Carbon intensity of electricity generation in Europe: so far, only nuclear energy is effective in decarbonizing energy production.

by thbb

34 comments

  1. Source: https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/huet/2024/01/11/electricite-et-climat-en-2023/

    This 2D plot shows, for every hour of 2023, the carbon intensity of electricity generation against the number of GWh produced during this hour. Countries are color coded.

    What this illustrates very well is the failure of decarbonizing electricity generation with intermittent renewables, except maybe in places that have a lot of solar resources (Spain).

    Even Denmark’s performance is quite weak, in spite of its aggressive development of offshore wind. Also, there is not a single hour across all ~~of~~ of 2023 where Germany’s carbon intensity has been lower than France’s.

  3. One should also factor in the reliability and Energy consumption of the countrys.

    Besides that of course France has had a big basis of nuclear power for Quite a long time, while Germany was not stressing the expansion of renewables enough.

    The title is a bit misleading – general renewables are not emitting more CO2 than nuclear. There is just not enough of it yet. However they are not bound to the risingly unstable availability of water and are actually renewable compared to nuclear which requires material to be prepped up before usage – which requires energy – and producing waste in the end

  4. Excellent, finally an objective comparison showing which EU countries are in fact the biggest emitters of CO2

  5. Or hydro, if you are lucky enough to have the geographic preconditions.

  8. >so far, only nuclear energy is effective in decarbonizing energy production

    Tell that to Norway

  9. First, this has been posted multiple times now.
    Second, as stated in every other post, Germany is very bloated, their average is similar/slightly below Italy.,

  10. The official stat for Denmark (via Energinet) for 2023 is 91 g / kWh. Reason being this chart doesn’t account for co-generation for district heating and doesn’t account for sustainable sourcing of biomass. It assumes a generic global average.

  11. You make a claim about decarbonization which is a process and then show a static graph. A graph which heavily favours nuclear electricity since the human eye will automatically put the average carbon intensity in the _perceived_ center of mass of the dot cloud.

    If you compare the growth of renewables and nuclear (which doesn’t grow) the picture is clear: Renewables are much faster, cheaper and easier to implement. Renewables are accounting and will account for almost all of the decarbonization, not nuclear.

  12. What about The Netherlands? Pretty curious how they compare to the rest of Europe

  14. This graph is truly interesting. OP’s comments are welcome as well.

  16. OK, lets see.

    Spain is relatively low (not as France admittedly) wind alone produced more than nuclear, and if you add solar and hydro, together they are more than double nuclear.

    Norway is very low, and has no nuclear. True, it is because of geography, but still, its there.

    Switzerland is increasing solar, but hydro and nuclear are split even. So, yes, nuclear important, but not alone.

    Sweden another low carbon country, hydro is at 44%, wind at 23% and nuclear at 32% of these 3, so, yes, nuclear important, but not dominant.

    From your chart, low carbon countries all have nuclear save for Norway, and only France is dominated by nuclear. Switzerland is big on nuclear, and rest are not low carbon because of nuclear, anymore than other renewables.

    You can’t look at this, and just take in to account Germany and France.

    Also, worth noting is that in all countries, it is solar and wind that are increasing, and that it is a process. Nuclear is here for over 50 years, wind and solar are not instrument error level basically in last ten or so years.

    Conclusion, have a little vision. Germany made a wrong decision 15-ish years ago, and nuclear should have stayed on. Building them today, makes little sense.

  17. bUt NuCLeAr iS NoT GreEN EnOuGH

    Said the country with 10 times the carbon footprint / GWh generated

  18. I am surprised to see Denmark so high in carbon as they have been in the lead of renewable wind energy for a long time.

  19. Norway is selling the gas to the rest of Europe. So they are making bank selling the product thats causing alot of the CO2 production elsewhere.

  20. Yes. because all the crap is left to the exploited African countries where the sources are extracted from. That doesn’t make it to the national statistics. That’s why certain people like it.

  21. More renewables are needed. Not everywhere is sunny. Not everywhere is windy. Nuclear is expensive, green, and good for the holes of renewables. Coal is bad. Gas is also bad but slightly less than coal. Hydro is not available for everyone. Blue hydrogen is a scam.

    There you go. Now come up with something more to help solve these problems. Power-to-x? Green hydrogen? Batteries?

  22. I wonder if that includes building the reactor with it’s huge amounts of concrete, as well as mining and enriching the uranium.

    Because fuel rods don’t grow on trees in France next to reactor.

  23. I wish we had all European countries listed on it. Even if they are are small countries

  24. No only getting rid of coal is, stop spreading this shitty nuclear propaganda on reddit

  26. Renewable energy sources like wind turbines and solar power are still the cheapest in 2023 in Europe: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41971-7/figures/4

    Of course renewables are a lot cheaper in production costs than nuclear: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity

    The energy transition debate is already over: renewables have won. Renewable power sources are scalable, cost efficient, planning and construction is comparable easy and operation is safe.

  27. It was one of the worst decisions to shut down nuclear powerplants in Germany.

    -sincerely, a German

  29. thats the most bullshit conclusion you can pull from this graph lmfao.

  30. I think Portugal and Spain are doing a fair job, perhaps nuclear is not the only way either

  31. Yeah, and 20 years ago, when we got in to EU, one of the conditions was that we have to shut down our only nuclear plant. The argument for it to be closed was that it’s unsafe due to it having the same model reactors as Czernobyl (while it was the soviet style management and some narcicist that actually caused the explosion, otherwise it would still function to this day). Why did our politicians agree? Cheap ruzzki gas. And we were the ones telling Europe not to trust them. God I hate politics…

  32. The graph shows no such thing.

    Also the title says the data shows generation in 2023.

    But the source on the right is dated as 2014?

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