Mihies

Yep, gas is a good climate warming enabler. Which we want to avoid since we are fighting climate warming - funny eh, that renewables instead of nuclear causes more gas/coal being burned.

As for batteries, perhaps, but today we don't have any of those at scale required. And while houses could get off grid today with li-ion batteries where lithium is not infinite (nor are rare earths required), it doesn't solve cities and industry or energy storage at scale. Plus those batteries tend to catch fire which is hard to extinguish. Water based storage is limited by geography. And so on.

There are too many if-s in there. When you build energy strategy for at a country level, you can't base it on if-s. And even if we had viable battery technology today, there are still problems building them at scale, their cost and their volume. As of today, the more renewables you have, more expensive stable energy gets or you simply burn coal or gas when required.

That's why I wrote "worst case". Imagine a winter rainy week with short days when heat pumps are running like crazy. But again, I have yet to see real energy storage solutions or real such scenarios.

Nuclear doesn’t make sense for that purpose because it’d have to quickly be able to spin up and down. Most reactor designs aren’t really able to do it quickly in normal operations, and those that can can’t do so in a way that makes any economic sense. They’re financially outcompeted by their alternatives.

Yes, you are right about nuclear output flexibility. Their purpose is to provide stable output, not chime in when required - and that's the problem with renewables - there is no good solution to compensate when they are not producing. Feel free to list those alternative reliable solutions.

Storage is the solution, which we can build today in a viable way and is rapidly becoming cheaper and cheaper.

And I have yet to see real energy storage data. All I read is just "energy storage is the solution (which, of course, it is, someday)" yadda yadda. So, numbers, please.

Yes, US is realizing, well the Orange is, that mindlessly and randomly applying tariffs will mostly hurt both parties. Where this lesson isn't applied in EU case so far. Just talked about what tariffs did you mean? He applied 10% ones which are still there and he talked/applied (not sure, but the difference is in a day at best) reciprocal ones because EU was planning them in a month or so. Then he paused the latter for three months and applying them again after two months. Basically he is totally volatile and unreliable to serious negotiations, a totally opposite to stable :)

Sure, they are not perfect. But newer ones are much more resilient to droughts. And such droughts are not that common, also while they affected power output it's not by that much - if I recall it was something in line with 10%.

Nuclear power plants get extended lifetime if there is will.

Also

Three days later then-Chancellor Angela Merkel – a physicist who was previously pro-nuclear – made a speech called it an “inconceivable catastrophe for Japan” and a “turning point” for the world. She announced Germany would accelerate a nuclear phase-out, with older plants shuttered immediately.

More than 30% of Germany’s energy comes from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – and the government has made controversial decisions to turn to coal to help with energy security. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/15/europe/germany-nuclear-phase-out-climate-intl/

Big win ... for the global warming.

Again, what energy storage are you taking about? See my other reply about it. But perhaps a combination of both might be feasible. And you're right, we're late in any case, some countries even stupidly so by closing nuclear power plants for populist reason.

China is holding ground and it looks good for them, even Orange, after lowering many of tariffs, is taking about lowering remaining tariffs. While the opposite is happening to EU.

What viable solution we have for i.e. a week worth of energy in worst case scenario? Let's take Slovenia for example with yearly consumption of 12.95 TWh, a week worth of energy would be 248 GWh. And during winter this number is probably higher. How would you store it? Note that US consumption is twice as high and population is x150.

Nope, today nuclear actually makes sense. Renewables are cool and relatively cheap but only as long as they output power. Then what? Spin up that coal power plant such as during night? And produce a ton of climate warming co2 and a lot of pollution. The problem is that we don't have energy storage nor a viable solution for it. Said that, cutting corners is a big no-no.

I said it before, EU not implementing any tariffs so far to appease the Orange was a mistake and sign of weakness in Orange's eyes. No wonder Orange swings random numbers around now.