Oh, oh. The Germans are in trouble. Their coal plans have been over-ruled.

[NNadir]

The European Commission's revisions of carbon cap proposals could hurt German coal power plants.
Brussels has reviewed the National Allocation Plans submitted by member states and has revised nine states' carbon caps. The European Commission is determined to avoid a repeat of the failure of the first round of the ETS, which appears to have a net long position due to an oversupply of emission credits. However, with proposed caps being pared down, German coal power plants may face real pain.

Germany is particularly exposed to the market for carbon for three main reasons. The first is that the German government has committed to the closure of all the country's nuclear power plants, which currently account for 28% of its installed generation capacity. Secondly, coal is available from a diverse range of both domestic and international suppliers. Germany would be reluctant to build solely gas-fired plants as this would increase its dependence upon Russian gas.

Lastly, coal power stations are typically the marginal plant in Germany. All countries have a so-called 'merit-order' of power plants that dictate when different plants will be brought online. Nuclear and renewables, with their very low fuel costs, are typically first and then gas and coal power plants follow, depending upon the relative cost of fuel and power. The very last plant to be started up to meet demand is known as the marginal plant and its operating and fuel costs tend to set the wholesale cost of power...

...The German government must encourage new power plant build to replace the ageing nuclear fleet as it retires and, to this point, their strategy has been to guarantee any new coal plants the carbon allowances that they require within their National Allocation Plan. The EC has also put a stop to this, as well as slashing Germany's allowance overall.

http://www.energy-business-review.com/article_feature.asp?guid=420524A8-92AE-4C60-BBC7-457E388EE414

Bold is mine.

It seems that they have stopped talking about how they will replace their nuclear plants with wonderful solar and wind facilities.

I wonder if their "nuclear phase out" will set the European record for the fastest collapse in history, a record now held by Belgium.

[whistle]

1. Why can't the Germans move to the newest generation of nuclear

...power, thorium based gas cooled thermonuclear. Safe, efficient, cheap power with vast potential for new forms of materials production.

<snip>


The pebble bed reactor (PBR) or pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) is an advanced nuclear reactor design.

This technology claims a dramatically higher level of safety and efficiency. Instead of water, it uses pyrolytic graphite as the neutron moderator, and an inert or semi-inert gas such as helium, nitrogen or carbon dioxide as the coolant, at very high temperature, to drive a turbine directly. This eliminates the complex steam management system from the design and increases the transfer efficiency (ratio of electrical output to thermal output) to about 50%. Also, the gases do not dissolve contaminants or absorb neutrons as water does, so the core has less in the way of radioactive fluids and is more economical than a light water reactor.

The technology was first developed in Germany<1> but political and economic decisions were made to abandon the technology.(NGNP Point Design – Results of the Initial Neutronics and Thermal- Hydraulic Assessments During FY-03 pg 20) In various forms, it is currently under development by MIT, the South African company PBMR, General Atomics (U.S.), the Dutch company Romawa B.V., Adams Atomic Engines, INL, and the Chinese company Huaneng <2>.

In June 2004, it was announced that a new PBMR would be built at Koeberg, South Africa by Eskom, the government-owned electrical utility<3>. There is considerable opposition to the PBMR from groups such as Koeberg Alert and Earthlife Africa, the latter of which has sued Eskom to stop development of the project <4>.
<MORE>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

[NNadir]

2. Well, I'm not crazy for pebble bed designs myself, but they're better than coal.

The German company Siemens is part of the group that developed the EPR, which is a great reactor. The reactor was developed in partnership with the French group Framatom.

The Germans decided to phase out nuclear power because they were lying to themselves. There's no more gentle way to put it.

The French will be building their first EPR - probably the first of many - at Flamanville. The Italians, who also have a "nuclear phase-out," the only one in Europe that actually caused the entire nuclear industry to shut, will be partners in the Flamanville reactor, because the effect of their phase out has been to require them to import electricity from both France and Slovenia. (The Italians also increased their reliance on coal.)

[IDemo]

3. What is it about PBR's you don't like?

There is quite a bit of Gen-IV reactor R&D occurring here in Idaho at the INEEL. Also talk about generating hydrogen for transportation (though I don't know if that's planned for Gen IV reactors or existing designs).

[NNadir]

4. PBR's are inherently "once through."

The fuel is designed to be extraordinarily stable. This limits the ease at which you can recover valuable materials from the fuel.

The PBR is designed to address two issues that in my view are wholly trivial and are a function of perception rather than the ease of technical address: The disposal of so called "nuclear waste" and safety. I don't think that either these issues are as intractable as they are in the public imagination.

The PBR idea is very popular, mostly because it allows access to high temperatures, which in theory at least can lead to the production of hydrogen which may be used to manufacture motor fuels. In fact it seems that probably the first nuclear plants that commercially produce hydrogen - it is claimed they will be first available around 2020 in some Asian countries - will either be PBR's or the related HTGCR (high temperature gas cooled reactor.) That's marginally OK with me, I guess, but I think many other high temperature reactors would be a better choice, including lead bismuth reactors and molten salt reactors. I am very excited about the latter.

The industrial experience with helium cooled reactors hasn't been all that good in general. The only HTGCR to be built in the US, the Fort Collins reactor, was a failure. I'm sure that the problems can be addressed, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that helium is going to be that available or that cheap in the future.

Right now the Japanese and the Chinese are operating high temperature helium cooled research reactors. I've read that they are performing very well. Since this technology is reasonably advanced, and since the climate emergency is immediate, I guess we'll have to go with them. On the other hand, I don't think it's the best long term choice for reactor technology.

[Javaman]

5. The earths future is dark. nt