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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

#121

Post by locallost »

fsflover wrote: post #99
locallost wrote: post #26

I'm used to seeing a lot of misinformation related to Germany and nuclear power, so here are some facts in advance: 1) coal use went way down since they decided to switch off the nuclear plants. people assume it was replaced by coal, but this is false 2) emissions are down 3) phase out of coal was started last year and is on schedule to last until 2038 4) renewable use is way way up 5) they are one of the largest exp…

> 1) coal use went way down since they decided to switch off the nuclear plants. people assume it was replaced by coal, but this is false How is this relevant? There is still a lot of coal used and it could be much less if the nuclear was in use. > 3) phase out of coal was started last year and is on schedule to last until 2038 It's definitely too late for the climate.

It's relevant because people are assuming otherwise and are stunned that someone would do such a thing that in reality exists only in their imagination. See current top comment:

It's absolutely insane they want to shut down Nuclear and replace it with fossil fueled plants

False. Simply false.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#122

Post by grandchild »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #109
martin_a wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, 20…

> If you really believe the money was squandered, blame the politicians giving it away, not the energy companies.

why not both? believe me, we blame the politicians plenty too :)

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#123

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#124

Post by drran »

DataDaoDe wrote: post #31

Here's some information about nuclear in terms of safety and environmental cleanliness in the context of other common energy sources ( https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy ). From what I can tell from this data as well as other sources I've seen in the past, it seems to be by far the most environmentally friendly as well as the safest form of reliable i.e. non-intermittent energy.

Coincidentally, one of the safest sources of energy also produced the most dangerous and long-lasting problems, for which the only solution so far is to run away and leave the land empty. Luckily, we still have plenty of land to move in. For example, if something serious will blow up in Europe (non-zero probability), we all can immigrate to the USA.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#125

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#126

Post by theshrike79 »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #106
Ygg2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Tell that to the victims of that catastrophe.

The "victims" were victims of Soviet policy, not of nuclear energy.

A majority of the deaths due to fallout would've been prevented if The Party would've admitted they messed up and told everyone to eat canned food for a few weeks. Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days. Maybe even distributed more iodine pills for the population.

But nope, The Party could do no wrong and was always right, so they did nothing and said nothing.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#127

Post by daniel-cussen »

chrisseaton wrote: post #14
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?

> and you trust them Who's trusting the Simpsons? The whole joke is they're dysfunctional.

No not the characters themselves, the point of view. Like if they show you an opening sequence where the first thing you see is Bart Simpson spelling out by rote a line that is funny and does change episode to episode, then Homer Simpson fumbling a stereotypical regulus, like is it supposed to be radium, which does glow green, or more likely uranium, which is what powers a nuclear plant? It doesn't matter. You trust that someone who just told a funny joke will tell another funny joke, so you laugh without thinking it over.

Humor sandwich.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#128

Post by chromanoid »

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.

https://newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/research/how-the-chernob...

https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergen...

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#129

Post by theshrike79 »

drran wrote: post #82
benjaminsuch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why «irrational»? It just to add color to your message, or you truly believe that radiation contamination is harmless?

People are bad at statistics.

The probability of a catastrophic event in a modern nuclear plant is vanishingly low. Even the overworked ancient plants from the 60's and 70's we are currently running are exceedingly safe.

People will rather take constant death from coal power than risk a low-probability event.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#130

Post by cookiengineer »

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…

History:

1986 - Chernobyl happened. Wasn't our fault, but we got the fallout for it. Poisoned drinking water, people in quarantine and everything. And we were the lucky ones, the map for the East doesn't look any good. [4]

1991 - The "Schnelle Brueter" (SNR-300 / Kalkar) almost went up during a test. Political debate around investing additional 105 Mio DM was happening, but due to Chernobyl was leading against it. [5]

~1989 The THTR-300 (Thorium High Temperature Reactor) was spreading radioactive particles in the surrounding area, poisoning soil, water, and people. Additionally it was emitting too much radiation through burned particles [1]

1969-1998 - The SBH-Uran (Siemens Brennelementwerk Hanau) was closed down. The reactor didn't fullfill the legal requirements for handling enriched Uranium, and Siemens couldn't prove that they can fullfill them afterwards. [2]

1972-2011 - The KKW/AKW (Kern/Atomkraftwerk Kuemmel) was having a meltdown in 2005. 2 years later during cooldown phase, there was a fire, leading almost to an explosion. [3] The aftermath was poisoning surroundings with radioactive particles, as always.

--- --- ---

Note that years of cooldown is literally by-design and cannot be avoided. During the phase of an almost-meltdown and a cooldown phase afterwards, everything is at-high-risk for _YEARS_ where everything can literally explode any second if not done correctly. And these are only the cases I personally know about during my lifetime, there are probably more that never made it public and were successfully contained.

So yeah, as a German I'm pretty much against radioactive reactors. This shit is highly unstable tech and should be treated as such. Especially given the lack of cybersecurity and/or outdated and unstable/never-even-patchable tech stacks running this.

Also: France is putting their reactors on their Far-East border for a reason. Winds are more than 90% of the year from North-West to South-East, so I'd say they want the tech but don't want to deal with the aftermath.

Also: Where do you store the radioactive trash? Simply where you bury all your plastic - in landfills - and build some homes over them to ignore it for a couple generations... or what? Ever thought about trash that needs to be sealed off and contained for _hundreds of years_ to come?

I'm not saying coal plants are favorable (they're definitely not), but things like the NIF or established green tech like solar/wind energy makes far more sense to me - considering the risk tradeoffs.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300

[2] https://www.atommuellreport.de/daten/detail/rbu-hanau.html

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Kr%C3%BCmmel

[4] https://www.umweltanalysen.com/wissen/tschernobyl/

[5] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Kalkar

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