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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

#111

Post by IAmEveryone »

marvinblum wrote: post #101
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.

Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral. It's all the emissions of burning coal, multiplied by 3 due to generator and transmission losses.

Besides, energy prices saw a steep rise in all of Europe, so it doesn't make much sense to blame the end of nuclear energy for it.

Also, just a single reactor has shut down so far, 11 days ago. A single plant shutting down isn't enough to influence prices to such a degree. Besides, prices were at current levels well before that.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#112

Post by theshrike79 »

croes wrote: post #35
WithinReason wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, a nuclear power plant staffed with German engineers is the least likely to have a nuclear accident.

The same was thought about japanese nuclear power plants

Fukushima weathered both a record breaking earthquake AND a record breaking tsunami simultaneously.

And still there were only a handful of deaths directly caused by it.

More people die because of wind turbines every year.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#113

Post by grandchild »

german here. i’ve been to some anti-nuclear protests in my time, and i still think it’s dangerous technology. i still think it should not be termed “sustainable”, mainly because of the unsolved waste question, but also in a small part because of the large possible damage from, admittedly unlikely, accidents.

however, i do recognize the dilemma of having to go emission-neutral, like, you know, yesterday, and not having the technology to power everything from truly renewable sources right now. from what i hear it would be possible for germany to do without nuclear (unlike, e.g. france, who are highly dependent on it), with feasible effort. a problem with nuclear power plants is the timescales involved for building, running to break-even and deconstructing such a plant. almost all other power sources have less “inertia” — you can put them up and tear them down and clean them up much quicker. that’s my main worry, that continuing with (and re-investing in) nuclear will carry us on a trajectory that makes us stay with it out of laziness and investment/revenue interests longer than strictly necessary.

i also do realize that my opinions are also a product of the culture that i come from, and that i might be rationalizing, but i am confident that people do underestimate the nuclear waste issues because of the timescales involved.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#114

Post by fock »

Mystlix wrote: post #67
fock wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do you need oil if you have electicity for dirt cheap? Expand the power lines and push for electic motors everywhere. Also I'm pretty sure running current through a big transistor dissipates plenty of heat, I mean, you know about electric stoves right?

nuclear is far from dirt-cheap. And we don't currently do it in Germany (France does and its grid nearly goes down every other winter). So, where will we get all this fresh uranium from (and the reactors to stick it into)?

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#115

Post by hagbard_c »

ketzu wrote: post #72
ekianjo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have enough uranium to last for hundreds of years if not thousands.

Most sources I found on the topic seem to be as diverse as this one: [1] The estimates range from 80 years to hundreds of thousands of years, depending on the assumptions made, including: Possible sources (land mining, sea refining), current consumption level, efficiency of reactors. Where it is approximately this: Mining land uranium at current consumption (i.e., no new nuclear): 80-250 years. Refining uranium from…

Extracting Uranium from sea water might solve the fuel problem but it does not deal with the waste problem. Breeder reactors can deal with both by reworking spent fuel into new fuel and a bit of waste. The resulting waste has a far smaller volume and shorter half-life which means it needs to be stored for hundreds, not thousands of years. Combining the two - Uranium from the sea plus breeder reactors to rework spent fuel - should last until either nuclear fusion has become practical or our species has left this planet.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#116

Post by eckesicle »

speedgoose wrote: post #29
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…

Keeping the plants operational at minimum capacity mean having to pay for them but not being able to use them for real. I don't think it makes economical sense. Though the German energy mix already doesn't make much sense.

My understanding of nuclear power economics is that the bulk of the cost is incurred at construction, and that you can maintain minimal capability at a comparatively affordable rate. Closing operational reactors makes no economic sense either, and the argument in Germany has mostly been environmental and safety related (since the accident in Fukushima).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_p...

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#117

Post by lopis »

ekianjo wrote: post #39
emptyfile wrote: post #5

I can understand the logic that both natural gas and nuclear aren't green. I think its flawed but I understand it. However, if the new German government decides that nuclear is not green, but natural gas is green, then we have to seriously consider that vested natural gas interests are buried deep in German politics and have been for decades. The idea is completely perverse.

there is no such thing as green energy anyway. solar panels need dirty solar cells manufacturing to work. wind power need turbines which means metallurgy which means fossil fuels to make them.

What the point in being this pedantic? Green energy is energy that has a significantly lower negative impact on the environment. In 50-100 years maybe wind and solar won't be considered green anymore, but at this moment they are. There's no activity without an impact on the environment.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#118

Post by ginko »

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 think something that's not much noticed outside of the German-speaking countries is that there's a fairly large cultural movement that I would describe as naturist/esoteric ever since the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensreform

This influenced all kinds of German movements both on the left and right side of the political spectrum and for instance is the reason why nudism and homeopathy are so popular. I think it's also one of the explanations why COVID vaccination rates are currently lower than in Western and Southern Europe.

This also leads to all kinds of absurd things like "vitalized water"[1] being used in hospital water systems in Austria.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belebtes_Wasser https://www.isi-trade.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Benefits...

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#119

Post by fock »

chrisseaton wrote: post #24
fock wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you tell me, how long Uranium reserves last? Climate change aside (which will kill us all), Uranium-based fission power plants are just not solving the problem at hand: We are using far too much energy and increasingly have depleted the cache earth history hid for us.

> have depleted the cachet earth history hid for us Not sure that word means what you think it means.

thanks https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/cache-and-cach...

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#120

Post by yodelshady »

locallost wrote: post #54
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…

You don't get it because you don't know the facts. Nuclear was replaced by renewables and their coal use is way down. They also started the coal phase out which will run on a schedule just like the nuclear phase out.

Coal use is up: https://www.dw.com/en/coal-and-fossil-fuel-share-of-german-e...

Gas use is also up, at 400 €/MWh that goes to a dictator who is overtly planning invasion of Eastern Europe. The southern part of which is rapidly becoming a desert: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/desertification-of....

This is not brave, or principled, or sophisticated. It's a death toll with slightly higher plausible deniability.

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