6 ms·
But that's due to nuclear. I don't support coal plants but Germany is on the right trajectory to lower emissions in a sustainable way. France will still have to
by dx034 9y ago
But that's due to nuclear. I don't support coal plants but Germany is on the right trajectory to lower emissions in a sustainable way. France will still have to go through that process at some point, it's not as if they'd figured out what to do with nuclear waste.
- adrianN 9y agoWe could have shut down our coal plants first and our nuclear plants later and would have much reduced total emissions. But we chose to do it the other way round.
- raverbashing 9y agoThank the "environmentalists"
- static_noise 9y agoThere was also that incident in Fukushima that turned the political tides against nuclear power.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- justinjlynn 9y agoHumans are terrible at evaluating rare but expensive failure modes. Nuclear power is far safer than just coal mining operations, even taking into account accidents.
- realusername 9y agoAt least now, if a Tsunami hits Germany, we are safe.
- isostatic 9y agoIf a tsunami hits Germany, places like Kiel will be screwed. The Netherlands too. Most of Germany will be fine. Deaths from Tōhoku earthquake and taunami: 16,000 Deaths from subsequent nuclear plant issue: maybe 300 long term
- exyi 9y agoTsunami in Germany would have to be caused by a meteorite in the near sea, so you are not safe :P
- datenwolf 9y agoCould as well be caused by a major submarine landslide of the Norwegian continental shelf. There's some evidence that this did happen at least once in the (geological) past.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dfee 9y agoBury it in the ocean? Is nuclear not considered renewable anymore?
- yorwba 9y agoNuclear is not very renewable since its fuel supply is limited (although very large compared to fossil fuels). Dumping waste in the ocean is not a great idea, because you can't be sure that fishing grounds won't be contaminated. Nobody wants radioactive fish. In general, I think the best solution to long-term storage of nuclear waste is to keep it at some facility where it can be continuously monitored. That way, you at least know when something leaks. Unfortunately, energy producers are really good at not paying for that kind of externality.
- zeristor 9y agoUranium supply is limited, but there is far more Thorium. Thorium technology is quite immature at the moment but India and China are developing it, although it'll take quite a while to get to third, or fourth generation level maturity.
- acidburnNSA 9y agoThere's more Thorium in the crust, there's more Uranium in seawater. With either fuel (plus breeder reactors), the nuclear fuel supply of earth is unlimited on a several billion year timeframe at world-scale.
- zeristor 9y agoWell ther’s even more Hydrogen in sea water, the problem is getting it out.
- acidburnNSA 9y agoHere's an entire special issue (from 2016) of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research describing progress in extracting uranium from seawater: http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15 http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]