7 ms·

“Decades of anti-nuclear protests in Germany, stoked by disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, put pressure on successive governments to end t

by amin 3y ago

“Decades of anti-nuclear protests in Germany, stoked by disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, put pressure on successive governments to end the use of a technology that critics argue is unsafe and unsustainable. Environmental groups planned to mark the day with celebrations outside the three reactors and rallies in major cities, including Berlin.” It’s crazy that a country made up of seemingly smart people favor this. How did Germany evolve to be so anti-nuclear? Given the alternatives nuclear seems the way to go.

RicoElectrico 3y ago
Moral, or other panic is apparently a German pastime. Remember they still censor video games? Or are afraid of Google Street View?
riedel 3y ago
In Germany there is still no consent on where to put the nuclear waste. Without that and no other country willing to take our waste, this is a problem. The process e.g. in Switzerland worked much better. It may actually be the very critical thinking that made it impossible to run nuclear plants in Germany. Further the federal structure and the citizen engagement in many decision making processes makes it complicated. Btw, the same problem actually makes a lot of wind power plans stall..
- sgu999 3y ago
  But they all agree on where to put the leftovers of burning coal until 2038... It makes absolutely no sense to me.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    They're aiming for 2030 now. Their biggest power producer has already signed up for this. Think there's still some plants in Eastern Germany that don't have finalized plans but they'll probably get there. https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villages-and-three-farmsteads-to-remain-former-settlement-of-luetzerath-to-be-demolished/ https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villa...
    - belorn 3y ago
      In the mean time they intend to build fresh new natural gas power plants by 2030 in order to reach 50 GW, up from current capacity of 21 GW. That will be a doubling of natural gas power plants from today.
      - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
        That's a perfectly sensible thing to do as part of a decarbonization plan. You seem to be suggesting it's a bad thing, but you don't say why. Here's a 100% renewables plan for Germany that involves building gas capacity of 60% of peak demand and using it and synthetic gas made with renewables as "storage": https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... They also provide numbers for doing it just with batteries, and suggest it would only be 2x as expensive. The numbers are a few years old now, so prices and tech have moved on since. Other people now suggest massive oversupply of wind and solar combined with mass EV rollout will make it cheaper to just use batteries, which I generally lean towards: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... But either way, it's not unexpected or weird to build gas capacity when trying to wean yourself of fossil fuels and energy imports. What's important is details like how much you use, whether you capture the carbon, and how you source the gas and whether you are rolling out renewables, heat pumps and EVs sufficiently fast.
        belorn 3y ago
        Increasing burning of natural gas might have been sensible before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Today it makes the German energy grid one of Europe most expensive grid, and the amount of subsidizes the German government is spending makes practically everything else cheap in comparison. The German government are paying their citizens bills, lower taxes and subsidize most of the construction and operational cost of fossil fuel power plants. Just because the government is paying the bill does not make it cheap. How many more winters with government bailouts can people take before enough is enough? Germany is not going to reach the European climate goals if they continue with building new natural gas power plants. They will also not reach the Paris agreement. It is "a bad thing" to continue burning fossil fuels! There is a lot of technology that exists and future tech that they could be using. The German has instead chosen to use fossil fuels. If we are discussing what they could be doing, what they could make a political decision that when they ban production of new fossil fuel cars they also ban the construction of new fossil fuel power plants. This would be much more real than politician talking about solar and wind while at the same time building tons of natural gas power plants in the backyard.
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  If you could convert the waste into co2 and put it into the sky, that would be better. Right?
- api 3y ago
  … but you can always build gas plants I’m sure. Same thing is true in parts of the US. Gas somehow doesn’t face the opposition of pretty much anything else.
- elcritch 3y ago
  Nuclear waste only requires a fraction of the space of what a single large coal mine? It’s still irrational to put you energy security at risk because it’s “nuclear”, especially while wanting green electricity. Also a bit darker thought, but you’d think the chance of nuclear fallout zones that’d keep humans out would be adored by more hardcore environmentalists. I think the sort of environmentalism on display there is more people rallying against what they don’t “comprehend”.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  > In Germany there is still no consent on where to put the nuclear waste Dig a deep hole, put waste there. This problem has been solved for decades. Germany has no seismic activity either, so that should not be a problem there.
  - mdbug 3y ago
    We did that indeed for decades and then it turned out that the site was unsuitable, because of water inflows, and now we have been planning since 2013 how to recover the barrels again. The beginning of the recovery is planned to start in 2033 and is estimated to last for decades. It's not true that Germany has no seismic activity btw.
- HyperSane 3y ago
  This is a solved problem. You bury the waste deep underground, preferably after reprocessing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
  - mdbug 3y ago
    We tried to bury the waste deep underground in the 60s and 70s already. Let's say it didn't work out so well and now we are still planning how to retrieve it since the decision was made in 2013. We have not yet found a geologically suitable site in Germany. In contrast to the less disturbed granites of Finland and Sweden, the formations occurring in Germany are more fractured and thus less suitable. Currently, several salt and clay blocks are being investigated for their suitability as repositories, but they have other problems. (Water solubility for salt and lower stability for clay). "According to the report of the Repository Commission, the final disposal of highly radioactive waste in Germany will drag on well into the 22nd century. The commission expects the end of emplacement to occur between the years 2075 and 2130, while the "state of a sealed repository mine should be reached between 2095 and 2170 or later." Accordingly, highly radioactive waste could be housed in interim storage facilities until after 2100. At the same time, final storage costs are projected to range from about 49 billion to 170 billion euros; significantly more than the 23 billion euros in payments transferred by nuclear power plant operators to the government for this purpose on July 3, 2017." https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Weltweite_Situation https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Weltwei...
    - HyperSane 3y ago
      Watching Germany do anything related to nuclear energy or waste is like the people in in infomercials failing to do very basic tasks. Get your act together.
      - riedel 3y ago
        I tend to agree. However, turning them off is partially exactly getting the act together. The very big problem is that at the same time particularly southern German states fail to support renewables and power distribution lines. So while there was a time line. One part of the time line was missed. So everyone decided to rather count on Russian gas as an intermediary solution with the known geopolitical consequences that followed. PS: Strange twist: There is a German company that now wants to produce fuel elements for Russian nuclear power plants...
bgorman 3y ago
Propoganda for childen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wolke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wolke
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  Lol. Die woke. Maybe.
jamesdepp 3y ago
Right? Nuclear power is some of the cleanest energy we have. With research developments, strong safety regulations, and a plan for storing the waste it produces, nuclear is a much better option than continuing to rely on fossil fuels. What poor timing, too. With the war in Ukraine going on, now is not the time to be increasing your independence on fossil fuels, even if temporarily.
- xenonite 3y ago
  Don’t know if anyone can compare the impact of fuel wars vs impact of nuclear waste&fallout. Though I agree the former currently has a much higher effect.
  - HyperSane 3y ago
    Worrying about the 'risk' of nuclear waste while we emit so much CO2 into the atmosphere is like worrying about a hangnail while you have a huge tumor on your neck. Modern reactors have very thick containment shells and have zero risk of "fallout".
    - xenonite 3y ago
      If the hangnail causes a sepsis, it’s fatal in short time albeit the risk might have been low. But what if the skin is dry and weak? The German reactors were running on low maintenance because of the shutdown, anticipated for last December. Hence the risk of continued operation is worse than typical. A large overhaul would be necessary to ensure usual safety.
      - HyperSane 3y ago
        Why is germany being so incredibly stupid about this?
        xenonite 3y ago
        Same question could be asked in the aftermath of an incident. The argumentation is not so straightforward if looked upon in detail. Of course the question is if the reactors could have been „saved“ earlier on, but those decisions were made in 2010. In the meantime, wind, solar and gas plants were built. Gas plants were intended to offset low output times in solar and wind. Gas plants can be quickly turned on and off unlike nuclear plants. Thats the reasoning. What would you recommend?
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Solar and wind are better alternatives today. They got developed to the point they are because of those same smart, sensible Germans investing in them early on.
- leoh 3y ago
  How?
  - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
    By pretending that storage is not needed. That's how.
- retinaros 3y ago
  you might want to google carbon emission of germany instead of reading fake news. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/23/germany-coal-climate-cop26/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/23/germany-coal...
  - EntrePrescott 3y ago
    The fact that the shutdown of nuclear energy in Germany is based on irrational ideological fearmongering and that it's doubly stupid to do so BEFORE having finished building up sufficient renewable energy generation and storage capacity, thus leading, at least temporarily, to a de-facto replacement of a sizeable proportion of the part previously held by nuclear energy with fossil energies like coal that are far more dirty (with CO₂ and other pollutants)… … doesn't in any way change the fact that Germany has indeed been massively investing in renewable energies and has built up enormous capacities in that domain that account for a much higher percentage of renewables in the energy mix than the overwhelming majority of developed countries… and that those early and continuous massive investments by Germany have played a major role in bringing these renewable energies to the much improved viability, maturity and price level they now have. There is no contradiction between those two facts.
    - 3y ago
TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
> Environmental groups planned to mark the day with celebrations outside the three reactors and rallies in major cities, including Berlin.” They should be celebrating right next ash heaps from coal power plants
chromanoid 3y ago
As a German, to me it feels like a direct result of realistic cold war fears regarding nuclear war (by association) and actually living through the consequences of Chernobyl... https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/closed-off-playground-in-berlin-germany-after-the-nachrichtenfoto/542350527 https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/closed-off... https://newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/research/how-the-chernobyl-cloud-affected-cognitive-abilities-in-germany/ https://newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/research/how-the-chernob... https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergency/chernobyl/health-effects-europe.html https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergen... The biggest problem I personally have with nuclear energy is that I don't trust companies nor states to deal with radioactive substances responsibly, especially with a rapidly aging population (see also https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko ). Do you? Theoretical safety is irrelevant when it comes to people. Just think about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accide...
- HyperSane 3y ago
  Opposing nuclear energy is the same as supporting climate change because the only alternative to nuclear base load is coal or gas. This is why Germany emits 6 times more CO2 per kWh than France. If humanity was sane and rational we would have replaced coal with nuclear a long time ago. Climate change activists opposing nuclear energy is like firefighters opposing water.
  - chromanoid 3y ago
    > If humanity was sane and rational That is exactly my point. If humanity was sane and rational I wouldn't be concerned about nuclear energy, because I would trust organizations to deal with it. But I do not trust organizations to handle this. In countries with vast space radioactive waste management might be negligible, but in Europe contamination affects more people immediately. > Climate change activists opposing nuclear energy is like firefighters opposing water. No, it's more like firefighters opposing AFFF. https://www.drugwatch.com/news/2021/02/22/firefighters-file-cancer-lawsuits-against-afff-foam-manufacturers https://www.drugwatch.com/news/2021/02/22/firefighters-file-...
HyperSane 3y ago
Are they celebrating the fact that Germany emits 6 times more CO2 per kWh than France? They should be ashamed of themselves.
fakedang 3y ago
> It’s crazy that a country made up of seemingly smart people favor this. How did Germany evolve to be so anti-nuclear? Given the alternatives nuclear seems the way to go. Well Germany isn't a country of smart people. Was maybe, now it's just a country for crackpot bureaucrats and corrupt politicians.
mdbug 3y ago
> How did Germany evolve to be so anti-nuclear? Given the alternatives nuclear seems the way to go. Nuclear power is currently by far the most expensive way to generate electricity. And this despite the fact that the insurance sum for the power plants is capped and the remaining risk is assumed by the state and the money that was invested for final waste storage will predictably not be sufficient either. Our early attempts for final storage since the 60s have failed and since 2013 we have been planning how to recover hundreds of thousands of barrels from a salt mine from which radioactively contaminated brine is leaking. And we have yet to find a suitable repository where long-term safety can be guaranteed.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  We also does not have sustainable energy storage and that's the reason for burning more coal, while spraying everyone with radioactive ash from coal in the process. I find it so funny when you are worried about waste from nuclear power plants, while there are literal tons of uranium every year being exhaled into the atmosphere and stored on ash heaps under the open air.

by amin 3y ago

RicoElectrico 3y ago

Moral, or other panic is apparently a German pastime. Remember they still censor video games? Or are afraid of Google Street View?

riedel 3y ago

In Germany there is still no consent on where to put the nuclear waste. Without that and no other country willing to take our waste, this is a problem. The process e.g. in Switzerland worked much better. It may actually be the very critical thinking that made it impossible to run nuclear plants in Germany. Further the federal structure and the citizen engagement in many decision making processes makes it complicated. Btw, the same problem actually makes a lot of wind power plans stall..

sgu999 3y ago
But they all agree on where to put the leftovers of burning coal until 2038... It makes absolutely no sense to me.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  They're aiming for 2030 now. Their biggest power producer has already signed up for this. Think there's still some plants in Eastern Germany that don't have finalized plans but they'll probably get there. https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villages-and-three-farmsteads-to-remain-former-settlement-of-luetzerath-to-be-demolished/ https://www.rwe.com/en/press/rwe-power/2023-01-11-five-villa...
  - belorn 3y ago
    In the mean time they intend to build fresh new natural gas power plants by 2030 in order to reach 50 GW, up from current capacity of 21 GW. That will be a doubling of natural gas power plants from today.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      That's a perfectly sensible thing to do as part of a decarbonization plan. You seem to be suggesting it's a bad thing, but you don't say why. Here's a 100% renewables plan for Germany that involves building gas capacity of 60% of peak demand and using it and synthetic gas made with renewables as "storage": https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... They also provide numbers for doing it just with batteries, and suggest it would only be 2x as expensive. The numbers are a few years old now, so prices and tech have moved on since. Other people now suggest massive oversupply of wind and solar combined with mass EV rollout will make it cheaper to just use batteries, which I generally lean towards: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/627d1bace6fae9594895b608/1652366252977/Germany+SWB+Primer.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb... But either way, it's not unexpected or weird to build gas capacity when trying to wean yourself of fossil fuels and energy imports. What's important is details like how much you use, whether you capture the carbon, and how you source the gas and whether you are rolling out renewables, heat pumps and EVs sufficiently fast.
      - belorn 3y ago
        Increasing burning of natural gas might have been sensible before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Today it makes the German energy grid one of Europe most expensive grid, and the amount of subsidizes the German government is spending makes practically everything else cheap in comparison. The German government are paying their citizens bills, lower taxes and subsidize most of the construction and operational cost of fossil fuel power plants. Just because the government is paying the bill does not make it cheap. How many more winters with government bailouts can people take before enough is enough? Germany is not going to reach the European climate goals if they continue with building new natural gas power plants. They will also not reach the Paris agreement. It is "a bad thing" to continue burning fossil fuels! There is a lot of technology that exists and future tech that they could be using. The German has instead chosen to use fossil fuels. If we are discussing what they could be doing, what they could make a political decision that when they ban production of new fossil fuel cars they also ban the construction of new fossil fuel power plants. This would be much more real than politician talking about solar and wind while at the same time building tons of natural gas power plants in the backyard.
raffraffraff 3y ago
If you could convert the waste into co2 and put it into the sky, that would be better. Right?
api 3y ago
… but you can always build gas plants I’m sure. Same thing is true in parts of the US. Gas somehow doesn’t face the opposition of pretty much anything else.
elcritch 3y ago
Nuclear waste only requires a fraction of the space of what a single large coal mine? It’s still irrational to put you energy security at risk because it’s “nuclear”, especially while wanting green electricity. Also a bit darker thought, but you’d think the chance of nuclear fallout zones that’d keep humans out would be adored by more hardcore environmentalists. I think the sort of environmentalism on display there is more people rallying against what they don’t “comprehend”.
ekianjo 3y ago
> In Germany there is still no consent on where to put the nuclear waste Dig a deep hole, put waste there. This problem has been solved for decades. Germany has no seismic activity either, so that should not be a problem there.
- mdbug 3y ago
  We did that indeed for decades and then it turned out that the site was unsuitable, because of water inflows, and now we have been planning since 2013 how to recover the barrels again. The beginning of the recovery is planned to start in 2033 and is estimated to last for decades. It's not true that Germany has no seismic activity btw.
HyperSane 3y ago
This is a solved problem. You bury the waste deep underground, preferably after reprocessing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
- mdbug 3y ago
  We tried to bury the waste deep underground in the 60s and 70s already. Let's say it didn't work out so well and now we are still planning how to retrieve it since the decision was made in 2013. We have not yet found a geologically suitable site in Germany. In contrast to the less disturbed granites of Finland and Sweden, the formations occurring in Germany are more fractured and thus less suitable. Currently, several salt and clay blocks are being investigated for their suitability as repositories, but they have other problems. (Water solubility for salt and lower stability for clay). "According to the report of the Repository Commission, the final disposal of highly radioactive waste in Germany will drag on well into the 22nd century. The commission expects the end of emplacement to occur between the years 2075 and 2130, while the "state of a sealed repository mine should be reached between 2095 and 2170 or later." Accordingly, highly radioactive waste could be housed in interim storage facilities until after 2100. At the same time, final storage costs are projected to range from about 49 billion to 170 billion euros; significantly more than the 23 billion euros in payments transferred by nuclear power plant operators to the government for this purpose on July 3, 2017." https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Weltweite_Situation https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)#Weltwei...
  - HyperSane 3y ago
    Watching Germany do anything related to nuclear energy or waste is like the people in in infomercials failing to do very basic tasks. Get your act together.
    - riedel 3y ago
      I tend to agree. However, turning them off is partially exactly getting the act together. The very big problem is that at the same time particularly southern German states fail to support renewables and power distribution lines. So while there was a time line. One part of the time line was missed. So everyone decided to rather count on Russian gas as an intermediary solution with the known geopolitical consequences that followed. PS: Strange twist: There is a German company that now wants to produce fuel elements for Russian nuclear power plants...

bgorman 3y ago

Propoganda for childen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wolke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wolke

raffraffraff 3y ago
Lol. Die woke. Maybe.

jamesdepp 3y ago

Right? Nuclear power is some of the cleanest energy we have. With research developments, strong safety regulations, and a plan for storing the waste it produces, nuclear is a much better option than continuing to rely on fossil fuels. What poor timing, too. With the war in Ukraine going on, now is not the time to be increasing your independence on fossil fuels, even if temporarily.

xenonite 3y ago
Don’t know if anyone can compare the impact of fuel wars vs impact of nuclear waste&fallout. Though I agree the former currently has a much higher effect.
- HyperSane 3y ago
  Worrying about the 'risk' of nuclear waste while we emit so much CO2 into the atmosphere is like worrying about a hangnail while you have a huge tumor on your neck. Modern reactors have very thick containment shells and have zero risk of "fallout".
  - xenonite 3y ago
    If the hangnail causes a sepsis, it’s fatal in short time albeit the risk might have been low. But what if the skin is dry and weak? The German reactors were running on low maintenance because of the shutdown, anticipated for last December. Hence the risk of continued operation is worse than typical. A large overhaul would be necessary to ensure usual safety.
    - HyperSane 3y ago
      Why is germany being so incredibly stupid about this?
      - xenonite 3y ago
        Same question could be asked in the aftermath of an incident. The argumentation is not so straightforward if looked upon in detail. Of course the question is if the reactors could have been „saved“ earlier on, but those decisions were made in 2010. In the meantime, wind, solar and gas plants were built. Gas plants were intended to offset low output times in solar and wind. Gas plants can be quickly turned on and off unlike nuclear plants. Thats the reasoning. What would you recommend?

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Solar and wind are better alternatives today. They got developed to the point they are because of those same smart, sensible Germans investing in them early on.

leoh 3y ago
How?
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  By pretending that storage is not needed. That's how.
retinaros 3y ago
you might want to google carbon emission of germany instead of reading fake news. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/23/germany-coal-climate-cop26/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/23/germany-coal...
- EntrePrescott 3y ago
  The fact that the shutdown of nuclear energy in Germany is based on irrational ideological fearmongering and that it's doubly stupid to do so BEFORE having finished building up sufficient renewable energy generation and storage capacity, thus leading, at least temporarily, to a de-facto replacement of a sizeable proportion of the part previously held by nuclear energy with fossil energies like coal that are far more dirty (with CO₂ and other pollutants)… … doesn't in any way change the fact that Germany has indeed been massively investing in renewable energies and has built up enormous capacities in that domain that account for a much higher percentage of renewables in the energy mix than the overwhelming majority of developed countries… and that those early and continuous massive investments by Germany have played a major role in bringing these renewable energies to the much improved viability, maturity and price level they now have. There is no contradiction between those two facts.
  - 3y ago

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago

> Environmental groups planned to mark the day with celebrations outside the three reactors and rallies in major cities, including Berlin.” They should be celebrating right next ash heaps from coal power plants

chromanoid 3y ago

As a German, to me it feels like a direct result of realistic cold war fears regarding nuclear war (by association) and actually living through the consequences of Chernobyl... https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/closed-off-playground-in-berlin-germany-after-the-nachrichtenfoto/542350527 https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/closed-off... https://newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/research/how-the-chernobyl-cloud-affected-cognitive-abilities-in-germany/ https://newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/research/how-the-chernob... https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergency/chernobyl/health-effects-europe.html https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergen... The biggest problem I personally have with nuclear energy is that I don't trust companies nor states to deal with radioactive substances responsibly, especially with a rapidly aging population (see also https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko ). Do you? Theoretical safety is irrelevant when it comes to people. Just think about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accide...

HyperSane 3y ago
Opposing nuclear energy is the same as supporting climate change because the only alternative to nuclear base load is coal or gas. This is why Germany emits 6 times more CO2 per kWh than France. If humanity was sane and rational we would have replaced coal with nuclear a long time ago. Climate change activists opposing nuclear energy is like firefighters opposing water.
- chromanoid 3y ago
  > If humanity was sane and rational That is exactly my point. If humanity was sane and rational I wouldn't be concerned about nuclear energy, because I would trust organizations to deal with it. But I do not trust organizations to handle this. In countries with vast space radioactive waste management might be negligible, but in Europe contamination affects more people immediately. > Climate change activists opposing nuclear energy is like firefighters opposing water. No, it's more like firefighters opposing AFFF. https://www.drugwatch.com/news/2021/02/22/firefighters-file-cancer-lawsuits-against-afff-foam-manufacturers https://www.drugwatch.com/news/2021/02/22/firefighters-file-...

HyperSane 3y ago

Are they celebrating the fact that Germany emits 6 times more CO2 per kWh than France? They should be ashamed of themselves.

fakedang 3y ago

> It’s crazy that a country made up of seemingly smart people favor this. How did Germany evolve to be so anti-nuclear? Given the alternatives nuclear seems the way to go. Well Germany isn't a country of smart people. Was maybe, now it's just a country for crackpot bureaucrats and corrupt politicians.

mdbug 3y ago

> How did Germany evolve to be so anti-nuclear? Given the alternatives nuclear seems the way to go. Nuclear power is currently by far the most expensive way to generate electricity. And this despite the fact that the insurance sum for the power plants is capped and the remaining risk is assumed by the state and the money that was invested for final waste storage will predictably not be sufficient either. Our early attempts for final storage since the 60s have failed and since 2013 we have been planning how to recover hundreds of thousands of barrels from a salt mine from which radioactively contaminated brine is leaking. And we have yet to find a suitable repository where long-term safety can be guaranteed.

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
We also does not have sustainable energy storage and that's the reason for burning more coal, while spraying everyone with radioactive ash from coal in the process. I find it so funny when you are worried about waste from nuclear power plants, while there are literal tons of uranium every year being exhaled into the atmosphere and stored on ash heaps under the open air.