Growing plants just to use them for energy production is absolutely stupid and incredibly harmful, agreed. But there are types of biomass that are basically waste from food production or forestry. It’s not a ton of energy, but it may play a part somewhere.

The fact that Scholz didn’t even come to my mind when I thought about the German government says it all. I had no expectations and I was still disappointed.

First of all, nuclear is anything but reliable. Germany had to supply huge amounts of electricity to France last year because half of their nuclear plants had to be shut down. They would have had major blackouts without support from their European neighbors.

But my main point is that baseload power does not mix with renewable sources at all. Using batteries and other solutions to store renewable energy during times of little wind or sunlight is actually the goal. But that also eliminates the need for baseload.

Baseload was never really a feature anyway, it was a necessity. Nuclear and certain types of coal power plants were unable to follow demand, they had to be run at close to full load all the time, either for technical or for economic reasons. To compensate for that, other more expensive plants had to be used to cover times of higher demand.

They were extended specifically because of natural gas supply issues, caused by the war in Ukraine. Not because of nuclear shutdowns.

I just remember a sandwich covered in melted cheese with an egg on top and some kind of sauce. And a lot of delicious fried food. Both usually with fries as a side dish. Never any salad unless I specifically ordered it. I’m sure I could have gone to lots of restaurants where they would have had lighter meals, but I was on holiday so greasy was perfect.

That’s not how renewables work. They don’t produce electricity on demand (at least not solar and wind), their energy output is dependent on the weather. If there’s no wind and no sun, they won’t cover any demand spikes. Which is why baseload power like nuclear is pretty much useless in combination with renewables.

What is actually needed is flexible power that can be quickly adapted to the varying output from solar and wind. This is currently mostly done with natural gas, which we’re trying to get away from. In the future, biomass, water and storage will cover that part, while demand response strategies will help reduce demand peaks during times of low energy production.

I had high hopes for the current government, but I never imagined the FDP would be able to do so much damage with so few votes. The way it is now, I’m pretty disappointed. A lot of great ideas that were just shut down in their infancy.

I hope so…

cork oaks

Portugal! What a wonderful country full of wonderful people. We do care about you and your delicious but slightly greasy food.

That is just blatant misinformation. Name one single coal plant that has been restarted since nuclear power was phased out.

That is just misinformation. First of all, nuclear power never contributed that much anyway. If all nuclear power plants ever built in Germany were running at full load 24/7 for 365 days of the year, they would produce 231 TWh, which is less than 10% of our total energy demand. So there was never that big of a hole to fill in the first place. Especially in the last ten years, when only a handful of power plants were still in service.

In reality, renewables have managed to replace both nuclear power and a large chunk of fossil fuels (source). Last year we had to export enormous amounts of energy to France, because their nuclear plants had proven so unreliable (source). This has admittedly led to an increased use of fossil fuels, which we could have avoided by building more renewables here (or in France).