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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

#341

Post by glogla »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #237

That reads like a nuclear-fan-boy article. No, we can't just waive security requirements to modernize the old plants and keep them save. No, I don't see where you could eliminate all the Russian gas just with those reactors already standing. The war in Ukraine remains us of one thing: You don't want unpredictable things to happen around a nuclear plant. Nuclear power can be relatively cheap. If you subsidize it heavi…

> The war in Ukraine remains us of one thing:

I think it shows us instead that Germany worked hard to put itself into position where it is strategically aligned with Russia, and is willing to sacrifice life and freedom of everyone around to keep it that way.

Putin-Merkel is the new Molotov-Ribbentrop.

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

#342

Post by sam_lowry_ »

funcDropShadow wrote: post #324
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 people died in Chernobyl at explosion time, 28 in the coming months, 30 in the coming years. None died in Fukushima. As far as people's lives are concerned, the death toll of the war in Ukraine is already two orders of magnitude higher. Economic costs are incomparable too.

Tell that to the families of the "exterminators" in Chernobyl. Tell them that it had nothing to do with radiation from Chernobyl that most of them died by cancer years after the accident.

This is an urban legend. There are 4000 statistical casualties.

Liquidators (not exterminators) were well over 100,000 and while I was too young in 1986 to participate in liquidation efforts, I knew a few personally later on. They got their share of health problems from poor logistics on the ground. Like sleeping for months in tents at sub-zero temperatures. But not from radiation exposure.

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

#343

Post by imtringued »

hedora wrote: post #151
kitkat_new wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

continuing the nuclear power will have almost no impact on the war or dependence to Russia. The biggest issue by far is gas

The article covers this. The electricity that would be produced by the plants is enough to offset 100% of Russian natural gas imports. Gas and electricity are not entirely fungible, but Germany uses enough natural gas to produce electricity to cover the reduced imports.

Gas was chosen because it is a cost effective transitional power source. You can turn it off the moment you have enough renewables. You're not going to turn off your nuclear powerplants, they are too expensive.

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

#344

Post by imtringued »

endominus wrote: post #147
cycomanic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 radio…

I don't get it. Just reprocess the waste and dilute the rest back to original levels of background radiation. Bury small amounts all over the country.

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

#345

Post by hef19898 »

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?

And you know that there is no reliable casualty count from Chernobyl? The Soviets didn't count and follow up, nobody else wanted to do that neither. And long term effects, e.g. highe cancer rates, are extremely hard to quabtify and correlate woth a singluar event.

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

#346

Post by 7952 »

godelski wrote: post #198
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…

> 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. I think it makes you pretty knowledgeable. Expert is a bit vague. Many would consider expertise in having extensive knowledge beyond that of the public. If he studied in undergrad he'd have this. He'd get more in grad school. But if we're talking expert as…

Surely an expert actually does work to come to conclusions. They build a team, write papers, do research etc. Follow an objective process.

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

#347

Post by freemint »

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…

> How will Germany solve base load generation for power and heating without nuclear or fossil fuels in a country with weather as shit as Germany?

Gas power plants which will be upgraded to burn more and more hydrogen distributed using existing Erdgas infrastructure stored in subterranean salt caverns produced by surplus energy using electrolyzers.

For shorter term swings are compensated with a mix of demand management, solid batteries, redox flow batteries, underwater pumped hydro, .... What evers s cheapest for the usecase

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

#349

Post by ricardobayes »

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…

"put a not working cookie banner for few months, because nobody really checks compliance." This hits so close to home you wouldn't believe.

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

#350

Post by formerly_proven »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #281
jcfrei wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the green parties. There's a sizeable part of the population in the German speaking world (and I'm sure elsewhere too) that just views nuclear power as something unnatural and perverted. Something that's always going to be more dangerous than beneficial. I think this notion started even before the Chernobyl accident but that plus Fukushima really reaffirmed the fears lots of people had. It's a very shor…

my personal experience living in several places in Germany: the whole appeal to nature argument is unreasonably effective here. Most germans will try an array of homeopathic remedies before taking ibuprofen. Most GP doctors advertise a secondary expertise in some woo or other, be it homeopathy, crystals, or osteopathy. It is downright tricky to find a doctor who will give you evidence based pharmaceuticals for your c…

> I can't tell you how many times I've come home from a doctor to look up the "medicine" they gave me, to find that it's some variant of hyper-diluted rosewater.

Non-Germans might be shocked to find that most public/mandatory health insurers actually cover this. Even the language reflect this, since they're called "homeopathic pharmaceuticals".

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