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> And of course Japan is just one country of the 22 (+China+India+...). So again, how is nuclear on the way out? Japan has only working 12 reactors. Tripling t

by lispm 3y ago

> And of course Japan is just one country of the 22 (+China+India+...). So again, how is nuclear on the way out? Japan has only working 12 reactors. Tripling those will create 36. It had 54. It's just TRYING to catch up. Other countries will have it more difficult, they need to build new ones. That will take decades and will have very little effect on a global scale, while at the same time many reactors are aging. That's with all these numbers, it's hard to believe that you don't understand that there is not one trend to look at, there are several possible trend curves to look at. What you believe is that the most optimistic outlook proposed by the nuclear industry will actually happen. Good luck with that. There are a lot of other trend predictions possible. One would be to just calculate the current trend a bit further. That would show that nuclear fluctuates around zero expansion. I think even that will be optimistic. > "Though all of Japan's nuclear reactors successfully withstood shaking from the Tohoku earthquake..." They still were ALL shutdown. ALL. Not a single one was running for several years. But you know better. Now you can ask yourself why that was? You might think a bit and find out that the "political" argument is both bullshit and not bullshit: a) Politics is responsible to govern a country. In the end it makes the decisions, and not technocrats. That's their responsibility. Politics should govern a country, not the nuclear industry. b) "Withstood" means not that much for nuclear safety. That a reactor "withstood" one event does not mean that it will withstand the next event. To assess damage (and the reactors had damages (just read the story about the Daini reactor), to analyze the event and improve reactor safety. Many reactors had massive safety problems exposed. That's why they were either shutdown or closed. > "It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan,..." Recording is just done for a few years. It shows that such strong earthquakes are possible in Japan. Better prepare for the next one.

mpweiher 3y ago
Japan was getting out of nuclear altogether. Now it is expanding. Obviously from its current base. They can't expand from some other base than the current one. And once again, Japan is one of 22+ countries expanding, with the goal of tripling by 2050. Maybe in your universe tripling means "getting out of". In the Real World™ it does not. > Not a single one was running for several years. But you know better. What on earth are you talking about? The fact that they were all shut down was never in dispute. However, your claim was that they were all knocked out of operation for years by the earthquake. That was false. SOME were knocked out by the Tsunami. Obviously so and also never in any way in dispute, with the most prominent example the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Again, do you really believe that this was in dispute? However, shutting down ALL of them was a political decision, a simple fact you continue to deny. It was. Again quoting: "Prime Minister Naoto Kan this week persuaded the operators of another nuclear plant west of Tokyo to temporarily close it to make safety improvements. And he is canceling a plan to build more nuclear facilities." "Declining public support for nuclear power appears to be having an impact on Kan's thinking." In what universe is the prime minister persuading operators to close a plant due to declining public support not a political decision? https://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/136209502/japan-backs-off-of-nuclear-power-after-public-outcry https://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/136209502/japan-backs-off-of-... But you obviously know better. > Recording is just done for a few years. "The Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee was created in 1892" "In modern times, the catalogues compiled by Tatsuo Usami are considered to provide the most authoritative source of information on historic earthquakes, with the 2003 edition detailing 486 that took place between 416 and 1888" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan Note that they even have estimated magnitudes for these older quakes. So in your universe, 1600+ years is "just a few years". OK. And obviously you know better than the Japanese about their earthquakes. > it's hard to believe that you don't understand that there is not one trend to look at, Sigh. There are obviously multiple trends. Germany is obviously moving in a different direction (or has moved) from the rest of the world. Belgium is also still moving tentatively in the direction of Germany, but even there the momentum has slowed with the decision to postpone the shutdown. Similar in Switzerland. I would not be at all surprised if they also reverse entirely within the next couple of years. However, it is very obviously possible to compare these trends and to combine them to form an overall trend. Just three years ago you would have been correct, the overall trend was away from nuclear, and Germany was at the forefront of the overall trend. This has shifted. Dramatically. The overall trend is now towards more nuclear, not less. And not just hypotheticals, but official and enacted government policy. And Germany is now the outlier. Very clearly. Heck, even the German public has figured out that getting out of safe, reliable and inexpensive nuclear, even with all its problems, was a mistake.

by lispm 3y ago

mpweiher 3y ago

Japan was getting out of nuclear altogether. Now it is expanding. Obviously from its current base. They can't expand from some other base than the current one. And once again, Japan is one of 22+ countries expanding, with the goal of tripling by 2050. Maybe in your universe tripling means "getting out of". In the Real World™ it does not. > Not a single one was running for several years. But you know better. What on earth are you talking about? The fact that they were all shut down was never in dispute. However, your claim was that they were all knocked out of operation for years by the earthquake. That was false. SOME were knocked out by the Tsunami. Obviously so and also never in any way in dispute, with the most prominent example the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Again, do you really believe that this was in dispute? However, shutting down ALL of them was a political decision, a simple fact you continue to deny. It was. Again quoting: "Prime Minister Naoto Kan this week persuaded the operators of another nuclear plant west of Tokyo to temporarily close it to make safety improvements. And he is canceling a plan to build more nuclear facilities." "Declining public support for nuclear power appears to be having an impact on Kan's thinking." In what universe is the prime minister persuading operators to close a plant due to declining public support not a political decision? https://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/136209502/japan-backs-off-of-nuclear-power-after-public-outcry https://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/136209502/japan-backs-off-of-... But you obviously know better. > Recording is just done for a few years. "The Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee was created in 1892" "In modern times, the catalogues compiled by Tatsuo Usami are considered to provide the most authoritative source of information on historic earthquakes, with the 2003 edition detailing 486 that took place between 416 and 1888" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan Note that they even have estimated magnitudes for these older quakes. So in your universe, 1600+ years is "just a few years". OK. And obviously you know better than the Japanese about their earthquakes. > it's hard to believe that you don't understand that there is not one trend to look at, Sigh. There are obviously multiple trends. Germany is obviously moving in a different direction (or has moved) from the rest of the world. Belgium is also still moving tentatively in the direction of Germany, but even there the momentum has slowed with the decision to postpone the shutdown. Similar in Switzerland. I would not be at all surprised if they also reverse entirely within the next couple of years. However, it is very obviously possible to compare these trends and to combine them to form an overall trend. Just three years ago you would have been correct, the overall trend was away from nuclear, and Germany was at the forefront of the overall trend. This has shifted. Dramatically. The overall trend is now towards more nuclear, not less. And not just hypotheticals, but official and enacted government policy. And Germany is now the outlier. Very clearly. Heck, even the German public has figured out that getting out of safe, reliable and inexpensive nuclear, even with all its problems, was a mistake.