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> The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables. You

by xroche 5y ago

> The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables. You can't exit from the oil economy with renewable such as wind or solar due to their non-predictability. If you want to stop importing Russian gaz, you need nuclear energy.

rplnt 5y ago
40% of EU gas is from Russia (and co.). Let's instead switch to nuclear where 60% of EU supply comes from Russia (and co.).
- londons_explore 5y ago
  * but is worth far less, is easily transported so there is a worldwide market, and there are other producers in other bits of the world.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  So we can just start using 50% less energy and there won’t be any problem.
akvadrako 5y ago
Or local coal and gas reserves. The Netherlands has plenty of gas, they just choose not to use it. Germany has plenty coal.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  That choice is because the emptied gas fields are causing earthquakes so there's good reasoning behind it :)
starfallg 5y ago
You can with storage systems albeit with lots of constraints. Having nuclear is important to guarantee baseload, but we can't rely on that solely either. With current gen nuclear tech, well also run out of fuel within a few generations.
- xroche 5y ago
  > You can with storage systems There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately > well also run out of fuel within a few generations Absolutely. But hopefully fusion will be around then.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    > There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately I can’t find actual current annual production, only estimates for now and actual values for a few years ago, but we produced somewhere between 0.5 (what we did recently) and 1.3 TWh (what some people a few years ago thought we’d be at now) of batteries in the last year. Given the likely usage patterns, this is already on a relevant scale to all 50 or so nuclear reactors currently under construction, and the expectation is that battery production will approximate rapid positive exponential growth at least to the end of the decade.
- oceanofsolaris 5y ago
  AFAIK the running out of fuel would be a non-issue with breeder reactors, which are disliked for the proliferation risk they are. Well, trade-offs. Also: currently, nuclear fuel cost is a small part of running a reactor. If nuclear fuel follows a similar cost/available quantity curve as other geologic resources, we should be able to find more once we start looking in earnest.
afroboy 5y ago
> you need nuclear energy. Don't forget they are easy targets when war get declared.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Attacking a nuclear power plant in Germany is harder than turning off a pipeline.
- moonchrome 5y ago
  I'm guessing if anyone is going to start nuclear war then we're going back to stone age with or without nuclear power plants.
  - gpderetta 5y ago
    they would be easy targets in a conventional war. In a nuclear war pretty much everything is an easy target.
  - hamsamrma 5y ago
    Thou there's a difference between "Nuclear War" and "some rebels shot a nuclear power plant and it disintegrated"
- petre 5y ago
  A gas pipeline is also an easy target unless it's under the sea like North Stream.
flgb 5y ago
This is simply not true. And even if it was nuclear is not a viable response with new projects taking decades to develop. Todays nuclear industry is delivering warmed-up 1970s technology that is expensive, slow, and inflexible. Solar/wind/batteries with a small amount of backup capacity from hydro, power-to-gas/fuel, biofuels, or new long-duration storage is cheaper and faster to deploy.
- modo_mario 5y ago
  >This is not simply not true. You seem to be disagreeing with our greens. Gas is offered as the only backup source at that scale and timeframe. >Solar/wind/batteries with a small amount of backup capacity from hydro, power-to-gas/fuel, biofuels, or new long-duration storage is cheaper and faster to deploy. Wrong. [1]Nuclear wins out when kept open a bit longer and that is without accounting for storage methods. To say "a small amount of backup capacity" is absolutely ridiculous. The amounts we need compared to what is available right now would be massive. Most European countries aren't norway with loads of hydro capacity either. Also power to gas/fuel is a pipedream due to inherent costs and losses alone. You're better off making more pumped storage power stations like in Coo but those don't fit anywhere and aren't magical either. [1]https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/image/png/2020-12/lco_by_technology_egc_2020_2020-12-07_12-10-45_613.png https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/image/png/2020-12/lco_b...
  - modo_mario 5y ago
    correction: I meant "those don't fit everywhere" at the end as opposed to "anywhere"
- andromeduck 5y ago
  The technology/resources for the storage required woudvtske even longer but you're right, we don't need new technologies, we should be serial building proven designs like CANDUs until SMRs hit stride.
arez 5y ago
so let's build some nuclear power plants, they should be done in 20yrs is that fast enough?
- modo_mario 5y ago
  A serious stretch. Nevertheless the argument that they're too slow to build has been popping up for 20 years now.
  - zuzun 5y ago
    Unlike nuclear power plants.
danhor 5y ago
(all numbers for germany) Only ~14% of gas used is used for electrical energy. About 50% of the gas we use is imported from russia. 77% of the gas is used by households for heating (and also cooking, but that's negliable) and industry To not depend on russian gas by reducing gas usage, the gas heating systems need to be replaced with heat pumps or something else and industry needs to shift, presumably to electricity (since it's unlikely that we have enough green hydrogen that's not produced from fossil fuels without depending on russia). This isn't going to be easy and unlikely to happen at a large enough scale in the next 5 years.
henearkr 5y ago
But then you depend on West Africa for uranium. It's not a coincidence if Russian groups are in Mali, maybe they have an eye on Niger's mines.

by xroche 5y ago

rplnt 5y ago

40% of EU gas is from Russia (and co.). Let's instead switch to nuclear where 60% of EU supply comes from Russia (and co.).

londons_explore 5y ago
* but is worth far less, is easily transported so there is a worldwide market, and there are other producers in other bits of the world.
Aeolun 5y ago
So we can just start using 50% less energy and there won’t be any problem.

akvadrako 5y ago

Or local coal and gas reserves. The Netherlands has plenty of gas, they just choose not to use it. Germany has plenty coal.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
That choice is because the emptied gas fields are causing earthquakes so there's good reasoning behind it :)

starfallg 5y ago

You can with storage systems albeit with lots of constraints. Having nuclear is important to guarantee baseload, but we can't rely on that solely either. With current gen nuclear tech, well also run out of fuel within a few generations.

xroche 5y ago
> You can with storage systems There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately > well also run out of fuel within a few generations Absolutely. But hopefully fusion will be around then.
- ben_w 5y ago
  > There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately I can’t find actual current annual production, only estimates for now and actual values for a few years ago, but we produced somewhere between 0.5 (what we did recently) and 1.3 TWh (what some people a few years ago thought we’d be at now) of batteries in the last year. Given the likely usage patterns, this is already on a relevant scale to all 50 or so nuclear reactors currently under construction, and the expectation is that battery production will approximate rapid positive exponential growth at least to the end of the decade.
oceanofsolaris 5y ago
AFAIK the running out of fuel would be a non-issue with breeder reactors, which are disliked for the proliferation risk they are. Well, trade-offs. Also: currently, nuclear fuel cost is a small part of running a reactor. If nuclear fuel follows a similar cost/available quantity curve as other geologic resources, we should be able to find more once we start looking in earnest.

afroboy 5y ago

> you need nuclear energy. Don't forget they are easy targets when war get declared.

Hamuko 5y ago
Attacking a nuclear power plant in Germany is harder than turning off a pipeline.
moonchrome 5y ago
I'm guessing if anyone is going to start nuclear war then we're going back to stone age with or without nuclear power plants.
- gpderetta 5y ago
  they would be easy targets in a conventional war. In a nuclear war pretty much everything is an easy target.
- hamsamrma 5y ago
  Thou there's a difference between "Nuclear War" and "some rebels shot a nuclear power plant and it disintegrated"
petre 5y ago
A gas pipeline is also an easy target unless it's under the sea like North Stream.

flgb 5y ago

This is simply not true. And even if it was nuclear is not a viable response with new projects taking decades to develop. Todays nuclear industry is delivering warmed-up 1970s technology that is expensive, slow, and inflexible. Solar/wind/batteries with a small amount of backup capacity from hydro, power-to-gas/fuel, biofuels, or new long-duration storage is cheaper and faster to deploy.

modo_mario 5y ago
>This is not simply not true. You seem to be disagreeing with our greens. Gas is offered as the only backup source at that scale and timeframe. >Solar/wind/batteries with a small amount of backup capacity from hydro, power-to-gas/fuel, biofuels, or new long-duration storage is cheaper and faster to deploy. Wrong. [1]Nuclear wins out when kept open a bit longer and that is without accounting for storage methods. To say "a small amount of backup capacity" is absolutely ridiculous. The amounts we need compared to what is available right now would be massive. Most European countries aren't norway with loads of hydro capacity either. Also power to gas/fuel is a pipedream due to inherent costs and losses alone. You're better off making more pumped storage power stations like in Coo but those don't fit anywhere and aren't magical either. [1]https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/image/png/2020-12/lco_by_technology_egc_2020_2020-12-07_12-10-45_613.png https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/image/png/2020-12/lco_b...
- modo_mario 5y ago
  correction: I meant "those don't fit everywhere" at the end as opposed to "anywhere"
andromeduck 5y ago
The technology/resources for the storage required woudvtske even longer but you're right, we don't need new technologies, we should be serial building proven designs like CANDUs until SMRs hit stride.

arez 5y ago

so let's build some nuclear power plants, they should be done in 20yrs is that fast enough?

modo_mario 5y ago
A serious stretch. Nevertheless the argument that they're too slow to build has been popping up for 20 years now.
- zuzun 5y ago
  Unlike nuclear power plants.

danhor 5y ago

(all numbers for germany) Only ~14% of gas used is used for electrical energy. About 50% of the gas we use is imported from russia. 77% of the gas is used by households for heating (and also cooking, but that's negliable) and industry To not depend on russian gas by reducing gas usage, the gas heating systems need to be replaced with heat pumps or something else and industry needs to shift, presumably to electricity (since it's unlikely that we have enough green hydrogen that's not produced from fossil fuels without depending on russia). This isn't going to be easy and unlikely to happen at a large enough scale in the next 5 years.

henearkr 5y ago

But then you depend on West Africa for uranium. It's not a coincidence if Russian groups are in Mali, maybe they have an eye on Niger's mines.