France struggles with nuclear power in the summer, Germany with gas in the winter, and wind and solar energy are unreliable and not available 100% of the time. There’s no perfect solution—every energy source has major drawbacks. Name an energy source, and I’ll tell you why it sucks.
France does not struggle in summer. They don’t need much energy production then. They however struggle in winter, and need imports for the few coldest weeks… mostly from Germany that is.
Nuclear power is incredible bad as base load. The amount of capacities they need for energy-demanding winter times are total overkill most of the year. And as costs of nuclear are basically all construction (and later rebuilding) plants but operation is cheap as fuck, they don’t save money when they throttle them down in summer. And so France is a big exporter… all over the year but not actually in winter.
It’s funny that in both countries a complete lie is nowday common knowledge. Regarding France we hear fairy tales of how they struggle in summer (they don’t) but are oh so self-sufficient (they aren’t), while in Germany it’s 24/7 right-wing propaganda of how they have stuipidly shut down they reactors to be dependent on French ones (they aren’t… contrary to France Germany is in fact fully self-sufficient but with a lot of it based on coal which they turn down at times when France needs to get rid of overproduction cheaply).
Fusion energy.
Edit: yeah it exists, alright. Just not quite ready yet,look at how close we are: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260101160855.htm
Also, the comment says “name an energy source”, and not “one that can be implemented on a large scale” and “today”.
We were talking about existing energy sources. Some magical fusion energy being invented or made practical in the next thirty years doesn’t fit that bill. And let’s be honest: Even if some magical breakthrough would make fusion practicable today, it still would be too late to help us in the global warming crisis.It takes time to build big fusion reactors. It takes even more time to build a lot of reactors. It took France nearly twenty years to build a new nuclear reactor and other countries aren’t that faster. To build a huge fleet of fusion reactors (an unproven technology) will not help us reach our carbon goals in the next years. If we don’t reach them in the next years, we’re toast. We can, however, build proven renewable technology and then we don’t need fusion.
France struggles with nuclear power in the summer, Germany with gas in the winter, and wind and solar energy are unreliable and not available 100% of the time. There’s no perfect solution—every energy source has major drawbacks. Name an energy source, and I’ll tell you why it sucks.
No, it’s the other way around.
France does not struggle in summer. They don’t need much energy production then. They however struggle in winter, and need imports for the few coldest weeks… mostly from Germany that is.
Nuclear power is incredible bad as base load. The amount of capacities they need for energy-demanding winter times are total overkill most of the year. And as costs of nuclear are basically all construction (and later rebuilding) plants but operation is cheap as fuck, they don’t save money when they throttle them down in summer. And so France is a big exporter… all over the year but not actually in winter.
It’s funny that in both countries a complete lie is nowday common knowledge. Regarding France we hear fairy tales of how they struggle in summer (they don’t) but are oh so self-sufficient (they aren’t), while in Germany it’s 24/7 right-wing propaganda of how they have stuipidly shut down they reactors to be dependent on French ones (they aren’t… contrary to France Germany is in fact fully self-sufficient but with a lot of it based on coal which they turn down at times when France needs to get rid of overproduction cheaply).
Fusion energy. Edit: yeah it exists, alright. Just not quite ready yet,look at how close we are: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260101160855.htm Also, the comment says “name an energy source”, and not “one that can be implemented on a large scale” and “today”.
Yea, we already have fusion power and are already using it: The sun.
yeah the tiny drawback here is that it doesnt exist yet.
This would be my response
We were talking about existing energy sources. Some magical fusion energy being invented or made practical in the next thirty years doesn’t fit that bill. And let’s be honest: Even if some magical breakthrough would make fusion practicable today, it still would be too late to help us in the global warming crisis.It takes time to build big fusion reactors. It takes even more time to build a lot of reactors. It took France nearly twenty years to build a new nuclear reactor and other countries aren’t that faster. To build a huge fleet of fusion reactors (an unproven technology) will not help us reach our carbon goals in the next years. If we don’t reach them in the next years, we’re toast. We can, however, build proven renewable technology and then we don’t need fusion.
I’ll take cheaper, cleaner power any day. France has shown the way.
It’s bullshit, though.
What now? Cheap and clean would mean renewables. Nuclear is (at least regarding climate) clean but the most expensive energy there is.