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Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

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Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#121

Post by worldvoyageur »

dependsontheq wrote: post #87

While I agree that it would have been sensible to phase out coal and then nuclear, the german position is more complex. The fallout from Tschernobyl was measurable in Germany… measurable as in my science teacher measured it in his garden. Up to today boar and mushrooms have an elevated level of radiation in the forests around my home. So this is the emotional background, the risks are not far away. Fukushima gave the…

When Chernobyl happened I was a physics undergrad in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and was spending the summer term on campus. We (the grad students really) went up to the roof of the physics building and started measuring for the radiation. There was much rejoicing when it turned up, which as I imperfectly remember was about two weeks after the incident.

Which is to say, that the radiation could be measured is different from saying that the radiation represented a significant health risk.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#122

Post by legulere »

Lev1a wrote: post #72
squid322 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decision to turn off nuclear plants in Germany was __not__ made by the greens. It was made years ago by the CDU after Fukushima.

> after Fukushima And can we talk about how stupid and actively malicious it is to use the Fukushima accident as a reason for shutting down nuclear plants in Germany? Fukushima: nuclear plant in a seismically very active region in very close proximity to the ocean where tsunamis are not really a rarity vs. German nuclear plants: not very seismically active (if at all), no tsunamis i've ever heard of, not counting flo…

Your reasoning why nuclear accidents couldn't happen in Germany is moving the goalpost though. First the narrative was that they couldn't happen, then it was that they couldn't happen in western style reactors.

The reality is that nuclear reactors can lead to big events in unforeseen situations, like also Fukushima was. It's impossible to foresee what the cause for the next big event will be.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#123

Post by Cwizard »

dependsontheq wrote: post #87

While I agree that it would have been sensible to phase out coal and then nuclear, the german position is more complex. The fallout from Tschernobyl was measurable in Germany… measurable as in my science teacher measured it in his garden. Up to today boar and mushrooms have an elevated level of radiation in the forests around my home. So this is the emotional background, the risks are not far away. Fukushima gave the…

> „If Japan can’t control the technology nobody can“.

I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Which are essentially non-existent in Germany?

In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many of those death were caused by the evacuation rather than radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000 according to wikipedia.

What should really put this into perspective is that air pollutions is estimated to kill millions every year.

And all of this is with reactors that are really old. If we would put the same amount of engineering resources into nuclear as we put into chips I am sure the number of deaths would go down a few order of magnitudes.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#124

Post by jsiepkes »

throw827474737 wrote: post #104
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #4

Good. Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely. Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that has no carbon footprint.

> Germany was facing a cold winter Yaaawn.. this doomsday propaganda is really getting old, and lets meet in 6 month again and lets see how much impact and necessity those 3 plants had at all on heating here.. Wait, your are likely not from Germany nor even Europe and state "Germany was facing a cold winter" like fact based on what please?

Germany has 0 LNG capability and is for Gas largely dependent on the Netherlands now that Russia is gone. However the Dutch are scaling down gas operations because of earth quake damage and most its LNG capability will be used internally. So that means no new gas contracts with 2 of their largest suppliers.

Germany is going to need the little gas it has for heating and its industry. It's going to need all the gas it can save by using Nuclear for electricity (instead of gas) cold winter or not.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#125

Post by xg15 »

papito wrote: post #102
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #4

Good. Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely. Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that has no carbon footprint.

It's more sinister than that. Russia was financially extremely incentivized to let this happen and indeed, it seems the so-called "environmental groups" in Germany and elsewhere are really fronts for the Russian government: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127... Designed to cynically "care" about the environment, but in reality meant to destroy Europe's energy independence.

> It has recently come to light

Are there any more specific references what exactly has come to light here?

As it stands, this question just reads as a pretty cheap attempt to frame any and all environmental concerns or pro-renewable/anti-fossil fuel advocacy as russian propaganda. (which doesn't even make sense as gas itself is not renewable - greens usually see gas as the lesser evil compared to coal and nuclear but by no means as an end goal)

The german environmental and anti-nuclear movement predates the reunification, let alone russian gas deals or putin. While there might be some groups who are russian fronts or receive russian funding, the majority of the movement has quite strong motivations of its own.

This doesn't even take the "new" parts of the climate movement into account, such as Fridays for Future.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#127

Post by V__ »

belorn wrote: post #103
V__ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether one is pro nuclear or not, I think it makes sense to look at the specific situation at hand. Was it a mistake to shut down all nuclear reactors while not pushing for more renewables and replacing all gas and coal plants first? I think so. Should the last three remaining nuclear plants be kept online? I don't think so. Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to generate electricity, so nuc…

Wind conditions are more important question this winter than temperature. Good conditions will mean low power prices, meaning that industries, schools, apartment buildings and homes can afford to pay their bills without government bailing people out. A worse case scenario would had been windless cold winter with gas supplies empty, and a government that have to bailout both the industry, the government institutions,…

That's true, but if it becomes that bad its really just drop in the bucket.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#128

Post by dane-pgp »

sokoloff wrote: post #66
MichaelCollins wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is fair. Although I think some among the anti-nuclear movement may have had subversive intent, most of the people who ended up aligning with that movement did have good intentions. They were reasoning that in the long term, nuclear power would bring great misery to humanity. Long term thinking is good, right? If you believe in the eventual probability of those doomsday scenarios, and you value the…

There are no doubt some people who are arguing against nuclear with exactly those pure intentions underlying their advocacy. Given the experience of the US Navy in nuclear power generation, I don't think their doomsday scenarios are inevitable. I think a lot of people are negatively disposed to nuclear based on beliefs that are not justified by the relative risk and reward of nuclear power generation at this stage in…

> Given the experience of the US Navy in nuclear power generation, I don't think their doomsday scenarios are inevitable.

I often see this given as a reason for why nuclear power generation can be safe, but I think it overlooks the fact that military reactors operate in a very different context from civilian ones.

For a start, do we know how expensive (per unit energy) US Navy reactors are? It doesn't matter how safe they are if they are twice as expensive as renewables (plus storage / power-to-gas).

More generally, though, given the secrecy around military and nuclear programs, would we even know how many near-meltdowns and embarrassing accidents US Navy reactors have experienced (at least in the past few decades)?

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#129

Post by mk89 »

pelasaco wrote: post #117
dependsontheq wrote: post #87

While I agree that it would have been sensible to phase out coal and then nuclear, the german position is more complex. The fallout from Tschernobyl was measurable in Germany… measurable as in my science teacher measured it in his garden. Up to today boar and mushrooms have an elevated level of radiation in the forests around my home. So this is the emotional background, the risks are not far away. Fukushima gave the…

unnecessary german angst. Just check the map https://www.wano.info/members/wano-world-map . We are surrounded by atomic power plants. Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Czech republic..almost all of them are situated in the german borders.

Indeed, I just looked it up: https://www.euronuclear.org/glossary/nuclear-power-plants-in...

For God's sake, France has 56 power plants. What are we talking about....

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#130

Post by mxscho »

Cwizard wrote: post #123
dependsontheq wrote: post #87

While I agree that it would have been sensible to phase out coal and then nuclear, the german position is more complex. The fallout from Tschernobyl was measurable in Germany… measurable as in my science teacher measured it in his garden. Up to today boar and mushrooms have an elevated level of radiation in the forests around my home. So this is the emotional background, the risks are not far away. Fukushima gave the…

> „If Japan can’t control the technology nobody can“. I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Which are essentially non-existent in Germany? In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many of those death were caused by the evacuation rather than radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000 accord…

> I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes?

I think the argument would be that the risk wasn't mitigated although it should've been known. There may be other known risks as well.

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