Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#111

Post by eande » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:32 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #57

jgrahamc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which beliefs? That a nuclear power station situated in a major earthquake zone next to the coast could magically survive a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami? Right now, we don't know how serious this situation is, it could be that this will end with a small amount of radiation leaked and four reactors that have to be decommissioned. Or it could end with a major environmental disaster. We simply don't know yet. I'd cautio…

Nuclear disasters are so rare that a single data point of the magnitude of damage provides so much information on our risk assessment of nuclear power that it seems reasonable to idle plants while we wait and see how this one plays out. This is only the third major issue to ever happen. Waiting this one out doesn't tell us more about the frequency of occurrence (it already occurred), but it does tell us about the mag…

One nuclear disasters is one too many. If we can't engineer and operate a zero fail nuclear power-plant including various natural desaster scenarios maybe we should not use such technology.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#112

Post by Riesling » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:35 PM UTC

ajju wrote: post #83

more_original wrote: post #22

Context: The previous government had decided to phase out nuclear power by 2020. After the last election the current revoked that decision and even allowed old power plants that were due to be shut down to operate longer. So, if they hadn't revoked that decision, the seven reactors we are talking about her would have been shut down already or would be about to be shut down anyway.

What are they replacing nuclear power with? From what I understand, Germany is one of the few countries ramping up manufacturing, which is a huge consumer of power. It's interesting that they are essentially cutting supply as demand increases.

The official plan is to have it replaced completely with renewable energy technologies by 2020.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#113

Post by ErrantX » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:39 PM UTC

ckuehne wrote: post #100

ErrantX wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree as it happens, I think it is actually not all that hard to make a major impact without getting serious govt. funding (which sadly is like squeezing blood from a stone). All it requires is for those people with enough funds to go out and buy solar panels for their roofs. Even my parents, who are not exactly the most well off people, can afford (and have bought) solar panels. It doesn't make them self suffic…

"but if everyone in the town (that could) did it that is a massive impact!" No, it is not: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c6/page_39....

I'm not entirely sure that is as negative as it sounds. My average consumption is about 4KW/h per day. I just checked with my parents and they, with a multi-computer a home office, use about 6KW/h per day. So lets take that as an average.

Our systems account for about 2KW/h per person, per day. So that is about 30% of our own energy consumption.

15,000 ppl @ 6KW/h = 90,000 KW/h

3,000 ppl (20%) generating 2KW/h = 6,000 KW/h

That's 6% of the towns energy generation.

Which might not sound a lot, true. But on the other hand commercial renewable energy production in the UK accounts for about the same amount (8 ish percent I believe). So if everyone did it that would double renewable energy production.

I find that significant :)

I admit to "over egging" the ease, and being extremely optimistic in terms of the coverage and uptake of such a mass social movement :) but I still think it is something we all should try.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#114

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:48 PM UTC

nopassrecover wrote: post #28

raganwald wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of a needle on a gauge representing public opinion about nuclear power. One half of the gauge reads green for nukes. The other half is red for no nukes. If the needle is firmly in the green, a slight shift towards red in response to Fukushima might mean commissioning some studies and announcing a budget for upgrading the safety features. But if the needle is just barely into the green, a slight shift moves it i…

"Biggest (nuclear) emergency since Chernobyl" seems hyperbolic unless the situation has changed considerably since I last looked at it. Indeed in Japan alone the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant accident in 2004 caused more fatalities than Fukushima has so far.

According to Wikipedia, the 2004 incident involved people being killed by a broken steam pipe. That's an emergency that happens to have been at a nuclear plant, not a nuclear emergency, and the regional effects were zero.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#115

Post by lispm » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:49 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #3

Nice to know that there is another country out there that's as irrational as the US. Does Germany have a lot of tsunamis?

Does it need a Tsunami to have the cooling system of a nuclear power station to fail?

How about: an accident with an aircraft (Germany has lots of air traffic), an earth quake (yes, Germany has earth quakes), sabotage , operator errors (happens sometimes, see Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, ...), terrorist attacks (Germany is a terror target due to its participation in the Afghan war), military attacks, random technical failures, ...

The nuclear power station next to me in Krümmel is shutdown because of technical failures and general total incompetency.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#116

Post by Lost_BiomedE » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:49 PM UTC

bl4k wrote: post #102

paganel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either way, there is no possible way you have enough information to make any of the claims you just made. I took out this from this report ( http://www.euronuclear.org/reflections/nuclear-facilities.ht... ), which I think was also mentioned by jgrahamc: > The studies showed that even if knowledgeable insiders could disable key safety equipment, redundant systems would provide backup protection. In scenarios where a…

The backup generators that they bought on site had the wrong types of plugs on them. When this is all done, I am sure that most of the problems at Fukishima will be found to be administrative rather than design. As an aside, that plant was designed to withstand an 8.4 earthquake. Design requirements and actual strength are two different issues. Even a complete meltdown, such as at Three Mile Island, should be contain…

'had the wrong types of plugs on them'

I have seen this as one of the biggest failures so far.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#117

Post by reirob » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:50 PM UTC

makmanalp wrote: post #82

jgrahamc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which beliefs? That a nuclear power station situated in a major earthquake zone next to the coast could magically survive a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami? Right now, we don't know how serious this situation is, it could be that this will end with a small amount of radiation leaked and four reactors that have to be decommissioned. Or it could end with a major environmental disaster. We simply don't know yet. I'd cautio…

Magically? We're made to believe that nuclear power plants are built for all sorts of compounding contingencies. Take a look at the list of significant earthquakes in Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan 8,3, 8.5 and 8.4 are three major earthquakes I see before mid-20th century. If you're building a power plant, it should survive a large safety factor above the largest earthquake you have…

Looking up in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale the Richter Scale "is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude (shaking amplitude) ...". This means that a Richter magnitude of 9 has a 10 time bigger shaking amplitude than Richter magnitude 8. I do not know for which earthquake magnitude the power plants in Japan were planned but apparently the risk assessment was not good enough.

This said, I am opposed to nuclear power - I think that apart the natural catastrophe risks, as you said there is human error that cannot be calculated, there is no "clean" solution for the nuclear waste and again we are relying on radioactive materials that are limited so anyway mankind will have to look for other solutions. I think it is high time to make an effort and look for other solutions.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#118

Post by tobias-ch » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

Since when was Germany in a major seismic zone? Political grandstanding I fear.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#119

Post by ugh » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:55 PM UTC

ajju wrote: post #83

more_original wrote: post #22

Context: The previous government had decided to phase out nuclear power by 2020. After the last election the current revoked that decision and even allowed old power plants that were due to be shut down to operate longer. So, if they hadn't revoked that decision, the seven reactors we are talking about her would have been shut down already or would be about to be shut down anyway.

What are they replacing nuclear power with? From what I understand, Germany is one of the few countries ramping up manufacturing, which is a huge consumer of power. It's interesting that they are essentially cutting supply as demand increases.

Fossil fuels and energy imports (short term) and renewable energy (long term).

In 2010, 16 percent of all electric power in Germany came from renewable sources (6.4 percent wind, 4.2 percent bio mass, 3.2 percent water, 1 percent photovoltaics, 0.8 percent waste). Coal is at 43 percent, nuclear energy is at 23 percent, oil and natural gas are at 15 percent. (Source: http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Navigation/Energie/Statistik-und-Pro...)

The current government thinks that ramping up renewable energy to replace nuclear energy until 2030 is realistic.

Re: Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima

#120

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 4:56 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #10

jrockway wrote: post #3

Nice to know that there is another country out there that's as irrational as the US. Does Germany have a lot of tsunamis?

Naww, but soon they'll have more people with lung cancer from breathing all that burning coal and oil for energy. I think this is a political move that is going to help in the next election. The "greens" will see this as a handout to them and nuclear power is too complex and scary an issue to have someone defend it properly. Oh well, back to fossil fuels!

[deleted]