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> Sure nuclear power stations are cheaper in China then in Germany. All kinds of things are cheaper there. Still the first two reactors cost about 3.2 billion $
by catzaa 17y ago
> Sure nuclear power stations are cheaper in China then in Germany. All kinds of things are cheaper there. Still the first two reactors cost about 3.2 billion $. Try to build them for that money in Europe.
Coal Prices are almost the same the world over. The price increased significantly the past few years (that is one reason for a steep rise in electricity prices in many countries).
In my country we are lucky – we have low quality sulphur rich coal which we do not export. Thus we can burn it cheaply for electricity and the only side-effect is acid rain.
> Nuclear power is no viable technology. Mining is extremely damaging (including the emission of CO2) , substances handled are extremely dangerous, safety is not resolved and waste disposal is nowhere world wide solved.
Mining of Uranuim is much cleaner than coal – and much less needs to be mined. For coal they actually remove mountain tops to get to the coal. Remember that more than 5000 people die each year only in China from coal mining.
> The IEEE article is mostly misleading.
The IEEE article is extremely accurate. It is a magazine of the largest Electronic and Engineering groups (i.e. a specialist magazine). The article you linked to is for general consumption.
> Reprocessing of spent fuel makes the material even more dangerous. Reprocessing is already a dangerous process that generates huge amount of waste (for example the chemicals used).
Not true.
> and has largely failed to invest money in other technologies like renewable energy.
How much energy does countries with “renewables” generate? (hydropower excluded). There is no serious renewable energy projects – most of it is toys when compared to real power stations. It is just window dressing and none of it is feasible.
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,654969,00... http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,654969,00..... No pretty sight, I'd say. Additionally it follows the usual strategy to build large players.
The Spiegel article is sensationalist (and half true) as most of their articles are. The nuclear fuel are stored above ground in containment drums – this is quite normal. The problem is that the reprocessing has a huge backlog (since the demand is so high).
> Volkswagen now has a program for 100000 small 'Blockheizkraftwerke' ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockheizkraftwerk http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockheizkraftwerk )
And they should be driven either by diesel or gas. Will this really solve any problems?
> Nuclear power plants are dinosaurs deserving to die.
Another thing is happening and will happen more in the future. Manufacturing countries (such as China) will build nuclear power stations (as part of a sensible energy policy) and manufacturing will be exported. With high energy prices German products will become uncompetitive.
I think that we can only agree to disagree.
- lispm 17y agoI was talking about building them. You switch to coal prices. Mining uranium is cleaner than coal? We had mines here in Germany and they were definitely environmentally very dangerous. Mining in western Europe has mostly stopped, the environmental damages are now transported to other countries. Let's see how the US deals their abandoned Uranium mines. Probably not at all. In Germany we have to deal with former mine. We already have invested almost five billion Euros into controlling the damages. This makes a good read on the work needed to close these mines here in Germany: http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/NEFW/documents/RawMaterials/CD_TM_Swakopmund%20200710/17%20Paul.PDF http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/NEFW/documents/RawMaterial... For fun calculate the cost of above into the world-market price of Uranium. Surprise for you: coal prices are not the same in the world. The types of coal are different, the mining is different, labor costs are different. The IEEE article is not accurate. The current actions in Germany show the opposite. Reprocessing does not multiply the waste? Wow. Why would you excluded hydro power from renewables. Germany has started to invest in renewables in the last two decades and the trend is clear. The goal is to reach 30% in a few years. That France does not export much energy from renewable sources is no surprise, they have betted all their money on nuclear power plants. So with the backlog of processing in France, they ship the stuff to Siberia? I wonder if they know what they are doing? Probably not, France just managed to find a bunch of Plutonium in Cadarache. 39 Kilograms of Plutonium dust, instead of the 8 Kilogram the officials knew about. A Blockheizkraftwerk will be run on gas and later on biogas. Sure that solves a lot of problems: it decentralizes energy production, allows easy reuse of heat energy, the energy production can be fine tuned to actual usage, gas is much less environmentally dangerous than nuclear materials or coal, ... It is estimated 100000 of those will allow us to get rid of two Nuclear Power Plants. 100000 homes with those 'Blockheizkraftwerke' is a moderate goal in a country of 80 million people. Germany already has high energy prices. It is still number one exporter in the world. The German industry is constantly modernizing to lower the demand for energy during production. Countries like China are far behind. It shows in their environment also. The goal for Germany is not to have cheap energy, the goal is to reduce energy consumption, create new technologies and get rid of the old energy wasting industries. That's what the article says, Germany is forward looking and has already started a change that will take many years, with the goal to produce most of the energy in a modern clean fashion and without nuclear power. Some other countries have similar goals. France and the UK don't. Let's see when they wake up.