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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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1041 points mpweiher | 4 comments | 12 Sep 25 18:18 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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jama211 ◴[12 Sep 25 19:19 UTC] No.45225631[source]▶
I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?
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1. rnhmjoj ◴[12 Sep 25 20:47 UTC] No.45226586[source]▶
> in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

You're exactly right, in theory, in practice it's impossible without some significant amount of energy storage, which we don't really have.

I once did this calculation for fun: in Italy, starting from the current energy mix and replacing fossils with more solar while meeting the demand in winter would require covering with panels an area equal to the region of Abruzzo (that's like 5% of Italy's total surface).

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2. tcfhgj ◴[13 Sep 25 06:37 UTC] No.45229852[source]▶
Germany sits on storage capacity more than 247 TWh
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3. opo ◴[13 Sep 25 19:41 UTC] No.45234733[source]▶
What is the 247 TWh number referring too?

Germany uses a little over 500 TWh of electricity per year.

Germany has a little more than 20 GWh of grid storage.

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4. pfdietz ◴[14 Sep 25 18:28 UTC] No.45242116{3}[source]▶
It's referring to the possible storage capacity, probably the potential to store hydrogen in underground solution mined salt caverns.

I've heard much higher figures, in the PWh for Europe as a whole.

Storage of energy as heat at 600 C has much larger potential storage capacity; see standardthermal.com