Live data from Hacker News

Germany's Energy Catastrophe

quillette.com

1–10 of 171 posts

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#2
Yikes! Totally ignoring the climate impact of nuclear power. Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time). Finally explaining that there were only 28 deaths after the Chernobyl accident, ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer and deformed unborn children. Sorry, this article is totally wrong in so many ways.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#3
post #2

Yikes! Totally ignoring the climate impact of nuclear power. Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time). Finally explaining that there were only 28 deaths after the Chernobyl accident, ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer and deformed unborn children. Sorry, this article is totally wrong in so many ways.

Nuclear is the best option, no? Of course it has risks but given how awful coal and other traditional power sources run it seems to be the best option.

We are only going to use more and more energy, generating and lowering energy costs will be a net positive for all. Especially to support EVs.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#4
post #2

Yikes! Totally ignoring the climate impact of nuclear power. Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time). Finally explaining that there were only 28 deaths after the Chernobyl accident, ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer and deformed unborn children. Sorry, this article is totally wrong in so many ways.

Nuclear is the best option, no? Of course it has risks but given how awful coal and other traditional power sources run it seems to be the best option. We are only going to use more and more energy, generating and lowering energy costs will be a net positive for all. Especially to support EVs.

Well, let's take a look at France: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/business/france-nuclear-p...

> As the European Union moves to cut ties to Russian oil and gas in the wake of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, France has been betting on its nuclear plants to weather a looming energy crunch. Nuclear power provides about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a bigger share than any other country in the world. But the industry has tumbled into an unprecedented power crisis as EDF confronts troubles ranging from the mysterious emergence of stress corrosion inside nuclear plants to a hotter climate that is making it harder to cool the aging reactors. The outages at EDF, Europe’s biggest electricity exporter, have sent France’s nuclear power output tumbling to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, pushing French electric bills to record highs just as the war in Ukraine is stoking broader inflation. Instead of pumping vast amounts of electricity to Britain, Italy and other European countries pivoting from Russian oil, France faces the unsettling prospect of initiating rolling blackouts this winter and having to import power.

Nuclear power is so good that France might have to import energy from German coal power plans next winter to avoid large scale blackouts.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is the best option, no? Of course it has risks but given how awful coal and other traditional power sources run it seems to be the best option. We are only going to use more and more energy, generating and lowering energy costs will be a net positive for all. Especially to support EVs.

Well, let's take a look at France: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/business/france-nuclear-p... > As the European Union moves to cut ties to Russian oil and gas in the wake of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, France has been betting on its nuclear plants to weather a looming energy crunch. Nuclear power provides about 70 percent of France’s electricity, a bigger share than any other country in the world. But the industry…

Like most of the western world, France permitted their nuclear capacity to rot while not making sufficient progress to secure other sources of relatively clean energy.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#6
Germany proceeded with their "nuclear exit" in 2011. Had they gone the other way and all in on nuclear, they would be in the same situation as they are today as planning and building nuclear plants takes a lot longer than 10 years. Actually they would be way worse because instead of having 50% of electricity coming from renewables, they would still have 45% of it coming from coal, instead of 25% in 2020 (did not check the latest numbers). On top of all that, for the price they are paying to get renewables basically today, they could only get a fraction of the energy in nuclear. And if that wasn't enough, one of the largest exporters of uranium to the EU is... Russia.

One of the worst articles I have ever read in my life.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#7
post #2

Yikes! Totally ignoring the climate impact of nuclear power. Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time). Finally explaining that there were only 28 deaths after the Chernobyl accident, ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer and deformed unborn children. Sorry, this article is totally wrong in so many ways.

>>ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer

Which are, at absolute most and at the most pessimistic estimate, at few thousands excess deaths[0]. The same estimates for coal at are thousands.....per year, not for the last 40 years.

[0] https://ascopost.com/issues/may-25-2021/chernobyl-at-35-year...

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#8
post #2

Yikes! Totally ignoring the climate impact of nuclear power. Not understanding that nuclear doesn’t play well with renewables (it is hard to control the output in a short amount of time). Finally explaining that there were only 28 deaths after the Chernobyl accident, ignoring all the additional deaths by cancer and deformed unborn children. Sorry, this article is totally wrong in so many ways.

It needs a catastrophic fail ihre for nuclear to become deadly for the masses. Germany replaced the nuclear power plants with coal and gas based plants whose Modus operandi is deadly for the masses.

Even if you want to shutdown nuclear, Germany did it in an extremely stupid.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#9

Germany proceeded with their "nuclear exit" in 2011. Had they gone the other way and all in on nuclear, they would be in the same situation as they are today as planning and building nuclear plants takes a lot longer than 10 years. Actually they would be way worse because instead of having 50% of electricity coming from renewables, they would still have 45% of it coming from coal, instead of 25% in 2020 (did not chec…

They wouldn't have shut down all the working plants. Not that it matters much, wouldn't have been enough.

Re: Germany's Energy Catastrophe

#10
This op-ed is getting things so utterly wrong, I don‘t even know where to start.

The Energiewende (so cool he can make use of a german word, so much credibility) here in Germany is working just fine. It is a reasonable investment in our future.

The reason natural gas is a problem right now is not that we have insufficient energy. The lack of gas is problematic because it is a preliminary product used in chemical processes. This is where a looming recession might derive from.

On sustainable energy sources: I, as many other germans, receive all of my electricity from purely renewable energy sources for more than ten years now. 24/7.

On nuclear: The cost of nuclear power is wildly underestimated, especially for the generation of nuclear power plants in use right now. They are expensive both in terms of dollars and in terms of their ecological footprint.

Post reply on HN