Comment by rnhmjoj
3 days ago
> 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).
Germany sits on storage capacity more than 247 TWh
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.
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