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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

#471

Post by kdbeall_ »

freemint wrote: post #460
kdbeall_ wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy density and availability of materials. Li-S ballpark is 550 Wh/kg while conventional lithium-ion is around 200 Wh/kg. Using nickel, cobalt, and other expensive metals is not scalable.

Newer Battery Electric vehicle of similar size are not really much heavier then combustion cars of the same size. That boost in weight savings (and poorer duty cycles) would make such more sense for airplanes than cars. The Nickel and Cobalt parts have been declining for decades and are low percentages of *-ode material, especially in cars which are no volume constrained. Only smartphone batteries or similar applianc…

Yeah, LFP is arguably good enough for 80% of all EVs is my guess. Arguably it is also good enough for energy storage as well. However, for EVs, LFP doesn't have as high energy density. Something like 70% of all cobalt is mined in the DRC. I still think there will need to be more advanced and affordable battery chemistries before there is ubiquitous battery energy storage and EV adoption.

This is why something like Li-S is the holy grail of batteries.

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

#472

Post by nl »

dzikimarian wrote: post #409
nl wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what side of the argument you are on. My point is that authoritarian regimes are possible anywhere; they lead to information being surpressed; and this could be dangerous in the case of nuclear reactors. The example of Russia seems an excellent example of the same pattern.

Not sure if I have to pick a side. Usually there's some truth at both ends. :-) My point is, that chance of USSR-like regime in western Europe are pretty low, and being afraid to do anything, because it might be used by this hypothetical regime will probably cause more harm than good. For eg. right now we're feeding Russia with money, which is guaranteed to be bad for us in the long run. I assume we are doing that, b…

> that chance of USSR-like regime in western Europe are pretty low

Why? Surely if Brexit or Berlusconi or Le Pen or Orban or Erdogan shows us anything it shows how democratic outcomes are unpredictable, especially over the 50 year plus timeframe of a Nuclear Plant.

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

#473

Post by nl »

kaba0 wrote: post #457
nl wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is it different than shelling a water dam? I would wager it is much easier to do huge harm that way than to shell a concrete hull made to withstand two planes simultaneously hitting it, or even cutting the main pipe in half, which will still safely shut down the plant. The only real (and exceptionally tiny) risk with modern nuclear plants is some contamination, but it needs several several fuckups to happen even…

No exclusion zone is needed after a dam breach.

A reactor rupture causes widespread contamination even with modern reactors. There is nothing at all in modern designs that stops that.

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

#474

Post by belorn »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #459
belorn wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk that continuing buying gas from Russia will cause more war and further destruction is higher than the risk that continuing operations of nuclear power will cause a nuclear accident. We can call names if we want. Continuing heating the planet up by burning fossil fuels when we have a cleaner option is stupid and history won't look favorable to fossil fuel advocates. There is a mass extinction occurring all ov…

> Utterly madness how afraid people are to something which won't occur. What you are doing here is a perversion of facts and opinions. Nobody is afraid of a nuclear incident caused by an earthquake in Germany. Nobody in this thread was talking about it. The examples of Fukushima or Chernobyl were provided only as examples of unforeseen events, that illustrate why safety must be taken seriously, why any „acceleration“…

> Germany stopping buying gas now will neither stop the war, nor it will prevent Russian military from receiving money from Russian government

Please provide your facts that providing Russia with more funds won't prolong and extend their war in Europe.

We can call your assertion a perversion of facts and opinions if you like. It is absolutely fact-less to say that immediate stop will not have a significant positive impact. An opinion one might say.

It is a fact that nation do see the purchase of conflict resources as an contributing factor for prolonging wars. Europe might stop buying fossil fuels from Russia in 5-10-20 years from now. It is also a Fact that we don't know if it will be too late, what Russia will do in the mean time, nor how they will react to more sanctions. The risk is that Russia will invade more countries if funding continue is only something which people can estimate, like the risk that a nuclear accident might occur within that time frame.

Please provide your crystal ball for inspection.

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

#475

Post by bayesian_horse »

someguydave wrote: post #402
bayesian_horse wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the likelihood of even the remaining nuclear reactors having serious accidents is higher than Russia trying something successfully against Germany. You can say to Putin: "You and what army?" It looks like virtually any NATO member state would be able to defend itself alone against the conventional army of Russia, much less with allied help. Nuclear weapons is another topic, but those won't be affected by short…

Can you actually quantify these risks like the article does?

Nobody can quantify these risks and that's a big problem. Assuming the risk conforms to what happened before is a dangerous fallacy. For example so far nobody purposefully sabotaged a plant, stole radioactive material for dirty bombs and no semi-rogue country used a nuclear weapon. None of that risk is quantifiable.

But what happened in Fukushima or Tschernobyl is bad enough. The damage caused by the Fukushima incident might well run into the trillion US Dollar range. No, it's not cleaned up yet, they still don't really know what to do with all the soil and how to demolish the plant. You really don't want anything like that happening in your country, even at the low probabilities the nuclear lobby claims.

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

#476

Post by dzikimarian »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #463
dzikimarian wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't dislike nuclear power because we hate the proponents of nuclear power and vice versa. You're right. We need to go one level deeper on that. Germans hate nuclear power, because they were subject to well constructed propaganda, that very well exploited Chernobyl events. This propaganda was result of political plays, but did not called to any political views by itself. Thus the current situation, where most G…

Your labeling of "political plays" and "propaganda" is entirely arbitrary. You neglect that those who did what you say is "propaganda" were just as worried about the technology. The fact is there are lots of legitimate concerns about the risks around nuclear technology, with and without nuclear weapons in the mix. Opposition to nuclear power is driven by a different tolerance of such risk and especially a lower trust…

Dear Western Freunde, please tell me what should happen for you to think my reasons are legitimate?

Let me tell you some facts: * Current number of nuclear plants in the world:440 (103 in EU) * Current number of high profile nuclear plant failures in the world: 2 * Direct victims of the nuclear plants failures: less,than 300(direct), less than 19k (indirect, non confirmed) * Coal victims:800k PER YEAR. This x40 as much. * Just for the comparison - wind power death tool is similar to nuclear plants.

Enshuldigung, aber, if anyone is on arbitrary side it's you(in my opinion). No hard feelings. My country had bias for the miners also, which pushed us for many shitty decisions.

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

#477

Post by freemint »

kdbeall_ wrote: post #471
freemint wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer Battery Electric vehicle of similar size are not really much heavier then combustion cars of the same size. That boost in weight savings (and poorer duty cycles) would make such more sense for airplanes than cars. The Nickel and Cobalt parts have been declining for decades and are low percentages of *-ode material, especially in cars which are no volume constrained. Only smartphone batteries or similar applianc…

Yeah, LFP is arguably good enough for 80% of all EVs is my guess. Arguably it is also good enough for energy storage as well. However, for EVs, LFP doesn't have as high energy density. Something like 70% of all cobalt is mined in the DRC. I still think there will need to be more advanced and affordable battery chemistries before there is ubiquitous battery energy storage and EV adoption. This is why something like Li…

LFP doesn't have as high cells densities, however on a packaging level (due to their higher stability) next gen LFP seems to be on par with this gen Li-Ion. Also quick charging and cold resistance of LFP is a big improvement.

I would rather see Li-S be used in planes where inspections are common unlike cars.

For grid storage neither is ideal, as you really want to decouple (dis)charging from capacity. Subterranean normal pressure hydrogen storage (using geological structures like salt caves) or flow batteries seem more promising for that reason.

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

#478

Post by kdbeall_ »

freemint wrote: post #477
kdbeall_ wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, LFP is arguably good enough for 80% of all EVs is my guess. Arguably it is also good enough for energy storage as well. However, for EVs, LFP doesn't have as high energy density. Something like 70% of all cobalt is mined in the DRC. I still think there will need to be more advanced and affordable battery chemistries before there is ubiquitous battery energy storage and EV adoption. This is why something like Li…

LFP doesn't have as high cells densities, however on a packaging level (due to their higher stability) next gen LFP seems to be on par with this gen Li-Ion. Also quick charging and cold resistance of LFP is a big improvement. I would rather see Li-S be used in planes where inspections are common unlike cars. For grid storage neither is ideal, as you really want to decouple (dis)charging from capacity. Subterranean no…

Vanadium redox flow batteries have energy densities of ~10–20 Wh/kg. But for grid storage I think even sodium-ion batteries would be a better candidate. Those have energy densities of ~150 Wh/kg. Vanadium is mostly produced as a byproduct of mining magnetite iron ore deposits. So, sodium-ion is less dependent on the output of handful of mines globally.

Having a hydrogen economy is overall pretty inefficient. I think it's largely a dead end. We do not need multi-year energy storage. Seasonal storage is needed at most. Lithium-ion batteries have self-discharge rates of around 2% per month. Even if the batteries lose ~10% over a few months that's an acceptable loss and is superior to the inefficiencies inherent in hydrogen production via electrolysis and the subsequent use of stored hydrogen via fuel-cells — which require platinum-group metals.

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

#479

Post by bayesian_horse »

dzikimarian wrote: post #476
bayesian_horse wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your labeling of "political plays" and "propaganda" is entirely arbitrary. You neglect that those who did what you say is "propaganda" were just as worried about the technology. The fact is there are lots of legitimate concerns about the risks around nuclear technology, with and without nuclear weapons in the mix. Opposition to nuclear power is driven by a different tolerance of such risk and especially a lower trust…

Dear Western Freunde, please tell me what should happen for you to think my reasons are legitimate? Let me tell you some facts: * Current number of nuclear plants in the world:440 (103 in EU) * Current number of high profile nuclear plant failures in the world: 2 * Direct victims of the nuclear plants failures: less,than 300(direct), less than 19k (indirect, non confirmed) * Coal victims:800k PER YEAR. This x40 as mu…

It's a fallacy to assume future risks can be calculated from past data. In the case of nuclear power this is is especially dangerous.

You are simply lying and dishonest. Coal is not the only alternative to nuclear power. Nor can you stop climate change with the level of nuclear power (and thus risk thereof) we have right now. There would need to be a nuclear industry in virtually every country, including the less trustworthy ones.

You think the situation around nuclear weapons right now is contained? Wait until most of Asia and Africa have nuclear plants and can think about weaponization. Dirty bombs with stolen nuclear waste within a few decades are almost guaranteed.

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

#480

Post by dzikimarian »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #479
dzikimarian wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear Western Freunde, please tell me what should happen for you to think my reasons are legitimate? Let me tell you some facts: * Current number of nuclear plants in the world:440 (103 in EU) * Current number of high profile nuclear plant failures in the world: 2 * Direct victims of the nuclear plants failures: less,than 300(direct), less than 19k (indirect, non confirmed) * Coal victims:800k PER YEAR. This x40 as mu…

It's a fallacy to assume future risks can be calculated from past data. In the case of nuclear power this is is especially dangerous. You are simply lying and dishonest. Coal is not the only alternative to nuclear power. Nor can you stop climate change with the level of nuclear power (and thus risk thereof) we have right now. There would need to be a nuclear industry in virtually every country, including the less tru…

> Wait until most of Asia and Africa have nuclear plants and can think about weaponization.

Good thing, that decisions in Europe will stop Asia and Africa :) /s

> You are simply lying and dishonest.

Where exactly?

> Coal is not the only alternative to nuclear power.

What is? Assuming you need this in "virtually every country", and some of the richest (such as Germany) fail to implement alternatives, you expect "less thrustworthy" to somehow manage it?

> Dirty bombs with stolen nuclear waste within a few decades are almost guaranteed.

And again, how exactly blocking nuclear plants in Germany changes anything here?

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