[HN Gopher] Germany to Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running
___________________________________________________________________
Germany to Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running
Author : IdealeZahlen
Score : 92 points
Date : 2022-08-16 16:31 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| timmg wrote:
| This is the smart/obvious thing for them to do, bravo. This is
| also a very negative thing for Putin and Russia. Glad to see more
| negative results to the Russians from their invasion.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| > This is also a very negative thing for Putin and Russia
|
| This is to prepare for Russia cutting off gas entirely to the
| EU, which would cause harm to Russia's O&G revenue as a result
| of Russia's strategic choice, not due to EU actions.
|
| Russia is making record profits off high gas prices, there were
| no negative results to their energy industry from their
| invasion. All of the negative results were from sanctions on
| the rest of their economy and from freezing their USD/EUR
| currency reserves.
| Arnt wrote:
| Could you elaborate?
|
| It's not going to affect the 10m+ gas-fired furnaces, water
| heaters, ovens or stoves, or any of the chemical industry that
| use 85% of the gas. It's not going to replace even half of the
| gas-fired power plants that use the remaining 15%. So why is it
| smart, obvious, or very negative for Putin?
| guywithahat wrote:
| Presumably because Germany won't have to start burning more
| fuel to replace the lost nuclear electricity, although I'm
| not op.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| just out of my mind: they could export that energy(and maybe
| i'm wrong, but it is cheap to produce, somewhere next to gas)
| to countries that produce electricity from russian gas, at
| least till other sources will be used in that countries But I
| really don't believe they'll keep them running, seeing what
| german politicians have done in the past
| wongarsu wrote:
| You could argue that it's getting outsized media attention
| compared to the impact, but any impact that reduces natural
| gas use is good for Germany, and anything that helps Europe
| withstand Putin's sanctions is bad for Putin.
|
| The economic and safety questions seem settled, so the thing
| that stands in the way of this step being obvious is the
| self-image and identity of the German Green party.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Green voters are mostly fine with this, so it's not a big
| deal for the party.
| jfim wrote:
| It's probably negative in the long term, since there is
| enough public awareness about the Russian gas imports being
| problematic and that nuclear power is being considered less
| of a problem than Russian gas. Also it means that political
| parties will likely add the sourcing of energy as an
| important part of their platform in the future, leading to
| debate as to what should be the future of energy in Germany
| and how independent or not they should be from Russian gas.
| timmg wrote:
| Germany typically uses X joules of energy to run its economy.
| Some percent of that X comes via nat gas (and oil) from
| Russia. If they replace some of those Russian joules with
| nuclear joules, then a smaller percentage comes from Russia.
| That lowers demand for fossil fuels. That reduces revenue for
| Russia.
|
| > It's not going to affect the 10m+ gas-fired furnaces, water
| heaters, ovens or stoves...
|
| Not at once. But it certainly makes it easier for people to
| replace nat gas appliances with electric ones. If you are
| heating your home with nat gas and the price explodes, it
| would be beneficial to lower your thermostat and crank up an
| electric space heater to make up (some) of the difference.
| Arnt wrote:
| The thing is that maybe around 1% of the joules can be
| replaced with nuclear. Most can't because connecting
| electricity wires to a gas-fired furnace does nothing
| (good).
|
| I once started a bugfixing week with fixing a bug that
| caused around 1% of the crashes. My team lead didn't think
| that was either smart, obvious or very anythingatall, and
| said so loudly and clearly in the team meeting.
| timmg wrote:
| > The thing is that maybe around 1% of the joules can be
| replaced with nuclear.
|
| Citation needed.
|
| These plants are running _now_. Are you saying the
| electricity they are generating is not being used? The
| question is what replaces those joules if they shut them
| down?
| _ph_ wrote:
| They are providing like 6% of the German electricity. So
| yes, replacing them will require more fossil fuel short
| time. On the other side, the idea is to replace them with
| renewal sources. Germany is already at 50 renewables in
| the electricity mix.
|
| Nuclear is not really a replacement for gas, rather than
| coal, due to its slow nature. Gas power plants are used
| in Germany mostly for quick peak power.
| Arnt wrote:
| Most of the gas isn't used for generating electricity.
| Rather, it's used at the point where the electricity
| would be used. If you build a house you can install a
| furnace that gets joules from the electricity network or
| from the gas network, see? And there are a little over
| ten million houses and apartments that get their warm
| water and heating from gas-heated boilers/furnaces.
|
| See https://www.haustec.de/heizung/waermeerzeugung/waerme
| markt-w... for example. There's also the chemical
| industry, which uses gas as chemicals, not as a source of
| joules.
| drpyser22 wrote:
| Cheaper electricity pushes the market to favor electric
| heating over gas. The cost of switching from a gas
| furnace to an electric one will be worth it if gas
| becomes more expensive and electricity cheaper.
|
| If you fix a bug that currently causes few crashes but
| would later on turn out to cause big issues, and you see
| that outcome in advance, then it would in fact be smart
| wouldn't it?
| intrestingstuff wrote:
| Maybe they got the tip from the same sources that claimed Musk
| and Mrs Brin had an affaire
| hash07e wrote:
| kube-system wrote:
| Planning for 2025 is great, and I'm sure Germans are resilient,
| but not resilient enough to go without energy in Winter
| 2022/23. Nuclear power is reliable, already exists, and is
| cleaner than fossil fuel.
| hash07e wrote:
| kube-system wrote:
| Climate change doesn't make weather warmer, it makes
| weather more extreme.
| hash07e wrote:
| ok, then.
|
| they could use a warm coat.
|
| Central heating is modern thing. It is good to have but
| not _vital_.
| kube-system wrote:
| Humans have used fire for heat in cold climates for
| millennia. Many dwellings lack the facilities to heat
| with open flame anymore.
| DasIch wrote:
| Houses with central heating are designed with central
| heating in mind. They tend to fail in ugly ways, if that
| stops working. You lose warm water, water pipes may
| freeze and break, mold can grow etc.
|
| If you don't want to essentially demolish such a house
| next spring, you definitely need to provide at least a
| minimum of heat to the entire house and as you can't
| exactly do campfires inside you have to centrally heat
| it.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Central heating is modern thing. It is good to have but
| not vital.
|
| Central heating predates Hygene, Doctors and toilets. Try
| living without those, hope you don't mind the plague
| _ph_ wrote:
| It is certainly cleaner than coal, that would be the main
| reason to keep them running (if possible, what is not given).
| They make little difference in the energy supply to Germany,
| as they provide like 6% of the German electricity. This is
| easily (though dirty) replaced with coal.
|
| About reliable: in the winter hopefully, but currently Europe
| is facing a shortage of electric power due to the heat and
| the drought reducing the availability of nuclear power (never
| mind the 20 French nuclear power plants down for maintenance)
| klabb3 wrote:
| > Everything must be green, non-fossil and no nuclear in 2025.
|
| No matter where you stand on nuclear in general, you have to
| see the benefit of keeping existing plants operational from
| both a geopolitical and carbon emission perspective, no? As a
| mostly pro-nuclear person, I can still empathize with people
| who believe in a long term phase-out. I am however genuinely
| baffled that there is a large portion of environmentalists who
| refuse to even give an inch to the argument that the timing of
| doing so now is incredibly problematic.
| germandiago wrote:
| in 2025? lol. They are going to make more trouble than
| anything else. it is impossible that this happens. It is not
| feasible at any scale. Green energy has its own set of
| limitations as well.
| colechristensen wrote:
| So you think in... 27 months Germany can replace its entire
| power generation infrastructure with wind and solar, eliminate
| all non-electric appliances, and get almost everybody a new
| car?
|
| Like do you honestly believe this?
| hash07e wrote:
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Nuclear power is the only hope of modern civilization (fusion
| of course, not fission). It is also an insanely clean source of
| power if you look at how much energy it produces compared to
| how much nuclear waste it produces.
|
| I encourage you to read this very short link from the US
| government: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-
| about-spent-...
|
| You will see that not only all the nuclear waste ever produced
| would fit in a single football stadium, but on top of that, the
| "waste" can actually be reused in other nuclear power plants.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The most sensible, efficient, and effective climate change policy
| would be to:
|
| 1. tax the carbon content of fuels
|
| 2. use nuclear power for baseload power generation
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| 1. Tax the carbon emissions of all industries.
|
| 2. Let the market decide how to profitably generate power.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's much easier to tax the carbon content of fuel, rather
| than try to measure what the industry emits.
| janmarsal wrote:
| Finally some good news. Too bad it needed a war to happen.
| detaro wrote:
| According to German sources the government denies this report and
| points to the currently running evaluations. (e.g.
| https://www.rtl.de/cms/atomkraftwerke-in-deutschland-verwirr...)
| koheripbal wrote:
| Given that the Prime Minister appointed an ideologue Greenpeace
| activist as the head of Climate policy, I too am skeptical that
| Germany has reversed its decision.
| causi wrote:
| I don't know why you're flagged. Germany's special envoy for
| international climate policy, Jennifer Morgan, is indeed the
| chief of Greenpeace International. Granted it's debatable how
| much direct power the post has.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Greenpeace, true to its name and thanks to its anti-nuclear
| position is one of the big reasons why 2022 is not Green
| nor Peaceful
| ianpurton wrote:
| I was sceptical. Turns out you are right.
|
| > Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to
| fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an
| unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The
| only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear
| power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
| [deleted]
| forty wrote:
| I haven't downvoted, but I think it might be because
| calling someone an ideologue because you disagree with them
| is bad taste.
| colechristensen wrote:
| If we go ahead and look at the definition of the word, I
| think it would almost be an automatic label for a
| Greenpeace leader.
| SECProto wrote:
| Dictionary definitions generally don't include
| information on connotation.
|
| Edit: I searched to find a dictionary for word
| connotations, best I found in a couple mins is
| https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~ychoi/connotation/
| forty wrote:
| Admittedly I'm French and the negative connotation of
| this word might not have carried to English but looking
| at an English dictionary [1] it does seem to me that's
| it's something you would only say of someone you disagree
| with.
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
| colechristensen wrote:
| I'm one to think ideologues "on my side" also deserve to
| be disagreed with because of their methods and
| absolutism.
|
| But you are right, it's not a thing you'd really say
| about somebody you liked.
| causi wrote:
| _"Nuclear power plants are not the solution to climate
| change. To make fuels for nuclear power plants, we have
| to go through the whole process of uranium mining,
| transporting, and disposing. Considering this fact, there
| will be a lot of carbon emissions."_
|
| When you're so rabidly anti-nuclear that you ignore the
| fact uranium is 1.5 million times as energy-dense as
| coal, you are an ideologue. Uranium has so much energy
| per kilogram you could fuel the world's reactors by
| shipping it _via airplane_.
|
| There's plenty to criticize about the environmental
| damage of uranium mining. Carbon emissions is not one of
| them.
|
| It's my opinion this choice to attack nuclear energy by
| casting it in whatever critical light is trendy rather
| than its actual weaknesses demonstrates Morgan is against
| nuclear energy for ideological reasons that have nothing
| to do with its actual dangers, hence she is doing little
| or no risk/reward calculation, and that her future
| choices will not be based on human energy needs and
| accurate assessments of nuclear technology and industry.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| By comparison, mining of coal emits carbon, and using it
| emits carbon. Double whammy of carbon emissions.
| forty wrote:
| I don't know the person we are discussing about in this
| thread and I don't know her opinions or the opinion of
| German green party etc, but I do know some arguments of
| green parties here in France that are also anti nuclear
| too (note also that France and Germany are very different
| when it comes to nuclear as here most of our electricity
| is nuclear already)
|
| The arguments they make is that producing electricity and
| most usage of electricity are bad for our planet and thus
| we should use less electricity if we want to preserve it
| (and as a result wouldn't need to add extra nuclear or
| coal capacity).
|
| This part is often forgotten which results of thinking
| they want to replace nuclear by coal, which would be
| absurd.
|
| I imagine it's probably hard to imagine that someone
| would think that seriously from a US perspective (one of
| my US based colleague asked "when are you getting AC in
| Europe??" when here many people are wondering if the
| Americans are going to stop being crazy with their
| freezing AC ^^)
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's people like her that won't sit down at a spreadsheet
| and put in basic arithmetic for things like recurring
| costs, nonrecurring costs, amount of pollution (broken
| down for the entire lifetime of the energy source) and
| make an educated call. They just react to their own knee-
| jerk opinion that they do not want to have challenged.
| forty wrote:
| The problem with nuclear is that the other side does the
| same, which is why it's hard to have interesting
| discussion on the topic. If you want actual arguments on
| how nuclear is not the miracle energy some people would
| like to believe it is, look how here is in France half of
| our reactors had to be shutdown because of the heat
| during the recent heatwave or for maintainance, how we
| are unable to build those new gen reactors in any
| predictable deadline and budget, and how we struggle to
| shutdown older reactors which means we have to pay to
| prolong them over and over which is getting more and more
| expensive - and it's for an old tech from the 70s.
|
| Of course there are many upside to it too (low carbon
| emissions and not from Russia among the obvious ones)
|
| But it's pretty rare to find balanced and nuanced speech
| on the topic unfortunately, and I don't find the anti
| nuclear side to be any worse than the pro nuclear side on
| this.
| curtainsforus wrote:
| Do you think she cares? She's just catering to the common
| person.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Because it is wrong. She isn't heading German climate
| affairs.
| s_dev wrote:
| Insane that Greenpeace is anti-nuclear. Really undermines the
| organizations goals.
| [deleted]
| darthrupert wrote:
| Fortunately, a majority of the new generation of Greens
| around Europe are coming to their senses and support
| nuclear power.
|
| Not sure about Greenpeace though, they are a bit messed up.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| They would have to admit they were wrong when they opposed
| nuclear power, always a difficult thing for ideologically
| driven organisations. Some individuals manage to make
| amends with their mistaken activism but it takes a number
| of influential individuals to convincingly steer an
| organisation away from the cliffs it has been aiming for.
| Those individuals will initially be lambasted by the true
| believers so they often choose to leave the organisation
| instead of trying to reform it. This means the organisation
| is pulled even more towards the old/failed ideology which
| makes it even harder for it to be reformed.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Greenpeace is pro-nuclear now.
| kube-system wrote:
| I know nothing about Greenpeace, but their website seems to
| disagree with that:
|
| https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-
| chaos/issues...
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| They say otherwise.
| https://www.greenpeace.org/international/tag/nuclear/
|
| "Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight
| - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an
| unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The
| only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear
| power, and for the shutdown of existing plants."
| gjs278 wrote:
| Tomte wrote:
| The foreign minister, not the Chancellor (that's what our
| prime minister is called).
| DasIch wrote:
| Assuming this refers to Jennifer Morgan: *
| Germany has no prime minister, Germany has a chancellor.
| * The prime minister didn't appoint her, the cabinet did.
| * She is not head of climate policy, she is a special envoy
| for climate policy as part of the federal foreign office.
| This is a diplomatic position. That means such decisions are
| out of scope here entirely.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Almost. The chancellor proposes the ministers, the
| president appoints them (never not followed the proposal of
| the chancellor). But she isn't heading a ministry, but
| reports to the foreign minister, which probably proposed
| her. She might or might not have the administrative rank as
| a minister, but she isn't a member of the cabinet.
| sveme wrote:
| Thanks for the clarifications, it's always shocking to see
| the amount of bullshit on hackernews (and reddit) when it
| comes to Germany, renewable/nuclear energy and the like.
| Makes me want to question everything else that is posted
| here where I know less of. Reminder of the Gell-Mann
| Amnesia.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There is _a lot_ of overconfidence on HN for non-core
| subjects of the HN crowd.
|
| Non-computer sciences and engineering comment sections
| are full of people speaking their guesses with authority.
| Archelaos wrote:
| > Non-computer sciences and engineering comment sections
| are full of people speaking their guesses with authority.
|
| Any idea why this is the case? I wonder, because I would
| expect most engineers to have had a university education
| that taught them respect for the complexity of things
| around us in the first place. The realisation alone of
| how little one really knows about one's own subject after
| several years of study should make one very cautious when
| it comes to subjects one has only heard about in passing.
| Or is it simply that an overwhelming majority of modest
| people simply remain silent, and that is why a few
| uninformed who rush to judgement stick out?
| colechristensen wrote:
| As always, there's a webcomic for that: https://www.smbc-
| comics.com/?id=2475
|
| Technical people with _some_ knowledge of a topic will
| often find themselves on the peak of mount stupid (see
| comic).
|
| In other words, knowing just enough to feel like you know
| a lot, not knowing enough to realize how much you don't
| know.
|
| And... well university education often doesn't succeed in
| teaching people to estimate their knowledge on a subject
| appropriately. "I don't know but I want to know more!"
| isn't a very common outcome when a topic comes up. I
| think it really has to do with people who spend a lot of
| time being the most knowledgable one on most topics
| around getting used to just having an answer whether or
| not it's correct.
| DasIch wrote:
| There is a lot of overconfidence on core subjects also.
| Think of the rsync dropbox thing or any thread about
| kubernetes (I don't need it, so nobody does!)
| honkler wrote:
| tbh, you probably don't need kubernetes
| sdoering wrote:
| I currently need (to know) it and would rather not.
|
| Especially in a multi cluster, kustomize, istio, argocd,
| Jenkins on bare metal over multiple physical data
| centers.
|
| To me with intermediate data dev ops knowledge this is
| quite a level of complexity.
| _ph_ wrote:
| That is wrong. That former Greepeace member works for the
| foreign ministry, it seems with the purpose of dealing with
| international actions against climate change. This office has
| nothing to do with the German climate policiy. That would be
| the minister of environmental affairs and the minister of
| economy.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-16 23:02 UTC)