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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

#271

Post by ivan_gammel »

harha wrote: post #181
ivan_gammel wrote: post #33

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…

Have you been to Germany? As a non-German who has lived there, I wouldn’t trust government to make good well-founded decisions in the interest of their voters.

I’m German currently living in Berlin and I think government here isn’t that bad, compared to other countries :)

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

#272

Post by dzikimarian »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #257
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...

Opposition to nuclear power isn't a political ideology. You aren't for or against nuclear power because you don't generally like the people who are against nuclear power. I don't see the major arguments against nuclear power being negated by either climate change or the war in Ukraine. So no, there is no mistake. Nuclear power isn't the right way forward for Germany.

Of course it's political. Schroeder went with Greens for various reasons - some of them include his voters being coal miners on verge of protests. Others may be connected to him being on board of the Gazprom.

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

#273

Post by wewxjfq »

fmajid wrote: post #91
incomingpain wrote: post #62

>Since the Bucha massacre was made public, Germany has financed the Russian government by paying nearly $1.5B for its gas1. What's the number for since the war began? It's higher right? That's a lot of coal per year... 20 years to get 20% wind and solar. Tesla just opened their factory. VW has a nice selection of EVs; Taycan is beautiful! Don't fathom how they could fix their situation. Too bad they didn't have someo…

The US kept telling them not to get in bed with Russia. France kept telling them not to ditch nuclear to appease the irrational Greens. It was cynical political calculation to go for the cheapest energy source, global warming be damned.

> It was cynical political calculation to go for the cheapest energy source, global warming be damned.

Are you talking about the US who went all in on gas for its electricity production or Germany that replaced nuclear power with renewables? And France, the Hacker News nuclear energy utopia, is struggling year-round with its electricity production, but that is easy to ignore if you have no clue what you are talking about.

Also, let me give you a brief history lesson, because Americans like to rewrite it: The US was never tough on Russia. Bush was a Putin fanboy like Schröder. When Schröder called Putin a "perfect democrat", Bush looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul. And speaking of good advice: That was a time when Germany and the rest of Continental Europe asked the US not to start Iraq war. The US did not appreciate that kind of advice and considered Continental Europe some terrible allies.

These were the early 2000s, there was a thing called the war on terror. Now Americans claim that it was clear as a day that Russia (who also opposed the war and seemed to steadily prosper) was the real enemy back then, and Germany should have bought more ethically-sourced oil and gas from the region with the lack of human rights, the never ending wars and the state-sponsored terrorism, and not from the guy who speaks of brotherhood in fluent German - that would have been the right decision of course!

Anyway, after Bush came Obama, who also treated Russia with baby gloves. The US had no shame to give Lavrov the symbolic reset button months after Russia resetted Georgia - a country that hoped for US support. Remember Obama's "Let me do you favors in my second term" mic leak with Medvedev? Was any of that controversial in America? Not at all. Americans laughed at Mitt Romney when he called Russia the enemy. Biden summed it up in 2015:

> All of us, we all invested in a type of Russia we hoped - and still hope - will emerge one day: a Russia integrated into the world economy; more prosperous, more invested in the international order.

And it doesn't stop here. Americans went and elected the biggest Russian puppet in history. The guy who publicly said he trusts Putin more than his three-letter agencies. Now Putin enjoys a popularity among Americans that would make the old red-scare republicans spin in their graves. On top of that, the US had an ever increasing oil trade with Russia - after they annexed Crimea.

But one time Donny with his "America first! Screw NATO and screw the EU!" stance (which totally doesn't benefit Russia) told German diplomats in one of his incoherent speeches that they are too reliant on Russian gas, after they banned US companies from fracking in their densely populated country and can you believe it, the diplomats laughed!?

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

#274

Post by nl »

godelski wrote: post #189
cycomanic wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> So what if they died of the evacuation, the nuclear accident caused the evacuation. I wasn't aware that the nuclear accident caused massive flooding (the person you're responding to is saying that everyone died from the tsunami, not the radiation). Your point still stands about large economic costs to exclusion zones, but I don't feel you responded in good faith. As per the article (and as someone who actually did…

In Ukraine a nuclear power station was recently shelled with artillery.

If a power station was shelled in Germany what measures would avoid an exclusion zone?

And to be clear, there are plenty of groups that would deliberately cause an issue exclusion zone.

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

#275

Post by vba616 »

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)…

>f) Because long-term storage of nuclear waste is still not properly solved.

>g) Because mining nuclear materials is an ecological disaster. Also, guess who's a big exporter of uranium in Europe? Russia.

These are real problems, however I've seen people state that they are entirely results of political decisions that could be revoked.

That's because the reactor waste can be recycled to make more power, reducing the fuel and the waste problem tremendously.

I guess that there are conventional excuses not to, something about proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear material.

But I don't understand why this matters if climate change is real and lots of countries have nuclear weapons anyway. Though I suppose not Germany.

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

#276

Post by nl »

dzikimarian wrote: post #266
kelnos wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dif…

Chernobyl was no error per se. It was conscious decision with political background, possible, because entire system of values in USSR was upside down. In normal country there would be no reason to do any of that.

And Germany has never had any odd political issues?

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

#277

Post by jaclaz »

Tomte wrote: post #202
seoaeu wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some buildings, installing a heat pump is "only" a matter of swapping out one large appliance with another (since you're able to reuse the ducts, etc.) but that's still widely expensive and logistically complicated to do on scale of a country.

In America. Heating/cooling ducts and "outdoor units" that could be swapped are very rare in Germany. We use mostly radiators, and in newer buildings in-floor heating. Both are based on warm water pipes.

Well, at least for single apartments/houses (cannot really say for huge multi-apartments buildings) heat pumps that exchange with water exist and are very well suited to in-floor heating (but not suitable for radiators).

The generic issue with heat pumps AFAIK is that they have only a relatively small range of temperatures (outside) in which they are actually efficient, in the sense that (with old prices of energy) they are competitive with gas in costs, I believe that Germany is a bit too cold.

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

#278

Post by roenxi »

Ma8ee wrote: post #227
barney54 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you think so? To me the argument sounds like: > no one died of radiation, since they were evacuated. The people who did die, because of the evacuation, shouldn’t count because they didn’t die from the radiation. The evacuation wasn’t necessary, which is proven since no one died from radiation. And the notion that more people would have died from the radiation if they didn’t evacuate is just ignored. Well, no o…

The downside of nuclear power is, potentially & in rare circumstances, a large number of people have to move.

I don't want to trivialise that - it is a big cost. But it isn't exactly like we're talking a threat to anyone's health and well-being. And when I say "rare" I mean once, globally, every 25 years with 1970s plant designs. It is quite a bit safer now with the absurd safety standards people make nuclear keep.

Basically, although costly, it is a tiny risk once we estimate [danger x likelihood = risk].

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

#279

Post by Ma8ee »

dzikimarian wrote: post #270
Ma8ee wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as we make sure that only competent and sane people get elected to political posts, we are safe. That will make me sleep well at nights.

If you're assuming that political situation will come anywhere near this known from communist block, then random nuclear plant failure is probably pretty low on the list of the issues they caused. Much more people died due to simply saying something against propaganda than as a result of Chernobyl. I know that politicians suck, but if we do everything assuming that next Stalin and Lenin are inevitable, then even knfi…

For each Stalin, we get quite a few Trump.

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

#280

Post by Tomte »

jaclaz wrote: post #277
Tomte wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America. Heating/cooling ducts and "outdoor units" that could be swapped are very rare in Germany. We use mostly radiators, and in newer buildings in-floor heating. Both are based on warm water pipes.

Well, at least for single apartments/houses (cannot really say for huge multi-apartments buildings) heat pumps that exchange with water exist and are very well suited to in-floor heating (but not suitable for radiators). The generic issue with heat pumps AFAIK is that they have only a relatively small range of temperatures (outside) in which they are actually efficient, in the sense that (with old prices of energy) t…

Sure they exist. But it's more than just "swap one unit with another" which was the claim above.

Heat pumps are actually pretty efficient, down to low temperatures. Have a look at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFVIot1ubOZd... where Alec discusses that.

Around Chicago you can expect to have only a few days in winter where the COP is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEHFsO-XSI&list=PLv0jwu7G_D...

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