Table - German power

[kristopher]

19. What's the specific *market* mechanism by which nuclear shuts down coal?

I don't deny that you can, by government fiat, build nuclear plants and shut down coal plants. However in today's world that is not a highly likely scenario. We have a world if interlocking economies and trading which results in rule-making that favors the interest of private property. You can rewrite some of those rules to change the direction of the energy systems, however, the mechanism that you use anywhere in the western world is not going to allow either the overt defacto or dejure expropriation of private property, which is what you are suggesting.

The process of shutting down the nuclear plants in Germany began in 2000 and was reversed just prior to Fukushima; which opened a rare window of opportunity where existing strong public sentiment and a just changed hold-over policy combined with a world class disaster to allow the mechanism of Germany's social democracy to accomplish a rare event - they stripped their utilities of private property rights related to operation of the nuclear plants.

In the real world as opposed to the fantasy world of the nuclear enthusiast, there are definite constraints on the policies a nation can push through. Nuclear cannot compete in any market for energy without massive government funding and the appetite for continued funding of this very mature industry is gone. It has delivered only rising prices, a litany of dangers and empty promises to do better in a future that never comes.

Nuclear power today cannot displace coal for they both benefit from the rules that are designed to promote the interests of the centralized utilities - which are solidly built around large-scale centralized thermal generation.

Finally if we could just direct the change of the system by a single order as you are suggesting what in the world makes you think we would do it on behalf of nuclear power? We have a global economy where nuclear will play, at most, no more than a small, fractional role. That being the case it is more of an obstruction than an aid in the pursuit of a true carbon free economy built on distributed renewable energy.

This paper makes the case very well, I suggest you read it for understanding instead of just looking through it trying to find something to nitpick, as is your custom.

Amory Lovins: “But nuclear power is about the least effective method: It does save carbon, but about 2 to 20 times less per dollar and 20 to 40 times less per year than buying its winning competitors”.

Bill Keepin and Gregory Kats: Improving electrical efficiency is nearly seven times more cost-effective than nuclear power for abating CO2 emissions, in the United States.

Environment California: “Per dollar spent over the lifetime of the technology, energy efficiency and biomass co-firing are five times more effective at preventing carbon dioxide pollution and combined heat and power is greater than three times more effective” than nuclear power.

Warwick Business School: The undermining of other technologies means that nuclear power is not complementary to other low- carbon technologies. This refutes the argument that all low-carbon technologies should, and are able to, be harnessed together so that they can harmoniously work together to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. On the contrary, the government has to make a choice between a nuclear future and one dominated by renewable generation and the more efficient use of energy.

Duke University: “Solar photovoltaics have joined the ranks of lower-cost alternatives to new nuclear plants,” John O. Blackburn, professor of economics.

http://boell.eu/downloads/Froggatt_Schneider_Systems_for_Change.pdf

You and DP need to remember that the is the wish list for those utilities that are really being hurt by the policies of Germany that are moving the country towards a renewable distributed grid. They ARE NOT making this transition voluntarily, they are being downsized by new economic policies regarding renewables that work within boundaries of acceptable market economics. This article is the context for the utility wish list in the OP. The government is in a rulemaking phase and the list above is what the utilities would like to see to preserve their corporate power. We will see how much of their program survives the Environment Minister.

Merkel To Meet Power Companies On German Energy Future
04/24/2012 | 10:55am

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited the country's four main utilities to a May 2 meeting to begin hashing out how best to fill the void in its future energy capacity, a year after she decided to rapidly shift away from nuclear power.

The meeting comes after Germany pledged a complete exit from nuclear energy by 2022 and a massive push into renewable energy. The move led to the country's main utilities suffering sharp falls in revenues and earnings, having to implement complex restructuring plans and, in some cases, seeking billions of euros in compensation from the government.

In May, Merkel will face the chief executives of those utilities--E.ON AG (>> E.ON AG), RWE AG (>> RWE AG), EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (>> Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG), and Vattenfall Europe, a unit of Sweden's state-controlled Vattenfall AB--as well as representatives from Siemens AG (SI) and from power network operators. They will discuss how to approach the transformation in the country's energy mix, a government official said Tuesday.

...

Utilities complain that the rapid expansion of solar and wind energy has made it more difficult to operate and keep profitable fossil-fueled power plants. Germany gives priority to renewable energy, while fossil-fueled plants can feed their power only in to the grid when wind and sun power doesn't meet demand.

http://www.4-traders.com/E-ON-AG-3818998/news/Merkel-To-Meet-Power-Companies-On-German-Energy-Future-14292053/