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To be fair, the problem with nuclear power in Germany is bigger than that the existing nuclear plants are being shut down. It's actually a good idea to shut the

by hnbad 4y ago

To be fair, the problem with nuclear power in Germany is bigger than that the existing nuclear plants are being shut down. It's actually a good idea to shut them down eventually as they're old and inefficient. Calling them "fully functioning" is a bit of a rose tinted glasses type of situation. The bigger problem is that Germany doesn't have any more recent nuclear power plants due to public pressure and instead just extended the lifetimes of the existing ones for decades to compensate. We could have built better and SAFER nuclear power plants but because that would have lost voters we instead had to extend the lifetimes again and again. All polluting industries have their own tactics to deflect public attention. In Germany coal succeeded at deflecting that attention towards nuclear. The Ruhr region has a romanticized nostalgia for its history of coal mining whereas most people associate nuclear power with Chernobyl (or more recently Fukushima, which really just culturally echoed the existing memories of Chernobyl), the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the threat of global thermonuclear war while being smack in the middle of the Iron Curtain (almost literally, with the Berlin Wall separating both sides of the conflict). I don't know to what extent the coal industry is actually involved in this, but there is an almost patriotic attitude towards coal plants in contrast with the horrified panic surrounding nuclear. Meanwhile solar is mostly seen as a way to cut down on electric bills by installing pannels on your own roof and wind power is a "blight on the countryside" and "health risk" (because of noise pollution, strobing shadows and of course killing migratory birds). Some of this seems to be finally changing but the "man on the street" will likely still prefer coal over all other forms of energy for no good reason.

lispm 4y ago
> The bigger problem is that Germany doesn't have any more recent nuclear power plants due to public pressure France hasn't either and they don't have public pressure against it. The are still trying to build a single one, being a decade late and billions more expensive. > or more recently Fukushima, which really just culturally echoed the existing memories of Chernobyl Currently we think about the nuclear fleet in the Ukraine which is literally under fire from Russia. We are not far away from a new Fukushima, but this time in Europe. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/both-working-reactors-occupied-ukrainian-nuclear-plant-shut-down-after-nearby-2022-08-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/both-working-reactors-o... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/25/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-disconnected-ukraine-grid-russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/25/zaporizhzhia-n...
- throwaway742 4y ago
  Hasn't Zaporizhzhia been under Russian control for a while now? Why would they be shelling themselves? That doesn't even make sense.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > Hasn't Zaporizhzhia been under Russian control for a while now? Why would they be shelling themselves? That doesn't even make sense. Because the Russians are trying to disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian grid or cause a disaster they specifically said they could cause a disaster if they wanted to.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > Currently we think about the nuclear fleet in the Ukraine which is literally under fire from Russia. The 1938 Yellow River flood (Chinese: 花園口決隄事件, literally "Huayuankou embankment breach incident") was a flood created by the Nationalist Government in central China during the early stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War in an attempt to halt the rapid advance of Japanese forces. One million dead. So by that logic you should be against hydroelectric dams, becauae they've been used in warfare for centuries. One would think the chief problem in that equasion is war, not infrastructure
- phtrivier 4y ago
  > they don't have public pressure against it There _is_ public pressure against nuclear, but it's at 50/50 vs support for nuclear. It has become a mostly partisan topic. > We are not far away from a new Fukushima, but this time in Europe. Except we technically _already_ had "Fukushima in Europe" 40 years ago, and for most people, life just went on. I agree that if anything goes bad a the Ukrainian plant (FSM forbids), the politicians who have been pro-nuclear in the past few years will have a hard time keeping face, and the sentiments would change, and the experts would spent some unconfortable interviews. However, I can not blame government for being even more scared at Union-wide blackouts than at a local incident at a plant. The latter is horrible, and puts you at the mercy of winds, but _has been managed in the past_. The former gives me worst nightmares (than the other scenario that also gives me nightmares.) Let's all remember it made _sense_ to live in Pompei in 79.
BurningPenguin 4y ago
> there is an almost patriotic attitude towards coal plants As a German, i'm wondering where you got that idea from... Because pretty much every poll i know of, is in support of turning off coal plants.
- jamil7 4y ago
  I think both can be true and it might be more region specific. My girlfriend was born in the Ruhrgebiet and a lot of her family and friends family worked in the coal industry and were well taken care of when the plants were shut down. While they're not pro-coal or wouldn't poll that way I think there probably is more of a sentimental connection to it than to nuclear which that generation tends to associate with Chernobyl.
- hnbad 4y ago
  That's not a contradiction though. Yes, there is broad popular support for renewables and until earlier this year gas probably also had a better reputation than it deserved, compared to coal. But culturally, especially in the Ruhr region, coal has the benefit of nostalgia whereas nuclear has always been scary. Of course nowadays most "coal" is actually lignite and there is some resistance against lignite mining destroying large swathes of the landscape whereas the industrial architecture of "black coal" mining has become a national heritage. But lignite is still benefitting from some of that "black coal" nostalgia. It's probably worth adding that these perceptions not only vary by region but also by socioeconomics and politics.

by hnbad 4y ago

lispm 4y ago

> The bigger problem is that Germany doesn't have any more recent nuclear power plants due to public pressure France hasn't either and they don't have public pressure against it. The are still trying to build a single one, being a decade late and billions more expensive. > or more recently Fukushima, which really just culturally echoed the existing memories of Chernobyl Currently we think about the nuclear fleet in the Ukraine which is literally under fire from Russia. We are not far away from a new Fukushima, but this time in Europe. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/both-working-reactors-occupied-ukrainian-nuclear-plant-shut-down-after-nearby-2022-08-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/both-working-reactors-o... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/25/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-disconnected-ukraine-grid-russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/25/zaporizhzhia-n...

throwaway742 4y ago
Hasn't Zaporizhzhia been under Russian control for a while now? Why would they be shelling themselves? That doesn't even make sense.
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  > Hasn't Zaporizhzhia been under Russian control for a while now? Why would they be shelling themselves? That doesn't even make sense. Because the Russians are trying to disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian grid or cause a disaster they specifically said they could cause a disaster if they wanted to.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> Currently we think about the nuclear fleet in the Ukraine which is literally under fire from Russia. The 1938 Yellow River flood (Chinese: 花園口決隄事件, literally "Huayuankou embankment breach incident") was a flood created by the Nationalist Government in central China during the early stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War in an attempt to halt the rapid advance of Japanese forces. One million dead. So by that logic you should be against hydroelectric dams, becauae they've been used in warfare for centuries. One would think the chief problem in that equasion is war, not infrastructure
phtrivier 4y ago
> they don't have public pressure against it There _is_ public pressure against nuclear, but it's at 50/50 vs support for nuclear. It has become a mostly partisan topic. > We are not far away from a new Fukushima, but this time in Europe. Except we technically _already_ had "Fukushima in Europe" 40 years ago, and for most people, life just went on. I agree that if anything goes bad a the Ukrainian plant (FSM forbids), the politicians who have been pro-nuclear in the past few years will have a hard time keeping face, and the sentiments would change, and the experts would spent some unconfortable interviews. However, I can not blame government for being even more scared at Union-wide blackouts than at a local incident at a plant. The latter is horrible, and puts you at the mercy of winds, but _has been managed in the past_. The former gives me worst nightmares (than the other scenario that also gives me nightmares.) Let's all remember it made _sense_ to live in Pompei in 79.

BurningPenguin 4y ago

> there is an almost patriotic attitude towards coal plants As a German, i'm wondering where you got that idea from... Because pretty much every poll i know of, is in support of turning off coal plants.

jamil7 4y ago
I think both can be true and it might be more region specific. My girlfriend was born in the Ruhrgebiet and a lot of her family and friends family worked in the coal industry and were well taken care of when the plants were shut down. While they're not pro-coal or wouldn't poll that way I think there probably is more of a sentimental connection to it than to nuclear which that generation tends to associate with Chernobyl.
hnbad 4y ago
That's not a contradiction though. Yes, there is broad popular support for renewables and until earlier this year gas probably also had a better reputation than it deserved, compared to coal. But culturally, especially in the Ruhr region, coal has the benefit of nostalgia whereas nuclear has always been scary. Of course nowadays most "coal" is actually lignite and there is some resistance against lignite mining destroying large swathes of the landscape whereas the industrial architecture of "black coal" mining has become a national heritage. But lignite is still benefitting from some of that "black coal" nostalgia. It's probably worth adding that these perceptions not only vary by region but also by socioeconomics and politics.