Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost? • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#11

Post by DasIch » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

Let's assume for a moment there would be no opposition to nuclear in Germany. How does nuclear energy help with climate change?

Looking back to 2000, nuclear energy at peak was responsible for 32.1% of electricity production[1].

We'd need to at least double that. That would take a huge amount of money. More importantly it would take time. We can barely manage to build a single fucking airport in 1-2 decades. Building this many nuclear reactors would easily take this long, if not longer.

It seems to me that nuclear energy as a solution to climate change might look good on paper. Sci-fi also looks good on paper though and it's just as realistic.

[1]: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/29295/umfrage...

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#12

Post by yorwba » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #8

German subsidies in the 2000-2010 decade almost single-handedly financed the improvements in solar cells that sees them competitive with even coal today. And because the environmental goals had higher rank than economic and selfish ones, they did not enact trade barriers, or lobby for them on an EU Level, even when it became clear it would be Chinese manufacturers reaping the profits of mass production.

A Brussels committee [in 2017] agreed to set minimum import duties for Chinese solar modules and cells that could price them up to 30% above market levels with “huge negative effects” for the industry, according to trade groups.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/solar-in...

EDIT: they scrapped the tariffs in 2018: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1904

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#13

Post by dv_dt » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #7

Looking at the list of nuclear reactors in Germany Wikipedia has, while there are quite a few they don't seem to be very "good". There are disparate classes with little commonality and nothing in operation that has been built after ~1990. A far cry for the massive french nuclear power program, which managed to achieve large cost benefits by deciding on a single reactor type and then deploying at a large scale, with o…

I think France made one of the few smart moves with nuclear in the day, but today even France is closely studying tradeoffs between reinvesting in the next gen of nuclear fission plans vs renewable. In publicised studies renewable is looking like the better option.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#14

Post by dv_dt » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

goatinaboat wrote: post #10

Nuclear energy, to start with, is ultimately not safe Solar kills more people than nuclear per watt, so that’s the reporter’s personal agenda talking https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

The killings that nuclear may make are difficult to pin down (did that cancer come from nuclear exposure, or a chemical, or just a chance cosmic ray?) and so may be unattributed.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#15

Post by m4rtink » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #13

m4rtink wrote: post #7

Looking at the list of nuclear reactors in Germany Wikipedia has, while there are quite a few they don't seem to be very "good". There are disparate classes with little commonality and nothing in operation that has been built after ~1990. A far cry for the massive french nuclear power program, which managed to achieve large cost benefits by deciding on a single reactor type and then deploying at a large scale, with o…

I think France made one of the few smart moves with nuclear in the day, but today even France is closely studying tradeoffs between reinvesting in the next gen of nuclear fission plans vs renewable. In publicised studies renewable is looking like the better option.

Still, it at least so far it worked well, they avoided releasing a lot of emissions and are now in a much better position to decide what to do next.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#16

Post by dv_dt » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #15

dv_dt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think France made one of the few smart moves with nuclear in the day, but today even France is closely studying tradeoffs between reinvesting in the next gen of nuclear fission plans vs renewable. In publicised studies renewable is looking like the better option.

Still, it at least so far it worked well, they avoided releasing a lot of emissions and are now in a much better position to decide what to do next.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-po...

"France will save 39 billion euros ($44.5 billion) if it refrains from building 15 new nuclear plants by 2060, and bets instead on renewable energy sources to replace its all its aging atomic facilities, a government agency said."

If France with it's experience with last gen, and one of the most built next gen designs is thinking this, then it doesn't really bode well for fission plants. I think the world should go hard for renewable and storage as imperfect as they are, while increasing research for fusion plants.

The basic tech/economic balance point is that fission plant tech is highly matured to a high-cost point that is unlikely to shift downwards anytime soon, while renewables and even more so storage tech is on a rapid cost decrease in the manufacturing s-curve - with quite a bit more to run, and they're at pretty close to parity with nuclear in price/watt. Renewables + storage are faster to put up at watt/time - which factors into even more reduced project costs - and more importantly a much wider range of financing options and players who have or can rapidly develop capability to put up renewable plants, leading to even more cost reductions.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#17

Post by metalliqaz » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

alexott wrote: post #6

this_user wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. That's not true. The phasing out of nuclear energy was decided in the late 90s after the Social Democrats and Greens had taken over the government. This was part of a larger green energy package. This had been a major issue for the Greens since at least the 80s when the party was founded. The Merkel government attempted to rol…

it was intensified after Fukushima... P.S. I misread the comment...

that's what parent comment said

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#18

Post by svara » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

Sadly, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is very strong. Germany also has a declining Coal industry. So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. The worst part? German coal is some of the worst in terms of sulfur and pollutants.

That's not true, coal did not replace nuclear, renewables did [0]. What's true is that coal plants could have been shut down instead of nuclear ones, which sucks. But note that anthracite coal is decreasing since ~5 years ago (dark grey bar in [0]).

[0] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... "Kohle" is coal; "Kernenergie" is nuclear; "Erneuerbare" is renewables.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#19

Post by duxup » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

Sadly, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is very strong. Germany also has a declining Coal industry. So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. The worst part? German coal is some of the worst in terms of sulfur and pollutants.

The sad part is that the results of Fukushima ... might generally be a example of how safe / what the risks of modern nuclear might be as I understand it.

Fukushima was not updated like modern plants, and it did not experience a 'China Syndrome' type meltdown where the core melted and then kept breaking through all the containment material, rather it fused to the material (sand I belive) of its container and stopped indicating that even an old model nuclear plant might not ever experience a 'China Syndrome' type event.

Granted probabbly a really hard sell that a disaster might indicate safety.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#20

Post by AlphaGeekZulu » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

Germans do not have to decide between Nuclear Energy or Climate Catastrophe. They have to decide between the potential risks of radioactive pollution or the impairment of landscape by wind turbines and power lines. There is not much tragedy in this decision.