I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the current energy crisis and its long term impact on Germany. This content is thought provoking and helps me understand the necessity of countries working to developing strong energy policies
If you're worried about carbon emissions, the LNG system is terrible with energy used to liquefy and gassification being a significant proportion of the total.
Given the lessons of history of Civilisations and the Forever War, the siege mentality of some regions is comprehensible, if not quite understandable, ..each of us is tending to oscillate between fight and flight, and meanwhile just dig in immobility. A solution to the fight or flight political attitudes might not be made metastable as required for sustainability, ..not much hope for a people who have the idea of "creative destruction" embedded in their history and failed to see the middle way. Helpless Hopeless resentment. If you are running short of Canaries in Germany, we have an oversupply of Galahs in all fields. It is hyper frustrating when the best of Scientists in Germany are disenfranchised by the political opportunism of .. (word failure).
Around 51 minutes in your guests states that two of the German nuclear plants have not started there decommissioning process. So could they restart them with a new load of fuel? Or after an Overhaul
They can be restarted in the span of two to three moths without any new fuel or gear. The fuel elements rest in wet storage, they can be put back into the reactor in what is known as a low leakage core. In this most neutronically efficient state the reactors can run for another six months. After a few weeks however the reactors would not be able to keep the reactor critical at full power. They will need to reduce power output while keeping the circulation pumps running at full power. This lowers the temperature in the reactor, that increases the mlderation and that allows the reactors to run longer. This is called stretchout mode. The control rods are withdrawn completely, the circulation pumps are put at max whack jet the reactor cant reach full power anymore. In this state the reactor can run for a few months while its power drops form 100 % to 70 % until the reactor completely dies. After that only new fuel elements allow the reactor to be taken critical. A core that has entred stretchour can not be taken critical after it is shut down and it cant load follow anymore. Grafenrheinfeld and GundremmingenC nuclear power plants ran stretch out during their last months of operation. Grohnde and Brokdorf did not. They can be taken back online and run another 6 months.
Technically, a part environmental implication, the Germans cannot do the same thing that New York did last year, use the gas plants to burn oil? Or am I confusing the plants?
Many German gas plants can. But there is ot enough oil, not mention refinimg capacity in Germany right now. Those plants need destillate fuel oil, akin to diesel. Germany consumes 280 TWh of Diesel per year. To replace all the gas fired electricity it would need 210 TWh of destillate fuel oul, which Germany does not have. Europe is short diesel not short gesoline, there is enough gasoline, despite diesel being taxed 20 ct/l less in Germany right now Diesel is 10 ct/l more expensive.
