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Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#11

Post by V__ »

> According to the text, they might even need a constitutional amendment. I am no expert in German law, but this strikes me as an unlikely requirement that would nevertheless be doable.

A 2/3 majority is needed in both the Bundesrat (senate) and Bundestag (house). Not happening.

> This is what they say: The existing nuclear reactors should have passed a lengthy security inspection in 2019, which they didn’t pass since they would close at the end of 2022. They would need to pass such an inspection, and it takes a long time.

> ...

> Yes, of course Germany can afford to take some more time to pass these inspections!

The author makes it sound like those are cars which can be easily refitted, upgraded and certified. This would take enormous amounts of time and money for the three plants which are still online, and who knows how much for the ones which are offline. Let's say it would just take a year (very optimistic), it wouldn't have any effect on the conflict.

It's simply not worth it, when the money could be spent on other technologies. It would probably be easier and much cheaper to build new nuclear power plants (like ThorCon which was on HN a few days ago).

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#12

Post by Retric »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #7
Retric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia recently attacked a nuclear power plant not that far from Germany, which happened to survive without serious issue. So, this isn’t meaningless speculation even if you personally don’t view it as a major issue. In the end designing a nuclear power plant to survive shelling might not mitigate that much risk, but it is something being seriously considered in many circles.

It's a moot point. Attacking a german nuclear plant = nukes get shot back. And all out nuclear war.

Total war is less common than you might think. Ukraine for example isn’t a giant nuclear crater, yet they had a nuclear power plant being shelled. Meanwhile Ukraine isn’t shelling Russian civilians.

So it’s quite possible for war between nuclear powers to avoid that level of escalation.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#13

Post by hutzlibu »

Retric wrote: post #4
tomohawk wrote: post #2

> ...Russians could sabotage nuclear reactors. They use such a remote possibility as an argument against all nuclear, seemingly forgetting that: Germany is surrounded by other countries with nuclear power. Russian sabotage would be an act of war. If Germany is at the point where Russia is attacking its nuclear power plants, I sure hope it’s not in a position where it depends on Russian gas. This is a deeply unserious…

Russia recently attacked a nuclear power plant not that far from Germany, which happened to survive without serious issue. So, this isn’t meaningless speculation even if you personally don’t view it as a major issue. In the end designing a nuclear power plant to survive shelling might not mitigate that much risk, but it is something being seriously considered in many circles.

The scenario above was, russia attacks a nuclear plant on purpose, with the intention to destroy or damage it.

What happened in the Ukraine lately was no such thing, it was conquering a nuclear plant and the plant itself was not damaged in the process. Still irresponsible and criminal, (like the whole war) - but not the same as targeting a nuclear plant, with the intention to destroy.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#14

Post by JamesBarney »

Retric wrote: post #12
alfalfasprout wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a moot point. Attacking a german nuclear plant = nukes get shot back. And all out nuclear war.

Total war is less common than you might think. Ukraine for example isn’t a giant nuclear crater, yet they had a nuclear power plant being shelled. Meanwhile Ukraine isn’t shelling Russian civilians. So it’s quite possible for war between nuclear powers to avoid that level of escalation.

But Ukraine isn't a nuclear power.

And there are no circumstances where you're better off fighting an adversary that supplies all of your energy than having your own nuclear reactors.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#15

Post by smsm42 »

The arguments against turning back on the nuclear reactors in Germany sound so fundamentally unserious that you are forced to choose between "these people are paid by Russians" and "these people have a phobia about nuclear energy and won't consider any rational arguments". I'm not even talking of the moral position of "we'd better sponsor a genocidal maniac to the tune of a billion euros per week than temporary suffer a minor inconvenience that may require some small investment and a bit of work to solve".

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#18

Post by moooo99 »

V__ wrote: post #11

> According to the text, they might even need a constitutional amendment. I am no expert in German law, but this strikes me as an unlikely requirement that would nevertheless be doable. A 2/3 majority is needed in both the Bundesrat (senate) and Bundestag (house). Not happening. > This is what they say: The existing nuclear reactors should have passed a lengthy security inspection in 2019, which they didn’t pass sinc…

> A 2/3 majority is needed in both the Bundesrat (senate) and Bundestag (house). Not happening.

Absolutely not ever going to happen.

> The author makes it sound like those are cars which can be easily refitted, upgraded and certified. This would take enormous amounts of time and money for the three plants which are still online, and who knows how much for the ones which are offline.

Even Lindner says that extending the lifetime of nuclear power plants isn't really a realistic option. With what the FDP said in the past and what they are saying now this makes me really believe that there is something more to the whole debate than the fundamental opposition of the green party towards nuclear power.

> It's simply not worth it, when the money could be spent on other technologies.

It likely is. Nuclear isn't really a feasible option for short term actions. Given the political barriers and the progress of the nuclear exit it would be an extremely long play with little to no effects on the current conflict. My gut feeling is that investing this into increasing renewables and investing into improving the energy efficiency of buildings (where the majority of gas import goes) has a significantly bigger impact on energy requirements.

Generally this is a debate that nobody seems to want to have. Everybody is talking about how we can substitute energy imports. Everybody talks about LNG terminals, storage facilities and nuclear power but nobody talks about the low hanging fruits. We do have basically free measures to take to at least slighly reduce the fossil fuel consumption. Mandatory home office availability for suitable jobs, car free/reduced days, speed limits, encouraging less heating, etc.

Re: Why Germany won’t keep its nuclear plants open

#19

Post by renewiltord »

V__ wrote: post #11

> According to the text, they might even need a constitutional amendment. I am no expert in German law, but this strikes me as an unlikely requirement that would nevertheless be doable. A 2/3 majority is needed in both the Bundesrat (senate) and Bundestag (house). Not happening. > This is what they say: The existing nuclear reactors should have passed a lengthy security inspection in 2019, which they didn’t pass sinc…

Is security there the same as what we'd call security or is it like `securité` in French which is safety? I'm pretty sure the former is not that hard, and you can bypass it if there is a real national need.

The real thing is that Germany has NS and NS2 and so they're happy to just guzzle gas.

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