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Sadly, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is very strong. Germany also has a declining Coal industry. So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter n

Sadly, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is very strong. Germany also has a declining Coal industry. So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. The worst part? German coal is some of the worst in terms of sulfur and pollutants.

KozmoNau7 7y ago
I've heard lignite described as "slightly more flammable dirt". It's an absolutely atrocious energy source.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- growlist 7y ago
  The destruction to the countryside from open-cast mining is staggering as well - enormous areas stripped back to bare earth. Terrifying.
this_user 7y ago
> So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. That's not true. The phasing out of nuclear energy was decided in the late 90s after the Social Democrats and Greens had taken over the government. This was part of a larger green energy package. This had been a major issue for the Greens since at least the 80s when the party was founded. The Merkel government attempted to roll some of that back in 2010, but was blindsided by the Fukushima accident that caused public opinion to become much more polarised again w.r.t. nuclear energy. Please stop spreading this misinformation that the end of nuclear energy in Germany was caused by Fukushima.
- alexott 7y ago
  it was intensified after Fukushima... P.S. I misread the comment...
  - metalliqaz 7y ago
    that's what parent comment said
- Aperocky 7y ago
  The entire nuclear saga showed how even an educated country can become very irrational over technology. In the future, especially in democratic countries, these things are going to become worse.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  > The Merkel government attempted to roll some of that back in 2010, but was blindsided by the Fukushima accident that caused public opinion to become much more polarised again w.r.t. nuclear energy. In a democratic society, the will of the people is relevant. Fukushima caused the end of nuclear energy in Germany.
  - lispm 7y ago
    > Fukushima caused the end of nuclear energy in Germany The end of nuclear was decided by the red/green government a few years earlier. The conservative successor government (Merkel) tried to reverse that decision and after Fukushima they joined the German mainstream position to end nuclear and to invest further money into a new type of distributed electricity production with the focus on renewable energy.
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      > The end of nuclear was decided by the red/green government a few years earlier. The conservative successor government (Merkel) tried to reverse that decision and after Fukushima they joined the German mainstream position to end nuclear and to invest further money into a new type of distributed electricity production with the focus on renewable energy. ... thus ending it.
- looping__lui 7y ago
  Yeah, well, the phasing out of coal has been decided long time even before that - and still nothing happened. So “was decided long time ago by the Green party” is more a “who cares - I believe it when I see it”. Merkel made it happen for real (unfortunately). The decision to end nuclear power has been one of the “Merkel just decides without really caring” decisions. Germans are not entirely stupid. We have lived through Chernobyl, we know what a Tsunami is - the French and Belgians run much more unreliable reactors in direct vicinity of large densely populated areas. It was not “the will of the people” - but Merkel. Just like the end of the compulsory military service, the bailouts for southern Europe, the refugee crisis... Nothing democratic about that. The German public has nothing to say in these decisions and I don’t recall that ANY of these topics were actually discussed agenda points by any party. The stock prices of publicly traded energy companies folded - keep in mind: they PURCHASED the power plants from the government and were then told to shut them down. The stock price development is an economic reflection how fair the “compensation payment” was. Electricity prices are now about 30 Ct/kWh in Germany. That is 50% higher than the UK and 100% higher than France. And they keep rising. I would not infer that Bild headlines (aka the German Sun) are “public opinion”. Of course nuclear power was discussed quite heavily - but ever rising electricity prices, coal’s contribution to electricity remaining flat and the increasing resistance against wind farms certainly paint a more differentiated picture.
  - lispm 7y ago
    > and still nothing happened Coal is on the move out. Most coal production in Germany has been closed or will be closed. Last year coal use for electricity production was on an all time low at 28%. > 100% higher than France The electricity price is political in France and electricity production is basically state owned. The losses are paid by the tax payer.
    - looping__lui 7y ago
      Yes, I stand corrected by coal. I may have been biased living somewhat close to the Hambacher Forst and just seeing these giant holes in disbelief. I did not know that electricity is state owned and subsidised. Maybe Germans should ask their french neighbor for an extension cable or two...
svara 7y ago
That's not true, coal did not replace nuclear, renewables did [0]. What's true is that coal plants could have been shut down instead of nuclear ones, which sucks. But note that anthracite coal is decreasing since ~5 years ago (dark grey bar in [0]). [0] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2019-02-26.png https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... "Kohle" is coal; "Kernenergie" is nuclear; "Erneuerbare" is renewables.
- looping__lui 7y ago
  Yes. And not to mention that the coal plants emit 2x as much radioactivity into the environment at comparable power generation [0]. [0] https://www.bund-nrw.de/fileadmin/nrw/dokumente/braunkohle/2008_11_BUNDhintergrund_Radioaktivitaet_aus_Kohlekraftwerken.pdf https://www.bund-nrw.de/fileadmin/nrw/dokumente/braunkohle/2...
  - C14L 7y ago
    And are the deadliest form of energy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
duxup 7y ago
The sad part is that the results of Fukushima ... might generally be a example of how safe / what the risks of modern nuclear might be as I understand it. Fukushima was not updated like modern plants, and it did not experience a 'China Syndrome' type meltdown where the core melted and then kept breaking through all the containment material, rather it fused to the material (sand I belive) of its container and stopped indicating that even an old model nuclear plant might not ever experience a 'China Syndrome' type event. Granted probabbly a really hard sell that a disaster might indicate safety.
- lispm 7y ago
  Probably a really hard sell that a single event took out mostly all nuclear power plants in Japan for a decade...

KozmoNau7 7y ago

I've heard lignite described as "slightly more flammable dirt". It's an absolutely atrocious energy source.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
growlist 7y ago
The destruction to the countryside from open-cast mining is staggering as well - enormous areas stripped back to bare earth. Terrifying.

this_user 7y ago

> So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. That's not true. The phasing out of nuclear energy was decided in the late 90s after the Social Democrats and Greens had taken over the government. This was part of a larger green energy package. This had been a major issue for the Greens since at least the 80s when the party was founded. The Merkel government attempted to roll some of that back in 2010, but was blindsided by the Fukushima accident that caused public opinion to become much more polarised again w.r.t. nuclear energy. Please stop spreading this misinformation that the end of nuclear energy in Germany was caused by Fukushima.

alexott 7y ago
it was intensified after Fukushima... P.S. I misread the comment...
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  that's what parent comment said
Aperocky 7y ago
The entire nuclear saga showed how even an educated country can become very irrational over technology. In the future, especially in democratic countries, these things are going to become worse.
Spooky23 7y ago
> The Merkel government attempted to roll some of that back in 2010, but was blindsided by the Fukushima accident that caused public opinion to become much more polarised again w.r.t. nuclear energy. In a democratic society, the will of the people is relevant. Fukushima caused the end of nuclear energy in Germany.
- lispm 7y ago
  > Fukushima caused the end of nuclear energy in Germany The end of nuclear was decided by the red/green government a few years earlier. The conservative successor government (Merkel) tried to reverse that decision and after Fukushima they joined the German mainstream position to end nuclear and to invest further money into a new type of distributed electricity production with the focus on renewable energy.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    > The end of nuclear was decided by the red/green government a few years earlier. The conservative successor government (Merkel) tried to reverse that decision and after Fukushima they joined the German mainstream position to end nuclear and to invest further money into a new type of distributed electricity production with the focus on renewable energy. ... thus ending it.
looping__lui 7y ago
Yeah, well, the phasing out of coal has been decided long time even before that - and still nothing happened. So “was decided long time ago by the Green party” is more a “who cares - I believe it when I see it”. Merkel made it happen for real (unfortunately). The decision to end nuclear power has been one of the “Merkel just decides without really caring” decisions. Germans are not entirely stupid. We have lived through Chernobyl, we know what a Tsunami is - the French and Belgians run much more unreliable reactors in direct vicinity of large densely populated areas. It was not “the will of the people” - but Merkel. Just like the end of the compulsory military service, the bailouts for southern Europe, the refugee crisis... Nothing democratic about that. The German public has nothing to say in these decisions and I don’t recall that ANY of these topics were actually discussed agenda points by any party. The stock prices of publicly traded energy companies folded - keep in mind: they PURCHASED the power plants from the government and were then told to shut them down. The stock price development is an economic reflection how fair the “compensation payment” was. Electricity prices are now about 30 Ct/kWh in Germany. That is 50% higher than the UK and 100% higher than France. And they keep rising. I would not infer that Bild headlines (aka the German Sun) are “public opinion”. Of course nuclear power was discussed quite heavily - but ever rising electricity prices, coal’s contribution to electricity remaining flat and the increasing resistance against wind farms certainly paint a more differentiated picture.
- lispm 7y ago
  > and still nothing happened Coal is on the move out. Most coal production in Germany has been closed or will be closed. Last year coal use for electricity production was on an all time low at 28%. > 100% higher than France The electricity price is political in France and electricity production is basically state owned. The losses are paid by the tax payer.
  - looping__lui 7y ago
    Yes, I stand corrected by coal. I may have been biased living somewhat close to the Hambacher Forst and just seeing these giant holes in disbelief. I did not know that electricity is state owned and subsidised. Maybe Germans should ask their french neighbor for an extension cable or two...

svara 7y ago

That's not true, coal did not replace nuclear, renewables did [0]. What's true is that coal plants could have been shut down instead of nuclear ones, which sucks. But note that anthracite coal is decreasing since ~5 years ago (dark grey bar in [0]). [0] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2019-02-26.png https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... "Kohle" is coal; "Kernenergie" is nuclear; "Erneuerbare" is renewables.

looping__lui 7y ago
Yes. And not to mention that the coal plants emit 2x as much radioactivity into the environment at comparable power generation [0]. [0] https://www.bund-nrw.de/fileadmin/nrw/dokumente/braunkohle/2008_11_BUNDhintergrund_Radioaktivitaet_aus_Kohlekraftwerken.pdf https://www.bund-nrw.de/fileadmin/nrw/dokumente/braunkohle/2...
- C14L 7y ago
  And are the deadliest form of energy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

duxup 7y ago

The sad part is that the results of Fukushima ... might generally be a example of how safe / what the risks of modern nuclear might be as I understand it. Fukushima was not updated like modern plants, and it did not experience a 'China Syndrome' type meltdown where the core melted and then kept breaking through all the containment material, rather it fused to the material (sand I belive) of its container and stopped indicating that even an old model nuclear plant might not ever experience a 'China Syndrome' type event. Granted probabbly a really hard sell that a disaster might indicate safety.

lispm 7y ago
Probably a really hard sell that a single event took out mostly all nuclear power plants in Japan for a decade...