4 ms·

Everything in life is a tradeoff. To me, the risks of keeping the nuclear plants in Germany are much lower than the risks of continuing to fund Russia.

ivan_gammel 5y ago
The economic effects of stopping gas consumption are not immediate for Russia due to large financial reserves and it will not stop the war. It will certainly harm Russian economy, but several months later and EU has no power to fully stop Russian exports - China is a big consumer too.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hedora 5y ago
  This is the beginning of a multi decade conflict. The end game is Russia becoming a North Korean style vassal state of China. Every world leader that is speaking about the conflict seems fine with this outcome. Also, it will take a while for Russia to build enough natural gas pipelines to China. In practice, those pipelines will be Putin's leash. (He will need China, but they have no need for him.) I hope Ukraine maintains its independence, but it's just the first battle in a war Putin accidentally created, and will surely lose.
  - DasIch 5y ago
    > This is the beginning of a multi decade conflict. Germany is currently removing the dependency on russian gas. There is a consensus on this within Germany. The discussion on this topic revolves entirely around the question of how quickly to do this. If this is or sure a multi decade conflict, what does it matter if this takes 1-2y instead of 1-2 weeks?
    - someguydave 5y ago
      Agreed. Many folks in this thread seem to be saying things like “it will only help some” or “it will take a long time” which are not arguments against going back to nuclear power.
  - ozfive 5y ago
    > I hope Ukraine maintains its independence, but it's just the first battle in a war Putin accidentally created, and will surely lose. Putin did NOT accidentally create this war. It's clear that this was intentional and that there are real people suffering because of that intention. He tried opening more doors to see what benefits he could gain. That isn't an accident.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      Maybe OP meant it in the way that Putin wanted to just rush over Ukraine, replace the government and be done with it. That would have been a very short war at best. But that is not the war he got, so yes, he "accidentally" created the current one.
      - someguydave 5y ago
        “Accident” implies a lack of responsibility, which is not the case.
        hedora 5y ago
        I meant he accidentally started WWIII at the same time he made it clear Russia's military is collapsing from the inside out. It probably won't escalate to a shooting war outside of Ukraine, but that's mostly because the rest of the world will probably be able to stop him via a proxy war. He showed spectacular lack of judgment. I'm sorry if anyone thought I meant he lacks responsibility for his actions. I hope Putin is charged and convicted of war crimes.
        bayesian_horse 5y ago
        By your definition the Korean and Vietnam Wars would have counted as World War Three as well. There is a kind of an economic world war brewing right now, but I expected China to be on the receiving end from the start...
    - imtringued 5y ago
kitkat_new 5y ago
continuing the nuclear power will have almost no impact on the war or dependence to Russia. The biggest issue by far is gas
- hedora 5y ago
  The article covers this. The electricity that would be produced by the plants is enough to offset 100% of Russian natural gas imports. Gas and electricity are not entirely fungible, but Germany uses enough natural gas to produce electricity to cover the reduced imports.
  - blub 5y ago
    Gas and electricity are not at all fungible for Germany or the EU. You’ve repeatedly made this claim in the thread and other commenters posted detailed reports showing the use of gas in the German economy. It’s suicidal for the EU to give up gas short or mid term.
    - someguydave 5y ago
      Gas used for electric production and nuclear electricity are absolutely fungible. I suspect that at least some nuclear power could be brought back online within months if there was a will to do so.
    - Xylakant 5y ago
      To make the point a little clearer - natural gas is an important resource for the chemical industry, for example input to the Haber-Bosch synthesis of Ammonia. The Hydrogen used is mostly gained from methane, that is natural gas. Ammonia is fundamental in producing fertilizer - cutting of natural gas could severely reduce fertilizer production, at a time when two of the largest grain exporters are at war and unlikely to produce much in terms of exports. It’s possible to produce the required hydrogen using electricity and electrolysis, but not at a moments notice. You can’t just easily replace gas in electricity production by using nuclear- gas power plants are used for peak load, nuclear power plants for base load.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
To me the likelihood of even the remaining nuclear reactors having serious accidents is higher than Russia trying something successfully against Germany. You can say to Putin: "You and what army?" It looks like virtually any NATO member state would be able to defend itself alone against the conventional army of Russia, much less with allied help. Nuclear weapons is another topic, but those won't be affected by short term sanctions in the slightest...
- someguydave 5y ago
  Can you actually quantify these risks like the article does?
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Nobody can quantify these risks and that's a big problem. Assuming the risk conforms to what happened before is a dangerous fallacy. For example so far nobody purposefully sabotaged a plant, stole radioactive material for dirty bombs and no semi-rogue country used a nuclear weapon. None of that risk is quantifiable. But what happened in Fukushima or Tschernobyl is bad enough. The damage caused by the Fukushima incident might well run into the trillion US Dollar range. No, it's not cleaned up yet, they still don't really know what to do with all the soil and how to demolish the plant. You really don't want anything like that happening in your country, even at the low probabilities the nuclear lobby claims.

ivan_gammel 5y ago

The economic effects of stopping gas consumption are not immediate for Russia due to large financial reserves and it will not stop the war. It will certainly harm Russian economy, but several months later and EU has no power to fully stop Russian exports - China is a big consumer too.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hedora 5y ago
This is the beginning of a multi decade conflict. The end game is Russia becoming a North Korean style vassal state of China. Every world leader that is speaking about the conflict seems fine with this outcome. Also, it will take a while for Russia to build enough natural gas pipelines to China. In practice, those pipelines will be Putin's leash. (He will need China, but they have no need for him.) I hope Ukraine maintains its independence, but it's just the first battle in a war Putin accidentally created, and will surely lose.
- DasIch 5y ago
  > This is the beginning of a multi decade conflict. Germany is currently removing the dependency on russian gas. There is a consensus on this within Germany. The discussion on this topic revolves entirely around the question of how quickly to do this. If this is or sure a multi decade conflict, what does it matter if this takes 1-2y instead of 1-2 weeks?
  - someguydave 5y ago
    Agreed. Many folks in this thread seem to be saying things like “it will only help some” or “it will take a long time” which are not arguments against going back to nuclear power.
- ozfive 5y ago
  > I hope Ukraine maintains its independence, but it's just the first battle in a war Putin accidentally created, and will surely lose. Putin did NOT accidentally create this war. It's clear that this was intentional and that there are real people suffering because of that intention. He tried opening more doors to see what benefits he could gain. That isn't an accident.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Maybe OP meant it in the way that Putin wanted to just rush over Ukraine, replace the government and be done with it. That would have been a very short war at best. But that is not the war he got, so yes, he "accidentally" created the current one.
    - someguydave 5y ago
      “Accident” implies a lack of responsibility, which is not the case.
      - hedora 5y ago
        I meant he accidentally started WWIII at the same time he made it clear Russia's military is collapsing from the inside out. It probably won't escalate to a shooting war outside of Ukraine, but that's mostly because the rest of the world will probably be able to stop him via a proxy war. He showed spectacular lack of judgment. I'm sorry if anyone thought I meant he lacks responsibility for his actions. I hope Putin is charged and convicted of war crimes.
        bayesian_horse 5y ago
        By your definition the Korean and Vietnam Wars would have counted as World War Three as well. There is a kind of an economic world war brewing right now, but I expected China to be on the receiving end from the start...
  - imtringued 5y ago

kitkat_new 5y ago

continuing the nuclear power will have almost no impact on the war or dependence to Russia. The biggest issue by far is gas

hedora 5y ago
The article covers this. The electricity that would be produced by the plants is enough to offset 100% of Russian natural gas imports. Gas and electricity are not entirely fungible, but Germany uses enough natural gas to produce electricity to cover the reduced imports.
- blub 5y ago
  Gas and electricity are not at all fungible for Germany or the EU. You’ve repeatedly made this claim in the thread and other commenters posted detailed reports showing the use of gas in the German economy. It’s suicidal for the EU to give up gas short or mid term.
  - someguydave 5y ago
    Gas used for electric production and nuclear electricity are absolutely fungible. I suspect that at least some nuclear power could be brought back online within months if there was a will to do so.
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    To make the point a little clearer - natural gas is an important resource for the chemical industry, for example input to the Haber-Bosch synthesis of Ammonia. The Hydrogen used is mostly gained from methane, that is natural gas. Ammonia is fundamental in producing fertilizer - cutting of natural gas could severely reduce fertilizer production, at a time when two of the largest grain exporters are at war and unlikely to produce much in terms of exports. It’s possible to produce the required hydrogen using electricity and electrolysis, but not at a moments notice. You can’t just easily replace gas in electricity production by using nuclear- gas power plants are used for peak load, nuclear power plants for base load.

bayesian_horse 5y ago

To me the likelihood of even the remaining nuclear reactors having serious accidents is higher than Russia trying something successfully against Germany. You can say to Putin: "You and what army?" It looks like virtually any NATO member state would be able to defend itself alone against the conventional army of Russia, much less with allied help. Nuclear weapons is another topic, but those won't be affected by short term sanctions in the slightest...

someguydave 5y ago
Can you actually quantify these risks like the article does?
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Nobody can quantify these risks and that's a big problem. Assuming the risk conforms to what happened before is a dangerous fallacy. For example so far nobody purposefully sabotaged a plant, stole radioactive material for dirty bombs and no semi-rogue country used a nuclear weapon. None of that risk is quantifiable. But what happened in Fukushima or Tschernobyl is bad enough. The damage caused by the Fukushima incident might well run into the trillion US Dollar range. No, it's not cleaned up yet, they still don't really know what to do with all the soil and how to demolish the plant. You really don't want anything like that happening in your country, even at the low probabilities the nuclear lobby claims.