> Anyone going on about the climate and refuses to put nuclear energy at the forefront of the conversation is unserious and is only interested in virtual signaling in my opinion.
I think it is unserious to call every other solution other than nuclear energy unserious in a climate discussion. Germany, for instance, has very serious discussions on climate neutrality without nuclear energy.
This is not true. The agreement between the federal government and the energy supply companies to phase out nuclear energy dates back to 14 June 2000. The first nuclear power plant was shut down permanently in Nov. 2003. At this time the power generation from coal (both hard coal and lignite) was around 300 TWh/year. It almost halfed to 162.6 TWh in 2021. The all time low was in 2020, though, due to the pandemic.
Coal has only increased in 2021, but fossil fuels have increased since 2002 (from 69.9GW to 78.9GW), i misremembered that statistic as coal instead of fossil fuels
The consumption of natural gas itself has indeed increased. But the sum of natural gas + coal has still decreased a lot. From aprox. 350 TWh per year in the early 2000s to 251,6 TWh in 2021. The partial replacement of coal by natural gas is at least in part caused by the transition to renewable energies. Until the transition is complete, natural gas is the best fossil fuel option to even out fluctuations in the production of renewable energy, because gas power plants can be switched on and off very quickly at peak times (in strong contrast btw to nuclear power plants) and they can be built relatively decentralized, each with a small volume. Therefore it is not likely that we will see a major drop in natural gas consumption in Germany in the next two decades.
> gas power plants can be switched on and off very quickly at peak times (in strong contrast btw to nuclear power plants)
Not true - from the wiki: Modern nuclear plants with light water reactors are designed to have maneuvering capabilities in the 30-100% range with 5%/minute slope, up to 140 MW/minute. Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode and so participate in the primary and secondary frequency control.
A nuclear reactor can only do this (depending upon combustible bars state) at most twice per day. This is a severe limitation.
France is a leader in this field.
Source (French language ahead!):
https://new.sfen.org/rgn/expertise-nucleaire-francaise-suivi...
Gas plants have a possible rate of change of aprox. 20%/minute. Admittedly, it may be a matter of taste whether a fourfold rate might be called a "strong" contrast. So let's just say that the rate of change of gas plants is typically four times higher.
Besides, the actual rates of change for nuclear power plants vary widely, depending on the current load of the power plant. According to the German Wikipedia the actual capabilities of (former) nuclear power plants in Germany ranged from 1.1% to 10% per minute. When the plant was below 50% of its load, the possible rate was near the lower end of this spectrum. The maximum of 10% was only possible when the plant was already running above of 80% of their nominal power. The value was also very much dependent on the operating state of the plant.[1] So the 5%/minute you mentioned are just an average.
Historically, nuclear power plants have been used as load following plants in Germany, but this was during times, when the overall volatility of power production was lower than today. And when it comes to new nuclear power plants currently being planned elsewhere, their load following capabilities are to my knowledge typically an afterthought.
Sorry I misremembered the statistic. They've been reducing coal usage slightly over the last 20 years, but burn 50% more natural gas. overall energy generation from fossil fuels is up over the last 20 years (since their first nuclear plant was shut down)
So capacity of fossil fuels went up, but I suppose natural gas shuts down while renewable generation is high so it doesn't use its capacity all the time - my bad
Yes, the easiest way to get a stable grid with wind and solar is to have natural gas capacity equal to what you need from wind and solar. Gas is not used when there is wind or solar, and is very easy and quick to turn on when needed.
In the future when more green gasses become available, bio methane, hydrogen or syn methane, those gas plants can be filled with those as well.
(In a hurry, could not find newer numbers for France.)
If one looks at the CO2 emissions per capita the gap is not so large. I could not find any new numbers for this either, but in 2018 the values of CO2 emissions in metric tons per capita were as follows:[3]
France 5.0
Germany 9.1
For comparison: United States 16.1
If one looks at the timelines, the gap between France in Germany seems to close more or less fast/slowly everywhere.
I think it is unserious to call every other solution other than nuclear energy unserious in a climate discussion. Germany, for instance, has very serious discussions on climate neutrality without nuclear energy.