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a) Because it's no longer technically feasible not to shut these plants down. b) Because it's not politically tenable. c) Because nuclear energy has long sinc

a) Because it's no longer technically feasible not to shut these plants down. b) Because it's not politically tenable. c) Because nuclear energy has long since been a minor part of electricity generation, and it wouldn't make much of a difference now. d) Because it has nothing to do with imports of Russian gas and oil, which is overwhelmingly used for heating, fuel, and industrial purposes. Gas (not just from Russia) only makes up less than 10% of electricity generation. Oil is virtually not used at all for that. e) Because it's by far the most expensive way of generating electricity, and would not be economically viable without massive subsidies. France's EDF is tens of billions in debt and would be bankrupt without the government backstopping them. f) Because long-term storage of nuclear waste is still not properly solved. g) Because mining nuclear materials is an ecological disaster. Also, guess who's a big exporter of uranium in Europe? Russia. h) Because our long-term plan to switch to renewable sources of energy has been in full swing for over 20 years, and is coming along nicely with fossil fuels more and more getting phased out. Bonus point: It's incredibly funny how the people who complain about us shutting down our nuclear power plants pretty much always come from countries that have a substantially lower share of renewable energy than we do (ours is at around 45% now) and often import more gas from Russia at least on a per-capita basis then we do, too.

zemvpferreira 4y ago
Well I'm from Portugal, where renewable power generation percent swings between the low 60's and the high 80's depending on the month and where we don't have any need for gas heating whatsoever. I also personally own and tend to 70 hectares of forest so I'm pretty willing to bet my carbon footprint is way way better than yours. According to your nonsense standard I should be a credible person to make this comment: How will Germany solve base load generation for power and heating without nuclear or fossil fuels in a country with weather as shit as Germany? Some of your points are reasonable but they are mostly silly, especially without any discussion of the elephant in the room. Anything else is greenwashing garbage. (lived in Frankfurt for a spell and will never go back. Nuclear-neutral, I dig it but whatever's cheapest is ok for me. Techno-positive on climate change. If you want to be ecological move somewhere tropical, live simple and never leave)
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  > Well I'm from Portugal, where renewable power generation percent swings between the low 60's and the high 80's depending on the month and where we don't have any need for gas heating whatsoever. Yes. Sure. The country is roughly 4 times smaller than Germany, the population is 10m vs 83m in Germany and you don’t get continental climate.
  - glogla 4y ago
    Things should be easier in a larger country due to economics of scale. Also Germany is war richer than Portugal. Germany uses fossil fuels because they want to, not because they have to.
- freemint 4y ago
  > How will Germany solve base load generation for power and heating without nuclear or fossil fuels in a country with weather as shit as Germany? Gas power plants which will be upgraded to burn more and more hydrogen distributed using existing Erdgas infrastructure stored in subterranean salt caverns produced by surplus energy using electrolyzers. For shorter term swings are compensated with a mix of demand management, solid batteries, redox flow batteries, underwater pumped hydro, .... What evers s cheapest for the usecase
kdbeall_ 4y ago
> Because mining nuclear materials is an ecological disaster. Also, guess who's a big exporter of uranium in Europe? Russia. Cameco could easily restart Rabbit Lake and McArthur River. Supply is no issue. Claiming that mining uranium is an "ecological disaster" is disingenuous. It's not excessively dangerous relative to other mining operations.
vba616 4y ago
>f) Because long-term storage of nuclear waste is still not properly solved. >g) Because mining nuclear materials is an ecological disaster. Also, guess who's a big exporter of uranium in Europe? Russia. These are real problems, however I've seen people state that they are entirely results of political decisions that could be revoked. That's because the reactor waste can be recycled to make more power, reducing the fuel and the waste problem tremendously. I guess that there are conventional excuses not to, something about proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear material. But I don't understand why this matters if climate change is real and lots of countries have nuclear weapons anyway. Though I suppose not Germany.
nullc 4y ago
> Because it's by far the most expensive way of generating electricity This is a bogus point, FWIW. Nuclear energy is the only energy source that we expect to substantially internalize its externalities. All other forms have significant externalities that we just ignore. Some so great, such as coal-- that if we internalized them we wouldn't rightfully think of it as a source of energy at all: Just carbon capture alone will take more energy than burning the coal yielded, and that's before getting into all its other costs such as the considerable mortality due to its pollution and the radioactive emissions that eclipse those of nuclear plants.

zemvpferreira 4y ago

Well I'm from Portugal, where renewable power generation percent swings between the low 60's and the high 80's depending on the month and where we don't have any need for gas heating whatsoever. I also personally own and tend to 70 hectares of forest so I'm pretty willing to bet my carbon footprint is way way better than yours. According to your nonsense standard I should be a credible person to make this comment: How will Germany solve base load generation for power and heating without nuclear or fossil fuels in a country with weather as shit as Germany? Some of your points are reasonable but they are mostly silly, especially without any discussion of the elephant in the room. Anything else is greenwashing garbage. (lived in Frankfurt for a spell and will never go back. Nuclear-neutral, I dig it but whatever's cheapest is ok for me. Techno-positive on climate change. If you want to be ecological move somewhere tropical, live simple and never leave)

rad_gruchalski 4y ago
> Well I'm from Portugal, where renewable power generation percent swings between the low 60's and the high 80's depending on the month and where we don't have any need for gas heating whatsoever. Yes. Sure. The country is roughly 4 times smaller than Germany, the population is 10m vs 83m in Germany and you don’t get continental climate.
- glogla 4y ago
  Things should be easier in a larger country due to economics of scale. Also Germany is war richer than Portugal. Germany uses fossil fuels because they want to, not because they have to.
freemint 4y ago
> How will Germany solve base load generation for power and heating without nuclear or fossil fuels in a country with weather as shit as Germany? Gas power plants which will be upgraded to burn more and more hydrogen distributed using existing Erdgas infrastructure stored in subterranean salt caverns produced by surplus energy using electrolyzers. For shorter term swings are compensated with a mix of demand management, solid batteries, redox flow batteries, underwater pumped hydro, .... What evers s cheapest for the usecase

kdbeall_ 4y ago

> Because mining nuclear materials is an ecological disaster. Also, guess who's a big exporter of uranium in Europe? Russia. Cameco could easily restart Rabbit Lake and McArthur River. Supply is no issue. Claiming that mining uranium is an "ecological disaster" is disingenuous. It's not excessively dangerous relative to other mining operations.

vba616 4y ago

>f) Because long-term storage of nuclear waste is still not properly solved. >g) Because mining nuclear materials is an ecological disaster. Also, guess who's a big exporter of uranium in Europe? Russia. These are real problems, however I've seen people state that they are entirely results of political decisions that could be revoked. That's because the reactor waste can be recycled to make more power, reducing the fuel and the waste problem tremendously. I guess that there are conventional excuses not to, something about proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear material. But I don't understand why this matters if climate change is real and lots of countries have nuclear weapons anyway. Though I suppose not Germany.

nullc 4y ago

> Because it's by far the most expensive way of generating electricity This is a bogus point, FWIW. Nuclear energy is the only energy source that we expect to substantially internalize its externalities. All other forms have significant externalities that we just ignore. Some so great, such as coal-- that if we internalized them we wouldn't rightfully think of it as a source of energy at all: Just carbon capture alone will take more energy than burning the coal yielded, and that's before getting into all its other costs such as the considerable mortality due to its pollution and the radioactive emissions that eclipse those of nuclear plants.