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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

#161

Post by lispm »

99_00 wrote: post #85

I used to think that Germany was foolish to buy Russian natural gas and fund the Putin regime which is a threat to them. And that Trump was right to tell them so to their faces. Now I see that the Germans were right. Russia is not a threat. Putin is a paper tiger. The Russian military is nothing compared to NATO. And Germany gets NATO protection less than cost. They are acting in their own interest which they underst…

The US imports energy from Russia, too. Increasingly under Trump.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...

Ukraine bought energy from Russia, too. They ended gas imports from Russia some time ago, now importing it from other countries, which import it from Russia.

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

#162

Post by partiallypro »

KarlKemp wrote: post #144
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 g…

Nuclear can't replace the role of gas in Europe, but getting rid of nuclear makes the problem much worse. Germany has been warned about this constantly and they seem to think they know better. We'll see, right now they look like stubborn fools that are now unable to do much of anything to help stop Russia.

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

#163

Post by lispm »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #68
galooomot wrote: post #20

Nuclear waste anyone? Case closed. That alone should be reason enough to sympathize with the german position.

CO2 anyone? Case closed. Unlike nuclear waste that sits in on one place and doesn't move, CO is destroying ecosystems across the world

Nuclear waste does not sit in one place and it does move. We are talking about longer time scales, from decades up.

With nuclear power as the main cure against CO2 production we would need to build thousands of nuclear power plants world wide. Let's say Germany would need a hundred (remember we need to replace gas for heating and oil for traffic). 80 million people. World population is roughly 100 times of that.

Good luck with that.

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

#164

Post by partiallypro »

galooomot wrote: post #25
outside1234 wrote: post #5

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

Well, in terms of money, germany is among the biggest supporters of ukraine since the war started in 2014, donating several billion euros. https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/laenderinfo...

This is very much a puff piece from the German government to cover their gross negligence in helping to fund the very regime that is trying to wipe Ukraine from the earth. Also leaves out how reluctant Germany was to provide arms, despite providing arms to much more questionable countries.

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

#165

Post by kelnos »

hedora wrote: post #146
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?

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.

I think human error is one of the kinds of error it's really hard to work around. You are always going to have people who make mistakes or even intentionally cut corners or do unsafe things, depending on the circumstances.

Would I expect a German plant to be run in a safer manner in the 2020s than a Soviet Ukrainian plant in the 1980s? Sure, absolutely. Both because of the design of the plants, and because of the different safety cultures. But I don't think we can just hand-wave a disaster away and claim that it only happened because of X or Y or Z, without being certain X, Y, and Z have been eliminated. And I don't think we can say that with certainty.

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

#166

Post by 99_00 »

lispm wrote: post #161
99_00 wrote: post #85

I used to think that Germany was foolish to buy Russian natural gas and fund the Putin regime which is a threat to them. And that Trump was right to tell them so to their faces. Now I see that the Germans were right. Russia is not a threat. Putin is a paper tiger. The Russian military is nothing compared to NATO. And Germany gets NATO protection less than cost. They are acting in their own interest which they underst…

The US imports energy from Russia, too. Increasingly under Trump. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M... Ukraine bought energy from Russia, too. They ended gas imports from Russia some time ago, now importing it from other countries, which import it from Russia.

Of course the US imported oil from Russia. Why wouldn't they? There was no embargo.

You seem to be suggesting that a direct pipeline is equivalent to buying from the global market. It isn't.

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

#167

Post by hedora »

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 pyramids?

(Granted, the contents were not highly dangerous, but they would have been adequate for nuclear waste storage until at least now.)

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

#168

Post by ozfive »

hedora wrote: post #156
ivan_gammel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the beginning of a multi decade conflict. The end game is Russia becoming a North Korean style vassal state of China. Every world leader that is speaking about the conflict seems fine with this outcome. Also, it will take a while for Russia to build enough natural gas pipelines to China. In practice, those pipelines will be Putin's leash. (He will need China, but they have no need for him.) I hope Ukraine mai…

> I hope Ukraine maintains its independence, but it's just the first battle in a war Putin accidentally created, and will surely lose.

Putin did NOT accidentally create this war. It's clear that this was intentional and that there are real people suffering because of that intention. He tried opening more doors to see what benefits he could gain. That isn't an accident.

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

#169

Post by lispm »

someguydave wrote: post #76
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…

It's true that grid solar (not wind) is cheaper per kWh produced. But: 1) there are real problems with solar lacking nighttime production 2) the nuclear plants in question in Germany are mostly already functional and for the most part just need to be turned back on. That is much different than new construction of a nuclear plant

Nuclear power plants would only replace some gas power plants for electricity production. There aren't many able to be turned on again.

More Russian gas and oil is used in transport and heating. Nuclear power plants play no role in providing energy for heating, transport, and similar in Germany.

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

#170

Post by hedora »

photochemsyn wrote: post #145
steve_taylor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With over provisioning of production and storage, and accounting for 10 year storms, etc., nuclear is still cheaper (in countries with reasonable regulatory regimes).

Also, this is a war, and the nuclear plants have already been built. (and we only have a year or so left on the climate change clock anyway).

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