[HN Gopher] Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy
___________________________________________________________________
Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy
Author : tomohawk
Score : 166 points
Date : 2022-08-13 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.spiegel.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.spiegel.de)
| 627467 wrote:
| Can't help but observe on how incapable are human societies to
| make long term critical rational decisions.
|
| It never really made sense to say "we are going to phase out
| nuclear entirely" instead of "we'll focus on how to build safer,
| cheaper and more efficient nuclear".
|
| The decision to go off nuclear was capricious and it seems that
| the speed with which sentiment is changing only proves this.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Nuclear requires exactly the sort of long term rational
| decision making you decry the lack of. That's the nice thing
| about other energy sources, they don't require 1000 years of
| self discipline and self denial...
| mccorrinall wrote:
| Exactly. Why did holes into the earth to store toxic waste
| when you have literally infinite energy right above your head
| (sun and wind)?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Infinite AND intermittent.
|
| Renewables don't work for base load yet.
| [deleted]
| panick21_ wrote:
| You don't actually need a whole in the earth. With actual
| modern technology you only need to store it for 300 years
| and you can store it on a single football field in a desert
| or field without issue.
|
| But we can't have nice apparently. We rather waste billions
| on some dumb geological storage rather then just use basic
| logic. Misinformation and politics are the only reason for
| these deep geological repositories.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| Really? Because self denial and lack of self discipline is
| how western society got to a point where the majority of its
| raw material supply chain and processing capability for green
| energy hardware (like solar panels) is dependent on an
| autocratic and genocidal communist country.
| panick21_ wrote:
| By literally any rational calculation, starting in 1970s any
| strategy other then 100% nuclear is insane.
|
| Nuclear wins in every first principle analysis, it requires the
| least amount of mining, the least amount of land, and produces
| the least amount of damage to the atmosphere and to local air
| quality.
|
| That it did not happen is a failure in planning. Eisenhower
| over-promised when he said energy to cheap to meter, but the
| technology certainty has and had amazing potential.
|
| In the 1960s they developed so many amazing reactors in such a
| short time, and then starting in the 1970 basically all
| progress stopped. The NASA Kilopower was the first new reactor
| in the US for like 40+ years.
|
| Nuclear unfortunately was invented in WW2 and has been dominate
| by the military both in terms of access and in terms of usage.
| The only reason we have PWRs for civilian production is because
| PWR make sense for submarines and was commercialized based on
| that investment.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| "you might freeze in the winter and your gas prices are about to
| increase 10x" is a great motivator to consider new perspectives
| cgb223 wrote:
| Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable to
| give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy it
| from their potential adversary in Russia?
|
| What possible advantages are there to buying the resource that
| literally keeps the lights on from a country that you have
| conflicts with?
| panick21_ wrote:
| Germany didn't think rationally. Nuclear was strongly
| associated with cold war and nuclear bombs.
|
| Berlin is incredibly anti-nuclear. When I lived there, even
| when there was little going on, you would see constant anti-
| nuclear propaganda. Lots of anti-nuclear footmats and stickers.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| The US imported gas from Saudi Arabia and other states that
|
| They were in conflicts with the US a lot. I mean 911 was pretty
| much all Saudi Arabian terrorists.
|
| With other nations like Iraq, Iran as well though depending on
| who ran it and who the president was.
|
| I believe the US is producing enough oil domestically.
|
| Yet I know the US was importing oil from Russia prior to the
| Ukraine war.
|
| States like the US or EU do it because it makes economic sense.
|
| The scope of oil is far too narrow.
|
| EU and the US rely on many commodoties to mkae the country,
| industry and ecnomomy work. A loss in some of the more serious
| ones can have a devastationg imapct.
|
| Thus, the question should be extended to: Why do states and
| unions make themself dependent upon commodities they must
| import. Should each state / unnion be self sufficent in all
| critical supplies?
|
| That is of course impossible, or nearly so. Each state/union
| will remain voulnralbe ans exposed if supply lines get cut off
| for any reaosn.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > I mean 911 was pretty much all Saudi Arabian terrorists.
|
| The leader had a German passport and his main motivation was
| Israel attack on Lebanon.
|
| US mostly didn't depend on middle-east oil, the US wanted
| middle-east oil to make sure that Europe and Asia didn't go
| communist.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys
| gas. It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves.
|
| When the Green/Social Democrat coalition under Schroder decided
| on stopping nuclear the idea was to largely exchange that for
| renewables (and the German wind and solar industry was leading
| in the world at the time). This would have been a much bigger
| step toward energy independence. The coal, nuclear and gas
| lobby (note that they typically are the same lobbyists)
| strongly pushed to reverse that decision and the Conservative,
| free Liberal coalition under Merkel initially reversed the
| decision, but at the same time was generally pushing for the
| cheapest energy solutions, which was largely gas. The strong
| regulations put into place for wind and solar at the time
| largely destroyed Germanys wind and solar industry, because
| domestic demand Collapsed.
|
| It is important to remember that Germany has still very strong
| manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over the
| government. When Fukushima happened public sentiment went
| strongly towards quiting nuclear again. There was not really
| much opposition from industry either, because nuclear was more
| expensive than gas so we saw an even stronger push toward gas.
| _n_b_ wrote:
| > Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than
| Germanys gas.
|
| Nope. Pre-Ukraine conflict, 55% of Germany's gas came from
| Russia [1]. In 2021, 19.69% of Europe's Uranium came from
| Russia [2].
|
| And fundamentally, the relative energy density of enriched
| uranium means that it's much easier to shift from one source
| to another versus gas.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-
| reliant-is...
|
| [2] https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-
| observ...
| DrBazza wrote:
| Is that right? Almost 50% of the world's uranium comes from
| Khazakstan.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p.
| ..
| ed_balls wrote:
| Ukraine has a large deposit of uranium as well.
| x86x87 wrote:
| Does production == having the resource?
|
| Asking because I think it's possible that many places don't
| bother to mine it due to a combination of regulations and
| cost.
|
| LE: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ur
| anium...
|
| So, Australia is where most of the uranium is :| Also,
| Russia does seem to have significant reserves that could be
| mined.
| alexott wrote:
| My official study was in the area of uranium enrichment.
| The situation in Soviet Union was always following - mostly
| Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan mined the raw uranium
| and did first enrichment pass (I grew up in one of that
| areas), and then final enrichment was done in Russia. I'm
| not involved into that anymore for more than 20 years, but
| I doubt that situation has changed significantly as it
| requires significant capital investment, plus know-how...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than
| Germanys gas.
|
| That's not comparable because the energy density of Uraniam
| is much higher, sufficient Uraniam can be imported from
| anywhere with any kind of transportation, so wherever the
| Uraniam comes from now, it can easily be imported from many
| other countries and doesn't make us dependent on anyone.
| schroeding wrote:
| > It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves.
|
| ... actually we do, around 130.000 tonnes of it[1,2]. Of
| course not as vast as some other countries, but still
| substantial. We just don't mine and refine it anymore. I
| don't know if this should be an actual argument pro nuclear,
| but we have it.
|
| The GDR / DDR even supplied the Soviet Union with Uranium via
| SDAG Wismut[2].
|
| [1] https://infcis.iaea.org/UDEPO/Statistics/ResourceByCountr
| yAn... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismut_(company)
| DrBazza wrote:
| Best link I could find mentions Russia as well as all the
| other countries.
|
| See the uranium mining section.
|
| https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
| pr...
| wongarsu wrote:
| East Germany was the fourth largest producer of uranium
| ore. After the reunification we just closed those mines,
| just as we shut down East German nuclear plants.
|
| If there was a compelling reason we could presumably
| start mining and refining those deposits again.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I recently read "Fall of Berlin" - spends several chapters
| describing how one of the USSRs main goals was seizing
| German uranium for weapons.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than
| Germanys gas.
|
| This is very misleading, comparing EU imports on one side and
| Germany on the other. The biggest uranium reserves are in
| Kazakhstan, Canada, and South Africa. At the moment, uranium
| used in Europe comes from Niger, Russia and Kazakhstan in
| about the same quantities (2500 tons each), followed by
| Canada (2300 tons) and Namibia (1600 tons).
|
| Overall, Russian uranium is ~20% of EU imports. For gas it
| was ~40% (~20% for Germany), and for oil ~30%. Also, both oil
| and uranium are easily imported by boat, whereas gas was so
| cheap because of the pipelines. So, not really comparable
| overall.
|
| Switching uranium suppliers costs nothing. Switching gas
| suppliers renders huge infrastructure investments worthless.
|
| It has been obvious for quite a while that structural
| dependency on Russian gas was a huge strategic mistake. Doing
| without will be much more painful than not doing it in the
| first place.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I thought Germany and Czechia had large supplies of
| Uranium, is that not the case?
| kergonath wrote:
| Not that I know of. I came across a more complete
| picture[1], with probably more accurate numbers than my
| recollection (Australia turns out to have much, much more
| uranium than I remembered, for example). They don't
| really mention significant resources in Europe, but there
| might be a discrepancy between resources that can be
| mined, and just stuff that's in the ground or something
| like that. Wikipedia mentions 119000 tonnes in Czechia,
| but I don't know how reliable it is[2].
|
| [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
| library/nuclear-fu...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_
| uranium...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Czech uranium reserves were severely depleted in the
| 1950s in order to supply Soviet nuclear arms industry.
|
| (Political dissenters were forced to work in those mines
| in horrible conditions.)
| gaius_baltar wrote:
| > It is important to remember that Germany has still very
| strong manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over
| the government.
|
| Good for them to not get rid of their industrial base
| otherwise they will depend on China more than the USA (that
| was (still?) proud of becoming a service economy) does.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Germany has an enormous trade exchange with China and one
| of the Merkel policies was not to rock the boat too much.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| The situations aren't comparable.
|
| One charge of fuel for a nuclear reactor lasts for years,
| while natural gas gets burned more or less as fast as it is
| produced (there's _some_ storage, but it 's certainly not
| measured in years).
|
| If a bad actor cuts off the supply of uranium for your
| reactor, you have several years to find a new source. If a
| bad actor cuts off your supply of natural gas, you'll have a
| crisis in days or weeks at most.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That, and gas is used for heating not for electricity
| generatuon. Which part of Germany's problem with high CO2
| emmisions.
| panick21_ wrote:
| But Uranium can be found in many places and its very easy to
| transport. You are not actually dependent on Russia.
|
| > This would have been a much bigger step toward energy
| independence.
|
| You know what would have been a much, much, much bigger step?
| To keep nuclear and invest in nuclear instead of gas and
| coal.
| Jensson wrote:
| Left wing in Europe often has lots of Soviet sympathisers among
| their ranks. Basically USA=Bad, Russia=Good still lives on
| somehow.
|
| I don't know anything about the situation in Germany in
| particular though, but I wouldn't be surprised if they saw
| integration with Russia as a good thing rather than a bad
| thing.
| [deleted]
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Left wing in Europe often has lots of Soviet sympathisers
| among their ranks.
|
| Citation needed.
| bildung wrote:
| Germany never had energy independence in nuclear. Yes, Germany
| has/had plants, but nothing like enrichment etc. The reason is
| geopolitics: Germany started two world wars, and noone wanted
| to have a postwar Germany capable of building nukes.
|
| That link between nuclear proliferation and nuclear energy
| production is sadly often missing from the discussion here. No
| country builds nuclear reactors only for the energy. It's
| always for the nukes. Nuclear energy has always been expensive
| and has been massively subsidized since inception.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > but nothing like enrichment etc
|
| Sure about that?
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urananreicherungsanlage_Gronau
| panick21_ wrote:
| This is completely wrong. Literally almost the opposite is
| true.
|
| There are lots and lots of countries who use nuclear civilian
| energy and don't have nuclear weapons.
|
| While at the same time there are lots of countries who have
| nuclear weapons but no civilian nuclear power.
|
| In fact, it would be more accurate to say that countries who
| have civilian nuclear power are less likely to have nuclear
| weapons.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-
| Proliferatio...
|
| The NPT allows countries to have civilian nuclear power but
| not nuclear weapons, and many do. My country, Switzerland
| being an example. Japan is a large country where this applies
| as well.
|
| The connection between civilian nuclear power and nuclear
| weapons is almost non existent. Countries that want nuclear
| weapons, just get them directly, they don't develop civilian
| nuclear power first.
|
| So please stop spreading this harmful misinformation.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I should also say that in contrast to the common misperception
| (which is largely due to nuclear lobbying) the percentage of
| gas in electricity production has actually not increased over
| the last 20 years:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/En...
|
| What we are witnessing is largely strong push by the nuclear
| industry to take advantage of the current situation to change
| sentiments to again get decades worth of guaranteed profits,
| largely at the cost of renewables.
| djohnston wrote:
| There are some good podcasts on this, you can find one on
| Guardian Long Reads:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-depend...
|
| The tldr; is it started with a stated goal of <10% dependence,
| thinking that by creating the first pipeline they would open up
| trade and normalize relations. This is a good goal especially
| since Germany was split in half at the time.
|
| Unfortunately through some combination of greed, complacency,
| and dumb nuclear strategy, dependency kept ratcheting up over
| the decades, slowly boiling the frog into the disaster soup we
| have today.
| DrBazza wrote:
| CND in the Uk pretty much helped set the Uk on a similar path
| of "nuclear bad".
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| The way I remember this, after the Fukushima disaster there
| were some state level elections, the center-right parties that
| had until then supported nuclear lost one or two of these
| elections due to voter panic about Fukushima and then abandoned
| their support for nuclear. I really think that if the state
| level election calender had been different, germany would still
| use nuclear power today.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Not sure, Fukushima was pretty scary considering the high
| esteem Japanese engineering has in Germany. Not sure what the
| deciding factor was, but indeed their remaining run time was
| shortened, the 2001 decision was targetting for a shutdown
| between 2025 and 2027.
| ed_balls wrote:
| Because of geopolitics, the rest is just hypocrisy. Germany and
| France wanted to build the Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok
| with help from Russia. That new Europe would became a 3rd power
| (after US and China) It's a good match. They can get cheap
| resources from Russia, manufacturing can be move from China to
| Siberia where pollution is not a big problem. Russia would
| balance China, so no need for massive military spending. USA
| could be pushed out of Europe.
|
| It would guarantee future for Russia. Right now 50% of Russian
| budged is from carbohydrates. Due to fracking and
| decarbonisation it won't be profitable to mine in Russia in 15
| years[1]. Without that income, states like Chechnya, are gonna
| try to leave the federation.
|
| It's good for China as well, since USA sanctions would not be
| that effective.
|
| The Atlantic world doesn't want the 3rd power (hence USA and UK
| are helping a lot in Ukraine) as well as Central European
| countries (Poland, Ukraine, Baltic states etc.) The table that
| shows military aid by GDP is an eye opener.
|
| [1] Gas and oil from Ukrainian shores (Crimea) could speed it
| up.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Seems like a stretch to say Germany wants Russia to invade
| Ukraine...
| ed_balls wrote:
| I haven't said that. They want to go back to status quo
| ante, hence "French President Emmanuel Macron has sparked a
| new wave of criticism and incomprehension over his calls to
| avoid humiliating Russia in Ukraine"
|
| Also, that's the reason why Germany was relying on gas from
| Russia. They are not idiots. It was not a stupid single
| point of failure, but geopolitics.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| This is the Leviathan vs. Behemoth theory of geopolitics. It
| has explanatory value, though it's distinctly colonial in its
| construction.
|
| In this game, Europe is the swing vote. The Leviathan, a
| maritime power of Europe, the U.K., North America and
| Australia + Japan currently holds. Xi tried forging a
| Behemoth, a land power, in which Eurasia dominates Africa and
| the Americas. Behemoths, the thinking goes, will be army-
| driven and centralised; Leviathans, naval and decentralised.
|
| The problem with the Behemoth is Eurasia is too culturally
| diverse to put under the sort of centralisation land powers (
| _e.g._ Rome, the Ottomans, Napoleon's France + the USSR)
| require to stay stable. Maritime powers, historically trading
| powers ( _e.g._ Carthage, the Dutch, the British and the
| United States), accommodate more diversity. Maritime
| alliances are inherently reliant on networks of local
| governments versus a central power dictating policy to the
| periphery. Put simply, the deck looks stacked against a
| Beijing-Moscow-Berlin alliance barring major right-wing
| shifts in Western Europe and social liberalisation in much of
| Asia.
|
| > _Germany and France wanted to build the Europe from Lisbon
| to Vladivostok with help from Russia_
|
| The Arctic Sea is becoming navigable. Push for an independent
| Siberia, _et cetera_ that exports via Arctic ports, not
| pipelines, and they get what they're looking for without
| requiring a global realignment. (Not advocating this. Just
| saying it's a better play under that geopolitical model than
| trashing Ukraine.)
| ed_balls wrote:
| > the deck looks stacked against a Beijing-Moscow-Berlin
|
| As of this movement, yes, but in the future USA won't be
| able to keep the hegemony. Right now there is a leverage on
| energy (oil and gas from middle east) and the cheapest from
| of transportation (maritime). USA can block both via Ormuz
| and Malacca. In 20-30 years China and Europe will be energy
| and resource independent. If land transportation* will be
| more cost effective than ships, USA hegemony is gone.
|
| *hyperloop/magnetic rail/other
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _20-30 years China and Europe will be energy and
| resource independent. If land transportation will be more
| cost effective than ships, USA hegemony is gone_
|
| This geopolitical model predates modern energy dynamics;
| in any case, Siberian minerals will flow to Chinese and
| European factories for a long time to come. This model
| also doesn't require American dominance. (Again, it dates
| from the age of British and Austro/Russo/French power.) A
| future Leviathan could operate with Europe and America on
| co-equal footing, versus the D.C. dominance we see today.
|
| As for land transport becoming more efficient than ocean,
| that's a pipe dream. We're talking about orders of
| magnitude of cost difference between the cutting edge of
| where rail/loop _could_ be in a decade and where an
| inefficient shipping industry is today. Rail is also less
| resilient in times of war, as we're seeing with Russia,
| being more targetable (Ukraine) and deniable by
| intermediaries (Kalingrad).
|
| The real tipping point in favour of the Leviathan,
| however, comes with air forces and missiles, force
| projection options which didn't exist when the model was
| conceived. Xi's strategic fuckup has been in failing to
| see that China, too, could command a Leviathan. In an
| alternate timeline, a patient and thoughtful China is
| signing trade deals and security compacts with the
| Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia Korea and maybe even
| Taiwan and Japan. Instead, Beijing Bethemothed the
| islands which encircle China into an adversarial stance,
| a stance they can maintain thanks to the stopping power
| of water, and a position which prevents China from
| projecting blue ocean naval power.
| ed_balls wrote:
| > As for land transport becoming more efficient than
| ocean, that's a pipe dream
|
| I don't remember exact numbers from 2019, but it was
| something like:
|
| Air: 1 metric tonne: $100, 24h
|
| Rail: $40; 10 days
|
| Ship: $8; 30 days
|
| Let's say it's 2049 and we have 4 powers: new Europe,
| USA, China and India. China starts the full scale
| blockade of Taiwan to wait for the USA for the kinetic
| escalation. Only USA ships are blocked, so Japan, Korea,
| Europe do nothing. The situation last for years. The
| freight cost goes up massively due to risk, the fuel is
| 2x-3x more expensive - cheap oil is gone and the last big
| reserve is in Arctic. Magnetic rail China-Europe is
| finished and you stack up 3 containers which are
| delivered in 48h. Land transportation became better than
| ships.
|
| > Rail is also less resilient in times of war
|
| True, but the new Europe will be neutral is the USA-China
| conflict.
|
| > Xi's strategic fuckup has been in failing to see that
| China, too, could command a Leviathan
|
| I don't think Xi made a mistake. I don't think we have a
| reliable data from China. China started shrinking due to
| Covid way sooner that the models predicted. The official
| number about 12 mln births, but that doesn't correlate
| well with mandatory tuberculosis vaccinations. The real
| number could be 9 mln. Xi perception might be he has 10
| years not 30. What is more, I think China is like Japan
| in 1930. From China's perspective there is no option - we
| fight or we die.
|
| The more optimistic scenario: Xi is gone. USA makes
| Kissinger 2.0 - a deal that must be secret. USA does
| nothing and China takes over Taiwan without the invasion.
| North and South Korea is demilitarised. China still uses
| USD.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| because their anti-nuclear environmental groups were actually
| being funded by Russia behind the scenes.
|
| And there are still fools who think that economic integration
| somehow prevents wars, which was shown to be false after WWI.
| These people said if Europe just paid a bunch of money for
| Russian energy they'd obviously never attack them. See what's
| happening with China and the US as more proof that handing over
| your economy doesn't placate anybody
| osigurdson wrote:
| Not German, but I suspect memories of Fukushima and Chernobyl
| could be weighing on the minds of some. Perhaps this is an
| irrational concern but people are not necessarily rational -
| particularly when randomly polled on topics they know little
| about.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Perhaps irrational? It's certainly irrational. Nuclear is
| among the absolute safest methods of energy production.
| Looking at Wikipedia one person died and sixteen were
| injured at Fukushima. That risk should dictate energy
| policy? "Irrational" is being kind.
| osigurdson wrote:
| When you think "power plant disaster", what power plant
| instantly comes to mind? It's a powerful "brand" that is
| quite difficult to displace in people's minds. That is
| the problem to solve.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think of hydroelectric dams which can destroy whole
| towns. There is a single hydroelectric disaster that has
| killed many more people than all nuclear incidents put
| together.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Ok!
| Cwizard wrote:
| What I don't understand is how those two incidents are even
| relevant. Chernobyl happened because of a faulty design +
| mismanagement and Fukushima was located on a region prone
| to earthquakes/tsunami's caused by earthquakes. The factors
| do not really apply to Germany. And even if it did, the
| deaths caused by those accidents were quite low. Meanwhile
| coal pollution is killing people by the thousands but this
| is somehow ok?
|
| I think the sole reason the west moved away from Nuclear is
| because it sounds scary and because the oil countries had a
| strong interest in maintaining the non-nuclear status quo.
| balentio wrote:
| > What I don't understand is how those two incidents are
| even relevant. Chernobyl happened because of a faulty
| design + mismanagement and Fukushima was located on a
| region prone to earthquakes/tsunami's caused by
| earthquakes.
|
| To use an old phrase, shit happens. When it happens where
| a Nuclear Power Plant is, the happening continues for a
| very, very long time. That kind of liability is not worth
| the risk and of course there are other power solutions
| than the fossil/fuel nuclear divide.
| p1mrx wrote:
| There are ways to design a nuclear plant that reduce the
| probability of shit happening by orders of magnitude. We
| should focus on building plants that can shut down using
| only passive systems with no human action.
| Muromec wrote:
| > Meanwhile coal pollution is killing people by the
| thousands but this is somehow ok?
|
| There is a tram going on a track, killing 10 children
| each week. You can switch it yo another track where it
| has a small chance of killing a thousand and you will be
| blamed for that.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > Meanwhile coal pollution is killing people by the
| thousands but this is somehow ok?
|
| Pitting nuclear against coal is fighting a straw man. The
| alternative is renewables. With a tiny fraction of the
| negative side-effects either nuclear or of fossil energy
| brings.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The irrational fear-factor associated with anything
| nuclear is highlighted by how much attention Fukushima,
| the nuclear disaster, which gravely injured like a dozen
| people, gets relative to the earthquake and tsunami
| causing it, which killed 20k people and leveled a huge
| stretch of coast.
| GordonS wrote:
| If you asked 100 random people on the street, I'll bet
| most would say the Fukushima nuclear disaster killed
| hundreds or thousands of people.
|
| As a single data point, I just asked my wife (who, for
| background, is well educated and pays close attention to
| the news), and her guess was "hundreds".
|
| The modern mass media has a _lot_ to answer for.
| FourthProtocol wrote:
| Indeed so. I've been following nuclear in Germany ever since
| those railroad protests when they tried to transport nuclear
| waste from somewhere to somewhere else which I thought was
| crazy (the protests).
|
| The part I felt had merit is that none of Europe's lofty
| solutions to safely storing/disposing of the waste output
| ever came to anything. I believe until this day that industry
| is still trying to work out how to dig 30km down to safely
| store the waste underground.
|
| That said I haven't kept up to date on any progress or better
| solutions.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Onkalo in Finland is not 30km deep, which none have
| achieved anywhere.
|
| But Onkalo is one of the few actually built long term
| nuclear waste storage locations anywhere.
|
| It is for domestic nuclear waste only. There is no desire
| to become the international dumping ground for nuclear
| waste.
|
| Tbh I believe the waste should be reprosessed as fuel and
| burnt in reactors instead of burial.
|
| But non-proliferation things make that impossible.
| panick21_ wrote:
| These geological repositories are such political bullshit
| theater. Its fucking sad.
|
| The are actually more expensive then simply developing
| the reactors to burn up that fuel.
|
| Its just crazy that we live in this world.
|
| The US collected money from nuclear plants for 50 years
| for disposal, and had plenty of money to develop waste
| burning reactors. And yet that money is totally unused.
| While politicians dead-lock on this idiotic Yucca
| Mountain project.
|
| Its beyond sad the state we are in.
| [deleted]
| vimy wrote:
| After more than 50 years of nuclear power plants in use we
| can say that there is no nuclear waste problem. The 'waste'
| has been stored above ground for decades and nothing has
| happened. It's clearly safe. We should just keep doing what
| we're doing. No need to dig expensive holes.
| _ph_ wrote:
| While I believe this is the most safe option right now -
| some candidate dumping grounds have failed spectacularly
| (the Asse), this of course only works as long we are
| vigilant and also pay the upkeep for storage locations
| for many millenia. Both from environmental and safety
| concerns.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| > because their anti-nuclear environmental groups were
| actually being funded by Russia behind the scenes.
|
| I am German and very pro nuclear, but this is conspiracy bs.
| And why make such a grand claim without a single source?
| 323 wrote:
| > _Nunes, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee:
| Russia is secretly funding the environmental movement,
| particularly in Germany, to help pressure the closure of
| nuclear power plants._
|
| https://www.eenews.net/articles/devin-nunes-claims-russia-
| is...
|
| _Dominique Reynie: "We found that Gazprom funded
| environmental NGOs that provided ministers to various
| governments, such as Belgium, which then advocated
| abandoning nuclear power"._
|
| https://twitter.com/ziontree/status/1497998920739274757
|
| > _For instance, the Soviets used front organizations to
| influence the anti-nuclear movement, the initiative that
| most visibly put Western leadership on the defensive. West
| German Interior Ministry and FBI reports concluded that
| Soviet-linked organizations were successfully swaying local
| peace movement initiatives to conform to Moscow's
| positions_
|
| https://warontherocks.com/2017/09/russian-active-measures-
| in...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Its not a conspiracy. Its for certain that there was a real
| anti nuclear movement but its also true that fossil
| industry and Russia spent money to fund these efforts.
|
| So it happened but how effective it was is questionable.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| You're going to need some citation on that Russia connection.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >"Ninety-nine per cent of the text of the articles of
| association is about climate and environmental protection,
| but 99 per cent of the money comes directly from Nord
| Stream II AG, which belongs to Gazprom."
|
| >"It's quite a curious foundation. It is a puppet
| construction," said Sascha Muller-Kraenner, head of
| Environmental Action Germany, a green charity, which is
| challenging the legality of the organisation both in the
| German courts and with the European Commission.
|
| https://archive.ph/KXgC0
|
| and German politicians from pretty much every single party
| have been taking bribes from Russia for years. Their energy
| policy of simultaneously shutting down coal but not
| spinning up any nuclear made them reliant on Russian
| natural gas, which they've been warned about by the US for
| years and are now paying the price for
|
| from 2019 - https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/06/06/how-
| europes-green-p...
|
| and a video from 2018 of Germany's UN delegation quite
| literally laughing at the suggestion they'd be reliant on
| Russia for energy if they proceeded with Nordstream 2. Some
| good schadenfreude here-
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwg
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| True that foundation exists, and is heavily criticized by
| other German environmental organizations in Germany as
| even this article points out. Also it was founded after
| the nuclear exit was decided. You are falling for the
| trap where you know a little bit about a subject but draw
| the wrong conclusions from it.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Russia and the EU aren't at war, neither is the US and China.
| You haven't really proven that economic integration doesn't
| prevent wars.
| hash07e wrote:
| Really?
|
| No sanctions? No finland minister asking to ban russian
| tourists from schengen?
|
| Really?
|
| Ok.. turn the ac then!
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Are you really equating sanctions with full on war?
| hash07e wrote:
| Yes
|
| Us providing guns and trainning is not war?
|
| Eu providing arms and guns is not war?
|
| Economic sanctions are not war?
|
| War is not a movie with bang.
|
| War is happening now.
|
| It started when they sunk the war ship russian..
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Us providing guns and trainning is not war?
|
| No.
|
| > Eu providing arms and guns is not war?
|
| No.
|
| > Economic sanctions are not war?
|
| No.
|
| > War is not a movie with bang.
|
| No.
|
| > War is happening now.
|
| Yes between Ukraine and Russia.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Ukraine sank the war ship as far as I know? I do not
| consider providing supplies war, the same goes for
| economic sanctions.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > War is happening now.
|
| > It started when they sunk the war ship russian..
|
| I'm sensing this is a (((they))) kind of they.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| In context your statement makes sense.
|
| Though, this being HN, I'd like to point out that you are
| _technically_ correct, the best kind of correct. There is
| no official declaration of war between the EU and Russia
| (even if one could figure out how to do that).
|
| Of course in practice there is very much a proxy war going
| on on Ukrainian soil. It is being done fairly openly at
| that: Weapons shipments are mentioned on the news, and eg.
| the movements of EU-based AWACS and Drones (patrolling
| along borders and over black sea, peeking in and providing
| intelligence) are also not hidden.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| While not directly at war with Russia, many European
| nations are engaged in Ukraine by proxy.
|
| Poland stands out as a massive military logistics hub
| without which the Ukrainian army would struggle to import
| any Western stuff.
|
| If the Poles weren't under the protective umbrella of NATO,
| I suspect that the Russians would already have tried to
| destroy Rzeszow airport.
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| > because their anti-nuclear environmental groups were
| actually being funded by Russia behind the scenes.
|
| Every competing energy source lobby is probably trying to
| stack the chances against each other, but the activists were
| not by and large funded by Russia.
|
| > These people said if Europe just paid a bunch of money for
| Russian energy they'd obviously never attack them.
|
| You can't expect any party to hold still forever. If you
| provoke your partner long enough they might react at some
| point. In the long-term that is basically a guarantee.
| Brigand wrote:
| Aren't renewables already more cost effective than nuclear?
|
| See for example here: https://energycentral.com/c/ec/comparing-
| costs-renewable-and...
|
| Storage issues might be solved before new nuclear plants go
| online at the current pace of progress.
|
| Perhaps a few years of gas until the renewable infrastructure
| is set up will suffice? At least the issue does not seem to be
| as clear cut as most people claim they are.
| tehbeard wrote:
| The only thing more "just around the corner" than better
| battery storage is fusion..
| panick21_ wrote:
| If you essentially stop any technology progress for 40 years
| in one technology, other technologies might catuch up.
|
| But there is a MASSIVE amount of potential for nuclear to be
| cheaper and better.
|
| People in 2000~ were more then happy to predict massive
| improvement in cost for renewables if money was invested but
| absolutely denied that the same could happen with nuclear.
|
| Had the same amount been invested in nuclear, prices there
| could also have changed.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > Storage issues might be solved
|
| The problem as I see it as that any '100% renewable' solution
| which could be ramped up relatively quickly would necessitate
| technology that doesn't exist yet. Of course there will be
| some progress in tech, but we have no way to predict exactly
| what it will be. It will also be extremely expensive simply
| due to the massive scale required, and there are numerous
| powerful & well funded groups who will throw down roadblocks
| along the way.
|
| The reality is that we will continue to use fossil fuels for
| a long time. While nuclear energy is our best low-carbon
| option for baseline power, we probably aren't going to be
| able to build new generators quickly enough to displace
| natural gas usage for decades, and that's only if it's
| politically possible to do so. Which continues to appear to
| be a long shot.
|
| In short, we're holding our collective breath for a 'hail
| Mary' breakthrough that somehow cuts through all the
| intractable quandaries and gives us a viable path forward. In
| the mean time, the increase in severe climate events will
| destabilize nations and make it even harder to reach the
| kinds of major agreements needed to go down such a path.
|
| It's probably a good idea to either own land or have friends
| in an area near a large freshwater lake that isn't prone to
| flooding and has a history of handling both extreme heat and
| extreme cold. There's no way of knowing whether you'll end up
| embroiled in civil unrest or full blown war in such an area,
| but at least you can limit the number & types of risks you
| need to worry about.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > that doesn't exist yet.
|
| Batteries exist, and estimates of how many would be needed
| are around 50TWh. We have over 500GWh of annual battery
| production, and the doubling period for that capacity is
| under 18 months.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Also pumped hydro storage exists, and isn't too picky
| about where it can be placed (as opposed to hydro dams)
| slfnflctd wrote:
| The majority of that battery production is going into
| EVs. We will need much more to do both EVs and grid scale
| storage.
|
| This is where different types of batteries that are too
| impractical for vehicle use _might_ come into play, but
| we still don 't have a clear idea which of those battery
| technologies will be appropriate and/or agreed upon for
| grid use, let alone who is going to pay for the mind
| boggling amount of them we will need.
| looperhacks wrote:
| The search for storage has been ongoing since the sixties (in
| one form or another) and the current approach (started about
| ten years ago) is "planned" to lead to a decision 2031.
| Knowing how well such projects usually go in Germany and the
| massive pushback, especially from Bavaria in the last few
| weeks (not unfounded - one year before the exit-decision it
| was found out that our current storage was an absolute
| disaster), the storage site will probably be found when we
| don't need nuclear energy anymore (either because we found
| better solutions or it's too late anyway)
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| I am not sure anymore if we can agree on this, but current
| fission implementations are an added threat - and not a small
| one - to any climate change that occurs. In addition: To this
| day, we do not have a single final depot for nuclear waste.
|
| Now, that is the anti-nuclear side of things, however CO2 is
| also a problem which we also don't want and this leads to the
| shutdown of the other potential sources of energy and we don't
| have a proper replacement for them either (wind and sun are not
| reliable sources).
|
| In summary, we Germans want to swim, but don't want to get wet.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Onkalo exists :)
| grensley wrote:
| Not German, but the Greens (ruling party) in Germany basically
| built their platform on being anti-nuclear. They'd rather burn
| wet coal than walk that back.
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| Just for completeness, the Greens are in a coalition with
| social democrats(SPD), liberals(FDP) (names are labels, not
| political directions). The chancellor is from social
| democrats(SPD).
| dark-star wrote:
| Because the Green Party (which was founded as direct result of
| the Chernobyl desaster) has been pushing their irrational
| agenda against nuclear power. They deliberately ignored any
| scientific arguments that were even slightly in favor of
| nuclear.
|
| The Greens have brought some very necessary ecological
| improvements that would otherwise not have happened (probably),
| but their continuous crusade against anything nuclear, ignoring
| scientific findings and statistics, is just annoying at this
| point
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The Greens predate Chernobyl by about a decade and came from
| the anti-nuke/war/nuclear environmentalists groups, but the
| dogmatic anti-war part was dropped by the end of the 90s
| (Kosovo). Since then the Greens have been somewhat "hawkish"
| (to borrow an US term) on illiberal states and such.
| dewclin wrote:
| > the Green Party (which was founded as direct result of the
| Chernobyl disaster)
|
| Chernobyl was 1986 and the West German green party existed
| before that:
|
| > Alliance 90/The Greens ... is a green political party in
| Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens
| (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in
| East Germany in 1990) [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_90/The_Greens
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable
| to give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy
| it from their potential adversary in Russia?
|
| Because the only method shown to prevent war in Europe is co-
| dependence. EU is founded on integrating the belligerents of
| WW2 close enough that it would be unthinkable to happen again.
|
| The same method, which at least has worked previously, was
| tried with Russia and now 30 years later, or more likely in
| 2014 with the invasion of Crimea we can conclude that Russia is
| different in some core way of thinking. Not too different
| though, looking at how the Baltic states have developed when
| given the choice and chance.
|
| The alternative scenario, with a Russia still riding on the
| tail ends of soviet military might in steep decline not even
| given a chance in the early 2000s seems like a recipe for an
| even worse outcome than we have today.
| jrsj wrote:
| While that strategy in general makes sense, energy is much
| more critical for the buyer than the seller and that
| ultimately gives Russia leverage over Germany instead. You
| want codependency that harms both parties as equally as
| possible
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Because the only method shown to prevent war in Europe is
| co-dependence.
|
| It's a bit unilateral. As long as Russia can save enough
| money or have other buyers for its gas and oil it can just
| shut the supply in the middle of winter. Germans can of
| course refuse to export their products to Russia but people
| freezing in the middle of winter is a bit more dire than not
| being able to buy the latest Mercedes.
|
| So, like other sibling comment pointed out, it turned more
| into dependency than co-dependency.
|
| I could see, in the previous years, maybe the Germans wanted
| to move way from NATO and integrate with Russia but seeing
| Russian behavior since the Chechnya war https://en.m.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1999%E2%80... I wonder if anyone
| warned the Germans not to get in bed with the Russians. That
| was 20 years ago.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Germany doesn't allow separatism. Most other European
| nations don't allow it too. Spain jailed Catalonia
| independence movement leaders for 9-13 years in 2017.
| kurthr wrote:
| I'm not sure where that leads? Should the Austro-
| Hungarian Empire be reestablished?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| How is fighting separatists that aren't recognized by any
| UN state should lead to reestablishment of Austria-
| Hungary?
| kurthr wrote:
| How is jailing people after trial (but not extraditing
| the Catalonian European delegates), equivalent to the
| utter destruction of civilian occupied Grozny?
|
| Or are you suggesting that in 2008 Germany should have
| supported Georgia in South Ossetia?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Russo-
| Georgian...
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| I would argue that is only half-correct as an argument (not
| whether the German people believe it to be true or not).
|
| The EU was of course promoted primarily to avoid the
| repetition of the World Wars, and it is indeed succeeding at
| it within its scope, and has also so far been a great
| influence outside of it as well.
|
| However, it is a mistake to believe that economic
| interdependence is the reason for its success, or that
| interdependence is a disincentive for war. The period from
| the late 19th century was highly globalised, with much
| international free trade, and increasingly so up until the
| 1910s. However, that didn't stop war breaking out between
| wealthy military powers over nationalistic grudges, and
| neither would it in the 2020s.
|
| I am not knowledgeable enough to fully understand how the EU
| has broken the cycle of war between European nations, but it
| has been something much more profound than economic
| interdependence. Germany was probably right in not wanting to
| keep close relations with Russia, especially before
| 2008/2014, but shot itself in the foot by naively assuming
| that co-dependence-- _or rather, German dependence_ --would
| in any way stop Putin's regime from aggressive expansionism.
| markvdb wrote:
| > we can conclude that Russia is different in some core way
| of thinking. Not too different though, looking at how the
| Baltic states have developed when given the choice and
| chance.
|
| Please do clarify. I am intimately familiar with one of those
| Baltic states, but fail to see what you mean.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| In 1999 the Russian prime minister was flying to the US with
| a diplomatic visit. While he was flying to the US he was told
| that the NATO started bombing Yugoslavia. He reversed his
| flight in the middle of the Atlantic and came back to Russia.
|
| So what same method are you talking about?
| blibble wrote:
| > Because the only method shown to prevent war in Europe is
| co-dependence.
|
| > The same method, which at least has worked previously
|
| it was a common theory prior to WW1 breaking out, then WW1
| broke out and falsified it
|
| and now Russia has falsified this theory again
|
| (the threat of the Soviet Union plus nuclear deterrence
| prevented war in Europe, not the EU)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Economic interdependence before WW1 wasn't even close to
| how much it is today.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| But it was still higher than it ever had been in World
| history, and yet still did not prevent the Great War from
| breaking out. Why should we assume that this time
| economic interdependence is high enough to prevent a war?
|
| Who knows how high it can go. Maybe in the early 22nd
| century someone will argue that economic interdependence
| before WW3 was nowhere near as they have it then...
| nautilius wrote:
| You may want to look into how many conflicts between how
| many parties there were in Europe prior to WWI, and since.
| telotortium wrote:
| Surely that can be better explained by the European
| countries being fatally weakened by WWII (there were
| plenty of European conflicts after WWI), which allowed
| the US and Soviet Union to become the two uncontested
| hegemons? They very much did not want their European
| buffer zones to reduce their effectiveness by squandering
| military resources on infighting, so they enforced that
| their militaries remain small and, more importantly,
| dedicated only to defense (while remaining available for
| the imperial adventure of the hegemons). Both the Soviet
| Union and especially the US (being the prototypical ocean
| empire) have found plenty of excuses to get involved with
| war with an eye to their own benefit. Meanwhile, the
| European militaries have rotted to the point where most
| barely have any weapons to send to Ukraine. (Eastern
| Europe, not being under the thumb of the US for as long
| and being closer to Russia, has retained a stronger
| military.)
| justin66 wrote:
| Gerhard Schroder certainly demonstrated that there is good
| money to be made in testing this theory.
| T-A wrote:
| > Not too different though, looking at how the Baltic states
| have developed when given the choice and chance.
|
| The Baltic states were gobbled up by the Soviet Union during
| WWII, and accrued significant Russian minorities during the
| Cold War, but they are culturally and ethnically distinct
| from Russia, with their own languages and histories going
| back centuries (just check out the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Completely agree. Been to all three, very different
| culturally, both within and compared to Russia, but still
| with a noticeable Soviet heritage.
|
| Especially Tallinn is becoming a hugely interesting city
| with the mix of centuries old history, some soviet
| heritage, new and tech.
|
| They still make an interesting thought experiment since
| they actually were wholly integrated into the Soviet Union.
| The other examples near EU are Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova
| which have ended up on completely different paths.
|
| In comparison to the former East Block nations which more
| were in the Soviet sphere which was a similar but different
| existence.
| int_19h wrote:
| > Because the only method shown to prevent war in Europe is
| co-dependence.
|
| What is this, 1910?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion
|
| It was a theory. It was tested. It didn't work, not with
| Russia, not with the rest of Europe.
| gsatic wrote:
| Also if Russia stops the war tomorrow, is Germany not going to
| return to their old arrangements?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Even if the most rational Russian in the world assassinates
| Putin and all his cronies tomorrow and every Russian soldier
| is out of Ukraine and Crimea by next Friday, the damage is
| already done.
|
| No-one will trust Russia (the country, not the people) for a
| good half century unless they make some really sweeping
| changes to... well, everything.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Both are very unlikely. It has been widely acknowledged that
| the energy dependency from Russia was a big mistake. And of
| course, Germany should be on the trajectory to get rid of all
| fossil fuel usage. So unless the war ends tomorrow (which
| unfortuantely it won't), there is really no way back.
|
| We will also have to see whether this war ends in another
| nuclear disaster, I have serious concerns it could
| considering the Russian military actions around the largest
| nuclear power plant in Europe. This would of course kill
| nuclear entirely. The region in Bavaria, where I live, is
| still quite contaminated from Chernobyl, we really don't need
| more of that stuff.
| rullelito wrote:
| Also curious if the sentiment changed at all after 2014
| (Crimea).
| lispm wrote:
| Germany buys natural gas (and Oil, Coal) from Russia. That's
| mostly used in heating and industry production. There are some
| gas power plants, often also producing heat.
|
| Nuclear power plants are mostly only used for electricity
| production.
|
| The "light" is less of a problem, the real problem is
| "heating". Homes often use natural gas for heating, warm water
| and cooking.
|
| Btw., there is a large dependence on Russia for Uranium:
| https://www.intellinews.com/radioactive-central-europe-remai...
|
| Even the US buys from Russia.
| [deleted]
| mrm2m wrote:
| I'm German. I'm an electrical engineer. I'm not an expert. If
| you would ask me if I'm qualified to give advice if we should
| continue with nuclear power, I'd say no. But if you ask 1000
| people on the street, than my opinion is as good as any other.
|
| So why do I think that it's a good idea to quit with nuklear
| power? It's quite easy: We German like it to be on the safe
| side. If I get ill I've got an assurance for that. If my car
| burns down, I've got an assurance for that. If a railway train
| hits my house (there are no railway tracks even close to my
| house) but guess what: I've got an assurance for that. If a
| nuclear power plant blows up and makes the whole country within
| 20 miles radius a radioactive no-go area I've got... wait -
| there's no assurance for that. Tepco in Japan was not able to
| compensate the people who had to move. Not even close.
|
| But there's good news: There is no nuclear power plant active
| anywhere in the radius of 20 miles around my home any more.
|
| Now let's talk a completely different unrelated topic: Russian
| gas. Why unrelated? Because nearly nobody in Germany uses
| electricity to heat their homes (yet). We have gas lines in
| most cellars of our houses. Those who don't use oil. There's
| even hardly electric air conditioning anywhere in the private
| housing sector. The people fear that the heating will fail in
| winter due to the gas shortage. They now buy electric heating
| and we expect outages of the electrical power supply if they
| happen to use them, not because of missing power plant
| capacity, but because the grid is not strong enough to allow
| replacement of gas heating for the next winter.
|
| But there are gas powere plants which are used to generate
| electricity from Russian gas. So it's all related, right? Yes
| and no. Yes we have gas power plants. We built them to help in
| situations of high demand because the Nuclear power plants are
| too slow to adopt on changing loads. Then over the last 20
| years when wind power took over a major share of the power
| supply luckily we had those gas power plants to step in when a
| storm forces all wind mills to disconnect at the same time. But
| no. Gas power plants are not the solution as I stated. Even if
| we had enough power plant capacity to heat the houses we would
| never be able to distribute it. And more nuclear power does not
| help there either.
|
| So nuclear power is not the solution if Russian gas is your
| problem.
|
| But why do we use Russian gas at all? Why did we get into a
| situation like that at all? Well, that's not by accident. We
| fought and lost two world wars. Most people consider it a good
| idea for the German not to start another one. In the 1970s and
| 80s when the military presence of foreign forces in Germany
| declined it seemed a good idea to make Germany dependent on the
| mercy of the victorious countries. It worked quite well for
| nearly half a century. It's a good strategy as long as the
| German is the bad boy in town. It fails of course if the other
| bullys are even worse.
|
| We could have emancipated from gas long time ago. Unfortunately
| our politicians especially from the CSU actively blocked
| regenerative energy.
|
| So now the Germans have finally come to their minds and now
| want nuclear power back? No. The ARD (biggest German TV
| station) asked similar questions:
|
| Q: Do you think we should do Fracking in Germany? A: Only 27%
| say yes.
|
| Q: Do you think we should stick to nuclear power? A: 61% yes
|
| Q: Should we extend wind energy and introduce a maximum speed
| limit? A: 81% yes.
|
| That's my country and I'm OK with it.
| aagd wrote:
| In Europe, France is the country, which put most of their eggs in
| the nuclear basket. They have a massive problem with that setup
| these days, 28 of 56 of the plants are down. Many of the
| remaining have serious cooling problems because huge rivers like
| the Loire, have almost dried out. Despite plans to fill all gas
| storage for next winter, German gas plants still run on full
| throttle to support France with their current nuclear problems.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=loire+drought&tbm=isch
|
| https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/plusminus/teurer-strom-wie...
| frozencell wrote:
| > serious cooling problems because huge rivers like the Loire,
| have almost dried out.
|
| Mostly German lobbies right? Fancy isn't it.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| As a German I don't care. I just want two things:
|
| 1. The energy company pays market rate insurance for their
| nuclear plants. Not "we take the profit, taxpayers pay for the
| disaster"
|
| 2. The energy company sets up a trust to pay for the safe storage
| of nuclear waste and cleaning up the plant should they go bust
| (again "we take ...")
| Kamq wrote:
| That's entirely fair, but shouldn't other types of plants be
| expected to do the same things? My understanding is that they
| aren't currently (could be different in Germany).
| cypress66 wrote:
| That would only be fair if you required coal plants to pay for
| all the lives shortened or affected by its pollution.
|
| And that would be many orders of magnitude higher than the
| insurance that you are proposing.
|
| And no, CO2 taxes aren't the same (air pollution and global
| warming are separate things), and even then they are absolutely
| tiny.
| ReadTheLicense wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post ideological or nationalistic flamewar
| comments, or any flamewar comments, to HN. It's not what this
| site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to
| the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
| orbifold wrote:
| Great but I want the same deal for the coal and gas companies
| that produce electricity, make them responsible for every ton
| of CO2 they emitted and make them responsible for removing it
| from the atmosphere.
| number6 wrote:
| This is in place via EU-ETS: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-
| action/eu-emissions-trading-sy...
| hgomersall wrote:
| The price of co2 in the ETS is an order of magnitude too
| low to deal with it's removal, so no, this is not in place
| with the ETS.
| xorcist wrote:
| I believe the idea is to adjust the price over time. The
| hard part is getting such a system in place, not ramping
| it up.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Pitting nuclear against coal is fighting a straw man. The
| alternative is renewables. With a tiny fraction of the
| negative side-effects either nuclear or of fossil energy
| brings.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| It's most certainly not, since for every kW of installed
| renewables another kW of gas capacity must be installed to
| compensate for intermittency.
|
| That said, no reason why the original deal can't be
| extended to renewables, seems perfectly fair. It's to
| everyone's benefit that all methods of power generation be
| held accountable for all their costs.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > It's most certainly not, since for every kW of
| installed renewables another kW of gas capacity must be
| installed to compensate for intermittency.
|
| Why? Built geographically decoupled production, look at
| past weather data and pick how many 9's up-time you want.
|
| Then use storage and smart consumers to lower the
| requirements.
|
| For national emergencies keep a fossil reserve or
| whatever, with that kind of usage power 2 gas should not
| even matter.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| You can dream every solution you'd care to dream, but
| right now gas-backed solar is how it's done in europe.
| xorcist wrote:
| Nuclear is also "gas-backed" in way. A stable energy grid
| is not something one can hand wave together.
| perbu wrote:
| You know, for the last couple of months we learned quite
| a bit about the reliability of gas power.
|
| It's not really that great.
| cloverich wrote:
| Can renewables realistically cover (near) 100% of our day
| and night energy needs in the next 20 years? Gates book
| suggested no and if so thats why the comparison is apt.
| BenoitP wrote:
| And also deal with the harm done by coal mining; rehabilitate
| the Hambach mine landscape for example
| pyuser583 wrote:
| 1. You can only insure against losses to the insured. Most of
| the concerns regarding externalities. Insurance only will help
| if you have a legal regime that allows people injured by the
| externalities to be made while from the insured.
|
| Imagine you have a situation like the one in Chernobyl: a
| couple dozen people die. A much larger number of people need to
| have regular checkups for life, but as a result of said
| checkups have a normal or slightly longer lifespan.
|
| I'm not sure how health insurance works in Germany, but who
| pays for the lifetime of checkups? Is the power company liable?
| Will there be a suit?
|
| The free market rates could fluctuate wildly, but wouldn't have
| any relationship to whether nuclear is better than coal.
|
| Also, there's no guarantee that an a policy would even be
| offered for more than a year or so. Future insurers might just
| say, sorry, the admin costs are too much (admin costs could be
| insane).
|
| 2. If the plant goes bust because the government decides to
| "phase out nuclear" - it's completely legitimate to ask the
| government to help with shutdown costs.
| rullelito wrote:
| Isn't this already how it works?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| No, nuclear gets free state insurance and free waste disposal
| (as well as a bunch of other subsidies). This is why everyone
| laughs when country claim their nuclear programs are
| "peaceful power generation projects".
| google234123 wrote:
| It would be nice if environmental activists didn't block us
| from burying the waste...
| [deleted]
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Environmental activists and everyone else who is happy
| for it to be buried but not within 100miles of _their_
| house...
|
| Plus no operator is paying for disposal, even if there
| were a magic place willing to accept the stuff.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| No, see for example the Asse II mine, where taxpayers must
| pay for relocating nuclear waste since the operator no longer
| exists as a going concern.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine
|
| As far as I have been able to determine this is in fact how
| nuclear power is run in most of the world. Nuclear power is
| heavily subsidized by borrowing money from future
| generations. We are currently entering that future, as for
| example France has noticed recently. According to recent news
| stories their operator is 40 bn in debt and needs to make
| 50bn more in investments to keep plants running, meaning it
| has charged at least 110 bn too little for the power it sold
| in decades past.
|
| One of the major downsides of nuclear power is that whenever
| the nuclear operator runs out of money, taxpayers absolutely
| have to pay, there is no option not to. From a cynical
| financial perspective this effectively means nuclear power
| has limitless credit and can sell power for fantasy pricing,
| way less than it actually costs.
|
| So to the GP's point, if nuclear had to pay the actual,
| future costs of the energy it provides today, and it was
| baked in to the price per kWh it sells on the open market,
| we'd be better informed about the correct course of action.
| elefanten wrote:
| But that dynamic is true of other energy sources too. We've
| never priced fossil fuels correctly vs their externalities.
|
| So doing that _only_ for nuclear would be an even greater
| distortion.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| Absolutely true, we are probably in the middle of the
| handful of generations of humans that have spent all of
| earths oil reserves. Did we pay a fair price for it?
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Shouldn't we instead try to go for better solutions? What
| do those numbers look like for wind and solar?
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Yes. Unlike gas and coal, nuke plants have to pay to clean up
| their waste before it's created.
| [deleted]
| the8472 wrote:
| Not quite, the mandatory insurance is capped at 2.5GEUR.
| The taxpayer would have to cover the rest. Compared with
| the fukushima cleanup costs that's quite insufficient.
| [deleted]
| mpweiher wrote:
| 1. The high cost of insurance is a political problem, it has
| nothing to do with the actual damage that can occur. So making
| the response political is actually fair.
|
| 2. Waste storage is a solved problem, even for the current
| idiotic way we're doing it. Currently, the vast majority of the
| "waste" is actually unused fuel. Why? Because the fuel is too
| cheap to make extracting all of it worthwhile.
| koonsolo wrote:
| As a Belgian I only want 1 thing: no money going to Russia. I'm
| willing to pay the price for that.
| parineum wrote:
| One of the best things about nuclear is that it can really be
| put anywhere. It's hard to price in the benefit of energy
| independence/sovereignty but it's definitely should be a huge
| factor in it's favor.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| unfortunately, as energy strategy is a multi-decadal commitment,
| the decisions on what to do should not be left to mercurial
| changes in popular sentiment
| djohnston wrote:
| They were making the wrong decision for decades, moving away
| from nuclear while continuing to increase dependence on Russian
| gas (against the advice of 4-5 different US administrations). I
| agree that strategies shouldn't be made on knee jerk changes in
| public sentiment, but in this case the public is just starting
| to understand the correct answer that was always there.
| danhor wrote:
| The move away from nuclear and the move towards gas are more-
| or-less unconnected. After the (currently in place) decision
| to shut of nuclear from 2011, the gas part of the electricity
| first dipped a bit, then went a bit above 2010 levels after
| 2019. But it's not like our dependency on gas for electricity
| was radically different before the decision to exit nuclear
| (at least the current one) and right now.
|
| If you prioritized getting away from fossil fuels, instead of
| nuclear, the current situations might look differently but I
| don't think that would've been politically feasible. If
| nuclear were just left running and providing 22% of german
| electricity, I don't think we'd be in a much better situation
| right now.
|
| The major issue isn't electricity, but other forms of energy
| usage like heating. But that wasn't ever something done with
| electricity (at least on a large scale) in germany, even in
| the nuclear heyday (as opposed to france).
| hef19898 wrote:
| In Germany we had _one_ well thought out decision regarding
| nuclear power. That was over turned twice due to "sentiment",
| maybe a third time now. And everytime that hapened it turned
| out, well, not perfect.
| btilly wrote:
| So are you saying that Germany should continue its multi-
| decadal course towards being dependent on Russia for its energy
| needs?
|
| As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of
| government - except for all the others that have been tried."
| Yes, its shortcomings are obvious. But it is still worth
| accepting.
| machtfurden wrote:
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Meanwhile in France.
|
| Because the temperatures are so high and the continuing drought,
| the nuclear power plants have to decrease their power output.
|
| The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have
| limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream. Everything
| would slowly cook in the rivers ...
|
| Even with temporal exceptions of this environmental rules France
| became a NET IMPORTER of power.
|
| France is like 80% nuclear power electricity.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/france-risks-winter-blackou...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yeah the main problem is France basically did amazing with
| nuclear for like 30 years and then in the last 20 they
| basically flat-lined in total production.
|
| And the dropped all their advanced nuclear and is still
| planning expensive PWR style reactors until 2050.
|
| France had developed a Sodium cooled reactor but because of
| anti-nuclear sentiment they only built one and killed it. See:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix
|
| That we are still not using high temperature air cooled
| reactors is just an absolute shame.
|
| France did a great thing for the world by investing into
| nuclear and saving lots of CO2 before it was cool. However
| unfortunately they didn't do as good a job with advancing the
| technology.
| Jansemon wrote:
| Yeah, and aren't like have the plants currently not working,
| either because it's to hot or they're in maintenance or it's
| too expensive to repair them? And EDF, the biggest company
| behind nuclear power generation has huge amounts of debt and
| needs (is?) to be nationalized?
|
| From what I can gather, nuclear power was never cheap. It seems
| no country calculates the real cost - everything's subsidized
| to be even competitive. In Germany, after the power companies
| reaped the profits, they said they need to be subsidized to
| dismantle them, as the costs were to high.
|
| The waste disposal seems to be also subsidized (be it that the
| state searches for locations and builds them?) or
|
| Building those new and plants seems to be a gigantic money pit
| - look at the UK. Didn't they surpass the 30 billion mark and
| no end in sight? And that they can't be built fast?
|
| And who talkes about the real environmental (even CO2) cost to
| even produce a fuel rod?
|
| Everybody points to France as the poster boy for nuclear power.
| But it seems that it is a total disaster.
|
| Unfortunatley in German, but can maybe translated:
|
| https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2022-08/deutschland-fran...
| panick21_ wrote:
| In France the price of electricity is incredibly low so of
| course power was very subsidized.
|
| However the investment in nuclear in France still payed of
| big time. Consider a alternative solution where you use coal
| power, the only realistic alternative at the time.
|
| Coal is absolutely horrible for air quality and incredibly
| destructive to the environment.
|
| Any rational person would say it a huge advantage for a
| country to have heavily invested in nuclear.
|
| The real failure of France is not having continued the
| investment in nuclear, their failure is that they stopped
| investing and advancing technology in 1990s.
|
| > And who talkes about the real environmental (even CO2) cost
| to even produce a fuel rod?
|
| Every single end to end analysis shows that CO2 of nuclear is
| tiny.
| philipkglass wrote:
| France's newest operating reactor, Civaux 2, entered
| commercial operation in 2002:
|
| https://www.world-nuclear.org/reactor/default.aspx/CIVAUX-2
|
| France started building its first unit of the next-
| generation EPR at Flamanville in 2007:
|
| https://www.world-
| nuclear.org/reactor/default.aspx/FLAMANVIL...
|
| There was a ~5 year gap where France stopped work on adding
| reactors. France would probably be building more EPRs now
| if the planned 5-year construction of Flamanville 3 hadn't
| stretched out to 15 years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pla
| n...
| Jensson wrote:
| Germany will pay hundreds of billions in electricity this
| year since they don't have enough. Nuclear would have been a
| bargain.
| _ph_ wrote:
| What makes you think, Germany doesn't have enough
| electricity? Actually quite the contrary, we produced an
| additonal 20 TWh to fill in for the gaps left by the French
| nuclear plants not delivering. (And a lot of other plants
| in Europe are not running on full power due to lack of
| cooling water)
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >What makes you think, Germany doesn't have enough
| electricity?
|
| @RemindMe_OfThis in January 2023
| _ph_ wrote:
| Gladly.
|
| But as I said, possible shortages are gas for heating,
| industrial production, not electricity.
| Jansemon wrote:
| No, this seems to be false. France is _importing_
| electricity for _years_ from Germany - at least since 2015.
|
| I'm not sure why you're saying that France only has an
| issue because of Germany? Where do you get that from? Even
| a french power grid operator is saying that they import
| more power from Germany, than they're exporting
| (https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/cross-border-
| electrici...).
|
| But you're not even responding to my main concern - that
| nuclear power is so expensive, that it is never
| competitive. Only when subsidized. And that is for power
| plants that are already built - not new ones (which seem to
| be an even greater money pit). Why is the biggest nuclear
| power company unable to make money in France and needs to
| be rescued by the government?
|
| I'd say if it makes sense and helps us in our current
| situation, just subsidize the heck out of it, even if it
| costs us as a country lots of money. But it absolutely
| doesn't seem environmentally friendly, not even regarding
| CO2. And it doesn't seem to be feasible to quickly build
| nuclear power.
|
| But yes, Germany fucked up regarding its dependency on gas
| (from one source and then it's even from a country like
| Russia).
| panick21_ wrote:
| Now put in your cost function all the cost effects of
| coal to the land, the people and atmosphere.
|
| Nuclear has been an absolute bargin and had more
| countries acted like France we wouldn't have many of the
| problems we have now.
|
| > not even regarding CO2.
|
| That is 100% false.
|
| Please show me the study that shows this. Every single
| study I have seen suggest the opposite.
| frozencell wrote:
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| isn't that better than not having power at all with your energy
| infrastructure dependent on the whims of a madman?
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Just use cooling towers...
|
| Edit: I'm getting rate-limited, so my answer to the genius
| observation below, that cooling towers also need water, is the
| following:
|
| Cooling towers _evaporate_ water. Thus the concerns of OP do
| not apply about overheating the river downstream:
|
| >The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have
| limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > Just use cooling towers...
|
| Take the already most costly way of generating electricity
| and make it both less efficient (due to the cold side being
| warmer) and entail higher initial investment costs.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Cooling towers require a coolant, which is normally water...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water
| than cooling directly with river water and returning hot
| water to the river.
|
| About 20x less for the same energy generation.
|
| And the water ends up in the atmosphere so usually will end
| up in additional rain elsewhere in France.
|
| You effectively get to use the same water twice, so instead
| of being 20x less water, it is infinity x less water.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| >Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water
| than cooling directly with river water and returning hot
| water to the river.
|
| Still uses a shitload. A coalition of states around me
| had the power generation companies install a reservoir so
| that in summer and drought they could keep the lower
| Delaware River navigable since so much was evaporated off
| in the cooling towers:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Creek_Reservoir
| londons_explore wrote:
| a typical old 1 Gigawatt power station (ie. a big one)
| will produce about 2 gigawatts of waste heat. More modern
| tech could ~halve that. In an evaporative cooler, thats
| 800 liters of water evaporated every second.
|
| The Amazon river has 209,000,000 liters per second, so it
| wouldn't be an issue there.
|
| But in smaller streams, I could totally imagine there not
| being enough water even for evaporative cooling.
| scythe wrote:
| The major concern going forward, with solar representing an
| increasing proportion of generation, is energy shortfalls in
| winter. Overheating is not likely to be a serious problem in
| this case.
| everyone wrote:
| I'm worried Russia will cause an "accident" at a nuclear power
| plant in Ukraine in order to make nuclear less popular with the
| EU public, and keep the EU dependant on oil.
|
| I definitely wouldn't put it past them, considering all the war
| crimes they have committed so far.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Me too, especially as that would give Putin a reason to
| withdraw the troups from the contaminated Ukraine. Considering
| all the explosions which have been reported around the
| Saporischschja plant, I am really afraid.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| But nuclear is safe /s
| Jensson wrote:
| They could just load up tons of nuclear waste in planes and
| sprinkle it over Ukraine to cause the same kind of damage,
| having a nuclear powerplant lying around in no way makes it
| easier to cause those disasters.
|
| Terrorists doesn't target nuclear powerplants since bombing
| one doesn't do much, plenty of nuclear plants has been
| attacked to date and you didn't know since it doesn't cause
| any significant damage. Main damage from bombing a nuclear
| plant is that people die from the bombs and areas lose
| electricity.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Terrorists doesn't target nuclear powerplants since
| bombing one doesn't do much
|
| On the contrary. Even if there is no radiation leak it can
| cause a panic, which is exactly what terrorist want
|
| More importantly, nuclear is the most CENTRALIZED power
| generation. Destroying transformers or power lines around a
| plant is easy and leaves millions without electricity.
|
| Unlike distributed power generation, like solar and wind.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The thing is, Russia is trying to blame a possible blow up
| on the Ukrainians. That is their motivation to set it off
| instead of sprinkling nuclear waste or using nuclear war
| heads. Never mind all the damage they created around
| Chernobyl, though mostly contaminating their own troups by
| camping and digging in the highly contaminated forests
| around the former power plant. They also destroyed a lot of
| scientific labs which were controlling the power plant.
|
| By the way: Medvedjev made some pretty specific threads
| against German power plants.
| cycomanic wrote:
| It is interesting to note how everyone talks about the dependency
| on gas in Germany, while nobody mentions France. If we look at
| the two graphs:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/En...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/abm6r4/germanys_en...
|
| We can see that both Germany and France use about the same
| percentage of gas in their energy mix. Making this discussion a
| reason to revive nuclear is quite dishonest.
| locallost wrote:
| Germany's dependency on gas is more related to heating in the
| winter. It's relevant for electricity, but more as an in
| between solution after the phase out of nuclear and coal. But
| without gas, almost all of the population is screwed in the
| winter. France uses electricity for heating also, but
| considering they imported more electricity this year than they
| exported, they will also likely be in a world of hurt in the
| winter.
|
| For me, that's the strange thing about all of the narratives
| being pushed with the crisis, especially noticeable with
| nuclear -- any decision made 15-20 years ago would be somehow
| problematic right now, so wishing things were done differently
| leads to nowhere.
|
| What I wish this would lead to is a massive push to ditch
| fossil fuels, and those who think renewables are the solution
| should do that, the same with nuclear. I can freeze and suffer
| for some time, as long as there's a plan to improve things.
|
| What's clear is that things will change forever pretty soon.
| BenoitP wrote:
| You're mixing electricity production vs energy.
|
| We don't use oil for electricity production at all in France
| for example, we do for individual heating though.
|
| Most of the gas you see for France is for industrial heating:
| making cement, fusing glass, etc. Which was not accounted for
| in your graph for Germany.
|
| If you look at Germany's gas use, you'll see that it is sky-
| high, about x4 France's; because of industrial heat, and also
| mainly because of their humongous organic chemistry gas plant
| complexes.
|
| Here is Ludwigshafen's BASF site, 2 train yards, 6 sq km of
| pipes, Factorio-style spaghetti architecture:
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/itgDo7A727rq1DLG8
|
| In goes gas and oil, out goes plastics, precursors,
| pharmaceuticals, rubber, fertilizers, etc. The streets are
| named EthylStrasse, AmmoniakStrasse, SulfatStrasse, .. you get
| the idea
|
| Btw in Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, they announced 'warm halls' for
| the next winter. Halls where the poor can go so as not to
| freeze.
|
| All this to say: with France's nuclear maintenance done this
| summer, we'll just have to pop some ohm heaters for those of us
| using gas heating.
| seydor wrote:
| France has less dependence on russian gas , it doesn't have
| germany's large industry that is also dependent on russian gas,
| their nuclear will be there in the future, they have 4 LNG
| terminals and they are quite sunnier. I believe france's
| nuclear is currently offline that's why the higher gas usage.
| cycomanic wrote:
| The gas use has been similar for the last 10 years. Now
| you're correct in absolute numbers Germany uses more gas, it
| has more citizens, more energy intensive industry etc. and
| yes they are less dependent on Russian gas (most of their gas
| seems to come from Norway [1], although the second biggest
| source is Russia). I actually agree making Germany dependent
| Russian gas was a terrible idea. Germany actually had a
| unique opportunity in the late 90s early 00s, they could have
| really pushed for a transition to a mostly renewable energy
| production, but instead strong lobbying won out. And the
| lobbyists were the fossil and nuclear sectors (i.e. the large
| energy corporations). One thing one can see again and again
| is that the nuclear lobby is never arguing against fossil
| energy, but only against renewables. The reasons are simply
| that they largely have common interests, highly centralised
| energy production, with strongly subsidised plant
| construction, which guarantee long term profits. Renewables
| are actually disruptive, because they allow for very
| distributed energy production putting into the hands of small
| investors and relatively small construction industry. They
| threaten the large profits of the old model.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ueipzd/country_o
| f_o...
| KuiN wrote:
| Yeah, the drought in Europe has dried up or made too warm the
| rivers used to cool French nuclear plants.
| T-A wrote:
| But as of April, only 17% of France's gas imports came from
| Russia:
|
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/04/27/h...
| cycomanic wrote:
| Yes, but that is unrelated to the argument that is being
| made; that Germany's dependence on Russian gas is because
| they are quitting nuclear. France who went largely "all-in"
| on nuclear is using the same percentage of gas, they just get
| it from somewhere else. You can't make an argument pro or
| contra nuclear from this, this is the politics of where to
| get the gas from (and I agree getting it from Russia was a
| mistake). Note also, Germany gets about 32% of its gas from
| Russia (Norway is second with 20%), so it's not _that_
| different to France (essentially the two main suppliers are
| reversed between the two countries).
| T-A wrote:
| > You can't make an argument pro or contra nuclear from
| this
|
| Sure you can: Germany and France are not in the same place,
| so the economics of getting gas from source X are not the
| same, so when weighing gas vs nuclear they were not looking
| at the same options. For Germany, cheap gas meant Russian
| gas. If that had been ruled out on security grounds, other
| energy sources, including nuclear, would have been more
| competitive vs more expensive gas from Norway etc.
|
| > Note also, Germany gets about 32% of its gas from Russia
|
| Now, after Russia cut deliveries. It was 55% before the war
| [1], and would have gone even higher with Nord Stream 2
| about to come online.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-
| reliant-is...
| cycomanic wrote:
| > Sure you can: Germany and France are not in the same
| place, so the economics of getting gas from source X are
| not the same, so when weighing gas vs nuclear they were
| not looking at the same options. For Germany, cheap gas
| meant Russian gas. If that had been ruled out on security
| grounds, other energy sources, including nuclear, would
| have been more competitive vs more expensive gas from
| Norway etc.
|
| Nuclear was never an option to substitude for gas. Apart
| from the fact that Germany uses most of its gas for
| heating and industry, the applications for both in
| electricity generation are very different, gas is for
| peakers, nuclear is baseload. That can be seen by looking
| at the fact that France is using the same percentage of
| gas in their electricity generation as Germany.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Germany still has gas STREET LIGHTS.
|
| They pay millions of euros every year just for the gas in those
| :D
| swsieber wrote:
| Considering that France has been increasing the amount of
| nuclear in their mix, I think it's worth discussing nuclear for
| Germany and renewable for France.
| dv_dt wrote:
| France seems to be unintentionally decreasing nuclear in
| their mix because of unreliability.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/paris-
| faces-a...
| cycomanic wrote:
| But they haven't, did you look at the graph (here is another
| one for electricity only https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File
| :France_Electricity_prod...)? The portion of nuclear has
| remained constant since the late 90s. Also France at the
| moment has turned off between 40 and 100% (I read about 40%,
| but saw 100% on TV some weeks ago) of their nuclear power
| plants, due to heat and maintance. Guess who is picking up
| the shortfall at the moment, German renewables and coal.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > The portion of nuclear has remained constant since the
| late 90s.
|
| That just reflects the failure of French state to continue
| to invest. The socialist and green party based on general
| anti-nuclear sentiment stopped much of the investment.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Are you joking? In the last 24 years there was only 4
| years with a socialist president. The greens had seats
| only 3 times of the last 6 six national assemblies since
| 1986 and that was 7,3 and 4 so they are not a very
| influential party in France. And saying that the the
| socialists in France are antinuclear is also quite off.
| While Hollande was quite critical (also due to massive
| cost overruns and shady security practices reading the
| Wikipedia article on nuclear power in France is quite
| eyeopening) they have traditionally been decidedly pro
| nuclear.
|
| No, there hasn't been much change because nuclear is so
| expensive. Projects have been going massively over budget
| (e.g. The EPR at Flammanville $15 billion instead of
| planned $4, planned to start operating in 2013 still not
| online.) [1].
|
| [1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a3349
| 9619/fr...
| panick21_ wrote:
| France unforunatly stopped investing in nuclear in the 1990s,
| from 1970-2000 their total nuclear power production went up,
| but then if flatlined. That is why they have problmes now.
|
| They had next generation plants ready to be rolled out, but
| because of the politics at the time never produced them in
| large numbers.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix
| cycomanic wrote:
| Blaming it on politics is quite inventive. The EPR at
| Falammanville is 4 times over budget and 9 years overdue and
| still not online. The EPRs were Frances next generation
| reactors. The cost of electricity with that reactor is
| projected to be twice higher than older reactors. Let's not
| even talk about the fact that at the moment >50% of French
| reactors are down, because they encountered issues in
| maintance (interestingly it's sold to the French public as we
| are preparing them for the winter when gas will be tight).
| frasermarlow wrote:
| It's quite informative to see where new power plants are
| currently under construction, or otherwise being planned.
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu...
| India and China are ramping up.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > The results are astounding all around
|
| Faced with burning wood to keep warm in winter, the results are
| entirely predictable.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Most households burn gas at home for heating. Sure if there is
| no gas, you can use an electrical heater but that won't be
| cheap.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Heat pumps aren't necessarily more expensive than gas, and
| they are cleaner than gas heaters if the electricity is clean
| (such as nuclear)
| seydor wrote:
| problem is germany uses russian gas for electricity
| silon42 wrote:
| back to coal gas it is?
| seydor wrote:
| germany also uses a lot of coal
|
| https://www.energy-
| charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
| osigurdson wrote:
| Having to "cuddle under blankets" is one thing, frozen pipes and
| water damage is another.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Why would you think, pipes would be freezing? Besides the fact
| that due to climate change really cold winters have been rare,
| the current szenario just is to reduce room temperature to like
| 19 degrees, not stop heating alltogether.
| rullelito wrote:
| Just embarrasing that it had to go this far before Germans
| realized.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Anything except building the most straightforward infrastructure
| for their current distribution system. Regas stations so that
| they can get LNG from the sea.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I don't mind nuclear, as long as people are prepared to pay the
| price at the meter and dispose of the waste. But people aren't
| prepared to do either...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Actually people are very prepared for that.
|
| In the US for example, the US collected a waste fee for 50
| years and had many, many billions on an account.
|
| Easily enough money to develop the technology for burning up
| the fuel. Literally many times the money then required.
|
| But rather then using rational technology solution politicians
| grid-locked themselves over an incredibly stupid Yucca Mountain
| project that makes no sense what so ever.
|
| So yes, nuclear 'waste' needs to be managed, but there are well
| known technology solution. Sadly because people were anti-
| nuclear politicians rather sold the 'put it into a deep hole'
| story rather then developing the necessary technology.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Recent electricity prices in Europe have proven that
| intermittent renewables backed by gas are way more expensive
| than nuclear, if it wasn't obvious already.
|
| Nuclear waste disposal is a red herring. It's literally a
| rounding error compared to the environmental footprint of other
| means of energy production.
| tpmx wrote:
| And still the current plan is for Germany to shut down its few
| remaining nuclear reactors by the end of the year, while the
| company/companies maintaining them are saying they can keep them
| running? Please stop the shutdown, ffs, are you insane?
|
| Let's try to stop Germany from harming itself further via
| international pressure. Blame and shame. Call them idiots to
| their faces. Point fingers. They need to shocked.
|
| The germans seem to need to need a healthy dose of
| sanity/science. Their politics have been hijacked by anti-nuclear
| anti-science activists for too long.
|
| Their celebrated "Mittelstand" industry is no good if they can't
| provide basic functions such as electric power in a clean way,
| but then again I'm not really sure they care.
| [deleted]
| looperhacks wrote:
| If you are referring to the latest discussion about a specific
| plant (Isar 2), the company running the plant (e.on) wants to
| shut it down. The discussion came up because the TUV Sud
| (internationally mostly known for certifying that dam in Brazil
| one year before it killed 270 people because it was not safe
| and broke) certified that the plant is safe, but pretty much
| everyone involved claimed that the certificate is bogus (and
| the public image of the TUV Sud is pretty bad anyway).
| [deleted]
| tpmx wrote:
| koheripbal wrote:
| There are three remaining plants in Germany, all scheduled to
| shut down this year.
|
| The Government doubled-down on it's decision claiming that
| the plants didn't have the resources to continue operations.
|
| In a rare moment, the operators of the plants embarrassed the
| gov't by going public that they could indeed continue to run
| safely.
|
| One thing to note is that the prime minister appointed the
| head German head of Greenpeace to the cabinet this year - who
| is ideologically against any form of nuclear power,
| regardless of safety.
| the8472 wrote:
| She isn't responsible for energy, infrastructure or
| finance, which should be responsible departments regarding
| the power plants.
|
| > On February 8, 2022, it was announced that she was to be
| appointed to the Federal Republic of Germany's Federal
| Foreign Office as a special representative for
| international climate policy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Morgan_(activist)
| fishoutofth wrote:
| Just adding a source to what you're saying:
|
| ---------------------------------
|
| "Are the operators on board with an extension?
|
| The three remaining plants are each run by a different
| company, which all declined to answer questions in detail.
|
| A spokesperson for RWE said extending the operation of its
| Emsland plant in Lower Saxony would come with "high
| obstacles" related to technical matters and legal issues. Its
| Gundremmingen plant, which went offline in 2021, "has lost
| its operating authorization and is in the process of being
| safely dismantled."
|
| EnBW, which runs the Neckarwestheim plant in Baden-
| Wurttemberg, said it was "fully committed" to Germany's
| phaseout decision.
|
| E.ON has also ruled out an extension of its Isar 2 site in
| Bavaria. "There is no future for nuclear in Germany, period,"
| CEO Leon Birnbaum told the Financial Times this month. "It is
| too emotional. There will be no change in legislation and
| opinion."
|
| ---------------------------------
|
| source: https://www.politico.eu/article/politics-behind-
| germany-refu...
|
| another older article from february:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/could-germany-
| keep-i...
| rgbrenner wrote:
| If you cant build new plants, I dont think the solution is to
| run old plants forever until they fail. Shutting down old
| plants should have nothing to do with being pro/anti nuclear.
| Everything has a life span.
| tpmx wrote:
| The plants are being shut down because of political concerns.
| From a technical POV they can keep running. Vattenfall was
| also forced to retire nuclear plants in Germany way ahead of
| schedule because of german politics a few years ago. That was
| stupid.
| _ph_ wrote:
| It was a political decision to set the shut down date to
| end of 22, but due to maintenance and fuel concerns, it
| might not be possible to just keep them running. Of course
| we can perform all necessary maintenance and order new fuel
| to have them back in a year or two, but it might be simpler
| just to push the alternatives. (If it is easily possible to
| keep them running, of course we should do, but that is not
| so clear to me)
| dang wrote:
| Please don't call names or fulminate or do online shaming or
| nationalistic flamewar on HN--regardless of how wrong other
| people or you feel they are.
|
| You may not owe opposing energy activists better, but you owe
| this community better if you're participating in it.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the
| intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
| tpmx wrote:
| Sorry. I realize I may have gotten a bit carried away here.
| You're making some good points. I'll read through the
| guidelines.
|
| (Fulminate is an interesting word, btw.)
| User23 wrote:
| > Let's try to stop Germany from harming itself further via
| international pressure. Blame and shame. Call them idiots to
| their faces. Point fingers. They need to shocked.
|
| Trump literally did exactly this. Needless to say they doubled
| down. Classic example of an inability to separate the value of
| a message from the messenger.
|
| The Greens are barking mad though, and not just about nuclear.
| Parliamentary democracy being what it is, they can sadly
| inflict that madness on the republic.
| tpmx wrote:
| _ph_ wrote:
| The Greens are the one party not responsible for the current
| mess Germany is is (which is much less than people here think
| it is). It was the previous government which decided to cut
| the run time of the power plants short (it didn't have Greens
| in the government). The previous government didn't start to
| cut ties with Russia after 2014. The previous government
| curbed the buildup of renewable energy.
| _ph_ wrote:
| First of all, please don't call people names and please stay to
| the truth. I will take a deep breath and try to answer some of
| your claims calmly.
|
| Yes, one can debate whether it was a clever idea to decide in
| 2001 to get rid of nuclear power while there was no end date
| set for coal. However the plans allowed for 25 years of further
| run time, enough time for buildup of renewables.
|
| And Germany was quite successfull, renewables make up over 50%
| of the electricity. However, they fell behind the expectations
| because the Merkel government curbed the roll out of
| renewables. You can see how solar collapsed after 2012 and wind
| after 2017: https://www.erneuerbare-
| energien.de/EE/Redaktion/DE/Bilder/G...
|
| On top of that, after the Fukushima disaster, it was decided to
| cut the run times of the nuclear power plants short. Mixing
| those together wasn't a great thing. Without one or even both,
| the path to renewables would have been smother and much further
| ahead.
|
| We are talking about only 3 power plants left, whatever we
| decide, it won't make a huge difference. But as things are, I
| would also be in favour of keeping them running, if we
| reasonably can. However that is not a given. Maintenance
| intervals were of course decide with the final shut down at the
| end of the year in mind, as was ordering of the nuclear fuel. I
| really don't know, whether this can be reasonably reversed
| without higher costs than the possible alternatives.
|
| And it is important to mention, that there is no scarcity of
| electricity in Germany, nor is any expected in the winter. Only
| 14% of the imported Gas go to electricity production.
| Ironically German electricity production is espeically high at
| the moment, as Germany has to keep the European grid up as
| France is failing to produce enough electricity. About 50% of
| the French nuclear power plants are down at the moment, they
| are old and require maintenance. On top of that, the rest has
| to run at reduced power due to limited cooling in the summer
| and due to the draught.
|
| Germany has for this reason produced an extra 20 TWh of
| electricity, partially coming from the precious gas reserves.
| Because the nuclear power plants are not delivering at the
| moment.
|
| So please cut down your flaming of Germany while it keeps the
| European grid running.
| tpmx wrote:
| Based on you previous comments in this submission:
|
| I think this is a novel re-interpretation of reality, from
| the angle that the German Green party was somehow not
| responsible for the nuclear power shutdown in Germany, and
| the effects that had on the European power grid.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Haven't you read what I wrote? The 2001 decision was made
| to run the plants for 25 years. That was the decisions the
| Greens took part in. Every other decision was taken by
| governments without Greeen participation. You should
| carefully distinguish between those.
|
| And what exactly are the effects on the European power grid
| you are talking about, especially any negative one? (Feel
| free to also list the beneficial ones)
| cloutchaser wrote:
| LightG wrote:
| Doesn't the very current issue of Ukraine and Russia using a
| nuclear plant as a war zone give anyone pause?
|
| It seems so obvious to at least think twice about this.
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