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Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#81

Post by proctrap »

junon wrote: post #3

I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party members at rallies for having differing viewpoints about nuclear. Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.

How about

- Germany trying to find a nuclear waste deposit since ages (that doesn't have to be evacuated due to ground water later on)*

- Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so

- Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years

- State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies

- French nuclear plants that had some interesting failures in the last years, while we can just watch and hope they're treated correctly. Meanwhile you're told "nono, everything is fine".

Theoretically nuclear power can be effective. Practically we're using corporations that want to profit and have a human factor. So no wonder it's not safe to operate in reality. The next fukushima could be at your door, with your government then also claiming the radiation to be safe, because they can't afford to keep people out of their work and houses for so long.

No nuclear company is insured for the real amount of money they'd have to pay for the next fukushima or Tschernobyl. Because there is no insurance for that amount of money.

* And USA still pouring money into a final solution for a underground storage

Also I don't give much about USA and their regulations. It's the country with stories like these: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-... And oh wonder: https://truthout.org/articles/evidence-of-fracking-chemicals...

I could even suspect USA influence to prevent more solar money to china or gas/oil money to russia.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#82

Post by asdff »

legulere wrote: post #52
rob_c wrote: post #2

Wish it was invest and expand and not please don't decommission. It's a win, win, win when played right...

That would be unwise though, considering that building nuclear power plants is slower and more expensive than wind and solar in Europe.

Wind and solar in europe aren't going to get them off of fossil fuels anytime soon, while nuclear has had that capability since its inception.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#83

Post by thewarrior »

schleck8 wrote: post #59

It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...

Cost is irrelevant if you can’t store the energy generated. Nuclear is predictable and carbon free. Look at France.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#84

Post by Factorium »

schleck8 wrote: post #59

It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...

Current wholesale electricity prices in Germany are $194/MWh:

https://www.energylive.cloud/

How much does Germany spend on the military? Cancel it, and spend the money on nuclear power. Otherwise Germany has a significant strategic weakness (gas imports) to Russia, its only realistic enemy.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#85

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

tscherno wrote: post #30
junon wrote: post #3

I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party members at rallies for having differing viewpoints about nuclear. Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.

Nuclear was also promoted as save decades before Chernobyl and Fukushima by the lobbies. So is there a guarantee that it is safe this time around?

  > So is there a guarantee
A guarantee doesn't mean that the thing being guaranteed won't happen. A guarantee is a promise to pay someone back - when, not if - the thing you promised doesn't work. Anyone who gives you a guarantee has already saved up enough money to pay you off when the thing fails.

  > that it is safe
Safe compared to what?

People go insane about airline safety whenever one plane crashes, even though commercial passenger airplanes are 1000x safer than any other form of transportation. You could have a plane bombed, hijacked, whatever, every single day, for 10 years, and would still be 1000x safer than any other form of transport. People wouldn't think it was safe, though, because when it does fail, it fails spectacularly.

And that's the mentality of an anti-nuclear person. Who cares that the outcomes are almost always better? The one time it's not better is really scary, so I don't want it in my back yard.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#86

Post by mrighele »

red_trumpet wrote: post #49
fsflover wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is statistically safer than almost anything even if you take Chernobyl and Fukushima into account.

What do you mean by "safer"? Less accidents compared to eg coal plants? No exploding coal plant will render a whole region unlivable for >30 years. Both happened at Tschernobyl and Fukushima.

I guess deaths per energy unit produced ?

According to this [1], for every death caused by nuclear power, 350 people die because of coal power.

Note that most of these people died as a consequence of Chernobyl accident (~4000 vs ~500), so by current standards Nuclear Power is probably even safer.

The issue with nuclear is that deaths are concentrated in a few "big" accidents, that have much more visibility and leave a lasting impressions, thus scaring the population much more. (This is not unique to nuclear power though, something similar happens with plane vs car travel: the latter causes generally more deaths, but plan accidents are more newsworthy).

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#87

Post by Nasrudith »

Gwypaas wrote: post #48
fsflover wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is statistically safer than almost anything even if you take Chernobyl and Fukushima into account.

Is that why it is impossible to insure a nuclear power plant on the private market?

Being impossible to insure is related more to a high degree of synchronization of risk pools than overall danger of death. Death rates are averages - it is possible that one person dying per time period is rate-equivalent to the whole town dying at once in a once-in-a-tens-of-millenia event. But the risk exposure in that event is quite different.

You can get life insurance/death benefits as a mercenary or even as a centarian. It will be expensive because of the high risk of payout but you can get it. Because while it is probable that you will cack it from being so damn old/being a combatant in unstable regions with lesser support it is extremely unlikely every mercenary or centarian they have insured will die at once.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#88

Post by armada651 »

goodpoint wrote: post #54
tscherno wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear was also promoted as save decades before Chernobyl and Fukushima by the lobbies. So is there a guarantee that it is safe this time around?

It's not just a matter of safety of the plans themselves. You need safety against external threats e.g. a nuclear plant can be targeted during war or by terrorists You need safety around illegal dumping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Illegal_dump... Also, extremely centralized energy production creates political risks (coups, corruption, hiding mismanagement) Nuclear proliferation risk. Investment ri…

At least two of those points don't hold when you're talking about existing plants though. Germany already hosts nuclear weapons courtesy of the US, so where's the proliferation risk from nuclear power? And there's nothing worse for ROI than shutting down the plant.

For the other points I'd say that I'd rather build solar to replace coal plants first before replacing nuclear plants.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#89

Post by step21 »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #70
tscherno wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear was also promoted as save decades before Chernobyl and Fukushima by the lobbies. So is there a guarantee that it is safe this time around?

To a first approximation, Fukushima did not cause any harm. I view the plant iself as a success story, given ancient reactor design etc. etc. I think a lot of half-paying-attention people confused the reactor and the tsunami. Of course the news coverage and in-hindsight-unnecessary evacuation didn't help either.

"did not cause any harm" - for a very loose defintion of harm. Sure it could have been much worse. But enough ground and water was contaminated, and much more will be in the future when they run out of storage.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#90

Post by Gwypaas »

thewarrior wrote: post #83
schleck8 wrote: post #59

It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...

Cost is irrelevant if you can’t store the energy generated. Nuclear is predictable and carbon free. Look at France.

Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective.

https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...

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