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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

#361

Post by raxxorraxor »

plextoria wrote: post #116
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…

This is the best explanation I’ve heard so far about Germany’s position on nuclear. It is based much more on emotions than on rational arguments.

Part of it is emotional, but so is the argument for it. It is simply too expensive compared to other forms of energy generation. And yes, you still have the waste.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#362

Post by throw0101c »

JohnBooty wrote: post #325
atoav wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh sure. The wave of deformed children that I grew up with in the shouthern German, southern Austrian area surely had nothing to do with this, pure coincidence. There are certain mushrooms that are still forbidden to eat. It is easy to talk for someone who has not experienced the fallout of an nuclear powerplant burning a few countries over. Experiencing such a thing (hopefully understandably) changes how favourable…

It is easy to talk for someone who has not experienced the fallout of an nuclear powerplant burning a few countries over. First, I am very sorry. That must have been unimaginably scary. While it it not the same as experiencing this terror firsthand, my grandparents lived not very far away from you during the Chernobyl incident. It was very frightening. Also, I live not so far away from Three Mile Island here in the U…

> Should we also add the costs of global warming to each kW/h of energy produced by coal or natural gas?

Yes. That's what carbon pricing/taxes is all about after all: counting the externalities.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_price

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#364

Post by raxxorraxor »

asdff wrote: post #161
legulere wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a good point, maybe we should also be evacuating huge areas around dirty power plants considering we are aware of the harm they cause to the nearby population? Nuclear waste is a non issue. If you want to make it perfectly safe and untouchable to most bad actors, you can always dump it into a trench in the ocean. The radioactivity will not penetrate far through ocean water and will be less than other sources o…

> you can always dump it into a trench in the ocean.

It took a long time to ban dumping barrels of nuclear waste, sadly that isn't true for waste water yet.

And yes, this will all go into the food chain and will have repercussions. For virtually forever.

Of course the waste is a problem, we have 1 or 2 permanent storages in the world and there is a reason for that.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#365

Post by panick21_ »

atoav wrote: post #324
panick21_ wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is when they go bad, it gets really bad. Not really. If you actually measure it, its not actually that bad. > We were extremely lucky with Chernobyl that young men sacrificed themselves, else a large chunk of Europe would be uninhabitable. Often claimed but, the scientific bases for this claim is beyond shake. Maybe at the very worse you could say that radiation that was slightly dangerous would have be…

Oh sure. The wave of deformed children that I grew up with in the shouthern German, southern Austrian area surely had nothing to do with this, pure coincidence. There are certain mushrooms that are still forbidden to eat. It is easy to talk for someone who has not experienced the fallout of an nuclear powerplant burning a few countries over. Experiencing such a thing (hopefully understandably) changes how favourable…

Yeah most of this 'deformed children' stuff is also not really true. The reported facts about this are just not correct.

Its basically not statically significant.

There might be a somewhat larger effects on some treatable cancers, but the numbers are still incredibly small compared with the fear mongering and of course compared with other forms of energy used back then.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/children-...

You are like better of with having a nuclear fallout every could decades rather then a coal plant.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#366

Post by raxxorraxor »

V__ wrote: post #180
plextoria wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true that Germany might have enough electricity, but we are sharing with EU. And it so happens that in the biggest neighbor, France, half of the nuclear reactors are stopped for maintenance and the French might need to import considerable amounts of electricity this winter.

They are planning to get them up and running till winter, but I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether this is achievable and if not how much of a problem that would be and if those three nuclear plants would make a difference.

You could add cooling towers and they would not have had the problem. But it would still increase the costs further to a degree that it may not be viable anymore.

The high energy prices in Germany are to a large degree political. For instance to make the switch to renewables. It doesn't mean the base cost of energy is high. It is in fact lower for the most part.

The three plants don't do too much, only when you really need every Watt of energy you can muster. Not worthwhile economically to let them run really, as the decommission needs to be reorganized. The owners of the plant weren't too happy.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#367

Post by PM_me_your_math »

Salgat wrote: post #320
JohnBooty wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should make people more comfortable that Germany will be able to safeguard against their known risks? The safety of nuclear power plants isn't exactly some great unknown. There are ~450 plants currently operating in the world, with an average age of multiple decades. Plus all the ones that have been retired. That's a lot of data. You don't really have to take anybody's word for it. They're safe. They are not zer…

The problem is that nuclear plants only need to fail once to have global catastrophic consequences. Chernobyl was so catastrophic that Gorbachev blamed the Soviet Union's collapse on it. Solar and other renewable energy sources can never even remotely approach this level of environmental risk.

Solar and wind can never even approach a fraction of the baseline power requirements either.

Of course, it takes a significant amount diesel fuel, energy, and mining to make EV related equipment, too.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#369

Post by hedora »

calaphos wrote: post #342
hedora wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some modern nuclear plants can be turned on and off at will. The reactor itself takes a long time to ramp up and down, but it heats a molten salt battery. The battery can burst-power the turbines at well-above the reactor output; they can be sized to handle peak demand + overnight loads.

Even if technically possible the economics of nuclear power plants don't favour only using them for peak loads. With gigantic initial captial investment and very low fuel costs (almost?) all nuclear power plants are used for base loads. It's hard to find current numbers, but capital investment for combined cycle natural gas plants seems to be about a tenth of modern reactor projects in western countries.

We have no real choice. Natural gas has to be phased out as soon as possible.

The plant designs I’m describing are new, but marching to commercialization. They are not in wide-scale production yet.

They are optimized for a world where solar and wind have taken over most of the production.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#370

Post by legulere »

HyperSane wrote: post #348
cedilla wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is scary, but it's not quite what happened. The original nuclear exit was a plan over some decades and included a clear exit from coal power as well. It also included a multi billion dollar plan to accelerate renewable energy as well, one that still reaps dividends today. Unfortunately, the Merkel government stopped these subsidies and dragged its feet regarding renewables for sixteen years. The flip-flopping stan…

And now Germany has the most expensive electricity in the world.

Electricity in France is more expensive on the market. It’s just cheaper for households because of subsidies.
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