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This is something many people in the EU simply don't get -- I don't get it. Germans have a basically a positive stereotype of being a scientific nation and all
by s_dev 5y ago
This is something many people in the EU simply don't get -- I don't get it.
Germans have a basically a positive stereotype of being a scientific nation and all around clever lads -- this has enormous soft power and gives leverage to things like "Made in Germany" as a brand. This anti-nuclear stance in Germany is absolutely caustic to that projected image.
It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and replace it with fossil fueled plants. I love Germans and Germany but they're simply in the wrong on this and I don't know what the right way forward is.
- WithinReason 5y agoIn my mind, a nuclear power plant staffed with German engineers is the least likely to have a nuclear accident.
- croes 5y agoThe same was thought about japanese nuclear power plants
- selfhoster11 5y agoExcept they built them in a place that's pretty known for earthquakes. An earthquake in Germany sounds like science fiction.
- arethuza 5y agoThere have been fairly large (VEI 6) volcanic eruptions in Germany fairly recently (at least by geological standards): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laacher_See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laacher_See
- selfhoster11 5y agoWhile I had no idea that Germany was volcanically active (thanks for the link!), this doesn't seem to be an ongoing thing.
- arethuza 5y agoWell, the area is categorised as volcanically active - I doubt if it is a very serious risk. Mind you - nobody thought we got tsunamis in Scotland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide Just to make clear: I'm completely comfortable with nuclear power and I live reasonably close to the remaining operational nuclear power station in Scotland: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-will-be-buil.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-l...
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoWith a VEI 6 happening there, a lil' bit of radioactivity would be one of your lesser problems, I'd guess. One bigger potential problem would be damming the Rhine there, and flooding large areas behind that dam way upstream, with many large chemical plants. And then the flood downstream, if that dam breaks down.
- croes 5y agoYes, and the built it to withstand and earthquake or a tsunami, unfortunately not both. Because heavy earthquakes in Germany are unlikely the standards for german nuclear power plants aren't planned to withstand one because the planning is accordingly to the dangers of the location. And that is the problem. We are building something that has to last decades if not centuries and if we miss something the damage is severe. For example before satellite imagery ships were built according to the normal distribution of waves which said large waves are rare, freak waves nearly impossible. Stories about freak waves were even often dismissed as exaggeration or sailor's yarn. Nowadays we know freak waves happen a lot more often as we thought and ships are built accordingly but older ships have problems if a freak wave shows up or they simply sink.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoUhm. Some "fiction" for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Germany There is also post-glacial rebound in northern Germany with several fault lines, one of them roughly between Kiel and Lübeck. Where parts of Denmark, Sweden and Norway still slowly rise, while the outer parts bordering Northern Germany slowly sink, 'scratching' against it. Also several large salt domes, producing sink holes which can be seen as lakes today. Interestingly, some of these are being explored today as energy storage solution, what could possibly go wrong? edit: Besides that, flooding. Again and again https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Sturmfluten_an_der_Nordsee https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Sturmfluten_an_der_N... Pick your 'fiction or fantasy' ;->
- yourusername 5y ago9.0 earthquakes and tsunami's are not that common in Germany.
- croes 5y agoI doubt that german power plants are even built for that occasion. Power plants are built according to the requirements of their location and history shows we fail in getting all the risk Not to mention corruption and botching. Which company would you trust to built and operate these power plants? Vattenfall, Shell, Siemens, Facebook, Apple?
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoZe Amish-Naderite-Quaker-Mondragonz!1!! Edit: Alternatively Die Schwesternschaft des Heiligen Strahls, äh Scheins.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoBut they could happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide Besides that something like this https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdgasleck_in_der_Nordsee https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdgasleck_in_der_Nordsee could also lead to a tsunami if it caves in. Considering how many we have there it's not that unlikely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_and_gas_fields_of_the_North_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_and_gas_fields_of_...
- theshrike79 5y agoFukushima weathered both a record breaking earthquake AND a record breaking tsunami simultaneously. And still there were only a handful of deaths directly caused by it. More people die because of wind turbines every year.
- croes 5y agoHow many deaths per wind turbine, and how long is the location of a turbine accident to uninhabitable?
- theshrike79 5y agohttps://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy... Nuclear deaths is 90 per TWh Wind death toll is 150 per TWh Solar 440/TWh and leading the pack is Coal at 100000/1Twh produced The question is, as always with nuclear: Do you want constant, verified, 100% certain deaths every day or do you risk a larger death toll that may or may not happen some time in the future?
- drran 5y agoFor solar, it looks like falls from a roof are accounted, to make the number scarier. I see an asterisk near to the number for solar, but no explanation of it, nor break down of the number.
- croes 5y agoI asked for death per turbine not per TWh. Nuclear energy provides lots of TWh so it skews the statistics in their favor. That's like comparing death by train accident or plane accident. Planes are better per kilometer but worse per hour.
- IAmEveryone 5y agoAnd if the German way to run a secure nuclear facility is to shut it down, that may also tell you something.
- dabber21 5y agomy mother is still talking about Chernobyl today, it definitely left a mark especially when you had kids at the time
- Ygg2 5y agoChernobyl right now is biggest/safest wildlife preserve in Europe.
- ivan_gammel 5y agoTell that to the victims of that catastrophe.
- theshrike79 5y agoThe "victims" were victims of Soviet policy, not of nuclear energy. A majority of the deaths due to fallout would've been prevented if The Party would've admitted they messed up and told everyone to eat canned food for a few weeks. Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days. Maybe even distributed more iodine pills for the population. But nope, The Party could do no wrong and was always right, so they did nothing and said nothing.
- ivan_gammel 5y agoThis is a typical Western oversimplification of communist regimes. If there is a Party, it is to blame, of course. But you are wrong. The casualties of such incidents are coming not just from the poor immediate responses, but also from long term environmental, social and economic effects. Even if in Fukushima disaster people did not die from acute radiation syndrome, there are still several thousands of deaths attributed to the disaster. Same with Chernobyl, Mayak etc.
- theshrike79 5y agoYes, people died in the panic resulting from the evacuation in Fukushima. But is that the fault of nuclear power? Do you "attribute" deaths caused by other energy production means the same way? Coal kills people every day. People die when installing wind farms, do they count?
- benjaminsuch 5y agoAs a german, can't agree more. From what I get talking to people is, that they have an irrational fear of a nuclear holocaust and nuclear waste.
- rizkeyz 5y agoWe live at the dawn of cyberterrorism, I'm glad we are stepping out of nuclear now.
- BlueTemplar 5y agoHopefully the few computers needed do not use generalist OSes and aren't connected to the Internet either ?
- selfhoster11 5y agoIIRC, some nuclear readout panels were accessible over the public internet using badly secured VNC, so I think that's not the case.
- goodpoint 5y agoI assume you never worked in security.
- BlueTemplar 5y agoShould we be concerned then about nuclear weapons to be hacked too ?
- goodpoint 5y agoNot to the point of detonating them - they have a lot of physical safeguards.
- Zardoz84 5y agoAnd why you need any electric central connected to internet ?
- heckerhut 5y agoNope. The numbers are such that Germany cannot go back on this. We are committed to the non nuclear path now. And that’s okay. We’re going to make up the lost technology leadership in nuclear with competency in renewables. It’s fine and not the end of world. I wouldn’t have done it the way Merkel did, I would’ve switched off coal first. But I understand why that wasn’t an option at the time. It’s what it is.
- emptyfile 5y ago> But I understand why that wasn’t an option at the time. explain
- ketzu 5y agoThere was no significant public will or movement to get out of coal 10 years ago. It was never even discussed.
- hannob 5y agoThe renewables buildout was always tightly coupled with the nuclear phaseout in the political discourse. The idea that you could've kept nuclear, still have the renewables buildout and close coal early wasn't a political position anyone in any relevant position was advocating for.
- emptyfile 5y agoRight. It wasn't a political option. They could've done it, easily, and it was the sensible thing to do.
- stewbrew 5y agoWind and solar are cheaper than nuclear. There is no solution yet to the final deposition of nuclear waste.
- Zardoz84 5y agoYou know that are reactors that burns long life nuclear waste ?
- fock 5y agocould you tell me, how long Uranium reserves last? Climate change aside (which will kill us all), Uranium-based fission power plants are just not solving the problem at hand: We are using far too much energy and increasingly have depleted the cache earth history hid for us.
- ekianjo 5y agoyou have enough uranium to last for hundreds of years if not thousands.
- ketzu 5y agoMost sources I found on the topic seem to be as diverse as this one: [1] The estimates range from 80 years to hundreds of thousands of years, depending on the assumptions made, including: Possible sources (land mining, sea refining), current consumption level, efficiency of reactors. Where it is approximately this: Mining land uranium at current consumption (i.e., no new nuclear): 80-250 years. Refining uranium from sea: 5000-500.000 years. Overall, it seems to me that just assuring that we have resources for hundreds of thousands of years is a bit misleading or at least undisclosed strong optimism. I'd be happy to have a more scientific source with reliable information. [1] https://bettermeetsreality.com/how-much-uranium-is-left-in-the-world-on-land-in-oceans-when-will-we-run-out/ https://bettermeetsreality.com/how-much-uranium-is-left-in-t...
- hagbard_c 5y agoExtracting Uranium from sea water might solve the fuel problem but it does not deal with the waste problem. Breeder reactors can deal with both by reworking spent fuel into new fuel and a bit of waste. The resulting waste has a far smaller volume and shorter half-life which means it needs to be stored for hundreds, not thousands of years. Combining the two - Uranium from the sea plus breeder reactors to rework spent fuel - should last until either nuclear fusion has become practical or our species has left this planet.
- 5y ago
- Gravityloss 5y agoMaybe the German nuclear power industry isn't doing so great at the moment either. So if you don't have a horse in the race or jobs on the line... https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_Siemens_quits_the_nuclear_game_1909111.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_Siemens_quits_the_nucle...
- hannob 5y ago> It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and replace it with fossil fueled plants. That's not what's happening... Nuclear has been mostly replaced with renewables, while fossil fuel generation has been in slow decline as well. You may disagree with that policy, but please get your facts right.
- tokai 5y agoPlease get your facts right. Coal is rising in Germany. https://www.dw.com/en/coal-and-fossil-fuel-share-of-german-electricity-rises-in-3q/a-60114010 https://www.dw.com/en/coal-and-fossil-fuel-share-of-german-e...
- dr_dshiv 5y agoNice source. What I dont understand is: How did nuclear power grow so much last year—and how was there so little growth in renewables?
- hannob 5y agoThis is a short-term development over a couple of months. You will always have ups and downs of all sources of energy and if you look into a short amount of time you can find any energy source growing or declining to support your argument. But the relevant question is what development is happening in the long run. The third graph here gives you a good idea of the longterm developments of electricity generation in Germany: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
- tokai 5y agoWhat I'm seeing in those graphs is the same. Coal use rising from 2019 to now.
- Tade0 5y agoThat's just Q3 2021 compared to Q3 2020. https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising-but-the-switch-to-gas-should-continue/ https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising... The money quote: Similarly, by the end of June 2021, generation from coal-fired power plants was 39 percent higher than in the first six months of 2020. However, generation from coal-fired power in the first half of 2021 was still below the levels seen in 2019.
- iqanq 5y ago
- croes 5y agoGermans have also the stereotype of strong environmental consciousness and there still doesn't exist a location for the permanent disposal site of the nuclear waste. This combined with the experience of botched constructions like the berlin airport and the problems with intermediate storage locations like Asse does not exactly strengthen confidence. In theory, nuclear power may be safe, but in practice there is still too much room for corruption and bungling, which can have very long-term consequences.
- locallost 5y agoYou don't get it because you don't know the facts. Nuclear was replaced by renewables and their coal use is way down. They also started the coal phase out which will run on a schedule just like the nuclear phase out.
- yodelshady 5y agoCoal use is up: https://www.dw.com/en/coal-and-fossil-fuel-share-of-german-electricity-rises-in-3q/a-60114010 https://www.dw.com/en/coal-and-fossil-fuel-share-of-german-e... Gas use is also up, at 400 €/MWh that goes to a dictator who is overtly planning invasion of Eastern Europe. The southern part of which is rapidly becoming a desert: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/desertification-of-vast-territories-threatens-to-ukraine-in-next-30-40-years.html https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/desertification-of.... This is not brave, or principled, or sophisticated. It's a death toll with slightly higher plausible deniability.
- locallost 5y agoCoal use is way down, from 45% of their electricity in 2010, to 25% in 2020. Nuclear phase out started in 2011. Please don't spread misinformation - your article refers to Q3 2021. Here is the data (coal the bottom two): https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/styles/800w400h/public/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2021-05-10.png?itok=ePAY3Zf4 https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/styles/80...
- numlock86 5y agoAs a German I (mostly) welcomed the plan to shut down the nuclear power plants (at least the majority of those) that we have. Not because of fear but because the plants that are/were in operation are in terrible shape and predate back to the 60s and 70s mostly, with some exceptions. This is true for almost all of western Europe, too. I'd welcome building new modern ones as a substitution, though. Just look at what Asia, specifically India, does right now. Oh, and please shut down all fossil fueled plants with no exceptions forever.
- est31 5y ago> Not because of fear but because the plants that are/were in operation are in terrible shape and predate back to the 60s and 70s mostly, with some exceptions. Some sources on that: For example, the Biblis NPP does not have any spatial separation of the power supply and control cables. A scenario like the one that actually occurred at the U.S. nuclear power plant at Browns Ferry on March 22, 1975, would therefore also be possible at Biblis: When searching for an air leak, the controller used a burning candle. The cables were surrounded by foam, which ignited on the candle flame. This was not detected until the foam was already burning and significant damage had already occurred to the power supply and control cables. As a result, the power failed and almost all of the plant's emergency cooling systems of the reactor were no longer functional. Only one emergency cooling system was still available in Unit 2. Without adequate cooling, a meltdown can occur because radioactive decays in the reactors continue to generate such high heat after shutdown that reactor vessels could not withstand it. In the case of Browns Ferry, a meltdown was prevented because two condensate pumps that were present but actually intended for normal operating for the normal operating system were switched on. It's translated from a study on nuclear power plant insurances [0]. The section section about the security dangers of nuclear power plants was really interesting to read. The study also talks about things like rocket launchers aimed at nuclear power plants, the damage airplanes can inflict on them, risks of insider attacks, as well as the costs of a nuclear catastrophy. It's a good read if you know German. [0]: https://www.bee-ev.de/fileadmin/Publikationen/Studien/110511_BEE-Studie_Versicherungsforen_KKW.pdf https://www.bee-ev.de/fileadmin/Publikationen/Studien/110511...
- pydry 5y agoI don't get the positivity surrounding nuclear power and the claim that antipathy is akin to antivax idiocy. * It's eye wateringly expensive both to build and to decommission. Solar, wind and batteries are cheaper. Hornsea 2 produces the same power as a nuclear plant at half the price and with surprisingly low intermittency. * Even if it were the same price, nuclear takes decades to build rather than years. * Despite constant claims of its safety you wont find an insurance company in the world that will insure one without 99% of the cleanup cost being borne by taxpayer. Nuclear plants simply dont get built without taxpayer insurance and the nuclear industry refuses to take that risk themselves. * If current history is anything to go by the risk of disaster is about 1 in 4000 per reactor year and the cleanup cost in Japan is around the $600-800 billion mark. * It is possible to supplant it with green energy and Germany has done exactly that, which is why emissions have gone down. * The idea that spending more money on a more expensive and slower to build form of green energy will help speed up the green transition is dubious at best. Why is it so popular in spite of this? It helps offset some of the costs of having a nuclear arsenal (or puts you on the road to having one). This is a large part of why the US, China, UK and France are happy to pay up and take the risks while Germany and Japan threw in the towel.
- pmontra 5y agoI add to that list: * Most countries have to import uranium exactly as they have to import oil. They don't have to import sun and wind. * If a nuclear power plant seriously fails (2 accidents in 70 years) nobody and their nephew's nephew's will be able to live in that area. If a dam fails at least that ground is not lost forever. * Building, managing and eventually decommissioning a nuclear power plant has its own CO2 impact if we do it using fossil fuels. This is a fair assessment IMHO: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/nuclear-power-and-the-environment.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/nuclear-power-an...
- marax27 5y ago> If a nuclear power plant seriously fails (2 accidents in 70 years) nobody and their nephew's nephew's will be able to live in that area. People do live near Fukushima power plant. Regarding one of the nearby towns, Ōkuma: "In April 2019, parts of the town were deemed to have been successfully decontaminated, with residents allowed to return to these areas. [...] The actual population resident in the town was 2578 people". [1] > If a dam fails at least that ground is not lost forever. Relocating population for good is very much the case when it comes to dam _building_. [2] Nuclear power does have pros and cons, but let's stop with fearmongering. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckuma,_Fukushima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckuma,_Fukushima [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flooded_towns_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flooded_towns_in_the_U...
- martin_a 5y agoThe problem with nuclear energy in Germany is, that "the big four" (energy companies) have filled their pockets with sweet, sweet nuclear-power-money and have externalized all the other costs since the beginning. Insuring a nuclear power plant would cost 72 billion Euro/year [0] which gives a hint about how costly (and impactful) nuclear energy really is. Also there's not really a lot of Uranium on earth. Take [1] for example and this impressive quote: "Given these projections, the uranium resource base [...] is more than adequate to meet low and high case uranium demand through 2040 and beyond. Meeting high case demand requirements through 2040 would consume about 28% of the total 2019 identified resource base" So, 2040 is not that far, and if we build more nuclear power plants we get into that "high demand" area where we'll use 28% of all found Uranium by 2040. Ok, maybe we find more, but maybe we won't. Water, sunlight and wind on the other hand... Not sure if we can run out of those easily. Renewable energies are the one and only way to go. What's missing is smart(er) grids and sustainable, efficient and powerful solutions to save power once we create more than we use. Why are those missing? Because nobody (as in the "the big four") needed those, when you could just burn more coal or build another "money printer" aka nuclear power plant. So, nuclear energy in Germany is also always a long story of corruption and lobbyism par excellence. [0] https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761954.html https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761... [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/worlds-uranium-resources-enough-for-the-foreseeable-future-say-nea-and-iaea-in-new-report https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/worlds-uranium...
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago"that "the big four" (energy companies) have filled their pockets with sweet, sweet nuclear-power-money and have externalized all the other costs since the beginning." Presumably the government entered those contracts willingly, though. I don't understand this framing of "have filled their pockets". If you really believe the money was squandered, blame the politicians giving it away, not the energy companies. "So, 2040 is not that far, and if we build more nuclear power plants we get into that "high demand" area where we'll use 28% of all found Uranium by 2040." Just like peak oil that never happened? But even if we run out, they keep saying we have 10 years to prevent a climate catastrophe, so 20 years would buy us a lot of time in comparison. "a long story of corruption and lobbyism" Corruption in what sense? Lobbyism is not illegal, and in fact presumably necessary. The greens are also "lobbying" for solar power and wind power.
- neilwilson 5y agoYou have to remember that Germany is no longer a country. It is a state in the European Union and a member of the Eurozone. The French do nuclear power so the Germans don't have to. Except the French are not doing enough - despite being the biggest exporter of electricity in the region. Similarly California could be 'nuclear free' and put all the nuclear power stations in Oregon. Germany is still the second largest net exporter of power - primarily to Poland.
- blablabla123 5y agoActually the full "product life cycle" of Nuclear apart from mining is fully publicly discussed in Germany. I think the most interesting parts are recycling stages - if done - and (tentative) final storage. Both are a disaster especially the latter one. The infamous Asse II salt storage has severe problems with water influx which was up to 12 m^3 per day and 30 leaks at some point. Even the proponents of Nuclear don't want a final storage in their Bundesland. Also there have been several accidents independently in Fukushima, 3 mile Island and of course Chernobyl. Even more modern reactor designs solve some failure cases but really not all. Germany is already at almost 50% renewables. That's practically risk-free and the technology is there. I mean just look at all the battery tech craze. That said, Nuclear is heavily subsidized and no insurance in the world insures a Nuclear reactor.
- Arnt 5y agoOne of the relevant insurance... well, not companies. A company that acts for insurance agencies and others, doing actuary computations and such. Anyway, one of those was contracted to compute new insurance costs for nuclear power plants in Germany. If the state no longer limits their liability, but instead applies the same rules to nuclear power plants as it does to other industry, then the average German plants would need to pay €2×10⁹ per year for liability insurance and would have no chance to sell power at anything close to market price. They can't pay that much because no insurance agency has that scale, so that's out of the question. But even paying the maximum that an insurance agency will accept is out of the question, because even that would make the power too expensive. My guess is that there'll never be built any, because the renewable fans will make enough noise about this subsidy that the no-subsidies part of the public will be against, and together that's a solid majority. If the nuclear fans want to build, they have to find safer ways to build and operate, which IMO is an excellent state of affairs, ie. if new plants are built because they're safe enough to insure that's good, and if they're not because they're not, that also good. (I personally suspect that doing it with lower risk requires much research into much more safety-minded organisations than e.g. Tepco was, and if the nuclear businesses have focused on that in the past decade, I haven't noticed.)
- akvadrako 5y ago€2⁹, so 512 euro a year? I assume you meant some large number and that's probably because you are assuming they need to cover all kinds of exaggerated costs like lawsuits from people who get cancer or keeping radiation levels below the background level in case of a leak.
- Arnt 5y agoOh, crap. Mind thought 2e9, fingers typed 2⁹. Edited. Thanks. IIRC the bulk is property. German power plants are located in densely populated areas with high property prices. If a plant renders a smallish area unlivable and BMW has to vacate and replace a factory there, BMW will not want to take a loss on that.
- 5y ago
- marvinblum 5y agoI'm German and I don't know what we're doing. Prices are insane right now. New electricity contracts cost 45 cents per kilowatt-hour. Heating my home (82 sqm) with electricity costs about 400 euros a month right now alone. This will obviously get better in spring, but I don't know how citizens with lower incomes handle it.
- IAmEveryone 5y agoHeating a home with electricity is simply immoral. It's all the emissions of burning coal, multiplied by 3 due to generator and transmission losses. Besides, energy prices saw a steep rise in all of Europe, so it doesn't make much sense to blame the end of nuclear energy for it. Also, just a single reactor has shut down so far, 11 days ago. A single plant shutting down isn't enough to influence prices to such a degree. Besides, prices were at current levels well before that.
- asplake 5y ago> Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral. That's trivialising something complex. If coal is the source, perhaps. It's its way out though, and there'll come a point in the easily foreseeable future where to burn fossil fuel – gas, say – will be the least moral option.
- marvinblum 5y ago> Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral. Well, I built it last year, so I didn't know how much energy it would consume. Also, I'm still up to adding a photovoltaics plant on my roof and energy sources should be mostly green on windy and/or sunny days in Germany. > Besides, energy prices saw a steep rise in all of Europe, so it doesn't make much sense to blame the end of nuclear energy for it. I didn't blame nuclear specifically for it, but the German electricity politics are insane and far off from reality. Shutting down _any_ energy plant is a bad idea, considering how close we got to a blackout last year.
- fsflover 5y ago> Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral. Not if it uses a green energy source, e.g., nuclear.
- ginko 5y agoI think something that's not much noticed outside of the German-speaking countries is that there's a fairly large cultural movement that I would describe as naturist/esoteric ever since the 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensreform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensreform This influenced all kinds of German movements both on the left and right side of the political spectrum and for instance is the reason why nudism and homeopathy are so popular. I think it's also one of the explanations why COVID vaccination rates are currently lower than in Western and Southern Europe. This also leads to all kinds of absurd things like "vitalized water"[1] being used in hospital water systems in Austria. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belebtes_Wasser https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belebtes_Wasser https://www.isi-trade.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Benefits-of-VITAVORTEX.pdf https://www.isi-trade.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Benefits...
- cookiengineer 5y agoHistory: 1986 - Chernobyl happened. Wasn't our fault, but we got the fallout for it. Poisoned drinking water, people in quarantine and everything. And we were the lucky ones, the map for the East doesn't look any good. [4] 1991 - The "Schnelle Brueter" (SNR-300 / Kalkar) almost went up during a test. Political debate around investing additional 105 Mio DM was happening, but due to Chernobyl was leading against it. [5] ~1989 The THTR-300 (Thorium High Temperature Reactor) was spreading radioactive particles in the surrounding area, poisoning soil, water, and people. Additionally it was emitting too much radiation through burned particles [1] 1969-1998 - The SBH-Uran (Siemens Brennelementwerk Hanau) was closed down. The reactor didn't fullfill the legal requirements for handling enriched Uranium, and Siemens couldn't prove that they can fullfill them afterwards. [2] 1972-2011 - The KKW/AKW (Kern/Atomkraftwerk Kuemmel) was having a meltdown in 2005. 2 years later during cooldown phase, there was a fire, leading almost to an explosion. [3] The aftermath was poisoning surroundings with radioactive particles, as always. --- --- --- Note that years of cooldown is literally by-design and cannot be avoided. During the phase of an almost-meltdown and a cooldown phase afterwards, everything is at-high-risk for _YEARS_ where everything can literally explode any second if not done correctly. And these are only the cases I personally know about during my lifetime, there are probably more that never made it public and were successfully contained. So yeah, as a German I'm pretty much against radioactive reactors. This shit is highly unstable tech and should be treated as such. Especially given the lack of cybersecurity and/or outdated and unstable/never-even-patchable tech stacks running this. Also: France is putting their reactors on their Far-East border for a reason. Winds are more than 90% of the year from North-West to South-East, so I'd say they want the tech but don't want to deal with the aftermath. Also: Where do you store the radioactive trash? Simply where you bury all your plastic - in landfills - and build some homes over them to ignore it for a couple generations... or what? Ever thought about trash that needs to be sealed off and contained for _hundreds of years_ to come? I'm not saying coal plants are favorable (they're definitely not), but things like the NIF or established green tech like solar/wind energy makes far more sense to me - considering the risk tradeoffs. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300 [2] https://www.atommuellreport.de/daten/detail/rbu-hanau.html https://www.atommuellreport.de/daten/detail/rbu-hanau.html [3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Kr%C3%BCmmel https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Kr%C3%BCmmel [4] https://www.umweltanalysen.com/wissen/tschernobyl/ https://www.umweltanalysen.com/wissen/tschernobyl/ [5] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Kalkar https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Kalkar
- cracrecry 5y agoIt is about geopolitics. Germany, like Japan is an occupied country since WWII. The US controls it. The US does not want Germany to have either rocket industry or nuclear industry, because that makes them capable of making nuclear bombs. Also France and UK are terrified of Germany having a strong rocket or nuclear energy, and with good reason. They invented rockets and could make them much better and economically than they can. So the US wants to dismantle Germany nuclear industry and make it impossible for them to make nuclear bombs because they don't have either the people or the industry to support it. They will love to do that with France or UK too, if they could, but those countries will never do that, as they are much more independent that Germany is. The real reason Germany prime ministers do what the US wants is because the US pressures them all the time with economic sanctions and they must comply or else...
- captainmuon 5y agoGermans are sceptical especially because they view themselves as a nation of thinkers and scientists. They (rightfully) pride themselves on having developed the state of renewables not just for themselves but for everybody - wind, and especially solar. It's just a pity they lost the lead and trashed their solar industry (in my opionion, because of neoliberal ideology they failed to implement protectionist policies and stopped supporting the domestic industry too suddenly). Germany didn't decide to replace nuclear with fossil. As a fairly wealthy nation, they decided to replace nuclear with renewables and accepting higher energy prices and the need to use less energy. Because they decided the price (it is not a risk, but a certain price) of having nuclear waste is too high. When discussing the nuclear vs renewable vs fossil triangle, we tend to forget that there is a fourth screw to adjust: demand for energy.
- mateo1 5y agoAlthough I've stopped replying to comments like yours 10 years ago, when the same sediment was prevalent at reddit and the nuclear-pushing thinktanks made their first steps in the new online world of consensus manipulation, I think it's a good time to remind you that nuclear power is still dangerous, Chernobyl happened right in Germany's back yard and the term "green energy" isn't some kind of take on Cherenkov radiation or fluorescence. Luckily, a large part of Europe's population, mostly the older ones, vividly remember the horror or the nuclear clouds moving over their countries, the scarce and delayed information received about the accident, the ambiguous and conflicting information about the contamination of crops and food supplies. Between global warming and cancer, I choose global warming. So did Germany and most of Europe. France and Britain need large nuclear reactors for breeding weapons materials, so there's no way around that. All the bullshit justifications with safer new reactor technologies - keep them to yourself. If anything, besides more expensive, nuclear reactor designs have been getting bolder and bolder. Molten salts reactors are pushed as a safe alternative; a joke that would make any chemist shudder. This is just a reminder that we still exist and our opinions haven't changed, our willingness to express them in an online world dominated by corporate indoctrination however, has.
- rini17 5y ago> Between global warming and cancer, I choose global warming. So did Germany and most of Europe. France and Britain need large nuclear reactors for breeding weapons materials, so there's no way around that. Oh, you will get cancer either way. Every now and then highly carcinogenic crude is spilled into the environment. The ashes from fossil fuels contain heavy metals and radioactive elements, and are much harder to store or reprocess than nuclear waste. But as you say it's now all sediment(sic). So let's hope we manage to produce enough bateries in time to carry through somehow. Or, more realistically, have enough natural gas.
- fsflover 5y ago> think it's a good time to remind you that nuclear power is still dangerous In comparison to what? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#/media/File:Death_rates_from_energy_production_per_TWh_(including_solar).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#/media/File:Deat... > and the term "green energy" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 > Between global warming and cancer, I choose global warming. If you choose coal, you choose both: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_environmental_impact_of_the_coal_industry#Radiation_exposure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_environmental_impac...
- nivenkos 5y agoMaybe outside the EU... Germany doesn't have a positive image inside the EU at all. A nation of conservative Luddite bureaucrats ruling over the EU, and a puppet for the Americans. Meanwhile they extort and damage other EU nations with the ECB policies and push mass immigration to lower wages and destroy trade unions.