7 ms·

Not just the city, Germany made the decision to shut down ALL of the nuclear power plants when Fukushima happened. Now they found they're dependent on Russian

Not just the city, Germany made the decision to shut down ALL of the nuclear power plants when Fukushima happened. Now they found they're dependent on Russian gas.

_ph_ 6y ago
That is not true on many accounts. The decision to phase out nuclear energy was taken in the beginning of the 2000 years. There was some extension of the operating time when Merkel came to power, which was taken back after Fukushima. This also affects plants which are very old, so would need to be replaced or undergo some severe modernisation anyway. There have been no new German nuclear power plants since the early 80ies. Then, Germany always depended on fossil fuels. Nuclear power was never more than 30% of the electricity mix, not counting heating and transportation. And except coal, the fossil fuels are all imported. The only energy source we can grow domestically are renewables. So yes, we depend on gas import, as this is the cleanest fossil fuel available. Currently most of it is coming from Russia, a trade which is beneficial to both countries. But there would be other sources if needed, the US is applying considerable pressure to Germany, so we buy gas from the US instead.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  All fair, but 30% is not a small slice. All of that need to be replaced by something else, and the only thing that's quick enough to replace it was fossil fuel. Germany is also not exactly the ideal place for solar power generation. It's still leave people scratching over why you guys ditched nuclear energy. The newer version of nuclear reactors are safer than fossil when you factor in pollution, and EU itself has expertise (from France).
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    German nuclear power was not replaced by fossil fuel, but by renewables. For this year so far, 54% of the German electricity came from renewables, 12% nuclear, 21% coal. Solar alone has eclipsed nuclear with 13%. The installed solar peak capacity is 48 GW, wind is 60 GW, on windy days the production of wind power alone eclipses French nuclear output. Solar peaked at 27 GW at noon today.
    - _Microft 6y ago
      Here are charts showing the composition of energy sources in the german power grid if someone is interested: https://energy-charts.de/power.htm https://energy-charts.de/power.htm
  - lispm 6y ago
    The France expertise shows that they can't build nuclear reactors anymore. The ones they work on are many years late and costs are exploding. The French nuclear industry is centralized and state-owned/run. Not everyone wants finds that model attractive.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Germany replaced nuclear power with renewables. The more important question is why didn't they replace fossil fuels with renewables and the answer is complicated.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Now they found they're dependent on Russian gas. They always were, maybe you don't recall the shortage in 2009 when Gazprom shut off the gas to Ukraine, which happened 2 years before 3/11 [0]. I jokingly asked if that's why they still kept their wood burning furnaces in the building I lived and why they made it a priority we knew how to keep the backofen going throughout the Winter months and while I got slight a chuckle I knew it didn't go over too well. 0: https://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/news/international/russia_ukraine/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/news/international/russia_u...
- Aperocky 6y ago
  wondering if it got worse - if they did manage to build more nuclear plants like French did (75% from nuclear) instead of closing them all down, maybe Germany will be able to heat their homes without CO2 emissions in winter.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > wondering if it got worse - if they did manage to build more nuclear plants like French did (75% from nuclear) instead of closing them all down, maybe Germany will be able to heat their homes without CO2 emissions in winter. They don't need to build anymore, they just import it. I lived 30km away from Alsace, and despite us having a significant amount of solar on all of our buildings, as did most of the local community/neighborhood, it was well understood that a significant amount of Baden-Wuttenberg's energy (the 'greenest-centric' Stat of Germany) needs were just bought from France. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I was there in 2012-13 during the transition, and I lived in an old 7 bedroom old Chateau style home that had its top floor being renovated, which was exposed to the cold winter. We lived on the bottom floor and mainly relied on wood heat from the backofen in the center of the home to heat the rest, and when we didn't/forget to keep it goin I could literately see my breath while I laid in bed as I lived the furthest away from the source, and as someone born and raised in SoCal it was incredibly terrifying at first. Before I wised up and figured out the heating method I often made my bed before having a shower and going to bed and I stuck a 2L glassflasch with hot water from those instant water heater kettle's. But it wasn't long before I summoned the inner pyro in me I had suppressed since my early teens.
Krasnol 6y ago
I like how the hate train starts rolling with all the same phrases that lack even the basic facts. Germany had a plan to get out of nuclear energy already in 2002 When Angela Merkel came into power, she rolled a part of it back. Allowing for some of the plants to run longer. After Fukushima, this was rolled back again.
- mihaaly 6y ago
  Which part of the two sentences was hateful and what is not factual in those?
  - Krasnol 6y ago
    The whole thing paints Germany as some retarded country who didn't know what they're doing and now they need Russian gas. All this neither having the dates right nor making a logical Russian gas connection. It's just a pure hate on Germany bs argument which appears all the time nuclear is the topic.
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      Look, Russian gas is just a side effect, it's fine to import Russian gas, everyone does it. But why shutdown nuclear? Yes the decision might be made in 2002, and exacerbated in 2011. The question is still not answered.
      - Krasnol 6y ago
        Russian gas has absolutely not a single thing to do with nuclear energy. I repeat: it has nothing to do with it. Why shutdown nuclear? Why do you have to ask me that question when you've been ready to form such a strong opinion in the first place? Did you do no research? Didn't you at least look at the wikipedia article? Something about waste, not needing it, being expensive tech from the last century? Nothing of that came along in your research? No? The single thing that you got from your sources was: "something something Fukushima"? Didn't you at least question this at some point? Because I question your abilities to form an educated opinion here.
Dahoon 6y ago
It is comments like this that really shows how HN is sinking to Reddit levels. FUD is spreading like a Corona virus on a tourist ship.
supergirl 6y ago
i don't even have to research this to know it is false. germany just doesn't make decisions on a whim like other countries
- Aperocky 6y ago
  I'm still waiting for an explanation of how the decision to shutdown nuclear power is correct versus however long they took to make that decision.

Not just the city, Germany made the decision to shut down ALL of the nuclear power plants when Fukushima happened. Now they found they're dependent on Russian gas.

_ph_ 6y ago

That is not true on many accounts. The decision to phase out nuclear energy was taken in the beginning of the 2000 years. There was some extension of the operating time when Merkel came to power, which was taken back after Fukushima. This also affects plants which are very old, so would need to be replaced or undergo some severe modernisation anyway. There have been no new German nuclear power plants since the early 80ies. Then, Germany always depended on fossil fuels. Nuclear power was never more than 30% of the electricity mix, not counting heating and transportation. And except coal, the fossil fuels are all imported. The only energy source we can grow domestically are renewables. So yes, we depend on gas import, as this is the cleanest fossil fuel available. Currently most of it is coming from Russia, a trade which is beneficial to both countries. But there would be other sources if needed, the US is applying considerable pressure to Germany, so we buy gas from the US instead.

Aperocky 6y ago
All fair, but 30% is not a small slice. All of that need to be replaced by something else, and the only thing that's quick enough to replace it was fossil fuel. Germany is also not exactly the ideal place for solar power generation. It's still leave people scratching over why you guys ditched nuclear energy. The newer version of nuclear reactors are safer than fossil when you factor in pollution, and EU itself has expertise (from France).
- _ph_ 6y ago
  German nuclear power was not replaced by fossil fuel, but by renewables. For this year so far, 54% of the German electricity came from renewables, 12% nuclear, 21% coal. Solar alone has eclipsed nuclear with 13%. The installed solar peak capacity is 48 GW, wind is 60 GW, on windy days the production of wind power alone eclipses French nuclear output. Solar peaked at 27 GW at noon today.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    Here are charts showing the composition of energy sources in the german power grid if someone is interested: https://energy-charts.de/power.htm https://energy-charts.de/power.htm
- lispm 6y ago
  The France expertise shows that they can't build nuclear reactors anymore. The ones they work on are many years late and costs are exploding. The French nuclear industry is centralized and state-owned/run. Not everyone wants finds that model attractive.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Germany replaced nuclear power with renewables. The more important question is why didn't they replace fossil fuels with renewables and the answer is complicated.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Now they found they're dependent on Russian gas. They always were, maybe you don't recall the shortage in 2009 when Gazprom shut off the gas to Ukraine, which happened 2 years before 3/11 [0]. I jokingly asked if that's why they still kept their wood burning furnaces in the building I lived and why they made it a priority we knew how to keep the backofen going throughout the Winter months and while I got slight a chuckle I knew it didn't go over too well. 0: https://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/news/international/russia_ukraine/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/news/international/russia_u...

Aperocky 6y ago
wondering if it got worse - if they did manage to build more nuclear plants like French did (75% from nuclear) instead of closing them all down, maybe Germany will be able to heat their homes without CO2 emissions in winter.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > wondering if it got worse - if they did manage to build more nuclear plants like French did (75% from nuclear) instead of closing them all down, maybe Germany will be able to heat their homes without CO2 emissions in winter. They don't need to build anymore, they just import it. I lived 30km away from Alsace, and despite us having a significant amount of solar on all of our buildings, as did most of the local community/neighborhood, it was well understood that a significant amount of Baden-Wuttenberg's energy (the 'greenest-centric' Stat of Germany) needs were just bought from France. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I was there in 2012-13 during the transition, and I lived in an old 7 bedroom old Chateau style home that had its top floor being renovated, which was exposed to the cold winter. We lived on the bottom floor and mainly relied on wood heat from the backofen in the center of the home to heat the rest, and when we didn't/forget to keep it goin I could literately see my breath while I laid in bed as I lived the furthest away from the source, and as someone born and raised in SoCal it was incredibly terrifying at first. Before I wised up and figured out the heating method I often made my bed before having a shower and going to bed and I stuck a 2L glassflasch with hot water from those instant water heater kettle's. But it wasn't long before I summoned the inner pyro in me I had suppressed since my early teens.

Krasnol 6y ago

I like how the hate train starts rolling with all the same phrases that lack even the basic facts. Germany had a plan to get out of nuclear energy already in 2002 When Angela Merkel came into power, she rolled a part of it back. Allowing for some of the plants to run longer. After Fukushima, this was rolled back again.

mihaaly 6y ago
Which part of the two sentences was hateful and what is not factual in those?
- Krasnol 6y ago
  The whole thing paints Germany as some retarded country who didn't know what they're doing and now they need Russian gas. All this neither having the dates right nor making a logical Russian gas connection. It's just a pure hate on Germany bs argument which appears all the time nuclear is the topic.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Look, Russian gas is just a side effect, it's fine to import Russian gas, everyone does it. But why shutdown nuclear? Yes the decision might be made in 2002, and exacerbated in 2011. The question is still not answered.
    - Krasnol 6y ago
      Russian gas has absolutely not a single thing to do with nuclear energy. I repeat: it has nothing to do with it. Why shutdown nuclear? Why do you have to ask me that question when you've been ready to form such a strong opinion in the first place? Did you do no research? Didn't you at least look at the wikipedia article? Something about waste, not needing it, being expensive tech from the last century? Nothing of that came along in your research? No? The single thing that you got from your sources was: "something something Fukushima"? Didn't you at least question this at some point? Because I question your abilities to form an educated opinion here.

Dahoon 6y ago

It is comments like this that really shows how HN is sinking to Reddit levels. FUD is spreading like a Corona virus on a tourist ship.

supergirl 6y ago

i don't even have to research this to know it is false. germany just doesn't make decisions on a whim like other countries

Aperocky 6y ago
I'm still waiting for an explanation of how the decision to shutdown nuclear power is correct versus however long they took to make that decision.