Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#161

Post by galacticaactual » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:22 PM UTC

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...

Really? Because self denial and lack of self discipline is how western society got to a point where the majority of its raw material supply chain and processing capability for green energy hardware (like solar panels) is dependent on an autocratic and genocidal communist country.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#162

Post by _Algernon_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:23 PM UTC

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #149

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…

Just use cooling towers... Edit: I'm getting rate-limited, so my answer to the genius observation below, that cooling towers also need water, is the following: Cooling towers evaporate water. Thus the concerns of OP do not apply about overheating the river downstream: >The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream

Cooling towers require a coolant, which is normally water...

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#163

Post by aagd » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

In Europe, France is the country, which put most of their eggs in the nuclear basket. They have a massive problem with that setup these days, 28 of 56 of the plants are down. Many of the remaining have serious cooling problems because huge rivers like the Loire, have almost dried out. Despite plans to fill all gas storage for next winter, German gas plants still run on full throttle to support France with their current nuclear problems.

https://www.google.com/search?q=loire+drought&tbm=isch

https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/plusminus/teurer-strom-wie...

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#164

Post by _ph_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

gsatic wrote: post #82

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?

Also if Russia stops the war tomorrow, is Germany not going to return to their old arrangements?

Both are very unlikely. It has been widely acknowledged that the energy dependency from Russia was a big mistake. And of course, Germany should be on the trajectory to get rid of all fossil fuel usage. So unless the war ends tomorrow (which unfortuantely it won't), there is really no way back.

We will also have to see whether this war ends in another nuclear disaster, I have serious concerns it could considering the Russian military actions around the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. This would of course kill nuclear entirely. The region in Bavaria, where I live, is still quite contaminated from Chernobyl, we really don't need more of that stuff.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#165

Post by amadeuspagel » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

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?

The way I remember this, after the Fukushima disaster there were some state level elections, the center-right parties that had until then supported nuclear lost one or two of these elections due to voter panic about Fukushima and then abandoned their support for nuclear. I really think that if the state level election calender had been different, germany would still use nuclear power today.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#166

Post by londons_explore » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

_Algernon_ wrote: post #162

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use cooling towers... Edit: I'm getting rate-limited, so my answer to the genius observation below, that cooling towers also need water, is the following: Cooling towers evaporate water. Thus the concerns of OP do not apply about overheating the river downstream: >The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream

Cooling towers require a coolant, which is normally water...

Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water than cooling directly with river water and returning hot water to the river.

About 20x less for the same energy generation.

And the water ends up in the atmosphere so usually will end up in additional rain elsewhere in France.

You effectively get to use the same water twice, so instead of being 20x less water, it is infinity x less water.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#167

Post by gaius_baltar » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

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…

> It is important to remember that Germany has still very strong manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over the government.

Good for them to not get rid of their industrial base otherwise they will depend on China more than the USA (that was (still?) proud of becoming a service economy) does.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#168

Post by _ph_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

osigurdson wrote: post #11

Having to “cuddle under blankets” is one thing, frozen pipes and water damage is another.

Why would you think, pipes would be freezing? Besides the fact that due to climate change really cold winters have been rare, the current szenario just is to reduce room temperature to like 19 degrees, not stop heating alltogether.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#169

Post by pyuser583 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

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 ...")

1. You can only insure against losses to the insured. Most of the concerns regarding externalities. Insurance only will help if you have a legal regime that allows people injured by the externalities to be made while from the insured.

Imagine you have a situation like the one in Chernobyl: a couple dozen people die. A much larger number of people need to have regular checkups for life, but as a result of said checkups have a normal or slightly longer lifespan.

I’m not sure how health insurance works in Germany, but who pays for the lifetime of checkups? Is the power company liable? Will there be a suit?

The free market rates could fluctuate wildly, but wouldn’t have any relationship to whether nuclear is better than coal.

Also, there’s no guarantee that an a policy would even be offered for more than a year or so. Future insurers might just say, sorry, the admin costs are too much (admin costs could be insane).

2. If the plant goes bust because the government decides to “phase out nuclear” - it’s completely legitimate to ask the government to help with shutdown costs.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#170

Post by _ph_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

everyone wrote: post #118

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.

Me too, especially as that would give Putin a reason to withdraw the troups from the contaminated Ukraine. Considering all the explosions which have been reported around the Saporischschja plant, I am really afraid.