[HN Gopher] Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear ...
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Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants
Author : ulnarkressty
Score : 245 points
Date : 2022-10-17 18:12 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| namuol wrote:
| State-sponsored nuclear fear-mongering is likely to accelerate
| dramatically online in the coming years. Will it be the right
| that goes anti-nuclear this time? Hopefully not.
| [deleted]
| throwaway221017 wrote:
| clemensley wrote:
| Finally. Opposition to nuclear is beyond unreasonable.
| https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
| Kon5ole wrote:
| Here are three arguments that I personally find both reasonable
| and convincing.
|
| 1) Nuclear fuel and waste are clearly dangerous. Your linked
| article makes a logical fallacy in that it claims a dangerous
| activity is safe because few people have died from it. But we
| know things are dangerous even when nobody dies from it. The
| level of security surrounding nuclear is beyond anything else,
| and it's required to keep it safe. These security measures are
| expensive to maintain but are dwarfed by the expenses when they
| fail.
|
| 2) Nuclear is much more expensive than we are led to believe.
|
| This is quite clearly deduced from official writings from
| nuclear agencies, international treaties controlling who will
| actually pay if things go south, and also demonstrated in the
| market where nuclear operators are deeply in debt after selling
| nuclear power for unrealistic prices for decades. (See France).
|
| Nuclear energy is most likely many times more expensive than
| any numbers presented to date from anyone operating nuclear
| power plants. This cost is covered "in blanco" by governments,
| meaning taxpayers now and in generations to come. I am
| convinced that the energy we consume from nuclear today will be
| paid for by our great-great-great-grandchildren and theirs too.
|
| 3) Renewables are better long-term so all efforts should be
| spent on inventing and implementing systems to make renewables
| the source of all energy. (Storage implied).
|
| Money spent on nuclear is not available for renewables so it's
| reasonable to be opposed to nuclear for that reason too.
|
| All that being said, it is of course very reasonable to keep
| plants running for a while longer given the current
| circumstances. :)
| purplerabbit wrote:
| These are all valid. However, if only nuclear can get us past
| "bottleneck events" (e.g., oil supply chains falling apart
| due to deglobalization or the world's oil running out, either
| of which would (or possibly will) cause catastrophic
| effects), then that supersedes #2 and #3, and probably #1 as
| well in most analyses.
|
| I'm not well-versed enough in hard evidence to assert that we
| absolutely need nuclear to make it through bottleneck events.
| But it's plausible that we do. And so we shouldn't rule it
| out unless there is high-certainty evidence we don't need it.
|
| In other words: I think the burden of proving that nuclear is
| unnecessary is on the anti-nuclear crowd. I've heard plenty
| of arguments that wind/solar will be enough, but haven't seen
| an analysis that seems to prove it based on numbers. (If you
| know of any such analysis, please share!)
| clemensley wrote:
| 1) Can you point to negative implications of nuclear waste?
| Anyone that got hurt or harmed in Germany for example?
|
| 2) If it's too expensive it will not happen, no need for the
| government to step in.
|
| 3) Have a look at the link, some renewables like Biomass emit
| a lot of C02, all energy sources are trade offs
| evilos wrote:
| 1) It is dangerous yes. That is the nature of the energy
| being so concentrated. But this concentration is a blessing
| because you don't need to mind nearly as much material, and
| it is far far easier to keep an eye on the waste. Where does
| the waste from coal/gas go? Into the air. It costs way more
| to try to contain the harms of those substances because they
| are the opposite of energy dense.
|
| Nuclear waste is such a tiny tiny amount that we just keep it
| on site. It's solid. It's not going to leak out of its
| containers. It just sits in concrete casks on site. Even
| better, it still has 98% of the energy in it so you don't
| really want to get rid of it. It can be used in breeder
| reactors to extract more energy. I quote this too much, but
| all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in
| a single football field, 10 yards high.
|
| 2) Nuclear is capital intensive AND the only energy
| generation that is forced to pre fund its own decommissioning
| and cleanup. The increased operating costs of nuclear plants
| is largely due to intentional mismanagement b/c of politics.
| For example, in France they force nuclear plants to stop
| outputting power when renewables are generating. They
| prioritize renewables because that's what politics dictates.
| They also mandated a cap on power allowed to be generated by
| nuclear plants, forcing the closure of perfectly good and
| already paid for plants, so they could buy more renewables.
| These privatized energy markets don't want stable cheap
| energy because there's no money in it.
|
| In addition, the US has largely forgotten how to build big
| things. But it can be done. The UAE just finished 4 1250MW
| reactors in 10 years. It will generate a quarter of their
| electricity, (basically) carbon free for 60+ years. Cost was
| 6B per reactor. Over 60 years, it's a steal. Renewables are
| only "cheap" in LCOE because the storage costs and capacity
| factor costs are often not included. Even if you build a
| megawatt of solar/wind, you really only get 20 to 40% of that
| peak capacity on average. In Virginia, we are building a wind
| farm for 10B that is 2640MW. And it is intermittent, off
| shore is usually 40%. You could get a 1250 MW stable nuke for
| that much. And it would last twice as long.
|
| 3) The main issue with solar/wind though, is that we
| literally don't have enough material to build enough of it.
| Not to mention the battery storage. It's not a matter of we
| can't mine fast enough, we literally don't know of the
| mineral reserves needed. Here's a presentation going over a
| report that find this: https://youtu.be/MBVmnKuBocc?t=2403
| systemvoltage wrote:
| How do we make sure we don't do this again? What are current
| things that are unpopular today but will be regrettable in
| 10-20 years? We need to eradicate the root cause, because we
| will make costly mistakes like this over and over. That means
| taking an extremely rational approach towards problems
| regardless of their popularity and allow opposition to emotion-
| driven zeitgeists that thrive through oppression and curbing
| speech.
|
| We need to take a stern look at what went wrong with a few
| things like this 1) Deindustrialization of the west and rampant
| globalization with not much thought given to national security
| 2) Manufacturing loss 3) Rise of China through subsidies and
| unchecked betting by companies like Nike and Apple. 4) No one
| in Silicon Valley wants to work on defense and military
| ventures.
|
| The machinery that enables immunity is allowing unpopular but
| rational opinions in the society. Newspapers wouldn't print
| uncomfortable truths.
| legulere wrote:
| > What are current things that are unpopular today but will
| be regrettable in 10-20 years?
|
| Wind turbines and power lines in my backyard. It's already
| regrettable today.
| legulere wrote:
| That statistic is only about deaths. You still have to deal
| with nuclear accidents leading to evacuation of huge areas
| happening once around every 30 years (unknown unknowns and what
| not).
|
| Germany has a high population density. Such a catastrophe
| happening in Germany would lead to millions getting evacuated.
|
| Another issue is the safe disposal of nuclear waste. It might
| seem like a low risk, but over the huge timespan nuclear waste
| needs to be safeguarded that risk adds up. Of course there's
| also other sources of nuclear waste, but it's best to keep the
| amounts low.
|
| Last, nuclear currently in the west runs into economic
| problems. New reactors are plagued by enormous cost overruns
| and struggle to compete with renewables. But also old reactors
| are starting to become prohibitively expensive to keep running.
| asdff wrote:
| That's a good point, maybe we should also be evacuating huge
| areas around dirty power plants considering we are aware of
| the harm they cause to the nearby population?
|
| Nuclear waste is a non issue. If you want to make it
| perfectly safe and untouchable to most bad actors, you can
| always dump it into a trench in the ocean. The radioactivity
| will not penetrate far through ocean water and will be less
| than other sources of radiation in the ocean today. The only
| reason why we do things like keep it stored on site, is
| because its still useful material that can be used in future
| reaction designs, and throwing it into the sea would be a
| waste of resources we worked hard to extract from the earth
| in the first place. I also have not seen any examples in
| history of people taking waste from a powerplant and turning
| that into a weapon against other people. So far in history,
| the only time nuclear weaponry has been used against humans
| was when it was built by an American arms factory, which is
| pretty remarkable considering the inherent violence that many
| of the elite of our species rely upon to maintain their
| power.
| Cwizard wrote:
| I'd much rather be evacuated (and live) than die from air
| pollution.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Nuclear waste is disposed of by being buried underground in a
| region with impermeable bedrock. Short of deliberate
| excavation, or a direct meteor impact, there is no scenario
| in which this waste gets brought back to the surface.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| It's only extended till April
| dependsontheq wrote:
| While I agree that it would have been sensible to phase out coal
| and then nuclear, the german position is more complex. The
| fallout from Tschernobyl was measurable in Germany... measurable
| as in my science teacher measured it in his garden. Up to today
| boar and mushrooms have an elevated level of radiation in the
| forests around my home. So this is the emotional background, the
| risks are not far away. Fukushima gave the debate another spin
| ,,If Japan can't control the technology nobody can".
|
| I still thank shutting them off is wrong but I think there's a
| lot of history in that decision. And it's much more history than
| one party deciding that.
| nimbius wrote:
| >If Japan can't control the technology nobody can
|
| While I agree the German position is more complex, the
| conclusion is reducto ad absurdum given the Fukushima reactor
| meltdown is an extraordinarily complex issue without a single
| definitive root cause which could be attributed to simple human
| control.
|
| Any human control is predicated and annotated by known
| assumptions and performance envelopes. Failure modes can be
| predicted, past performance can be analyzed and conclusions can
| be drawn using scientific knowledge and evidence for the basis
| of ones systems of control, be they industrial or
| environmental. Failure events or conditions, although
| regretful, are very important as they permit us to learn, to
| adapt, to grow and to change in response to events and
| conditions as they change or evolve over time.
|
| Because Japan is a brave, science minded nation, it hasnt
| eschewed the atom even in the face of this egregious
| misfortune. The initial German response to the accident could
| best be compared to that of a child: reactionary,
| undisciplined, haphazard and deleterious. Im glad to learn more
| sensible minds have prevailed and reconsidered nuclear power as
| a sustainable partner, albeit somewhat irked to see its only
| real commitment in this case is the overwhelming demand for
| energy independence amidst global conflict.
| cedilla wrote:
| ...you do understand that your "sensible" minds only decided
| to keep three reactors online for six months, right?
|
| It seems like argument you have is that the "sensible" minds
| are agreeing with you, and a whole litany of name-calling for
| the people who advocated abandoning nuclear - who are largely
| the exact same people by the way.
| naasking wrote:
| Burning coal releases more airborne radioactive waste in a
| short time than a nuclear plant does over its whole lifetime.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
| legulere wrote:
| Let's say a metric ton of coal has around 1 kBq and around
| 10000 PBq were released at Chernobyl.
|
| That would mean around 10 quadrillion tons of coal would need
| to get burned to emit the same amount of radiation. China is
| currently burning 4 trillion tons of coal per year, which is
| a 2500th part of it.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20005612/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Release_and.
| ..
| WithinReason wrote:
| Only caesium-137 is long lived, of which 85 PBq was
| released
| felixfbecker wrote:
| A nuclear plant that doesn't explode, that is. Pretty sure
| Tschernobyl released more radiation than a coal plant over
| its lifetime. Probably more than all coal plants in Germany
| in their lifetime combined.
| naasking wrote:
| And new reactor designs are meltdown proof, so what's the
| problem exactly?
| andirk wrote:
| Can you cite your claim? Meltdown-proof? So a huge
| earthquake and tsunami won't cause nuclear waste leaks in
| the slightest? Nothing will?
| kzrdude wrote:
| Meltdown is a specific type of catastrophe (overheat and
| fuel rods literally melting). So being proof says nothing
| about other kinds of leaks.
| naasking wrote:
| I'll give an example of molten salt reactors [1]; other
| designs have different but comparable safety properties.
| The nuclear fuel is suspended in a molten salt. If the
| reactor is breached, you'll have what's effectively a
| contained chemical spill that has a very limited spread.
| Current water reactors trigger a steam explosion that
| spews out radiation into the atmosphere, which is why
| it's so catastrophic.
|
| If you get a runaway reaction, it has a fail-safe
| described in the article that drains the reactor into
| containment vessels underground.
|
| [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/09/04/166330/me
| ltdown-...
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Gen III+ reactors are pretty fucking close to meltdown
| proof.
|
| Any reactor in use today will have a negative void
| coefficient. Which means, if you don't put power into it,
| the reaction naturally stops. Then you've got control
| rods and neutron moderators that will fall back upon the
| core if there's no power. Then Gen3+ includes a core
| catcher in which, should it breach its reactor, it just
| falls in there and cools down.
| cedilla wrote:
| All five large reactor disasters occurred with reactors
| that also had fail-safes that rendered them theoretically
| safe. In the case of Three-Mile-Island, unlucky
| technicians had to work very hard against the reactor's
| system to sustain the failure.
| jhrmnn wrote:
| I think the fear of black swans, that is, unknown risks.
| I think most people don't understand that the experts can
| really rule out something like a meltdown in modern
| reactors
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| I was going to reply that that has only happened literally
| twice ever, but decided to fact check that first.
| Apparently small steam and hydrogen explosions happened a
| whole lot at nuclear reactors in the 1950s and 60s.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Pretty sure the nuclear still comes ahead after averaging
| those out with all the nuclear plants that have gotten
| quietly decommissioned with no explosions, though?
| plextoria wrote:
| This is the best explanation I've heard so far about Germany's
| position on nuclear. It is based much more on _emotions_ than
| on rational arguments.
| dorgo wrote:
| Not that there is a lack of rational arguments against
| nuclear... But climate change may overrule them all.
| pelasaco wrote:
| unnecessary german angst. Just check the map
| https://www.wano.info/members/wano-world-map. We are surrounded
| by atomic power plants. Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark,
| Czech republic..almost all of them are situated in the german
| borders.
| mousetree wrote:
| What do you mean they are situated in Germany borders? You
| mean other countries operate their nuclear plants within
| Germany? I clicked on a few that were marked Paris in that
| map (Neckarwestheim, Philippsburg, Gundremmingen) and they
| all very much seem to be German owned and operated. What am I
| missing? Would be very suprised to hear otherwise.
| andreasha wrote:
| Well after Unipers bailout by Germany (99% ownership) and
| Unipers majority ownership of one nuclear power plant in
| Sweden (minority in the other two).
| mk89 wrote:
| Indeed, I just looked it up:
| https://www.euronuclear.org/glossary/nuclear-power-plants-
| in...
|
| For God's sake, France has 56 power plants. What are we
| talking about....
| andreasha wrote:
| Denmark doesn't have any and five of eight reactors on that
| map of south of Sweden has closed, some soon almost two
| decades ago.
| peaslock wrote:
| It is measurable, but not harmful to a meaningful extent. There
| are lots of sources of low-dose radiation in the natural
| human/primate/.../mammalian environment.
| godelski wrote:
| For what it is worth, I did an estimate on here awhile ago
| (welcome to search my history) where IIRC you had to eat
| several kilos of boar and mushrooms every day to approach
| limits for radiation workers (which has a large safety
| margin).
|
| I think many people forget that we are really good at
| detecting radiation. This is mostly due to Cold War era fear
| and so a lot of research got put into this and we have cheap
| and sensitive devices. Cheap enough that there are large
| public networks of radiation monitoring set up by citizens.
| Not too dissimilar from citizen weather projects.
| worldvoyageur wrote:
| When Chernobyl happened I was a physics undergrad in Kingston,
| Ontario, Canada and was spending the summer term on campus. We
| (the grad students really) went up to the roof of the physics
| building and started measuring for the radiation. There was
| much rejoicing when it turned up, which as I imperfectly
| remember was about two weeks after the incident.
|
| Which is to say, that the radiation could be measured is
| different from saying that the radiation represented a
| significant health risk.
| this_user wrote:
| Not all of us have the luxury of having more than 7000 km
| between us and the next nuclear accident, though. But I can
| send you some mushrooms from the forests of southern Germany
| if you would like to explore the health risks further.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"But I can send you some mushrooms from the forests of
| southern Germany if you would like to explore the health
| risks further."
|
| Sounds like the GP would receive mushrooms that have
| elevated levels of radionuclides that are within the legal
| limit of what is considered safe to consume.
|
| "Around 95% of wild mushroom samples collected in Germany
| in the last six years still showed radioactive
| contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster,
| albeit not above legal limits, the German food safety
| regulator said on Friday."
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/three-
| decades-g...
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It's tree moss that is the larger risk apparently. It
| 'breathes' particles and keeps them. Wild boar love it;
| you shoot a wild boar, you have to get it tested with a
| Geiger counter to make sure it's safe. Like mercury in
| salmon, boar are a concentrator for fallout!
| Cwizard wrote:
| > ,,If Japan can't control the technology nobody can".
|
| I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its
| earthquakes? Which are essentially non-existent in Germany?
|
| In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear
| power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many of
| those death were caused by the evacuation rather than
| radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000
| according to wikipedia.
|
| What should really put this into perspective is that air
| pollutions is estimated to kill millions every year.
|
| And all of this is with reactors that are really old. If we
| would put the same amount of engineering resources into nuclear
| as we put into chips I am sure the number of deaths would go
| down a few order of magnitudes.
| llsf wrote:
| Only one death related to radiation. All the 2,000 deaths
| mentioned are "disaster-related deaths" (evacuation, stress,
| etc.). source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiich
| i_nuclear_disa...
| wlll wrote:
| > In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear
| power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many
| of those death were caused by the evacuation rather than
| radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000
| according to wikipedia.
|
| Isn't the pacific now significantly polluted by radiation
| from the plant? That seems like a pretty bad outcome, even if
| the direct number of deaths was relatively low.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| The pacific's radiation levels have increased by about 0%.
| The total releases from all of Fukushima was on the order
| of 30 PBq. Water has a natural radioactivity of 13 Bq/L.
| So, if you want to only double the natural radioactivity of
| water (which is still basically nothing), you need to
| dilute ask this radiation in 2e15 L of water.
|
| The entire pacific is 7.10e20 L of water. Even the area
| around Japan is thousands of times more liters of water. To
| give you an idea, in 2011, 41% of caught marine species on
| the coast of Fukushima had Cs137 concentrations higher than
| the normal limits (100bq/kg, which is still really damn
| low). In 2015, that was 0.05%
|
| So, no, the pacific doesn't give a damn about Fukushima.
| And so do the people. You're exposed to about 2100Bq in a
| year.
| jcranmer wrote:
| It's worth noting that oceanic water is actually very
| poorly mixed, with only the first 200m or so mixing well
| with the atmosphere, so the radioactive emissions likely
| wouldn't increase in the deep ocean water. On the other
| hand, that basically only lops a zero off your number.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Has there been a spike in mutations in sea life? Humans? I
| have my doubts. The amount of radation dumped from
| fukushima is literally a drop in the ocean.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Most nuclear accidents are caused by greed, laziness and
| shortsightedness. Japan seems to be one of the few societies
| (possibly the only wealthy one) that doesn't suffer too badly
| from these issues. When I worry about nuclear power here in
| the UK, I don't worry about earthquakes, I worry to PMs
| cousin will get a billion pounds to build a containment unit
| and not do it. Or the reactor will need to be shut down but
| the CEO will decide to keep it running because safety and
| maintenance are just "cost centres"...
| mxscho wrote:
| > I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its
| earthquakes?
|
| I think the argument would be that the risk wasn't mitigated
| although it should've been known. There may be other known
| risks as well.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its
| earthquakes?
|
| Chernobyl has often been characterized as the result of a
| corrupt and incompetent late-stage USSR, whereas post-WWII
| Japan is seen as a generally well-run country.
|
| I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that, just trying to
| describe public opinion.
| 6thaccount wrote:
| avgcorrection wrote:
| You're not countering the implicit argument that Germany
| won't have a problem with earthquakes ruining their nuclear
| powerplants.
|
| Germany is also a "well-run country" if you want to run
| with the old anti-Soviet argument.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| It's not fully an objective argument, butnan emotional.
| "Even Japan can't run them safely!" Where Japan is known
| for its precision and strict following of rules
| (perception!)
|
| Yes, rationally the maths is a lot different, but
| countering emotions with facts is hard. (And then
| consider facts like long term deposition of nuclear waste
| etc.)
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Where Japan is known for its precision and strict
| following of rules (perception!)
|
| As compared to the Germans? Supposed rule-sticklers
| without earthquakes.
| karamanolev wrote:
| FWIW, I'm a fan of nucear, but ... they don't have to
| counter that argument. It doesn't have to be earthquakes
| - it can be 1 of 100 problems. Japan knew they have to
| deal with earthquakes and didn't. What should make people
| more comfortable that Germany will be able to safeguard
| against their known risks?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| What should make people more comfortable that
| Germany will be able to safeguard against their
| known risks?
|
| The safety of nuclear power plants isn't exactly some
| great unknown.
|
| There are ~450 plants currently operating in the world,
| with an average age of multiple decades. Plus all the
| ones that have been retired. That's a lot of data.
|
| You don't really have to take anybody's word for it.
| They're safe.
|
| They are not _zero-risk_ , because literally nothing is.
| We also absolutely know the risks of fossil fuels (the
| planet is burning, and buyers potentially become
| dependent on hostile countries like Russia) and the
| current limitations of renewable energy sources.
|
| So, to answer your questions: that is how you judge their
| potential safety in Germany or anywhere else.
| metadat wrote:
| What are the remaining 95 _potential uncontrollable
| problems_ beyond earthquake, fire, flood, war, human
| incompetence?
|
| Given appropriate attention and care, these can be
| accounted for through planning processes and protocols.
| nosianu wrote:
| See France and its maintenance issues with not just one
| but many of their power plants, accumulated over decades
| and now greatly contributing to the European energy
| problems.
| (https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-
| nuclear-...)
|
| Some issues I see are accountants, management, laziness,
| "somebody else's problem", etc. Those are businesses and
| they will try all the well-known ways to save money.
| Which the politicians will also encourage, because
| nuclear power will need to be justified continuously
| (like all other forms).
|
| There also are water issues, not just river temperature
| (France, this summer), we also had a lot of European
| rivers with barely enough or not enough for most of the
| normal uses of those rivers this summer - and predictions
| are we'll have more such extremes. So, ensuring water
| supplies will be adequate at all times will become harder
| too, and much more expensive.
|
| Not to mention that Russia - Rosatom - will again play a
| big role in Western European energy when it comes to
| nuclear. (https://www.investigate-
| europe.eu/en/2022/russias-multi-mill...)
|
| Air plane and human space flight accidents are extremely
| rare but they still occur despite all the rules and
| regulations and the training and the many levels of
| precautions, but nuclear has to be even better.
| karamanolev wrote:
| Just take a brief look at the list of nuclear accidents:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accid
| ent...
|
| There's various kinds of human errors (and humans will
| continue to make errors), equipment malfunctions,
| problems during equipment maintenance and so on.
|
| Can you call "human incompetence" something to be planned
| for? Yes, sure, you have to plan for it. Can you plan it
| well enough so that it simply doesn't happen? Doesn't
| seem to have happened so far. Does it concern me too
| much? No. But do other people have to have the same risk
| tolerance? Also no. It's been proven that people are
| averse to rare-but-acute risks and can more easily accept
| frequent small risks (i.e. radiation and contamination
| from coal plants).
|
| All that is to say that if people are concerned, it's on
| us to understand the reasons, not just shout into that
| void that "nuclear is SAFE!!!"
| metadat wrote:
| A good reactor design would account for the human factor,
| and perhaps this is the truly difficult problem with
| practical nuclear power.
| karamanolev wrote:
| Agreed. "A good reactor design" to that definition is
| enormously hard though - I'll be incredibly happy if that
| gets solved, hopefully with a modular "built in a
| factory" design that can be easily replicated and remain
| very safe.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| 1 of 100? Compared to the alternatives? Because that's
| what matters here. Does nuclear have one-hundred times
| the problem?
|
| Of course these obvious problems are not mentioned by
| name. Which makes one think that there are one-hundred
| unnamed ones beyond once the initial one-hundred would
| have been dealt with.
| epivosism wrote:
| There was 1 disputed radiation/nuclear related death from
| Fukushima.
|
| And mention of 2200 related to the (post-tsunami) evacuation.
|
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_ac.
| ..
| karamanolev wrote:
| That aside, what about price?
|
| Completely cleaning up and taking apart the plant could
| take a generation or more, and comes with a hefty price
| tag. In 2016 the government increased its cost estimate to
| about $75.7 billion, part of the overall Fukushima disaster
| price tag of $202.5 billion.
|
| I'm a fan of nuclear, but those are eye-watering numbers.
| llsf wrote:
| The cost to dismantle a nuclear power plant is the same
| as for coal/gaz power plants. ~10% of the initial price.
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-
| fuel-c...
| karamanolev wrote:
| That's irrelevant to this particular discussion. I'm not
| talking about regular "dismantling a nuclear plant", but
| if 1/100 of the plants have 1000x the cleanup costs due
| to accidents, that changes the math. I pulled the above
| numbers out of my hat, they're probably wrong. I'm just
| adding a bit of nuance to the TCO calculation.
| efaref wrote:
| If we're talking TCO we need to calculate the TCO of coal
| and gas as including the cost of the destruction of the
| entire planet's climate.
| nickpp wrote:
| Anybody knows why they are completely cleaning up that
| plant instead of just cordoning it off and marking it as
| "deadly land, nobody allowed in". You know, an exclusion
| zone like Chernobyl.
|
| Is land that expensive in Japan? Or is it some sort of
| ambition to prove they can repair that fuckup? O maybe
| there is a lot of money to be made in a cleanup
| operation?
| cedilla wrote:
| We're talking about highly toxic soil here. Soil doesn't
| stay where it is, it moves with water and wind. You have
| to fix it, somehow. Just putting a bit of warning tape
| around it doesn't cut it.
|
| This isn't a theoretical point, either, wild mushrooms
| are still unsafe to eat in some parts of central Europe,
| almost four decades after Tchernobyl.
|
| The whole Fukushima disaster is another lesson in the
| prevention paradox. We see low death and disease numbers,
| and somehow many people think that's because the disaster
| wasn't that bad after all, completely ignoring the
| literal tens of billions of dollars that the Japanese
| government and TEPCO expended to keep them that low.
| fweimer wrote:
| There's moderate seismic activity in the South-Western part
| of Germany, higher once you get closer to Basel (which was
| destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century). Curiously,
| the French Fessenheim nuclear power plant is in this area as
| well.
| heisig wrote:
| Emotions certainly played a major role when Germany decided to
| phase out nuclear in 2011, and the execution and timeline of
| that phase-out were poor.
|
| But that doesn't mean Germans haven't pondered seriously about
| this topic in the meantime. And the result is that, apart from
| this band-aid solution for the current winter, Germany will
| still phase out nuclear. Let me try to summarize the most
| important points I know of:
|
| - Cost. Nuclear energy is expensive energy. It just happened to
| be cheaper than solar and wind energy a decade ago. But the
| cost of renewables went down spectacularly, and the cost of
| nuclear went up at the same time
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity).
| So why invest in nuclear energy when we could have more low-
| carbon energy for the same price elsewhere?
|
| - Subsidies. So far, all nuclear power plants have been heavily
| subsidized. There isn't a single country where the full cost of
| decommissioning and permanent storage of radioactive material
| is properly taken into account. And there is no power plant
| with a full insurance, so those risks are carried by the
| public. Once we eliminate these subsidies, the cost of nuclear
| grows even further.
|
| - Reliability. Some people dislike renewables because there are
| times with no wind and no sunshine. But they forget that wind
| and sunshine are relatively predictable and have worst-case
| bounds. So investing into storage and the electricity grid
| makes renewables highly reliable. Now look at nuclear. The
| worst case scenario is roughly what just happened in France:
| you discover a problem that affects an entire generation of
| power plants, and all of them have to be taken offline until
| the problem is resolved (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_
| power_in_France#Crisis...). Without its European neighbors,
| France would be in deep trouble. If we take precautions against
| this risk, the cost of nuclear grows even further.
|
| - Inflexibility. Nuclear power plants need a high uptime to
| amortize their construction cost. But once they operate in a
| grid with a substantial amount of renewables, they are
| displaced more and more and the cost per unit of energy grows
| even further.
|
| - War. The Russian army has recently captured a Ukrainian
| nuclear power plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_at_th
| e_Zaporizhzhia_Nuc...). The plant is now used to store military
| equipment, the employees are bullied or even tortured, and all
| pillars of nuclear safety are being violated. There are
| credible approaches how we can build a power plant that resists
| human stupidity or a natural disaster, but there is no way we
| can build a power plant that is unconditionally safe in a war
| zone.
|
| - Nuclear Proliferation. Once the know-how and the
| infrastructure for handling fissionable material is in place,
| even if only for civilian purposes, there is a much stronger
| incentive to also look into military use. And the last thing
| our planet needs is more nuclear weapons.
|
| Given these points, the current German position seems quite
| sensible and I wonder why some other nations are suddenly so
| eager to build new nuclear power plants.
| suction wrote:
| cypress66 wrote:
| I'm sure your science teacher can also measure air pollution in
| his garden.
| ben_w wrote:
| That's not a way to make people comfortable with radiation,
| it's a way to make people uncomfortable with air pollution.
| drekipus wrote:
| Good. People should be uncomfortable with air pollution.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| lots of things are measurable, but did cancer and other
| radiation related diseases spike in Germany or not?
| jimlongton wrote:
| > ,,If Japan can't control the technology nobody can"
|
| Nuclear technology is risky but Fukushima isn't a good
| reflection of what modern nuclear power plants can accomplish.
| The reactors at Fukushima were designed half a century ago and
| were known to be flawed 35 years before the accident happened
| [1]. It's ironic that the plant was running longer than was
| originally planned in part because of Green opposition to newer
| power plants.
|
| [1] https://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-reactor-
| flaws...
| yodelshady wrote:
| The forests near mine and just about everywhere else on the
| entire planet have elevated levels of BEING ON GODDAMNED FIRE
| thanks to coal-burners.
|
| No there's not history. There's not emotions. There's god-
| damned stupidity and a refusal to evaluate risk at the top
| level of government, that has condemned _hundred of millions_.
|
| I've lived near irradiated areas too. There was zero
| justification for this.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Narretz wrote:
| What's noteworthy is that Kanzler Scholz basically told his
| ministers that all 3 plants will stay open and the ministers have
| to organize it. That's very unusual. The coalition was actually
| still arguing about this, so some people, especially in the Green
| party are going to be pissed. But at least they now have
| theoretically more time to deal with other pressing issues
| instead of bickering about a few months more run time.
| [deleted]
| tonymet wrote:
| rfool wrote:
| rfool wrote:
| IMHO totally unnecessary. Nuclear energy is superfluous, at least
| in Germany.
|
| https://www.app.electricitymaps.com
| asdff wrote:
| How is it superfluous when half of Germany according to that
| source is powered by coal or gas (mostly coal)?
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Good.
|
| Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and
| the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does
| not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely.
|
| Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could
| help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that
| has no carbon footprint.
| tomschlick wrote:
| > Who in their right mind
|
| Activist politicians who value their cause more than the well
| being of their citizens.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I don't think this is fair. Although I think some among the
| anti-nuclear movement may have had subversive intent, most of
| the people who ended up aligning with that movement _did_
| have good intentions. They were reasoning that in the long
| term, nuclear power would bring great misery to humanity.
| Long term thinking is good, right? If you believe in the
| eventual probability of those doomsday scenarios, _and_ you
| value the well being of your fellow citizens, then shouldn 't
| you try to prevent that outcome? I see no moral fault here.
|
| And shaming these people isn't the solution. The solution is
| to bring them around to seeing the virtue of using nuclear
| power. They may be wrong about the relative safety of nuclear
| power but they aren't morally defective people, so shaming
| them isn't appropriate.
| paulmd wrote:
| It also downplays the fossil fuel industry's responsibility
| for anti-nuclear advocacy. Like gosh it's not the literal
| billions of dollars this industry spends lobbying congress
| and subsidizing pro-fossil-fuel perspectives in media and
| think-tanks, it's the healing-crystals wacko's fault!
|
| Much like recycling or jaywalking, it's a way for an
| industry to diffuse and downplay their own advocacy and
| push the fault onto the public.
|
| Like yeah, it would be better if Greenpeace supported
| nuclear... but they're not the ones sitting in senator's
| offices getting bills passed subsidizing the fossil-fuel
| industry. Even the "climate change" bill had to throw
| almost 10% of its spending to fossil-fuel subsidies.
| Phil_Latio wrote:
| > And shaming these people isn't the solution. The solution
| is to bring them around
|
| They sit in the government.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There are no doubt some people who are arguing against
| nuclear with exactly those pure intentions underlying their
| advocacy. Given the experience of the US Navy in nuclear
| power generation, I don't think their doomsday scenarios
| are inevitable.
|
| I think a lot of people are negatively disposed to nuclear
| based on beliefs that are not justified by the relative
| risk and reward of nuclear power generation at this stage
| in humanity's technological evolution. I don't think we
| have a combination of (better, cleaner, more reliable) base
| load generation power source that's available right now
| (which is the question to consider when contemplating "we
| have a working nuclear reactor; should we shut it down?")
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > Given the experience of the US Navy in nuclear power
| generation, I don't think their doomsday scenarios are
| inevitable.
|
| I often see this given as a reason for why nuclear power
| generation can be safe, but I think it overlooks the fact
| that military reactors operate in a very different
| context from civilian ones.
|
| For a start, do we know how expensive (per unit energy)
| US Navy reactors are? It doesn't matter how safe they are
| if they are twice as expensive as renewables (plus
| storage / power-to-gas).
|
| More generally, though, given the secrecy around military
| and nuclear programs, would we even _know_ how many near-
| meltdowns and embarrassing accidents US Navy reactors
| have experienced (at least in the past few decades)?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| renewables make sense if you can prove to me that you can
| make them reliable like nuclear, but you can't. Someday I
| suppose a high density, cheap "battery" tech will happen
| that will make that true, but right now it's simply not
| true and the Germans are getting ready to find that out
| this winter, unfortunately via much higher prices via
| power imported from adjacent countries using dino-fuel
| and likely blackouts from time to time.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| do we know how expensive (per unit energy) US
| Navy reactors are? It doesn't matter how safe
| they are if they are twice as expensive as
| renewables (plus storage / power-to-gas).
|
| Renewables (and fusion, although that's arguably a
| renewable) are obviously the end goal but until they can
| fill 100% of our energy needs the real cost comparison
| needs to be "the cost of nuclear" versus "the cost of
| fossil fuel plus the cost of the damage done by fossil
| fuels."
| asdff wrote:
| We would have known about near meltdowns by now, which
| probably would have been more common in the early decades
| of nuclear navy power, considering we know things like
| how the air force nearly destroyed a huge swath of North
| Carolina due to an accident involving a nuclear bomb for
| example.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| > For a start, do we know how expensive (per unit energy)
| US Navy reactors are?
|
| Price does not matter. It has to work reliably, not only
| in calm days of peace, but during times of war. Having a
| source of power to move the big boats without relying on
| external supplies is worth the price. There even were
| experiments to generate jetfuel using nuclear power on
| carriers, certainly not because it is cheap.
| djbebs wrote:
| Price does matter though.
| throwaway221017 wrote:
| Intentions do not matter, as emotions do not. This is an
| calculable problem to almost 99.9% certainty. Nuclear waste
| will not pose a problem to 99.95% of all human population
| for the next 1ky even in the worst case. Even if chernobyl
| was 10 times as bad, it wouldn't cause large-scale issues,
| and chernobyl was almost the worst possible nuclear
| incident possible at the technology level of the time.
|
| We have so much other, more real, more tangible and even
| right now happening vectors of "problems", starting with
| Covid, not ending with the real chance of WW3, and we whine
| about miniscule pollution of square kilometers at worst?
| Hard to get.
| asdff wrote:
| No one who was for blocking nuclear power was doing any
| long term thinking, I can assure you. That was cold war
| paranoia thinking that suddenly everyone would be engaging
| in nuclear warfare. They would have realized we are not
| ready to transition away from nuclear power because there
| is no alternative for our power requirements beyond nuclear
| energy or dirty energy. Long term thinking would realize
| that the march we are on currently with climate change will
| also end up looking a lot like a world after nuclear
| warfare disrupts society.
|
| No, it was short term thinking that has brought on these
| opinions. Thats who funds these anti nuclear opinions
| anyway, people who are invested such to benefit in the near
| term over preventing adoption of nuclear energy, not actual
| scientists engaging in long term thinking.
| luckylion wrote:
| I agree. The problem with that position is that pretty much
| everyone ever believed that their actions would make things
| better, even if they were very wrong and just made
| everything worse.
|
| Nevertheless, I don't think the anti-nuclear movement is
| evil. They're guided by extreme fear, not malice. I don't
| know how you can bring them around though, unless your
| offering some form of therapy. But even with that, would
| they accept it? Would you accept therapy to change some of
| your deeply held beliefs that you don't view as 'wrong'?
| konschubert wrote:
| Some people do things that they know are bad for others
| because they want to hurt others.
| luckylion wrote:
| Sure, but I don't believe you run into a lot of actually
| evil villains in politics that only do what they do
| because they want to see suffering and want their action
| to scale instead of ripping the wings from a butterfly
| one by one. Stalin or Mao didn't just enjoy seeing
| peasants starve, they believed that sacrificing a million
| here and there is the price to pay for the communist
| utopia they thought they were building.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I agree that very few, if any, leaders are
| _intentionally_ evil. Even the most (in)famous ones such
| as your examples.
|
| However, I'm not sure the distinction is too useful.
| Ultimately we're judged by actions, not intentions.
| luckylion wrote:
| Certainly, I was just pointing out that that's the very
| problem with the position that someone or some group
| shouldn't be morally judged for things they do/cause
| while having good intentions. It's a tough problem, and I
| guess we're mostly basing our judgement on results. Push
| through a stupid policy and it's expensive but nobody
| freezes and you'll be forgotten. Do the same and be
| unlucky and a million citizens freeze because of it and
| you won't be forgiven.
| wizofaus wrote:
| "Extreme" seems an overstatement, and I don't think it's
| necessarily the main motivator for a lot of people that
| are anti-nuclear. Many don't like it because they believe
| large-scale power sources supplied and run by (or
| inevitably being a source of profit for) mega-
| corporations are a bad idea in general. Others because
| there are genuine environmental consequences to and risks
| with uranium mining and storage of radioactive waste that
| we don't have complete solutions for, even if by almost
| any measure those consequences are less serious than they
| are for fossil fuel extraction and consequent GHG
| emissions. And others because they're skeptical it can
| scale up quickly and economically enough to reach
| necessary emissions targets (I have one foot in that
| camp, at least for my own country). Ultimately I think
| increased nuclear power will be accepted as a "necessary
| evil" or "least worst" solution in most developed
| countries, though it's hard to see it happening here in
| Australia, despite the fact we supply much of the world's
| uranium (*) and arguably have a fair number of
| appropriate options for waste storage.
|
| * actually we have almost 30% of known viable resources,
| but only contribute 8% or 9% of the world total supply
| currently, producing less than a 5th of Kazakhstan, by
| far the most prolific supplier.
| luckylion wrote:
| It looks extreme to me, and from my experience is closely
| related with a general fear of GMOs, strong dislike for
| plastics, a preference for "alternative medicine" etc.
| It's fundamentally an emotional approach that isn't
| concerned with "how do we deal with the waste?" but just
| grips on to that to rationalize the intuitive fear. Maybe
| I'm the crazy one, but I am not overly concerned about
| nuclear plants, I'll gladly live next to one (but not too
| close, I don't want to live in a shadow half the day) and
| have the waste containers stored a few hundred meters
| below me. And my willingness just increases with a
| thought of all the great things energy does for us.
|
| Of course there are risks, but everything has risks
| attached -- we calculate the probabilities and then stop
| worrying about the risks if they're minuscule. And of
| course there's an economic part to consider, but I'm
| pretty sure if you counted the amount of hours Germans
| have spent in 2022 talking about the energy crisis, we
| could've been well on our way to 100% nuclear coverage if
| we had spent that time productively instead.
| wizofaus wrote:
| I agree it's _irrational_ fear, but I can understand for
| many that if they had to choose between living near
| something that there 's no reason to believe will ever
| prove immediately fatal (a coal-fired power station) and
| one for which there have been historic examples of
| unexpected fatal explosions, they'd choose the former,
| all else being equal (which of course we know it isn't).
| In Germany's case I agree it makes no sense, given the
| number of reactors located in neighbouring countries and
| the fact Germany has an established nuclear industry with
| experienced engineers etc. (and more limited renewable
| options), and is generally well positioned to scale up
| rapidly to replace fossil-fuel based power.
| sapiol wrote:
| > I see no moral fault here.
|
| Why do you appoint morality a higher ground than
| rationality?
|
| Edit: Typo
| ozim wrote:
| The road to hell is paved with good intention...
|
| Other one I would quote is "perfection is the enemy of
| good" - it seems nuclear is good, but they would not give
| up only on good. It had to be perfect where renewable
| sources are 100% ideal.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| most of the people who ended up aligning with that
| movement did have good intentions. They were reasoning
| that in the long term, nuclear power would bring great
| misery to humanity. Long term thinking is good, right?
|
| The problem is that those with _good_ intentions didn 't
| think very hard about the issue.
|
| Even the occasional Fukushima or Chernobyl is preferable to
| the irreversible fossil fuel-induced hell we're about to
| experience, with potentially billions of people displaced
| and so forth. It's especially galling since protecting the
| planet was their entire raison d'etre.
|
| And there were certainly who opposed nuclear power with
| evil intentions, specifically the fossil fuel industry.
|
| I'm not sure which one is worse. At least the fossil fuel
| industry never _claimed_ to be noble.
| scythe wrote:
| >Although I think some among the anti-nuclear movement may
| have had subversive intent
|
| This is a dramatic understatement. It was coordinated by
| the Rockefeller Foundation from the very beginning:
|
| https://atomicinsights.com/how-did-leaders-of-the-
| hydrocarbo...
|
| >They may be wrong about the relative safety of nuclear
| power but they aren't morally defective people, so shaming
| them isn't appropriate.
|
| The moral failing that you're missing is _arrogance_.
| People who actually study radiation were not leading this
| movement.
| bennysonething wrote:
| I think they don't value the cause more, they value the
| status the cause gives them
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| This might be the sad reality of many once-authenthic-
| grassroot-movements.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Oh yeah, that's why even the Greens (owning their whole
| existence as a political party to the anti-nuclear movement
| of the 80s and 90s) is in favor of keeping those plants
| online a little bit longer. Remember, the current, and hastly
| implemented nuclear exit, was a CDU led kneejerk reaction,
| and rollback of the exit from the exit of nuclear, after
| Fukushima.
| Phil_Latio wrote:
| > that's why even the Greens is in favor of keeping those
| plants online a little bit longer.
|
| Since when? A few days, since the green party convention...
| Before that, the top figures unmistakenly said nuclear is
| dead, despite enegery crisis.
|
| > Remember, the current, and hastly implemented nuclear
| exit, was a CDU led kneejerk reaction
|
| So? And the greens would have exited even faster if they
| had the chance.
|
| Stop twisting things.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Don't forget the corrupt politicians who've been bribed with
| a cushy job.
| sveme wrote:
| Any specifics you would like to mention?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Germany heats with gas, which is plenty in storage and again
| reasonably priced at markets. Germany isn't heating with
| electricity and their won't be, realistically, any rolling
| black-outs. Keeping the reactors online is good so, as it means
| less coal being burned, being ablebto trafe electricity on the
| markets, frees up the roughly 12% of electricity generate by
| gas (at least to an extent) for heating. And signals stability
| to the energy markets, as those have been crazy lately.
| jansan wrote:
| If there is a gas shortage later in winter, which may well
| happen, people can switch to their cheap electric heaters to
| at least keep their living rooms warm. I cannot believe that
| the green party was willing to severly increase the risk of
| major blackouts out of pure vanity.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Well, but electricity is also generated by gas (at least
| part of it)
| jansan wrote:
| But there may be not enough gas at the end of the winter.
| And in that case you should gather any other source of
| electricity available, even if it covers only 8 percent,
| as nuclear energy currently does.
| wander_homer wrote:
| > people can switch to their cheap electric heaters to at
| least keep their living rooms warm
|
| The grid isn't build for such a load.
| felixfbecker wrote:
| Germany also uses electric stoves for cooking more than
| gas. An electric stove uses 2000-5000W. The grid handles
| everyone turning on their stove around the same times
| fine. Maybe heaters will have to run on top of that, but
| likely most won't have their space heater running while
| also cooking.
| jansan wrote:
| Then how are they planning to supply the electricity for
| electric cars in future, if they cannot even supply
| sufficient electricity for some small heaters? An
| electric heater usually consumes 2000 Watt, that is not
| really something that should bring the electric grid to
| its knees.
| wander_homer wrote:
| By producing more energy, having less cars, better
| insulated houses, ... It's been calculated and described
| a thousand times by now by various institutes how this
| can be done. But obviously this can't be done in a few
| months, after the previous governments ignored experts
| for years.
|
| > An electric heater usually consumes 2000 Watt, that is
| not really something that should bring the electric grid
| to its knees.
|
| That's an additional 40GW when all gas-heated apartments
| use one of those heaters. You'd need ~30 additional
| nuclear reactors to sustain such a load -- the 3
| remaining ones in Germany provide 1.4GW each.
| napier wrote:
| Fortunately it's possible to use the not yet mothballed
| nuke plants to split H20 and inject the resulting hydrogen
| into the natural gas supply for use in heating systems and
| industrial processes. Blend specifics matter, but the
| necessaries are well studied and adequately well understood
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hyblend-
| opportunities-....
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Good luck getting that up and running at scale before the
| end of the winter.
| bombcar wrote:
| Many gas furnaces cease working when electricity fails.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| They do, but they probably don't consume _that_ much
| energy. I doubt Germany expects to have electricity
| blackouts, since they 're actually going to sell some to
| France in exchange for gas.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/business/france-sends-
| gas...
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Germany isn 't heating with electricity and their won't
| be, realistically, any rolling black-outs._
|
| This would be the case during normal times. We're not in
| normal times though. There has been widespread panic buying
| of portable electric heaters all throughout summer. Owners of
| single-family homes are also increasingly switching to heat
| pumps as the main source of heating (as is strongly
| encouraged by the government).
|
| If we actually run into a gas crunch this winter, blackouts
| could ironically be a knock-on effect if everyone turns on
| their electric heater at the same time.
| legulere wrote:
| It's also good for France, which currently has a shortfall of
| electricity and is heating with electricity.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Doesn't France only have a shortfall because rivers were
| low during summer and Nuclear Reactors couldn't produce
| regular outputs?
|
| The rivers won't be low in the winter.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Around half of the reactors are shut down for
| maintenance. Some scheduled, others for faults discovered
| during inspection. They expect to be back online only at
| the beginning of 2023.
| _dain_ wrote:
| They're down because of deferred maintenance, pushed back
| because of corona.
| _dain_ wrote:
| >Germany heats with gas [...] Germany isn't heating with
| electricity
|
| And whose fault is that? Why can't their much-vaunted
| Energiewende manage to keep people warm? After half a
| trillion dollars of public investment in green energy?
| pjmlp wrote:
| One reason is that the lawmakers have allowed those same
| people to stop the construction of any source of green
| energy when it is too disturbing for the landscape, or too
| noisy for them to sleep, or whatever they come up with.
|
| So lesser countries in Europe already managed to have
| higher count of green energy sources, while lots of
| construction yards in Germany are blocked on ongoing court
| cases.
| wander_homer wrote:
| > And whose fault is that?
|
| The previous government's. Scientists have been criticizing
| them for years now that they failed to provide the
| necessary infrastructure and statutory framework for the
| "Energiewende" to work.
| legulere wrote:
| You can't switch 40 million heating systems overnight,
| though it's picking up steam
| (https://www.waermepumpe.de/presse/zahlen-daten/).
| jansan wrote:
| Simply install an air conditioner and you will have very
| efficient room heating (no hot water, though). They cost
| about 1500EUR and are really easy to install. I know in
| Bulgaria many households have switched from oil heating
| to air conditioners.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I did just that to my house in France. Everybody here
| (south east of France) does that. Seen the savings and
| that it both cools in the summer and warms in the summer,
| it's a complete no-brainer. In addition to that I
| switched my open fireplace to an enclosed one: the
| efficiency when burning wood is greatly increased. And I
| stockpiled on wood. So should there be electricity
| shortage preventing me from using HVAC to warm the house,
| at least nobody is going to prevent me from putting wood
| in the fireplace.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| That's not that easy with German homes as they are heated
| with hot water pipes and walls are typically solid. You
| could maybe install a device that emits hot air in a
| single room, but to install a forced air system, you'd
| need to in essence remodel the entire home. In addition,
| you'd have worse outcomes because now the nice warm
| floors are gone.
| nawitus wrote:
| In that case you need to install air/water heat pump,
| which not only heats the house but also the potable
| water. They're more costly than regular heat pumps, but
| are _better_ choice than individual heat pump units
| around the house.
|
| It's a more difficult situation if the house lacks water
| circulation (heated floors/radiators).
| kleiba wrote:
| There is no widespread infrastructure for heating with
| electricity, the dominant sources for heating homes are gas
| and oil. The reason for that is that until the Russian
| invasion of Ukraine, it was unforeseeable that there would
| be a shortage of gas or oil. And let's not forget that the
| current "shortage" is a result of political decisions, and
| not because gas and oil have ceased to exist.
|
| Germany is in the process of moving to greener energies,
| not just on the state level but also in private homes. But
| that's mostly true for new constructions of which there are
| comparatively few. Coincidentally, the German government
| has recently announced to de-incentivize new construction
| and rather suggest updating existing houses. It will take
| many years, though, to get all those houses to move off of
| gas and oil, especially because Germany has a relatively
| high percentage of rentals over home owners. There's no
| real reason for landlords to update the heating system of
| their investment properties because the cost for heating is
| paid by the tenants anyway.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > ...it was unforeseeable that there would be a shortage
| of gas or oil.
|
| If you don't supply it yourself then it isn't
| unforeseeable. In fact, I'd say it's inevitable. It's
| only unforeseeable as to _when_ it will occur. Energy
| independence is a great thing for this reason.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was
| unforeseeable that there would be a shortage of gas or
| oil
|
| Except it was foreseeable and foreseen [1] just very
| politically and economically inconvenient.
|
| 1. https://www.gmfus.org/news/why-germans-ignored-putins-
| true-n...
| _dain_ wrote:
| >There is no widespread infrastructure for heating with
| electricity, the dominant sources for heating homes are
| gas and oil
|
| Yes and _why is that_? Electric heating is not some
| space-age technology. It has been around for a century.
| There are countries where it 's ubiquitous.
|
| Saying "Germany doesn't have the infra for electric
| heating" is _not an explanation_. It 's just _restating
| the problem in different words._ It isn 't some accident,
| it happened by deliberate policy.
|
| I keep harping on this point, but the German government
| has spent cumulatively _half a trillion USD_ on moving
| toward green energy, ostensibly in the name of combatting
| global warming. And yet with all that money and effort,
| they couldn 't transition towards ubiquitous electric
| heating? Instead, they wrecked their one dependable green
| energy source (uranium) and became further dependent on
| Russian gas, which fuels global warming even more
| (despite propaganda to the contrary). It's all because
| wind and solar are intermittent, there's nowhere near
| enough storage capacity on the grid and there won't be
| for decades, and their politicians have their heads in
| the sand about the whole business.
| Isolus wrote:
| > Yes and why is that?
|
| Gas price was 4 ct/kWh two years ago, electricity at 35
| ct/kWh. People always take what is currently the
| cheapest.
|
| > It's all because wind and solar are intermittent,
| there's nowhere near enough storage capacity on the grid
| and there won't be for decades, and their politicians
| have their heads in the sand about the whole business.
|
| They didn't put their heads in the sand. The former
| government sabotaged the whole renewable industry again
| and again (e. g. they didn't allow building new renewable
| power plants for years, storage facilities need to pay
| for the grid when they store energy and when they release
| it so they can't be competetitive to gas).
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was
| unforeseeable that there would be a shortage of gas or
| oil_
|
| If the 2014 invasion of Ukraine wasn't a dead giveaway, I
| don't know what else could habe make it more foreseeable.
|
| It was very foreseeable. Both the US and other Eastern
| European nations warned about this but Germany chose to
| be ignorant till the very end.
| badpun wrote:
| > reasonably priced at markets
|
| I wouldn't call 700% increase over just two years ago
| ,,reasonable"...
| preya2k wrote:
| I agree with your sentiment, but by no means does nuclear power
| "have no carbon footprint". It's still a very carbon-friendly
| technology, but it's definitely not carbon free. (See:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-
| cycle_greenhouse_gas_em...)
| weberer wrote:
| Neat, nuclear power has only a quarter of the carbon
| footprint as solar.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/CO2_Emis.
| ..
| danans wrote:
| Nuclear and solar both have about 1/10th the carbon
| emissions of natural gas, and 1/20th the carbon emissions
| of coal.
| anonporridge wrote:
| True, and yet solar photovoltaics has almost 4x the carbon
| footprint of nuclear fission per unit energy produced, and
| wind has approximately the same as nuclear.
|
| So, for the context of this conversation where Germany is
| prefering solar and wind to nuclear, and worse, turning to
| coal in place of natural gas, nuclear is effectively carbon
| free.
| chihuahua wrote:
| You're arguing with people who only see the downside of
| nuclear power, but refuse to see any downside to other
| sources of energy. Here we see this for the carbon
| footprint, but it's also the case many other impacts:
|
| Strip-mining for coal, devastating huge areas? This is
| fine.
|
| Radioactive emissions from burning coal? Don't care.
|
| Deaths caused by coal pollution and coal mining, compared
| to deaths caused by nuclear power? 'tis but a scratch.
|
| Permanent problems with groundwater caused by decades of
| coal mining? Lalala I can't hear you.
| DasIch wrote:
| Electricity does not magically create gas for heating.
| Electricity in europe is primarily threatened by France failing
| to adequately maintain their nuclear power plants.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Yes it does, Power-to-Gas -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
| netrus wrote:
| More importantly: Gas-to-power. This summer, for some time
| we were using more gas than in previous years, because
| there was not enough wind blowing for power generation.
| Blackouts must be prevented, so we will use it for power
| generation if necessary.
| jlmorton wrote:
| No, but when natural gas is 15% of your electrical
| generation, it does magically free up natural gas that would
| have otherwise been burnt for electricity.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Agreed. And I await apologies from everyone who said this
| wasn't technically possible.
| V__ wrote:
| Whether one is pro nuclear or not, I think it makes sense to
| look at the specific situation at hand. Was it a mistake to
| shut down all nuclear reactors while not pushing for more
| renewables and replacing all gas and coal plants first? I think
| so. Should the last three remaining nuclear plants be kept
| online? I don't think so.
|
| Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to
| generate electricity, so nuclear can reduce gas consumption.
| However, only about 10% of gas (see edit) is used for
| electricity and Germany has enough electricity. In a worst-case
| scenario, those nuclear power plants can help stabilize the
| grid, but they are not needed in general.
|
| The downside is, that they were already in the process of being
| shut down. They now need to undergo new safety checks, the fuel
| rods are nearly spend and this will cost 100 millions. Money
| which can be spent better.
|
| This winter also isn't predicted to be particularly cold, so
| the full gas storages in combination with the soon opening LNG-
| terminals will suffice.
|
| EDIT: I made a mistake, 10% of electricity is gas.
| naasking wrote:
| > However, only about 10% of gas is used for electricity and
| Germany has enough electricity.
|
| Energy prices in Germany suggest otherwise. Also, Germany is
| facing a gas pinch given the geopolitics right now, so
| freeing up 10% is nothing to sneeze at.
| V__ wrote:
| I made a mistake, 10% of electricity is gas.
|
| Due to the fact that nuclear is base load and gas plants
| are mostly used for grid compensation, it would result
| (according to estimates) in a 1-2% increase in gas usage.
| naasking wrote:
| Sorry, are you saying that keeping the nuclear reactors
| online will _increase_ gas use by 1-2%?
| V__ wrote:
| Oh, that wasn't clear, sorry. Taking them offline would
| result in an estimated increase of gas by 1-2%.
| evilos wrote:
| Based on the fact that Berlin is planning for 2-3 hour*
| organized blackouts, I don't think they have enough
| electricity.
|
| EDIT: Not 2 to 3 blackouts, 2 to 3 hour blackouts. When grid
| is overstressed.
| V__ wrote:
| I would hope they are planning for the worst-case. I want
| the government to have contingency plans. Doesn't mean it
| will happen.
| evilos wrote:
| That's the amazing thing. They are not. Most likely it
| will be far worse than they are imagining. I hope I am
| wrong.
| V__ wrote:
| I don't know about any evidence to support this claim. By
| law, industry will be shut down before any private home
| is affected. About 40% of gas and electricity is
| respectively used in industries. That means there is a
| lot of reserve before any home gets a blackout. Short
| term rolling blackout maybe, anything longer highly
| unlikely.
|
| EDIT: Just saw the edit. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a
| big deal to me. In 2019 after a damaged cable, there was
| a 31-hour blackout in some parts of Berlin. In comparison
| a 2 to 3 hour one happens all the time during storms etc.
| plextoria wrote:
| It's true that Germany might have enough electricity, but we
| are sharing with EU. And it so happens that in the biggest
| neighbor, France, half of the nuclear reactors are stopped
| for maintenance and the French might need to import
| considerable amounts of electricity this winter.
| V__ wrote:
| They are planning to get them up and running till winter,
| but I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether this
| is achievable and if not how much of a problem that would
| be and if those three nuclear plants would make a
| difference.
| sllabres wrote:
| Yes, but it's not Germany alone. A lot of the electricity
| produced in Germany is exported to other countries. And if
| this is not longer possible this would be a problem for them
| too. More aggravating is the circumstance that France,
| another European country that usually exports electricity
| cannot too as many (half) of their fleet of nuclear reactors
| are in maintenance.
| V__ wrote:
| They are planning to get them up and running till winter,
| but I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether this
| is achievable and if not how much of a problem that would
| be and if those three nuclear plants would make a
| difference.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only about 10% of gas is used for electricity and Germany
| has enough electricity_
|
| German household electricity is double the price of America's
| and considerably higher than France or Italy [1]. Were this
| not the case, more houses could be heated with electricity
| instead of gas and the coming recession made less painful.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-
| price...
| merb wrote:
| Comparing france with germany is stupid. Btw these prices
| are old for Europe, you can basically x2 them (except
| france) the reason hey it is stupid, is because 0,19 is the
| number that the people Pay, But Not the actual number (they
| have fixed pricing kinda) In fact france would be more
| expansive now, than germany.
| V__ wrote:
| Absolutely. But the switch to heat pumps will take time and
| won't change the situation right now. The political
| procrastination of the last decades is biting Germany in
| the ass right now.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the switch to heat pumps will take time and won 't
| change the situation right now_
|
| It could make a dent if seriously pursued, _e.g._ by
| focussing transitioning vulnerable households. The
| economic benefits of reduced electricity prices would
| also immediately accrue.
| V__ wrote:
| There are currently multiple plans in the work and some
| already started. The goal right now is to install at
| least 500k heat-pumps per year. But, there aren't enough
| skilled heating contractors, so they are working on
| solving this as well.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Germany 's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is
| used to generate electricity, so nuclear can reduce gas
| consumption. However, only about 10% of gas is used for
| electricity and Germany has enough electricity. In a worst-
| case scenario, those nuclear power plants can help stabilize
| the grid, but they are not needed in general._
|
| A number of cities also use district heating, where the heat
| is taken directly from the cooling circuits of nearby power
| stations. No idea what percentage of total heating this is
| and if nuclear plants are involved here, but this would be
| another way how those plants could (theoretically) contribute
| to heating.
| V__ wrote:
| Good point, and this is a thing in Switzerland, but not in
| Germany. Direct heating from nuclear plants, that is.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I wouldn't like nuclear water heating my house.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| It's a separate circuit. That water never touches the
| reactor core.
| oynqr wrote:
| I bet you don't travel by plane, either.
| xg15 wrote:
| I mean...
|
| I usually belong to the anti-nuclear crowd, but even I
| don't think that would be an issue.
|
| From what I know, one of the iron rules of nuclear plant
| design is that the contaminated stuff never leaves the
| reactor building. Even the steam circuit that powers the
| generator is separated from the (contaminated) primary
| circuit and receives energy through a heat exchanger [1].
|
| The lines for district heating would probably be
| separated from the primary circuit by several of those.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger
| belorn wrote:
| Wind conditions are more important question this winter than
| temperature. Good conditions will mean low power prices,
| meaning that industries, schools, apartment buildings and
| homes can afford to pay their bills without government
| bailing people out.
|
| A worse case scenario would had been windless cold winter
| with gas supplies empty, and a government that have to
| bailout both the industry, the government institutions, and
| private people. 3 nuclear power plants provides a bit of
| backup for that situation.
| V__ wrote:
| That's true, but if it becomes that bad its really just
| drop in the bucket.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > The downside is, that they were already in the process of
| being shut down. They now need to undergo new safety checks,
| the fuel rods are nearly spend and this will cost 100
| millions. Money which can be spent better.
|
| Oh no, here's hoping they learned a lesson from that money.
|
| Without affordable gas, they'll be buying electric heaters. I
| believe that's already under way. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germans-switch-
| costl...
| V__ wrote:
| Right now, gas prices are falling (since the gas storages
| are full) and federal assistance is currently in the works.
| So, while possible, I don't know how likely of a problem
| this will be.
| timmg wrote:
| Above you pointed out the high cost of replacing fuel
| rods. How does that compare to the "federal assistance"
| required to pay bloated gas bills?
| V__ wrote:
| Also maintenance, but still in comparison, it probably
| isn't a lot. The last figure I have is about 17 billion
| for all those federal programs and investments (but those
| include cheaper public transport tickets as well as other
| things).
|
| However, I don't thing those costs are comparable. Those
| nuclear plants won't have a dramatic impact on the price
| of gas or energy, so the cost of the federal programs
| will be there nonetheless.
| timmg wrote:
| > Those nuclear plants won't have a dramatic impact on
| the price of gas or energy, so the cost of the federal
| programs will be there nonetheless.
|
| Even if it doesn't change the price of gas, wouldn't it
| mean buying/burning less gas than you would otherwise?
| That, in itself, would be a huge savings.
|
| Maybe I'm just missing some data, but this seems like a
| no-brainer to me on several levels. It's hard for me to
| understand anyone being against this.
| V__ wrote:
| They estimate about 1-2% in gas savings, due to the fact
| that nuclear is base load and gas plants are used mostly
| for grid compensation. If the gas storages were empty,
| and the LNG-terminals weren't about to go online, I would
| like to see the nuclear plants be kept online. Right now,
| I'd rather they would invest that money in the future.
| papito wrote:
| It's more sinister than that. Russia was financially extremely
| incentivized to let this happen and indeed, it seems the so-
| called "environmental groups" in Germany and elsewhere are
| really fronts for the Russian government:
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127...
|
| Designed to cynically "care" about the environment, but in
| reality meant to destroy Europe's energy independence.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _It has recently come to light_
|
| Are there any more specific references what exactly has come
| to light here?
|
| As it stands, this question just reads as a pretty cheap
| attempt to frame any and all environmental concerns or pro-
| renewable/anti-fossil fuel advocacy as russian propaganda.
| (which doesn't even make sense as gas itself is not renewable
| - greens usually see gas as the lesser evil compared to coal
| and nuclear but by no means as an end goal)
|
| The german environmental and anti-nuclear movement predates
| the reunification, let alone russian gas deals or putin.
| While there might be some groups who are russian fronts or
| receive russian funding, the majority of the movement has
| quite strong motivations of its own.
|
| This doesn't even take the "new" parts of the climate
| movement into account, such as Fridays for Future.
| anm89 wrote:
| Germany is still facing a very cold winter by all accounts.
| This will help around the margins
| Narretz wrote:
| We don't even know how the temperatures are going to be. It
| currently points to an average / mild winter, so I don't know
| where you are getting "a very cold" winter from if the
| weather base isn't even there yet.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| > Germany was facing a cold winter
|
| Yaaawn.. this doomsday propaganda is really getting old, and
| lets meet in 6 month again and lets see how much impact and
| necessity those 3 plants had at all on heating here..
|
| Wait, your are likely not from Germany nor even Europe and
| state "Germany was facing a cold winter" like fact based on
| what please?
| felixfbecker wrote:
| Winters in Germany are cold, period.
|
| Source: I'm German and live in California now. Not a surprise
| to me that homes here don't have any heating at all,
| unthinkable in Germany.
|
| Old people would literally die.
|
| I have memories of when our heating would break down in some
| winters, living in an old building with bad insulation (which
| is very common). You could wear a thick jacket inside and a
| thick blanket but your hands are freezing so much you can't
| even type on a keyboard.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| Germany has 0 LNG capability and is for Gas largely dependent
| on the Netherlands now that Russia is gone. However the Dutch
| are scaling down gas operations because of earth quake damage
| and most its LNG capability will be used internally. So that
| means no new gas contracts with 2 of their largest suppliers.
|
| Germany is going to need the little gas it has for heating
| and its industry. It's going to need all the gas it can save
| by using Nuclear for electricity (instead of gas) cold winter
| or not.
| plextoria wrote:
| At least the LNG terminal construction is sped up and "0
| LNG" will hopefully not hold true for long.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well, I definitely agree with the decision, but at one point
| there were some valid things to consider:
|
| 1) they had been not doing normal routine maintenance that
| wasn't going to be needed if they were shutting down, and
| figuring out what all needs to be done to change gears does
| take some time (and careful thought)
|
| 2) they were at one time buying their fuel for nuclear plants
| from Russia
|
| Now I believe both of these points have been addressed, and I'm
| glad of it, but it was not totally unreasonable to raise them
| and not immediately change course.
| felixfbecker wrote:
| The current plan I believe is to only run them until they run
| out of their current fuel. No new fuel was a "hard line"
| drawn by the green party to agree to extending at all.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| The US is steaming with anger now, and the Energy Dominance
| agenda is not going as planned.
| maliker wrote:
| In case anyone was curious, Germany used to get 25% of its
| generation from nuclear (now more like 10%), and they had as many
| as 17 nuclear reactors as of 2010.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
| legulere wrote:
| And all of it was replaced by renewables:
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschla...
| Faaak wrote:
| Would've been better to decrease coal though. Coal provokes
| more deaths per kWh than nuclear
| asdff wrote:
| Probably a lot more radioactive pollution as well
| dieze wrote:
| ...by 3 orders of magnitude
| maliker wrote:
| True. Some even argue that Germany's renewable build-out was
| so large that it significantly lowered renewable costs
| worldwide.
|
| But if Russian gas was as expensive and unreliable 15 years
| ago as it is now, I suspect they would have kept the nukes.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| If only there was a sign in 2008 that would indicate to
| Germany that Russia was not a reliable partner. Like if,
| for example, Russia targeted oil pipeline running from
| Azerbaijan to Europe through Georgia and Turkey. Oh, but
| there was:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121866234961938253
| Rygian wrote:
| Why is Germany using more natural gas now than in 2010? Did
| they replace coal by gas?
|
| Would it have been possible to replace coal with nuclear
| instead, and keep gas at 2015 levels?
| jansan wrote:
| It is needed in summer to replace solar energy during the
| night. Gas power plants can be switched on and off almost
| at will, unlike coal or nuclear plants that have long
| startup and shutdown times. So the gas power plants are
| switched on at night in summer when the sun doesn't shine.
|
| Also, the EU commission declared in February 2022 natural
| gas as a sustainable energy source, and the EU parliament
| confirmed this in July 2022. Sounds a bit bizarre, but the
| dates are correct.
| Rygian wrote:
| So nuclear was replaced by renewables+gas (EU newspeak
| not withstanding).
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Schroder was chancellor when the initial nuclear phase-out
| was decided. He later joined the board of Gazprom.
|
| I no longer believe in coincidence.
| legulere wrote:
| Gas has lower CO2 emissions and the advantage over coal
| that it can better supply peak loads. At that point in time
| Russia was also seen as a reliable cheap supplier of it, as
| the UdSSR has been since the 70s before.
|
| It's unlikely that coal could have been replaced with new
| nuclear. It would have probably been an EPR from back then
| Framatome and Siemens. Construction of the EPR in Olkiluoto
| started in 2005 and just finished recently.
|
| Keeping old nuclear reactors running and shutting down coal
| plants instead would have been possible though, but didn't
| have backing in the population.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _all of it was replaced by renewables_
|
| An equal quantity of renewable generation was brought online.
| That isn't the same as replacing it with renewables. Had the
| nukes stayed, Germany would be more secure and a better
| global citizen in terms of emissions.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| No, most of it was replaced with extremely dirty brown coal
| extracted by strip mining.
| zakk wrote:
| Part of these renewables are the so-called "biomass", which
| leads to pretty substantial CO2 emissions.
|
| So basically they replaced a CO2-neutral energy source, with
| another which is pretty CO2-intensive.
|
| Renewable does not mean good for the environment!
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Biomass use in certain European countries is... all sorts
| of questionable. Some of it is wood imports from America
| for use as "green" energy, discounting the energy cost of
| shipment.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| And natural gas
| mabbo wrote:
| They could have instead replaced the fossil fuel electrical
| generation with those renewables, and kept the nuclear
| plants. That would have been a massive reduction in carbon
| emissions by Germany.
|
| Odd choice.
| Archelaos wrote:
| Yes. But they produces nuclear wast and a melt down could
| devastate wide regions. Glad that this will all be over
| soon. I was a victim of the Chernobyl fallout myself, and
| would not like to experience this again.
| mabbo wrote:
| Nuclear waste is tiny and contained. It kills no one when
| handled correctly, which it is.
|
| Coal and gas plants produce pollution that kills
| thousands every year, and that's how it's supposed to
| work.
|
| Meltdowns are next to impossible at correctly designed
| and built plants, which the German ones are.
| varajelle wrote:
| How were you a victim? if I may ask
| plextoria wrote:
| It would have made tens of thousands of coal industry
| workers jobless and CDU/SPD needed those votes. Yikes
|
| After the closure of the nuclear plants, the share of
| electricity generated from coal INCREASED
| legulere wrote:
| I would agree, especially from the standpoint of today, but
| I guess you have to see things historically.
|
| Issues with nuclear like fallout from Chernobyl still
| leading to contamination today in German or bad handling of
| nuclear waste at the Asse II mine have been a topic in
| German society for a very long time. The climate crisis
| picked up as a topic only really in the late 90s. That
| explains the first nuclear exit plan in 2000.
|
| The current exit from 2011 was a direct reaction to what
| happened in Fukushima.
|
| I mean even today you still have plenty of people and
| company that think that there is still a lot of time before
| more action must be taken against climate change.
| qwytw wrote:
| What about fallout from burning coal? Which is much worse
| than what reached Germany after Chernobyl .
| asdff wrote:
| But isn't it scary that political decisions about energy
| are made on reactionary terms rather than engineering
| terms? An engineer would not have said "we have to stop
| nuclear power," because of accidents, they would have
| studied those accidents and developed methods to mitigate
| them. This is why airlines are safe, because of past
| accidents that were deeply tragic and catastrophic but
| often went on to stymie some shortcoming of aircraft that
| wasn't apparent in modelling and testing that had been
| done at that point. If we reacted to aircraft disasters
| how the German government reacted to nuclear energy
| disasters that didn't even happen within their own
| borders, we'd be back to using clipper ships to cross the
| Atlantic in three weeks. This is regressive thinking that
| hurts our species overall, not progressive thinking that
| leads to technological improvements and benefits for our
| species.
| freeqaz wrote:
| I really like the way that you have phrased this here.
| This analogy is succinct and helpful. Thank you!
| cedilla wrote:
| It is scary, but it's not quite what happened. The
| original nuclear exit was a plan over some decades and
| included a clear exit from coal power as well. It also
| included a multi billion dollar plan to accelerate
| renewable energy as well, one that still reaps dividends
| today.
|
| Unfortunately, the Merkel government stopped these
| subsidies and dragged its feet regarding renewables for
| sixteen years. The flip-flopping stance regarding nuclear
| didn't help either, of course.
| dorgo wrote:
| > they would have studied those accidents and developed
| methods to mitigate them.
|
| So, eartchquakes and tsunamis were a new developement in
| japan. The engineers had never a chance to study them and
| develope methods to mitigate risks for nuclear plants?
|
| If plane crashes would endanger whole countries or
| continents we would ban air traffic all together.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Good thing they exported 15% of their domestic energy
| production to the friendly state of Russia - in the form of
| natural gas imports ($20B per year).
|
| What could possibly go wrong?
| bamboozled wrote:
| It was the eco-friendly choice /s
| Jon_Lowtek wrote:
| 96% of european uranium demand is met by imports, 4% is
| domestic, and 20% are imported from russia.
|
| Source: Euratom Supply Agency - Annual Report 2021 - Page 14
| https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/publications/esa-
| annual-...
|
| Also look at page 26ff which states that it would take years
| to replace current dependency on russia, not only in raw
| ressources, but also enrichment and recycling services.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You can import 100% of Uranium from actual allies without
| problem.
| Jon_Lowtek wrote:
| the linked Euroatom Supply Agency Report says otherwise.
|
| But it's besides the point anyway: the grandparent argued
| that it is stupid to import 15% gas
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Russia is 19% of your Uranium imports. Larger for natural
| gas.
|
| You can easily source that 19% from Canada, Kazakhstan,
| Australia, and the US instead of Russia.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| They've only delayed it until its politically easier to shut it
| down.
|
| The German greens' leader has backed running Coal plants as an
| alternative[1]
|
| The whole political position of this party rests on their fanatic
| opposition to Nuclear power.
|
| [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/19/energy/germany-russia-
| gas...
| _dain_ wrote:
| >The whole political position of this party rests on their
| fanatic opposition to Nuclear power.
|
| Btw if anyone thinks this is exaggeration, it's not. They are
| evil fanatics:
|
| https://twitter.com/giuliasaudelli/status/158097313099012505...
|
| >"Nuclear power and fossil fuels brought us here. They caused
| this crisis, they are not the solution."
|
| >Strong and at times emotional speech by Robert Habeck, after
| weeks under pressure. Defending his actions in government, but
| standing by Green values. He got a standing ovation.
|
| Reality: the Greens and their allies spent half a trillion USD
| on the "energy transition" and turned off perfectly good
| nuclear reactors. Result: energy shortages and diplomatic
| submission to Russia. And now they blame nuclear for it. If
| they had spent that half a trillion on new nuclear reactors,
| Germany would be an energy superpower. As it stands, they're
| having to burn coal and wood to get through the winter.
| Isolus wrote:
| > Reality: the Greens and their allies spent half a trillion
| USD on the "energy transition" and turned off perfectly good
| nuclear reactors. Result: energy shortages and diplomatic
| submission to Russia.
|
| Um no. Renewable energy is now actually cheaper than nuclear
| energy. You could build renewable energy + storage within the
| same range of cost. The problem is the former government shut
| down nuclear power plants and then did exactly nothing.
|
| The nuclear power plants aren't perfectly good. They are very
| old and would need a lot of investment if run for more than a
| couple of month.
|
| And germany isn't even near electric energy shortages. It's
| currently supplying france with a lot of energy.
|
| If electric heating were used everywhere from now on, there
| would be an electricity problem. But for that the electric
| heaters are missing.
| evilos wrote:
| It's only recently cheap. It's true that if they had
| pivoted to Nuclear instead, they would not had these energy
| shortfalls and maybe even Russia wouldn't have felt they
| had the leverage to invade Ukraine.
|
| The global output of battery storage isn't high enough to
| switch to solar/wind. Energy is a solved problem. It's a
| natural progression of mankind's command of energy.
| Wood->Coal->Oil->Fission. There's enough Uranium in the
| ground and oceans to supply humanity for million of years.
| We can't let a few accidents hold us back for ever.
| [deleted]
| squid322 wrote:
| The decision to turn off nuclear plants in Germany was
| __not__ made by the greens. It was made years ago by the CDU
| after Fukushima.
| _dain_ wrote:
| Minority parties can make the governing parties do things.
| UKIP wasn't in government but they made the Conservative
| party promise a referendum, which the eurosceptic side won
| -- and that was in a FPTP system! The Greens weren't in
| government but they had a lot of influence in the Bundestag
| and in the various Lander. The anti-nuclear cause has been
| around for decades, they creep in everywhere like a fungus.
| Lev1a wrote:
| > after Fukushima
|
| And can we talk about how stupid and actively malicious it
| is to use the Fukushima accident as a reason for shutting
| down nuclear plants in Germany?
|
| Fukushima: nuclear plant in a seismically very active
| region in very close proximity to the ocean where tsunamis
| are not really a rarity
|
| vs.
|
| German nuclear plants: not very seismically active (if at
| all), no tsunamis i've ever heard of, not counting floods
| as those are
|
| 1. easier to foresee and manage and
|
| 2. _very much_ less intense than a sudden wall of water
| razing everything in its path.
|
| Also in Japan you kinda have to build near the coast since
| its surrounded by ocean on all sides while being stretched
| out long and _not that wide_ with mountains as a backbone
| in the middle. Germany on the other hand only has the North
| and Baltic Sea at its northern end then progressively gets
| higher above sea level the more south you go, ultimately
| ending at the northern end of the Alps.
|
| This decision and especially this reasoning didn't make
| sense then and still doesn't nowadays. It was just a
| kneejerk reaction to retain voter support by exploiting the
| fear of the uneducated and the anti-nuclear crowd.
| fsh wrote:
| The Fukushima reactors and a lot of the german ones were
| built by the same company. They overlooked the flood risk
| on the japanese coast (which has huge tsunamis every few
| decades). What did they overlook elsewhere? After
| Chernobyl, politicians promised that western reactors
| could not possibly explode. Fukushima proved them wrong.
| evilos wrote:
| Comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl is not really justified
|
| Chernobyl: Core meltdown and catastrophic explosion of
| entire reactor. Caused by gross negligence when safety
| system disabled. Direct deaths: <100 Estimated indirect
| deaths: 4 to 16 thousand
|
| Fukushima: Caused by 4th largest earthquake in history.
| No core explosion. Hydrogen explosion destroyed non
| structural part of building (this was by design). Core
| meltdown but largely contained. Contamination of
| air/water from venting to atmosphere. Direct deaths: 1
| employee died of cancer Estimated indirect deaths:
| 300-2000
| anton96 wrote:
| No, Fukushima proved them right.
|
| Fukushima ended in no way like Tchernobyl did.
|
| The Soviet power plan released radioactivity in the air,
| make an entire area inhabitable and killed a few dozen a
| people.
|
| Fukushima did nothing of this, everything stayed inside
| the structure, no radioactivity went out.
|
| As Fukushima had no recovery generators available (no
| fuel in them), it is a great proof that a totally out of
| control modern power plant is not deadly.
| fsh wrote:
| The Fukushima disaster cleanup cost a trillion dollars.
| Over a hundred thousand people were (at least
| temporarily) displaced. I would call this a pretty darn
| big failure.
| legulere wrote:
| Your reasoning why nuclear accidents couldn't happen in
| Germany is moving the goalpost though. First the
| narrative was that they couldn't happen, then it was that
| they couldn't happen in western style reactors.
|
| The reality is that nuclear reactors can lead to big
| events in unforeseen situations, like also Fukushima was.
| It's impossible to foresee what the cause for the next
| big event will be.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Mark Nelson, from Radiant Energy Group, thinks otherwise.
|
| https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1582050941682954240
|
| quote:
|
| > For all those commenting "only until April 2023":
|
| > No utility will decommission a nuclear plant knowing this
| kind of reversal is possible even with Greens still in
| government occupying key posts.
|
| > They will not even mothball the plants. They'll just sit and
| wait for elections.
| legulere wrote:
| The coal plants are running as an alternative to gas plants, as
| is described in the link you posted. The shutdown of the
| nuclear plants was long planned. Germany managed to decrease
| dependence on fossil fuels for electricity production while
| shutting down nuclear plants.
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschla...
|
| Now another topic that should be talked about: Germany could
| have shut down coal first, and nuclear second.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Finally! Everybody was telling them to do so, it was very hard to
| understand why they would do the opposite. Personally I'm very
| happy reason hasn't lost its way.
| asdff wrote:
| Its pretty easy to understand why they would do the opposite:
| there is money invested in favor of the opposite that exerts
| political influence.
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(page generated 2022-10-17 23:01 UTC)