The energy thread

[Skybird]

Frotz Vahrenholt writes for the Achse:
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Despite looming electricity shortage, government relies on more consumption

Electricity prices will remain four times as high as before 2021. In April, three additional nuclear power plants will go offline, and a year later, coal-fired power plants with 7,000 megawatts of capacity are to cease operations. Electric heat pumps and cars, however, require even more electricity. It is completely unclear how this bottleneck can be overcome.

Gas prices have fallen significantly in recent months and are "only" about twice what they were in 2021. But electricity prices remain about four times as high as they were before the energy crisis at the beginning of 2021. While electricity traded at €4.5 ct/kwh on the stock exchange at the beginning of 2021, the price is currently hovering around €15 ct/kwh. There is no relief in sight, as three nuclear power plants will go offline on April 15, and 7,000 MW of coal-fired power plants are scheduled to cease operations in April 2024.

It is a complete mystery how this bottleneck can be overcome. Of the 3,200 megawatts (MW) of wind energy put out to tender for February 1, only 1,441 MW were approved, even though the feed-in tariff had been increased by 25 percent to 7.35 €ct/kwh. MW of wind cannot be compared with MW of coal or nuclear power. Over the course of a year, one MW of wind only provides about a quarter of the electricity generated by one MW of coal or nuclear power. On about 140 days, wind power plants in Germany fail completely as electricity suppliers. Their electricity generation is then between zero and 10 percent. The 30,000 MW of gas-fired power plants needed for these lulls - this is also demanded by Stefan Kapferer, Chairman of the Board of the grid operator 50 Hertz - is wishful thinking on the part of a government that has shown in recent months, with its gas levy, gas price brake and profit skimming in power generation, that it is incapable of creating reliable framework conditions for investors.

So while the federal government wants to build 40 new gas-fired power plants, it is turning off the gas tap for citizens. It is impossible to be more anti-citizen than Economics Minister Habeck. He announced his intention to ban new gas and oil-fired heating systems as early as 2024 and to limit the maximum age of gas-fired heating systems to 30 years. When he then noticed the ****storm of indignant citizens, he conceded that a broken heating system could still be replaced by a gas heating system for three years, but then it would have to be replaced by a heat pump, electricity heating or pellet heating at the latest. To replace a heating system that breaks down in 2024 or 2025 with a gas heating system for three years is quite unrealistic.

Citizens already have enough to contend with in terms of increased electricity prices, and here the Minister of Economics is calling for the gas/oil heating system to be converted to electricity, of all things. At the same time, the green head of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, declares that because of impending electricity shortages, the power connections for e-cars and for heat pumps are to be made disconnectable, so that for three hours the power for e-cars or heat pumps can be cut off.

What do Pakistani coal-fired power plants have to do with Germany?

Everyone knows that gas heating can be replaced relatively easily by low-temperature heating from a heat pump if underfloor heating is available. Where this is not the case, there is a huge need for investment. We also know that a heat pump is 2.5 times more energy efficient than a natural gas heating system. But what does the bill look like when electricity is three times more expensive than natural gas? And if electricity is generated by natural gas or coal during dark periods, the positive eco-balance is gone.

In the summer of 2022, the German Economics Minister delayed the decision to reactivate coal-fired power plants until the fall. While it was obvious that it was imperative to replace gas-fired power plants with coal-fired power plants as early as possible, he allowed the gas-fired power plants to continue running and bought gas on the world markets at peak prices, causing gas prices to skyrocket on the world markets. This price pressure will arise again when Germany implements its planned massive gas-fired power plant program. Other countries have drawn consequences from this. Pakistan has scrapped its gas-fired power plant program and has decided to build 10,000 MW of coal-fired power plants. China recently announced that it is building an additional 106,000 MW of coal plants and has slowed its planned replacement of coal plants with gas plants. Germany and Europe are replacing coal plants with gas plants - and Pakistan and China are building coal plants instead of gas plants. A very "successful" transformation policy !

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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In addition, the media announce today that the Central Committee of the EU Bureaucrateska has presented a previously threatened list of demands, in which the compulsory renovation of the complete, entire building stock in continental Europe is to be ordered. Again for the record: the complete building stock on the ground of the European continent.

Wouldn't it be simpler to organize a third world war and to rebuild afterwards in the so created continental wasteland?

Recommended read:
https://poestories.com/read/systemoftarr

[Jimbuna]

Windfall tax has 'all but wiped out our profit for the year', biggest North Sea oil producer says

The Aberdeen-based firm reveals a string of awards for shareholders despite its objections to the energy profits levy which, it said, had helped it focus on growth opportunities away from UK waters.

The biggest producer of oil and gas in the North Sea has reported that the government's energy profits levy (EPL) has "all but wiped out our profit for the year".

Harbour Energy said it had "reduced our UK investment and staffing levels" and bolstered its aim to expand elsewhere as a result of the hit from the windfall tax.

It has become something of a political football during the cost of living crisis to date, with opposition parties accusing the government of not going far enough in its efforts to recover costs of its energy bill support for households and businesses from extraction companies' UK operations.

The likes of Shell and BP have revealed record profits on the back of elevated oil and gas prices due to the war in Ukraine, though their respective upstream activities expand far beyond the boundaries of the North Sea.

UK-focused Harbour had warned in January that it was to make head office workers in Aberdeen redundant in direct reaction to the hike in the levy, announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in November last year.

It took the EPL rate to 35% from 25% but the decision took the effective tax rate on North Sea profits to 75% because of the 40% corporation tax charge already applied.

However, some investment relief is granted under the levy.

Harbour's chief executive said the job losses, yet to be completed, would be "significant" and it was looking to cut costs by $40m this year.

Its profits after tax for 2022 came in at $8m (£6.7m) due to a "$1.5bn one off non-cash deferred tax charge associated with the EPL", the company said.

But shareholder distributions of $553m were made during the year and it proposed a $100m final dividend which marked a 9% increase in awards during the year.

A new share buyback plan worth $200m was also revealed.

Shares fell 2% at the open.

Chief executive Linda Cook said: "The UK Energy Profits Levy, which applies irrespective of actual or realised commodity prices, has disproportionately impacted the UK-focused independent oil and gas companies that are critical for domestic energy security.

"For Harbour, the UK's largest oil and gas producer, it has all but wiped out our profit for the year.

"This has driven us to reduce our UK investment and staffing levels.

"Given the fiscal instability and outlook for investment in the country, it has also reinforced our strategic goal to grow and diversify internationally."

Labour is among government critics urging that the EPL is more punitive given that households and businesses are suffering from record energy bills.

The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, seized on revelations on Thursday, that now-departed Shell boss Ben van Beurden had received a 53% rise in awards last year to £9.7m, as evidence that a higher tax rate should be applied.

Mr Hunt is widely expected to maintain the energy price guarantee at its current level of £2,500 in his budget next week rather than cut the level of support from April as had been planned.

This is due to a fall in wholesale gas costs which has reduced the expected cost of the financial aid package.
https://news.sky.com/story/windfall-...-says-12829230

[Skybird]

The interviewed engineer is no nobody, but a famous expert with plenty of credenmtials from practical development work. Amongst others he is the father of the Audi Turbo engine.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
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"The electric car is a deceptive package"

Friedrich Indra doesn't like the electric car, saying it doesn't protect the climate. Instead, the 82-year-old engine expert is backing more advanced internal combustion engines and synthetic fuels.

You are one of the most ardent advocates of the internal combustion engine. Politicians have decided otherwise, and the course has been set. Isn't it time to abandon opposition to the electric car?

Nothing has been decided yet. Since the diesel scandal, the EU Parliament has wanted to ban the internal combustion engine and tell people what technology they have to drive with in the future. But that won't just be the electric car. Today's e-car product is simply not good enough to overtake the internal combustion engine on a broad scale. Without all the money that car companies earn from combustion cars today, they wouldn't be able to develop e-cars at all.

But the EU directive on fleet emissions stipulates that not a single molecule of CO2 may leave the exhaust of a new car after 2035.

The CO2 directive is due to be updated in 2026. We will see how the registration figures develop by then. At present, e-cars account for 15 percent of new registrations in Germany, or around 400,000 cars per year. This means that in 2030 we will not have 15 million electric cars on the roads as planned, but only about four million.

Do you not see any acceptance of electric cars in society?

It's becoming less and less. Customers cannot be manipulated in the way that politicians believe. It's not democratic for an EU government to tell people: You can only drive electric cars. Even the Chinese allow all technologies. Soon, even the government will have to realize that e-cars cannot be sold at all without massive subsidies.

If you were still in charge of drive development for a major automaker in this situation, what would you do?

The terrible thing is that almost all manufacturers are going along with the electric car; they're only doing it for the shareholders and the politicians. And that's despite the fact that the electric car makes no contribution whatsoever to climate protection. It is a deceptive package. If I were still in charge as a developer, I would go to my boss and say: We need a plan B. And that plan is clear. And this plan is clear: the further development of the combustion engine.

So how do we get away from oil in the transport sector?

The only solution is new fuels and improved combustion engines. The electric car, on the other hand, doesn't help the climate.

Why is that?

The CO2 backpack from battery production is huge.
We have elegantly outsourced this to China. That's where most of the batteries come from, and they're produced with dirty coal-fired electricity. If these batteries are then installed in a European car, the government says that this is a clean drive. Also, of course, the electric car needs electricity, so electricity consumption goes up. There is clean electricity, but it is already completely consumed.

In the long term, however, electricity should become completely green.

An illusion. That will never be the case, certainly not around the world, because you can't store and regulate green electricity. The additional electricity that the electric car needs can only come from calorific power plants. So the electric car runs on coal-fired power. And that's where the government takes it upon itself to claim that it's a clean form of transportation.

But if we in Europe want to stop using fossil fuels by 2045, we need an alternative to oil.

Then the Saudis will produce e-fuels or biofuels for us. E-fuels are now being badmouthed by wishful thinkers because they are supposedly far too expensive. But if they are produced in the right places, things look very different. E-fuels are also energy storage devices, and we absolutely need them when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow for weeks or months at a time.

There are also customers who buy an electric car because it offers direct advantages, for example because it is quiet and produces no emissions locally.

I certainly recognize that. But that's a maximum of 15 percent of the population. These are people who have a garage, mainly the wealthy. For them, the electric car can be a useful addition in the city. But there aren't any number of rich people who can buy a Tesla, and most of them already have one.

As a motor developer, you've always promoted "intelligent simplicity." Wouldn't that fit the electric car exactly?

That's wrong. First of all, I'm glad that people are moving away from the plug-in hybrid. That stands for "stupid complexity," because these cars have everything: combustion engine, electric drive, battery and a lot of weight. The success so far is mainly due to massive promotion. And if you think an electric car consists of just a few components, take a closer look at a battery. It's an incredibly complicated thing, with all the cooling channels. And Tesla, for example, has more than 7,000 of these cells in it. We have to think holistically, and that includes the recycling process, which has not worked so far. An electric car is broken after eight years because the battery is then worn out.

But there are Teslas that last longer than eight years.

But there are also some that are broken after five years.
That depends on how often you charge quickly, for example. The worst thing for the battery is high temperatures. Manufacturers recommend that electric cars not be parked in the blazing sun for long periods of time because the battery then ages more quickly.

Who's to say that technological progress won't lead to much better batteries by 2035?

There is nothing in sight for the next ten years that could replace today's lithium-ion technology. Everything that is being communicated about alternatives is marketing.

Let's talk about hydrogen. It could even be used in the internal combustion engine.

Hydrogen won't work in passenger cars either. Of course it works technically, but it's not practical. Let's also think holistically here, please, and then the filling station is part of it. For the hydrogen to fit into the tank, it has to be compressed to 800 bar. In the process, it heats up and has to be cooled continuously, down to minus 40 degrees Celsius.

What's the difference between an internal combustion engine powered by e-fuels and today's?


Externally, nothing. Formula 1, which will switch to synthetic fuels from 2026, provides a clue. High compression, innovative ignition processes and lean combustion will be used. All of this will also be used in production engines. Unfortunately, such engines are already being developed in China today. It's unbelievable that a country as technologically advanced as Germany is saying: We don't need all that anymore. We must once again achieve technological openness and fight against a planned economy.

We can agree on technological openness right away. But e-fuels are obviously not a solution either because of their inefficient production.

Efficiency depends on where they manufacture these fuels. Of course, it is illusory to produce e-fuels in Europe. You have to get them from the desert or from places like Chile where the wind is always blowing. I'm convinced that major oil companies in Saudi Arabia are already working on these technologies today, partly because they enable energy storage.

So you don't think the electric car will catch on by 2035? The electric car will remain a niche product. Most customers want a car that is fully suitable for everyday use and can be used day and night, even with a surfboard on the roof or a trailer in the back. And it should be able to be sold after ten years. But I don't want to ban anyone from electric cars. I'm technology-neutral, it's just politics that isn't. That's against all common sense.

When you brought the first turbocharged gasoline engine into series production almost 50 years ago, you had many critics who said, "This will never work. Why are you so critical of progress today?

I'm not. It's just a matter of pushing progress in the right direction and not into a dead end. It doesn't just drive me crazy that a single technology is to be prescribed for us. It must be obvious that this is nonsense. It's indefensible, not from the point of view of the climate and not from the point of view of the economy.
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[Skybird]

You damn god, don't you finally want to plant a brain in the German part of your creation...?

https://think--again-org.translate.g..._x_tr_pto=wapp

[Jimbuna]

Centrica Business Solutions is expanding its energy assets with the construction of a 20MW hydrogen-ready gas-fired peaking plant in Worcestershire.

The company has acquired a decommissioned power plant in Redditch and plans to install eight UK-manufactured containerised engines, capable of burning natural gas.

The plant is expected to be operational later this year and will be used to meet high or peak electricity demands or to supplement low renewable energy generation.

The Redditch plant will be able to power 2,000 homes for a full day when necessary, contributing to grid stability and reliability.

The engines used in the plant will also be capable of burning a mix of natural gas and hydrogen, making the Redditch plant future-proof and assisting the UK’s shift to a decarbonised energy system.

According to Gregory McKenna, Managing Director at Centrica Business Solutions, “As we transition to a renewable led grid, gas-fired power plants like the one at Redditch will help meet the UK’s fluctuating energy demands.”

[Rockstar]

Isn’t this the weekend Germany shuts down its last Nuclear Power Plant? I don’t understand how a decision was made to exit nuclear before coal. Especially after reading party concerns in the previous post stating no co2 emissions after 2035 from fleet autos.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Isn’t this the weekend Germany shuts down its last Nuclear Power Plant? I don’t understand how a decision was made to exit nuclear before coal. Especially after reading party concerns in the previous post stating no co2 emissions after 2035 from fleet autos.

Exactly. And though i have always been critical of nuclear power (mostly because of the forever radiating 'residuals' and disposal) this is a very short-sighted action.
(ok, looking at Fukushima they have still not brought it under control, the fuel cooling installation is still heating up and they will have to pump all the waste into the sea. But there are neither earthquakes nor tsunamis to expect in Germany, apart from the reators' relatively high operating standards.)

Shutting down the last two reactors in germany is idiotic, they are already there, will not produce that much waste within a few more years, and could even be used for decades to come. For emergencies like they are happening now.
If we ever find a method to store or even "de-radiate" the spent fuel rods instead of using them in ammunition, this would be THE way to go.

[Skybird]

For you, Catfish. Breath calm and steady, always calm and steady.


https://www.nzz.ch/international/ato...nen-ld.1733802


BTW, there is research done on kind of reactivating nuclear waste and turn it into an energy source, some month ago I red about it randomly, but I forgot the details.

[mapuc]

Made some search

https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html

https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking...-and-recycling

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Isn’t this the weekend Germany shuts down its last Nuclear Power Plant? I don’t understand how a decision was made to exit nuclear before coal. Especially after reading party concerns in the previous post stating no co2 emissions after 2035 from fleet autos.

You are not the only one not understanding that, even a majority of Germans do not want to switch the last three reactors off right now.

The answer is: in the past it was Merkel's opportunism, today its the Greens. The Greens were founded 1980 on grounds of the Anti-Atom movement. Being against nuclear energy is at the heart and core of green activists, ideolgosts, most voters. And the greens are, despite opposite claims, no big "Volkspartei", they have no wider, diverse voter base that can be appeased in several various ways and with different topics, like the big CDU or SPD could do in the past, the clients of the Greens are kind of extremist and cannot be appeased and made voting Green by tricks and workarounds, they only accept the hardcore goal that is the heart and core of the Greens: anti-atom, that is, no matter the cost, at any cost, no matter what. It is the extreme of possible patronage politics that drives the Greens.

Or in short: its ideological fanatism.

Also, they are driven by a deep conviction of being on a mission to enlighten all manklind. Its a missonary spirit second to none in Europe, that is extremely intolerant to diverting views and opinions, is very authoritarian and think that self responsibility and liberalism are utmost dubious and suspicious and must be controlled by total state planning and planned way of lives and planned economy. The greens are hardcore collectivists and absolutely mistrust individual strength. The sociological orientation is Marxist-Maoist. From the founding days on they also were home to sexual "rebels" that lobbied for legalising pedophilia and sexual contacts of adults with small children, some of those now old bastards still have a certain incluence in the party, from the shadows of backstage.

The Greens and Merkel'S merciless opportunism are the two biggest desasters that have hit Germany since WW2. The other desasters fade to grey in comparison.


I dispise the Greens to maximum degrees. I always did, already as a teen at school. The whole scene that over here is called "Altenative", disgusts me, and always has. I dont believe them a single word.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

For you, Catfish. Breath calm and steady, always calm and steady. [...]

ja, Schnappatmung. Dasselbe wie mit Herrn Indra, gibts die YouTube-Reihe "Alte Schule" mit ihm. Die Leute mit know-how werden nicht gehört.

[Rockstar]

I remember when I first started hearing about the Greens here on the subsim network opposing NordStreeam 2. Though serious, I jokingly brought up the idea the U.S. was probably assisting them and their rise in political power.

Seems the U.S. and the Greens have a lot in common.

I knew there was a reason I usually like what Annalena has to say.


Below is from Wikipedia. However I would never doubt or argue against the views of those who actually live in Germany and have to deal with them.

The Greens are regarded as taking a Atlanticist line on defense and pushing for a stronger common EU foreign policy, especially against Russia and China. Green Party co-leader Annalena Baerbock has proposed a post-pacifist foreign policy. She supports eastward expansion of NATO and has considered the number of UN resolutions critical of Israel as "absurd compared to resolutions against other states." The party's program included references to NATO as an "indispensable" part of European security. The Greens have promised to abolish the contested Nord Stream 2 pipeline to ship Russian natural gas to Germany. The party criticized the EU's investment deal with China. In 2016, the Greens criticised Germany's defense plan with Saudi Arabia, which has been waging war in Yemen and has been accused of massive human rights violations.

[Skybird]

Its true, some Greens in the current situation are fundamental moralist and want to put that into political acting as well. But:

you know, there are two wings in the Green party, we call them the "Realos" and the "Fundis".

The Realos cover everythign from pragmatics (they were the coalition Greens in Schroeders government during the Iraq war) to prohibition of everything that opposes Green ideals in Germany while opportunistically playing ball in foreign politics where things are beyond their reach and power to influence them. The Fundis are the fanatical fundamentalists, formed by ultra pacifists, Maoists, Marxists, former peace movement activists, fundamental anti-atom believers, radical environmentalists, uncompromised suppporters of Friday for Future and parasyting idiots glueing themselves to the street tarmac.

Both have in common that they do not trust people'S self responsibility and do not trust liberty and libertarianism/liberalism, they want to order from top to bottom and control that people obey the state blindly or even better are unconditionaly subjugated into complianc,e like we currently see with the Green war against house and property owners. Both are very anti-capitalistic, and anti-market. Both want planned economy. Both are therefore in strict support of the EU regime.

Baerbock's problem is she wants more than Germany can deliver, and acts as if she or Germany had the power to make others comply with German moral demands. But this obviously is not so, practically all foreign diplomatic initiatives of the Green ministers to form new economic and political alliance have terribly failed, at best they got smiles in return for stupid German money being thrown away, recently at Brazil's Lula - that is the Lula who took that money and then started a charm offensive to get closer to China. The germans are still in Mali, can anyone tell me what the hell they have to do there anymore? What they ever were capabloe to do there...? It was Baerbock demanding that they stayed beyond last year, her only reason was reference to moral motives again. Baerbock also wants development aid being counted as military spending, and she torpedoed Scholz' attempt to form a german equivalent to the American government's security council or cabinet or how you call that in the US. If she could not get that under her control, so her reasoning, then it should not be allowed to exist, because she wanted it to use as a tool for what she calls femioniost foreign policy. She also has commanded her ministry to deeply submit to total feminist and gender ideological rules, language, and massive anti-male discrimination.

So, before you start to admire her for her verbal volleys behnd which you will find nothing but hot air, consider all this. She is, like all the Greens, very authoritarian in her ways to enforce her ideological goals, and she took it very angry that she did not became chancellor, had to give way to Habeck getting the more powerful Green ministry as well. She is dangerous for Germany, she ignores the tight limits of German power and influence, and she is a fanatical moral apostle, and she is consumed by ambition. She also sacrifices German interests to this, as the matter of the failed national security council shows. Like Habeck, she is a skilled rethorical speaker. But do not get fooled by that, its all just sound and verbal cosmetics to mislead the masses. Both habeck and Baerbock are extremeley dangerous while at the same time not knowing their stuff, being ideologically dogmatized, ignporing realty where iot doe snot meet their expectatiosn and demands how reality should be, and not hesitating to lie blatantly whenever it serves their purposes, especially Habeck.

So let Baerbock's position on supporting military aid for Ukraine not deceive you. Taken for itself, on that she is right. But there is much more to her, and the seat of foreign minister consists of more than just the Ukraine issue, and she has quite extreme personal ambitions. In America you maybe do not know what they have come up with here in Germany in enforcing hilarious financial burdens on house owners to force them to quickly switch to heat pumps and isolate their houses, in ignorrance for that reality prevents this for many pragmatic reasons, from lacking workers and material to financial overklill demands for house owners. Its a huge, well-deceived expropriation program they have intiated there, because if this gets pushed through as planned, many people will need to emergency-sell their houses, because they cannot pay the enormous burdens this enforced "renovation" means. It slike ater WW2 many property owners were given a state-enforced penalty mortgage of 50% on their houses and land that they then had to pay back. This plot now strongly reminds me of that. In case of the house I live in, with six appartements, the costs for replacing the heating system will explode from "just" around 20-25 thousand for this damn heat pump we do not want at all, to probably far beyond 300 thousand, because the heat pump only make sense if we practically tear down the house and rebuild it from scratch. Windows, walls, roof, pipes, all needs to be done new. The base temperature we cna reahc pobnbaply nevertheless will likely drop, and in winter the electricity bill will kill us further. Legislation is pushed through currentl ythat allowed the government to brownout households and wallboxes over night or for up to 4 hours over ther day, because we may not have enough electrical energy for all that electrification madness we now get drowned in.

The Greens are dreamers, and idiots. They lack simple mathematical skills, they lie and cheat whenever it serves them, and they think they have the right to do like they do because they are convinced they are on a holy mission to have Germany all alone save the rest of the world, even if this means the destruction of Germany civil society, and economy anyway. The deindustrialization was a central wish of the Greens since the late 70s when the movements got founded from which the Greens later recruited their founding generation's personell.

Dumm, dümmer, grün. I hate this breed already since my schooldays. I was already disgusted by them when they were still Berlin rabble and called themselves "Alternative Liste". When I was young, I was disgiusted, when I turned more adult and mature, I weas furious and angry. But now i really feel only hate for this brutal, uneducated primitive rat-pack.


Very, very angry I now am.

[Skybird]

To balance my emotional rant before:
https://www.focus.de/politik/deutsch...190918680.html


How Greens and opponents of nuclear power make politics with lies and fear

Anna Veronika Wendland is a German historian of technology and Eastern Europe. She works at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe in Marburg and completed her habilitation at the University of Marburg with a thesis on reactor safety in Eastern Europe and Germany.
Wendland is a member of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission (DUHK). In July 2020, she and Rainer Moormann published a memorandum attributing a crucial role to nuclear power in the energy transition. She is also the author of the book "Nuclear Power? Yes Please!".
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The German nuclear phase-out is a decision against better judgment - and a triumph of counter-enlightenment. So there are plenty of reasons for a left-wing critique of the nuclear phase-out.

The other day, a Swiss journalist asked me almost incredulously how it could have happened that the plug was pulled on a high-tech industry in, of all places, the world's fourth-largest economy. The reason is three German special paths in the political, cultural and industrial-structural spheres.

The green counter-modernism

First, we have a weighty bloc of anti-nuclear parties on the center left because the German left, in the course of its bourgeoisification, has thrown nuclear energy, in Marxist terms the most progressive productive force, at the feet of the right.

This, in turn, was only possible because, secondly, an ecological style of thinking was able to establish itself that had always existed in the German bourgeoisie and which the bourgeois children's revolt of 1968 did not shatter but reinforced. The anti-modern, technology- and industry-critical, eco-romantic thinking traditions of the German bourgeoisie go back to the counter-revolutionary 19th century. The Greens, contrary to what their opponents claim, are not a socialist party in this sense, but a conservative one.

The left-wing Green K-group descendants of Trittin's ilk, who attacked the nuclear power plant as the incarnation of Rhenish capitalism, were interested in the anti-nuclear issue only insofar as it did not win them the working class, but at least the imitation of participation in a mass movement.

Messages of fear

But no matter where they came from, the Greens shared a set of unquestioned statements that - in the wake of their successful march into discourse-determining positions in schools, churches, the media, academia - increasingly dominated the discourse on nuclear energy.
At the center was the message of fear: fear of the threat posed by nuclear fission to "holistic" contexts of matter, life and meaning; fear of the decomposing, omnipresent radiation; fear of cancer; fear of the complexity of nuclear plants, whose procedures were perceived as alchemical sorcerer's apprenticeship; fear of the engineering hubris as an offense against higher, natural orders.

To the fear belonged, like a twin sister, the deification of the small, decentralized and therefore supposedly democratic as an end in itself, from Demeter farms to wind turbines. And this also included the demonization of the nuclear power plant as an authoritarian structure while at the same time evading criticism of the capital relationship, which would be the true reason to fear.

A successful project

But the reactionary root of the criticism of nuclear power is ultimately also the cultural secret of the German nuclear phase-out: the anti-modernism elevated to party status by the Greens, which was not compensated for by their progressive trend-setting in terms of civil and gender rights, was precisely connectable deep into the bourgeois political camp, especially its Christian-influenced part. This made it possible for Angela Merkel in 2011 to dupe the technocratic, entrepreneurial wing of the CDU/CSU without a party revolt and to push through the nuclear phase-out.

In short, nuclear power had to go not because it failed technically, but because it failed discursively: because talking about it was at some point only done by people who thought such thoughts about it as described above, while our engineering class knew nothing to counter this narrative except the message of technical perfection - and the false hope that a CDU booked for eternity as the chancellor's party would already hold a protective hand over the German nuclear industry.

The comprehensible, winning, people-oriented communication of a progressive counter-narrative, openness and curiosity in the face of well-founded criticism - unfortunately, this was not learned in the study of nuclear process engineering.

The renewable-fossil energy transition

But it only succeeded in turning the fear message into a phase-out program because it succeeded in portraying nuclear energy as superfluous and replaceable.

And this brings us to the third part of our triad . Fear alone is not enough to not want to use a technology - otherwise a great many people who fly would not get on a plane. They may be afraid of flying, but they also don't want to cross the Atlantic by ship. What breaks a technology is the combination of a message of fear and a message of joy that you have an alternative, a much better, safer, cheaper substitute.

And this is exactly what the Greens and the SPD were able to do, because they actually had a substitute: namely, in addition to renewables, which were euphorically welcomed and perceived as unproblematic, above all coal-fired power and gas, which provided them with the security that volatile renewables alone could never have guaranteed. They benefited from the dual structure of the German electricity industry, in which coal interests were so strong alongside the nuclear interests that companies like RWE had to be carried by the state to the nuclear hunt as late as the 1960s.

In this sense, there was never a German nucléocratie or a systemic dependence on nuclear energy as in France, for example, quite apart from the lack of a military nuclear program as a motivator.

The life lie of the energy turnaround

The idea that with good German coal and "clean" German coal-fired power plant technology as a bridging technology for the energy turnaround, one would have a harmless alternative to nuclear energy, was the life lie of the energy turnaround, if one looks at the environmental and sacrifice balance of the electricity producers in comparison.

However, this idea was compatible with all milieus and actors, from the Greens and the unions to the CDU/CSU and the "ethics commission" that had to legitimize Merkel's decision to phase out nuclear power after Fukushima in 2011. This connectivity also extends into the here and now to Robert Habeck, who would rather give RWE permission to mine the coal under Lützerath than extend the operating life of RWE's Emsland NPP. Emsland could produce the electricity equivalent of this coal within 16 months - to the climate balance of wind power, of course.

The energy transition state and its conventions

The fact that it has come to this is also the result of language conventions in the energy debate that have been established by the state, the media and academia. What the nuclear state, which the opponents of nuclear power always painted on the wall, never achieved, the real existing energy transition state is now achieving: the domestication of criticism in the form of the media and the environmental movement. The latter has degenerated into the legitimizing authority of the renewable energy industry, which also waves through the most brazen undermining of planning law, nature conservation and species protection.

For many years, there was no statement about nuclear energy in the German media without a preamble of reprehensibility, no visualization of a nuclear power plant without threatening music underneath. Hardly an article about nuclear waste gets by without a picture of rusty, yellow, but fake barrels, and not a week goes by without an ÖRR blog or talk show appearance by economist Claudia Kemfert, who preaches to us that nuclear power is expensive, dangerous, inflexible, and at best militarily motivated. All four statements are demonstrably false . Kemfert defames criticism as a conspiracy of an overpowering fossil fuel lobby. This Manichean worldview is the death of any differentiated and fair debate.

This is the reason why the pro-nuclear voices in the FDP and CDU/CDU, which have recently become audible again, are so depressed and conceptless - because they no longer dare to speak about this topic with an audible, self-confident voice and to present a bold, powerful climate strategy for nuclear power and renewables.

German nuclear power: a victim of atonement

We saw virtually no arguments against German nuclear power plants in the past debate that were based on the concrete technical realities of these plants. Rather, it was experience from French, Soviet or Japanese nuclear plants that was projected onto our plants.

Germany's nuclear power plants are sacrificed vicariously in a kind of atonement ritual: we give Brokdorf for Three Mile Island, Neckarwestheim for Chernobyl and Isar-2 for Fukushima, Emsland for too warm cooling water in France, Grohnde for the Russian tanks in front of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya.

Change life? Without the Greens

If one had given up this belief, one might have realized that the abolition of the last six nuclear power plants alone means the same in terms of climate and electricity balance as if Habeck had 15,000 wind turbines blown up. Recognizing this, one could have paused and turned back. In this way, they could have regained credibility and respect, especially among those who are indifferent to climate protection and wait and see, because in their eyes it is unaffordable.

But the Greens did not want to give this signal. While they demand that everyone else change their lives for the sake of the climate, they are holding on to their old lives. And that will not work in the long run.

[Skybird]

The last three reactors are off. And yesterday Habeck has moved the respnsibility for n uclear research from the economic ministry (his) to the climate ministry (also his). The funding gets culled, and it is clear that all nuclear research in Germany now is to be axed next. The next battlefield is also clearly defined, the anti-atom movent wants a ban on nuclear energy in all EU. Since our neighbouring states mostly are pro nuclear, there is hope this fight gets lost.

Note the very last sentence in the following interview (which I could not get into Google site translator). Nomen est omen.



"We Germans are climate policy ghost drivers".

Nuclear physicisst and enterpreneur Getz Rubrecht considers power outages more threatening than reactor risks.

Mr. Ruprecht, this Saturday the last three German nuclear power plants will go off the grid. A great victory for the environment and safety, right?

On the contrary, the decision is irresponsible. Security of supply will suffer, energy prices will rise, and we're also doing a disservice to the climate. We can build as many wind farms and solar parks as we want, which will theoretically generate all the electricity we need. However, it cannot be stored sufficiently. When there are dark periods, we need controllable capacities, preferably low-cost and low-emission nuclear energy. The German government is also aware of this dilemma, which is why it wants to reactivate old coal-fired power plants and build new gas-fired power plants at great expense. So the traffic lights coalition partners, of all things, are backing fossil fuels. That's completely absurd when you have a safe, long-depreciated, well-established clean technology, nuclear power. Instead of shutting down the last three reactors tomorrow, the three that were shut down at the end of 2021 should be brought back online, i.e. six plants should continue to operate.

What about the nuclear risks?

They are calculable and in any case smaller than if there were load shedding and widespread power outages. Nothing is more detrimental to safety than volatile power grids in which fluctuations can no longer be balanced at some point. We must not forget that electricity demand will increase enormously as oil and gas products are replaced by electricity in heating, industry and transport. We must do everything we can to ensure stable generation and stable grids. In theory, this can be done with domestic lignite or fracked liquefied gas, but nuclear power is much more sustainable. Incidentally, more and more countries and environmentalists see it the same way, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Finnish Greens, and Greta Thunberg, founder of Fridays for Future. It's not everyone else who is the energy and climate policy ghost driver; it's us Germans.
Does the Fukushima accident leave you cold?
Of course not, the earthquake was a terrible disaster with many deaths. But the radioactivity released was minimal, no one died from the radiation. Today we know that the hasty evacuations of houses, old people's homes or clinics, where there were many victims, were unnecessary. Earthquakes and tsunamis are highly unlikely in our country. Even the Japanese, who suffered two atomic bombings, are again relying on nuclear technology because they know that nuclear power is controllable and has many advantages.

You are a nuclear physicist yourself. Where does German nuclear research stand?

German nuclear power plants and German research were at the top for a long time; after all, nuclear fission was discovered in Berlin by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. There are still great scientists, engineers, practitioners, but many are drawn abroad.

Your company Dual Fluid is also based in Vancouver in Canada.

Yes, I worked there myself at the Triumf particle physics research center. But we are also based and do research in Germany. It's clear that anti-nuclear sentiment has scared off bright minds and led to institutional clear-cutting. Many research institutions have disappeared or been hidden away as sub-departments. Some have renamed themselves so as not to have "nuclear energy" in the title at all. One prefers to speak of "subatomic physics" or the like. There are still small nests, but no more nuclear research worth mentioning in Germany. Why should there be, if nobody wants us? There were cases where the authorities took forever, checked and constantly found something new. In the worst case, such a delay leads to running out of money. Possibly that is exactly what is intended.

How modern is today's nuclear technology?

Not particularly; one could work much more efficiently. The pressurized water reactors still prevalent today are based on old military technology, basically small units for submarines and aircraft carriers. Most of the so-called Small Modular Reactors or SMRs, which are now much reported, are also based on this technology. Pressurized water reactors are well established, but they must be actively cooled and controlled with neutron absorbers, or control rods. The use of the fuel elements is an insane waste because only one percent of the natural uranium, or 5 percent of the fuel, can be used for energy. The rest goes into the nuclear waste repository and continues to radiate there forever because the yield is so low. The military introduced this overpriced technology because the fuel rods can be delivered anywhere like ammunition, and it can afford it. For civilian purposes, the process is not ideal.

What is the alternative?

Interestingly, the inventor of the pressurized water reactor, Alvin Weinberg, already realized that there are better ways. Instead of solid fuel elements in magazines that have to be replaced, he experimented with liquid salts. In this case, the heat is generated in a circuit. This can be controlled much better, and the burn-off runs optimally. There are also other developments with special advantages. These include, for example, high-temperature or sodium-cooled reactors. Six of these types have been grouped together as the "fourth generation," but ultimately they are based on processes that have long been known. They are not yet ready for series production, but many startups are trying their hand at fourth-generation SMRs.

Are you heading in that direction, too?

We see ourselves as a fifth generation. The idea is to expand Weinberg's liquid salt reactor to two cycles. That's why the company is called "Dual Fluid." In our case, one fluid carries the fuel, the other dissipates the heat. This allows us to heat the nuclear fuel to 1000 degrees, which is extremely powerful and economical. This has many advantages, for example, the reactor is ten times smaller than conventional plants, and it can be completely hidden underground. In addition, the system regulates itself: When the fuel heats up in the chain reaction, the liquid expands, which automatically decreases the fission reactivity and the temperature drops again. So we don't need any control rods. In addition, there is a fuse that melts if the liquid does get too hot. Then all the fuel flows safely by gravity into drain tanks, and the chain reaction stops immediately.

What about the dreaded waste?

We achieve almost 100 percent burnup, not just 5 percent as in the pressurized water reactor. Therefore, 90 percent of the radioactivity has decayed after 100 years, and it is complete after 300. So we no longer have to think in terms of millennia. Efficiency is also reflected in the price. We calculate with production costs, the so-called LCOE including investments, of 24 euros per megawatt hour. That is unbeatably low. In addition, we could also produce hydrogen cheaply, which everyone is now counting on. We calculate that the costs are a factor of 4 to 6 lower than for electrolysis with the much-celebrated wind power.

But that's just pie in the sky, isn't it?

We are already quite far along. The company has been around for two years, and 4.5 million euros have been invested. The most important backers are medium-sized companies from German-speaking countries. They remain loyal to us because they don't believe in the current form of energy transition, but are building on openness to technology, including nuclear energy. We are testing the components this year, and the first demonstration plant should be ready in 2026. In 2029 we want to have the prototype ready and go into pilot production. In 2034, series production could be ramped up. By the beginning of next year, we want to raise the necessary funding in the high double-digit millions. We can build the demonstrator within two years, then run it for a year and a half. So in four or five years, the experiment would be complete. It all looks very good.

Where will the plant be built?

Certainly not in Germany! If you are honest, the conditions in all G7 and all OECD countries are not favorable. The sector is completely overregulated, even if the population and politicians are open-minded. This makes it particularly difficult to promote nuclear technology. We have partnerships with Poland, Switzerland and, of course, Canada. But we will not build the demonstrator there. Many emerging countries want to achieve rapid industrial progress. I can reveal this much: We are about to sign a contract with an African country.

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Thats what is being systematically ignored in German discussions: that the deaths in Fukushima did not come from radiation, but were the direct and imminent effects of the tsunami and earthquake themselves. But the Germans atribute all the deaths to radiation. Lies and deception of the public, that is and always was the business model of the Green discussion of nuclear energy. Lies and deception. And defamation of opponents of their views.