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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

#151

Post by p1mrx »

balentio wrote: post #44
Cwizard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. To use an old phrase, shit happens. When it happens where a Nuclear Power Plant is, the happening continues for a very, very long time. That kind of liability is not worth the risk and of course…

There are ways to design a nuclear plant that reduce the probability of shit happening by orders of magnitude. We should focus on building plants that can shut down using only passive systems with no human action.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#152

Post by GordonS »

formerly_proven wrote: post #51
Cwizard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you asked 100 random people on the street, I'll bet most would say the Fukushima nuclear disaster killed hundreds or thousands of people.

As a single data point, I just asked my wife (who, for background, is well educated and pays close attention to the news), and her guess was "hundreds".

The modern mass media has a lot to answer for.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#154

Post by osigurdson »

ALittleLight wrote: post #71
osigurdson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think “power plant disaster”, what power plant instantly comes to mind? It’s a powerful “brand” that is quite difficult to displace in people’s minds. That is the problem to solve.

I think of hydroelectric dams which can destroy whole towns. There is a single hydroelectric disaster that has killed many more people than all nuclear incidents put together.

Ok!

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#155

Post by scythe »

BonoboIO wrote: post #138

Meanwhile in France. Because the temperatures are so high and the continuing drought, the nuclear power plants have to decrease their power output. The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream. Everything would slowly cook in the rivers … Even with temporal exceptions of this environmental rules France became a NET IMPORTER of power. France is like…

The major concern going forward, with solar representing an increasing proportion of generation, is energy shortfalls in winter. Overheating is not likely to be a serious problem in this case.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#156

Post by Jansemon »

BonoboIO wrote: post #138

Meanwhile in France. Because the temperatures are so high and the continuing drought, the nuclear power plants have to decrease their power output. The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream. Everything would slowly cook in the rivers … Even with temporal exceptions of this environmental rules France became a NET IMPORTER of power. France is like…

Yeah, and aren't like have the plants currently not working, either because it's to hot or they're in maintenance or it's too expensive to repair them? And EDF, the biggest company behind nuclear power generation has huge amounts of debt and needs (is?) to be nationalized?

From what I can gather, nuclear power was never cheap. It seems no country calculates the real cost - everything's subsidized to be even competitive. In Germany, after the power companies reaped the profits, they said they need to be subsidized to dismantle them, as the costs were to high.

The waste disposal seems to be also subsidized (be it that the state searches for locations and builds them?) or

Building those new and plants seems to be a gigantic money pit - look at the UK. Didn't they surpass the 30 billion mark and no end in sight? And that they can't be built fast?

And who talkes about the real environmental (even CO2) cost to even produce a fuel rod?

Everybody points to France as the poster boy for nuclear power. But it seems that it is a total disaster.

Unfortunatley in German, but can maybe translated:

https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2022-08/deutschland-fran...

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#157

Post by mpweiher »

bildung wrote: post #113
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…

> but nothing like enrichment etc

Sure about that?

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urananreicherungsanlage_Gronau

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#158

Post by mccorrinall »

LatteLazy wrote: post #139
627467 wrote: post #86

Can't help but observe on how incapable are human societies to make long term critical rational decisions. It never really made sense to say "we are going to phase out nuclear entirely" instead of "we'll focus on how to build safer, cheaper and more efficient nuclear". The decision to go off nuclear was capricious and it seems that the speed with which sentiment is changing only proves this.

Nuclear requires exactly the sort of long term rational decision making you decry the lack of. That's the nice thing about other energy sources, they don't require 1000 years of self discipline and self denial...

Exactly. Why did holes into the earth to store toxic waste when you have literally infinite energy right above your head (sun and wind)?

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#159

Post by markvdb »

Gwypaas wrote: post #60
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 tri…

> 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.

Please do clarify. I am intimately familiar with one of those Baltic states, but fail to see what you mean.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#160

Post by amadeuspagel »

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.

That's not comparable because the energy density of Uraniam is much higher, sufficient Uraniam can be imported from anywhere with any kind of transportation, so wherever the Uraniam comes from now, it can easily be imported from many other countries and doesn't make us dependent on anyone.

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