Amelang (2024) on role of future baseload report by German research academies
Robbie Morrison
Hello all
The Energy Systems of the Future (ESYS) project yesterday
released their report on the role of future baseload
generators in Europe. Baseload is a proxy for large,
capital intensive, relatively inflexible generators that require
high full‑load hours to be profitable, namely: nuclear fission,
natural gas, geothermal energy, and nuclear fusion. Here is a
short summary in english:
- Amelang, Sören (4 December 2024). Baseload power stations not needed for secure renewable electricity supply – research academies. Clean Energy Wire. Berlin, Germany. Creative Commons CC‑BY‑4.0 license.
And in German:
- mha/dpa (3 December 2024). "Stromversorgung laut Studie auch ohne Grundlastkraftwerke sicher" [Study shows that the power supply is secure even without base-load power plants] (in German). Der Spiegel. Hamburg, Ger many. ISSN 2195-1349.
The report itself (which are often translated into english after
several months):
- Stöcker, Philipp, Berit Erlach, Sven Wurbs, Frank-Detlef Drake, Manfred Fischedick, Jutta Hanson, Hans-Martin Henning, Wilhelm Kiewitt, Jochen Kreusel, Albert Moser, Wolfram Münch, Karen Pittel, Albrecht Reuter, Dirk Uwe Sauer, Wolf-Peter Schill, Hartmut Spliethoff, Cyril Stephanos, Christoph Weber, and Anke Weidlich (3 December 2024). Kernspaltung, Erdgas, Geothermie, Kernfusion: Welche Rolle spielen Grundlastkraftwerke in Zukunft? (Impuls) [Nuclear fission, natural gas, geothermal energy, nuclear fusion: what role will base-load power plants play in the future? (Impulse)] (in German). Germany: acatech, Leopoldina, Akademienunion. doi:10.48669/esys_2024-14.
- landing page: https://www.acatech.de/allgemein/grundlast/
The underlying modeling was black‑box. For which there is also a report about to be published.
Disclosure (or should that be disclaimer), my wife Berit worked on the report just cited.
And while I am here, if you have ever wondered about n–1 security, here is an example from my homeland:
- 1News Reporters (24 June 2024). Crew
removed too many nuts from bottom of pylon before collapse.
1News. New Zealand.
Maintenance contractors removed all the nuts holding three of the
legs of a live 220kV transmission tower .. and it fell over and
tripped an HVAC branch circuit supplying the far north of the
country.
cheers, Robbie
-- Robbie Morrison Address: Schillerstrasse 85, 10627 Berlin, Germany Phone: +49.30.612-87617