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Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

economist.com

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Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#101

Post by marvinblum »

s_dev wrote: post #4

This is something many people in the EU simply don't get -- I don't get it. Germans have a basically a positive stereotype of being a scientific nation and all around clever lads -- this has enormous soft power and gives leverage to things like "Made in Germany" as a brand. This anti-nuclear stance in Germany is absolutely caustic to that projected image. It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and repl…

I'm German and I don't know what we're doing. Prices are insane right now. New electricity contracts cost 45 cents per kilowatt-hour. Heating my home (82 sqm) with electricity costs about 400 euros a month right now alone. This will obviously get better in spring, but I don't know how citizens with lower incomes handle it.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#102

Post by medstrom »

addicted wrote: post #27

“Why areGermans so jittery about an extremely expensive source of power, that continuously gets more expensive with time, that has long term effects the likes of which another strong engineering country is still dealing with 10 years after their disaster, that even if it does solve their immediate power solutions will never be a global solution because Germany along with the handful of existing nuclear nations will,…

Blow up the planet? This was never a possibility.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#103

Post by dabber21 »

Ygg2 wrote: post #75
dabber21 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my mother is still talking about Chernobyl today, it definitely left a mark especially when you had kids at the time

Chernobyl right now is biggest/safest wildlife preserve in Europe.

it's not only that. It's that the radioactive cloud doesn't care about borders

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#104

Post by arethuza »

benjaminsuch wrote: post #8
s_dev wrote: post #4

This is something many people in the EU simply don't get -- I don't get it. Germans have a basically a positive stereotype of being a scientific nation and all around clever lads -- this has enormous soft power and gives leverage to things like "Made in Germany" as a brand. This anti-nuclear stance in Germany is absolutely caustic to that projected image. It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and repl…

As a german, can't agree more. From what I get talking to people is, that they have an irrational fear of a nuclear holocaust and nuclear waste.

Not sure I would describe a fear of nuclear holocaust as "irrational" - had the Cold War gone hot Germany would have been very heavily targetted.

Mind you, I'm not saying that justifies the current fear of nuclear power but then again it doesn't really surprise me. Maybe it's just a lingering fear of anything with "nuclear" in the name.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#105

Post by stewbrew »

Zardoz84 wrote: post #56
stewbrew wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar are cheaper than nuclear. There is no solution yet to the final deposition of nuclear waste.

You know that are reactors that burns long life nuclear waste ?

Without any remainders? No? What would you call these?

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#106

Post by ivan_gammel »

Ygg2 wrote: post #75
dabber21 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my mother is still talking about Chernobyl today, it definitely left a mark especially when you had kids at the time

Chernobyl right now is biggest/safest wildlife preserve in Europe.

Tell that to the victims of that catastrophe.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#107

Post by sebow »

hannob wrote: post #18
s_dev wrote: post #4

This is something many people in the EU simply don't get -- I don't get it. Germans have a basically a positive stereotype of being a scientific nation and all around clever lads -- this has enormous soft power and gives leverage to things like "Made in Germany" as a brand. This anti-nuclear stance in Germany is absolutely caustic to that projected image. It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and repl…

> It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and replace it with fossil fueled plants. That's not what's happening... Nuclear has been mostly replaced with renewables, while fossil fuel generation has been in slow decline as well. You may disagree with that policy, but please get your facts right.

Coal might not be rising as an industry but last year i'm pretty sure they had to spin up previously-closed coal plants because wind/solar wouldn't produce the required energy.Now in what universe is permanently shutting down all fossil fuel based energy sources a good strategy?It just becomes a national security risk.

And by the way for the climate-caring crowd: why haven't germans stopped N.S 2 with russia if they care so much about the climate?This is both an environmental and geopolitical hypocrisy: let's stop the entire continent more or less consume fossil fuels while we ourselves get it;oh yeah: and also becoming more reliant on russia while criticizing them at every step because that riles up our citizens and we earn easy poltical capital.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#108

Post by selfhoster11 »

fock wrote: post #20
eckesicle wrote: post #9

In my opinion Europe's decommissioning of nuclear plants, particularly in Germany, is the greatest geopolitical blunder in recent history. The EU is now completely dependent on Russian goodwill to power their infrastructure for the next few decades, and have given up all leverage they had to push back on Russian power plays. At the very least they should've kept the plants operational and operating at minimum capacit…

Could you tell me, where we get our oil from? And how we heat our homes with nuclear? We never had any leverage except for the mighty dollar (and nukes and the fact that socialism doesn't need to kill before) and the US is working steady on removing that lever.

Why would you need (that much) oil when you can run passenger cars, trains, industrial processes, and house heating using electricity? The remaining fuel will be required for only a handful of things, with main consumers being aviation and other transportation where Li-ion is insufficiently energy dense.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#109

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

martin_a wrote: post #66
s_dev wrote: post #4

This is something many people in the EU simply don't get -- I don't get it. Germans have a basically a positive stereotype of being a scientific nation and all around clever lads -- this has enormous soft power and gives leverage to things like "Made in Germany" as a brand. This anti-nuclear stance in Germany is absolutely caustic to that projected image. It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and repl…

The problem with nuclear energy in Germany is, that "the big four" (energy companies) have filled their pockets with sweet, sweet nuclear-power-money and have externalized all the other costs since the beginning. Insuring a nuclear power plant would cost 72 billion Euro/year [0] which gives a hint about how costly (and impactful) nuclear energy really is. Also there's not really a lot of Uranium on earth. Take [1] fo…

"that "the big four" (energy companies) have filled their pockets with sweet, sweet nuclear-power-money and have externalized all the other costs since the beginning."

Presumably the government entered those contracts willingly, though. I don't understand this framing of "have filled their pockets". If you really believe the money was squandered, blame the politicians giving it away, not the energy companies.

"So, 2040 is not that far, and if we build more nuclear power plants we get into that "high demand" area where we'll use 28% of all found Uranium by 2040."

Just like peak oil that never happened? But even if we run out, they keep saying we have 10 years to prevent a climate catastrophe, so 20 years would buy us a lot of time in comparison.

"a long story of corruption and lobbyism"

Corruption in what sense? Lobbyism is not illegal, and in fact presumably necessary. The greens are also "lobbying" for solar power and wind power.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#110

Post by DocTomoe »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #13

I blame the Simpsons. Nonstop slander against nuclear science in every single episode, for almost thirty years. Literally every single episode, it's in the opening sequence. How can you watch the Simpsons, if you think they're funny, and you trust them, and not think nuclear science is shit?

Anti-nuclear sentiment predates the Simpsons by at least two decades.
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