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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!

by 1-6 4y ago

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.
  - rowanajmarshall 4y ago
    Solar isn't a great idea in Germany anyway, but wind farms don't take much land, because you can use it for other things. It's pretty common here in the UK to have livestock or crops in the same fields as wind turbines.
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      Solar works great in Germany. Admittedly, there are better places in the world for solar, but it works. At noon today, about 50% of the total electricity in Germany came from solar. We need much more of solar, but until all rooftops have been filled with solar, it basically comes at zero land usage and at that point, the grid could be powered on many day entirely on solar. Add on top widely extended wind power.
      - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        AFAIK solar energy accounted for 10% of German energy generation in 2021 source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany
        _ph_ 4y ago
        Right. I wrote about peak output today, which is admittedly a sunny day. But just doubling the amount of solar installations would mean that Germany could run at times entirely on solar. That definitely means "solar is working". And a tenfold increase in production is absolutely feasible, we have so many rooftops alone. Add to that a greatly increased wind production capacity, and Germany is pretty close to even replace most usages of fossil fuels outside of electricity generation with renewable energy.
        peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        > But just doubling the amount of solar installations would mean that Germany could run at times entirely on solar. Remember that Germany has about the same solar potential as Alaska [1] Capacity factor for solar in Germany went from 5.7% in 1990 to 11.1% in 2019. Even increasing it at 10%/year to double it would take 7-8 years. It's not that simple to "just double it", Italy makes 43% of its energy from renewable sources, it's mainly hydro thanks to our geography and it's been like that since at least 20 years, but the numbers aren't going up very rapidly, there's a limit on how many dams you can build. Also, renewable like solar and wind are increasing and replacing the thermoelectric (gas, coal, fossil in general), the problem is we still have to buy at least 10% of the required energy from other countries, that might or might not use fossil to produce it. The point is not if we will be able to use 100% of renewable energy in the future, the point is "can we wait long enough for them to reach that point, before it's too late"? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Potenti...
- dijit 4y ago
  There is no Green future without nuclear energy as a component. By saying “yes, it’s better than coal but not as good as wind/water/solar/geothermal” you’re missing the forest for the trees. People are using coal and gas today. Without moving to nuclear we will keep using coal and gas. There is no near-term future where we can live on 100% renewable energy.
  - raphaelj 4y ago
    Well, you still need gas or coal to regulate your electricity production during surges.
  - sovnade 4y ago
    Not until we can figure out the storage problem, which is not batteries. Pumping water with excess power up into a reservoir to later use for hydro power, or something along those lines, is likely the only "battery" big enough to power a country.
- randomcarbloke 4y ago
  Safety? nuclear is the safest source of energy.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  > You can't even insure a nuclear power plant. That should tell you how safe the private market think they are. This is only because fossil fuel power plants are never held liable for the millions of premature deaths they have causes over the last few decades.
causi 4y ago
- upupandup 4y ago
  Is there any truth to this, what are your sources? Because if Russia wanted to make Germany dependant on their energy, using a political movement/party within to achieve their aims would be the natural progression. Still recall the overreaction post-Fukushima and thought it was really peculiar that a non-seismic region would look to an island sitting on top of a tectonic plate for guidance. It's almost comical how wide the ESG definition has become and how its been expanded to include not-so-eco friendly energy sources. I fear that all these virtue signaling, tree hugging movement, have an ulterior motive that overrides the genuine good will of the people participating but this asymmetric political cell will not be exposed I'm afraid because it would ruin a lot of what we've taught our schools as "moral". This is like a rich person that has a change of heart and wants his donation to a prestiguous school back but don't want to look bad so he's trying to find all sorts of faults.
- vimy 4y ago
  Russia has been funding green parties and NGOs in Europe for years.
  - Dma54rhs 4y ago
    That is why Merkel at first said Greta Thundberg is a Kremlin's project but had to backtrack fast because of backlash.
    - 988747 4y ago
      That's funny because Merkel herself was a Kremlin's project :)
  - wewxjfq 4y ago
    German Greens are against fossil fuels and against Russia. The only thing Russia funded was a smear campaign against the last Green chancellor candidate. Quality of these comments is why every nuclear energy thread needs to be flagged into oblivion.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
- Grüne (the Green party) have become strong in Germany - Fukushima happened, emotionally it helped the anti atom campaign - Germany is the lead manufacturer of solar panels in Europe - former German Chancellor Schröder (already chairman of Nord Stream and a good friend of Vladimir Putin) was nominated for Gazprom board
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
fsflover 4y ago
> It’s the greenest energy source at scale! Sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987. > I’m not sure why Germany thought that it would be a good idea to decommission nuclear energy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29278996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29278996 and https://www.ans.org/news/article-1392/robert-anderson-antinuclear-financier/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-1392/robert-anderson-antinu...
thereddaikon 4y ago
The German green party have been vehemently anti nuclear for decades. It's been that way since before Chernobyl but they started to gain popularity after that.
b112 4y ago
Hydro dams are the greenest at scale, but I agree, Germany likely can't do a dam.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Dams also cause huge ecological damage - there's no easy solution. Nuclear is good if (and this is a big if) the nuclear wastes are managed properly. Even then, right now sometimes it feels like nuclear waste is currently treated as the "next generations" problems.
  - sovnade 4y ago
    We can re-use nuclear waste now. Something like 90% of "waste" can be recycled and reused. It's not like we're just shoving it in yucca mountain anymore.
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      Not to mention that the amount of nuclear waste is absolutely tiny. If we can solve the political problem of where to store it then we could feasibly keep all of the nuclear waste ever produced in a single location far away from anyone or anything. I'd much rather have a nuclear waste storage site near where I live than live near a gas plant constantly spewing emissions into the air. I can tell where the nuclear waste is, I have no control over where the wind blows and which air I breathe.
    - Gwypaas 4y ago
      Not really. That is the dream of the fast reactor. It had been ongoing since the 50s. All attempts have been more costly than uranium reactors and there's only one in Russia which has operated with any kind of longevity. They also have proliferation concerns and have therefore been limited to nuclear powers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  they don't scale well unless you're in a country with lots of rivers that haven't been used. Most countries don't have that, like they don't have thermal. You can throw up a lot of power plants gas/coal/nuclear in most places though.
scifibestfi 4y ago
Environmentalism as a religion lead the entrenchment of dogmatic beliefs. Notably that nuclear energy is bad.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
The worst thing is, that little-germans (austrians) are protesting, when we here in Slovenia want to build a new block for our existing nuclear power plant.
viktorcode 4y ago
Overall, it's the most expensive way of producing energy. Long term it is on the way out.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > expensive Seeing everything through the "how expensive is it" lens is exactly what is making us burn our own planet though. Price should be the least of our concern when we discuss the future of our planet. Money has no value if you can't breath
  - freeflight 4y ago
    This is still a venture capital/investment forum, just handwaving away these economic dynamics, without even trying to explain how to replace them, does not really add much to the debate. It's the equivalent of somebody pointing out; "This is too expensive, we can't finance building or running it" and somebody replying with "Money is just invented, it's not real!". As true as that might be philosophically, practically it still doesn't change anything because the practical reality we live in is dominated by economic interests manifested trough money. So if your solution does need massive amounts of money, then you need to explain where they money is supposed to come from, as you can't just "wish" nuclear reactors into existence.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      That's why these things are nationalized and why uber isn't running our nuclear power plants for "hyper growth and exponential profit" Then we can talk about the thousands of lives lost to lung cancers due to coal: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/merkel-says-climate-be-g20-priority-coal-related-deaths/report-germany-suffers-more-coal-linked-deaths-rest-eu https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/merkel-says-climate-be-... How do you price that in ? > then you need to explain where they money is supposed to come from idk, when I see the US spending 8-10 trillion dollar in 20 years in Afghanistan I think money really isn't the problem here, we could have nuclearised the entire West twice over and still have extra, priorities I guess... > as you can't just "wish" nuclear reactors into existence. Yeah but you can wish them out, and wish for solar and wind farms to replace them, too bad these wishes didn't actually work out. Also, electricity is twice as expensive in Germany than in France, always been, and that's just the beginning of the whole coal/gas shitshow that's about to hit in the winter. Germany has the most expensive electricity of the EU zone too.
lm28469 4y ago
Some people live in their imaginary perfect world, for them compromises don't exist, they only see the positive impacts of their ideas/actions without any of the negatives. Just like people (ie armchairs ecologists) protested in France against the preemptive cutting and burning of small parts of forests to prevent fires, they won, two days ago the entire forest burned. To save a few hundred trees they sacrificed the whole forest. Germans don't like nuclear because "what if Fukishima happens in Germany", so instead they gas themselves with coal/gas fumes which are thousands of time worse in every single aspects, there is no "big boom" possible with gas/coal, it's a slow suffocating death, which apparently is not as scary
- infamouscow 4y ago
  Bonhoeffer argues stupidity is a moral failing, not an intellectual one [1]. So if you believe Bonhoeffer, then it can be argued armchair intellectuals have an obligation to not be stupid. And perhaps Germany and France should fine the stupid, or possibly put them in prison. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc
- jahewson 4y ago
  > Just like people (ie armchairs ecologists) protested in France against the preemptive cutting and burning of small parts of forests to prevent fires, they won, two days ago the entire forest burned. To save a few hundred trees they sacrificed the whole forest. I‘ve not been able to find a source to back up this claim.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/VitalBaude/status/1414935286392500225 https://twitter.com/VitalBaude/status/1414935286392500225
- croes 4y ago
  So tell me more about the deadly gas fumes. Which one is it? Carbon dioxide or water vapor? BTW your argument is based on the same perfect world where things like Fukushima don't happen. Germany already has a problem with it's existing nuclear waste and is far from solving it.
a3w 4y ago
It’s the greenest energy source at scale![citation needed] Or my counterpoints, as found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32027004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32027004
thrown_22 4y ago
Some people think that batteries are advanced enough to power the grid. In reality the largest battery installations in the world can run the grid they are attached to for a few minutes.
freeflight 4y ago
Because Germany is also where the one of the worlds first deep geological repository sites for nuclear waste was experimentally started in the 70s, in the former salt mine Asse II. That thing was supposed to last for many centuries, yet after only a few decades it became such a huge environmental mess that it will take several future generations, and a lot of money, to clean it up. Which is only one among the many reasons why nuclear fission was declared not sustainable, others include resource dependencies for the fuel and generally extremely high costs for everything, while operators refuse to pay their share for it in terms of waste disposal. All problems that "pro nuclear" people regularly handwave away, often pointing at France to go "Look, they can do it!", when that's just completely ignorant of the actual state of the French energy sector; It's existing nuclear fleet is already heavily underfunded, it's also very old, as a result of that more than half of French nuclear reactors have spent most of this summer offline. That is if they ain't throttled/shut down due to heatwaves making them impossible to cool.
HL33tibCe7 4y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-germany-russia-gas-ukraine-war-energy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...
croes 4y ago
Greenest doesn't make it green.
dotnet00 4y ago
Perfect will always be the enemy of good.
xtracto 4y ago
I've always wondered why isn't someone trying to do a nuclear power generator in outer space. Say, we create a nuclear plant in outer space (maybe around the moon orbit?) where there's no risk of nuclear waste "falling down" to earth if shit happens. Then, said plants are used to generate energy and store it in some high density material (maybe liquid hydrogen?). Finally, some of that energy is spent to "push" the large hydrogen tanks into Earth's orbit so that they fall down into earth. This way the nuclear fusion issues would not matter and this could be scaled a lot. I think that we have all the technical pieces to do this, but it is just a matter of some large company developing the project, even if starting small.
- stephenitis 4y ago
  how do you get the nuclear material up there reliably with absolutely no accidents? why would you rain large hydrogen tanks into the earth? why not push them out into space.
sschueller 4y ago
Movies that portray radiation as something you can catch like a virus don't help. Like the Chernobyl movie from HBO that may be historically accurate but exaggerated for Hollywood.
miclill 4y ago
Please provide some sources to this claim. As far as I know nuclear is worse than wind and solar in terms of CO2 emissions.

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!

by 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.
- rowanajmarshall 4y ago
  Solar isn't a great idea in Germany anyway, but wind farms don't take much land, because you can use it for other things. It's pretty common here in the UK to have livestock or crops in the same fields as wind turbines.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Solar works great in Germany. Admittedly, there are better places in the world for solar, but it works. At noon today, about 50% of the total electricity in Germany came from solar. We need much more of solar, but until all rooftops have been filled with solar, it basically comes at zero land usage and at that point, the grid could be powered on many day entirely on solar. Add on top widely extended wind power.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      AFAIK solar energy accounted for 10% of German energy generation in 2021 source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany
      - _ph_ 4y ago
        Right. I wrote about peak output today, which is admittedly a sunny day. But just doubling the amount of solar installations would mean that Germany could run at times entirely on solar. That definitely means "solar is working". And a tenfold increase in production is absolutely feasible, we have so many rooftops alone. Add to that a greatly increased wind production capacity, and Germany is pretty close to even replace most usages of fossil fuels outside of electricity generation with renewable energy.
        peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        > But just doubling the amount of solar installations would mean that Germany could run at times entirely on solar. Remember that Germany has about the same solar potential as Alaska [1] Capacity factor for solar in Germany went from 5.7% in 1990 to 11.1% in 2019. Even increasing it at 10%/year to double it would take 7-8 years. It's not that simple to "just double it", Italy makes 43% of its energy from renewable sources, it's mainly hydro thanks to our geography and it's been like that since at least 20 years, but the numbers aren't going up very rapidly, there's a limit on how many dams you can build. Also, renewable like solar and wind are increasing and replacing the thermoelectric (gas, coal, fossil in general), the problem is we still have to buy at least 10% of the required energy from other countries, that might or might not use fossil to produce it. The point is not if we will be able to use 100% of renewable energy in the future, the point is "can we wait long enough for them to reach that point, before it's too late"? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Potential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Potenti...
dijit 4y ago
There is no Green future without nuclear energy as a component. By saying “yes, it’s better than coal but not as good as wind/water/solar/geothermal” you’re missing the forest for the trees. People are using coal and gas today. Without moving to nuclear we will keep using coal and gas. There is no near-term future where we can live on 100% renewable energy.
- raphaelj 4y ago
  Well, you still need gas or coal to regulate your electricity production during surges.
- sovnade 4y ago
  Not until we can figure out the storage problem, which is not batteries. Pumping water with excess power up into a reservoir to later use for hydro power, or something along those lines, is likely the only "battery" big enough to power a country.
randomcarbloke 4y ago
Safety? nuclear is the safest source of energy.
babypuncher 4y ago
> You can't even insure a nuclear power plant. That should tell you how safe the private market think they are. This is only because fossil fuel power plants are never held liable for the millions of premature deaths they have causes over the last few decades.

causi 4y ago

upupandup 4y ago
Is there any truth to this, what are your sources? Because if Russia wanted to make Germany dependant on their energy, using a political movement/party within to achieve their aims would be the natural progression. Still recall the overreaction post-Fukushima and thought it was really peculiar that a non-seismic region would look to an island sitting on top of a tectonic plate for guidance. It's almost comical how wide the ESG definition has become and how its been expanded to include not-so-eco friendly energy sources. I fear that all these virtue signaling, tree hugging movement, have an ulterior motive that overrides the genuine good will of the people participating but this asymmetric political cell will not be exposed I'm afraid because it would ruin a lot of what we've taught our schools as "moral". This is like a rich person that has a change of heart and wants his donation to a prestiguous school back but don't want to look bad so he's trying to find all sorts of faults.
vimy 4y ago
Russia has been funding green parties and NGOs in Europe for years.
- Dma54rhs 4y ago
  That is why Merkel at first said Greta Thundberg is a Kremlin's project but had to backtrack fast because of backlash.
  - 988747 4y ago
    That's funny because Merkel herself was a Kremlin's project :)
- wewxjfq 4y ago
  German Greens are against fossil fuels and against Russia. The only thing Russia funded was a smear campaign against the last Green chancellor candidate. Quality of these comments is why every nuclear energy thread needs to be flagged into oblivion.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

- Grüne (the Green party) have become strong in Germany - Fukushima happened, emotionally it helped the anti atom campaign - Germany is the lead manufacturer of solar panels in Europe - former German Chancellor Schröder (already chairman of Nord Stream and a good friend of Vladimir Putin) was nominated for Gazprom board

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

fsflover 4y ago

> It’s the greenest energy source at scale! Sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987. > I’m not sure why Germany thought that it would be a good idea to decommission nuclear energy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29278996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29278996 and https://www.ans.org/news/article-1392/robert-anderson-antinuclear-financier/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-1392/robert-anderson-antinu...

thereddaikon 4y ago

The German green party have been vehemently anti nuclear for decades. It's been that way since before Chernobyl but they started to gain popularity after that.

b112 4y ago

Hydro dams are the greenest at scale, but I agree, Germany likely can't do a dam.

webmobdev 4y ago
Dams also cause huge ecological damage - there's no easy solution. Nuclear is good if (and this is a big if) the nuclear wastes are managed properly. Even then, right now sometimes it feels like nuclear waste is currently treated as the "next generations" problems.
- sovnade 4y ago
  We can re-use nuclear waste now. Something like 90% of "waste" can be recycled and reused. It's not like we're just shoving it in yucca mountain anymore.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    Not to mention that the amount of nuclear waste is absolutely tiny. If we can solve the political problem of where to store it then we could feasibly keep all of the nuclear waste ever produced in a single location far away from anyone or anything. I'd much rather have a nuclear waste storage site near where I live than live near a gas plant constantly spewing emissions into the air. I can tell where the nuclear waste is, I have no control over where the wind blows and which air I breathe.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    Not really. That is the dream of the fast reactor. It had been ongoing since the 50s. All attempts have been more costly than uranium reactors and there's only one in Russia which has operated with any kind of longevity. They also have proliferation concerns and have therefore been limited to nuclear powers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor
stjohnswarts 4y ago
they don't scale well unless you're in a country with lots of rivers that haven't been used. Most countries don't have that, like they don't have thermal. You can throw up a lot of power plants gas/coal/nuclear in most places though.

scifibestfi 4y ago

Environmentalism as a religion lead the entrenchment of dogmatic beliefs. Notably that nuclear energy is bad.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

The worst thing is, that little-germans (austrians) are protesting, when we here in Slovenia want to build a new block for our existing nuclear power plant.

viktorcode 4y ago

Overall, it's the most expensive way of producing energy. Long term it is on the way out.

lm28469 4y ago
> expensive Seeing everything through the "how expensive is it" lens is exactly what is making us burn our own planet though. Price should be the least of our concern when we discuss the future of our planet. Money has no value if you can't breath
- freeflight 4y ago
  This is still a venture capital/investment forum, just handwaving away these economic dynamics, without even trying to explain how to replace them, does not really add much to the debate. It's the equivalent of somebody pointing out; "This is too expensive, we can't finance building or running it" and somebody replying with "Money is just invented, it's not real!". As true as that might be philosophically, practically it still doesn't change anything because the practical reality we live in is dominated by economic interests manifested trough money. So if your solution does need massive amounts of money, then you need to explain where they money is supposed to come from, as you can't just "wish" nuclear reactors into existence.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    That's why these things are nationalized and why uber isn't running our nuclear power plants for "hyper growth and exponential profit" Then we can talk about the thousands of lives lost to lung cancers due to coal: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/merkel-says-climate-be-g20-priority-coal-related-deaths/report-germany-suffers-more-coal-linked-deaths-rest-eu https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/merkel-says-climate-be-... How do you price that in ? > then you need to explain where they money is supposed to come from idk, when I see the US spending 8-10 trillion dollar in 20 years in Afghanistan I think money really isn't the problem here, we could have nuclearised the entire West twice over and still have extra, priorities I guess... > as you can't just "wish" nuclear reactors into existence. Yeah but you can wish them out, and wish for solar and wind farms to replace them, too bad these wishes didn't actually work out. Also, electricity is twice as expensive in Germany than in France, always been, and that's just the beginning of the whole coal/gas shitshow that's about to hit in the winter. Germany has the most expensive electricity of the EU zone too.

lm28469 4y ago

Some people live in their imaginary perfect world, for them compromises don't exist, they only see the positive impacts of their ideas/actions without any of the negatives. Just like people (ie armchairs ecologists) protested in France against the preemptive cutting and burning of small parts of forests to prevent fires, they won, two days ago the entire forest burned. To save a few hundred trees they sacrificed the whole forest. Germans don't like nuclear because "what if Fukishima happens in Germany", so instead they gas themselves with coal/gas fumes which are thousands of time worse in every single aspects, there is no "big boom" possible with gas/coal, it's a slow suffocating death, which apparently is not as scary

infamouscow 4y ago
Bonhoeffer argues stupidity is a moral failing, not an intellectual one [1]. So if you believe Bonhoeffer, then it can be argued armchair intellectuals have an obligation to not be stupid. And perhaps Germany and France should fine the stupid, or possibly put them in prison. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc
jahewson 4y ago
> Just like people (ie armchairs ecologists) protested in France against the preemptive cutting and burning of small parts of forests to prevent fires, they won, two days ago the entire forest burned. To save a few hundred trees they sacrificed the whole forest. I‘ve not been able to find a source to back up this claim.
- lm28469 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/VitalBaude/status/1414935286392500225 https://twitter.com/VitalBaude/status/1414935286392500225
croes 4y ago
So tell me more about the deadly gas fumes. Which one is it? Carbon dioxide or water vapor? BTW your argument is based on the same perfect world where things like Fukushima don't happen. Germany already has a problem with it's existing nuclear waste and is far from solving it.

a3w 4y ago

It’s the greenest energy source at scale![citation needed] Or my counterpoints, as found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32027004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32027004

thrown_22 4y ago

Some people think that batteries are advanced enough to power the grid. In reality the largest battery installations in the world can run the grid they are attached to for a few minutes.

freeflight 4y ago

Because Germany is also where the one of the worlds first deep geological repository sites for nuclear waste was experimentally started in the 70s, in the former salt mine Asse II. That thing was supposed to last for many centuries, yet after only a few decades it became such a huge environmental mess that it will take several future generations, and a lot of money, to clean it up. Which is only one among the many reasons why nuclear fission was declared not sustainable, others include resource dependencies for the fuel and generally extremely high costs for everything, while operators refuse to pay their share for it in terms of waste disposal. All problems that "pro nuclear" people regularly handwave away, often pointing at France to go "Look, they can do it!", when that's just completely ignorant of the actual state of the French energy sector; It's existing nuclear fleet is already heavily underfunded, it's also very old, as a result of that more than half of French nuclear reactors have spent most of this summer offline. That is if they ain't throttled/shut down due to heatwaves making them impossible to cool.

HL33tibCe7 4y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-germany-russia-gas-ukraine-war-energy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...

croes 4y ago

Greenest doesn't make it green.

dotnet00 4y ago

Perfect will always be the enemy of good.

xtracto 4y ago

I've always wondered why isn't someone trying to do a nuclear power generator in outer space. Say, we create a nuclear plant in outer space (maybe around the moon orbit?) where there's no risk of nuclear waste "falling down" to earth if shit happens. Then, said plants are used to generate energy and store it in some high density material (maybe liquid hydrogen?). Finally, some of that energy is spent to "push" the large hydrogen tanks into Earth's orbit so that they fall down into earth. This way the nuclear fusion issues would not matter and this could be scaled a lot. I think that we have all the technical pieces to do this, but it is just a matter of some large company developing the project, even if starting small.

stephenitis 4y ago
how do you get the nuclear material up there reliably with absolutely no accidents? why would you rain large hydrogen tanks into the earth? why not push them out into space.

sschueller 4y ago

Movies that portray radiation as something you can catch like a virus don't help. Like the Chernobyl movie from HBO that may be historically accurate but exaggerated for Hollywood.

miclill 4y ago

Please provide some sources to this claim. As far as I know nuclear is worse than wind and solar in terms of CO2 emissions.