7 ms·

Germany could have cancelled their nuclear shutdown process. But saving face is more important than Ukrainian lives.

jhgb 4y ago
As I pointed out above, this would not have changed anything with respect to the need to import gas from Russia. Nuclear generation is not a substitute for gas imports. Even worse, they can't "cancel their nuclear shutdown process" even if they wanted. First of all, the shutdown deadline had been firmly set in law twenty years ago, so it would require a major legislative effort to make another law. Second, even if they somehow managed to instantly change the law, the shutdown was "baked into" the operation and maintenance schedule for the nuclear plants. They were simply not expecting to have to run them beyond early 2020-ish so a lot of money was almost certainly saved by delaying maintenance. Hence, if they suddenly changed their minds about shutting the plants down, they'd almost certainly have to invest massive amounts of money to fix them first.
- chrischen 4y ago
  According to Wikipedia the denuclearization process was canceled until Fukushima happened. “ On 14 March 2011, in response to the renewed concern about the use of nuclear energy the Fukushima incident raised in the German public and in light of upcoming elections in three German states, Merkel declared a 3-month moratorium on the reactor lifespan extension passed in 2010.[29] On 15 March, the German government announced that it would temporarily shut down 8 of its 17 reactors, i.e. all reactors that went online before 1981.” And this was described as “The decision to phase-out nuclear power has been called the swiftest change of political course since unification.” So if a disaster was all it took for a swift change in politics then the current situation is certainly a disaster. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
  - lispm 4y ago
    This was just going back to the earlier phase-out decision by the red/green government. The Merkel decision to slow down the phase-out was highly controversial and would have seen mass protests. Then the Fukushima-accident (where a single earthquake was enough to take out the whole nuclear industry of an advanced industrial country) happened and the decision was reversed, again.
  - jhgb 4y ago
    The law I was talking about was passed in 2002, if I'm not mistaken. It specified what "remaining energy", so as to speak, would the German utilities be allowed to extract from already operating reactor units before decommissioning them, which, based on their average output, would have been around 2022-ish. I'm not quite sure how any of those things you're citing are relevant to this, since they don't say anything about repealing this law in which these things where mandated. The fact that in 2022-ish (nowadays really in 2023) Germany is going to do what Germany said in 2002 that it would do in 2022-ish hardly seems like "swift change of political course" to me.
dirkt 4y ago
Nuclear power plants can't be used for residential heating, residential cooking, chemistry, and industrial processes like making glass for solar panels. At least not without changing the infrastructure for that completely. Which is not going to happen overnight. And even then it can't replace chemistry. So, no, Germany couldn't have. No matter how many Internet armchair commenters repeat this.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Nuclear power for residential and commercial real estate heating is pretty simple if it were accepted. Main issue is distance between production and consumption and then delta of heat. But later could be solved with heat pumps.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    Up to 30km is fine, there are usually enough towns and villages within that radius.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  > At least not without changing the infrastructure for that completely Was replacing that infrastructure considered when plans were made to shutdown nuclear a decade ago? At some point you have to show you're better than "armchair commenters" and actually do what needs to be done.
pvaldes 4y ago
> saving face is more important [for Germany] than Ukrainian lives. I understand that the propaganda works, but lets not fall in the error of blaming Germany for this war. Germany are victims in this situation, not aggressors. This narrative just divert the focus from the only responsible. Paying somebody for a product will not force him/her to invest the money in crimes. Russia could have spent this money in buying ice-cream for each Russian child or anything. If they choose war crimes and promoting rape and murder instead improving the Russian's lives, is not Europe's fault.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  It's somewhat Europe's fault when it's obvious what will be done with the money.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Was it obvious? All these gas contracts were made decades ago. That Putin unmasked himself as Stalin 2.0 was a bit of a shock.
    - makomk 4y ago
      Germany kept on increasing their dependence on Russian gas imports by building Nord Stream 2 after the first invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, instead of diversifying their gas supplies. This was an intentional and knowing decision on their part.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      That depends on who you ask. Anyway, I consider him more similar to Hitler than Stalin, the way he goes after the territories of his neighbours. From my point of view, his behaviour in 2014 was much like Hitler in 1938. What he did this year, was similar to Hitler's attack on Poland in 39. Some people were maybe surprised in 39, but I think most reasonable people had stopped trusting him at least by the time he marched into Prague. Just like France and England should have started much more serious rearmament after that, I would argue that EU countries should have started preparing for a conflict after 2014.
smueller1234 4y ago
That's a very simplistic way to look at the situation. At a large trade show, I once ran into a retired nuclear engineer and we had a long conversation: he had been called back into service by the state out of desperation. There weren't enough knowledgeable folks who could do safety audits of the plants for TüV. This was 14 years ago and things would be far worse today. Restarting a complex industry (and it's ageing plants) that's been out of favor for literally decades is difficult and in this case also dangerous. I'm a (German) physicist by training and worked at a nuclear research facility at the time.
- natmaka 4y ago
  As far as I know in Germany any industrial equipment has to be insured for good, including any civilian nuclear operation (not, as in most other nations, with very low ceiling).
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  Fair points. But maybe one could stop to ask why are there so few experts or why has the nuclear industry been out of favor for literally decades in Germany? The anti nuclear power movement started from Denmark and they have at least two high profile nuclear startups. While they are of course not direct short term solutions to the current gas crisis, these things change how people can think about nuclear energy. Again, so much of German writing around the subject has this very peculiar air of complete passivity, to someone looking from the outside. Things seem to just happen to Germany with no role of their own. Look outside Germany to see some counterexamples.
Tretioh 4y ago
No we could not have. The process of shutting down or reactivating a nuclear plant is not something you just do. You should look for statements from our Minister habeck. Also nuclear like in France has huge keeping up issues. For whatever reason nuclear is always depicted as the simple solution but nothing is easy with nuclear.
mixermachine 4y ago
There were plans to restart nuclear reactors. The operators themselves declined this plans. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-02-26/card/german-power-operators-reject-calls-to-keep-nuclear-plants-running-despite-ukraine-war-4u3kJkDIz9CSmqYUUviA https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-...
- chrischen 4y ago
  If i recall correctly from another news source on this topic they are refusing due yo the economics (as a result of the anti nuclear sentiment).
Archelaos 4y ago
Such a simplification is very hypocritical in my eyes. Even Ukraine itself is not shutting down the Russian gas pipeline on its territory "to save Ukrainian lives". And the sanctions against Russia are not so complete that the West is blocking every cooperation. For example, no one wanted to immediately stop the cooperation regarding the International Space Station "to save Ukrainian lives", because the cost would have been too high as the station might have been lost. Reasonable politics is always about weighing effort against benefit. Of course, anyone can have her or his own opinion where to draw the line in a particular case. But it is usually not black and white. In my opinion, the German government has done an excellent job in the last months in reducing dependence on Russian primary energy imports. It rather failed in another area: military support for Ukraine. BTW: Does anybody know whether US's extensive uranium supplies from Russia and its sphere of influence (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan)[1] have now ceased? I could not find any recent information about it. [1] 46 % in total as of 2020: 16 % Russia, 22 % Kazakhstan, 8 % Uzbekistan -- see: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...
- postingawayonhn 4y ago
  > Even Ukraine itself is not shutting down the Russian gas pipeline on its territory "to save Ukrainian lives". Because that would anger their western benefactors.
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  Germany is paying hundreds of millions of euros per day to Russia for the gas. In March EU total payment was 700 million per day. This completely dwarfs any even billion dollar level support given to Ukraine. This is one quick graph that I could find. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1281568/daily-russian-gas-import-costs-to-the-eu/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1281568/daily-russian-ga... On Friday, Russia stopped gas exports to Finland. Electricity export to (and import from) Finland was stopped earlier already. Was Finland in a crisis? No, most people didn't even notice, because Finland had prepared for this. It certainly would have been convenient to build our heating to depend more on cheap Russian gas, but it was restrained by law, because of the risks. Finland was willing to tolerate the inconvenience of higher energy prices, to keep its political independence and safety. But it seems Germany is not yet capable of this introspection. Germany has been too lazy and corrupt and has let itself become very dependent on cheap Russian gas. Now it's saying "we can't do anything, we are too dependent". It's not the world's fault, it's the fault of past German governments and German voters. Germany is an industrialized and rich nation. It can start building heat pumps if the people are ready to do it. The very recent nuclear shutdown decision can also be reversed. But it would first require admitting that you have made serious errors in the recent past and then make a turn around on those decisions.

jhgb 4y ago

As I pointed out above, this would not have changed anything with respect to the need to import gas from Russia. Nuclear generation is not a substitute for gas imports. Even worse, they can't "cancel their nuclear shutdown process" even if they wanted. First of all, the shutdown deadline had been firmly set in law twenty years ago, so it would require a major legislative effort to make another law. Second, even if they somehow managed to instantly change the law, the shutdown was "baked into" the operation and maintenance schedule for the nuclear plants. They were simply not expecting to have to run them beyond early 2020-ish so a lot of money was almost certainly saved by delaying maintenance. Hence, if they suddenly changed their minds about shutting the plants down, they'd almost certainly have to invest massive amounts of money to fix them first.

chrischen 4y ago
According to Wikipedia the denuclearization process was canceled until Fukushima happened. “ On 14 March 2011, in response to the renewed concern about the use of nuclear energy the Fukushima incident raised in the German public and in light of upcoming elections in three German states, Merkel declared a 3-month moratorium on the reactor lifespan extension passed in 2010.[29] On 15 March, the German government announced that it would temporarily shut down 8 of its 17 reactors, i.e. all reactors that went online before 1981.” And this was described as “The decision to phase-out nuclear power has been called the swiftest change of political course since unification.” So if a disaster was all it took for a swift change in politics then the current situation is certainly a disaster. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany
- lispm 4y ago
  This was just going back to the earlier phase-out decision by the red/green government. The Merkel decision to slow down the phase-out was highly controversial and would have seen mass protests. Then the Fukushima-accident (where a single earthquake was enough to take out the whole nuclear industry of an advanced industrial country) happened and the decision was reversed, again.
- jhgb 4y ago
  The law I was talking about was passed in 2002, if I'm not mistaken. It specified what "remaining energy", so as to speak, would the German utilities be allowed to extract from already operating reactor units before decommissioning them, which, based on their average output, would have been around 2022-ish. I'm not quite sure how any of those things you're citing are relevant to this, since they don't say anything about repealing this law in which these things where mandated. The fact that in 2022-ish (nowadays really in 2023) Germany is going to do what Germany said in 2002 that it would do in 2022-ish hardly seems like "swift change of political course" to me.

dirkt 4y ago

Nuclear power plants can't be used for residential heating, residential cooking, chemistry, and industrial processes like making glass for solar panels. At least not without changing the infrastructure for that completely. Which is not going to happen overnight. And even then it can't replace chemistry. So, no, Germany couldn't have. No matter how many Internet armchair commenters repeat this.

Ekaros 4y ago
Nuclear power for residential and commercial real estate heating is pretty simple if it were accepted. Main issue is distance between production and consumption and then delta of heat. But later could be solved with heat pumps.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Up to 30km is fine, there are usually enough towns and villages within that radius.
gtirloni 4y ago
> At least not without changing the infrastructure for that completely Was replacing that infrastructure considered when plans were made to shutdown nuclear a decade ago? At some point you have to show you're better than "armchair commenters" and actually do what needs to be done.

pvaldes 4y ago

> saving face is more important [for Germany] than Ukrainian lives. I understand that the propaganda works, but lets not fall in the error of blaming Germany for this war. Germany are victims in this situation, not aggressors. This narrative just divert the focus from the only responsible. Paying somebody for a product will not force him/her to invest the money in crimes. Russia could have spent this money in buying ice-cream for each Russian child or anything. If they choose war crimes and promoting rape and murder instead improving the Russian's lives, is not Europe's fault.

gtirloni 4y ago
It's somewhat Europe's fault when it's obvious what will be done with the money.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Was it obvious? All these gas contracts were made decades ago. That Putin unmasked himself as Stalin 2.0 was a bit of a shock.
  - makomk 4y ago
    Germany kept on increasing their dependence on Russian gas imports by building Nord Stream 2 after the first invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, instead of diversifying their gas supplies. This was an intentional and knowing decision on their part.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    That depends on who you ask. Anyway, I consider him more similar to Hitler than Stalin, the way he goes after the territories of his neighbours. From my point of view, his behaviour in 2014 was much like Hitler in 1938. What he did this year, was similar to Hitler's attack on Poland in 39. Some people were maybe surprised in 39, but I think most reasonable people had stopped trusting him at least by the time he marched into Prague. Just like France and England should have started much more serious rearmament after that, I would argue that EU countries should have started preparing for a conflict after 2014.

smueller1234 4y ago

That's a very simplistic way to look at the situation. At a large trade show, I once ran into a retired nuclear engineer and we had a long conversation: he had been called back into service by the state out of desperation. There weren't enough knowledgeable folks who could do safety audits of the plants for TüV. This was 14 years ago and things would be far worse today. Restarting a complex industry (and it's ageing plants) that's been out of favor for literally decades is difficult and in this case also dangerous. I'm a (German) physicist by training and worked at a nuclear research facility at the time.

natmaka 4y ago
As far as I know in Germany any industrial equipment has to be insured for good, including any civilian nuclear operation (not, as in most other nations, with very low ceiling).
Gravityloss 4y ago
Fair points. But maybe one could stop to ask why are there so few experts or why has the nuclear industry been out of favor for literally decades in Germany? The anti nuclear power movement started from Denmark and they have at least two high profile nuclear startups. While they are of course not direct short term solutions to the current gas crisis, these things change how people can think about nuclear energy. Again, so much of German writing around the subject has this very peculiar air of complete passivity, to someone looking from the outside. Things seem to just happen to Germany with no role of their own. Look outside Germany to see some counterexamples.

Tretioh 4y ago

No we could not have. The process of shutting down or reactivating a nuclear plant is not something you just do. You should look for statements from our Minister habeck. Also nuclear like in France has huge keeping up issues. For whatever reason nuclear is always depicted as the simple solution but nothing is easy with nuclear.

mixermachine 4y ago

There were plans to restart nuclear reactors. The operators themselves declined this plans. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-02-26/card/german-power-operators-reject-calls-to-keep-nuclear-plants-running-despite-ukraine-war-4u3kJkDIz9CSmqYUUviA https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-...

chrischen 4y ago
If i recall correctly from another news source on this topic they are refusing due yo the economics (as a result of the anti nuclear sentiment).

Archelaos 4y ago

Such a simplification is very hypocritical in my eyes. Even Ukraine itself is not shutting down the Russian gas pipeline on its territory "to save Ukrainian lives". And the sanctions against Russia are not so complete that the West is blocking every cooperation. For example, no one wanted to immediately stop the cooperation regarding the International Space Station "to save Ukrainian lives", because the cost would have been too high as the station might have been lost. Reasonable politics is always about weighing effort against benefit. Of course, anyone can have her or his own opinion where to draw the line in a particular case. But it is usually not black and white. In my opinion, the German government has done an excellent job in the last months in reducing dependence on Russian primary energy imports. It rather failed in another area: military support for Ukraine. BTW: Does anybody know whether US's extensive uranium supplies from Russia and its sphere of influence (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan)[1] have now ceased? I could not find any recent information about it. [1] 46 % in total as of 2020: 16 % Russia, 22 % Kazakhstan, 8 % Uzbekistan -- see: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...

postingawayonhn 4y ago
> Even Ukraine itself is not shutting down the Russian gas pipeline on its territory "to save Ukrainian lives". Because that would anger their western benefactors.
Gravityloss 4y ago
Germany is paying hundreds of millions of euros per day to Russia for the gas. In March EU total payment was 700 million per day. This completely dwarfs any even billion dollar level support given to Ukraine. This is one quick graph that I could find. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1281568/daily-russian-gas-import-costs-to-the-eu/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1281568/daily-russian-ga... On Friday, Russia stopped gas exports to Finland. Electricity export to (and import from) Finland was stopped earlier already. Was Finland in a crisis? No, most people didn't even notice, because Finland had prepared for this. It certainly would have been convenient to build our heating to depend more on cheap Russian gas, but it was restrained by law, because of the risks. Finland was willing to tolerate the inconvenience of higher energy prices, to keep its political independence and safety. But it seems Germany is not yet capable of this introspection. Germany has been too lazy and corrupt and has let itself become very dependent on cheap Russian gas. Now it's saying "we can't do anything, we are too dependent". It's not the world's fault, it's the fault of past German governments and German voters. Germany is an industrialized and rich nation. It can start building heat pumps if the people are ready to do it. The very recent nuclear shutdown decision can also be reversed. But it would first require admitting that you have made serious errors in the recent past and then make a turn around on those decisions.