Germany has shut down its last three nuclear power plants, and some climate scientists are aghast
16 April 2023, Baden-Württemberg, Neckarwestheim: The Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant. The era of commercial power generation with nuclear power plants in Germany came to an end on Saturday with the separation of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim and Emsland nuclear power plants from the power grid.
Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
As of Sunday, April 16, Germany is no longer producing any electricity from nuclear power plants.
Closures of the Emsland, Isar II, and Neckarwestheim II nuclear plants in Germany were expected. The country announced plans to phase out nuclear power in 2011. In the fall of 2022, with the Ukraine war constraining access to energy especially in Europe, Germany decided to keep these existing nuclear reactors operating for an additional few months to bolster supplies.
“This was a highly anticipated action. The German government extended the lifetimes of these plants for a few months, but never planned beyond that,” David Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at UC San Diego, told CNBC.
Responses to the closures ranged from aghast that Germany would shut down a clean source of energy production while global response to anthropogenic climate change continues to be insufficient, to celebratory that the country will avoid any nuclear accidents like those that have happened in other parts of the world.
‘The whole thing is incomprehensible’
A collection of esteemed scientists, including two Nobel laureates and professors from the likes of MIT and Columbia, made a last-minute plea in an open letter published on April 14 on the nuclear advocacy group’s website, RePlaneteers, to keep the reactors operating.
“In view of the threat that climate change poses to life on our planet and the obvious energy crisis in which Germany and Europe find themselves due to the unavailability of Russian natural gas, we call on you to continue operating the last remaining German nuclear power plants,” the letter states.
The Emsland, Isar II and Neckarwestheim II facilities provided more than 10 million German households with electricity, the open letter states. That’s a quarter of the population.
“This is hugely disappointing, when a secure low carbon 24/7 source of energy such as nuclear was available and could have continued operation for another 40 years,” Henry Preston, spokesperson for the World Nuclear Association, told CNBC. “Germany’s nuclear industry has been world class. All three of those reactors shut down at the weekend performed extremely well.”
16 April 2023, Lower Saxony, Lingen: View of the defunct cooling tower of the Emsland nuclear power plant. With the separation of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim and Emsland nuclear power plants from the power grid, the era of commercial power generation with nuclear power plants in Germany came to an end on Saturday.
Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Despite the shutdown, some segments of nuclear industrial processes will continue to operate. “Germany’s nuclear sector will continue to be first class in the wider nuclear supply chain in areas such as fuel fabrication and decommissioning,” Preston told CNBC.
While the open letter did not succeed in keeping the nuclear reactors open, it does underscore a crucial reason why nuclear power has been part of global energy conversations recently, after a generational lull in the construction of nuclear power plants: climate change.
Generating electricity with nuclear reactors does not create any greenhouse gases. And as global climate change response efforts continue to fall short of emission targets, nuclear energy is getting renewed consideration.
“Obviously many people in the nuclear industry are disappointed that the government that cares a lot about climate change is shutting massive sources of zero-carbon electric power,” Victor told CNBC.
That view was echoed by Hans von Storch, a climate researcher at the Institute for Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany, and a signatory of the open letter, told CNBC.
“While a legitimate decision, it is not a wise decision,” Storch told CNBC. “This out-phasing of nuclear, with existing plants, leads to an increase of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany, even though according to another political decision, the fast decarbonization should have priority.”
“For me, as a climate scientist, the whole thing is incomprehensible,” Storch told CNBC.
Anti-nuclear movement supporters gather to celebrate the shuttering of Germany’s last nuclear power plants on April 15, 2023 in Munich, Germany. Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2 and Isar 2 are Germany’s last three operating nuclear power plants and are scheduled to cease operation tonight. Their closure was originally scheduled for December 31 of 2022, though Germany’s government coalition extended their operation due to the turbulent energy market resulting from Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. The shuttering of the plants marks a historic chapter in German history and is being celebrated by Germany’s decades-old, grassroots anti-nuclear movement.
Johannes Simon | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Fear of accidents and a focus on renewables
The German government says it is making the country safer by closing down the nuclear reactors.
“The nuclear phase-out makes Germany safer and avoids additional high-level radioactive waste. The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable. No insurance in the world covers the potentially catastrophic extent of damage from a nuclear accident,” a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection in Germany told CNBC.
On June 30, 2011, “the nuclear phase-out law was passed with a broad, nonpartisan majority,” the spokesperson told CNBC.
Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, supports Germany closing its nuclear reactors because of the risk of an accident.
“Nuclear energy is a risky technology. During the Chernobyl reactor accident, Germany was hit by radioactive fallout. A reactor accident in Germany would make large parts of the country uninhabitable. In the course of global uncertainties, the risks for nuclear energy are also increasing,” Quaschning told CNBC.
Also, radioactive waste management is “still unsolved in Germany,” Quaschning told CNBC. “No one in Germany wants a repository for highly radioactive waste near them.”
Instead, the European country says it is focused on building out its wind and solar energy production. By 2030, Germany aims to generate 80 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. “We are now putting the policies in place for this and adapting the necessary legislation,” the German government spokesperson told CNBC.
Turning off the nuclear reactors opens the doors for renewables to be the future of energy, Niklas Höhne, a professor the mitigation of greenhouse gases at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, told CNBC.
“In the German context, the phase-out of nuclear energy is good for the climate in the long term. It provides investment certainty for renewable energy; renewables will be much faster, cheaper and safer than expansion of nuclear energy,” Höhne told CNBC.
Nuclear energy is also often more expensive than wind and solar power, Quaschning said, adding, “there are no longer any real advantages with nuclear energy.”
“Nuclear power plants are a hindrance to the energy transition. They are not able to run in stop-and-go mode and cannot really compensate for power fluctuations that arise when using solar and wind energy. With Germany looking to expand solar and wind power very rapidly over the next few years, now is a good time to shut down nuclear reactors to make way for renewable energy,” he said.
Utilities, state governments, and private developers are racing to roll out faster, more powerful EV chargers. At the same time, automakers and tech giants across the globe are pouring billions into R&D to develop batteries that can take ever-higher levels of power. But what if there’s a better, easier, cheaper, and more effective way to cut emissions?
What if, instead of faster chargers, we pushed for SLOWER gas pumps?
I want to start this conversation by pointing out that there’s a precedent for this idea. Back in 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule that limited the rate that gas service stations could pump fuel to a maximum of 10 gallons per minute (gpm), with the stated goals of reducing evaporative emissions and promoting safety by ensuring the integrity of the nation’s refueling infrastructure.
Officially dubbed “61 FR 33033 – Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Controls Applicable to Gasoline Retailers and Wholesale Purchaser-Consumers; 10 Gallon Per Minute Fuel Dispensing Limit Requirement Implementation,” the rule was finalized in January of 1993 and went into effect in 1996. Now, almost thirty years later, I think it’s time to revisit 61 FR 33033 in a way that helps reduce emissions even more.
To zero.
The pitch
The basic idea is this: instead of “just” asking for utility rate-payers and State or local governments to help cover the costs of rolling out an increasingly huge EV charging infrastructure that will never be big enough to convince the red hats it’s ready, anyway, we focus our lobbying efforts on slower gas pumps in blue states. Like, significantly slower gas pumps.
By reducing the maximum pumping speed from 10 gpm to 3 gpm, we could increase the minimum time to fill up a half-ton Ford F-150’s 36 gallon fuel tank (yes, really) from under four minutes to nearly twelve (12). Factor in the longer wait times ICE-vehicles would have to endure waiting in line to refuel, as well, and we’re talking about a 20-30 minute turnaround time to go from just 10% to a usable 80-or-90% fill.
Y’all see where I’m going with this?
Everybody wins
Way back in 2022, oil giant BP claimed that its BP Pulse electric vehicle chargers were “on the cusp” of being more profitable than its gas pumps. Now, three years and several technological leaps since, BP is investing billions to expand its EV charging infrastructure – and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that they’re expecting a positive ROI.
You don’t have to take my word for that, though. You can take big oil’s. “If I think about a tank of fuel versus a fast charge, we are nearing a place where the business fundamentals on the fast charge are better than they are on the (fossil) fuel,” BP head of customers and products, Emma Delaney, told Reuters.
Those fundamentals revolve around amenities. If you’re popping into a gas station for a three or four minute visit, you’re probably getting in and out as fast as you can. But if you’re there a bit longer? That’s a different story. You might visit the rest room, might buy a snack or order a coffee or suddenly remember you were supposed to pick up milk on your way home, even – and that stuff has a much higher margin for the gas station than the dino-juice, totaling 61.4% of all fuel station profits despite being a fraction of the overall revenue.
The other big winner, of course, is literally everyone. The forgotten costs of fossil fuels cost Americans billions in healthcare bills and environmental clean up each year, and untold trillions of dollars of military spending (to say nothing of the toll on three generations of American blood spilled in the Middle East to secure an affordable supply of oil).
With this plan, ICE-holes and Hemi zealots can continue to have their gas (if they decide it’s worth the wait, so be it). Meanwhile, the well-adjusted normals figure out real quick that it’s better, cheaper, and easier to charge at home.
The rest will take care of itself.
What do you guys think? Does this low-cost, high-impact idea to cut the time delta between refueling your gas car and recharging your EV have legs? What concerns do we need to address before we take it to Gavin and JB? Let us know, in the comments!
Original content from Electrek; featured image by Wikimedia user Coolcaesar, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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Just weeks after writing about John Deere’s tried-and-true Gator side-by-side and extolling the virtues of its two-plus decades of design stasis, the engineers at Deere have launched a pair of new, li-ion Gator models that offer all-day power to move people and things all over your property in true, go-anywhere Gator fashion.
John Deere is quick to point out that these new GX side-by-side utility vehicles are not golf carts. Fair enough – while they;re not quite in the same go-anywhere league as Deere’s TH 6×4 Gas or TE 4×2 Gators, the Gator GX and GX Crew offer more than enough capability to handle just about anything you’ll find on a typical campus, golf course, or job site.
To that end, the sturdy composite dump bed, comfortable and supportive high-back foam seats seem credible enough at first glance. And, if you give the new Deere UTVs a second glance, you’ll see a 367-L (13-cu ft) cargo box can haul more than 800 lbs. (~365 kg) of mulch, nursery plantings, building supplies, firewood, animal feed, or tools.
These are serious machines, in other words, ready to get down and do some serious work, but without the noise, vibration, and harmful exhaust emissions of gas.
“The Gator GX lineup offers property owners the opportunity to increase productivity around their properties with less noise, less maintenance and more versatility,” said John Deere Go To Market Manager Eric Halfman. “These utility vehicles are intuitive and durable while offering users the comfort, reliability and convenience they expect from a John Deere Gator.”
The key component in the new GX and GX Crew is the new, 5.4 kWh, 51.2V lithium-ion battery that sends power to a high-efficiency electric drive motor with responsive torque and smooth acceleration. An onboard charger allows for convenient charging anywhere with a standard, grounded 120 outlet, eliminating the need for handling fuel or trips to the gas station and fully charging the 5.4 kWh battery over night, with more than 8 hours of continuous operation on tap that’s extendable with clever use of the new Deere’s regenerative braking.
These new electric Gators are available in classic John Deere green or grey metallic, and start at $17,499 with a whole suite of available accessories to make upfitting a breeze. The company says they’ll be available for order at your local John Deere TriGreen dealer in Q1 of 2026.
Electrek’s Take
I imagine that applying the Gator name to a vehicle that I’d call a glorified golf cart makes me feel something similar to what the Mustang guys feel whenever they see a Mach-E drive past. As such, I’ll give myself the same advice I give them: the people who make the thing decide what makes it worthy of the name, not you.
As such, I’d better get used to it. The good news there, of course, is that it seems like Deere’s latest Gator is going to be more than good enough to win me over. Eventually.
SOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere, via Charged EVs.
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GM has scrapped plans to build $55 million hydrogen fuel cell factory in Detroit, triggering a tsunami of headlines about the General’s future plans for hydrogen. The reality? GM isn’t scaling back its hydrogen efforts. It’s thinking bigger.
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
MARK TWAIN (sort of)
Like the great Sam Clemens, there seems to be plenty of confidence in the greater automotive press that GM’s decision to cancel a $55 millions fuel cell plant on the former Michigan State Fairgrounds site in Detroit. That plant, a JV with Southeast Michigan’s Piston Automotive, would have created ~140 jobs and built compact hydrogen fuel cells for light- and medium-duty vehicles under the Hydrotec brand.
That plan, frankly, was never going to work. It was always a cynical incentive grab and the first fruits of GM’s Hydrotec efforts were so laughably far behind the state of the electric art that the facts themselves blurred the line between satire and reality. Which, of course, didn’t matter – as long as the incentive money (Biden’s Department of Energy awarded GM $30 million in grants for the State Fairgrounds plant) kept flowing.
The new Trump Administration put an end to that flow last week, however, terminating 321 financial awards for clean energy worth $7.56 billion.
“Certainly the decisions of the DOE are an element of that overall climate but not the only driver,” explained GM spokesperson, Stuart Fowle, in a statement. “We want to prioritize the engineering talent and resources and everything we have to continuing to advance EVs given hydrogen is in a different spot.”
That spot is heavy-duty, off-highway, maritime, and data centers.
Bigger trucks, bigger fuel cells
Instead of dying, GM is continuing on the hydrogen fuel cell it’s been on for literal decades – with no plans (publicly, at least) to shutter its Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint-venture with Honda in Brownstown Township, MI.
That company is not just developing HFCs, they’re out there selling fuel cells today, to extreme-duty, disaster response, and off-highway equipment customers operating far enough off the grid that access to electricity is questionable and to data center developers for whom access to a continuous flow of energy is mission-critical.
Electrek’s Take
Fuel cells like the ones from GM and Honda will continue to seem like a good idea … for about as long as it takes the heavy equipment guys to watch a ZQUIP video.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Detroit News, FreightWaves, Yahoo!Finance.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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