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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

#141

Post by Retric »

hutzlibu wrote: post #110
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power plant avoided critical damage, but it was very much harmed in the attack. As far as analysis goes you can’t limit things to exactly what happened. If attacking nuclear power plants is on the table then a single miscommunication means someone is attempting to destroy it. Even just destroying some water pipes or some generators could lead to very serious issues.

"The power plant avoided critical damage, but it was very much harmed in the attack." Source? As far as I know and what wikipedia confirms, is that the plant itself was not damaged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_Pla... "During approximately two hours of heavy fighting a fire broke out in a training facility outside of the main complex, which was extinguished by 6:20am,[21][22] though other…

Your Wikipedia link includes this: “The plant lost 1.3 GW of capacity which then was compensated by additional 9 power units in the thermal power station nearby.”

From here: https://energo.dtek.com/en/media-center/press/dtek-tpps-comp... * As a result of an armed attack by the invaders on the Zaporozhia NPP, 1.3 GW of capacity generated by nuclear units has been lost.*

If the power plant was I damaged it wouldn’t have lost capacity.

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

#142

Post by cycomanic »

diordiderot wrote: post #100
fabian2k wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The temperature you achieve is lower than for older gas heating equipment, so your radiators are likely not dimensioned correctly if you switch. You really want floor heating for heat pumps, and very well insulated walls. The moment the heat pumps can't provide enough heating you have to heat with electricity, and that is incredibly expensive especially in Germany.

Modern heat pumps work well below freezing, in Chicago 2021 there were 4 days that gas heating would be more efficient. Maybe don't use a radiator? American heat pumps hear air directly.

Heating the air is less efficient, by a significant margin (you need a high temperature for the same comfort level). Using US houses as an example is quite laughable, the energy consumptions of US households is much higher than German ones.

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

#143

Post by Retric »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #61
Retric wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving the goalposts doesn’t actually solve this issue. If you can’t conceive of a situation that having a nuclear power plant inside your country is dangerous you simply don’t know enough about them. Sabotage of a spent fuel cooling pond could get really nasty. It’s not the kind of risk anyone is taking that seriously for reasons I agree with, but it’s definitely possible.

Just because one concieved a fantastic scenario doesn't mean it should be taken seriously. There is no evidence of such sabotage being ever attempted or planned - and thats a serious problem for your argument because various agencies have tried all kinds of shit from hypnosis to investigating supernatural abilities during the cold war. There are more straight forward ways to cause damage. It is quite staight forward…

I was responding to someone that said: “there are no circumstances”

That’s an unreasonably high bar which invites “fantastic scenario” as such I referred to something I don’t consider reasonable, but it is possible.

> Why would Russia go through the trouble

If you want a more plausible scenario, causing immense harm in a deniable fashion is possible when a attacking a nuclear power plant that isn’t possible with widespread chemical weapons etc. Issue a public apology, have the guy ordering the attack executed, and yet the harm stays.

I am not suggesting it’s likely Russia is going to attack Germany in the next 50 years. All I am saying is nuclear power plants have one more failure mode that should be considered. These things are built tough, Ukraine’s only lost 1.3 GW of capacity after the attack that’s no big deal. That said, considering them as a military not just a terrorist target is no longer a fantasy scenario it’s part of the long term risk calculation.

To be clear, most people will likely run the numbers and say it’s an acceptable risk, which is fine as long as they actually run the numbers.

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

#144

Post by KarlKemp »

choeger wrote: post #3

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...

At this point, nobody wants to change the policy. Not the greens, not the conservative party, nor the companies that own these power plants. It is simply not possible to run a dozen nuclear reactors on a two-weeks'-notice timescale, at least not in a democracy that respects property rights and safety practices.

It's also economically unsound and technologically misguided, since nuclear power cannot replace the role gas has in the European grid.

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

#145

Post by photochemsyn »

steve_taylor wrote: post #63
choeger wrote: post #3

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...

It’s not just the German greens. Australia’s greens are staunchly anti-nuclear despite it being the only viable solution to the baseload problem, which renewables haven’t yet solved.

Isn't battery storage the baseload solution for renewable power? And it doesn't have to be lithium batteries, there are cheaper alternatives if you don't need the batteries to be that small.

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

#146

Post by hedora »

barry-cotter wrote: post #107
ivan_gammel wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. First of all, that estimate was not made by an expert, as other commenters pointed out. Second, the additional risk is created not because of new safety standards, but also from all other factors where deviation from standard procedures could accelerate…

> 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?

Also, Chernobyl was due to a completely incompetent plant manager. They intentionally disabled many fail safes in order to get the plant into a vulnerable state.

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

#147

Post by endominus »

cycomanic wrote: post #129
dkbrk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing really to solve. Dry-cask storage can be used long term. The waste is secure, easily monitored, and if at some point in the future reprocessing makes economic sense that can be done too.

You say that with great confidence, can you give any examples where people have securely stored highly dangerous things for 100s or 1000s of years?

The quantity of highly radioactive waste honestly isn't that large. It probably won't have to be stored that long; per [0] (turn on captions if you don't speak Dutch) that volume, given current energy usage in a first world country like the Netherlands, might amount to that of an apple per lifetime. That's tiny! Given advances in spaceflight in recent decades, we might be able to affordably send that amount of radioactive matter off the planet entirely. The sun seems like a fine place to safely put it for 100,000 years.

[0]: https://youtu.be/YjFWiMJdotM?t=610

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

#148

Post by KarlKemp »

bozhark wrote: post #103
MauranKilom wrote: post #102

So the entire article, and also the discussion here skips over a very simple point: Nuclear power plants provide baseline loads because they can't be turned on and off at a whim, while gas power plants can scale up and down quickly to handle daily load peaks. Looking at yearly consumption graphs completely ignores the reality of the grid. Where do you get electricity from for the peaks in the morning and the evening,…

That’s not at all correct. You’re stating nuclear cannot handle load distributions. Why.

Nuclear power plants can adjust output by about +- 5 percentage points per 15 minutes. That allows reacting to demand and other producers on the timescale of daily fluctuations. Gas can be regulated +- 100 % within minutes, and +- 15 % almost instantaneously, allowing you to react to sudden unexpected changes.

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

#149

Post by photochemsyn »

cycomanic wrote: post #123

Here [1] is an interview with the German president of the BASE (Bundesamts für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung) essentially the nuclear safety administration. He essentially calls the arguments about extending the nuclear powerplants difficult to comprehend. He lays out quite clearly why it doesn't work, and while the article addresses some of those points it does not back up any of the assertions with eviden…

Ran that through Google Translate, here's a fundamental point:

> "An extension of the service life would not make Germany less dependent on Russian natural gas, since gas is only used to a small extent for electricity production in Germany, adds König. In addition, Russia is an important supplier of uranium and fuel elements, which are absolutely necessary. In view of the fact that the six active nuclear power plants would have contributed 12 percent to Germany's electricity supply in 2020, the great effort required to start up the nuclear safety apparatus again is not worth it. "With renewables, we can achieve our goals of climate protection and independence from Russia much more safely, quickly and cheaply," says König."

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

#150

Post by hedora »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #96
lordnacho wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Being expert in this case means being familiar with the current situation in German nuclear industry and knowing it from the inside. Just knowing how nuclear plant works in theory is not enough.

He read the primary sources, including the German government's risk assessments for these plants.
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