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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

#221

Post by drran »

pydry wrote: post #157
tjansen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solar, wind and batteries are cheaper and money is limited. How can you even estimate the cost of batteries? Insane amounts of batteries would be needed, capable of storing all of Germany's energy needs (including transportation and residential heating) for 10 days or so. That would be at least 10 TWh, as Germany currently uses about 550 TWh per year. The global production of lithium ion batteries in 2018 was 290 G…

>We find that low-wind-power events are less frequent in winter than in summer, but the maximum duration is distributed more evenly between months. While short events are frequent, very long events are much rarer. Every year, a period of around five consecutive days with an average wind capacity factor below 10% occurs, and every ten years a respective period of nearly eight days. These durations decrease if only win…

Smart grid can solve this problem, when appliances will report of their needs and abilities to the grid, and then the grid will schedule power delivery to meet the demand.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#222

Post by pydry »

pydry wrote: post #157
tjansen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solar, wind and batteries are cheaper and money is limited. How can you even estimate the cost of batteries? Insane amounts of batteries would be needed, capable of storing all of Germany's energy needs (including transportation and residential heating) for 10 days or so. That would be at least 10 TWh, as Germany currently uses about 550 TWh per year. The global production of lithium ion batteries in 2018 was 290 G…

>We find that low-wind-power events are less frequent in winter than in summer, but the maximum duration is distributed more evenly between months. While short events are frequent, very long events are much rarer. Every year, a period of around five consecutive days with an average wind capacity factor below 10% occurs, and every ten years a respective period of nearly eight days. These durations decrease if only win…

I forgot pumped storage which is apparently 8 TWh

https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/germany

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#223

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #46
croes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same was thought about japanese nuclear power plants

Except they built them in a place that's pretty known for earthquakes. An earthquake in Germany sounds like science fiction.

Uhm. Some "fiction" for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Germany

There is also post-glacial rebound in northern Germany with several fault lines, one of them roughly between Kiel and Lübeck. Where parts of Denmark, Sweden and Norway still slowly rise, while the outer parts bordering Northern Germany slowly sink, 'scratching' against it.

Also several large salt domes, producing sink holes which can be seen as lakes today. Interestingly, some of these are being explored today as energy storage solution, what could possibly go wrong?

edit: Besides that, flooding. Again and again

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Sturmfluten_an_der_N...

Pick your 'fiction or fantasy' ;->

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#224

Post by tjansen »

drran wrote: post #221
pydry wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We find that low-wind-power events are less frequent in winter than in summer, but the maximum duration is distributed more evenly between months. While short events are frequent, very long events are much rarer. Every year, a period of around five consecutive days with an average wind capacity factor below 10% occurs, and every ten years a respective period of nearly eight days. These durations decrease if only win…

Smart grid can solve this problem, when appliances will report of their needs and abilities to the grid, and then the grid will schedule power delivery to meet the demand.

What kind of appliances can wait for several hours? The only example I can think of are cars that are being charged over night.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#225

Post by theshrike79 »

croes wrote: post #195
theshrike79 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many deaths per wind turbine, and how long is the location of a turbine accident to uninhabitable?

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy...

Nuclear deaths is 90 per TWh

Wind death toll is 150 per TWh

Solar 440/TWh

and leading the pack is Coal at 100000/1Twh produced

The question is, as always with nuclear: Do you want constant, verified, 100% certain deaths every day or do you risk a larger death toll that may or may not happen some time in the future?

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#226

Post by tjansen »

marmarama wrote: post #215
tjansen wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mix of renewables, coupled with battery and hydrogen-from-seawater energy storage technologies, will be cheaper, less capital-intensive, easier to maintain, and far easier to sell politically. What will make it cheaper than nuclear power? Right now, it's more expensive than French nuclear power. And Germany doesn't even have storage technologies and has mostly concentrated on the low-hanging fruits. Off-shore win…

Siemens is currently building a pilot offshore wind-to-hydrogen plant, with an estimated in-service date of 2024. They're not the first to get a plant into service, but that's a lot quicker than a new nuclear plant. Is Siemens German enough? There are several other European energy and engineering companies also racing to do it, Shell and Total for example, and quite a few in the US and China. Offshore wind is current…

> All three (especially PVs!) are reducing in price over time, whereas nuclear is becoming more expensive

That's speculation. Nuclear could become much cheaper over time if standardized reactor designs are used.

Also, I don't believe that PVs will become cheaper over time. The hardware itself certainly, but installation and maintenance is already more expensive than the panels themselves.

> Importing nuclear power from France is especially cheap because the French reactors are already paid off

That's a weird argument. Do they offer discounts because their reactors are paid off?

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#227

Post by locallost »

fsflover wrote: post #186
locallost wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, so as usual we land in goalpost shifting land. First comes the shock that somebody would replace nuclear with coal, but when this is refuted, instead of relief comes further criticism why it's still wrong. I won't bother anymore, since there were other things to consider in the nuclear phase out, and the goalpost shifting will continue until judgement day. I will leave you with a thought: If you wonder how bad G…

> First comes the shock that somebody would replace nuclear with coal, but when this is refuted No, my original argument was about stronger reduction of coal by using nuclear, no matter that it's already decreasing. You just didn't understand me (or shifted the goalpost?). Upd: I see that you avoid answering this question all the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29768086 .

You asked why does it matter that coal use is drastically down, when it could be even less. I answered that it's because people don't get that this actually happened, and repeat the opposite of what is true. As proof for this, check the top comment in this thread that makes the false claim nuclear power was replaced by coal. So obviously it is important. Apparently there are enough people to not only write that Germany's coal use went up, but also to upvote it. To this you replied with a link that you did not understand, and again repeated the claim that nuclear was replaced by coal. Quote: "The removed nuclear energy is replaced with coal."

False. If the removed nuclear was replaced by coal, coal % of the produced electricity would go up. In reality nuclear % went down, was replaced by renewables, and coal % also went down, also replaced by renewables. As a result of this, carbon emissions are way down, despite the nuclear phase out. Yet another thing that people like to falsely claim.

And of course as usual, once we establish what is actually going on, the goal posts get shifted to "well it could be even better". There is nothing to avoid really, my position on that I've posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29770486.

But don't pretend you're having a rational debate. You don't check the numbers to form an opinion, you google for links to prove your point which is based on the wrong data, don't adjust your opinion when you see the data and instead shift the topic to something else. So there is nothing to discuss there.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#228

Post by drran »

theshrike79 wrote: post #225
croes wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many deaths per wind turbine, and how long is the location of a turbine accident to uninhabitable?

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy... Nuclear deaths is 90 per TWh Wind death toll is 150 per TWh Solar 440/TWh and leading the pack is Coal at 100000/1Twh produced The question is, as always with nuclear: Do you want constant, verified, 100% certain deaths every day or do you risk a larger death toll that may or may not happen some time in the future?

For solar, it looks like falls from a roof are accounted, to make the number scarier. I see an asterisk near to the number for solar, but no explanation of it, nor break down of the number.

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#229

Post by drran »

theshrike79 wrote: post #129
drran wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but we have multiple catastrophes already, despite the vanishingly small number of nuclear plants. If we want to increase the number of nuclear stations by 10x, we need to make them 10x safer just to keep the number of catastrophes at the same 1/30y level. Do you have an idea how to make a nuclear plant 10x safer comparing to today?

Re: Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

#230

Post by drran »

DocTomoe wrote: post #100
jwr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 An important datapoint here is that ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder moved on to the board of Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft, after pushing for building the Nord Stream pipelines. How this didn't get Germans out into the streets, I h…

Oh, that's easy: Many Germans do/did not see Russia as the big bogey the Americans are - especially in times when the US is a less than reliable partner. Those Germans do think that a mutually beneficial partnership can be formed with Russia. Not using the chance of a German-friendly Russian president (Putin served in East Germany) to deepen that relationship is often considered a blunder of the Merkel years.

There are some rumors (on HN) that Pukin and frau Ribentrop are brother and sister by mother, and that their mother was soviet agent.
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