4 ms·
Germany?
by 3am 16y ago
Germany?
- Eliezer 16y agoBecause if Germany makes fewer nuclear plants, they'll make more coal plants.
- 3am 16y agoOr more solar? Increase efficiency? Or use less? False choice.
- Tuna-Fish 16y agoThe situation in question is Merkel shutting down the 7 oldest German nuclear plants for 3 months. There will be no new clean sources of power deployed during those 3 months -- and unless there is a national campaign to reduce use starting right now in Germany, it will be mostly covered by coal. During those 3 months, ~250 more will die to SO2 and NOx because of increased coal power production.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- 3am 16y agoI'm disappointed that I was downvoted to 0 on this one. I didn't think I was overly argumentative and gave an honest response to the parent poster. I hate meta-comments, but they wouldn't be necessary if people wouldn't moderate based on personal agreement/disagreement.
- pjscott 16y agoThey've temporarily shut off all their nuclear plants constructed before 1980. They need to get power from somewhere, and nuclear power has the lowest number of deaths per terawatt-hour of any currently-viable competing energy source. Coal pollutes the atmosphere and kills miners (among other things). Natural gas has an unpleasant tendency to explode during handling, and is considerably more expensive than coal. And so on.
- iuytghyjuyh 16y agoThe German solution is to burn their dirty high sulfur coal in Poland. Most German coal is stripped mined so unless you fall of the bucket excavator there aren't many miners killed. It does pollute the atmosphere - but the winds blow east so it's the polish, then Belarus, then Ukrainian atmopsheres so who gives a s
- 3am 16y agoI think that last thing is inaccurate. Because of better efficiency, simpler plant design, and no fly ash disposal natural gas generated electricity is a little cheaper at current prices. This was a surprise to me, because coal can be 15-70% the price per BTU vs natural gas (coal prices and energy density vary by region). Nuclear may have the lowest number of deaths/power, but technically the Space Shuttle was the safest way to fly from 1977 to 1986.
- Tuna-Fish 16y agoI'd like to point out that even if there were a Chernobyl every two weeks, nuclear would still kill less than coal. I'm not necessarily that pro-nuclear, I just cannot fathom why all the outrage in power production seems to be directed towards nuclear while coal, that kills ~2700 people worldwide every day is still being used.
- 3am 16y agoWhat did I say that made you think I wasn't aware of how destructive coal generate power is? I don't need to point out why people are talking so much more about nuclear power safety than coal safety over the past month or so.
- Tuna-Fish 16y agoLink to my earlier post on the subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2371139 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2371139 Note that this is not about building new plants -- this is only about what happens in the next 3 months to cover the loss in capacity caused by bringing 7 plants down.