Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#21

Post by nl » Mon, May 30, 2011, 12:53 PM UTC

bluedanieru wrote: post #8

henrikschroder wrote: post #6

Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down. It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed. During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a…

What I suspect will happen is more power will be imported from nations that flagrantly pollute the environment. The Chinese might be on to something with putting the engineers in charge. Sometimes the public really doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, and should be completely ignored.

China has stopped waterfront nuclear power station approvals:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-suspends-waterfront-n...

and suspended all other development: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/china.nuclea...

Don't believe everything the nuclear power fans tell you. Sometimes the engineers really do know what they are doing.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#22

Post by briandon » Mon, May 30, 2011, 12:58 PM UTC

bluedanieru wrote: post #8

henrikschroder wrote: post #6

Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down. It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed. During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a…

What I suspect will happen is more power will be imported from nations that flagrantly pollute the environment. The Chinese might be on to something with putting the engineers in charge. Sometimes the public really doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, and should be completely ignored.

Have you spent any significant length of time in China?

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#23

Post by seabee » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:03 PM UTC

latch wrote: post #15

Germany is a leader in solar power. They installed more panels last year than the rest of the world combined. They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did. If they can further establish themselves as leaders and experts in new-energy, it'll make them even more disproportionally well positioned to most of Europe. However, it's a shame they see no future in nuclear. Seems like they are betting against s…

> They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did.

The problem is that a country requires many Fukushimas (in Germany's case, 17). If renewables cannot fill the gap left by shutting down nuclear, you'll have to import your electricity from other countries generating it by the very method you phased out, or by even worse methods like coal. Being the leader in renewables doesn't change this fact.

> Seems like they are betting against something...

Political decisions are rarely that longsighted. One can hope, though.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#24

Post by mixmax » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

latch wrote: post #15

Germany is a leader in solar power. They installed more panels last year than the rest of the world combined. They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did. If they can further establish themselves as leaders and experts in new-energy, it'll make them even more disproportionally well positioned to most of Europe. However, it's a shame they see no future in nuclear. Seems like they are betting against s…

The problem with wind and solar energy is that you can't plan for when you need power, and you can't feasibly store large amounts of electricity. This means that wind and solar can't be the primary powersource, at least until the storage problem is solved which doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

On windy sunny days you'll have too much electricity and on windless nights you won't have enough.

There's a EU project underway to scale up powerlines so that electricity can be moved across the EU as needed. The thinking is that it's always windy somewhere, and though you can't store electricity you can move it without too much loss. So if the wind is blowing in Portugal they can export theis excess power to a windless Denmark and vice versa.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#25

Post by zhoutong » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:11 PM UTC

That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon.

We shouldn't ignore the fact that 70% of France's energy consumption is backed by nuclear plants, and this makes France one of the cleanest country in terms of energy consumption in the world.

I just don't understand why people are so hesitant to invest in nuclear energy, which is extremely cheap, infinitely available, non-polluting and moderately safe (burning coals may emit radioactive materials directly to the air).

Nuclear energy won't kill thousands of people underground (like coal), nor will it kill tens of thousands of bird (like wind mills). It also doesn't trap heat (like what solar panel does to retain all the heat), or emit greenhouse gases.

It seems that nuclear energy is an ideal energy source for the future. We should spend more time and money to find out better ways (like fusion) to build nuclear plants instead of worrying about the rare accidents (in terms of death per watt, I don't think nuclear energy is going to lose out).

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#26

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:14 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #13

Andi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot agree. You are stuck in a view that energy needs to be cheap and that energy must be available despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

We are (probably) willing to set aside places for Luddites to live. For now, you can go to North Korea or some other nice place without much energy use... (Be careful when choosing, poor countries have lots of environmental destruction which they can't afford to clean -- it might be bad for your health.) :-) Edit: It is not a false dichotomy; I compared to the only known low-energy societies. My point is that there i…

[deleted]

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#27

Post by joe24pack » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:15 PM UTC

bluedanieru wrote: post #7

Meanwhile Japan itself, which has weathered the effects of several nuclear disasters (Fukushima being the mildest), is doing no such thing. And apparently Germany will continue to import power derived from nuclear plants.

The Czechs and the French are most likely glad that Germany will become a permanent net electricity importer.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#28

Post by erikb » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:17 PM UTC

I'm a German and I think myself that it is really stupid. The way to think should not be "Don't do nuclear power anymore" but "do X". We have no plan what X is. So we didn't solve any problem.It's so frustrating. We really had a chance with the strong movement from most people here.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#29

Post by latch » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:17 PM UTC

seabee wrote: post #23

latch wrote: post #15

Germany is a leader in solar power. They installed more panels last year than the rest of the world combined. They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did. If they can further establish themselves as leaders and experts in new-energy, it'll make them even more disproportionally well positioned to most of Europe. However, it's a shame they see no future in nuclear. Seems like they are betting against s…

> They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did. The problem is that a country requires many Fukushimas (in Germany's case, 17). If renewables cannot fill the gap left by shutting down nuclear, you'll have to import your electricity from other countries generating it by the very method you phased out, or by even worse methods like coal. Being the leader in renewables doesn't change this fact. > Seems l…

I'm not saying there isn't a problem with their plan. Just trying to point out that of all the countries who could pull it off, Germany would probably be my first pick.

And it isn't just because of solar...they have aggressive energy goals in place already (some before 2022) which makes me think that Germany has an energy plan the likes of which I never saw while in Canada..and certainly not now that I'm in Asia.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#30

Post by rubashov » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:19 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #16

Closing nuclear powerplants early makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy as well, unfortunately. The only solid argument against nuclear goes along the lines, ``nuclear power is too expensive because of the costs of disposal of wastes''. Thing is, in normal operation the cost is amortized year by year. Normal life of a nuclear plant is a few decades; say 30 years. Could be longer, but the technological progress is so f…

> The only solid argument against nuclear goes along the lines,

The main argument against nuclear goes that it creates a dangerous set of problems that must be handled over many human lifetimes. People simply cannot do that.

In fact, it's a little ridiculous to safely assume your successors perhaps 100 years hence will have the means to shut down a plant and safely store all the waste. What if things have gone all Mad Max? What if the financial condition of the nation happens to be worse than Greece, but theres this massively capital intensive need to decommission several plants that are now quite dangerous? Heck, what if there's a financial crisis only ten years after the thing is built and all the people who keep it running safely aren't getting paid?

Nuclear is definitely taking a dump on the grandkids, so to speak.