Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

spiegel.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 304 posts

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#51

Post by formerly_proven »

Cwizard wrote: post #37
osigurdson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not German, but I suspect memories of Fukushima and Chernobyl could be weighing on the minds of some. Perhaps this is an irrational concern but people are not necessarily rational - particularly when randomly polled on topics they know little about.

What I don’t understand is how those two incidents are even relevant. Chernobyl happened because of a faulty design + mismanagement and Fukushima was located on a region prone to earthquakes/tsunami’s caused by earthquakes. The factors do not really apply to Germany. And even if it did, the deaths caused by those accidents were quite low. Meanwhile coal pollution is killing people by the thousands but this is somehow…

The irrational fear-factor associated with anything nuclear is highlighted by how much attention Fukushima, the nuclear disaster, which gravely injured like a dozen people, gets relative to the earthquake and tsunami causing it, which killed 20k people and leveled a huge stretch of coast.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#52

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

ed_balls wrote: post #50
cgb223 wrote: post #6

Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable to give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy it from their potential adversary in Russia? What possible advantages are there to buying the resource that literally keeps the lights on from a country that you have conflicts with?

Because of geopolitics, the rest is just hypocrisy. Germany and France wanted to build the Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok with help from Russia. That new Europe would became a 3rd power (after US and China) It's a good match. They can get cheap resources from Russia, manufacturing can be move from China to Siberia where pollution is not a big problem. Russia would balance China, so no need for massive military spe…

Seems like a stretch to say Germany wants Russia to invade Ukraine...

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#53

Post by ed_balls »

DrBazza wrote: post #21
cycomanic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves. When the Green/Social Democrat coalition under Schröder decided on stopping nuclear the idea was to largely exchange that for renewables (and the German wind and solar industry was leading in the world at the time). This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence. The coal, nuclear a…

Is that right? Almost 50% of the world’s uranium comes from Khazakstan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...

Ukraine has a large deposit of uranium as well.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#54

Post by cinntaile »

hash07e wrote: post #30
rowanG077 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really equating sanctions with full on war?

Yes Us providing guns and trainning is not war? Eu providing arms and guns is not war? Economic sanctions are not war? War is not a movie with bang. War is happening now. It started when they sunk the war ship russian..

Ukraine sank the war ship as far as I know? I do not consider providing supplies war, the same goes for economic sanctions.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#55

Post by formerly_proven »

hash07e wrote: post #30
rowanG077 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really equating sanctions with full on war?

Yes Us providing guns and trainning is not war? Eu providing arms and guns is not war? Economic sanctions are not war? War is not a movie with bang. War is happening now. It started when they sunk the war ship russian..

> War is happening now.

> It started when they sunk the war ship russian..

I'm sensing this is a (((they))) kind of they.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#56

Post by slfnflctd »

Brigand wrote: post #32
cgb223 wrote: post #6

Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable to give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy it from their potential adversary in Russia? What possible advantages are there to buying the resource that literally keeps the lights on from a country that you have conflicts with?

Aren’t renewables already more cost effective than nuclear? See for example here: https://energycentral.com/c/ec/comparing-costs-renewable-and... Storage issues might be solved before new nuclear plants go online at the current pace of progress. Perhaps a few years of gas until the renewable infrastructure is set up will suffice? At least the issue does not seem to be as clear cut as most people claim they are.

> Storage issues might be solved

The problem as I see it as that any '100% renewable' solution which could be ramped up relatively quickly would necessitate technology that doesn't exist yet. Of course there will be some progress in tech, but we have no way to predict exactly what it will be. It will also be extremely expensive simply due to the massive scale required, and there are numerous powerful & well funded groups who will throw down roadblocks along the way.

The reality is that we will continue to use fossil fuels for a long time. While nuclear energy is our best low-carbon option for baseline power, we probably aren't going to be able to build new generators quickly enough to displace natural gas usage for decades, and that's only if it's politically possible to do so. Which continues to appear to be a long shot.

In short, we're holding our collective breath for a 'hail Mary' breakthrough that somehow cuts through all the intractable quandaries and gives us a viable path forward. In the mean time, the increase in severe climate events will destabilize nations and make it even harder to reach the kinds of major agreements needed to go down such a path.

It's probably a good idea to either own land or have friends in an area near a large freshwater lake that isn't prone to flooding and has a history of handling both extreme heat and extreme cold. There's no way of knowing whether you'll end up embroiled in civil unrest or full blown war in such an area, but at least you can limit the number & types of risks you need to worry about.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#57

Post by ed_balls »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #52
ed_balls wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of geopolitics, the rest is just hypocrisy. Germany and France wanted to build the Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok with help from Russia. That new Europe would became a 3rd power (after US and China) It's a good match. They can get cheap resources from Russia, manufacturing can be move from China to Siberia where pollution is not a big problem. Russia would balance China, so no need for massive military spe…

Seems like a stretch to say Germany wants Russia to invade Ukraine...

I haven't said that. They want to go back to status quo ante, hence "French President Emmanuel Macron has sparked a new wave of criticism and incomprehension over his calls to avoid humiliating Russia in Ukraine"

Also, that's the reason why Germany was relying on gas from Russia. They are not idiots. It was not a stupid single point of failure, but geopolitics.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#58

Post by Kim_Bruning »

cinntaile wrote: post #13
ren_engineer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because their anti-nuclear environmental groups were actually being funded by Russia behind the scenes. And there are still fools who think that economic integration somehow prevents wars, which was shown to be false after WWI. These people said if Europe just paid a bunch of money for Russian energy they'd obviously never attack them. See what's happening with China and the US as more proof that handing over your ec…

Russia and the EU aren't at war, neither is the US and China. You haven't really proven that economic integration doesn't prevent wars.

In context your statement makes sense.

Though, this being HN, I'd like to point out that you are technically correct, the best kind of correct. There is no official declaration of war between the EU and Russia (even if one could figure out how to do that).

Of course in practice there is very much a proxy war going on on Ukrainian soil. It is being done fairly openly at that: Weapons shipments are mentioned on the news, and eg. the movements of EU-based AWACS and Drones (patrolling along borders and over black sea, peeking in and providing intelligence) are also not hidden.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#59

Post by dewclin »

dark-star wrote: post #36
cgb223 wrote: post #6

Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable to give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy it from their potential adversary in Russia? What possible advantages are there to buying the resource that literally keeps the lights on from a country that you have conflicts with?

Because the Green Party (which was founded as direct result of the Chernobyl desaster) has been pushing their irrational agenda against nuclear power. They deliberately ignored any scientific arguments that were even slightly in favor of nuclear. The Greens have brought some very necessary ecological improvements that would otherwise not have happened (probably), but their continuous crusade against anything nuclear,…

> the Green Party (which was founded as direct result of the Chernobyl disaster)

Chernobyl was 1986 and the West German green party existed before that:

> Alliance 90/The Greens ... is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Germany in 1990) [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_90/The_Greens

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#60

Post by Gwypaas »

cgb223 wrote: post #6

Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable to give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy it from their potential adversary in Russia? What possible advantages are there to buying the resource that literally keeps the lights on from a country that you have conflicts with?

> Can any Germans on HN explain why Germany finds it preferable to give up their energy independence in nuclear and instead buy it from their potential adversary in Russia?

Because the only method shown to prevent war in Europe is co-dependence. EU is founded on integrating the belligerents of WW2 close enough that it would be unthinkable to happen again.

The same method, which at least has worked previously, was tried with Russia and now 30 years later, or more likely in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea we can conclude that Russia is different in some core way of thinking. Not too different though, looking at how the Baltic states have developed when given the choice and chance.

The alternative scenario, with a Russia still riding on the tail ends of soviet military might in steep decline not even given a chance in the early 2000s seems like a recipe for an even worse outcome than we have today.

Post reply on HN