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As a German this is quite bizzare to me. Here, our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. People are scared of nuclear ener

As a German this is quite bizzare to me. Here, our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. People are scared of nuclear energy. And now Japan goes max nuclear.

cosmin800 4y ago
Russian trolls I would say.
- glogla 4y ago
  For sure, but not only. The German way - turning off nuclear power to replace it with coal and gas while running token amount of renewables which will never cover the base load (because the required amount of storage would be insane), is very much the dream of traditional coal, gas and oil industries. Yet the Germans argue it is the best way because "what about the waste?!!!111" It is a shame that whole country managed to get coopted, brainwashed and corrupted this way, especially since they try to push this evil on EU level as well, but it is what it is.
  - looping__lui 4y ago
    Yes, except that political decision making doesn’t reflect public opinion. The majority wants nuclear power back.
    - glogla 4y ago
      That I did not know.
    - nailer 4y ago
      I believe you but have a citation? Thanks.
      - looping__lui 4y ago
        https://www.rnd.de/politik/atomkraft-in-deutschland-lautzeitverlaengerungen-bis-mindestens-sommer-2023-von-mehrheit-der-XFM6JMYQ3RD6FJTAOCGYTZXEQU.html?outputType=valid_amp https://www.rnd.de/politik/atomkraft-in-deutschland-lautzeit... https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/atom-umfrage-41-prozent-der-deutschen-wollen-neubau-von-kernkraftwerken-a-a44d8513-89b3-4243-aeb5-609edf2be9f6 https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/atom-umfrage-41-prozent-der-... https://www.tech-for-future.de/atomkraft-umfrage/ https://www.tech-for-future.de/atomkraft-umfrage/
  - unglaublich 4y ago
    All the while the millions of yearly deaths directly caused by air pollution of fossil fuels are waved away.
  - locallost 4y ago
    Stop spreading disinformation. Germany not only switched off nuclear plants but reduced its coal use drastically compared to levels 10 years ago. I've posted data on this a billion times, and am too lazy to do it now -- checking the actual data for once before posting an opinion should not be too difficult. Sorry, but this is beyond pitiful.
    - herewulf 4y ago
      How is that reduced coal use going right now? And next winter?
      - locallost 4y ago
        It's going as well as it did. Stop reading headlines with agendas and look at the data. Start here: https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255181824 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255...
    - mpweiher 4y ago
      Stop spreading disinformation. Reduction has been minimal, and now that we no longer have the Russian gas that we used to substitute coal, we are turning coal plants back on. While at the same time shutting down clean nuclear. The mind boggles. Go to https://www.electricitymaps.com https://www.electricitymaps.com On almost every day, Germany is the 2nd least green country in Europe, only after Poland. In 2014, Germany was the largest producer of CO2 emissions in Europe, by a wide margin. https://gefira.org/en/2015/12/15/germany-the-largest-co2-emissions-producer-in-europe/ https://gefira.org/en/2015/12/15/germany-the-largest-co2-emi...
      - locallost 4y ago
        Here are the official data related to electricity production https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2022-12-16.png https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... Coal are the bottom two things on the chart (brown and gray). Drastically down. Gas use percentage wise is pretty much the same as 10 years ago. Obviously you're making things up. Germany is also not turning coal plants back on: there were about a dozen coal plants put on stand by this year as an emergency, but they mostly stayed off. The funny part is that the emergency was mostly related to the collapse of nuclear in France where most of the surrounding countries suddenly needed to support it. But in the end renewables made up most of the difference. Here's a Twitter thread with the data https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255181824 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255... Europe needs to get off fossil fuels and it's about to do that really fast. Unnecessary hurdles were removed to make renewable deployment easier. As a consequence there's been a huge uptick in nuclear lobbying and astroturfing - this industry is scared it's about to be made officially irrelevant. All sort of plans are being made but there will be so much new renewable generation by the time this plans are finalized, let alone the decades it will take to get anything done with nuclear, that it will not matter at all.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    The worst part is how everyone is allowed to block deployment of renewable energies like the Windmills, because it is not nice for the landscape, it is noisy or whatever. In other EU countries it is done, period, no one gets asked for their opinion.
melling 4y ago
The fear of tsunamis hitting nuclear plants in Germany seems remote. How do Germans feel about all those nuclear power plants next door in France? Does anyone have any fear of the health effects of burning coal decade after decade?
- looping__lui 4y ago
  The majority of Germans want nuclear power back. But politicians don’t want to. Green party has always been against nuclear power. It’s their ideology. And the Merkel’s party who shut them down (CDU) and changed their mind now is no longer on power. German politics bas been ideological madness for the past 18 years or so…
  - wewxjfq 4y ago
    Accusing the Greens of being ideology driven when they have shown to be pragmatic is a joke. Not sticking to any ideology is the reason their politicians top the popularity polls. And wanting something back is one thing, getting something back another. If you want nuclear power back, you must build new plants - good luck, it will only take 20 years! The Green-led BMWK explained in detail the many real hurdles that come with prolonged use of nuclear power. Strangely, I have never seen any oh-so rational nuclear power lover dissect their arguments.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      When you have party refusing nuclear power plants out of fear from radiation and then same party agrees with extending coal mines and coal power plant, which are spitting radioactive waste around environment in uncontrolled manner from ash, then they are purely driven by anti-nuclear ideology.
      - looping__lui 4y ago
        Well in all fairness - deindustrialisation and a communist-like economy are probably also a very popular third alternative for them…
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Maybe both the German and the Japanese approaches to nuclear are both wrong except in opposite ways. The Germans can afford to be needlessly picky about nuclear in their own country since if they have an electricity shortage they can simply buy the deficit from the European grid or they can kill themselves slowly by burning their lignite reserves, the nastiest, dirtiest type coal in existence. Japan, being an isolated island nation that's poor in natural resources, doesn't have this luxury so they're YOLOing it on old nuclear plants.
bouncycastle 4y ago
My guess is that it's because the Japanese are so much used natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, landslides, volcano eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis, a nuclear meltdown is the last thing of their worries.
barry-cotter 4y ago
Indeed, better to burn more coal and suffer the effects of the greater air pollution and the radiation released by coal burning. The people get what they want good and hard.
lelag 4y ago
The way I see it is that nuclear disasters are terrible and costly, but they don't threaten the existence of mankind or our way of life. Global warming, on the other hand, is threatening our way of life and well-being slowly but very directly. This is the real danger, and I believe that the green movement has been very misguided in its anti-nuclear stance. They are achieving the opposite of their goals. The carbon footprint of Germany has been much worse compared to France in the past 50 years. We've had two major disasters in 30 years. Even if you assume that you get a Fukushima/Chernobyl-sized event three times per century, which is bad and should not happen with modern designs, it still doesn't threaten mankind as a whole because they are localized events. Global warming, however, is making Earth a less habitable place everywhere.
- knocte 4y ago
  I don't think the green movement is anti-nuclear, it is nuclear reluctant but given two choices, e.g. coal vs nuclear, green would always choose the lesser of two evils.
  - lelag 4y ago
    Come on. So you think political ecologists have no role in the fact that very few nuclear plants were built in Europe since 1990 ? Even France, the nuclear plant country(tm) has forgotten how to make them (look at Flamanville EPR fiasco). Now, everybody realize we actually need nuclear but we can't make anymore quickly and are stuck extending the life of the existing plants like Japan is doing.
    - knocte 4y ago
      Building new nuclear plants is pro-nuclear. I said green movement is not anti-nuclear but I didn't say it is pro-nuclear. World is not black&white.
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        Nuclear plants don't live forever. Refusing new nuclear is tantamount to eliminating nuclear. Also, there are certainly green activists against ALL nuclear. I don't have a formal survey handy, but based purely on the opinions of those that I know, far more are anti-nuclear than are neutral on the matter.
makeitdouble 4y ago
This is the "fuck it, we're too broke for caring" plan. Basically since Fukushima it's been a downhill rollercoaster, covid and the Olympics being the latest blows. Energy bills are planned to rise by 25+% for next summer, while salaries are already wildly behind inflation. Building a new state of the art reactor now could be done experimentaly, but wouldn't help to get out of current situation.
adastra22 4y ago
Maybe we should base public policy off the facts, and not the public's (unfounded) fears?
hsn915 4y ago
As far as I understand, the FUD campaign was actually orchestrated by Russian gas companies to make Germany more dependent on Russian gas, and it seems to have worked.
- wewxjfq 4y ago
  Saying this while nuclear power depends greatly on Russia and no country could sanction Rosatom shows how grounded in reality these discussions are.
  - mpweiher 4y ago
    Here's some grounding in reality: - Russia mines 5% of the world's Uranium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining - The reason we only use less than 5% of the Uranium fuel, so throwing away 95%, is that the fuel is so cheap (= abundant) that it is cheaper to just throw it away - Fuel costs are basically a negligible component of the lifecycle costs of a nuclear reactor
    - wewxjfq 4y ago
      The hard facts are that Russia processes half of the world's uranium and no country, not even the US, could sanction their nuclear energy sector. This is the reality, not your fuel efficiency and breeder reactor hopium. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-imports-russia-nuclear/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-i...
      - mpweiher 4y ago
        The article you cite clearly states that even the worst-case impact of Russian supplies would be minimal: "at worst, some long-term Russian supply contracts could not be executed, and that would perhaps raise the price of electricity 1 or 2 percent." World-ending.
        4y ago
Dalewyn 4y ago
Because it makes no sense to not go nuclear. For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology thereof. The meltdowns at Fukushima #1 could have been completely avoided had the government of the time not been a bunch of worthless fools (hint: TEPCO wanted to scuttle the reactors before they melted down). For third: Japan needs power /today/, not tomorrow. Even assuming a transition to non-nuclear forms of power, that will not happen overnight. Using nuclear power is a concern of practical necessity. For fourth: Nuclear fearmongering is patently ridiculous. Nuclear power plants are not atomic bombs, for crying out loud. The same people who cry their hearts out about radiation proceed to fly on airliners and eat bananas. The answer to nuclear fearmongering is not shunning nuclear technology, it's to teach and bring more awareness about what nuclear technology is.
- wslh 4y ago
  Great answer, I would add that also there could be new solutions to disposing nuclear material that adds more confidence to the full cycle.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    The biggest risk in nuclear material disposal is environmental activists blocking the transports en route. The actual material itself emits less radiation than a store-bought banana when it's been properly stored.
  - gggmaster 4y ago
    Sea dumping?
    - slim 4y ago
      space dumping ?
- 4y ago
ryan_j_naughton 4y ago
>people are scared of nuclear energy Let's not make policy out of unfounded fears. Let's look at some simple facts: 1. Fewer people have died from nuclear reactor meltdowns than from any other form of electricity generation. It is by far the safest form of power. 2. Even with the price of renewables dropping quickly, we will not be able to decarbonize quickly enough to prevent the terrible climate change outcomes. We need an all of the above solution to non-fossil fuel energy sources. 3. Germany decommissioned several nuclear plants out of fear and have both increased their reliance on fossil fuels as a result and increased dependency on Russia. It was a very foolish decision
- glogla 4y ago
  > 1. Fewer people have died from nuclear reactor meltdowns than from any other form of electricity generation. It is by far the safest form of power. To extend this - this includes renewables. Dam failures usually kill a lot of people (I think the estimate for Three Gorges failing was 10 million dead and 100 million displaced or something?) and a lot of people get hurt due to accidents while installing solar panels and wind turbines. The accidents don't happen that often, but you need a lot of solar panels and wind turbines to replace one nuclear power plants.
  - sjducb 4y ago
    Rooftop solar kills the most people per megawatt hour. It's even worse than Chinese coal mining.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Nuclear power is the safest and most environmentally friendly way to produce reliable and consistent base power. No renewable can do that yet. In theory they can, but in practice it's still either prohibitively expensive or highly location-dependent. Pumped storage works, but it needs natural formations to be cost-effective, you can't just build a mile high lake in the middle of a desert. Hydrogen electrolysis+on-site storage is a decent option, but still very expensive and not very efficient (energy loss is around 50% give or take depending on the scale). We needed nuclear 5 years ago, maybe when the current gen generators are EOL we have gotten good enough at storing renewable power that we don't need nuclear any more.
simondotau 4y ago
Whether or not you support nuclear power, being “scared” of it is an admission of ignorance and indicative of short-term reactionary thinking. It ought to be a source of national shame, not pride. With apologies to Yoda, fear is the path to the dark ages.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  Do you think we evolved fear by accident? If I were handling a venomous snake I'd be scared to be bit and rightly so. There's no reason to be proud of being heedless of risk.
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    And what if it was a non-venomous snake, and all the experts tell you it is a non-venomous snake, and it is literally safer than a pet dog. Would you still be scared of handling it because of a pathological fear of snakes? In what way is that adaptive and helpful in a modern era of scientific knowledge?
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Well, the setup was you told me people should feel embarrassed to be scared whether or not they support nuclear power. If they accepted the premise you are setting up now — that it is utterly risk-free — why wouldn’t they support it?
      - simondotau 4y ago
        > the premise you are setting up now — that it is utterly risk-free That is a fairly egregious misrepresentation of what was said. And it completely misses the point of the (rather good) analogy. Economies need energy. The only question that matters is whether a proposed source is overall better or worse — per unit of energy — than the status quo or the fallback. Remember, the choice isn’t nuclear power or no nuclear power. The choice is to utilise nuclear power or continue burning coal/oil/gas.
qball 4y ago
>Our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. And the Japanese (to say nothing of the rest of the world) are taking Germany as an example of what happens when you depend on cheap resources from your geopolitical adversaries for your economy to be viable. >People are scared of nuclear energy. Perhaps they should be more scared of having no energy at all.
mpweiher 4y ago
As a German, my country's reaction to Fukushima was and is bizarre to me. There was a natural disaster, a Tsunami, that cost upwards of 15000 lives, almost certainly a good number of them when various pieces of technology failed due to the Tsunami. One of the pieces of technical infrastructure affected was a nuclear power plant of an old, already inherently not great design, safety wise, that we now know was not built to regulations. Despite all that, there have been 0 deaths attributable to that accident so far. Zero. Germany's reaction: OMG WE NEED TO GET RID OF NUCLEAR POWER. Utterly bizarre. For me, Fukushima was what convinced me that nuclear was much safer than I had previously thought, a fact confirmed by the data: https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy The politicians did not "take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy". They knew better. They just triangulated the public's irrational fears. And those irrational fears are stoked, maximally, by the press. See the recent reporting on the anniversary: "Am 11. März 2021 jährt sich zum zehnten Mal die Tsunami- und Atomkatastrophe von Japan, die bis zu 20.000 Menschen das Leben und rund 160.000 Japaner ihre Heimat kostete." https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzeit/zdfzeit-der-ewige-gau-10-jahre-fukushima-100.html https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzeit/zdfzeit-der-ewige-g... March 11, 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, which claimed the lives of up to 20,000 people and displaced around 160,000 Japanese. Not sure it is technically a lie, but suggesting this strongly that the 20000 deaths were caused at least equally by the Tsunami and the reactor accident is certainly not truthful reporting. And this isn't an isolated incident, pretty much all the reporting was this way. And of course this has the desired effect. And while I am not sure that the German public would consciously say that the 16000-20000 deaths were caused by the reactor accident, it is certainly how they feel, and the feeling gets reinforced time and time again. And so we turned off our cleanest and safest form of energy, spent trillions in order to miss our emissions targets and become ever more dependent on fossil fuels, in the process prompting a dictator to miscalculate our dependence and embolden him to start the most brutal war in Europe for almost a century. Yay us.
- baal80spam 4y ago
  Nothing bizarre about it, you danced exactly like Russia wanted.
lucb1e 4y ago
As someone in Germany but not German, this aspect of Germany is bizarre to me. You have green energy already and instead of maintaining it or building it out, you build extra coal plants, mine more villages, but shut the green energy down? Huh, interesting choice. I understand the principles behind closing it. The old reactors are not the latest and greatest, there is this fear similar to the fear of flying (you're not in control and it has large consequences) even though it's the safest thing to do, and of course it's not technically renewable. What baffles me is that people don't see that this is still better than the alternative coal and gas plants that kill people on an ongoing basis from air pollution and global warming. But you also have higher Linux, PGP, Threema, OpenStreetMap, etc. usages than any other country I know of. The "only the purest ideal is good enough, shut everything else down" mentality has its upsides in many (most?) situations.
- bsaul 4y ago
  Wait, global warming is already killing people ?? Weather-related events has killed people since the beginning of times, but I was under the impression global warming was still about predictions of catastrophies.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    The "air pollution" part is measurable enough but it's obviously impossible to attribute the death of any individual that was caused by, say, a natural disaster or extreme heat event bolstered by global warming to any particular source of carbon emissions. Especially because you can very reasonably argue that those carbon emissions were a by-product of providing the energy needed to maintain first world standards of living, including the medical care etc that comes with it (I would totally agree that if we shut down all fossil-fuel- based energy generation tomorrow, it would result in significant excess deaths - far more than would be saved. Of course if you extend the period over which you count such deaths - say, to the next 50 or 100 years - the reverse is likely to be true, especially considering how much the earth's population is likely to increase in the next couple of decades).
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
As a Pole I always found the German politicians’ stance suspicious. It has so obviously played right into over-reliance on gas from the east. Which is a far more dangerous and scary perspective than a single potential accidental melt down. And straight up corrupt considering the sheer scale of eastbound cash flow. This news does go to show that perhaps the Japanese have managed to set fear aside. It is an engineering problem, might as well be scared to fly. Would you say stances have changed at all in Germany from your POV since last year?
- ycuser2 4y ago
  > Would you say stances have changed at all in Germany from your POV since last year? Not from my POV. There were long discussions to longer the running time of a few reactors by ... 3 months I guess? It was nationwide topic. Germany wants to safe the whole world by "going by example". So instead of thinking pratically and realisticly "we" try do to things ideologically.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    So the topic was basically about extending nuclear only in response to the short-term situation? Not about reevaluating it as a valid green energy source? > Germany wants to safe the whole world by "going by example". So instead of thinking pratically and realisticly "we" try do to things ideologically. This is so strange to me because my view has always been that Germany is this rational pro-engineering actor. Narcissistic and superior, but nevertheless logical and calculating. The idea that a bunch of windmills are going to power all these factories? That all the gas is somehow greener? I mean we know how this discussion goes - the amount of energy needed for that level of industrial output is just too big for non-greenhouse gas emitting sources. How exactly do they respond to that?
    - ycuser2 4y ago
      > So the topic was basically about extending nuclear only in response to the short-term situation? Not about reevaluating it as a valid green energy source? The Green Party sees nuclear energy as the evil. Never they consider it as green energy. Extending nuclear was a short-term compromise. I don't know how they want to supply the industry with only renewable energy. I'm not deep enough into that topic.
tannhaeuser 4y ago
It was Ms Merkel who captured the Green Party's long standing stance of zero nuclear power after the Fukushima event - like she did with political positions of other opponents as a general strategy. Today, it's Mr Habeck who'd be responsible for extending lifetimes of nuclear power plants. But of course his investigation into viability of doing just that was bound to come to negative conclusions - everything else would be political suicide for a member of a party that started life out of the "Atomkraft? Nein danke" movement late 70s/early 80s. Decisions elsewhere in the world, even in Japan, don't matter, co2, geopolitics, energy-intensive industries, and emobility at stupid prices be damned - the fundamentalist Green Party and their dangerously half-educated electorate are afraid of "the rays."
- wewxjfq 4y ago
  The ministry led by "Mr Habeck" wrote five sober pages on all the obstacles of keeping the nuclear power plants running. I don't see you or anyone else here countering any of the arguments they gave. No, it's always the same with these comment sections: They are a circle jerk of people who claim to be on the rational side, while they are only spreading unfunded claims, conspiracy theories and lies.
  - looping__lui 4y ago
    So, we don’t keep nuclear - what is the alternative? Coal? Gas? You are aware, that the majority is still non-renewable and as an industrialized economy we do have a base load for consumption that we cannot just lower when there is no sun or wind. I’m all pro renewables in general, but they aren’t a 100% solution for our grid or economy. Moving away from nuclear to gas furthermore supported Russias aggressions against Ukraine. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/09/PE22_374_43312.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/09/PE22_374_43312.html
  - tannhaeuser 4y ago
    > They are a circle jerk of people who claim to be on the rational side, while they are only spreading unfunded claims, conspiracy theories and lies. Frankly, your discussion style sucks. With your "everybody who's not my opinion is a liar and conspiracy theorist" attitude are you sure you're at the right place here?
cbmuser 4y ago
Well, you know Japan is just acting like that because they didn’t have a Fukushima like Germant. Oh, wait! On a more serious note: Since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russian war, Germany fully returned 19 coal-fired power units with a total generating capacity of 7.3 GW to the electricity market: > https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-den-strommarkt-209208 https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-... Germany’s last remaining six reactors had a capacity of 8.5 GW: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Germany#Nuclear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Germ... Germany made a conscious decision for coal and against the climate!
- wewxjfq 4y ago
  Germany had only three nuclear power plants in 2022, so 4 GW. And since they could only serve about 0.5 GW of peak demand, Germany needed to reactivate coal power plants regardless. Furthermore, the NPPs were planned to be shut-down years ago, you can't flip a switch and keep them going. They have no fuel, no staff, no certifications. Refueling the last NPPs would have required to take them offline for several months, right at the time Germany needed electricity the most. And the other NPPs that were decommissioned are gone forever, even if they weren't in deconstruction, there are countless of obstacles that won't ever bring them back.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kstenerud 4y ago
There are a number of reasons for this: * Japan's access to oil is via ship, which is expected to become more difficult as China is anticipated to tighten the screws in the South China Seas even further in coming years and Russia is unlikely to offer favorable terms since Japan is aligned with the West. Japan has past trauma of being cut off from oil by America and England, so they're particularly sensitive about this. * The Ukraine war has highlighted how fragile the world energy sources actually are, and everyone is hedging however they can. * Japan is following the general world trend towards isolationism and nationalism that flows from a sudden decrease in stability (COVID and the Ukraine war), and although this phase will pass, it's still having an effect on decision making now. * A declining population and economy that basically will continue doing so means that big investments make more sense now than later (even though they still won't be able to pay for it). * The LDP has defacto ruled Japan virtually unopposed since the end of WW2, and Japanese people rarely seriously question the government's judgment beyond a bit of localized murmuring. Japan needs energy security, and its options are very limited.
nailer 4y ago
That’s why Germany created a dependence on Russian oil, despite being warned by both sides of politics that this would enable Putin, at the whole of Europe’s expense, and kept sending billions to Russia for oil even after the invasion. Trying to keep within the HN guidelines and not writing how I actually feel about Germany for this.
Mawr 4y ago
> People are scared of nuclear energy. "But the people are retarded." [1]. "The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and *remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan*. The earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami, with 13–14-meter-high waves damaging the nuclear power plant's emergency diesel generators, leading to a loss of electric power. The result was the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, classified as level seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) [...] and thus joining Chernobyl as the only other accident to receive such classification. [...] the INES ranks incidents by impact on population, so Chernobyl (335,000 people evacuated) and Fukushima (154,000 evacuated) [...]" [2] Man, nuclear's weak. Worst two disasters end with just a few dozen people dead at most and merely a ton of economical damage? A single dam failure and you've got 100 thousand people dead. Coal alone kills 100 thousand people a year. Nuclear needs to step it up. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFgcqB8-AxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFgcqB8-AxE [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster
rejectfinite 4y ago
It's so dumb. Sweden did this too in the 80s and vote no to more nuclear. And here we are... Even if we build now, it's going to be 20 years or more until they are done.
Bancakes 4y ago
FUD is generally frowned upon. The fact there are only single instances of nuclea incidents speaks highly of the technology. Japan probably has no heavy government influence by the likes of Lukoil, either.

As a German this is quite bizzare to me. Here, our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. People are scared of nuclear energy. And now Japan goes max nuclear.

cosmin800 4y ago

Russian trolls I would say.

glogla 4y ago
For sure, but not only. The German way - turning off nuclear power to replace it with coal and gas while running token amount of renewables which will never cover the base load (because the required amount of storage would be insane), is very much the dream of traditional coal, gas and oil industries. Yet the Germans argue it is the best way because "what about the waste?!!!111" It is a shame that whole country managed to get coopted, brainwashed and corrupted this way, especially since they try to push this evil on EU level as well, but it is what it is.
- looping__lui 4y ago
  Yes, except that political decision making doesn’t reflect public opinion. The majority wants nuclear power back.
  - glogla 4y ago
    That I did not know.
  - nailer 4y ago
    I believe you but have a citation? Thanks.
    - looping__lui 4y ago
      https://www.rnd.de/politik/atomkraft-in-deutschland-lautzeitverlaengerungen-bis-mindestens-sommer-2023-von-mehrheit-der-XFM6JMYQ3RD6FJTAOCGYTZXEQU.html?outputType=valid_amp https://www.rnd.de/politik/atomkraft-in-deutschland-lautzeit... https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/atom-umfrage-41-prozent-der-deutschen-wollen-neubau-von-kernkraftwerken-a-a44d8513-89b3-4243-aeb5-609edf2be9f6 https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/atom-umfrage-41-prozent-der-... https://www.tech-for-future.de/atomkraft-umfrage/ https://www.tech-for-future.de/atomkraft-umfrage/
- unglaublich 4y ago
  All the while the millions of yearly deaths directly caused by air pollution of fossil fuels are waved away.
- locallost 4y ago
  Stop spreading disinformation. Germany not only switched off nuclear plants but reduced its coal use drastically compared to levels 10 years ago. I've posted data on this a billion times, and am too lazy to do it now -- checking the actual data for once before posting an opinion should not be too difficult. Sorry, but this is beyond pitiful.
  - herewulf 4y ago
    How is that reduced coal use going right now? And next winter?
    - locallost 4y ago
      It's going as well as it did. Stop reading headlines with agendas and look at the data. Start here: https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255181824 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255...
  - mpweiher 4y ago
    Stop spreading disinformation. Reduction has been minimal, and now that we no longer have the Russian gas that we used to substitute coal, we are turning coal plants back on. While at the same time shutting down clean nuclear. The mind boggles. Go to https://www.electricitymaps.com https://www.electricitymaps.com On almost every day, Germany is the 2nd least green country in Europe, only after Poland. In 2014, Germany was the largest producer of CO2 emissions in Europe, by a wide margin. https://gefira.org/en/2015/12/15/germany-the-largest-co2-emissions-producer-in-europe/ https://gefira.org/en/2015/12/15/germany-the-largest-co2-emi...
    - locallost 4y ago
      Here are the official data related to electricity production https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2022-12-16.png https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... Coal are the bottom two things on the chart (brown and gray). Drastically down. Gas use percentage wise is pretty much the same as 10 years ago. Obviously you're making things up. Germany is also not turning coal plants back on: there were about a dozen coal plants put on stand by this year as an emergency, but they mostly stayed off. The funny part is that the emergency was mostly related to the collapse of nuclear in France where most of the surrounding countries suddenly needed to support it. But in the end renewables made up most of the difference. Here's a Twitter thread with the data https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255181824 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoalFreeDave/status/1620360558255... Europe needs to get off fossil fuels and it's about to do that really fast. Unnecessary hurdles were removed to make renewable deployment easier. As a consequence there's been a huge uptick in nuclear lobbying and astroturfing - this industry is scared it's about to be made officially irrelevant. All sort of plans are being made but there will be so much new renewable generation by the time this plans are finalized, let alone the decades it will take to get anything done with nuclear, that it will not matter at all.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  The worst part is how everyone is allowed to block deployment of renewable energies like the Windmills, because it is not nice for the landscape, it is noisy or whatever. In other EU countries it is done, period, no one gets asked for their opinion.

melling 4y ago

The fear of tsunamis hitting nuclear plants in Germany seems remote. How do Germans feel about all those nuclear power plants next door in France? Does anyone have any fear of the health effects of burning coal decade after decade?

looping__lui 4y ago
The majority of Germans want nuclear power back. But politicians don’t want to. Green party has always been against nuclear power. It’s their ideology. And the Merkel’s party who shut them down (CDU) and changed their mind now is no longer on power. German politics bas been ideological madness for the past 18 years or so…
- wewxjfq 4y ago
  Accusing the Greens of being ideology driven when they have shown to be pragmatic is a joke. Not sticking to any ideology is the reason their politicians top the popularity polls. And wanting something back is one thing, getting something back another. If you want nuclear power back, you must build new plants - good luck, it will only take 20 years! The Green-led BMWK explained in detail the many real hurdles that come with prolonged use of nuclear power. Strangely, I have never seen any oh-so rational nuclear power lover dissect their arguments.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    When you have party refusing nuclear power plants out of fear from radiation and then same party agrees with extending coal mines and coal power plant, which are spitting radioactive waste around environment in uncontrolled manner from ash, then they are purely driven by anti-nuclear ideology.
    - looping__lui 4y ago
      Well in all fairness - deindustrialisation and a communist-like economy are probably also a very popular third alternative for them…

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Maybe both the German and the Japanese approaches to nuclear are both wrong except in opposite ways. The Germans can afford to be needlessly picky about nuclear in their own country since if they have an electricity shortage they can simply buy the deficit from the European grid or they can kill themselves slowly by burning their lignite reserves, the nastiest, dirtiest type coal in existence. Japan, being an isolated island nation that's poor in natural resources, doesn't have this luxury so they're YOLOing it on old nuclear plants.

bouncycastle 4y ago

My guess is that it's because the Japanese are so much used natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, landslides, volcano eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis, a nuclear meltdown is the last thing of their worries.

barry-cotter 4y ago

Indeed, better to burn more coal and suffer the effects of the greater air pollution and the radiation released by coal burning. The people get what they want good and hard.

lelag 4y ago

The way I see it is that nuclear disasters are terrible and costly, but they don't threaten the existence of mankind or our way of life. Global warming, on the other hand, is threatening our way of life and well-being slowly but very directly. This is the real danger, and I believe that the green movement has been very misguided in its anti-nuclear stance. They are achieving the opposite of their goals. The carbon footprint of Germany has been much worse compared to France in the past 50 years. We've had two major disasters in 30 years. Even if you assume that you get a Fukushima/Chernobyl-sized event three times per century, which is bad and should not happen with modern designs, it still doesn't threaten mankind as a whole because they are localized events. Global warming, however, is making Earth a less habitable place everywhere.

knocte 4y ago
I don't think the green movement is anti-nuclear, it is nuclear reluctant but given two choices, e.g. coal vs nuclear, green would always choose the lesser of two evils.
- lelag 4y ago
  Come on. So you think political ecologists have no role in the fact that very few nuclear plants were built in Europe since 1990 ? Even France, the nuclear plant country(tm) has forgotten how to make them (look at Flamanville EPR fiasco). Now, everybody realize we actually need nuclear but we can't make anymore quickly and are stuck extending the life of the existing plants like Japan is doing.
  - knocte 4y ago
    Building new nuclear plants is pro-nuclear. I said green movement is not anti-nuclear but I didn't say it is pro-nuclear. World is not black&white.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      Nuclear plants don't live forever. Refusing new nuclear is tantamount to eliminating nuclear. Also, there are certainly green activists against ALL nuclear. I don't have a formal survey handy, but based purely on the opinions of those that I know, far more are anti-nuclear than are neutral on the matter.

makeitdouble 4y ago

This is the "fuck it, we're too broke for caring" plan. Basically since Fukushima it's been a downhill rollercoaster, covid and the Olympics being the latest blows. Energy bills are planned to rise by 25+% for next summer, while salaries are already wildly behind inflation. Building a new state of the art reactor now could be done experimentaly, but wouldn't help to get out of current situation.

adastra22 4y ago

Maybe we should base public policy off the facts, and not the public's (unfounded) fears?

hsn915 4y ago

As far as I understand, the FUD campaign was actually orchestrated by Russian gas companies to make Germany more dependent on Russian gas, and it seems to have worked.

wewxjfq 4y ago
Saying this while nuclear power depends greatly on Russia and no country could sanction Rosatom shows how grounded in reality these discussions are.
- mpweiher 4y ago
  Here's some grounding in reality: - Russia mines 5% of the world's Uranium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining - The reason we only use less than 5% of the Uranium fuel, so throwing away 95%, is that the fuel is so cheap (= abundant) that it is cheaper to just throw it away - Fuel costs are basically a negligible component of the lifecycle costs of a nuclear reactor
  - wewxjfq 4y ago
    The hard facts are that Russia processes half of the world's uranium and no country, not even the US, could sanction their nuclear energy sector. This is the reality, not your fuel efficiency and breeder reactor hopium. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-imports-russia-nuclear/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-i...
    - mpweiher 4y ago
      The article you cite clearly states that even the worst-case impact of Russian supplies would be minimal: "at worst, some long-term Russian supply contracts could not be executed, and that would perhaps raise the price of electricity 1 or 2 percent." World-ending.
      - 4y ago

Dalewyn 4y ago

Because it makes no sense to not go nuclear. For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology thereof. The meltdowns at Fukushima #1 could have been completely avoided had the government of the time not been a bunch of worthless fools (hint: TEPCO wanted to scuttle the reactors before they melted down). For third: Japan needs power /today/, not tomorrow. Even assuming a transition to non-nuclear forms of power, that will not happen overnight. Using nuclear power is a concern of practical necessity. For fourth: Nuclear fearmongering is patently ridiculous. Nuclear power plants are not atomic bombs, for crying out loud. The same people who cry their hearts out about radiation proceed to fly on airliners and eat bananas. The answer to nuclear fearmongering is not shunning nuclear technology, it's to teach and bring more awareness about what nuclear technology is.

wslh 4y ago
Great answer, I would add that also there could be new solutions to disposing nuclear material that adds more confidence to the full cycle.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  The biggest risk in nuclear material disposal is environmental activists blocking the transports en route. The actual material itself emits less radiation than a store-bought banana when it's been properly stored.
- gggmaster 4y ago
  Sea dumping?
  - slim 4y ago
    space dumping ?
4y ago

ryan_j_naughton 4y ago

>people are scared of nuclear energy Let's not make policy out of unfounded fears. Let's look at some simple facts: 1. Fewer people have died from nuclear reactor meltdowns than from any other form of electricity generation. It is by far the safest form of power. 2. Even with the price of renewables dropping quickly, we will not be able to decarbonize quickly enough to prevent the terrible climate change outcomes. We need an all of the above solution to non-fossil fuel energy sources. 3. Germany decommissioned several nuclear plants out of fear and have both increased their reliance on fossil fuels as a result and increased dependency on Russia. It was a very foolish decision

glogla 4y ago
> 1. Fewer people have died from nuclear reactor meltdowns than from any other form of electricity generation. It is by far the safest form of power. To extend this - this includes renewables. Dam failures usually kill a lot of people (I think the estimate for Three Gorges failing was 10 million dead and 100 million displaced or something?) and a lot of people get hurt due to accidents while installing solar panels and wind turbines. The accidents don't happen that often, but you need a lot of solar panels and wind turbines to replace one nuclear power plants.
- sjducb 4y ago
  Rooftop solar kills the most people per megawatt hour. It's even worse than Chinese coal mining.
theshrike79 4y ago
Nuclear power is the safest and most environmentally friendly way to produce reliable and consistent base power. No renewable can do that yet. In theory they can, but in practice it's still either prohibitively expensive or highly location-dependent. Pumped storage works, but it needs natural formations to be cost-effective, you can't just build a mile high lake in the middle of a desert. Hydrogen electrolysis+on-site storage is a decent option, but still very expensive and not very efficient (energy loss is around 50% give or take depending on the scale). We needed nuclear 5 years ago, maybe when the current gen generators are EOL we have gotten good enough at storing renewable power that we don't need nuclear any more.

simondotau 4y ago

Whether or not you support nuclear power, being “scared” of it is an admission of ignorance and indicative of short-term reactionary thinking. It ought to be a source of national shame, not pride. With apologies to Yoda, fear is the path to the dark ages.

emodendroket 4y ago
Do you think we evolved fear by accident? If I were handling a venomous snake I'd be scared to be bit and rightly so. There's no reason to be proud of being heedless of risk.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  And what if it was a non-venomous snake, and all the experts tell you it is a non-venomous snake, and it is literally safer than a pet dog. Would you still be scared of handling it because of a pathological fear of snakes? In what way is that adaptive and helpful in a modern era of scientific knowledge?
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    Well, the setup was you told me people should feel embarrassed to be scared whether or not they support nuclear power. If they accepted the premise you are setting up now — that it is utterly risk-free — why wouldn’t they support it?
    - simondotau 4y ago
      > the premise you are setting up now — that it is utterly risk-free That is a fairly egregious misrepresentation of what was said. And it completely misses the point of the (rather good) analogy. Economies need energy. The only question that matters is whether a proposed source is overall better or worse — per unit of energy — than the status quo or the fallback. Remember, the choice isn’t nuclear power or no nuclear power. The choice is to utilise nuclear power or continue burning coal/oil/gas.

qball 4y ago

>Our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. And the Japanese (to say nothing of the rest of the world) are taking Germany as an example of what happens when you depend on cheap resources from your geopolitical adversaries for your economy to be viable. >People are scared of nuclear energy. Perhaps they should be more scared of having no energy at all.

mpweiher 4y ago

As a German, my country's reaction to Fukushima was and is bizarre to me. There was a natural disaster, a Tsunami, that cost upwards of 15000 lives, almost certainly a good number of them when various pieces of technology failed due to the Tsunami. One of the pieces of technical infrastructure affected was a nuclear power plant of an old, already inherently not great design, safety wise, that we now know was not built to regulations. Despite all that, there have been 0 deaths attributable to that accident so far. Zero. Germany's reaction: OMG WE NEED TO GET RID OF NUCLEAR POWER. Utterly bizarre. For me, Fukushima was what convinced me that nuclear was much safer than I had previously thought, a fact confirmed by the data: https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy The politicians did not "take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy". They knew better. They just triangulated the public's irrational fears. And those irrational fears are stoked, maximally, by the press. See the recent reporting on the anniversary: "Am 11. März 2021 jährt sich zum zehnten Mal die Tsunami- und Atomkatastrophe von Japan, die bis zu 20.000 Menschen das Leben und rund 160.000 Japaner ihre Heimat kostete." https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzeit/zdfzeit-der-ewige-gau-10-jahre-fukushima-100.html https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzeit/zdfzeit-der-ewige-g... March 11, 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, which claimed the lives of up to 20,000 people and displaced around 160,000 Japanese. Not sure it is technically a lie, but suggesting this strongly that the 20000 deaths were caused at least equally by the Tsunami and the reactor accident is certainly not truthful reporting. And this isn't an isolated incident, pretty much all the reporting was this way. And of course this has the desired effect. And while I am not sure that the German public would consciously say that the 16000-20000 deaths were caused by the reactor accident, it is certainly how they feel, and the feeling gets reinforced time and time again. And so we turned off our cleanest and safest form of energy, spent trillions in order to miss our emissions targets and become ever more dependent on fossil fuels, in the process prompting a dictator to miscalculate our dependence and embolden him to start the most brutal war in Europe for almost a century. Yay us.

baal80spam 4y ago
Nothing bizarre about it, you danced exactly like Russia wanted.

lucb1e 4y ago

As someone in Germany but not German, this aspect of Germany is bizarre to me. You have green energy already and instead of maintaining it or building it out, you build extra coal plants, mine more villages, but shut the green energy down? Huh, interesting choice. I understand the principles behind closing it. The old reactors are not the latest and greatest, there is this fear similar to the fear of flying (you're not in control and it has large consequences) even though it's the safest thing to do, and of course it's not technically renewable. What baffles me is that people don't see that this is still better than the alternative coal and gas plants that kill people on an ongoing basis from air pollution and global warming. But you also have higher Linux, PGP, Threema, OpenStreetMap, etc. usages than any other country I know of. The "only the purest ideal is good enough, shut everything else down" mentality has its upsides in many (most?) situations.

bsaul 4y ago
Wait, global warming is already killing people ?? Weather-related events has killed people since the beginning of times, but I was under the impression global warming was still about predictions of catastrophies.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  The "air pollution" part is measurable enough but it's obviously impossible to attribute the death of any individual that was caused by, say, a natural disaster or extreme heat event bolstered by global warming to any particular source of carbon emissions. Especially because you can very reasonably argue that those carbon emissions were a by-product of providing the energy needed to maintain first world standards of living, including the medical care etc that comes with it (I would totally agree that if we shut down all fossil-fuel- based energy generation tomorrow, it would result in significant excess deaths - far more than would be saved. Of course if you extend the period over which you count such deaths - say, to the next 50 or 100 years - the reverse is likely to be true, especially considering how much the earth's population is likely to increase in the next couple of decades).
- 411111111111111 4y ago

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago

As a Pole I always found the German politicians’ stance suspicious. It has so obviously played right into over-reliance on gas from the east. Which is a far more dangerous and scary perspective than a single potential accidental melt down. And straight up corrupt considering the sheer scale of eastbound cash flow. This news does go to show that perhaps the Japanese have managed to set fear aside. It is an engineering problem, might as well be scared to fly. Would you say stances have changed at all in Germany from your POV since last year?

ycuser2 4y ago
> Would you say stances have changed at all in Germany from your POV since last year? Not from my POV. There were long discussions to longer the running time of a few reactors by ... 3 months I guess? It was nationwide topic. Germany wants to safe the whole world by "going by example". So instead of thinking pratically and realisticly "we" try do to things ideologically.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  So the topic was basically about extending nuclear only in response to the short-term situation? Not about reevaluating it as a valid green energy source? > Germany wants to safe the whole world by "going by example". So instead of thinking pratically and realisticly "we" try do to things ideologically. This is so strange to me because my view has always been that Germany is this rational pro-engineering actor. Narcissistic and superior, but nevertheless logical and calculating. The idea that a bunch of windmills are going to power all these factories? That all the gas is somehow greener? I mean we know how this discussion goes - the amount of energy needed for that level of industrial output is just too big for non-greenhouse gas emitting sources. How exactly do they respond to that?
  - ycuser2 4y ago
    > So the topic was basically about extending nuclear only in response to the short-term situation? Not about reevaluating it as a valid green energy source? The Green Party sees nuclear energy as the evil. Never they consider it as green energy. Extending nuclear was a short-term compromise. I don't know how they want to supply the industry with only renewable energy. I'm not deep enough into that topic.

tannhaeuser 4y ago

It was Ms Merkel who captured the Green Party's long standing stance of zero nuclear power after the Fukushima event - like she did with political positions of other opponents as a general strategy. Today, it's Mr Habeck who'd be responsible for extending lifetimes of nuclear power plants. But of course his investigation into viability of doing just that was bound to come to negative conclusions - everything else would be political suicide for a member of a party that started life out of the "Atomkraft? Nein danke" movement late 70s/early 80s. Decisions elsewhere in the world, even in Japan, don't matter, co2, geopolitics, energy-intensive industries, and emobility at stupid prices be damned - the fundamentalist Green Party and their dangerously half-educated electorate are afraid of "the rays."

wewxjfq 4y ago
The ministry led by "Mr Habeck" wrote five sober pages on all the obstacles of keeping the nuclear power plants running. I don't see you or anyone else here countering any of the arguments they gave. No, it's always the same with these comment sections: They are a circle jerk of people who claim to be on the rational side, while they are only spreading unfunded claims, conspiracy theories and lies.
- looping__lui 4y ago
  So, we don’t keep nuclear - what is the alternative? Coal? Gas? You are aware, that the majority is still non-renewable and as an industrialized economy we do have a base load for consumption that we cannot just lower when there is no sun or wind. I’m all pro renewables in general, but they aren’t a 100% solution for our grid or economy. Moving away from nuclear to gas furthermore supported Russias aggressions against Ukraine. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/09/PE22_374_43312.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/09/PE22_374_43312.html
- tannhaeuser 4y ago
  > They are a circle jerk of people who claim to be on the rational side, while they are only spreading unfunded claims, conspiracy theories and lies. Frankly, your discussion style sucks. With your "everybody who's not my opinion is a liar and conspiracy theorist" attitude are you sure you're at the right place here?

cbmuser 4y ago

Well, you know Japan is just acting like that because they didn’t have a Fukushima like Germant. Oh, wait! On a more serious note: Since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russian war, Germany fully returned 19 coal-fired power units with a total generating capacity of 7.3 GW to the electricity market: > https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-den-strommarkt-209208 https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-... Germany’s last remaining six reactors had a capacity of 8.5 GW: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Germany#Nuclear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Germ... Germany made a conscious decision for coal and against the climate!

wewxjfq 4y ago
Germany had only three nuclear power plants in 2022, so 4 GW. And since they could only serve about 0.5 GW of peak demand, Germany needed to reactivate coal power plants regardless. Furthermore, the NPPs were planned to be shut-down years ago, you can't flip a switch and keep them going. They have no fuel, no staff, no certifications. Refueling the last NPPs would have required to take them offline for several months, right at the time Germany needed electricity the most. And the other NPPs that were decommissioned are gone forever, even if they weren't in deconstruction, there are countless of obstacles that won't ever bring them back.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kstenerud 4y ago

There are a number of reasons for this: * Japan's access to oil is via ship, which is expected to become more difficult as China is anticipated to tighten the screws in the South China Seas even further in coming years and Russia is unlikely to offer favorable terms since Japan is aligned with the West. Japan has past trauma of being cut off from oil by America and England, so they're particularly sensitive about this. * The Ukraine war has highlighted how fragile the world energy sources actually are, and everyone is hedging however they can. * Japan is following the general world trend towards isolationism and nationalism that flows from a sudden decrease in stability (COVID and the Ukraine war), and although this phase will pass, it's still having an effect on decision making now. * A declining population and economy that basically will continue doing so means that big investments make more sense now than later (even though they still won't be able to pay for it). * The LDP has defacto ruled Japan virtually unopposed since the end of WW2, and Japanese people rarely seriously question the government's judgment beyond a bit of localized murmuring. Japan needs energy security, and its options are very limited.

nailer 4y ago

That’s why Germany created a dependence on Russian oil, despite being warned by both sides of politics that this would enable Putin, at the whole of Europe’s expense, and kept sending billions to Russia for oil even after the invasion. Trying to keep within the HN guidelines and not writing how I actually feel about Germany for this.

Mawr 4y ago

> People are scared of nuclear energy. "But the people are retarded." [1]. "The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and *remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan*. The earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami, with 13–14-meter-high waves damaging the nuclear power plant's emergency diesel generators, leading to a loss of electric power. The result was the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, classified as level seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) [...] and thus joining Chernobyl as the only other accident to receive such classification. [...] the INES ranks incidents by impact on population, so Chernobyl (335,000 people evacuated) and Fukushima (154,000 evacuated) [...]" [2] Man, nuclear's weak. Worst two disasters end with just a few dozen people dead at most and merely a ton of economical damage? A single dam failure and you've got 100 thousand people dead. Coal alone kills 100 thousand people a year. Nuclear needs to step it up. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFgcqB8-AxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFgcqB8-AxE [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster

rejectfinite 4y ago

It's so dumb. Sweden did this too in the 80s and vote no to more nuclear. And here we are... Even if we build now, it's going to be 20 years or more until they are done.

Bancakes 4y ago

FUD is generally frowned upon. The fact there are only single instances of nuclea incidents speaks highly of the technology. Japan probably has no heavy government influence by the likes of Lukoil, either.