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

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#221

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #35

It is interesting to note how everyone talks about the dependency on gas in Germany, while nobody mentions France. If we look at the two graphs: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/En... https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/abm6r4/germanys_en... We can see that both Germany and France use about the same percentage of gas in their energy mix. Making this discussion a reason to revive nuclear…

France unforunatly stopped investing in nuclear in the 1990s, from 1970-2000 their total nuclear power production went up, but then if flatlined. That is why they have problmes now.

They had next generation plants ready to be rolled out, but because of the politics at the time never produced them in large numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#222

Post by perbu » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

zemvpferreira wrote: post #185

Gwypaas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pitting nuclear against coal is fighting a straw man. The alternative is renewables. With a tiny fraction of the negative side-effects either nuclear or of fossil energy brings.

It's most certainly not, since for every kW of installed renewables another kW of gas capacity must be installed to compensate for intermittency. That said, no reason why the original deal can't be extended to renewables, seems perfectly fair. It's to everyone's benefit that all methods of power generation be held accountable for all their costs.

You know, for the last couple of months we learned quite a bit about the reliability of gas power.

It's not really that great.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#223

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #68

swsieber wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that France has been increasing the amount of nuclear in their mix, I think it's worth discussing nuclear for Germany and renewable for France.

But they haven't, did you look at the graph (here is another one for electricity only https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:France_Electricity_prod... )? The portion of nuclear has remained constant since the late 90s. Also France at the moment has turned off between 40 and 100% (I read about 40%, but saw 100% on TV some weeks ago) of their nuclear power plants, due to heat and maintance. Guess who is picking up the s…

> The portion of nuclear has remained constant since the late 90s.

That just reflects the failure of French state to continue to invest. The socialist and green party based on general anti-nuclear sentiment stopped much of the investment.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#224

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:17 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…

But Uranium can be found in many places and its very easy to transport. You are not actually dependent on Russia.

> This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence.

You know what would have been a much, much, much bigger step? To keep nuclear and invest in nuclear instead of gas and coal.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#225

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:19 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?

Germany didn't think rationally. Nuclear was strongly associated with cold war and nuclear bombs.

Berlin is incredibly anti-nuclear. When I lived there, even when there was little going on, you would see constant anti-nuclear propaganda. Lots of anti-nuclear footmats and stickers.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#226

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #64

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 US imported gas from Saudi Arabia and other states that They were in conflicts with the US a lot. I mean 911 was pretty much all Saudi Arabian terrorists. With other nations like Iraq, Iran as well though depending on who ran it and who the president was. I believe the US is producing enough oil domestically. Yet I know the US was importing oil from Russia prior to the Ukraine war. States like the US or EU do it…

> I mean 911 was pretty much all Saudi Arabian terrorists.

The leader had a German passport and his main motivation was Israel attack on Lebanon.

US mostly didn't depend on middle-east oil, the US wanted middle-east oil to make sure that Europe and Asia didn't go communist.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#227

Post by philipkglass » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #214

Jansemon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 competiti…

In France the price of electricity is incredibly low so of course power was very subsidized. However the investment in nuclear in France still payed of big time. Consider a alternative solution where you use coal power, the only realistic alternative at the time. Coal is absolutely horrible for air quality and incredibly destructive to the environment. Any rational person would say it a huge advantage for a country t…

France's newest operating reactor, Civaux 2, entered commercial operation in 2002:

https://www.world-nuclear.org/reactor/default.aspx/CIVAUX-2

France started building its first unit of the next-generation EPR at Flamanville in 2007:

https://www.world-nuclear.org/reactor/default.aspx/FLAMANVIL...

There was a ~5 year gap where France stopped work on adding reactors. France would probably be building more EPRs now if the planned 5-year construction of Flamanville 3 hadn't stretched out to 15 years:

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

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#228

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

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…

This is completely wrong. Literally almost the opposite is true.

There are lots and lots of countries who use nuclear civilian energy and don't have nuclear weapons.

While at the same time there are lots of countries who have nuclear weapons but no civilian nuclear power.

In fact, it would be more accurate to say that countries who have civilian nuclear power are less likely to have nuclear weapons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...

The NPT allows countries to have civilian nuclear power but not nuclear weapons, and many do. My country, Switzerland being an example. Japan is a large country where this applies as well.

The connection between civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons is almost non existent. Countries that want nuclear weapons, just get them directly, they don't develop civilian nuclear power first.

So please stop spreading this harmful misinformation.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#229

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

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.

If you essentially stop any technology progress for 40 years in one technology, other technologies might catuch up.

But there is a MASSIVE amount of potential for nuclear to be cheaper and better.

People in 2000~ were more then happy to predict massive improvement in cost for renewables if money was invested but absolutely denied that the same could happen with nuclear.

Had the same amount been invested in nuclear, prices there could also have changed.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#230

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #25

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…

> because their anti-nuclear environmental groups were actually being funded by Russia behind the scenes. I am German and very pro nuclear, but this is conspiracy bs. And why make such a grand claim without a single source?

Its not a conspiracy. Its for certain that there was a real anti nuclear movement but its also true that fossil industry and Russia spent money to fund these efforts.

So it happened but how effective it was is questionable.