvement with nord stream?
The mess is caused by Putin/Russia attacking Ukraine.
Perhaps you can read that up, too.
If you had two brain cells to rub together, you'd read that I said that Germany has dragged Europe into it, not that Germany has caused it. They're completely different statements.
If the German leadership had the conviction of
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Yeah, you should read a bit up more.
Your points make no sense.
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Except at any time Russia could cut Europe off, they will probably wait until the coldest season
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This is nothing new. Decades ago, Putin had already weaponised gas by threatening to cut it off in order to get what he wanted at the time. The big problem was if he did actually do that, countries further down the line would also be cut off. This is why the whole Nord-Stream is such a hot topic, and there has been a lot of criticism for years, on the part of Germany, helping Russia create a situation where Russia can threaten countries with shutting off gas, until it gets its way.
Also, worth considering, g
Marginal benefit (Score:2)
So it will provide all of Berlin's summer hot water needs but only 10% of its winter needs? Not that useful: Germany needs Russian gas to stay warm during winter, not summer. And in winter, where is the surplus energy coming from to heat it in the first place?
Maybe you could scale it up 10x, but then 90% of its capacity would be wasted in summer.
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Another stupid /. comment of German hater?
This thing heats houses that are already connected to district heating/Fernwaerme. Those houses HAVE NO RUSSIAN DEPENDENT GAS HEATING - dumbass.
And in case you have not grasped it yet: we are at War with Russia. Next winter there will be no gas from Russia coming to Germany. No idea why people who can type on the internet are so damn stupid and uninformed.
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Not that useful
You're right, why did they even bother. Unless a single project can do 100% of anything it is "not that useful". Idiots the lot of them. Why don't they listen to Slashdotters who know how to solve world problems!
And in winter, where is the surplus energy coming from to heat it in the first place?
I could tell you, it has an answer that has nothing to do with Russian gas and everything to do with the power plant its being built at. But honestly I don't think you're worth it. Google it.
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Could read the summary too.
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If you read the article you will see that it's being built on the site of an existing power station. A conventional generator starts by making steam from heating water. If the water is hot already it means less fuel needs to be burned to generate that steam, if that is normally generated by gas, you will burn a lot less gas.
The other thing that you need to look at is the daily cycle of power usage. At night its around half that of the peak, this tends to coincide with higher wind levels in general. Wind
Swedish based huh? (Score:2)
Kinda funny since here in Sweden we have heard nothing about that, we're just "enjoying" 700% increased electricity costs, 10$ a gallon for gasoline.
Nice to know we're not investable enough to fix the heating issues of our own so our companies have to do it for other countries instead.
Re: Swedish based huh? (Score:2)
Maybe it can be done in Copenhagen, but do you have district heating/ city heating in place? Building the plant is less of a problem than running hot water pipes all over the city.
Re: Swedish based huh? (Score:2)
Not much harder than running fiber.
IMO instead of government trying to get everyone to buy air to x heatpumps, they should provide district heating and cooling with distributed large scale geothermal heatpumps. At least it will still work well in extreme cold conditions.
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Microtrenching is the exception for laying the curb side fiber in my country, they tend to have a normal trench wide enough to stand in. Which is wide enough to lay distribution pipes for say 100-200 homes. That's how I envision the ground source heat pumps to be build, for a couple 100 homes, same as medium voltage to mains voltage conversion stations here. Gotta dig below the frost line, but as long as the soil can support a trench with mostly vertical walls and you don't actually need to physically stand
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Nice to know we're not investable enough
Do you personally connect to a district heating system already that could benefit with a large tank that can be charged with surplus green energy at the risk of the coal fired station which provides your existing heat shutting down?
If you answered no to this *very* specific question, then you're right, it makes not sense to build this for you.
Build a large district heating plant, connect all your houses to it, ensure that it is coal fired and that your local government issues a decree for it to shut down, a
It will be more logic (Score:2)
to build in underground to preserve the heat. Even if it deep enough it can heat by itself using the mantle heat. In nordic countries, some cities are heated using old mines filed with water that heat by itself.
The begining of the end for Vattenfall Nuclear (Score:3)
Vattenfall owns about 10 nuclear plants, IIRC. I think it's appropriate to point out that they commissioned a paper that was once used to inform the IPCC on energy policy related to validating nuclear power as a CO2 mitigation strategy.
That paper could no be certified, due to errors and overly optimistic assumptions that led to the basis of arguments that nuclear is a solution to climate change. Including claims on the Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) and a false reputation that nuclear power is CO2 free.
The Vattenfall paper is no longer available so I cannot provide a link anymore. The only authoritative peer reviewed work is Nuclear power the energy balance [stormsmith.nl] which is used by European Parliament to guide energy policy.
I think it's good to see Vattenfall has changed their perspective and are building something like this heated by solar and wind instead of nuclear.
It could have been so much easier (Score:3)
Just connect the Bundestag to the heating system of Berlin. The hot air produced in there can easily heat the capital.
Data from the source (Score:2)
This article [vattenfall.com] from the company itself has some more well defined numbers:
At maximum output of 200 Megawatt thermal, the storage facility can provide heat for about 13 hours.
So the power is 200MW, and the capacity is 2600kWh.
Wrong units (Score:2)
"thermal capacity of 200 Megawatts "
What? Maybe that's how much power it can supply, but thermal capacity is not defined in power units. Maybe they mean energy storage capacity, and maybe they mean 200 MWh?
Re: units (Score:3)
It's so small it doesn't matter.
But they should use Glauber Salt for better capacity.
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Really need units! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Really need units! (Score:2)
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I know the meme but actually, there is a serious problem with units. 200MW is a power rating presumably of how fast it can charge or discharge not how much energy it can store. What we really need to know is the storage capacity which is measured in joules, not watts.
It takes 4184 joules to heat 1 L of water 1C [wikipedia.org].
So lets assume they go on the warm side at 60C, I couldn't find a good source for the cold water but 10C seems reasonable.
So 4184 joules * 56 million liters * 50 C -> 1.1715e+7 megajoules. And 1 MW is 1 MJ/S meaning 1 MWh is 1 MJ/3600.
So 1.1715e+7 MJ means 1.1715e+7 MJ / 3600 = 3254 MWh
I'm sure my error bars are pretty big but that seems a reasonable ballpark.
Little inventions (Score:1)
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Almost like the Greens were funded by Moscow
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Central and Eastern Europe has had business connections regarding fossile fuels independent of the political situation way back into the sovjet era.
And the base of that always was no matter what happens the trading between the east and west will not be interrupted and every party will stick to their contracts.
What happens atm is a bad divorce in this area caused by russia going full 19th century war politics on parts of eastern europe, sanctions, russia breaking their existing contracts by demanding payment
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I forgot, this thing is way older, russia has been trying to destabilize the western part of the EU for a long time by using the internet and trolling, also they paid extreme right wing parties off via various channels to get destabilizing elements in, just like they had connections to Trump etc.. very likely.
The pattern is simply, try to stir unrest get political unstable incompetent people into major positions make them weak.
This has been ongoing for a while and basically is also a really old tactic of di
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And they continue to fund that moron in France, le Pen. She claimed to want to pull France out of NATO, the same reason they funded our homegrown poodle, the former alleged president. When quizzed, Alexander Vindman said that his minder in the Kremlin didn't invade Ukraine under The Poodle because he was already helping to destroy NATO from within. Putin figured he would just wait until the job was done. Then his Poodle lost, and Putin realized he wasn't getting any younger. If he wanted to be known as Puti
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Not only Le Pen, basically every european extreme right wing Party has ties to russia financially one way or the other, you just have to dig deep enough.
They do not even hide it that much, a simple google search reveals the ties.
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Why would anyone in the West back Putin to "get the Ukraine back"? Not even a Trump would do that.
Re: Germany shuts down half of its 6 remaining nuc (Score:2)
Our local right wing is already saying we should make peace with Russia and give him what he wants. They're idiots, but useful ones for Putin I'd say.
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Putin's Poodle in the U.S. is already on record stating that the U.S. should fund securing our schools before funding Ukraine. This a false choice. The main reason U.S. schools need securing is because his gun-nut followers have flooded the U.S. with guns. Want to secure the schools? Start now by sopping up the guns.
It isn't that only people with psychological problems use guns, it is that normal people sometimes go apeshit after they already have their guns. Then there the gun-nuts who actually believe wha
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He would... he already was weakening the NATO...
Putin wanted to wait for Trump for this invasion but given he is running out of time health wise (reports say he has about 2-3 years left) he has pressed forward now.
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Considering how Baerbock was insulted by Lavrov on her first meeting with him as foreign minister, and how she's been "hell hath no fury like woman scorn" - personified, dragging her party kicking and screaming into sanctions against Russia, it's fairly certain that they haven't been funded by Russia for some time.
That said, it's also quite well understood that initial German anti-nuclear protest movement was in part organised by KGB and later FSB specifically to push for more gas imports.
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That said, it's also quite well understood that initial German anti-nuclear protest movement was in part organised by KGB and later FSB specifically to push for more gas imports.
Sorry, that is so stupid and so idiotic, I can not call it a lie.
Otherwise: please tell, me where I can get my share of that funding.
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That said, it's also quite well understood that initial German anti-nuclear protest movement was in part organised by KGB and later FSB specifically to push for more gas imports.
The Russians have always exploited "useful idiots", but they were also very tight-fisted in the funding they provided. Did it really make much difference?
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Funny how that stupid conspiracy theory turned out, with Russia avoiding any escalations during Trump's period, but taking Crimea and Donbas during Obama's tenure and starting a full all out invasion during Biden's.
It's almost like reality is the diametric opposite of this conspiracy theory, isn't it?
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No, it is that Putin figured his Poodle would destroy NATO from within. Vindman said as much when quizzed on this very topic.
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Moscow, and the Soviet union before, has always been involved in funding these protest (of nearly any kind including peace and green) movements in a hope to destabilize and weaken the west. And in many respects they succeeded.
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They didn't. They got rid of it to build up coal, wind and solar. Of which two of the latter just don't work properly in Germany, because it's a country of low wind and solar intensity, so they generate very little compared to their supposed nominal power output. There are few if any oil burning plants, unless you count CCGTs in the "but they can also burn light oil distillates in less efficient mode" as oil burners.
That sad, other than domestically sourced coal which is mostly lignite coal, most of new co
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They didn't. They got rid of it to build up coal, wind and solar.
Coal usage continued to decline.
Of which two of the latter just don't work properly in Germany, because it's a country of low wind and solar intensity
That will explain why sometimes the price is negative for these due to over-adbundance.
so they generate very little compared to their supposed nominal power output.
Have you ever considered actually checking your assertions against evidence before posting? If you did, you'd know that this is nonsense.
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>Coal usage continued to decline.
Of course it did. Totally. Completely.
Because they moved to lignite, and lignite is technically worse than coal. Even though it's a subcategory of coal.
>That will explain why sometimes the price is negative for these due to over-adbundance.
And why most of the time, you have to burn coal en masse just to keep grid from collapsing. Turns out that if you want to have something that is always on, it's really bad to have things that produce large amounts for very little tim
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Because they moved to lignite, and lignite is technically worse than coal. Even though it's a subcategory of coal.
a) we did not move to lignite - Germany always was a big Lignite consumer. And Lignite usage, just as hard coal: declined considerably as well, close to 40%.
b) and lignite is technically worse than coal That is wrong, and you know it, so you are lying again.
Just like (hard) coal plants, lignite plants are scrubbed. Since the mid 1970s. Everyone one knows that, just you pretend not to know it.
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Of course it did. Totally. Completely.
Yes, it did. You can go and look up the figures for it. Do you want me to post them for you, or can you manage to look it up on your own?
Because they moved to lignite, and lignite is technically worse than coal.
As others noted, lignite usage fell too.
And why most of the time, you have to burn coal en masse just to keep grid from collapsing.
Maybe, after you've looked up actual figures, rather than using your imagination, you can point out where this happened. By the way, you can't do what you say happened - coal plants take a long time to turn on, and the issue that would cause 'the grid to collapse' is short-term issues.
Have you considered taking your own advice?
I have done. I've looked this stuff up many times
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They got rid of it to build up coal, wind and solar. That is wrong, and you know it, so you are a liar.
Coal usage dropped by roughly 50% over the last 30 years. You know that: so you are a liar.
Of which two of the latter just don't work properly in Germany, because it's a country of low wind and solar intensity,
That is not only wrong, but stupid. But as you know you are wrong: you are a liar.
Germany produces 50% of its electricity with (mostly), TA TA: Wind and Solar. No idea how one can be so utterly stupi
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But that is a non sequitur. As the latter does not follow from the former.
Nuclear is primarily used for generating electricity.
Fossil fuels are primarily used for heating, like heating homes, industrial scale brewing of bear, industrial scale furnaces and so forth.
Now you
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I mean it's true that quitting nuclear was stupid.
The German population is fighting nuclear plants since roughly 1960.
Not quitting had caused civil war.
Considering that the Greens/Reds(SPD) already had signed the exit before Merkel came to power, but she reverted the exit: it was political suicide (and probably in real life, too) not to reinstall/continue with the exit.
You have absolutely no clue about the anti nuclear will here in Germany.
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I even wrote what you rewrote here in a conversation with YOU specifically. And there's no contradiction here anyway.
You're one of the stupidest contrarian dumbasses on here while being extremely arrogant to anyone that slightly disagrees with your dumbass uninformed bullshit.
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You have absolutely no clue about the anti nuclear will here in Germany.
Just in case you forgot to actually write a coherent answer.
The rest of your post is gibberish :D Why you think Germany should build up new nukes, when no one wants them, is beyond me.
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You can't because you made it up. That's the general problem with you, you live in your own delusion and reject anything else.
The general problem with what people want is that people are not very smart when it comes to things like this. After all there's a reason why science and engineering is not a democracy and up to popular votes that can be easily influenced by the media. Thus people frequently do not "unite behind the science", but behind
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Now show me where I wrote that "new nukes" should be built.
You did not. Is that some stupid rhetoric trick? The last nuke will go offline in a few months.
So: to have Germany have nuke power: we need to build new nukes. And we wont.
So: what is your damn point besides showing everyone here that you are an idiot?
GO. FUCK. YOURSELF. :P
That would be my suggestion to you, too
it wasn't smart to phase out nuclear given the alternatives.
Yes it was. As the population wanted it since > 50 years. No idea why you t
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Building new nuclear power plants wouldn't be of much help right now.
After all we need to offset energy production now, not in 10 years or longer when a new nuclear power plant would become a net benefit. So that's not even a
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The stupid thing was to quit nuclear power without having ensured a reliable replacement that runs on a "reliable fuel source"
We had that.
But Merkel canceled the exit. So also the shift to wind and solar was canceled - and went only surprisingly quick nevertheless because of market shifts.
This means old coal power plants will be fired up again. And it likely also means the dirty and shitty lignite that Germany has plenty of in the Ruhr region.
Lignite is not dirty. It is scrubbed in the same way hard coal i
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If you mean that it's terrible and that you get even less energy out of it for the amount of waste produced, then yes.
Otherwise thanks, that nod towards the "clean coal" rhetoric gave me a good laugh.
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The point is:
coal and lignite is scrubbed.
Since 30 or years, nearly 40 years.
So: there is no dirt except ashes.
And some one who does not know such trivial stuff obviously felt for the "lignite is the dirtiest thing after the exhaust of a steel factory" bollocks from 45+ years ago.
A cola plant does not really emit anything except CO2 and steam.
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I think we're done here.
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Nuclear isn't carbon-free. The whole nuclear life-cycle emits about half as much CO2e as fossil fuels, but that is still a whole lot more than from renewable fuels.
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The "13 hours" figure is probably incorrect.
There is no way that amount of water is going to cool that fast, considering how much thermal mass it is.