63 ms·

Germany to Rethink Nuclear Shutdown as Energy Crisis Deepens

395 points by notlukesky 4y ago

notlukesky 4y ago
Since the Ukraine crisis the EU is relabeling everything ESG: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/esg-investors-warm-to-nuclear-power-after-eu-green-label-award-69002267 https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... Is this the inflection point when we go back to the 1970s? Richard Nixon had planned for 1000 nuclear reactors in the US for Project Independence by the year 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence
- geostupid 4y ago
  Appreciate the link to Project Independence. Despite way too many late nights reading about atomic/nuclear history, somehow I missed this one.
- sdrwefgfvb 4y ago
  This is yet another instance of a phenomenon: When you have good outcomes and bad outcomes, and you take some preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of bad outcomes, as time goes by people start believing that the bad outcomes don't really exist and get rid of the preventative measures. Example, energy independence from Russia and shutting down nuclear reactors. Another example, people think there's no point in taking vaccines.
  - TheBlight 4y ago
    Not all vaccines are equal. Just like all things labeled medicine are not equal and not equally beneficial/recommended for everyone.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      I took grandparent comment's reference to be the resistance to COVID-19 vaccines, which could have prevented endemic establishment in the US of COVID-19 had the GOP base adopted them quicker (along with non-pharmaceutical interventions). The mRNA vaccines are an absolute gamechanger in this space. I am glad we have the technology available. EDIT: Whoa, people surprisingly hate this comment. It's true though -- rural red counties have been hit much harder, due to demographic factors, lower vaccine uptake as well as boosting, lower access, and lower testing generally (leading to higher serology rate differentials to reported counts). The entire state of GA, for example, looks like each county has low case counts compared to the rest of the US until you realize testing there only captures 1 in 4 cases. This selective intransigence to public health measures was a problem when there was one case, and has persisted to be a problem until today.
      - TheBlight 4y ago
        Hmm. Did the GOP's reach extend to the island nation of New Zealand on the other side of the globe?
        nxm 4y ago
        What economic and costs are you willing to pay to be on lockdown for so long?
        TheBlight 4y ago
        "Pay" implies there was some benefit that was purchased.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        > Did the GOP's reach extend to the island nation of New Zealand on the other side of the globe? Well, yeah. New Zealand had great policies and good compliance. Then the same shitty murdoch and facebook led conspiracy theories, selfishness, and lies spread. Now they're dealing with the same issues as everyone else. Plus without the insane propaganda machine, lack of aid, and hoarding of unused vaccines we may not have even developed some of the mutations or had it become endemic in animal populations. At least people in new zealand had a chance to get fully vaccinated there and avoid the short term death toll though.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Most of the resistance I’ve seen against vaccines have been against ones that are highly beneficial relative to their risks. Have you seen pushback against ones that weren’t? I’ve literally seen folks push back against Tetanus, Polio, MMR, etc.
      - mbg721 4y ago
        Tetanus and polio do horrifying things to the body; measles and mumps are sort of mid-level, right? And something like chicken pox has a vaccine now, but is relatively harmless if you catch it as a child.
        abakker 4y ago
        Chicken pox may be harmless as a child. That virus also causes shingles and that is NOT harmless as an adult. edit to add: things like HPV seem harmless, but HPV infection is linked to the vast majority of cervical cancer. Things like epstein-barr are implicated in certain cancers as well. There are no "good viruses" and just because they have mild initial symptoms does not make them harmless.
        adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        Chicken pox vaccine prevents 8000 hospitalizations per year (in the US) https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccine-infographic.html https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccine-infographic.html. Measles vaccine prevents around 50000 hospitalizations per year.
        kybernetikos 4y ago
        > chicken pox has a vaccine now, but is relatively harmless if you catch it as a child. I think if adults were catching a disease that took them out of action for a week in a fairly miserable way and gave them blisters that frequently ended up leaving permanent scars, we'd be taking it way more seriously. Kids don't make the decisions, and everyone remembers that they suffered through it, so kids these days should too...
        lazide 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- jiveturkey42 4y ago
  I certainly hope so. Maybe we can now move boldly forward into a nuclear future since the Boomers got cold feet about it
  - api 4y ago
    So many things can happen when the boomers retire, including not just this but building more housing stock in insanely overpriced NIMBY cities and building public transit.
    - bogantech 4y ago
      Why do people think that selfishness is quality only found in boomers? Reality check even when the boomers are all dead there's still going to be shortsighted selfish people running the show
      - jiveturkey42 4y ago
        The boomers lived through an age of unprecedented abundance, when that dries up, innovation out of necessity will trump any ideology
- ihsw 4y ago
- _ph_ 4y ago
  No, since all currently available nuclear reactor models are way more expensive to build than renewables. And a lot of tangentials remain open. Like where to get and reprocess fuel rods? What about operational safety? And most of all, where to dump the radiactive waste? But in the end, just the price will kill them on any larger scale.
  - scrlk 4y ago
    >And a lot of tangentials remain open. Like where to get and reprocess fuel rods? What about operational safety? And most of all, where to dump the radiactive waste? All solved issues - nuclear energy is a matter of political will at this point.
    - pydry 4y ago
      If operational safety were a completely solved problem nuclear plants would be able to buy insurance without a liability cap of <0.5% of the cost of dealing with 1 fukushima. As it is, even with that subsidy financing plants is basically impossible without more subsidies. Bill Gates' new reactor startup required taxpayers to fund 50% of it to even exist.
      - scrlk 4y ago
        The reason why I believe operational safety is a solved problem: the US Navy has run reactors on board ships and submarines since the 50s, with 0 reactor accidents. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Reactors
        ncmncm 4y ago
        And the Russians have had accidents untold. Which is run more like commercial reactors?
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      No, they are not solved.
- Algent 4y ago
  > Since the Ukraine crisis the EU is relabeling everything ESG I remember reading about the "relabeling" long before UK crisis. It started as Germany wanting to label gas as green to defend their high interest in Russian gas and going all surprised when France pulled the "Nuclear is cleaner than gas so it's green too, right ?" card. Current crisis probably helped Nuclear to make the cut because it originally wasn't a done deal at all.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  > Since the Ukraine crisis the EU is relabeling everything ESG: This discussion was already happening before the war in Ukraine, it probably helped both gas and nuclear getting labeled as green though.
- quadcore 4y ago
  Knowing its 42°C currently in France and 40°C in UK, that we blasted previous temp records two times in two months, well I think we should make it mandatory to build reactors.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    "but those take 10 years to build, that's too long" -people telling me this 5 years ago -also people telling me the same 10 years ago -also people telling me the same 15 years ago -also people telling me te same 20 years ago -and of course, people telling me this now.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      People also tell to build wind and solar, while ignoring that those two needs to be backed up by coal and gas.
      - abakker 4y ago
        or batteries / battery analogs. It is possible to solve this problem with tools we currently have. If we're thinking long term, we do not require coal or gas for power generation given sufficient hydro, wind, solar and storage. Cryogenic air, pumped hydro, and other storage designs are possible.
        TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Chemical batteries are completely useless and expensive gimmick in state-wide storage of electric energy. Cost is main reason why it is cheaper to build coal/gas plant instead.
        Pxtl 4y ago
        From what I've read batteries are the preferred option for short-term zero-emissions levelling but once you get into longer term stuff you start looking at storing compressed air or hydrogen in salt caverns. But hydrogen cracking/storage as a grid-level utility is still at the experimental stage.
- api 4y ago
  If we'd done what Nixon suggested climate change would probably not be a problem, as not only would we emit less than half current carbon emissions but the rest of the world would have followed and we'd have a huge nuclear power supply chain to make it easier for them to do that. We'd now be replacing gasoline and diesel with EVs and our carbon emissions would be falling rapidly. While solar and wind have advanced quite a bit to the point that they're a viable option in many regions, whether or not nuclear is at least on the table is the litmus test for whether someone actually takes climate change seriously. Anyone who dogmatically rules out nuclear either doesn't actually believe in climate change or is hopelessly ignorant. At the very least Germany and other countries should be leaving the perfectly good nuclear plants they already have online until the end of their operable life as they build out renewables and shut down coal and gas. The priority should always be shutting down fossil fuels first.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Energy and politics are intertwined. Nixon’s alcoholism and mental illness took him out of the picture, and really killed the more traditional “establishment” GOP; a new generation of “conservatives” was empowered and eventually took over the GOP. Who funded these newcomers? Oil, gas and friends was a big part of it. We converted to coal instead as a result.
    - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
      Oil and gas lobbyists insisted on using coal, instead of oil and gas? Was it the same lobbyists who convinced China to use coal? https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-building-33-gw-coal-power-2021-most-since-2016-research-2022-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-bui... Maybe coal is just a convenient energy source.
    - api 4y ago
      We didn't convert to coal. It was the primary source for industry and power. We stuck with it.
      - 4y ago
- mc32 4y ago
  I will rail against Jane Fonda. This person is the most responsible person for the situation we're in right now. She conspired with others to derail (literally in some cases) Nuclear power. This is what happens when you follow uninformed advocates from Hollywood. People should learn to despise "influencers." They know little but aim to move people to action based on poor or very poor understanding of the things they propose and base their positions on emotion, mostly.
  - hammock 4y ago
    - mc32 4y ago
      That they might align at times with a better decision does not imply they made a logical decision. In many instances they were making emotional appeals, if I recall correctly. Also, it's to hard to imagine that any of the other Democrat candidates for president could have fared worse than Biden. Bloomberg or Bernie, I think could have done a better job so far. The others were a bit green and likely unprepared for global events, but even so, could one imagine them dong any worse? There is a fair chance they could have done better.
      - jen20 4y ago
        > Bloomberg or Bernie, I think could have done a better job so far. Assuming they had been capable of winning against Trump in the first place.
        jack_pp 4y ago
        Why would a senile man who can barely talk straight have a better chance against Trump? If the democrats didn't fear Bernie and would've pushed him as much and as ruthlessly as they did Biden I'm pretty sure he would've won as well
        4y ago
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  Holy shit, 1000 reactors? Did anyone tell them the more reactors you have, the more likely one will melt down? (basic probability) IMO they should be used strategically, i.e. concentrated large power requirements and to lower overall emissions. You want a mix of power-generating solutions, otherwise you have a monoculture which can lead to system collapse. Right now they're short on gas, but what happens when they're short on uranium, or places to put spent fuel? You can't just spin up a new power plant over a weekend (which is their problem right now). Or if we had a supervolcano and solar went out, or if winds died down, or had a shortage of parts due to a pandemic or recession, etc. We need many solutions to cover all our bases. You spin up and down capacity in each market depending on the circumstances. This allows the lowest cost, least harmful solutions at any given time, hedges against changing market conditions, and enables emergency power relief. edit: LOL @ all the downvotes because I said a nuclear meltdown might be bad
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Chernobyl killed fewer people during the worst meltdown possible than the average coal plant kills during its lifetime of normal operation.
    - polotics 4y ago
      also talking about radioactive waste, guess what comes out of burning coal? more dangerous radioactive material than you'd expect. https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-is-coal-ash-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste-and-what-is-the-exact-reason https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-is-coal-ash-more-radio...
    - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
      I never said nuclear power plants were bad. But Chernobyl depopulated a 1,000 square mile region that will remain uninhabitable for hundreds to thousands of years. Do that a couple more times over a century in a densely populated area like Europe and see how easy it is to travel without a car made of lead, much less find a place to live.
      - 4y ago
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  Germany was actively trying to block labelling nuclear as green to make sure nuclear isn't eligible for subsidies [1]. France was pushing for nuclear energy to be added to the list. Nobody knows if it was just general erratic behaviour by the green party or just general hatred and jealousy towards the french. But let's also remember that France sold their turbine business due to pressure of the DoJ[2], has been talking about repatriating it[3] (which has not happened yet), but as of now has 29 out of 56 reactors out of commission and as a result, the energy powerhouse France is buying energy from Bavaria[4]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/germany-reject-eu-green-investment-label-nuclear-power-2022-05-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/germany-reject-eu-green-inv... [2] https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-american-takeover-of-a-french-national-champion-became-intertwined-in-a-corruption-investigation https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-americ... [3] https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/nucleaire-edf-annonce-qu-il-va-racheter-les-turbines-arabelle-de-general-electric-steam-power-20618942-8a4e-11ec-b1a4-b42f8ae3c7af https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/nucleair... [4] https://www.merkur.de/bayern/atomkraftwerke-bayern-auswirkungen-preis-kosten-deutschland-frankreich-strom-gas-91651098.html https://www.merkur.de/bayern/atomkraftwerke-bayern-auswirkun...
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    > Nobody knows if it was just general erratic behaviour by the green party or just general hatred and jealousy towards the french. Those are terrible explanations. There's a much simpler one: The oil and gas industry was able to corrupt Germany and not France.
    - Bayart 4y ago
      Total doesn't have a stellar reputation abroad.
  - Bayart 4y ago
    French lowered production capacity at the moment is largely due to delayed inspections because of Covid.
    - 4y ago
- kuratkull 4y ago
  Ukraine Crisis? It's Russias War
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  Is it just me or does ESG feel like a giant virtue signal from companies and investors? Taking this specific issue of nuclear. Nuclear Energy is objectively cleaner than other forms of energy generation and is objectively safe if you operate it properly. With that said, it seems like Nuclear Energy would be embraced by the ESG crowd, but that simply wasn't the case. Now that the rubber met the road, the sentiment has changed. So was nuclear actually bad? Or was it just "bad". Almost seems that everyone was so obsessed with going green and getting rid of "big bad nuclear" that they forgot that they depend on it. Much like a kid quitting his job to pursue the arts and then realizing, he can't make rent without the job they just quit...
  - indy 4y ago
    ESG is a tool that certain political parties can use to "give to their friends" and "take from their enemies". Anyone who doesn't toe the line will find their ESG rating dropping (see Tesla: https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-keep-exxon-but-drop-tesla-and-3-ways-to-fix-esg-ratings-to-meet-investors-expectations-183705 https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-k...)
    - woodpanel 4y ago
      Been criticizing Tesla for years. But once Elon openly confronted cancel culture's twitterized grip on democracy all of a sudden those criticisms became newsworthy and a concern for regulators. Same with crypto: The scammy-ness and un-pleasentness (ie of funding terrorists and organized crime) was always there, but news-worthy it got only once Canadian Truckers made use of it.
  - Geee 4y ago
    Yes. It's not only virtue signaling, but a deceitful way to control policies and investments. It's not for the environment, but for power and profit.
  - misterprime 4y ago
    Agreed. I'm not opposed to identifying situations where companies are getting away with something for free that they should be paying for, and then correcting that. For example, dumping chemicals into a river, or emitting toxic fumes into the air. Somehow this turned into: "only solar, wind, and thermal are good, so everything other than those are bad. We need to shut down nuclear." It would have been better if it was: "wow, these decades old designs did really well. We've learned a lot over the years, let's build newer, better, cleaner, safer nuclear plants and then shut down the old ones."
- poushkar 4y ago
  Calling it a "Ukraine crisis" omits mentioning Russia and the full-scale invasion of annihilation and genocide it's conducting. Please, consider calling it "Russian invasion of Ukraine" or similar. Thank you.
- hash07e 4y ago
  No No No. I watched for a long time Germany virtual signalling about their commitment to phase out fossil fuels all the green stuff. Then Greta BratBerg telling me I am the evil. No compromises. I am expecting germany out of ALL fussil + nuclear in 2025. If they are cold they can make some soup with chilli to warm them up.
- IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
  i think the change is too little, too late. Historically, nuclearprojects take in avg 7.5 years to come online. [1] Thats a long time, almost 2 full terms of a presidency (US). Plenty of time for political winds to change. Instead of relabeling a rotten apple as 'edible' to investors, the EU should put something fresh that can be quickly consumed. [1]https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/ https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucl...
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Your aticle explains why not: > Financial concerns may also deter investors from putting money into nuclear. Plants have vast up-front costs, and there is a long wait for profits due to lengthy development and construction times, particularly in comparison to renewables. Recent new-builds, including the Finland's Olkiluoto nuclear plant, France's Flamanville 3 and the U.K.'s Hinkley Point C, all suffered from huge delays and cost overruns. > Such issues further complicate both efforts to raise investment for nuclear and policy makers' reliance on the technology to meet environmental goals.
digdugdirk 4y ago
This was an interesting case of a political decision having relatively obvious negative near term repercussions. I'd assume that the previously shut down nuclear plants weren't "scuttled" and are still able to be brought back online - does anyone here work in the industry and/or have any idea what that process would entail, and what costs would be incurred?
- fsiefken 4y ago
  "GERMAN NUCLEAR OPERATOR: WE CAN KEEP RUNNING, ONLY NEED "OK" News clip has emerged showing that Chancellor Scholz and Economy Minister Habeck have been falsely claiming that nuclear plants cannot operate because of staffing and lack of fuel. They only need political permission." https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1548269133300543499 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1548269133300543499
  - freemint 4y ago
    Yet, the CEO of the company who owns Isar 2 still hasn't revised his opinion. Without his OK Isar 2 won't run. https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-04/11/eon-lehnt-soeder-forderung-fuer-isar-2-erneut-ab https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-04/11/eon-lehnt-soeder-forderu... So stop spreading one sided information.
    - fsiefken 4y ago
      Where is the one-sided information here? Technically the PreussenElektra CEO is Guido Knott, they operate and have a substantive ownership of the German nuclear plants. Preusenelektra is a subsidiary of E.ON, where Leonhard Birnbaum is the CEO you mention. His opinion follows the government decision. In a letter to the people working for Preussenelektra he wrote: "The German government has examined the contribution that the remaining nuclear power plants can make to solving the current energy crisis and, after weighing the options, has come to the decision that nuclear energy should not be part of the solution [..] This decision must be respected [..] I can imagine that one or the other of you had hoped that for a while, as a transitional solution, nuclear energy would still have some way to go." As quoted in "Rheinische Post" (Wednesday edition, 22 june 2022) Now Bernd Guhlich, communication of PreussenElektra acknowledges this in the interview. Without the OK of the government and by proxy CEO E.ON Leonhard Birnbaum nothing will happen. The E.ON CEO is not the decision or policy maker here, that's the government (which is by definition open to public debate). But, and that was the point Bern Guhlich was making (which is not one sided as he acknowledges the decision): Isar can technically run for longer then the end of this year if the government decides to do that. The Bundesministerium fuer Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (a department of the government) decided against that for reasons Bern Guhlich argues are false: * there is no legal basis * the 3 nuclear plants cannot operate longer without fuel rods Additionally the tweet from Mark Nelson asserts: "Chancellor Scholz and Economy Minister Habeck have been falsely claiming that nuclear plants cannot operate because of staffing and lack of fuel." Perhaps you mean that there are other reasons the CEO mentioned in the article you refer to: extension would be of limited energy benefit.
tasubotadas 4y ago
Think? They think it's the time to "think"? They need to act.
Gwypaas 4y ago
If nuclear was an easy solution the French reactors would be running. Or as the article states. > In France, nuclear availability is currently at 24.8 GW, less than half the installed capacity of 61.4 GW due to safety checks at several reactors. The real problem isn't electricity, it is natural gas as a feedstock for industry and for heating. There you don't have the same instant fungibility pure electricity brings, and nuclear can't magically solve either.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  You can easily heat houses with electricity, and, with more effort, you can convert most of industrial processes to use electricity instead of gas. The reason it hadn’t been done is that it was significantly more expensive than using gas. However, with gas gone, and with hypothetical abundant nuclear, this would not have been the case. Arguing against nuclear because “electricity doesn’t help heat houses” is extremely strange, bordering on deceptive.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    Heat pumps are amazing, but it's a project where the time span is decades to convert half a continent. It doesn't solve this winter. I firmly believe heat pumps and renewable energy is the future. But that can only become the solution in the time span of 5-10 years.
    - xyzzyz 4y ago
      In the short term, you can use resistive space heaters. This is, to be sure, 2-3x times more expensive than heat pumps, but given the cost of gas, might still be worth it. Point is, nuclear helps, and a couple of extra gigawatts day and night makes a difference.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Yes, all the gas usages can and will be replaced by electricity. Which will come from renewables. The 3 remaining German nuclear reactors won't make much of a difference here, but yes, those which are in any shape for it, should run e bit longer. Though one has to take into account, that the maintenance was set up according to operate them to the end of the year, so a lot of maintenance would be necessary for any longer operation time. No where there is abundant nuclear visible, new build projects have vastly overrun any time and fiscal budgets.
1-6 4y ago
I’m not sure why Germany thought that it would be a good idea to decommission nuclear energy in the first place. It’s the greenest energy source at scale!
- jiveturkey42 4y ago
  - SonicTheSith 4y ago
    I wouldn't describe, the process of recognizing your mistakes as self hate. As a German, I know my country is not perfect, none is, and I recognize that past mistakes should not happen again. Smart people learn from mistakes and try not to repeat them. Sure compared to the US most Germans are not patriotic or are blindly loving their country. But compared to the US what over country emotionally so invested in being number 1 that everything that was bad or does not work / could be better is ignored? The US is like an Ostrich, as soon as it is uncomfortable they put their head in the sand and yell we are the best, we are number. It can also be compared to conservatives labeling liberals as snow flakes and ridiculing save spaces, while at the same time making the US a giant safe space and ignoring reality.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Because renewables are handily greener with a fraction of the negative side effects nuclear brings. Both from taking care of spent fuel and safety measures. You can't even insure a nuclear power plant. That should tell you how safe the private market think they are.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > with a fraction of the negative side effects nuclear brings For a fraction of the energy density that you get with nuclear power. Enjoy planting wind farms and solar farms costing huge amounts of land.
jamil7 4y ago
> In the first stress test in spring, the German government pointed out that nuclear units would hardly help to save gas as gas demand in Germany was mainly driven by heat production and industrial use. That's what I already thought was the case and the article adds it as the last paragraph. I get a lot of people want to focus on the nuclear angle but it's only one part of a frustrating string of poor energy choices by Germany's politicians. Edit: removed a word.
- scythe 4y ago
  Germany is not an island. The EU burns plenty of gas for electricity. Germany could simply sell nuclear electricity to other EU members so they will burn less gas. And isn't this kind of cooperation the whole point of the EU?
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Well, currently a lot of electricity goes from Germany to France, as 50% of the French nuclear plants are not operational at the moment. (A lot need maintenance, others are down because of the heat)
    - scythe 4y ago
      This doesn't contradict anything I said. - Everything needs maintenance; nuclear plants are by no means unique in this regard. France may have planned badly, so that many plants are down at once, but this is not a systemic problem with nuclear power. - Europe overall was unprepared for the heat wave, but we are not really concerned with energy demand during heat waves (which are short, and when sunshine is plentiful) but rather during the winter (which is long, and dark in EU). So again, more nuclear capacity in Germany could offset gas-fired power plants throughout EU.
      - _ph_ 4y ago
        I would not be so arrogant to assume the German power industry would solve the problems so much better than the French. The French mostly suffers from the fact that it has become prohibitively expensive to build new reactors. And of course: Germany currently has 3 operational reactors, new ones could be available in 10-15 years earliest. There had been plenty of warnings, because in the last 10 years it was quite common for the French grid to be borderline in the summer, cooling always was a tight spot. And nuclear is a bad offset for gas-fired power plants, as they are rather used as quick power plants, that is something nuclear is the worst at.
zidel 4y ago
This appears to be copied from https://www.montelnews.com/news/1336133/germany-to-review-nuclear-exit-amid-gas-crisis https://www.montelnews.com/news/1336133/germany-to-review-nu...
crikeyjoe 4y ago
it_citizen 4y ago
Maybe we are a bit harsh with Germany? By pulling out of nuclear, they poured billions in renewables much earlier that other countries. They had to deal with immature technologies and greatly participated in making them more reliable and cheaper. > The renewable-energy field employs nearly 340,000 people in Germany, and according to the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), there are now more than 180 universities and 120 research institutes involved in the country’s energy-transition programme, Energiewende. Pulling out of nuclear might have been a net negative for Germany but a net positive for the rest of world.
- upupandup 4y ago
  I don't think so, a strong German economy ultimately benefits the region and results in more resources available for distribution elsewhere. But we've decided we don't want that model anymore. It's ironic that people who have been participating in protests about global warming are the very ones that will pay the brunt of the cost through inflation and scarcity of heat/energy
- jsiepkes 4y ago
  > By pulling out of nuclear, they poured billions in ENRs much earlier that other countries. That's a bit dual sided. Germany basically let France be their "battery" with it's nuclear reactors. Germany also ensured that on the EU energy market energy out of renewables had to be bought first. Meaning that nuclear reactors became less profitable while Germany conveniently relied on them when there was low wind or low sun. That was quite a scummy move.
  - it_citizen 4y ago
    Not arguing with that. But it might still be a net positive. But renewables is the real key for energy transition. The reality is that very few countries plan to move most of their energy production to nuclear. Even RTE (the French electricity company) said they will need to crank renewables to 50% of their energy mix to meet carbon neutrality by 2050 with their most pro-nuclear scenario (N03). Making renewables more competitive globally might have largely compensated the gas/goal emitted by Germany if it contributed to help developing countries to skip the fossil stage.
asah 4y ago
I assume Europe's only real "strategy" for 2022 is extreme energy conservation, from lowering temperature settings ("put on a sweater") to heating selected rooms and offices. In fact, the plan is more comprehensive, though I notice that the numbers seem elusive - does conservation really have much impact? https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/europe-outlines-9-step-plan-to-save-energy-ukraine-and-the-planet/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/europe-outlines... https://www.iea.org/news/energy-saving-actions-by-eu-citizens-could-save-enough-oil-to-fill-120-super-tankers-and-enough-natural-gas-to-heat-20-million-homes https://www.iea.org/news/energy-saving-actions-by-eu-citizen... "According to the plan’s findings, turning down the thermostat by just 1 °C would save around 7% of the energy used for heating, while setting an air conditioner 1 °C warmer could reduce the amount of electricity used by up to 10%. With an average one-way car commute in the EU of 15 kilometres, working at home three days a week could reduce household fuel bills by around €35 a month, even after taking increased energy use at home into account. And as the average car in the EU clocks up about 13 000 kilometres a year, reducing cruising speed on motorways by 10 kilometres an hour could cut fuel bills by an average of around €60 a year."
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  The much bigger problem in Germany is their chemical industry which uses gas as a feedstock. You can't just turn down the thermostat when a large chunk of your economy (and a lot of other countries) depends on it.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Never let a crisis go to waste.
dark-star 4y ago
Now that nuclear energy is considered "green" in the EU, this is an expected move
LightG 4y ago
This feels like a no win ... We reduce nuclear energy use to avoid things like radioactive waste, etc. Bad actors like Putin p!ss on attempts to go renewable. We go nuclear. Bad actors like Putin p!ss on attempts to use nuclear safely (by doing X). Rinse Repeat At some point, you have to deal with the bad actor. And no, I don't have any solutions.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  I don't know what Putin has to do with operating nuclear safely in Germany.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - LightG 4y ago
    No. You dont. That's the point.
- gruturo 4y ago
  >And no, I don't have any solutions. Hmm > At some point, you have to deal with the bad actor. Sounds like you do.
celestialcheese 4y ago
Good. Nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy[1], and with renewables, will get us off fossil fuels quicker than renewables alone. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#:~:text=The%20key%20insight%20is%20that,solar%20are%20just%20as%20safe https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#:~:text=....
- a3w 4y ago
  > Good The title is about "thinking", not something that is actually likely to happen. Some parties, without consensus, are claiming it would be a good idea. The people in charge say that this won't happen, because of material reasons. The industry does not even want to run longer. It is technically feasible for some months. Legally, it is not feasible yet. Cost/gains wise the some-month idea could make sense, but new certifications are needed, so perhaps only in times of rare energy this could be a profitable arrangement.
freeflight 4y ago
What is that weird source? All the links in there are self-referential, and a lot of the articles are choke full of straight up wrong info. In their "About us" page they decry "consensus science" and "global warming alarmists".. Which is a way too common issue with a lot of the online reporting on German fission; Giving straight up wrong history and info based on very questionable motives. Case in point; The article, once again, claims it was Merkel who decided the exit, allegedly in 2011, when that's plain and simply wrong. Merkel pushed trough extremely unpopular running time extensions in 2010, then Fukushima exploded in 2011 and the running time extensions were revoked during the course of the atom-moratorium, as during safety inspections the reactors were found not to be safe enough to run that much longer [0]. That's also why some reactors never came back online from the moratorium; They were found too unsafe to be turned back on. But their remaining electricity contingency was added to the remaining ones, which is what will allow them to run for longer. At least if the German government will pay for that extra run time, as the nuclear operators themselves are unwilling to do so [1]. There is literally decades of more history there, several big government subsidies for the nuclear industry along the lines of "Privatized profits, socialized losses" [2], while at the same time sabotaging the renewable built out [3], all under allegedly "nuclear hating" Merkel. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/akw-betreiber-gegen-laengere-laufzeiten-die-nutzung-der-kernenergie-hat-sich-erledigt/24422262.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/akw-betreiber-gegen-l... [2] https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-deal-with-energy-companies/a-36089376 https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-d... [3] https://www.dw.com/en/renewable-sector-wary-of-cdu-promises/a-1675319 https://www.dw.com/en/renewable-sector-wary-of-cdu-promises/...
formerkrogemp 4y ago
There is no addressing climate change and affording our current standard of living without nuclear.
KaliGulaCountry 4y ago
Even by running on nuclear energy, Germany condemned its own industry which relies heavily on gas, which will not be delivered as required by Russia due to its own political decisions against Russia. They won't be able to get the gas from another country in the quantity required. The majority of factories just can't suppress their usage of gas. This winter will be quite difficult for a lot of industrial companies. I just can't understand, strategically, how such huge decisions can be made so quickly and totally going against the interest of your own people and economy. I mean, they just messed up badly.
- aembleton 4y ago
  > They won't be able to get the gas from another country in the quantity required. Why not? Can they not build LNG terminals?
  - KaliGulaCountry 4y ago
    No, it takes at least three years to build LNG terminal. Even if it take less than that it would be quite hard to reach the necessary supply by LNG carrier ships. It also requires the construction of new LNG carrier ships. It also requires new partnerships.
    - aembleton 4y ago
      That's interesting to hear. I thought the reason LNG futures for this winter in the UK are so high is because other European countries are expected to have completed lng terminals by then. They only started a couple of months ago.
oxff 4y ago
"Crisis" is the wrong word to use when the actions taken by governments and endorsed by the democratic voters logically lead you to the obvious conclusions. Sure, we have a hilariously rocketing energy prices. But this is not an accident. It was easily predictable result of their actions.
- entropie 4y ago
  Who said it was accidental?
  - oxff 4y ago
    Maybe I chose the wrong word. It is intentional result of the policies, so how can there be a 'crisis'? Everyone knew where the path would lead, so how can there be such a thing as surprise, as if it were an accident?
    - entropie 4y ago
      I think the outcome was anticipated (we talk basically about it since the sanctions started). Nonetheless the result is a crisis. No one is surprised.
TedShiller 4y ago
The Germans laughed at Trump when he predicted this https://twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249?lang=en https://twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249?...
- rvz 4y ago
  Now Trump has the last laugh. Germany is looking very stupid in their current situation and they now found out that he was right. The hard way.
- TedShiller 4y ago
HL33tibCe7 4y ago
Let’s hope we can scrap the EU’s bullshit “green gas” labelling too.
jupp0r 4y ago
Nuclear is dead in Germany. Postponing the shutdown of those outdated rotten reactors built in the 70s is not a strategy shift. If new reactors were being built constantly, those old reactors wouldn’t be in service anymore anyways because they are just too expensive and dangerous.
Pxtl 4y ago
Ontario has among the lowest emissions power on the face of the Earth because of nuclear power but will be shutting down Pickering power station next year, which generates 14% of all power in the province, eclipsing all renewable energy built and planned and even cancelled projects. We're about to follow Germany's mistake and yet none of our politicians are talking about it.
ndr 4y ago
https://archive.ph/vNeEr https://archive.ph/vNeEr
duxup 4y ago
Reliance on products, power, etc from less free nations is an inherent security / economic risk. It's hard to get around that.
Barrera 4y ago
> Germany’s nuclear phase-out was prompted by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power disaster in 2011. What's interesting here is how Germany's public policy is swaying in the winds of current events. First it was Japan's experience that triggered the country to pull the plug on nuclear. Now it's the Ukraine war triggering them to plug that sucker back in. Sacrificing the long term for the short was in former times described as a characteristically American problem. I remember reading article after article about how far-sighted the European governments were. How they built consensus across public and private sectors, working on a scale of many years rather than just one quarter. How much better equipped they were to weather bad times. It turns out all democracies face similar problems (The People want benefits without pain), but good times create illusions to the contrary for a while.
bsedlm 4y ago
what about the centralization aspects of nuclear power? there's no way nuclear can be decentralized, even with relatively tiny reactors, the waste management requires too much discipline. If the Japanese couldn't avoid a disaster, and considering discipline would come easy to them, I don't think nuclear can ever be truly safe and distributed. solar and wind are more resistant to centralization.
zanethomas 4y ago
I noticed lately that even NPR is mentioning nuclear. As in "renewable resources, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear". Guess they got the memo regarding the impracticality of going without either fossil or nuclear fuels.
woranl 4y ago
Safe nuclear power is an engineering problem, whereas Russian gas is a geopolitical one. Germany has more faiths in Russia being nice than German engineering. It is a shame.
lykahb 4y ago
The Russians have funded far right, far left and the greens in the West. For them anything would do if it can destabilize the other countries.
- the_why_of_y 4y ago
  > and the greens That's an odd claim. In Germany the Green party was the only party promising to scrap the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Russia before last year's elections. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-greens-nord-stream-idUSKBN2BB0ZS https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-greens-n...
dgb23 4y ago
I predict that we get to have actual, fast, non-partisan progress when it comes to the energy and emission problems in the near future. I'm hopeful. Progressives have been pushing to phase out harmful energy sources (among many other things) since more than half a century across the developed world. There was always push-back from conservative voices, NIMBYs and just generally ignorant people, but that is starting to weaken and we see more and more convergence. - First, the concerns, typically based on scientific evidence, was simply ignored. - When voices got louder, there was a push-back based on economic concerns, still ignoring the threat of pollution. - Meanwhile a wave of propaganda started to saw doubt about the effects of pollution, climate change and so on. - At first it was said that climate change will not happen. - Then it was said that climate change is not man made. - Denying climate change was becoming unpopular, so they started talking about feasibility, nitpicking, ad-hominem/ridicule and distraction. All of this time everyone could have invested time, money and brain power into shifting to renewable energy, energy storage, energy efficiency, insulation etc. And now since more and more weather changes and catastrophes are actually happening, there are suddenly people from the same camp talking about bringing back nuclear. Why? Because of an political issue that nobody predicted and is completely unrelated to the global threat of climate change. But this is a good thing. It is the first step to realization that everyone should put much more effort into sustainable energy and peripheral issues. It might happen for the 'wrong' reasons, but it will happen.
jmyeet 4y ago
I know HN has its cadre of pro-nuclear devotees but until we have some large technological breakthroughs, nuclear power isn't going anywhere long term. Fusion as it exists today (eg ITER) is a massive boondoggle. Hydrogen fusion fundamentally loses energy from neutron escape. To add insult to injury, those neutrons also destroy the reactor. As for fission, of the almost 700 fission plants humanity has ever built, exactly zero have been built without massive government subsidy. Why? Because they're expesnive to build, maintain and operate, uneconomically so. And that's before you even get into the issues such as: - What do you do with the fuel processing waste (eg UF6)? Some claim this problem is solved (eg reprocessing UF6 -> UF4) but it's not solved but it's not economic; - What to do with the fuel waste? Putting it somewhere geologically stable and hoping for the best for thousands of years is... less than ideal. - Can humans be trusted to run nuclear plants long term? Corporations notoriously cut costs that don't have immediate impact but the failure modes of fission plants are catastrophic. Governments too suffer from corruption; - Can governments regulate fission plants at scale? I support Germany delaying nuclear power plant closure because of this crisis but this in no way will be a return to nuclear power. But let's examine how we got here and this is the part that makes people unreasonably mad for some reason. Yes, Putin is the unjustified aggressor but you cannot ignore what role US foreign policy played in creating the Ukraine crisis through NATO. The US would never accept the equivalent level of expansion of a hostile military alliance the way we somehow expect Russia to. I mean the US almost started World War Three over Cuba after instigating the Cuban Missile Crisis by installing Jupiter MRBMs in Turkey. This war in Ukraine is a massive boon to the US military industrial complex. The level of military aid we're giving to Ukraine is oddly similar to the income defense contractors "lost" by ending the war in Afghanistan.. Weird, huh?
mikaeluman 4y ago
In this thread on Germany I am surprised to read about Jane Fonda (who?). The European perspective is most strongly influenced by movements starting post Chernobyl. This happened not only in Germany but also in Sweden and other countries. In Germany, for some reason (please tell us you German HN users) this movement has had an outsized impact and not even Merkel could stop dismantlement of nuclear. It shouldn't take a crisis to rethink things, but we are humans and so it does. What is the German perspective?
99_00 4y ago
By supporting intervention in Ukraine Germany lost an export market, and are now facing an even worse energy crisis. They will effectively have an energy tax on everything their industry produces. If they didn't support intervention, I assume they would have faced even worse consequences from allies. And the German delegation to the UN laughed in Trump's face when he confronted them on their dependence on Russia.
morpheos137 4y ago
Picking a fight with Russia over Ukrainian nationalism is not in the interest of Germany. In democracies voters tend to punish politicians who hurt their interest although it sometimes takes a while for them to figure things out. Modern nationalism has killed more people than any political ideology.
miclill 4y ago
The title of the story is potentially misleading. Germany is not thinking about building new power plants. It's just thinking about letting the existing ones run a little longer than originally planned.

395 points by notlukesky 4y ago

Since the Ukraine crisis the EU is relabeling everything ESG: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/esg-investors-warm-to-nuclear-power-after-eu-green-label-award-69002267 https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... Is this the inflection point when we go back to the 1970s? Richard Nixon had planned for 1000 nuclear reactors in the US for Project Independence by the year 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Independence

geostupid 4y ago
Appreciate the link to Project Independence. Despite way too many late nights reading about atomic/nuclear history, somehow I missed this one.
sdrwefgfvb 4y ago
This is yet another instance of a phenomenon: When you have good outcomes and bad outcomes, and you take some preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of bad outcomes, as time goes by people start believing that the bad outcomes don't really exist and get rid of the preventative measures. Example, energy independence from Russia and shutting down nuclear reactors. Another example, people think there's no point in taking vaccines.
- TheBlight 4y ago
  Not all vaccines are equal. Just like all things labeled medicine are not equal and not equally beneficial/recommended for everyone.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    I took grandparent comment's reference to be the resistance to COVID-19 vaccines, which could have prevented endemic establishment in the US of COVID-19 had the GOP base adopted them quicker (along with non-pharmaceutical interventions). The mRNA vaccines are an absolute gamechanger in this space. I am glad we have the technology available. EDIT: Whoa, people surprisingly hate this comment. It's true though -- rural red counties have been hit much harder, due to demographic factors, lower vaccine uptake as well as boosting, lower access, and lower testing generally (leading to higher serology rate differentials to reported counts). The entire state of GA, for example, looks like each county has low case counts compared to the rest of the US until you realize testing there only captures 1 in 4 cases. This selective intransigence to public health measures was a problem when there was one case, and has persisted to be a problem until today.
    - TheBlight 4y ago
      Hmm. Did the GOP's reach extend to the island nation of New Zealand on the other side of the globe?
      - nxm 4y ago
        What economic and costs are you willing to pay to be on lockdown for so long?
        TheBlight 4y ago
        "Pay" implies there was some benefit that was purchased.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        > Did the GOP's reach extend to the island nation of New Zealand on the other side of the globe? Well, yeah. New Zealand had great policies and good compliance. Then the same shitty murdoch and facebook led conspiracy theories, selfishness, and lies spread. Now they're dealing with the same issues as everyone else. Plus without the insane propaganda machine, lack of aid, and hoarding of unused vaccines we may not have even developed some of the mutations or had it become endemic in animal populations. At least people in new zealand had a chance to get fully vaccinated there and avoid the short term death toll though.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Most of the resistance I’ve seen against vaccines have been against ones that are highly beneficial relative to their risks. Have you seen pushback against ones that weren’t? I’ve literally seen folks push back against Tetanus, Polio, MMR, etc.
    - mbg721 4y ago
      Tetanus and polio do horrifying things to the body; measles and mumps are sort of mid-level, right? And something like chicken pox has a vaccine now, but is relatively harmless if you catch it as a child.
      - abakker 4y ago
        Chicken pox may be harmless as a child. That virus also causes shingles and that is NOT harmless as an adult. edit to add: things like HPV seem harmless, but HPV infection is linked to the vast majority of cervical cancer. Things like epstein-barr are implicated in certain cancers as well. There are no "good viruses" and just because they have mild initial symptoms does not make them harmless.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        Chicken pox vaccine prevents 8000 hospitalizations per year (in the US) https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccine-infographic.html https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccine-infographic.html. Measles vaccine prevents around 50000 hospitalizations per year.
      - kybernetikos 4y ago
        > chicken pox has a vaccine now, but is relatively harmless if you catch it as a child. I think if adults were catching a disease that took them out of action for a week in a fairly miserable way and gave them blisters that frequently ended up leaving permanent scars, we'd be taking it way more seriously. Kids don't make the decisions, and everyone remembers that they suffered through it, so kids these days should too...
        lazide 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
jiveturkey42 4y ago
I certainly hope so. Maybe we can now move boldly forward into a nuclear future since the Boomers got cold feet about it
- api 4y ago
  So many things can happen when the boomers retire, including not just this but building more housing stock in insanely overpriced NIMBY cities and building public transit.
  - bogantech 4y ago
    Why do people think that selfishness is quality only found in boomers? Reality check even when the boomers are all dead there's still going to be shortsighted selfish people running the show
    - jiveturkey42 4y ago
      The boomers lived through an age of unprecedented abundance, when that dries up, innovation out of necessity will trump any ideology
ihsw 4y ago
_ph_ 4y ago
No, since all currently available nuclear reactor models are way more expensive to build than renewables. And a lot of tangentials remain open. Like where to get and reprocess fuel rods? What about operational safety? And most of all, where to dump the radiactive waste? But in the end, just the price will kill them on any larger scale.
- scrlk 4y ago
  >And a lot of tangentials remain open. Like where to get and reprocess fuel rods? What about operational safety? And most of all, where to dump the radiactive waste? All solved issues - nuclear energy is a matter of political will at this point.
  - pydry 4y ago
    If operational safety were a completely solved problem nuclear plants would be able to buy insurance without a liability cap of <0.5% of the cost of dealing with 1 fukushima. As it is, even with that subsidy financing plants is basically impossible without more subsidies. Bill Gates' new reactor startup required taxpayers to fund 50% of it to even exist.
    - scrlk 4y ago
      The reason why I believe operational safety is a solved problem: the US Navy has run reactors on board ships and submarines since the 50s, with 0 reactor accidents. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Reactors
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        And the Russians have had accidents untold. Which is run more like commercial reactors?
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    No, they are not solved.
Algent 4y ago
> Since the Ukraine crisis the EU is relabeling everything ESG I remember reading about the "relabeling" long before UK crisis. It started as Germany wanting to label gas as green to defend their high interest in Russian gas and going all surprised when France pulled the "Nuclear is cleaner than gas so it's green too, right ?" card. Current crisis probably helped Nuclear to make the cut because it originally wasn't a done deal at all.
cinntaile 4y ago
> Since the Ukraine crisis the EU is relabeling everything ESG: This discussion was already happening before the war in Ukraine, it probably helped both gas and nuclear getting labeled as green though.
quadcore 4y ago
Knowing its 42°C currently in France and 40°C in UK, that we blasted previous temp records two times in two months, well I think we should make it mandatory to build reactors.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  "but those take 10 years to build, that's too long" -people telling me this 5 years ago -also people telling me the same 10 years ago -also people telling me the same 15 years ago -also people telling me te same 20 years ago -and of course, people telling me this now.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    People also tell to build wind and solar, while ignoring that those two needs to be backed up by coal and gas.
    - abakker 4y ago
      or batteries / battery analogs. It is possible to solve this problem with tools we currently have. If we're thinking long term, we do not require coal or gas for power generation given sufficient hydro, wind, solar and storage. Cryogenic air, pumped hydro, and other storage designs are possible.
      - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Chemical batteries are completely useless and expensive gimmick in state-wide storage of electric energy. Cost is main reason why it is cheaper to build coal/gas plant instead.
        Pxtl 4y ago
        From what I've read batteries are the preferred option for short-term zero-emissions levelling but once you get into longer term stuff you start looking at storing compressed air or hydrogen in salt caverns. But hydrogen cracking/storage as a grid-level utility is still at the experimental stage.
api 4y ago
If we'd done what Nixon suggested climate change would probably not be a problem, as not only would we emit less than half current carbon emissions but the rest of the world would have followed and we'd have a huge nuclear power supply chain to make it easier for them to do that. We'd now be replacing gasoline and diesel with EVs and our carbon emissions would be falling rapidly. While solar and wind have advanced quite a bit to the point that they're a viable option in many regions, whether or not nuclear is at least on the table is the litmus test for whether someone actually takes climate change seriously. Anyone who dogmatically rules out nuclear either doesn't actually believe in climate change or is hopelessly ignorant. At the very least Germany and other countries should be leaving the perfectly good nuclear plants they already have online until the end of their operable life as they build out renewables and shut down coal and gas. The priority should always be shutting down fossil fuels first.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Energy and politics are intertwined. Nixon’s alcoholism and mental illness took him out of the picture, and really killed the more traditional “establishment” GOP; a new generation of “conservatives” was empowered and eventually took over the GOP. Who funded these newcomers? Oil, gas and friends was a big part of it. We converted to coal instead as a result.
  - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
    Oil and gas lobbyists insisted on using coal, instead of oil and gas? Was it the same lobbyists who convinced China to use coal? https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-building-33-gw-coal-power-2021-most-since-2016-research-2022-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-starts-bui... Maybe coal is just a convenient energy source.
  - api 4y ago
    We didn't convert to coal. It was the primary source for industry and power. We stuck with it.
    - 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
I will rail against Jane Fonda. This person is the most responsible person for the situation we're in right now. She conspired with others to derail (literally in some cases) Nuclear power. This is what happens when you follow uninformed advocates from Hollywood. People should learn to despise "influencers." They know little but aim to move people to action based on poor or very poor understanding of the things they propose and base their positions on emotion, mostly.
- hammock 4y ago
  - mc32 4y ago
    That they might align at times with a better decision does not imply they made a logical decision. In many instances they were making emotional appeals, if I recall correctly. Also, it's to hard to imagine that any of the other Democrat candidates for president could have fared worse than Biden. Bloomberg or Bernie, I think could have done a better job so far. The others were a bit green and likely unprepared for global events, but even so, could one imagine them dong any worse? There is a fair chance they could have done better.
    - jen20 4y ago
      > Bloomberg or Bernie, I think could have done a better job so far. Assuming they had been capable of winning against Trump in the first place.
      - jack_pp 4y ago
        Why would a senile man who can barely talk straight have a better chance against Trump? If the democrats didn't fear Bernie and would've pushed him as much and as ruthlessly as they did Biden I'm pretty sure he would've won as well
        4y ago
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Holy shit, 1000 reactors? Did anyone tell them the more reactors you have, the more likely one will melt down? (basic probability) IMO they should be used strategically, i.e. concentrated large power requirements and to lower overall emissions. You want a mix of power-generating solutions, otherwise you have a monoculture which can lead to system collapse. Right now they're short on gas, but what happens when they're short on uranium, or places to put spent fuel? You can't just spin up a new power plant over a weekend (which is their problem right now). Or if we had a supervolcano and solar went out, or if winds died down, or had a shortage of parts due to a pandemic or recession, etc. We need many solutions to cover all our bases. You spin up and down capacity in each market depending on the circumstances. This allows the lowest cost, least harmful solutions at any given time, hedges against changing market conditions, and enables emergency power relief. edit: LOL @ all the downvotes because I said a nuclear meltdown might be bad
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Chernobyl killed fewer people during the worst meltdown possible than the average coal plant kills during its lifetime of normal operation.
  - polotics 4y ago
    also talking about radioactive waste, guess what comes out of burning coal? more dangerous radioactive material than you'd expect. https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-is-coal-ash-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste-and-what-is-the-exact-reason https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-is-coal-ash-more-radio...
  - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
    I never said nuclear power plants were bad. But Chernobyl depopulated a 1,000 square mile region that will remain uninhabitable for hundreds to thousands of years. Do that a couple more times over a century in a densely populated area like Europe and see how easy it is to travel without a car made of lead, much less find a place to live.
    - 4y ago
rjzzleep 4y ago
Germany was actively trying to block labelling nuclear as green to make sure nuclear isn't eligible for subsidies [1]. France was pushing for nuclear energy to be added to the list. Nobody knows if it was just general erratic behaviour by the green party or just general hatred and jealousy towards the french. But let's also remember that France sold their turbine business due to pressure of the DoJ[2], has been talking about repatriating it[3] (which has not happened yet), but as of now has 29 out of 56 reactors out of commission and as a result, the energy powerhouse France is buying energy from Bavaria[4]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/germany-reject-eu-green-investment-label-nuclear-power-2022-05-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/germany-reject-eu-green-inv... [2] https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-american-takeover-of-a-french-national-champion-became-intertwined-in-a-corruption-investigation https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-americ... [3] https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/nucleaire-edf-annonce-qu-il-va-racheter-les-turbines-arabelle-de-general-electric-steam-power-20618942-8a4e-11ec-b1a4-b42f8ae3c7af https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/nucleair... [4] https://www.merkur.de/bayern/atomkraftwerke-bayern-auswirkungen-preis-kosten-deutschland-frankreich-strom-gas-91651098.html https://www.merkur.de/bayern/atomkraftwerke-bayern-auswirkun...
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > Nobody knows if it was just general erratic behaviour by the green party or just general hatred and jealousy towards the french. Those are terrible explanations. There's a much simpler one: The oil and gas industry was able to corrupt Germany and not France.
  - Bayart 4y ago
    Total doesn't have a stellar reputation abroad.
- Bayart 4y ago
  French lowered production capacity at the moment is largely due to delayed inspections because of Covid.
  - 4y ago
kuratkull 4y ago
Ukraine Crisis? It's Russias War
_fat_santa 4y ago
Is it just me or does ESG feel like a giant virtue signal from companies and investors? Taking this specific issue of nuclear. Nuclear Energy is objectively cleaner than other forms of energy generation and is objectively safe if you operate it properly. With that said, it seems like Nuclear Energy would be embraced by the ESG crowd, but that simply wasn't the case. Now that the rubber met the road, the sentiment has changed. So was nuclear actually bad? Or was it just "bad". Almost seems that everyone was so obsessed with going green and getting rid of "big bad nuclear" that they forgot that they depend on it. Much like a kid quitting his job to pursue the arts and then realizing, he can't make rent without the job they just quit...
- indy 4y ago
  ESG is a tool that certain political parties can use to "give to their friends" and "take from their enemies". Anyone who doesn't toe the line will find their ESG rating dropping (see Tesla: https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-keep-exxon-but-drop-tesla-and-3-ways-to-fix-esg-ratings-to-meet-investors-expectations-183705 https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-k...)
  - woodpanel 4y ago
    Been criticizing Tesla for years. But once Elon openly confronted cancel culture's twitterized grip on democracy all of a sudden those criticisms became newsworthy and a concern for regulators. Same with crypto: The scammy-ness and un-pleasentness (ie of funding terrorists and organized crime) was always there, but news-worthy it got only once Canadian Truckers made use of it.
- Geee 4y ago
  Yes. It's not only virtue signaling, but a deceitful way to control policies and investments. It's not for the environment, but for power and profit.
- misterprime 4y ago
  Agreed. I'm not opposed to identifying situations where companies are getting away with something for free that they should be paying for, and then correcting that. For example, dumping chemicals into a river, or emitting toxic fumes into the air. Somehow this turned into: "only solar, wind, and thermal are good, so everything other than those are bad. We need to shut down nuclear." It would have been better if it was: "wow, these decades old designs did really well. We've learned a lot over the years, let's build newer, better, cleaner, safer nuclear plants and then shut down the old ones."
poushkar 4y ago
Calling it a "Ukraine crisis" omits mentioning Russia and the full-scale invasion of annihilation and genocide it's conducting. Please, consider calling it "Russian invasion of Ukraine" or similar. Thank you.
hash07e 4y ago
No No No. I watched for a long time Germany virtual signalling about their commitment to phase out fossil fuels all the green stuff. Then Greta BratBerg telling me I am the evil. No compromises. I am expecting germany out of ALL fussil + nuclear in 2025. If they are cold they can make some soup with chilli to warm them up.
IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
i think the change is too little, too late. Historically, nuclearprojects take in avg 7.5 years to come online. [1] Thats a long time, almost 2 full terms of a presidency (US). Plenty of time for political winds to change. Instead of relabeling a rotten apple as 'edible' to investors, the EU should put something fresh that can be quickly consumed. [1]https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/ https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucl...
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Your aticle explains why not: > Financial concerns may also deter investors from putting money into nuclear. Plants have vast up-front costs, and there is a long wait for profits due to lengthy development and construction times, particularly in comparison to renewables. Recent new-builds, including the Finland's Olkiluoto nuclear plant, France's Flamanville 3 and the U.K.'s Hinkley Point C, all suffered from huge delays and cost overruns. > Such issues further complicate both efforts to raise investment for nuclear and policy makers' reliance on the technology to meet environmental goals.

digdugdirk 4y ago

This was an interesting case of a political decision having relatively obvious negative near term repercussions. I'd assume that the previously shut down nuclear plants weren't "scuttled" and are still able to be brought back online - does anyone here work in the industry and/or have any idea what that process would entail, and what costs would be incurred?

fsiefken 4y ago
"GERMAN NUCLEAR OPERATOR: WE CAN KEEP RUNNING, ONLY NEED "OK" News clip has emerged showing that Chancellor Scholz and Economy Minister Habeck have been falsely claiming that nuclear plants cannot operate because of staffing and lack of fuel. They only need political permission." https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1548269133300543499 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1548269133300543499
- freemint 4y ago
  Yet, the CEO of the company who owns Isar 2 still hasn't revised his opinion. Without his OK Isar 2 won't run. https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-04/11/eon-lehnt-soeder-forderung-fuer-isar-2-erneut-ab https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-04/11/eon-lehnt-soeder-forderu... So stop spreading one sided information.
  - fsiefken 4y ago
    Where is the one-sided information here? Technically the PreussenElektra CEO is Guido Knott, they operate and have a substantive ownership of the German nuclear plants. Preusenelektra is a subsidiary of E.ON, where Leonhard Birnbaum is the CEO you mention. His opinion follows the government decision. In a letter to the people working for Preussenelektra he wrote: "The German government has examined the contribution that the remaining nuclear power plants can make to solving the current energy crisis and, after weighing the options, has come to the decision that nuclear energy should not be part of the solution [..] This decision must be respected [..] I can imagine that one or the other of you had hoped that for a while, as a transitional solution, nuclear energy would still have some way to go." As quoted in "Rheinische Post" (Wednesday edition, 22 june 2022) Now Bernd Guhlich, communication of PreussenElektra acknowledges this in the interview. Without the OK of the government and by proxy CEO E.ON Leonhard Birnbaum nothing will happen. The E.ON CEO is not the decision or policy maker here, that's the government (which is by definition open to public debate). But, and that was the point Bern Guhlich was making (which is not one sided as he acknowledges the decision): Isar can technically run for longer then the end of this year if the government decides to do that. The Bundesministerium fuer Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (a department of the government) decided against that for reasons Bern Guhlich argues are false: * there is no legal basis * the 3 nuclear plants cannot operate longer without fuel rods Additionally the tweet from Mark Nelson asserts: "Chancellor Scholz and Economy Minister Habeck have been falsely claiming that nuclear plants cannot operate because of staffing and lack of fuel." Perhaps you mean that there are other reasons the CEO mentioned in the article you refer to: extension would be of limited energy benefit.

tasubotadas 4y ago

Think? They think it's the time to "think"? They need to act.

Gwypaas 4y ago

If nuclear was an easy solution the French reactors would be running. Or as the article states. > In France, nuclear availability is currently at 24.8 GW, less than half the installed capacity of 61.4 GW due to safety checks at several reactors. The real problem isn't electricity, it is natural gas as a feedstock for industry and for heating. There you don't have the same instant fungibility pure electricity brings, and nuclear can't magically solve either.

xyzzyz 4y ago
You can easily heat houses with electricity, and, with more effort, you can convert most of industrial processes to use electricity instead of gas. The reason it hadn’t been done is that it was significantly more expensive than using gas. However, with gas gone, and with hypothetical abundant nuclear, this would not have been the case. Arguing against nuclear because “electricity doesn’t help heat houses” is extremely strange, bordering on deceptive.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Heat pumps are amazing, but it's a project where the time span is decades to convert half a continent. It doesn't solve this winter. I firmly believe heat pumps and renewable energy is the future. But that can only become the solution in the time span of 5-10 years.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    In the short term, you can use resistive space heaters. This is, to be sure, 2-3x times more expensive than heat pumps, but given the cost of gas, might still be worth it. Point is, nuclear helps, and a couple of extra gigawatts day and night makes a difference.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Yes, all the gas usages can and will be replaced by electricity. Which will come from renewables. The 3 remaining German nuclear reactors won't make much of a difference here, but yes, those which are in any shape for it, should run e bit longer. Though one has to take into account, that the maintenance was set up according to operate them to the end of the year, so a lot of maintenance would be necessary for any longer operation time. No where there is abundant nuclear visible, new build projects have vastly overrun any time and fiscal budgets.

1-6 4y ago

I’m not sure why Germany thought that it would be a good idea to decommission nuclear energy in the first place. It’s the greenest energy source at scale!

jiveturkey42 4y ago
- SonicTheSith 4y ago
  I wouldn't describe, the process of recognizing your mistakes as self hate. As a German, I know my country is not perfect, none is, and I recognize that past mistakes should not happen again. Smart people learn from mistakes and try not to repeat them. Sure compared to the US most Germans are not patriotic or are blindly loving their country. But compared to the US what over country emotionally so invested in being number 1 that everything that was bad or does not work / could be better is ignored? The US is like an Ostrich, as soon as it is uncomfortable they put their head in the sand and yell we are the best, we are number. It can also be compared to conservatives labeling liberals as snow flakes and ridiculing save spaces, while at the same time making the US a giant safe space and ignoring reality.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Gwypaas 4y ago
Because renewables are handily greener with a fraction of the negative side effects nuclear brings. Both from taking care of spent fuel and safety measures. You can't even insure a nuclear power plant. That should tell you how safe the private market think they are.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > with a fraction of the negative side effects nuclear brings For a fraction of the energy density that you get with nuclear power. Enjoy planting wind farms and solar farms costing huge amounts of land.

jamil7 4y ago

> In the first stress test in spring, the German government pointed out that nuclear units would hardly help to save gas as gas demand in Germany was mainly driven by heat production and industrial use. That's what I already thought was the case and the article adds it as the last paragraph. I get a lot of people want to focus on the nuclear angle but it's only one part of a frustrating string of poor energy choices by Germany's politicians. Edit: removed a word.

scythe 4y ago
Germany is not an island. The EU burns plenty of gas for electricity. Germany could simply sell nuclear electricity to other EU members so they will burn less gas. And isn't this kind of cooperation the whole point of the EU?
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Well, currently a lot of electricity goes from Germany to France, as 50% of the French nuclear plants are not operational at the moment. (A lot need maintenance, others are down because of the heat)
  - scythe 4y ago
    This doesn't contradict anything I said. - Everything needs maintenance; nuclear plants are by no means unique in this regard. France may have planned badly, so that many plants are down at once, but this is not a systemic problem with nuclear power. - Europe overall was unprepared for the heat wave, but we are not really concerned with energy demand during heat waves (which are short, and when sunshine is plentiful) but rather during the winter (which is long, and dark in EU). So again, more nuclear capacity in Germany could offset gas-fired power plants throughout EU.
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      I would not be so arrogant to assume the German power industry would solve the problems so much better than the French. The French mostly suffers from the fact that it has become prohibitively expensive to build new reactors. And of course: Germany currently has 3 operational reactors, new ones could be available in 10-15 years earliest. There had been plenty of warnings, because in the last 10 years it was quite common for the French grid to be borderline in the summer, cooling always was a tight spot. And nuclear is a bad offset for gas-fired power plants, as they are rather used as quick power plants, that is something nuclear is the worst at.

zidel 4y ago

This appears to be copied from https://www.montelnews.com/news/1336133/germany-to-review-nuclear-exit-amid-gas-crisis https://www.montelnews.com/news/1336133/germany-to-review-nu...

crikeyjoe 4y ago

it_citizen 4y ago

Maybe we are a bit harsh with Germany? By pulling out of nuclear, they poured billions in renewables much earlier that other countries. They had to deal with immature technologies and greatly participated in making them more reliable and cheaper. > The renewable-energy field employs nearly 340,000 people in Germany, and according to the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), there are now more than 180 universities and 120 research institutes involved in the country’s energy-transition programme, Energiewende. Pulling out of nuclear might have been a net negative for Germany but a net positive for the rest of world.

upupandup 4y ago
I don't think so, a strong German economy ultimately benefits the region and results in more resources available for distribution elsewhere. But we've decided we don't want that model anymore. It's ironic that people who have been participating in protests about global warming are the very ones that will pay the brunt of the cost through inflation and scarcity of heat/energy
jsiepkes 4y ago
> By pulling out of nuclear, they poured billions in ENRs much earlier that other countries. That's a bit dual sided. Germany basically let France be their "battery" with it's nuclear reactors. Germany also ensured that on the EU energy market energy out of renewables had to be bought first. Meaning that nuclear reactors became less profitable while Germany conveniently relied on them when there was low wind or low sun. That was quite a scummy move.
- it_citizen 4y ago
  Not arguing with that. But it might still be a net positive. But renewables is the real key for energy transition. The reality is that very few countries plan to move most of their energy production to nuclear. Even RTE (the French electricity company) said they will need to crank renewables to 50% of their energy mix to meet carbon neutrality by 2050 with their most pro-nuclear scenario (N03). Making renewables more competitive globally might have largely compensated the gas/goal emitted by Germany if it contributed to help developing countries to skip the fossil stage.

asah 4y ago

I assume Europe's only real "strategy" for 2022 is extreme energy conservation, from lowering temperature settings ("put on a sweater") to heating selected rooms and offices. In fact, the plan is more comprehensive, though I notice that the numbers seem elusive - does conservation really have much impact? https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/europe-outlines-9-step-plan-to-save-energy-ukraine-and-the-planet/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/europe-outlines... https://www.iea.org/news/energy-saving-actions-by-eu-citizens-could-save-enough-oil-to-fill-120-super-tankers-and-enough-natural-gas-to-heat-20-million-homes https://www.iea.org/news/energy-saving-actions-by-eu-citizen... "According to the plan’s findings, turning down the thermostat by just 1 °C would save around 7% of the energy used for heating, while setting an air conditioner 1 °C warmer could reduce the amount of electricity used by up to 10%. With an average one-way car commute in the EU of 15 kilometres, working at home three days a week could reduce household fuel bills by around €35 a month, even after taking increased energy use at home into account. And as the average car in the EU clocks up about 13 000 kilometres a year, reducing cruising speed on motorways by 10 kilometres an hour could cut fuel bills by an average of around €60 a year."

throwaway4aday 4y ago
The much bigger problem in Germany is their chemical industry which uses gas as a feedstock. You can't just turn down the thermostat when a large chunk of your economy (and a lot of other countries) depends on it.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Never let a crisis go to waste.

dark-star 4y ago

Now that nuclear energy is considered "green" in the EU, this is an expected move

LightG 4y ago

This feels like a no win ... We reduce nuclear energy use to avoid things like radioactive waste, etc. Bad actors like Putin p!ss on attempts to go renewable. We go nuclear. Bad actors like Putin p!ss on attempts to use nuclear safely (by doing X). Rinse Repeat At some point, you have to deal with the bad actor. And no, I don't have any solutions.

_fat_santa 4y ago
I don't know what Putin has to do with operating nuclear safely in Germany.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- LightG 4y ago
  No. You dont. That's the point.
gruturo 4y ago
>And no, I don't have any solutions. Hmm > At some point, you have to deal with the bad actor. Sounds like you do.

celestialcheese 4y ago

Good. Nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy[1], and with renewables, will get us off fossil fuels quicker than renewables alone. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#:~:text=The%20key%20insight%20is%20that,solar%20are%20just%20as%20safe https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#:~:text=....

a3w 4y ago
> Good The title is about "thinking", not something that is actually likely to happen. Some parties, without consensus, are claiming it would be a good idea. The people in charge say that this won't happen, because of material reasons. The industry does not even want to run longer. It is technically feasible for some months. Legally, it is not feasible yet. Cost/gains wise the some-month idea could make sense, but new certifications are needed, so perhaps only in times of rare energy this could be a profitable arrangement.

freeflight 4y ago

What is that weird source? All the links in there are self-referential, and a lot of the articles are choke full of straight up wrong info. In their "About us" page they decry "consensus science" and "global warming alarmists".. Which is a way too common issue with a lot of the online reporting on German fission; Giving straight up wrong history and info based on very questionable motives. Case in point; The article, once again, claims it was Merkel who decided the exit, allegedly in 2011, when that's plain and simply wrong. Merkel pushed trough extremely unpopular running time extensions in 2010, then Fukushima exploded in 2011 and the running time extensions were revoked during the course of the atom-moratorium, as during safety inspections the reactors were found not to be safe enough to run that much longer [0]. That's also why some reactors never came back online from the moratorium; They were found too unsafe to be turned back on. But their remaining electricity contingency was added to the remaining ones, which is what will allow them to run for longer. At least if the German government will pay for that extra run time, as the nuclear operators themselves are unwilling to do so [1]. There is literally decades of more history there, several big government subsidies for the nuclear industry along the lines of "Privatized profits, socialized losses" [2], while at the same time sabotaging the renewable built out [3], all under allegedly "nuclear hating" Merkel. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/akw-betreiber-gegen-laengere-laufzeiten-die-nutzung-der-kernenergie-hat-sich-erledigt/24422262.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/akw-betreiber-gegen-l... [2] https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-deal-with-energy-companies/a-36089376 https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-d... [3] https://www.dw.com/en/renewable-sector-wary-of-cdu-promises/a-1675319 https://www.dw.com/en/renewable-sector-wary-of-cdu-promises/...

formerkrogemp 4y ago

There is no addressing climate change and affording our current standard of living without nuclear.

KaliGulaCountry 4y ago

Even by running on nuclear energy, Germany condemned its own industry which relies heavily on gas, which will not be delivered as required by Russia due to its own political decisions against Russia. They won't be able to get the gas from another country in the quantity required. The majority of factories just can't suppress their usage of gas. This winter will be quite difficult for a lot of industrial companies. I just can't understand, strategically, how such huge decisions can be made so quickly and totally going against the interest of your own people and economy. I mean, they just messed up badly.

aembleton 4y ago
> They won't be able to get the gas from another country in the quantity required. Why not? Can they not build LNG terminals?
- KaliGulaCountry 4y ago
  No, it takes at least three years to build LNG terminal. Even if it take less than that it would be quite hard to reach the necessary supply by LNG carrier ships. It also requires the construction of new LNG carrier ships. It also requires new partnerships.
  - aembleton 4y ago
    That's interesting to hear. I thought the reason LNG futures for this winter in the UK are so high is because other European countries are expected to have completed lng terminals by then. They only started a couple of months ago.

oxff 4y ago

"Crisis" is the wrong word to use when the actions taken by governments and endorsed by the democratic voters logically lead you to the obvious conclusions. Sure, we have a hilariously rocketing energy prices. But this is not an accident. It was easily predictable result of their actions.

entropie 4y ago
Who said it was accidental?
- oxff 4y ago
  Maybe I chose the wrong word. It is intentional result of the policies, so how can there be a 'crisis'? Everyone knew where the path would lead, so how can there be such a thing as surprise, as if it were an accident?
  - entropie 4y ago
    I think the outcome was anticipated (we talk basically about it since the sanctions started). Nonetheless the result is a crisis. No one is surprised.

TedShiller 4y ago

The Germans laughed at Trump when he predicted this https://twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249?lang=en https://twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249?...

rvz 4y ago
Now Trump has the last laugh. Germany is looking very stupid in their current situation and they now found out that he was right. The hard way.
TedShiller 4y ago

HL33tibCe7 4y ago

Let’s hope we can scrap the EU’s bullshit “green gas” labelling too.

jupp0r 4y ago

Nuclear is dead in Germany. Postponing the shutdown of those outdated rotten reactors built in the 70s is not a strategy shift. If new reactors were being built constantly, those old reactors wouldn’t be in service anymore anyways because they are just too expensive and dangerous.

Pxtl 4y ago

Ontario has among the lowest emissions power on the face of the Earth because of nuclear power but will be shutting down Pickering power station next year, which generates 14% of all power in the province, eclipsing all renewable energy built and planned and even cancelled projects. We're about to follow Germany's mistake and yet none of our politicians are talking about it.

ndr 4y ago

https://archive.ph/vNeEr https://archive.ph/vNeEr

duxup 4y ago

Reliance on products, power, etc from less free nations is an inherent security / economic risk. It's hard to get around that.

Barrera 4y ago

> Germany’s nuclear phase-out was prompted by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power disaster in 2011. What's interesting here is how Germany's public policy is swaying in the winds of current events. First it was Japan's experience that triggered the country to pull the plug on nuclear. Now it's the Ukraine war triggering them to plug that sucker back in. Sacrificing the long term for the short was in former times described as a characteristically American problem. I remember reading article after article about how far-sighted the European governments were. How they built consensus across public and private sectors, working on a scale of many years rather than just one quarter. How much better equipped they were to weather bad times. It turns out all democracies face similar problems (The People want benefits without pain), but good times create illusions to the contrary for a while.

bsedlm 4y ago

what about the centralization aspects of nuclear power? there's no way nuclear can be decentralized, even with relatively tiny reactors, the waste management requires too much discipline. If the Japanese couldn't avoid a disaster, and considering discipline would come easy to them, I don't think nuclear can ever be truly safe and distributed. solar and wind are more resistant to centralization.

zanethomas 4y ago

I noticed lately that even NPR is mentioning nuclear. As in "renewable resources, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear". Guess they got the memo regarding the impracticality of going without either fossil or nuclear fuels.

woranl 4y ago

Safe nuclear power is an engineering problem, whereas Russian gas is a geopolitical one. Germany has more faiths in Russia being nice than German engineering. It is a shame.

lykahb 4y ago

The Russians have funded far right, far left and the greens in the West. For them anything would do if it can destabilize the other countries.

the_why_of_y 4y ago
> and the greens That's an odd claim. In Germany the Green party was the only party promising to scrap the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Russia before last year's elections. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-greens-nord-stream-idUSKBN2BB0ZS https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-greens-n...

dgb23 4y ago

I predict that we get to have actual, fast, non-partisan progress when it comes to the energy and emission problems in the near future. I'm hopeful. Progressives have been pushing to phase out harmful energy sources (among many other things) since more than half a century across the developed world. There was always push-back from conservative voices, NIMBYs and just generally ignorant people, but that is starting to weaken and we see more and more convergence. - First, the concerns, typically based on scientific evidence, was simply ignored. - When voices got louder, there was a push-back based on economic concerns, still ignoring the threat of pollution. - Meanwhile a wave of propaganda started to saw doubt about the effects of pollution, climate change and so on. - At first it was said that climate change will not happen. - Then it was said that climate change is not man made. - Denying climate change was becoming unpopular, so they started talking about feasibility, nitpicking, ad-hominem/ridicule and distraction. All of this time everyone could have invested time, money and brain power into shifting to renewable energy, energy storage, energy efficiency, insulation etc. And now since more and more weather changes and catastrophes are actually happening, there are suddenly people from the same camp talking about bringing back nuclear. Why? Because of an political issue that nobody predicted and is completely unrelated to the global threat of climate change. But this is a good thing. It is the first step to realization that everyone should put much more effort into sustainable energy and peripheral issues. It might happen for the 'wrong' reasons, but it will happen.

jmyeet 4y ago

I know HN has its cadre of pro-nuclear devotees but until we have some large technological breakthroughs, nuclear power isn't going anywhere long term. Fusion as it exists today (eg ITER) is a massive boondoggle. Hydrogen fusion fundamentally loses energy from neutron escape. To add insult to injury, those neutrons also destroy the reactor. As for fission, of the almost 700 fission plants humanity has ever built, exactly zero have been built without massive government subsidy. Why? Because they're expesnive to build, maintain and operate, uneconomically so. And that's before you even get into the issues such as: - What do you do with the fuel processing waste (eg UF6)? Some claim this problem is solved (eg reprocessing UF6 -> UF4) but it's not solved but it's not economic; - What to do with the fuel waste? Putting it somewhere geologically stable and hoping for the best for thousands of years is... less than ideal. - Can humans be trusted to run nuclear plants long term? Corporations notoriously cut costs that don't have immediate impact but the failure modes of fission plants are catastrophic. Governments too suffer from corruption; - Can governments regulate fission plants at scale? I support Germany delaying nuclear power plant closure because of this crisis but this in no way will be a return to nuclear power. But let's examine how we got here and this is the part that makes people unreasonably mad for some reason. Yes, Putin is the unjustified aggressor but you cannot ignore what role US foreign policy played in creating the Ukraine crisis through NATO. The US would never accept the equivalent level of expansion of a hostile military alliance the way we somehow expect Russia to. I mean the US almost started World War Three over Cuba after instigating the Cuban Missile Crisis by installing Jupiter MRBMs in Turkey. This war in Ukraine is a massive boon to the US military industrial complex. The level of military aid we're giving to Ukraine is oddly similar to the income defense contractors "lost" by ending the war in Afghanistan.. Weird, huh?

mikaeluman 4y ago

In this thread on Germany I am surprised to read about Jane Fonda (who?). The European perspective is most strongly influenced by movements starting post Chernobyl. This happened not only in Germany but also in Sweden and other countries. In Germany, for some reason (please tell us you German HN users) this movement has had an outsized impact and not even Merkel could stop dismantlement of nuclear. It shouldn't take a crisis to rethink things, but we are humans and so it does. What is the German perspective?

99_00 4y ago

By supporting intervention in Ukraine Germany lost an export market, and are now facing an even worse energy crisis. They will effectively have an energy tax on everything their industry produces. If they didn't support intervention, I assume they would have faced even worse consequences from allies. And the German delegation to the UN laughed in Trump's face when he confronted them on their dependence on Russia.

morpheos137 4y ago

Picking a fight with Russia over Ukrainian nationalism is not in the interest of Germany. In democracies voters tend to punish politicians who hurt their interest although it sometimes takes a while for them to figure things out. Modern nationalism has killed more people than any political ideology.

miclill 4y ago

The title of the story is potentially misleading. Germany is not thinking about building new power plants. It's just thinking about letting the existing ones run a little longer than originally planned.