Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

> You are aware that heating is energy?

Yes. My house, that was heated by oil 2 years ago, is heated by electricity today.

> In Germany, it's not, so there's that.

Because Germany has underinvested in electricity plants that cannot be shut down by Putin.

> It would, except this has nothing to do with keeping or ditching nuclear plants.

If Germany had kept their nuclear plants electricity plants (and ideally built a number of new ones) electricity in Europe would be cheaper. Thats just supply and demand.

> The problem at hand is that you can't do this transition on a timescale of a war

I agree you cannot transition in 2 months. I talked about starting in 2014. Shutting down the plants this year is only the culiminatino of a chain of bad decisions about energy.

But I suppose in 2014, the psychological damage was already done. It appears like Germany had already decided to get rid of Nuclear after 2011 / Fukushima. This seems to be driven by fear, more than anything.

Which I suppose is the real problem. This never was about making ration decisions about energy security, being dependent on Russia, etc. All along, this was about fear of "nuclear". The rest just looks like rationalization.

Meanwhile, energy prices have gone up all over Europe, since Germany is only the biggest country to have underinvested in electricity production. Even countries that produce an excess of electricity, like Norway, have the same prices. And believe me, ACER is getting really unpopular here, I would not be surprised if Norway is out of ACER by winter.

Absolutely. No amount of lipstick can transform a pig into a prince[ss], but sadly GIGO still holds and the trash in the ether distracts and stupefies. That is, you can make a potentially smart person into a dumb one.

20 years ago, I was talking with a co-worker, the HR director in the company I used to work in back then. Her background was a PhD in horse breeding. We talked about topics such as this.

She said, based on her background with horses and by watching which of her friends had the most kids, she was not very optimistic about future generations.

From the stats, it looks like it is only the rich (7 digits) and the very poorest that currently have fertility above the replacement rate:

https://twitter.com/CSchmert/status/993934031174725632/photo...

How much that affects the genes, is hard to say, apart from what the horse-breeder's gut feeling was.

Well, my country sadly has virtually no suitable geography for "traditional" hydro. We have dams worth several hundred MW of generation (out of ~9 GW of average generation). So a dam suddenly getting built in your backyard is a non-issue here.

> Good, so you see how the argument that only 2% of natural gas in Germany are not used for energy applications is irrelevant for the issue of replacing residential and industrial heat sources.

Actually the opposite. If I personally could switch away from heating my house with fossil fuels, so could Germans. In principle, it could happen over a few months (depending on the number of electric ovens available in the market, the capacity of the grid, etc), but it is cheaper to do over some number of years.

Obviously, this would cost some money. But basic electric ovens are quite cheap, and Germany is not a poor country. Also, since I already paid that cost personally, I'm not super-inclined to feel sorry for them....

> No, actually it's largely because Germany overinvested in electricity plants that cannot be shut down by Putin.

At best, I would agree that Germany has chosen to switch to expensive energy production. The net output (as opposed to theoretical peak capacity) of renewables is still only about the same as renewables was in 1990, so that is not super-impressive, from a global warming perspective.

I don't believe that the 1990 nuclear industry was as dependent on Russian fuel, as it is today. Har Germany continued to produce electricity in their nuclear plants at the same level as 1990, it would have had the same effect on global warming as their "investment" in renewables have had so far. And any dependence that was created on Russia over this period, was by choice, and could have been reversed.

> but you can't do this on a timescale of years.

Norway made the decision to ban fossil fuels for heating in 2017, effective from 2020. Granted, it affected a smaller (but not insignificant) part of the population. But if there is a will, there is a way.

> You know, that just might have something to do with energy trading across Europe. The fact that Norway's electricity rates are increasing is a sign of healthy market, because it shows that arbitrage works.

I agree. In principle, it is not different from Norway paying full price (and then some) for gasoline/diesel. But they/we are used to to the low prices on electricity, from when local consumption was prioritized. Also, especially after the ban on oil/gas for heating, some feel tricked. So the public reaction is similar to what I imagine it would be in Germany, had Germany stopped all gas imports from Russia overnight. The government may be forced out of the common market before next winter, because of this.

> The problem at hand is that you can't do this transition on a timescale of a war

Maybe I'm being too harsh. My measuring stick is from my own (Norwegian) experience. Britian is not doing much better than Germany, and I would not expect countries like Hungary, the Baltic states, Poland etc to have the economy to turn this around quickly.

Also, Norway is obviously spoiled. We are 100% self-sufficient with renewable electricity, AND we make really good money from exporting oil and gas. We never really had to do the hard choices. (Also, Norway has still had high emissions, due to cold climate and low population density making both heating and transportation very energy intensive, as well as emissions from the oil industry)

France, though, has significantly lower CO2 emissions than Germany, and has had that since forever, even without having the resources that Norway possess. All due to nuclear, and they do it without making massively expensive investments into renewables. More for less, in other words.

So I suppose I predjudiced (postively, but maybe unfairly) when it comes to Germany. I generally expect Germany to be best-in-class when it comes efficiency and rationality, and especially implementation.

So when, in a case like this, it seems like German policies are irrational, especially when compared to French policies, it pops out as an outlier (to me, as an outsider to both Germany and France). I suppose there are good ways to explain this, based on local culture and politics, that go back more than 30 years, maybe all the way back to when France needed their nuclear industry for military use. I suppose these differences, when seen from the inside, are almost invisible because they may be taken for granted.

Maybe, from the German perspective, it is an establish fact that nuclear power is "bad" or "dirty" somehow, while fossil fuel consumption is relatively more acceptable. Maybe the Russian threat is not felt the same way that some other countries feel it. Maybe there is guilt, or maybe the taboo around annexing neighbours is not as strong.

Anyway, maybe best to end this thread. Thanks for staying reasonably polite, and good luck going forward!