Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 170 posts

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#131

Post by Azsy »

nine_k wrote: post #103
urthor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Germany, is very supporting of pacifism. 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.

Germany was told to be supporting of pacifism by the Americans after WW2. But with the Americans signaling that they are no longer willing to play world police, a shift in that attitude is a matter of time.

> That is, it works as long as you don't have to face any real evil.

Also, lets not conflate national interests with good and evil. That's the propaganda talking.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#132

Post by Azsy »

belorn wrote: post #76
knbknb wrote: post #27

Earlier 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…

Germany spends already around 1.5% of their GDP on energy subsidies, and is the 8th largest in term of subsidies per GDP, and in absolute numbers, the highest one by 200% to the nearest country. €50 billions is spent each year, with a bit over 50% going to renewables and around 30% going to fossil fuels. I can understand in some ways that they do not want to spend more than €50 billions a year on subsidies. It is alr…

Ukraine has a significant potential for gas and shale fields. One of the reasons the EU has been getting friendly with Ukraine. Putin knows his way of life, and the Russian budget to consider doing something like this, is gone when those become active.

The thing that's a little crass to say right now, is that: Russia imploding to focus internally, Putin gone, Ukraine integrating further into the EU, is like a full bingo card of items that was strictly in the 'keep dreaming' section 3 months ago.

Now it is the best outcome for the EU. Still unlikely, but not categorically impossible.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#133

Post by robertlagrant »

croes wrote: post #70
robertlagrant wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, at least in my memory around ~2000 it became clear that nuclear was not economically viable vs going green That would be surprising. I would have said that renewables (without comparing massively subsidised and unproven renewables costs with unsubsidised and well understood practical nuclear costs) would only be relatively recently even in the same ballpark as nuclear. And even then, only when the sun's shini…

"Nuclear power in Europe benefits mainly from massive tax breaks, subsidies and other financial assistance for construction, maintenance and disposal (in Germany a total of about 187 billion euros over the past forty years)"

Is that excluded from the total cost calculations of nuclear power?

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#134

Post by adastra22 »

maxhille wrote: post #29
Traster wrote: post #12

I 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…

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…

> nuclear was not economically viable vs going green

This is such a strange statement as nuclear is the greenest power source.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#135

Post by croes »

robertlagrant wrote: post #133
croes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nuclear power in Europe benefits mainly from massive tax breaks, subsidies and other financial assistance for construction, maintenance and disposal (in Germany a total of about 187 billion euros over the past forty years)"

Is that excluded from the total cost calculations of nuclear power?

Depends on who you ask. Power plant companies usually omit these costs.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#136

Post by knbknb »

ed_balls wrote: post #97
knbknb wrote: post #27

Earlier 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…

> 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. Do you mean NuScale or Hitachi BWRX-300?

I'm not an expert in reactors, but I mean the European Pressurized Water Reactor EPR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) built by French Company Areva and, previously, Siemens. It has a lot of problems from what I hear. I don't know anything about the other ones you mentioned.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#137

Post by blackbrokkoli »

adastra22 wrote: post #134
maxhille wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

> nuclear was not economically viable vs going green This is such a strange statement as nuclear is the greenest power source.

Regarding numbers like CO2 emission per MW that is definitely true.

However, the highly destructive, scary and dangerous trash that it does produce is like a comical epitome of the kind of visible pollution the first generation green movement was fighting. There is a reason that dystopian sci-fi trash heap illustrations always feature a leaking nuclear barrel.

Combined with the fact that Germany is just (fairly) densely populated everywhere, criticism of storage solutions are not about endangered desert lizard species, but about radiation spikes in elementary schools.

I'm both German and would like to re-establish nuclear here as a necessary evil, but I get the contra points. I hope this gives some perspective :)

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#138

Post by blackbrokkoli »

rurban wrote: post #129
belorn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Germany is not Austria nor Switzerland. There are no mountains to pump up the water to. The heights are ridiculous here. 9-15m, compared to 200-800m

I mean our southerly neighbors were nice enough to share some of the mountains, leading to things like Schluchsee[1], which is definitely the most aesthetically pleasing battery I have seen far.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schluchsee

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#139

Post by knbknb »

99_00 wrote: post #98
knbknb wrote: post #27

Earlier 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…

Those are significant problems that politicians, businesses, and the public have correctly identified. Is the perception that Germany will be better off with the problems that dropping nuclear creates, or are those not acknowledged?

I'd estimate 15-20% of the German population to be pro-nuclear (mainly those leaning to the political right), 50% are indifferent, and 30-35% against nuclear energies. Of course you'll find some conservatives against it (e.g. wealthy homeowners), and you'll find a few leftist technologists that support nuclear energy.

Now the political agenda is (and has been for more than 20 years) to promote renewables. For baseline demand (that renewables cannot reliably provide) Germany is betting on Biogas and better storage mechanisms.

The current administration is left-leaning. The Green Party was founded in the 1980s by environmentalists which made it their mission to get rid of nuclear.

I'd say that the public knows that these types of energy supply have problemens too. And the debate is ongoing.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#140

Post by ncmncm »

bigthymer wrote: post #104
knbknb wrote: post #27

Earlier 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…

> Worldwide the number of operational reactors is decreasing anyway Really? I thought China (and maybe India) was building many more.

China is building some, and saying they will build more. But they are not obliged to follow through. We should only count the ones that are actually under construction.
Post reply on HN