"Robert Habeck said" "It is part of my ministry's tasks to answer this question. I would not reject it on ideological grounds - but the preliminary examination has shown that it does not help us." "Because the preparations for the shutdowns are already so far advanced that the nuclear power plants could only continue to operate under the highest safety concerns and possibly with fuel supplies that have not yet been s…
Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
101–110 of 170 posts
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#102"Robert Habeck said" "It is part of my ministry's tasks to answer this question. I would not reject it on ideological grounds - but the preliminary examination has shown that it does not help us." "Because the preparations for the shutdowns are already so far advanced that the nuclear power plants could only continue to operate under the highest safety concerns and possibly with fuel supplies that have not yet been s…
You mixed up the first quote I think: "It is part of my ministry's tasks to answer this question. I would not reject it on ideological grounds - but the preliminary examination has shown that it does not help us." But your point is absolutely true: Germany doesn't mull it at all.
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off the top of my head : German multinationals (in the energy sector such as Siemens, Wintershall) have removed it from their strategies because Nuclear technologies inefficient and bear a lot of risks. New reactor types don't work as promised. Government does not want Nuclear Energy because it needs enormous amounts of subsidies, and still there are regular cost overruns just as enormous. And Consortias still demand…
This is essentially it. Nuclear power has been economically inefficient for a long time. This is true for many, many economies. Even in places like Japan and South Korea, nuclear energy is more expensive than seaborn LNG. The reason that nuclear energy has been supported is the "unspoken" externality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency Having a "peaceful" nuclear plant, means you can throw together a bomb…
I'd say that pacifism only works as long as nobody cares to attack you, or you have someone else around, much stronger than yourself, to protect you.
That is, it works as long as you don't have to face any real evil. I'm afraid it's not a realistic long-term policy.
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#104I know this article isn't great, but is there anyone on HN who lives in Germany who could explain why there's such a scepticism of Nuclear power there? I'm from the UK and we have largely transitioned away from Nuclear for one clear reason - there was no political appetite to spend a tonne of money on an expensive form of energy that wasn't likely to pay off in the current parliamentary term. The german response to N…
Off the top of my head : German multinationals (in the energy sector such as Siemens, Wintershall) have removed it from their strategies because Nuclear technologies inefficient and bear a lot of risks. New reactor types don't work as promised. Government does not want Nuclear Energy because it needs enormous amounts of subsidies, and still there are regular cost overruns just as enormous. And Consortias still demand…
Really? I thought China (and maybe India) was building many more.
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#105I know this article isn't great, but is there anyone on HN who lives in Germany who could explain why there's such a scepticism of Nuclear power there? I'm from the UK and we have largely transitioned away from Nuclear for one clear reason - there was no political appetite to spend a tonne of money on an expensive form of energy that wasn't likely to pay off in the current parliamentary term. The german response to N…
Then Chernobyl happened. Germany was, and is to this day, directly affected by the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. (Many of the boar hunted in Germany are considered unsafe to eat due to high radiation levels).
People remember when they were wondering if they should abort their pregnancies because they weren't sure if they'd give birth to a child with three arms, or too afraid to drink the milk, etc. - most of these fears turned out to be unfounded, but that doesn't mean that people weren't affected by them and remember them deeply.
The Green movement had also built its entire identity around it, making it hard to go back on it.
Fukushima sealed the deal because nuclear power was advertised as safe, not "well it explodes sometimes but the actual damage is less than from coal", any thus the safety claims lost all credibility.
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off the top of my head : German multinationals (in the energy sector such as Siemens, Wintershall) have removed it from their strategies because Nuclear technologies inefficient and bear a lot of risks. New reactor types don't work as promised. Government does not want Nuclear Energy because it needs enormous amounts of subsidies, and still there are regular cost overruns just as enormous. And Consortias still demand…
This is essentially it. Nuclear power has been economically inefficient for a long time. This is true for many, many economies. Even in places like Japan and South Korea, nuclear energy is more expensive than seaborn LNG. The reason that nuclear energy has been supported is the "unspoken" externality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency Having a "peaceful" nuclear plant, means you can throw together a bomb…
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
We still have not found a place to store the waste. No one wants to live near a reactor so there are not really any place to build them (NIMBY). It also turns out that it is quite expensive when considering all costs like dismantling and insurance. Germany also does not mine uranium any more since 2021, so needs to buy them from other countries so you will have again dependencies on other countries. And then there is…
The historical experience of Chernobyl is not remotely relevant to modern reactors that are (by design) unable to melt down. Look at the pebble bed reactors, or the smr reactors from nuscale, or the chinese molten salt reactor designs. These are all using new technology to make meltdown next to or completely impossible. Nuscale is calling their smr reactors "walk away safe" in that you could just abandon them and the…
I believe part of the problem is that nuclear power proponents were claiming that nuclear power is safe before Chernobyl. Then Chernobyl happened.
Then proponents were claiming that that happened due to the way Chernobyl was designed, that the Western designs were entirely different, and that it couldn't happen.
Then it did happen in Fukushima. People don't care about "but the Tsunami" when what they heard before was "it cannot happen under any circumstance". (And even though that may not have been what was said I'm pretty sure that's how the claims were perceived).
After feeling that they have been lied to twice, it doesn't matter whther the new reactors are actually unable to melt down or not - people are not willing to take the chance that they're being lied to again.
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like there are no options for storage, pumped hydrostorage works well in Germany, and building pumped storage plus solar makes more financial sense than fission. Nuclear plants just take too long to plan and build, and are extremely expensive to build and tear down.
Nothing stops Germany from building pumped hydrostorage rather than gas pipelines. Every time nuclear get discussed people jump between either hydrostorage or green hydrogen, but when people start discussing turning off the gas from Russia, there seems to be very little interests to actually replace gas with storage. The few calculations I have read over hydrostorage is that the amount of damns and land needed to rep…
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
German here, but I'll be a bit lazy and refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany . I quickly skimmed over it and I think it touches the history well. From my personal perspective, I can definitely relate being nuclear skeptic due to Chernobyl (I was 7 years old at the time) and basically constant demonstrations/problems with the end storage facility subject - for as long as I remember. Also, at…
How is the renewable energy sector ? useless ? stable ? growing ?
Random quote I found: "In 2020 renewable energy sources produced more electricity than all fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) together and now provide 45.3 percent of German electricity demand."
Electricity demand is just a part of energy demand though, so getting all heating to e.g. heat pumps will be a major effort.
Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The historical experience of Chernobyl is not remotely relevant to modern reactors that are (by design) unable to melt down. Look at the pebble bed reactors, or the smr reactors from nuscale, or the chinese molten salt reactor designs. These are all using new technology to make meltdown next to or completely impossible. Nuscale is calling their smr reactors "walk away safe" in that you could just abandon them and the…
> reactors that are (by design) unable to melt down. I believe part of the problem is that nuclear power proponents were claiming that nuclear power is safe before Chernobyl. Then Chernobyl happened. Then proponents were claiming that that happened due to the way Chernobyl was designed, that the Western designs were entirely different, and that it couldn't happen. Then it did happen in Fukushima. People don't care ab…
https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-p... here is an unbiased source on this and how it was utterly preventable.