51–60 of 480 posts
But I doubt this, many of the reactors have already been operating beyond what they where designed for. Like from what I know about them I honestly wouldn't be surprised if previous safety inspections wouldn't already have slightly looked away to allow them to pass.
As long as you rely on the fallacy that nuclear is cheap to operate any initial costs can be handwaved away. Today renewables are cheaper than the marginal cost of nuclear, steam turbines and all machinery around them is simply that complex. They are a relic of an bygone era which tech enthusiasts for some reason continue clinging to as the magical solution to all our energy needs. Even in the face of reality. A doll…
The real world is made of atoms and people, not dollars. To illustrate: if starting tomorrow, every car produced was electric, it would take 20 years to replace all the cars. Given unlimited money, we could not convert all production of cars to electric in 5 years. The earliest possible switch to all electric cars is like 2050.
We have limited capacity to produce batteries and renewables, and a limited speed at which that production can be expanded.
We also have existing manufacturing capacity for nuclear and staff with skills to build / operate them, and it should be used. It should not be wasted.
Nuclear waste anyone? Case closed. That alone should be reason enough to sympathize with the german position.
not to feed the troll but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
Being anti-nuclear is deeply engrained in the DNA of Germany's green party. Even more so than climate change. In fact, when the anti-nuclear movement started, climate change wasn't even a topic. In other words, the only thing that needs to happen is the German green party to admit a mistake in fighting nuclear power harder than fossile fuels...
There have been concerns about the risks of flooding to nuclear plants in Germany. https://energytransition.org/2013/06/german-nuclear-plants-f... Restarting nuclear isn't a bad idea, but it needs to be approached systematically and cautiously such that the risks from natural disasters and economic impacts are minimized, while also weighing the risks of continuing to support Russia. Unfortunately, many plants across…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What happened in Ukraine doesn't really provide much insight into what would happen in a war with Germany. If Russia bombed Ukrainian nuclear plants and sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over Europe, that could be seen as a direct attack against NATO and get them involved in the war. So Russia has a big incentive to not attack nuclear plants. But if Russia is already willing to attack a NATO country, then it's not…
What I read in this article is that German government did a thorough analysis, but the author dismisses the conclusions of it because the tolerated risk level there is too low and because it’s done by a minister from the Greens party. If this was written by an expert, that could make some sense, but it is not. Nuclear plant is not a startup, where you can just skip the QA part to release faster or put a not working c…
- The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert.
- They quantify the additional risk of meltdown due to delaying new safety regulations. It's negligible compared to operating plants according to the new regulations.
- Their proposal would increase Germany's stockpile of nuclear waste by 3%, which is surely within engineering tolerances, ignoring the fact that the disposal facilities were planned before they decided to prematurely close the plants.
I don't see how it matters which political party made which political decisions in the past. Conditions have changed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Restarting nuclear isn't a bad idea, but it needs to be approached systematically and cautiously such that the risks from natural disasters and economic impacts are minimized, while also weighing the risks of continuing to support Russia. smells like $$$ and more delays. nuclear is already by far the safest method of power production, and emits far fewer radionuclides than coal, and those numbers are the old genera…
That’s not completely accurate. Nuclear is less safe than grid solar, it slightly beats rooftop solar because standing on roofs is dangerous and most solar installs are new. Hydroelectric vs nuclear is tricky because large dams save lives and by reducing flooding etc, and installing hydroelectric when building a dam is much safer than building the dam in the first place. Which makes calculating the deaths from hydroe…
Yeah and making the solar panel, how green is that?
I would like to add that they should bring in bouncy castles around homes when installing solar panels, the kids can play on them and primarily will definitely save the installer from falling. You could also package them together, like "Daddy daddy let's install solar panels" and kids could play in different places in the neighborhood that installed them one after another.
And then you get a better image for the kids, plus you get to lower down the "people falling off roofs" statistic and make solar panel look even better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happened in Ukraine doesn't really provide much insight into what would happen in a war with Germany. If Russia bombed Ukrainian nuclear plants and sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over Europe, that could be seen as a direct attack against NATO and get them involved in the war. So Russia has a big incentive to not attack nuclear plants. But if Russia is already willing to attack a NATO country, then it's not…
If Russia was willing to attack NATO, it would drop actual nuclear bombs, that are way more lethal than destruction of nuclear plants
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Restarting nuclear isn't a bad idea, but it needs to be approached systematically and cautiously such that the risks from natural disasters and economic impacts are minimized, while also weighing the risks of continuing to support Russia. smells like $$$ and more delays. nuclear is already by far the safest method of power production, and emits far fewer radionuclides than coal, and those numbers are the old genera…
That’s not completely accurate. Nuclear is less safe than grid solar, it slightly beats rooftop solar because standing on roofs is dangerous and most solar installs are new. Hydroelectric vs nuclear is tricky because large dams save lives and by reducing flooding etc, and installing hydroelectric when building a dam is much safer than building the dam in the first place. Which makes calculating the deaths from hydroe…
there are a lot of reasons why dramatic expansion (of the kind needed to take the edge off climate change) of hydro power isn't feasible. for one most of the suitable sites are already used. and the environmental impact is substantial
I went to school in Austria in the 80s/90s. The anti-nuclear stance was a big part of education (I assume similar to Germany). We had to read stories like Die Wolke (The Cloud) and were terrified and somehow traumatized in a young age. We discussed this stuff for hours. Also a final deposit site was planned in the mountains in my area, so after Chernobyl there was a big activism against it - thousands of people conne…
I went to school in Austria in the 80s/90s, too. I remember reading "The Children of Schewenborn" in school and being really disturbed by it. Pretty sure I wasn't alone in that. Good times!