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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

#201

Post by avgcorrection »

karamanolev wrote: post #172
avgcorrection wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not countering the implicit argument that Germany won’t have a problem with earthquakes ruining their nuclear powerplants. Germany is also a “well-run country” if you want to run with the old anti-Soviet argument.

FWIW, I'm a fan of nucear, but ... they don't have to counter that argument. It doesn't have to be earthquakes - it can be 1 of 100 problems. Japan knew they have to deal with earthquakes and didn't. What should make people more comfortable that Germany will be able to safeguard against their known risks?

1 of 100? Compared to the alternatives? Because that’s what matters here. Does nuclear have one-hundred times the problem?

Of course these obvious problems are not mentioned by name. Which makes one think that there are one-hundred unnamed ones beyond once the initial one-hundred would have been dealt with.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#202

Post by timmg »

V__ wrote: post #119
timmg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Above you pointed out the high cost of replacing fuel rods. How does that compare to the “federal assistance” required to pay bloated gas bills?

Also maintenance, but still in comparison, it probably isn't a lot. The last figure I have is about 17 billion for all those federal programs and investments (but those include cheaper public transport tickets as well as other things). However, I don't thing those costs are comparable. Those nuclear plants won't have a dramatic impact on the price of gas or energy, so the cost of the federal programs will be there no…

> Those nuclear plants won't have a dramatic impact on the price of gas or energy, so the cost of the federal programs will be there nonetheless.

Even if it doesn’t change the price of gas, wouldn’t it mean buying/burning less gas than you would otherwise? That, in itself, would be a huge savings.

Maybe I’m just missing some data, but this seems like a no-brainer to me on several levels. It’s hard for me to understand anyone being against this.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#203

Post by nickpp »

karamanolev wrote: post #174
epivosism wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was 1 disputed radiation/nuclear related death from Fukushima. And mention of 2200 related to the (post-tsunami) evacuation. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_ac...

That aside, what about price? Completely cleaning up and taking apart the plant could take a generation or more, and comes with a hefty price tag. In 2016 the government increased its cost estimate to about $75.7 billion, part of the overall Fukushima disaster price tag of $202.5 billion. I'm a fan of nuclear, but those are eye-watering numbers.

Anybody knows why they are completely cleaning up that plant instead of just cordoning it off and marking it as "deadly land, nobody allowed in". You know, an exclusion zone like Chernobyl.

Is land that expensive in Japan? Or is it some sort of ambition to prove they can repair that fuckup? O maybe there is a lot of money to be made in a cleanup operation?

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#204

Post by throwaway221017 »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #29
tomschlick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who in their right mind Activist politicians who value their cause more than the well being of their citizens.

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…

Intentions do not matter, as emotions do not. This is an calculable problem to almost 99.9% certainty. Nuclear waste will not pose a problem to 99.95% of all human population for the next 1ky even in the worst case. Even if chernobyl was 10 times as bad, it wouldn't cause large-scale issues, and chernobyl was almost the worst possible nuclear incident possible at the technology level of the time.

We have so much other, more real, more tangible and even right now happening vectors of "problems", starting with Covid, not ending with the real chance of WW3, and we whine about miniscule pollution of square kilometers at worst? Hard to get.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#205

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

kleiba wrote: post #23
_dain_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Germany heats with gas [...] Germany isn't heating with electricity And whose fault is that? Why can't their much-vaunted Energiewende manage to keep people warm? After half a trillion dollars of public investment in green energy?

There is no widespread infrastructure for heating with electricity, the dominant sources for heating homes are gas and oil. The reason for that is that until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was unforeseeable that there would be a shortage of gas or oil. And let's not forget that the current "shortage" is a result of political decisions, and not because gas and oil have ceased to exist. Germany is in the process o…

> until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was unforeseeable that there would be a shortage of gas or oil

If the 2014 invasion of Ukraine wasn't a dead giveaway, I don't know what else could habe make it more foreseeable.

It was very foreseeable. Both the US and other Eastern European nations warned about this but Germany chose to be ignorant till the very end.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#206

Post by nosianu »

metadat wrote: post #193
karamanolev wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I'm a fan of nucear, but ... they don't have to counter that argument. It doesn't have to be earthquakes - it can be 1 of 100 problems. Japan knew they have to deal with earthquakes and didn't. What should make people more comfortable that Germany will be able to safeguard against their known risks?

What are the remaining 95 potential uncontrollable problems beyond earthquake, fire, flood, war, human incompetence? Given appropriate attention and care, these can be accounted for through planning processes and protocols.

See France and its maintenance issues with not just one but many of their power plants, accumulated over decades and now greatly contributing to the European energy problems. (https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-...)

Some issues I see are accountants, management, laziness, "somebody else's problem", etc. Those are businesses and they will try all the well-known ways to save money. Which the politicians will also encourage, because nuclear power will need to be justified continuously (like all other forms).

There also are water issues, not just river temperature (France, this summer), we also had a lot of European rivers with barely enough or not enough for most of the normal uses of those rivers this summer - and predictions are we'll have more such extremes. So, ensuring water supplies will be adequate at all times will become harder too, and much more expensive.

Not to mention that Russia - Rosatom - will again play a big role in Western European energy when it comes to nuclear. (https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/russias-multi-mill...)

Air plane and human space flight accidents are extremely rare but they still occur despite all the rules and regulations and the training and the many levels of precautions, but nuclear has to be even better.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#207

Post by fweimer »

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…

There's moderate seismic activity in the South-Western part of Germany, higher once you get closer to Basel (which was destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century). Curiously, the French Fessenheim nuclear power plant is in this area as well.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#208

Post by ozim »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #29
tomschlick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who in their right mind Activist politicians who value their cause more than the well being of their citizens.

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…

The road to hell is paved with good intention...

Other one I would quote is "perfection is the enemy of good" - it seems nuclear is good, but they would not give up only on good. It had to be perfect where renewable sources are 100% ideal.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#209

Post by Manuel_D »

legulere wrote: post #74
clemensley wrote: post #7

Finally. Opposition to nuclear is beyond unreasonable. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

That statistic is only about deaths. You still have to deal with nuclear accidents leading to evacuation of huge areas happening once around every 30 years (unknown unknowns and what not). Germany has a high population density. Such a catastrophe happening in Germany would lead to millions getting evacuated. Another issue is the safe disposal of nuclear waste. It might seem like a low risk, but over the huge timespan…

Nuclear waste is disposed of by being buried underground in a region with impermeable bedrock. Short of deliberate excavation, or a direct meteor impact, there is no scenario in which this waste gets brought back to the surface.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#210

Post by fsh »

anton96 wrote: post #135
fsh wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fukushima reactors and a lot of the german ones were built by the same company. They overlooked the flood risk on the japanese coast (which has huge tsunamis every few decades). What did they overlook elsewhere? After Chernobyl, politicians promised that western reactors could not possibly explode. Fukushima proved them wrong.

No, Fukushima proved them right. Fukushima ended in no way like Tchernobyl did. The Soviet power plan released radioactivity in the air, make an entire area inhabitable and killed a few dozen a people. Fukushima did nothing of this, everything stayed inside the structure, no radioactivity went out. As Fukushima had no recovery generators available (no fuel in them), it is a great proof that a totally out of control m…

The Fukushima disaster cleanup cost a trillion dollars. Over a hundred thousand people were (at least temporarily) displaced. I would call this a pretty darn big failure.
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