German still have some nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plant can not be started and shut down at will. Nuclear power plants continuously deliver roughly the same amount of energy. The countries around Germany have also a lot of power plants especially in France and in Belgium. Those power plants deliver their power also on a mutual pan European power grid (From Portugal to Finland and from Italy to Scotland). Nowadays, there is a minimum below limit for baseline to be produced. Sometimes, the electricity cost 0 even it costs to sell it! That happens only a few hours a year, but with the development of PV cells and wind turbines, this will be more and more the case. But in the winter season, the production might not feed the needs and the prices of MWh explode.
PV and Wind turbines are part of the solution. They are not the only solution. Nukes are still needed as baseline. Gas turbines can play a main role here because it is easy to put them on or off without too much extra costs. May the LENR be part of the solution as well! And I hope 2013 will be the start of the 1st MWh injected to the grid (US, EU or where else) In Japan, the Fukushima disaster has played a major role for the Japanese to integrate technically and inside the population the need of a smart power grid. Power was not fed to every house every time. There were some shutdown; some quarters were shutdown then the next one. The hybrid car has been put into contribution as energy storage unit. Fukushima was a shock to the local population and I understand that that they decided to put all nukes on hold. Arnaud
