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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

#131

Post by kdbeall_ »

GamerUncle wrote: post #48
Gwypaas wrote: post #28

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…

In the face of reality nuclear is the only realistic way to address the majority of the issues that most renewables cannot realistically face: https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-nuclear-power-must-be-par... All this talk about "a bygone era" seems to stem from a place of hatred but what is perceived as "old" if anything most techbros and minimalist wannabes seem to hate nuclear. But if you stop watching the Simpsons…

Depends on what tech comes out. If lithium-sulfur batteries and perovskite solar cells go into mass production I think nuclear will be one of the smaller contributors. Nuclear works best where there's limited hydroelectric, wind, and solar but minimal chance of earthquakes.

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

#132

Post by rad_gruchalski »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #120
this_user wrote: post #115

a) Because it's no longer technically feasible not to shut these plants down. b) Because it's not politically tenable. c) Because nuclear energy has long since been a minor part of electricity generation, and it wouldn't make much of a difference now. d) Because it has nothing to do with imports of Russian gas and oil, which is overwhelmingly used for heating, fuel, and industrial purposes. Gas (not just from Russia)…

Well I'm from Portugal, where renewable power generation percent swings between the low 60's and the high 80's depending on the month and where we don't have any need for gas heating whatsoever. I also personally own and tend to 70 hectares of forest so I'm pretty willing to bet my carbon footprint is way way better than yours. According to your nonsense standard I should be a credible person to make this comment: Ho…

> Well I'm from Portugal, where renewable power generation percent swings between the low 60's and the high 80's depending on the month and where we don't have any need for gas heating whatsoever.

Yes. Sure. The country is roughly 4 times smaller than Germany, the population is 10m vs 83m in Germany and you don’t get continental climate.

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

#133

Post by barney54 »

cycomanic wrote: post #128
barry-cotter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This risk is hard to quantify, it can materialize in unexpected ways (just like nobody expected Chernobyl or Fukushima) and it will cost such rich and densely populated country as Germany trillions. You know everyone who died from Fukushima died from the evacuation not radiation, right? You know more people are killed in Germany every year from coal pollution than have died as a result of Chernobyl in total?

So what if they died of the evacuation, the nuclear accident caused the evacuation. I find this argument mind-boggling, because people didn't die directly of radiation exposure it is somehow ok that Japan had to evacuate a significant population? If this would happen e.g. to Krümmel you'd have to evacuate the second largest city in Germany, that's 2 million people.

The point is that the people didn’t need to be evacuated.

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

#134

Post by KarlKemp »

Yes, nuclear is so easy. Just chose it from the "power plant" options on the right, find a 4x4 empty square, and place it. Then, connect it to your power grid.

For those not playing Sim City, it's a bit more complicated. Governments don't get to do whatever they want, for example. They are bound by law just like everyone else, a principle known as the rule of law. Sure, it was a German guy by the name of Carl Schmitt that came up with some ideas about "emergency laws". And from that moment, it took ten years until democracy was done for (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt#Law_of_emergency_...).

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

#135

Post by barney54 »

Krasnol wrote: post #83
gigatexal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is being done to make them much safer

Not in Germany. In Germany not even the operators what nuclear back because renewables are the way now: https://www.ft.com/content/9a3228bd-6927-4d46-aa20-4c693811e...

The operators will make more money from renewables, so of course they don’t want to run fully depreciated nuclear plants.

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

#136

Post by cycomanic »

lordnacho wrote: post #78
dataflow wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author says they studied nuclear in grad school, and are probably therefore an expert. That's not how it works. Just going to grad school (and it appears this is just for a Master's) doesn't imply you're suddenly an expert on an entire discipline . Even full professors don't generally claim to be experts in their entire fields; they become experts in their niches sub-fields/areas of research. You'd need to know…

I think this is moving the goalposts. According to you it's not enough to have the qualifications, you need specific ones in specific sub areas. What's to stop you dismissing him by dividing it up even more if it turns out he's actually studied the right area? To me it sounds a bit like when anti vaxxers dismiss doctors who aren't epidemiologists, or when people dismiss Krugman because he's a trade economist and not…

So the actual quote is:

> I studied nuclear energy generation in my two MSc in Industrial Engineering.

which to me sounds not like he actually did a masters in nuclear power generation, but took some courses during his masters. But even if he did, that doesn't make him an expert, whom of the software developers here would let a grad student come to their company and say "I did a masters in CS I will tell all of you how to do your dev work"?

So yes this sounds exactly like the anti vaxxers, who say they studied some bioscience (or are even some doctors) and can somehow dismiss World renowned experts.

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

#137

Post by KarlKemp »

outside1234 wrote: post #5

Let's be real - they just don't care about anyone but themselves.

They've taken in 200,000 refugees in the last six weeks or so, or as much as the US has, in total, since 2016.

They are also paying about 10 x as much as the US in GDP terms for the existing sanctions against Russia, because they do far more trade with the country than the US.

They also have a 40-year history of being unwilling to allow arms exports to anyone but NATO countries and the likes of Switzerland, far more than any other nation, and at considerable costs to local industry.

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

#138

Post by [deleted] »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #92
someguydave wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in life is a tradeoff. To me, the risks of keeping the nuclear plants in Germany are much lower than the risks of continuing to fund Russia.

The economic effects of stopping gas consumption are not immediate for Russia due to large financial reserves and it will not stop the war. It will certainly harm Russian economy, but several months later and EU has no power to fully stop Russian exports - China is a big consumer too.

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by KarlKemp »

sprash wrote: post #17
outside1234 wrote: post #5

Let's be real - they just don't care about anyone but themselves.

No they are a US vassal state. If they only cared about themselves they would have zero sanctions and Nord Stream 2 would be pumping cheap gas in vast quantities.

Germany has a considerable interest in the concept of not changing any international borders by force, as has any other civilized nation.

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

#140

Post by cycomanic »

diordiderot wrote: post #108
munk-a wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest ask the article is making in an unreasonable way is to somehow find millions of contractors who can actually go home by home and refit the heating systems in a timescale that'd actually be relevant for the war in ukraine. If Germany wanted to switch everyone over to a different kind of lightbulb they'd need to ensure the production capacity to make the new bulb exists and set up logistics to actua…

This was a great answer and well thought out! Thanks for taking the time. My only rebuttal is heat pumps can heat the air directly. No need for a radiator or plumbing.

That's a disadvantage. Radiative heating using radiators or floor heating actually enables you to have a lower temperature because it feels warmer. That said you can run heatpumps with radiative heaters, still moving to heatpumps from on day to the other is completely unrealistic, that's sort of like saying we should switch over all cars to electric immediately to get rid of the dependency on Russian oil.
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