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What I read in this article is that German government did a thorough analysis, but the author dismisses the conclusions of it because the tolerated risk level t

What I read in this article is that German government did a thorough analysis, but the author dismisses the conclusions of it because the tolerated risk level there is too low and because it’s done by a minister from the Greens party. If this was written by an expert, that could make some sense, but it is not. Nuclear plant is not a startup, where you can just skip the QA part to release faster or put a not working cookie banner for few months, because nobody really checks compliance. You have to conduct safety tests, there should be enough staff and replacement parts, fuel supply must be secured, waste disposal must be planned in advance. Calling to accept risks of not doing this properly is not exactly what German public supports. The polls are tricky thing to do. If you ask certain questions you will get whatever results you want. I’m sure it was not explained to the public in the poll that they will have to accept higher risks of nuclear disaster if reactors will be allowed to operate. Everyone thinks that it is as safe as it was in the past - no wonder majority would support it to help Ukraine. The thing is, this majority also includes supporters of Greens and the party itself is not the same as it was in 80s. Greens are no longer unconditional pacifists and anti-nuclear hippies. They are the biggest supporters of sending heavy weapons to Ukraine now. They would extend nuclear if possible, because it advances the more important agenda of reducing emissions and helps Ukraine. They were ready to wait 20 years to phase out nuclear in 2000s, and it wasn’t Greens who accelerated shutdown after Fukushima. It was pro-business CDU with Merkel as a head of the government. This is why I would rather trust Habeck with his report than some random guy from the Internet with a political message.

silexia 5y ago
Major PR investments are made by oil dictators to undermine the only real competition they face: nuclear. Nuclear has killed a few hundred people in it's whole history while oil pollution kills millions a year and is controlled by the most evil humans on our planet.
hedora 5y ago
You're repeating some of the excuses the article addresses. - The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert. - They quantify the additional risk of meltdown due to delaying new safety regulations. It's negligible compared to operating plants according to the new regulations. - Their proposal would increase Germany's stockpile of nuclear waste by 3%, which is surely within engineering tolerances, ignoring the fact that the disposal facilities were planned before they decided to prematurely close the plants. I don't see how it matters which political party made which political decisions in the past. Conditions have changed.
- hchz 5y ago
  The author only said they took classes in nuclear engineering. I think it’s unreasonable to classify someone as an expert because they took a few courses in the curriculum for a related discipline.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert. That's not how it works. Just going to grad school (and it appears this is just for a Master's) doesn't imply you're suddenly an expert on an entire discipline. Even full professors don't generally claim to be experts in their entire fields; they become experts in their niches sub-fields/areas of research. You'd need to know what topics someone has actually studied, what their work/research was like, etc. before you can assume they're an expert in the areas you care about, and that information isn't given here.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    I think this is moving the goalposts. According to you it's not enough to have the qualifications, you need specific ones in specific sub areas. What's to stop you dismissing him by dividing it up even more if it turns out he's actually studied the right area? To me it sounds a bit like when anti vaxxers dismiss doctors who aren't epidemiologists, or when people dismiss Krugman because he's a trade economist and not some other subspecialty. Just give the guy credit for his claim that he's studied this, chances are he's closer to the area than people who don't claim expertise and otherwise let him present his case, which is what really matters anyway.
    - dataflow 5y ago
      > What's to stop you dismissing him by dividing it up even more if it turns out he's actually studied the right area? I would think my reasonableness would stop me in that case, but there's not much I can offer you when you've already assumed otherwise. And to be extremely clear: I was merely responding to the metric/reasoning used in the parent comment, not making any claims about the author's qualifications in particular. It would've applied to anybody, whether Einstein or just a random dude. Even for Einstein, you don't say "I know Einstein was an expert because he went to grad school", you say (for example) "I know Einstein was an expert in mechanics because he came up with relativity, an expert in electromagnetism because he explained the photoelectric effect, etc." That was my point, is all.
Krasnol 5y ago
> The survey, which the Civey research institute conducted You can forget those Civey online surveys. They're useless and the local nuclar fan club has been training their followers on when and where to vote.
gigatexal 5y ago
Work is being done to make them much safer
- Krasnol 5y ago
  Not in Germany. In Germany not even the operators what nuclear back because renewables are the way now: https://www.ft.com/content/9a3228bd-6927-4d46-aa20-4c693811e720 https://www.ft.com/content/9a3228bd-6927-4d46-aa20-4c693811e...
  - barney54 5y ago
    The operators will make more money from renewables, so of course they don’t want to run fully depreciated nuclear plants.
harha 5y ago
Have you been to Germany? As a non-German who has lived there, I wouldn’t trust government to make good well-founded decisions in the interest of their voters.
- riedel 5y ago
  It typically is sufficient if German voters trust their government's decision. Sure you can argue for another smart dictator, but the German majority IMHO is backing the anti nuclear course of their government. The question currently is not gas vs nuclear at the moment. Building new reactors does not make any sense, given the current risk/cost/value IMHO: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ Running the remaining reactors that account for a fraction of Germany's energy production longer probably does not solve much. Particularly heating in Germany cannot be switched easily to gas. For power gas particularly addresses peak energy production from what I know. If you do not want to build back renewables that are fluctuating there is a need for gas currently. As it is about coal vs nuclear it is a bit of a different story. Here we might come to the part were we might see politics failing in Germany, but this is very much because coal mining is a very central element to Germans culture. Government really only represents it's citizens. I think this is a good thing. I do not want to live in another country regardless of the political party currently ruling. Looking at countries >80M citizens where are the more trustworthy governments???
  - harha 5y ago
    Smart dictator isn't typically a sustainable strategy, there are democracies that do much better, the most typical example being Switzerland. My impression is that this is a typical German reply to criticism, yes there are worse cases, but it's not helpful to find a worse comparison if you want to grow. From my outsider view and having lived in a bunch of places, I don't have the impression that the German government is doing a good service to their citizens (and definitely not to expats in high earning jobs). The policy around nuclear power and coal is making Europe as a whole less stable and prosperous (again, my view). Anyhow, not going to argue with a German, best decision I've made was to leave, worst was to move there in the first place.
Archelaos 5y ago
One should also not forget that Germany's nuclear industry is identical with its fossil-energy industry: RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON/PreussenElectra, EnBW. (STEAG is the only major fossil-energy company that was not involved in nuclear energy.) The situation Germany finds itself in today is the direct result of these companies lobbying the various Merkel governments between 2005 and 2021. Instead of relying heavily on renewables, too much emphasis was placed on coal and gas when nuclear power was phased out. These companies were able to continue operating their old coal-fired power plants for a very long time, despite strong opposition, especially from the Green party. Of all the parties represented in parliament, it was the Greens that was most critical about this policy in the last two decades. It was the Greens who, from the very beginning of his presidency, repeatedly and most strongly spoke out against Putin, his criminal warfare and suppression of human rights. It was the Greens who criticised North Stream 2 the most. It is the Greens, whose supporters today are most strongly in favour of a ban on imports of Russian gas and oil[1], and most strongly advocate the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine.[2] Guess whose judgement I trust the most, both with regard to the war in Ukraine and for a future energy policy. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7833~_v-videowebl.jpg https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7833~_v-... [2] https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7837~_v-videowebl.jpg https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7837~_v-...
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  That nuclear power plants are operated by fossil-energy companies explains why I keep hearing from Germany that the companies running the nuclear plants have no interest in expanding their life at this point.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    It has more to do with profits. Companies tend to take profitable opportunities. Nuclear power isn't that profitable if governments insists on those pesky regulations.
- nullc 5y ago
  > Instead of relying heavily on renewables, too much emphasis was placed on coal and gas when nuclear power was phased out What power source do you recommend they use to level off supply when solar/wind aren't producing?
oih2o3hjji 5y ago
Helmut10001 5y ago
Correct. From a German perspective, it is also easier to support France in maintaining its Nuclear Power Plants (and focus on renewables at home), than to resurrect the few German ones.
- Glawen 5y ago
  From a French perspective, the fight over nuclear green taxonomy did not went well here. And now that they suck Putin's d** I start wondering if Germany is an ally, or a foreign agent leech.
anothernewdude 5y ago
> Greens are no longer unconditional pacifists and anti-nuclear hippies No, they're just anti-nuclear hippies.
imtringued 5y ago
It's kind of absurd that 16 years of Merkel were ignored in the article. She was the one who made the decision to shut them down. You can't just undo 11 years in half a year. If Germany wanted to have more nuclear power it would be better off designing a new nuclear power plant and building a dozen of them.
ricardobayes 5y ago
"put a not working cookie banner for few months, because nobody really checks compliance." This hits so close to home you wouldn't believe.
belorn 5y ago
> What I read in this article is that German government did a thorough analysis I am unsure how you came to that conclusion. A cost–benefit analysis need to include the benefit aspect, as otherwise it is by definition not a cost–benefit analysis. > Everyone thinks that it is as safe as it was in the past The article explicitly states that the security is just as safe as it was in the past. That is the issue that the German government analysis brings up. The German government has regulations that require plants to be more safe than it was in the past. It need to increase from one accident in 100,000 years, to less than one accident in 100,000 years. The German government analysis do not explain why this is more important than the benefits.

silexia 5y ago

Major PR investments are made by oil dictators to undermine the only real competition they face: nuclear. Nuclear has killed a few hundred people in it's whole history while oil pollution kills millions a year and is controlled by the most evil humans on our planet.

hedora 5y ago

You're repeating some of the excuses the article addresses. - The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert. - They quantify the additional risk of meltdown due to delaying new safety regulations. It's negligible compared to operating plants according to the new regulations. - Their proposal would increase Germany's stockpile of nuclear waste by 3%, which is surely within engineering tolerances, ignoring the fact that the disposal facilities were planned before they decided to prematurely close the plants. I don't see how it matters which political party made which political decisions in the past. Conditions have changed.

hchz 5y ago
The author only said they took classes in nuclear engineering. I think it’s unreasonable to classify someone as an expert because they took a few courses in the curriculum for a related discipline.
dataflow 5y ago
> The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert. That's not how it works. Just going to grad school (and it appears this is just for a Master's) doesn't imply you're suddenly an expert on an entire discipline. Even full professors don't generally claim to be experts in their entire fields; they become experts in their niches sub-fields/areas of research. You'd need to know what topics someone has actually studied, what their work/research was like, etc. before you can assume they're an expert in the areas you care about, and that information isn't given here.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  I think this is moving the goalposts. According to you it's not enough to have the qualifications, you need specific ones in specific sub areas. What's to stop you dismissing him by dividing it up even more if it turns out he's actually studied the right area? To me it sounds a bit like when anti vaxxers dismiss doctors who aren't epidemiologists, or when people dismiss Krugman because he's a trade economist and not some other subspecialty. Just give the guy credit for his claim that he's studied this, chances are he's closer to the area than people who don't claim expertise and otherwise let him present his case, which is what really matters anyway.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > What's to stop you dismissing him by dividing it up even more if it turns out he's actually studied the right area? I would think my reasonableness would stop me in that case, but there's not much I can offer you when you've already assumed otherwise. And to be extremely clear: I was merely responding to the metric/reasoning used in the parent comment, not making any claims about the author's qualifications in particular. It would've applied to anybody, whether Einstein or just a random dude. Even for Einstein, you don't say "I know Einstein was an expert because he went to grad school", you say (for example) "I know Einstein was an expert in mechanics because he came up with relativity, an expert in electromagnetism because he explained the photoelectric effect, etc." That was my point, is all.

Krasnol 5y ago

> The survey, which the Civey research institute conducted You can forget those Civey online surveys. They're useless and the local nuclar fan club has been training their followers on when and where to vote.

gigatexal 5y ago

Work is being done to make them much safer

Krasnol 5y ago
Not in Germany. In Germany not even the operators what nuclear back because renewables are the way now: https://www.ft.com/content/9a3228bd-6927-4d46-aa20-4c693811e720 https://www.ft.com/content/9a3228bd-6927-4d46-aa20-4c693811e...
- barney54 5y ago
  The operators will make more money from renewables, so of course they don’t want to run fully depreciated nuclear plants.

harha 5y ago

Have you been to Germany? As a non-German who has lived there, I wouldn’t trust government to make good well-founded decisions in the interest of their voters.

riedel 5y ago
It typically is sufficient if German voters trust their government's decision. Sure you can argue for another smart dictator, but the German majority IMHO is backing the anti nuclear course of their government. The question currently is not gas vs nuclear at the moment. Building new reactors does not make any sense, given the current risk/cost/value IMHO: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/ Running the remaining reactors that account for a fraction of Germany's energy production longer probably does not solve much. Particularly heating in Germany cannot be switched easily to gas. For power gas particularly addresses peak energy production from what I know. If you do not want to build back renewables that are fluctuating there is a need for gas currently. As it is about coal vs nuclear it is a bit of a different story. Here we might come to the part were we might see politics failing in Germany, but this is very much because coal mining is a very central element to Germans culture. Government really only represents it's citizens. I think this is a good thing. I do not want to live in another country regardless of the political party currently ruling. Looking at countries >80M citizens where are the more trustworthy governments???
- harha 5y ago
  Smart dictator isn't typically a sustainable strategy, there are democracies that do much better, the most typical example being Switzerland. My impression is that this is a typical German reply to criticism, yes there are worse cases, but it's not helpful to find a worse comparison if you want to grow. From my outsider view and having lived in a bunch of places, I don't have the impression that the German government is doing a good service to their citizens (and definitely not to expats in high earning jobs). The policy around nuclear power and coal is making Europe as a whole less stable and prosperous (again, my view). Anyhow, not going to argue with a German, best decision I've made was to leave, worst was to move there in the first place.

Archelaos 5y ago

One should also not forget that Germany's nuclear industry is identical with its fossil-energy industry: RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON/PreussenElectra, EnBW. (STEAG is the only major fossil-energy company that was not involved in nuclear energy.) The situation Germany finds itself in today is the direct result of these companies lobbying the various Merkel governments between 2005 and 2021. Instead of relying heavily on renewables, too much emphasis was placed on coal and gas when nuclear power was phased out. These companies were able to continue operating their old coal-fired power plants for a very long time, despite strong opposition, especially from the Green party. Of all the parties represented in parliament, it was the Greens that was most critical about this policy in the last two decades. It was the Greens who, from the very beginning of his presidency, repeatedly and most strongly spoke out against Putin, his criminal warfare and suppression of human rights. It was the Greens who criticised North Stream 2 the most. It is the Greens, whose supporters today are most strongly in favour of a ban on imports of Russian gas and oil[1], and most strongly advocate the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine.[2] Guess whose judgement I trust the most, both with regard to the war in Ukraine and for a future energy policy. [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7833~_v-videowebl.jpg https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7833~_v-... [2] https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7837~_v-videowebl.jpg https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/crchart-7837~_v-...

ajmurmann 5y ago
That nuclear power plants are operated by fossil-energy companies explains why I keep hearing from Germany that the companies running the nuclear plants have no interest in expanding their life at this point.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  It has more to do with profits. Companies tend to take profitable opportunities. Nuclear power isn't that profitable if governments insists on those pesky regulations.
nullc 5y ago
> Instead of relying heavily on renewables, too much emphasis was placed on coal and gas when nuclear power was phased out What power source do you recommend they use to level off supply when solar/wind aren't producing?

oih2o3hjji 5y ago

Helmut10001 5y ago

Correct. From a German perspective, it is also easier to support France in maintaining its Nuclear Power Plants (and focus on renewables at home), than to resurrect the few German ones.

Glawen 5y ago
From a French perspective, the fight over nuclear green taxonomy did not went well here. And now that they suck Putin's d** I start wondering if Germany is an ally, or a foreign agent leech.

anothernewdude 5y ago

> Greens are no longer unconditional pacifists and anti-nuclear hippies No, they're just anti-nuclear hippies.

imtringued 5y ago

It's kind of absurd that 16 years of Merkel were ignored in the article. She was the one who made the decision to shut them down. You can't just undo 11 years in half a year. If Germany wanted to have more nuclear power it would be better off designing a new nuclear power plant and building a dozen of them.

ricardobayes 5y ago

"put a not working cookie banner for few months, because nobody really checks compliance." This hits so close to home you wouldn't believe.

belorn 5y ago

> What I read in this article is that German government did a thorough analysis I am unsure how you came to that conclusion. A cost–benefit analysis need to include the benefit aspect, as otherwise it is by definition not a cost–benefit analysis. > Everyone thinks that it is as safe as it was in the past The article explicitly states that the security is just as safe as it was in the past. That is the issue that the German government analysis brings up. The German government has regulations that require plants to be more safe than it was in the past. It need to increase from one accident in 100,000 years, to less than one accident in 100,000 years. The German government analysis do not explain why this is more important than the benefits.