3 ms·

Alright maybe I'm the one being a little emotional, but hypocrisy makes my blood boil. https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-and-deadly-em

by ghusto 5y ago

Alright maybe I'm the one being a little emotional, but hypocrisy makes my blood boil. https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-and-deadly-emissions-spiked/ https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-a... > Following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant meltdown, Germany’s antinuclear lobby kicked into high gear, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protest. The German government quickly passed legislation to decommission all of the country’s nuclear reactors > ... > found that nuclear power was mostly replaced with power from coal plants, which led to the release of an additional 36 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or about a 5 percent increase in emissions So yes, they're fast. So much so that they've outpaced any plans that should have existed to go alongside phasing out nuclear power. I hope you're right and they're at least going to be in good shape in a few years, but I both doubt that, and it doesn't change the damage they're doing right now.

Archelaos 5y ago
By skilfully omitting details and cleverly juxtaposing statements, the article you cite evokes connections and conclusions that are not correct. I would therefore like to mention a few things that are also important in this context. The decision for abondoning nuclear power did not follow the Fukushima desaster of 11 March 2011, but preceeded it by more than 10 years. The agreement between the German federal government and the energy supply companies to phase out nuclear energy dates back to 14 June 2000. The first nuclear power plant was shut down permanently in Nov. 2003. It was planned to shut the last one down between 2015/2020. In 2010, a new government extended the operating term by several years (depending on the individual power plant), but returned in 2011, after Fukushima, to an earlier phase out, but which was still later (2022) than the initial decision from 2000. The first decision for abondoning nuclear power was a project of a coalition of the SPD (labour) and the Green party. From late 2005 to late 2021 the Green party was not part of the government. The result was a slowdown in efforts to switch to renewable energies, in particular before 2010. But even after Fukushima the government was very slow to push ahead with the measures necessary for a switch to renewable energies, especially the planning and implementation of new long-distance power lines. The operators of the nuclear power plants were more or less the same as the operators of the coal-fired power plants: RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON/PreussenElectra, EnBW. (The STEAG is the only major coal-plant operator that was not involved in nuclear energy.) In other words, Germany's nuclear industry is more or less identical with its carbon-based industry. It was their lobbying within the Merkel cabints from 2005 to 2021 that resulted in the deal to replace nuclear with coal, instead of switching to the new technologies of their competitors faster. The deficits in the current situation were therefore not caused by the political forces that advocated a switch from nuclear and coal to renewable energies, but by those who stood in the way of this change. Personally, I very much support this restructuring, but I am not dogmatic. In view of the situation in Ukraine, I would have spontaneously thought it appropriate to extend the lifetime of the last three nuclear power plants. However, I have read in the press that this is not practical for at least two reasons: firstly, in order to keep them running longer, they would have to be maintained (technical tests and repairs would be necessary), which would mean that they would have to be taken off the grid soon for several month, and secondly, the procurement of new fuel elements would reportedly take about one and a half years.

by ghusto 5y ago

Archelaos 5y ago

By skilfully omitting details and cleverly juxtaposing statements, the article you cite evokes connections and conclusions that are not correct. I would therefore like to mention a few things that are also important in this context. The decision for abondoning nuclear power did not follow the Fukushima desaster of 11 March 2011, but preceeded it by more than 10 years. The agreement between the German federal government and the energy supply companies to phase out nuclear energy dates back to 14 June 2000. The first nuclear power plant was shut down permanently in Nov. 2003. It was planned to shut the last one down between 2015/2020. In 2010, a new government extended the operating term by several years (depending on the individual power plant), but returned in 2011, after Fukushima, to an earlier phase out, but which was still later (2022) than the initial decision from 2000. The first decision for abondoning nuclear power was a project of a coalition of the SPD (labour) and the Green party. From late 2005 to late 2021 the Green party was not part of the government. The result was a slowdown in efforts to switch to renewable energies, in particular before 2010. But even after Fukushima the government was very slow to push ahead with the measures necessary for a switch to renewable energies, especially the planning and implementation of new long-distance power lines. The operators of the nuclear power plants were more or less the same as the operators of the coal-fired power plants: RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON/PreussenElectra, EnBW. (The STEAG is the only major coal-plant operator that was not involved in nuclear energy.) In other words, Germany's nuclear industry is more or less identical with its carbon-based industry. It was their lobbying within the Merkel cabints from 2005 to 2021 that resulted in the deal to replace nuclear with coal, instead of switching to the new technologies of their competitors faster. The deficits in the current situation were therefore not caused by the political forces that advocated a switch from nuclear and coal to renewable energies, but by those who stood in the way of this change. Personally, I very much support this restructuring, but I am not dogmatic. In view of the situation in Ukraine, I would have spontaneously thought it appropriate to extend the lifetime of the last three nuclear power plants. However, I have read in the press that this is not practical for at least two reasons: firstly, in order to keep them running longer, they would have to be maintained (technical tests and repairs would be necessary), which would mean that they would have to be taken off the grid soon for several month, and secondly, the procurement of new fuel elements would reportedly take about one and a half years.