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they stopped maintenance of these nuclear power plants 3 years ago because they "knew" they were out of life. Thus, they don't have the people or the safety mea
by Tarsul 4y ago
they stopped maintenance of these nuclear power plants 3 years ago because they "knew" they were out of life. Thus, they don't have the people or the safety measurements in place to go on with nuclear. Also, if the greens have no problem going further with coal, they wouldn't have a problem going on with nuclear (for a little while). So, it's definitely based on facts and not on idealism.
Also (I still don't understand HN's hype for nuclear), let's not forget how often and much the nuclear plants have to stand still because of xyz (e.g. too little cooling water, which was the case in France in the last months).
- qbasic_forever 4y agoSure but this is Germany, a financial and manufacturing powerhouse in the world. If they decided they wanted these plants to keep running I can't imagine they would have any trouble at all doing so.
- jacquesm 4y agoWhat you can imagine isn't all that relevant though, once the decision to mothball an installation of this size is made it isn't as though you decide to run your car for another year. This is a massive infrastructure project, with all kind of regulatory hoops they need to jump through to operate safely, including training of employees, gear certification and so on. Starting things back up again could well be a multi-year project.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoGermany's GDP is 4 trillion dollars, its government budget is over 400 billion. Refurbing 3 nuke plants is nothing with those resources. The entire manhattan project that pioneered nuclear power only cost about 50 billion in today's money, but they aren't even starting from scratch like that. If they wanted it to happen I can't see any financial or technical blocker.
- _ph_ 4y agoSure, but why bother? These 3 plants would only add a tiny bit to the German electricty production. They really won't be missed. And they cannot be used to replace gas, as gas power plants are used for quick responses, not base load.
- kingofpandora 4y agoWhy do you assume you know better than experts?
- rasz 4y agoBecause those particular experts were on Russian payroll.
- kingofpandora 4y agoSource please.
- rasz 4y agohttps://www.dw.com/en/study-confirms-that-stasi-infiltrated-greens/a-36024911 https://www.dw.com/en/study-confirms-that-stasi-infiltrated-...
- kingofpandora 4y agoThat article is about the Stasi infiltrating the German Green Party. > Indeed, far from being an indictment of Stasi infiltration of the Greens, Gieseke and Bahr's study is a portrait of a largely failed attempt by the Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) to co-opt the nascent left-wing party on the other side of the Iron Curtain. How did a few Stasi cooperators the 1980s Green Party translate into experts recommending Germany's nuclear power plants be shut down in the late 2010s?
- rasz 4y ago
- turbinerneiter 4y agoGermany still does not have a solution for the nuclear waste. Nobody wants it. All the pro nuclear people turn into anti nuclear people once their region is looked at for a nuclear waste disposal site. Recently a former conservative minister got an award for fighting against wind power which is named after a former key figure of the early green movement in Germany, wo later dropped out to figth against wind turbines. Bavaria is holding back the construction of a crucial north-south connection for electricity, which would bring the power from the wind-rich north to them. But they don't want the power lines messing up their landscape. Everyone wants electricity, nobody wants to see the infrastructure that makes it. People are meshugge.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoFreezing to death this winter because your source of fuel oil is now your geopolitical enemy seems like a more pressing problem than the tiny amount of waste 3 plants will generate decades from now.
- _ph_ 4y agoTo prevent "freezing to death" would require heating, not electricity, which Germany has enough. It is the house heating that is powered by gas. And no one is going to freeze to death, the question is only the impact onto industry.
- frosted-flakes 4y agoElectric heat is always an option. If the gas runs out, portable electric heaters could be used, if the electric grid can keep up.
- _ph_ 4y agoSure. And it can. We are talking about 3GW of nuclear on a grid which has like 100GW capacity vs 60-80GW consumption. Much more, if the sun is shining or wind is blowing. Yes, it is absolutely annoying to bring back some coal plants into service and using them more overall, but those 3 plants are only a small drip into the bucket. If they would be easy to run longer, I would be all for it. But big money is better spent into reducing the gas dependency overall.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoPutting the same effort into ramping up heat pump production would probably help Germany more and hurt Russia more at the same time.