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Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

spiegel.de

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Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#111

Post by _n_b_ »

cycomanic wrote: post #16
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?

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…

> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas.

Nope. Pre-Ukraine conflict, 55% of Germany's gas came from Russia [1]. In 2021, 19.69% of Europe's Uranium came from Russia [2].

And fundamentally, the relative energy density of enriched uranium means that it's much easier to shift from one source to another versus gas.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-reliant-is...

[2] https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-observ...

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#112

Post by Kamq »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

As a German I don't care. I just want two things: 1. The energy company pays market rate insurance for their nuclear plants. Not "we take the profit, taxpayers pay for the disaster" 2. The energy company sets up a trust to pay for the safe storage of nuclear waste and cleaning up the plant should they go bust (again "we take ...")

That's entirely fair, but shouldn't other types of plants be expected to do the same things? My understanding is that they aren't currently (could be different in Germany).

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#113

Post by bildung »

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?

Germany never had energy independence in nuclear. Yes, Germany has/had plants, but nothing like enrichment etc. The reason is geopolitics: Germany started two world wars, and noone wanted to have a postwar Germany capable of building nukes.

That link between nuclear proliferation and nuclear energy production is sadly often missing from the discussion here. No country builds nuclear reactors only for the energy. It's always for the nukes. Nuclear energy has always been expensive and has been massively subsidized since inception.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#114

Post by ReadTheLicense »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

As a German I don't care. I just want two things: 1. The energy company pays market rate insurance for their nuclear plants. Not "we take the profit, taxpayers pay for the disaster" 2. The energy company sets up a trust to pay for the safe storage of nuclear waste and cleaning up the plant should they go bust (again "we take ...")

No post body was provided.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#115

Post by orbifold »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

As a German I don't care. I just want two things: 1. The energy company pays market rate insurance for their nuclear plants. Not "we take the profit, taxpayers pay for the disaster" 2. The energy company sets up a trust to pay for the safe storage of nuclear waste and cleaning up the plant should they go bust (again "we take ...")

Great but I want the same deal for the coal and gas companies that produce electricity, make them responsible for every ton of CO2 they emitted and make them responsible for removing it from the atmosphere.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#116

Post by kergonath »

cycomanic wrote: post #16
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?

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…

> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas.

This is very misleading, comparing EU imports on one side and Germany on the other. The biggest uranium reserves are in Kazakhstan, Canada, and South Africa. At the moment, uranium used in Europe comes from Niger, Russia and Kazakhstan in about the same quantities (2500 tons each), followed by Canada (2300 tons) and Namibia (1600 tons).

Overall, Russian uranium is ~20% of EU imports. For gas it was ~40% (~20% for Germany), and for oil ~30%. Also, both oil and uranium are easily imported by boat, whereas gas was so cheap because of the pipelines. So, not really comparable overall.

Switching uranium suppliers costs nothing. Switching gas suppliers renders huge infrastructure investments worthless.

It has been obvious for quite a while that structural dependency on Russian gas was a huge strategic mistake. Doing without will be much more painful than not doing it in the first place.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#117

Post by the8472 »

koheripbal wrote: post #98
looperhacks wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are referring to the latest discussion about a specific plant (Isar 2), the company running the plant (e.on) wants to shut it down. The discussion came up because the TÜV Süd (internationally mostly known for certifying that dam in Brazil one year before it killed 270 people because it was not safe and broke) certified that the plant is safe, but pretty much everyone involved claimed that the certificate is bo…

There are three remaining plants in Germany, all scheduled to shut down this year. The Government doubled-down on it's decision claiming that the plants didn't have the resources to continue operations. In a rare moment, the operators of the plants embarrassed the gov't by going public that they could indeed continue to run safely. One thing to note is that the prime minister appointed the head German head of Greenpe…

She isn't responsible for energy, infrastructure or finance, which should be responsible departments regarding the power plants.

> On February 8, 2022, it was announced that she was to be appointed to the Federal Republic of Germany's Federal Foreign Office as a special representative for international climate policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Morgan_(activist)

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#118

Post by everyone »

I'm worried Russia will cause an "accident" at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine in order to make nuclear less popular with the EU public, and keep the EU dependant on oil.

I definitely wouldn't put it past them, considering all the war crimes they have committed so far.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#119

Post by Kon5ole »

rullelito wrote: post #102
KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

As a German I don't care. I just want two things: 1. The energy company pays market rate insurance for their nuclear plants. Not "we take the profit, taxpayers pay for the disaster" 2. The energy company sets up a trust to pay for the safe storage of nuclear waste and cleaning up the plant should they go bust (again "we take ...")

Isn't this already how it works?

No, see for example the Asse II mine, where taxpayers must pay for relocating nuclear waste since the operator no longer exists as a going concern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine

As far as I have been able to determine this is in fact how nuclear power is run in most of the world. Nuclear power is heavily subsidized by borrowing money from future generations. We are currently entering that future, as for example France has noticed recently. According to recent news stories their operator is 40 bn in debt and needs to make 50bn more in investments to keep plants running, meaning it has charged at least 110 bn too little for the power it sold in decades past.

One of the major downsides of nuclear power is that whenever the nuclear operator runs out of money, taxpayers absolutely have to pay, there is no option not to. From a cynical financial perspective this effectively means nuclear power has limitless credit and can sell power for fantasy pricing, way less than it actually costs.

So to the GP's point, if nuclear had to pay the actual, future costs of the energy it provides today, and it was baked in to the price per kWh it sells on the open market, we'd be better informed about the correct course of action.

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