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I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party mem
by junon 5y ago
I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party members at rallies for having differing viewpoints about nuclear.
Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here Is it the usual talking points on both sides? Or is there a Teutonic shade to the debate that doesn't surface in e.g. America?
- ethbr0 5y agoBeing the front line of the Cold War, while both the US and USSR developed battle plans for where nuclear weapons would be detonated in your country during a war, probably lends shades to the debate that aren't present in other countries. (Yes, nuclear power / nuclear weapons, but in the 70s that wasn't a clear distinction)
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> both the US and USSR developed battle plans for where nuclear weapons would be detonated in your country during a war Do we know if younger Germans are more open to nuclear power than Cold War era ones?
- junon 5y agoAnecdotally, no. Young Germans (at least, mid-late twenties into the thirties) tend to have the same sort of sentiments.
- handrous 5y agoThey were close enough (and downwind-enough) to experience direct effects from Chernobyl, no? Destroying contaminated produce, taking iodine pills as a precaution, that sort of thing, and, I'd guess, worries, for a time, about much worse consequences before the emergency was contained.
- Torwald 5y agoAnd lockdowns. First lockdowns in my life. We weren't even allowed to play in the garden.
- zsmi 5y agohttps://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergency/chernobyl/health-effects-europe.html https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergen... "To date, there is no evidence that the reactor accident has caused adverse health effects due to radiation in Germany."
- deepsun 5y agoWell, I heard the same statement for Belarus, the most impacted country by Chernobyl (with still-in-effect Evacuation Zone). The key? How to calculate "health effects". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#/media/File:Chernobyl_radiation_map_1996.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#/medi...
- Gwypaas 5y agoAs a result of the Chernobyl reactor accident, certain species of mushrooms and wild game are still highly contaminated with caesium-137 in some areas of Germany. https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mushrooms-game/mushrooms-game_node.html https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mush...
- nsonha 5y agoImagine them end up exported
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- mikeyouse 5y agoPlus parts of Germany were actually impacted by Chernobyl with measurable radiation in their food / water / livestock. Low levels to be sure, but in the context of the cold war I'm sure there's a long memory for a massive nuclear coverup by a antagonistic neighbor that pollutes your land.
- simorley 5y agoConsidering MAD existed and most nukes would have been dropped on the US and USSR, not Germany, I don't think that's the issue. We and the russians had far more to worry about than the germans. Of course MAD pretty much ensured a 0% chance of nuclear war so really nothing to worry about. Nations truly worried about nuclear weapons develop them, not fight against them. Think about it. Considering that Germany is an american vassal with significant russian influence, it's more likely political factions tied to US and Russia. US doesn't want Germany to develop nuclear energy because nuclear energy research is the same thing as a nuclear weapons research. A nuclear armed germany is pretty much an independent germany which is something no empire desires. Empire and freedom/independence/sovereignty don't mix. And russians don't want germany to develop nuclear energy because they want to sell more oil/gas to germany and gain more influence over germany/europe.
- bernulli 5y agoMaybe you missed the part in Cold War doctrine where Germany is the battlefield intended to be used up to stop the invasion before the Rhine.
- TMWNN 5y ago>Considering MAD existed and most nukes would have been dropped on the US and USSR, not Germany, I don't think that's the issue. We and the russians had far more to worry about than the germans. Completely wrong. A NATO-Russia war could have been (and still could) be fought entirely in central Europe. This might include tactical nuclear weapons, delivered by short- and medium-range missiles and aircraft. This is why it was said that "In Germany, the towns are only two kilotons apart" (<https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/12/11/natos-atomic-stockpile-primarily-political-weapons/9fceeb3b-3b62-484b-8f2b-26ecf0f35616/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/12/11/n...>). To put another way, it's possible to realistically imagine a war in which Germany is hit with nuclear weapons but the US and Russia aren't. It's not realistic to imagine a war in which the US and Russia are hit with nukes but Germany isn't.
- ethbr0 5y ago> might include tactical nuclear weapons, delivered by short- and medium-range missiles and aircraft Also, people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Light_Teams https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Light_Teams
- junon 5y agoSeems like the typical whataboutism regarding 1) waste and 2) Chernobyl. Perhaps more informed people are having more nuanced conversation but I sure haven't heard it.
- xg15 5y agoGerman here. I can't really compare the viewpoints, but historically, the anti-nuclear movement has been an integral part of the german civil rights movement in the 60s and 70s. [1] I believe there have been two key events which have influenced this: - Chernobyl. Being in close proximity, the event had a far stronger impact than in the US: There was widespread contamination from fallout drifting over from Ukraine and consequently restrictions in day-to-day life for many germans. As with covid: You tend to value a topic differently if it directly affects your life than when it just seems to happen on TV. - Gorleben. [2, 3] Since the late 70s there have been efforts by the government to construct a permanent disposal site for nuclear waste in the Gorleben mine - against the explicit wishes of the nearby residents. This led to a decades-long resistance movement which tied into a general progressive movement for civil rights and an embrace of green technologies. Those events mean that nuclear in Germany is both tied stronger to personal experiences and is much more aligned with political boundaries than it is likely in the US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germa... [2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomm%C3%BClllager_Gorleben https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomm%C3%BClllager_Gorleben (german only) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic_of_Wendland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic_of_Wendland
- johnchristopher 5y agoHi, what's the general population's stance on Belgian nuclear plants ?
- moooo99 5y agoThe construction of (fairly) new nuclear power plants near the shared borders with Belgium and France is actually an argument I hear quite often. In many debates people argue about why Germany should go ahead and quit using nuclear if the neighboring countries keep building and running new plants, also posing a huge risk to Germany in the event of a catastrophic failure (actually the risk in case of a failure is probably higher for Germany than it is for France or Belgium).
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- ulnarkressty 5y agoIt mostly revolves around storing waste (in other people's back yards), and the mess the government and companies made of it - storing it improperly in mines, and the barrels rusting after some years / leaking waste. Unfortunately from talking to some of my (really smart) colleagues, this issue is so deeply ingrained that they don't even want to look at other options, or don't really think about that this is a long term problem vs the urgency of climate collapse... One article that goes a bit about this - https://www.dw.com/en/germany-may-not-see-proper-nuclear-waste-storage-for-decades/a-19380526 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-may-not-see-proper-nuclear-was...
- mistrial9 5y ago> very outdated information no rush on that -- we have another 21,000 years of half-life to talk about it, right?
- Turing_Machine 5y agoLonger half-life = less radioactive. By definition. A half-life of infinity would mean that the isotope is not radioactive at all.
- mistrial9 5y agoa pinhead emits less light than the sun, too
- Turing_Machine 5y agoI'm not really sure what you're driving at here. While there are certainly other nuances involved such as what kind of radiation is emitted (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron), and what the immediate fission products are, if all other factors are equal, the longer the half life, the less radioactive the material is. That's literally the definition. The really nasty isotopes are ones like Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days, has an affinity for the human thyroid gland) and Strontium-90 (half-life 28.79 years, has an affinity for human bones). While saying that something has a "half-life of forty million billion trillion years" may sound scary-impressive, what it actually means is "this stuff is only very mildly radioactive).
- mistrial9 5y agoyour half-life example is technically correct, yet by making a fanciful example of "forty million billion trillion" rhetorically, it makes the statement of harm sound like "oh, 21,000 years of half-life is not at all harmful" .. I think you are aware that spent nuclear fuel is poisonous by any definition. Second, the amount of material is not at all mentioned in your definition. One half of one gram of material, is not the same as the many kilograms of spent fuels from a working reactor, or the 2000 metric tons of spent fuel generated now in the USA each year. So I ridicule that in an unexpected way, with another extreme example, comparing something tiny, to something massively large that everyone knows. There is some false confidence in my opinion, about "know the facts" of radiactive materials.. when bio-accumulation in the food chain, uncontained dispersion, poisoning fresh or salt waters where life exists, and human exposure over time, and repeated exposure, are serious things.
- schleck8 5y agoIt's like a religion to some people. Has been this way for decades, certain folks never left the hippie ideology behind
- pelasaco 5y agoits worse now. Because they are the majority in all media and are pretty aggressive too.
- deepsun 5y agoI wonder how much of that is supported by Russian govt, because Germany is one of the largest customer for their oil and gas.
- thriftwy 5y agoRussia also wants to build a lot of nuclear plants around Germany so it won't profit from scaring the one who will eventually foot the bill.
- Factorium 5y agohttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41447603 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41447603 Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroder oversaw the shutdown of Germany's nukes. Now he's on the board of Rosneft, a giant fossil fuel company controlled by the Russian Government.
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoHa, and people keep saying there's no corruption in Germany.
- daanlo 5y agoIt was pushed for mainly by his coalition partner (the green party) and none of them work for russian oil companies. Anti-nuclear is a very big movement in Germany and the majority of the population don‘t want to have them operated.
- moooo99 5y agoYou'd be hard pressed to find anyone in Germany saying corruption does not exist here in Germany. In 2020 alone we saw corruption scandals worth millions, coincidentally all in the ruling conservative party CDU/CSU. Everyone knows that, and there are even more such scandals. Yet a lot of people vote for them (at least they got their worst ever election results in this years elections)
- odiroot 5y ago
- tscherno 5y agoNuclear was also promoted as save decades before Chernobyl and Fukushima by the lobbies. So is there a guarantee that it is safe this time around?
- fsflover 5y agoIt is statistically safer than almost anything even if you take Chernobyl and Fukushima into account.
- tscherno 5y agoSure, I just wanted to point out the sentiment which I feel most have. Smoking was also scientifically safe in the 70s.
- parineum 5y agoThe point is that there was never a time where Nuclear became unsafe. It was never a lie. The reverse of your analogy would be if cigarettes were actually good for you but we banned them because two people died of lung cancer.
- Cybiote 5y agoThat's not accurate. By the 1960s and 70s, the scientific consensus [1] not only strongly believed smoking was a causal factor in lung cancer but also knew it contained radioactive isotopes of Polonium (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/) and lead. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history/inde...
- Gwypaas 5y agoIs that why it is impossible to insure a nuclear power plant on the private market?
- initplus 5y ago
- LatteLazy 5y agoEveryone thinks the next gen of reactors will finally solve the issues the last 3/4 didn't. This is one of those generational issues because young people (I'm 37) hear promises and old ones have heard them before...
- themaninthedark 5y agoWhat issues don't the new designs solve that you are worried about?
- LatteLazy 5y agoNuclear has basically three issues: Cost, Waste and Safety. Cost is already a lost cause for the new reactors. No one making them expects to break even without subsidies. For waste and safety, we'll see. But given it will take 40 years to tell and the last generations except the first were all sold as completely waste free and impervious to any incident... This is the big issue with nuclear: it will take 40 years and billions of dollars to find out (and maybe some additional meltdowns and tonnes and tonnes of waste) to find out.
- baq 5y agoAnd the elephant in the room: we don’t have 40 years. We need those reactors today, at most in 5 or so years. Afterwards, they are too late. I’ve yet to see a reactor selling power to the grid 5 years after construction approval.
- polishdude20 5y agoWow this really puts the show "Dark" into a different context. It's like a propoganda piece about the dangers of nuclear power.
- proctrap 5y agoHow about - Germany trying to find a nuclear waste deposit since ages (that doesn't have to be evacuated due to ground water later on)* - Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so - Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years - State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies - French nuclear plants that had some interesting failures in the last years, while we can just watch and hope they're treated correctly. Meanwhile you're told "nono, everything is fine". Theoretically nuclear power can be effective. Practically we're using corporations that want to profit and have a human factor. So no wonder it's not safe to operate in reality. The next fukushima could be at your door, with your government then also claiming the radiation to be safe, because they can't afford to keep people out of their work and houses for so long. No nuclear company is insured for the real amount of money they'd have to pay for the next fukushima or Tschernobyl. Because there is no insurance for that amount of money. * And USA still pouring money into a final solution for a underground storage Also I don't give much about USA and their regulations. It's the country with stories like these: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-gas-fracking-radioactive-investigation-937389/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-... And oh wonder: https://truthout.org/articles/evidence-of-fracking-chemicals-found-in-bodies-of-pennsylvania-children/ https://truthout.org/articles/evidence-of-fracking-chemicals... I could even suspect USA influence to prevent more solar money to china or gas/oil money to russia.
- junon 5y ago> Germany trying to find a nuclear waste deposit since ages (that doesn't have to be evacuated due to ground water later on) Waste can be refined to safe levels these days. It's just not being done on a wide scale. > Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so We're paying unfathomable amounts of money dealing with carbon emissions - way more than millions, which is a drop in the bucket of taxpayer revenue, anyway. > Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years And? That's 100 years of clean energy and a more livable planet. 100 years for more research. 100 years for other forms of energy capture or generation. It's 100 years of bought time. > State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies "always" makes it sound like every week involves another nuclear "disaster". That's not accurate, at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... There are a few other lists that are related but I imagine this is what you intended. Please study the amount of people affected, directly, by those incidents. By contrast, the heat wave this year killed at least 2,300 people in India alone. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-heat-wave-kills-thousands https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-he... > French nuclear plants that had some interesting failures in the last years, while we can just watch and hope they're treated correctly. Meanwhile you're told "nono, everything is fine". Who is saying "everything is fine"? That's a seemingly extreme reduction of public outreach, especially since the IAEA has been trying to do good about being transparent with the world's nuclear operations. > No nuclear company is insured for the real amount of money they'd have to pay for the next fukushima or Tschernobyl. While I don't disagree things could be improved there, I'm so tired of Chernobyl being used as some "all nuclear is bad" example. Chernobyl was a cost-cutting endeavor, and the design was known to be faulty well before it failed. It was implemented in an incredibly corrupt system and poorly operated. The safety measures were not developed yet, and regulatory committees simply didn't exist at the time like they do now. Chernobyl ignored the science. It was, quite literally, a ticking time bomb. Yes, we could be doomed to repeat this if we so chose, but that's such a far reaching example that it's throwing the baby out with the bath water. > It's the country with stories like these: This is entirely unrelated and FUD from two clearly biased publications. > I could even suspect USA influence to prevent more solar money to china or gas/oil money to russia. This is speculation, fullstop.