Landmark moment as EU renewables overtake fossil fuels
Climate neutrality by 2050 means renewables growth will further accelerate
Ember and Agora Energiewende’s fifth annual report tracking Europe’s electricity transition was published on 25th January 2021. It revealed that renewables overtook fossil fuels to become the EU’s main source of electricity for the first time in 2020.
[...] Renewables rose to generate 38% of Europe’s electricity in 2020 (compared to 34.6% in 2019), for the first time overtaking fossil-fired generation, which fell to 37%. This is an important milestone in Europe’s Clean Energy Transition. At a country level, Germany and Spain (and separately the UK) also achieved this milestone for the first time. The transition from coal to clean is, however, still too slow for reaching 55% greenhouse gas reductions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050.
[...] Wind generation rose 9% in 2020 and solar generation rose 15%. Together they generated a fifth of Europe’s electricity in 2020. Since 2015, wind and solar have supplied all of Europe’s growth in renewables, as bioenergy growth has stalled, and hydro generation remains unchanged.
Renewables rise is still too slow – wind and solar generation growth must nearly triple to reach Europe’s 2030 green deal targets: from 38 TWh per year average growth in 2010-2020 to 100 TWh per year average growth between 2020-2030. It is encouraging that wind and solar increased by 51 terawatt-hours in 2020, well above the 2010-2020 average, despite facing some impact from Covid-19. The IEA forecast record wind and solar capacity growth in 2021. Still, EU countries need to step up their 2030 commitments considerably. At the moment, national energy and climate plans only add up to about 72 TWh new wind and solar per year, not the 100 TWh/year that are needed.
[...] Coal generation fell 20% in 2020, and has halved since 2015. Coal generation fell in almost every country, continuing coal’s collapse that was well in place before Covid-19. Half of the drop in 2020 was due to a decrease in electricity demand, which fell by 4% due to the impact of Covid-19; and half was from additional wind and solar. As electricity demand bounces back in 2021, wind and solar will need to rise at a faster rate if the recent falls in coal are to be sustained.
Gas generation fell only 4% in 2020, despite the pandemic. Most of the fall in fossil was on coal rather than gas in 2020, because a robust carbon price meant gas generation was the cheapest form of fossil generation, even undercutting lignite for the first time in some months. Nuclear generation fell by 10% in 2020 – probably the largest fall ever – and that also kept gas (and to a lesser-extent coal) generation from falling further.
This means Europe’s electricity in 2020 was 29% cleaner than in 2015. Carbon intensity has fallen from 317 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour in 2015 to 226 grams in 2020. Although coal generation has almost halved in that time, 43% of the coal decline has been offset by increased gas generation, slowing the reduction in carbon intensity.
(Emphasis in original retained.)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @09:39PM (5 children)
can suck it
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:15PM (4 children)
What's missing from all this gloating is how much it costs. For example, European households tend to pay about 50% more [paylesspower.com] for electricity than their US counterparts (with Germany paying triple the average US price). I think the emphasis on renewable over affordable electricity production explains this price difference.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:02PM (3 children)
So let's say for the sake of argument that the cost of electricity triples.
Which is more expensive: (A) Having your electric bill go from $50 a month to $150 a month, or (B) Having your house burn down in a wildfire or be completely destroyed in a flood?
Which is more expensive: (A) Having your electric bill go from $100 a month to $300 a month, or (B) Spending $2.4 trillion of public tax money on invading a country halfway around the world to capture oil reserves?
Also, there's good reason to believe that the expense goes up for a while in order to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, but once the transition is complete the cost goes down even further than it was before the transition to renewables. Very simply, once you've built the windmill, it's a lot easier to keep it going than it was to build it in the first place.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @05:53PM
There is no point illustrating simple reality to khallow, he has chosen ignorance and or shilling for the US capitalism in all its stamdard conservative forms.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:21PM (1 child)
Paying a million dollars (or likely much more) per climate change destroyed house isn't a good deal. At this point I'm not near a laptop, but I'll see if I can come up with some firmer numbers.
The obvious rebuttal is cost of energy storage, variability of supply, and increased cost of power distribution from less dense power sources.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:07PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday January 25 2021, @09:52PM (41 children)
There's no reason not to use them. They could meet the 2050 goal of "climate neutrality" with them, if they don't count the BTUs...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @10:38PM
Troll
Hmm, anti-nuclear hysteria is still a thing, eh?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:56AM (35 children)
Well, actually there are several reasons. The big one is that you have to plan the installations a long time before you build them.
OTOH, I really doubt that 100% safe nuclear plants are possible. I mean be serious, you can't have a 100% safe house building project.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:36AM (29 children)
We can have *safe enough*. The waste is a non-issue, it can be recycled. Plain old politics is our own worst enemy. Regardless, its record is already proven "safe" when compared to conventional methods. In the long run, their biggest offense will be the excess heat that has to be dissipated into space. The planet's surface area is limited.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:28AM (5 children)
The waste "can" be recycled, but it isn't being, and there aren't plans in place to do so.
There's also the question of "safe enough'. It's not exactly an engineering problem as much as a management problem. The recent designs that claim to be inherently safe haven't been tested enough, often haven't been tested at all, in live situations. We don't KNOW their failure modes, just that there will inevitably be some. There always are.
I, personally, favor development of nuclear plants. I want them developed sufficiently to be reliable on the surface of the moon, Mars, and in the asteroids. But solar cells are here now, working now, and their drawbacks are already known. And they don't require a large incremental expense to add capacity.
(Well, FWIW, what I really want is small, cheap, fusion power that's safe and reliable. But that's not going to happen this year or next.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:48AM
This is why I said our only problem with nuclear is political. And the safety record is outstanding in spite of it. We can already build reasonably safe plants now, just have to fix that managerial problem during construction and operation, and everything else will fall into place.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:22PM (3 children)
Whose fault is that?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 26 2021, @09:15PM (2 children)
That's irrelevant. However...
If you must know some of the decisions were taken during the presidency of Eisenhower. Nobody since then has altered them. (You'd think that Carter would have, but he didn't.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @12:32PM (1 child)
This is an example of plain old politics getting in the way, not safety concerns. We could have safe breeding reactors recycling those dangerous fuel rods, instead of having them stored at hundreds of sites world-wide for decades. My take is that this happened because anti-nuclear proponents deliberately wanted to make nuclear power as unsafe as possible in order to facilitate its eventual extinction. That also explains a considerable portion of resistance to new plant construction and/or reactor replacement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @12:34PM
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:12AM (19 children)
No that is a complete non-issue.
Total human energy usage < 5 × 1020 joules / year
Total Earth Insolation 5.56 x 1024 joules / year
Difference is a factor of about 10,000. Adding the human race's waste heat to the Earths energy budget wouldn't even be detectable on a global scale. Altering the albedo matters far more.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:41AM (18 children)
How long until we catch up at 2.3% annual growth?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 26 2021, @07:04AM (17 children)
407 years to parity*, at which point the population will be 448 billion.**
We get to 1% in 203 years, at which point the population will be 55 billion.
Somehow, I don't think those trends will continue to be linear for that long.
*parity is energy consumption of the human race is equal to the total solar insolation of the earth. At this point we could put out the Sun and the Earth would stay the same temperature.
**If you are extrapolating energy usage, you also have to extrapolate population growth. It is currently just over 1% PA.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @05:03PM (16 children)
:-) Bitcoin miners will consume it all.
And future automation will raise per capita consumption also. 1020 to 1024 is not really a big jump.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:25PM (15 children)
Yeah it is. 20 to 24 might not look like much of a change but really it is ten thousand times bigger.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:40PM (14 children)
It's a small amount when you're in the quadrillions. Going from 101 to 105 is a big change, but from 1020 to 1024 is not as noticeable. Our 1020 joules is not chump change if the planet is only 1024
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:55PM (1 child)
It only looks that way because of the very small units.
In 2013 world energy consumption was 0.1575 exawatt hours.
Jumping to 157.5 exawatt hours is a rather big leap.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @09:23PM
Heh, wait until the "Third World"™ becomes fully industrialized... and starting running their own bitcoin mines
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @10:28PM (11 children)
It's the same change. Just change your units so you have 1 unit instead of 1020 units.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 27 2021, @11:15PM (10 children)
Only different. It's like one year is a much smaller part of my life now than it was when I was one.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @11:38PM (9 children)
No way is that relevant. It's a fixed ratio, not merely one more year. So it'd be like your age again, no matter how old you are.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 27 2021, @11:41PM (8 children)
Only to each other. You see the trees, not the forest.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 28 2021, @02:10AM (7 children)
Which is the point of the term, "fraction".
I just happen to be right.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 28 2021, @02:21AM (6 children)
Only from your point of view, in which case, to you, you are...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 28 2021, @03:27AM (5 children)
It's simple. Define 10 BigJoules = 1020 joules. Then the planet is only 105 BigJoules and by your words, your point of view, it is a "big change".
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 28 2021, @03:35AM (4 children)
Nope, see how you get it so wrong? Probably not, but anyway, it's only 5 different, not very much compared to first 20 we already have on the scale
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 28 2021, @12:03PM (3 children)
4 different. 10 versus 100,000. And the scale slides all over the place as I already noted.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 28 2021, @03:48PM (2 children)
versus 50 gazillion is nothing. You have this weird propensity to avoid the big picture
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 28 2021, @06:03PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday January 30 2021, @03:33AM
Give it up. Either he doesn't understand basic maths or he is trolling you.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:46PM (2 children)
Is nuclear power safer than coal power? Yes.
Is nuclear power safer than oil or gas power? Yes, especially if you count the cost of fighting wars to control oil or gas reserves, but also the constant lethal risks faced by both roughnecks and coal miners.
Is nuclear power safer than wind power? Definitely not - wind turbines have killed approximately nobody ever, whereas nuclear power has caused deaths when things go wrong, most recently at Fukushima.
I'm less than 10 miles downstream/downwind from a nuclear plant which had significant technical problems early on in its history and is now past its EOL date. Every year, they send me a pamphlet that provides instructions on what to do if the alarm goes off and everybody has to evacuate as quickly as possible. And even if I end up OK at least for the short-term as a result of that incident, whatever it ends up being, that's still going to have longer-term impacts to things like whether I can live in my home.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:51PM (1 child)
I believe wind power kills dozens to hundreds a year. There's two common causes of death: falling off a tower, and getting whacked by ice or a broken blade coming off a tower.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @12:53PM
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:51PM (4 children)
> I really doubt that 100% safe nuclear plants are possible.
This is a wrong argument. When was the last time you checked how many people will be killed by fossil fuel pollution *today*?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/ [newscientist.com]
Specific to Fukushima:
https://energycentral.com/c/ec/deaths-nuclear-energy-compared-other-causes [energycentral.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:29PM (3 children)
I'm replying to someone else, who was the one that set that bar. I'm essentially saying "Be reasonable and moderate your claims.".
That said, the old designs are too expensive, and the new designs don't have a track record. Neither is appropriate for a "right now!" large investment. Several of the newer designs look pretty good, but I'm not an expert in the field, and in any case they don't yet have a track record. By all means invest in them, but be reasonably cautious. We know the failure modes of solar/wind/etc. And they don't require a large incremental investment. For the new designs of nuclear plants, build a few. Not a huge rollout. But a few. If they work out as expected, then invest more, but that's for a decade in the future (from when they come online).
Solar and wind we can do now. And that's important.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:46PM
Understood and agree. But base load.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @09:56PM (1 child)
Actually, fusty didn't set the bar that high. 100% safe is a lot more than merely safe.
I disagree because the new designs are derived from the experiences of the old designs. They have a track record in the old designs. And you won't get a better track record without a large investment in the new designs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @10:02PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:59AM (3 children)
Renewables are less complex to implement because they scale down. You can stick solar panels on existing buildings, or freestanding. You can erect individual wind turbines and connect them to a grid. So you don't need any central planning authority, any colossal construction projects, any eminent-domain land seizures to get an appropriate location, and so forth. And not all nuclear power plants recycle spent fuel, so you would still have the headache of transporting radioactive spent fuel between plants for recycling.
Energy storage is, of course, the killer problem with renewables but some innovations have come along. I'm only following this kind of thing with casual interest, but it looks like energy storage raising and lowering massive waits in mine shafts will work. It's cheaper, better for the environment, and have lower maintenance costs than battery storage. It also doesn't require a specific geographic layout like pumped energy storage. One startup working on this kind of thing is https://www.gravitricity.com/ [gravitricity.com]
Now for the controversial part of my post. The US is full of bullshit jobs. A big objection to socialized medicine is that it puts hundreds of thousands of insurance industry employees and hospital billing department employees out of work. Likewise, state managed car insurance and homeowner's insurance (with different rates based on the value of the item ensured and the claim history of the customer) would be far more efficient than hundreds of companies advertising and competing for customers. Part of the reason the US tax code is so complicated is to provide jobs for thousands of accountants. Legalizing a lot of drugs and making them available to addicts by prescription would put 10,000 DEA employees out of work (not to mention countless drug dealers and drug smugglers). Trim some of the fat out of the US economy, and spend all of that money and employ all of those people on a mass renewable energy rollout. And for every fossil fuel power plant, mining facility, drilling facility, and distribution network that gets shut down put all of those people into renewable energy production and storage too.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:50PM (1 child)
> A big objection to socialized medicine is that it puts hundreds of thousands of insurance industry employees and hospital billing department employees out of work
ROFL. As a foreigner in a country with a national health service, I didn't realise this was really an objection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:56PM
I can't find a source for it, but I did read that somewhere. The US was still in a recession in 2010, and if Obamacare/Affordable Care Act had included true nationalized health insurance, it would have put hundreds of thousands of additional people out of work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @10:25PM
Sorry, that's not a big objection. The real problem is that those jobs exist because some industries paid off a huge number of politicians who make the decisions. Destroy those jobs and you destroy the payoffs.
As to dumping these saps into a mass renewable energy rollout, you're just moving the fat around. A few hundred thousand parasites doing the renewable energy thing won't be prettier.
Also, I strongly disagree that a single insurer would be more efficient than a hundred insurers. Just look at public flood and earthquake insurance in the US which is dominated by public insurers. The premiums are way lower than the payouts (because it's popular with the voters to charge less). It should be unsettling to you that the number one way to reduce property damage from climate change is to raise US (not global, US only) flood insurance premiums to the actual cost of the flood risk. Those hundred insurers got this figured out. The US government does not nor has an interest in trying.
Same goes with earthquakes though these tend to manifest at the state level. California's earthquake insurance plan is one big quake away from complete bankruptcy. It collects way too little premiums to cover the liabilities it has.
So sorry, I don't buy that a US government-run insurance program will be remotely efficient, unless the purpose is to create a financial disaster. It'll be very efficient at that.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Monday January 25 2021, @10:03PM (13 children)
Was this on a sunnier day than average, or a cloudier day? Windier than average, or calmer than average? Day? Or Night?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 25 2021, @10:14PM (11 children)
Until we nuclear winter happens, won't it always be sunny somewhere? Isn't the wind usually blowing somewhere?
With enough wind and solar generation capacity, spread out enough, and with enough battery peaker plants (see Tesla, Australia), can't we get more and more of our energy to be from clean sources?
Over a large enough nation or continent, maybe it doesn't make sense to ask if there was more sun or wind on any given day. In the EU if a state has excess generation capacity on a sunny windy day, can't they sell it to another state that has a dark cloudy day today? On another day they will be in the reverse positions.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Monday January 25 2021, @10:24PM
If you live in Philadelphia I have it on good authority it's always sunny there.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @10:35PM (4 children)
It's not like weather patterns occur in little isolated pockets. Wind and sun don't obey our orders and appear where and when we need them.
Weather patterns are huge and the same weather pattern can blanket half of the US and Canada, or any other continent, with cloud or calm winds at any given time for days or weeks.
Look at the global winds right now at https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-90.32,17.54,540. [nullschool.net] Except for the Baja peninsula and Patagonia, most of the Americas are calm. Same with Europe, Africa, and Asia. The only continent with substantial wind is Australia so they could have a surplus of wind power, but please tell us how you expect them to export electricity to NYC or Paris.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 25 2021, @10:55PM (3 children)
Mr. Musk is working on that. When he has enough satellites in place, Melbourne can shoot a laser beam into the heavens, which can be bounced from one satellite to another, until it can be finally aimed at some city on the appropriate continent. You'll have to beef up the infrastructure at the receiving end, so as not to melt the substations.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:53AM (2 children)
You mean that's something like a not-a-weapon that can destroy cities? That will go well for Musk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:15AM
He's thinking of changing his name to Drax.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday January 26 2021, @10:18AM
He just needs to make sure that the authorities don't notice the possible use as weapon until after it got built. After that, he has a very good argument for governments to not interfere with his plans. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @11:03PM (3 children)
How "clean" is it if it relies on manufacturing enormous batteries?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:17AM (2 children)
A lot cleaner than a coal power station, I can guarantee you that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:29AM (1 child)
Citation Required.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:21AM
Here you go: [citation] [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @11:38PM
Yes, it will be sunny somewhere. That could be on the other side of the planet, though. That's going to be an awfully long power cable.
Solar power exhibits an availability that even a child ought to be able to understand.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:20AM
How about the net total for the year?
I know, for you to confirm this, you'll need to... shudders... RTFA.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by legont on Monday January 25 2021, @11:24PM (3 children)
I like wood burning too. It's very traditional and cozy.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @11:40PM (1 child)
Burning natural gas is cleaner and quicker, but I understand the appeal of an occasional fire.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:00AM
The advantage of wood is that it isn't releasing fossil carbon into the atmosphere. (Of course it's got LOTS of downsides, but that doesn't eliminate the positives.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday January 28 2021, @03:20AM
Wow, flamebait and troll I got! I smell the air right now and everybody aground burns wood. It' NJ; 40 miles from Manhattan.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Monday January 25 2021, @11:40PM (3 children)
It took me awhile to figure out where the remaining 25% of Europe’s electricity came from: Nuclear.
No comment on whether that's good or bad; I just wanted to fill in the blank.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @11:43PM (1 child)
Nuclear power is 24x7 and carbon-free.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Tuesday January 26 2021, @10:31AM
Not quite. French nuclear plants often have to shut down during summer, because the rivers they use for cooling get too hot.
Anyway, I'm still hoping that one day we will get fusion plants working and economic. At which point the whole question gets moot, as fusion plants are inherently safe (it's hard enough to keep the plasma in a fusion state; if anything fails, it will simply stop working instead of exploding), produce little, weakly radioactive nuclear waste (basically, only the material the building is made of, because it gets activated), and the “waste” produced by the process itself (helium) is actually a valuable substance. And the fuel reserves will last for millions of years. Oh, and of course it's carbon free, too.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:19AM
They have the same problem as the US, all the nuclear plants are aging and need to be retired. Here is a well-titled article on the problem https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-nuclearpower-analysis/climate-could-pay-the-price-as-europes-nuclear-plants-age-idUSKBN28V26D [reuters.com]