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Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

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Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#131

Post by TkTech »

eru wrote: post #111
foepys wrote: post #95

This is typical CDU conservative talk from Merz. He is on a war path with anything Angela Merkel did because she saw him as politically inexperienced and shunned him. So he had to work for Blackrock. The CSU (the Bavarian equivalent and permanent coalition partner of the CDU) is also demanding to reactivate nuclear power plants but at the same time is not willing to store any spent nuclear fuel. The CSU is also notor…

Well, you could bury power lines. It's just pretty expensive.

Hard to understate just how expensive. Here in Montreal where ice storms kill and cause billions in damage, we still don't bury the main transmission lines. We been burying almost everything _in_ the city where having to repair millions of individual connections (again) would be impractical, but it's relatively simple to repair the limited major lines into the city.

From CBC:

> Current estimates are that it would cost five to 10 times more to distribute electricity to a big city via underground cables, and that not all of nature's problems would be alleviated even if that were done.

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#132

Post by energy123 »

pankajdoharey wrote: post #124
hippo22 wrote: post #105

The story of their shutdown is really quite crazy. The shutdown was initiated by chancellor Gerhard Schröder. After killing Germany’s nuclear sector, he signed off on Nord Stream 1 as he was on his way out of office. Just after leaving office, Gazprom nominated him for the post of the head of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG. Russia later nominated him to be on their largest oil producers board. This guy…

There should be a law that lawmakers can only be scientific people when it comes to science, i.e scientist's and engineers not humanities or arts majors. These people take decisions which are absolutely absurd. The entire western world has stockpiles of plutonium which is not going to be used for anything other than mutual self destruction. Because of these anti nuclear activists types the western hemisphere has tril…

And the appointment is made by a jury of their technical peers rather than a politician who can cherry pick someone who's ideologically aligned.

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#133

Post by uecker »

Zufriedenheit wrote: post #57

The german energy policy has really been an economic failure on an epic scale. They destroyed 30+ fully functional nuclear power plants because of fear of radiation. In the last 20 year spend >500billion € to remodel the energy grid. Now subsidizing electricity with ~30billion € per year. And the result: Carbon intensity of energy production on the same level as US and 3x the electricity price!

This is lot of nonsense. The cost is mostly due to the funding of renewables at a time when they were still very expensive. This was highly successful in bringing down cost. Despite fakenews in this direction, fossil fuel consumption did not increase in Germany and is on the decline with a corresponding reductions in CO2 emissions. According to the following link Germany 338g / kWh Co emissions, US 384g /kWh. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#134

Post by uecker »

As a physicist I disagree. While one should have left the existing plants running longer (but those things are decided a long time in advance), the exit was fundamentally th correct decision from an economic point of view. The extreme drop in prices in renewables world-wide only comparable to Moore's law also clearly confirms the success of Germany's Energiewende. But you need to look at data, not fakenews to understand this.

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#135

Post by uecker »

pankajdoharey wrote: post #124
hippo22 wrote: post #105

The story of their shutdown is really quite crazy. The shutdown was initiated by chancellor Gerhard Schröder. After killing Germany’s nuclear sector, he signed off on Nord Stream 1 as he was on his way out of office. Just after leaving office, Gazprom nominated him for the post of the head of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG. Russia later nominated him to be on their largest oil producers board. This guy…

There should be a law that lawmakers can only be scientific people when it comes to science, i.e scientist's and engineers not humanities or arts majors. These people take decisions which are absolutely absurd. The entire western world has stockpiles of plutonium which is not going to be used for anything other than mutual self destruction. Because of these anti nuclear activists types the western hemisphere has tril…

The (second) decision to exit nuclear was made by the Merkel government. Merkel is a physicist with a doctorate.

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#136

Post by uecker »

ca1f wrote: post #129
UltraSane wrote: post #91

Highly relevant to this is the fact that German electricity is some of the most expensive in the world.

It really is not. This is misinformation spread mostly by the right winged party in germany and conservatives to some extent to. Electricity in Germany can look expensive at first sight if you're quoting legacy household tariffs that many existing customers are still on, because they never switch provider / tariff. But that's not representative of what people pay if they sign a new contract today: the market for new…

One should also point out that the household price is determined by many factors and does not reflect cost of generation.

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#137

Post by moepstar »

croes wrote: post #67
grunder_advice wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima sure, but a lot of women were traumatized by Chernobyl and the news of a cloud of radioactive dust that was going to give them all cancer. I think Fukushima just reingnited those fears.

Mushrooms and boars are still contaminated in Bavaria

My parents neighbour is a retired policeman and a hunter.

I think he has to discard 3 out of 4 boar due to contamination levels, he told us not too long ago.

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#138

Post by moepstar »

nbadg wrote: post #45

This is a sensationalist piece of not-news. The CSU/CDU Union party (from which Merz comes) has been, at least in recent historical time, consistently pro-nuclear (at least in terms of their actions). They have consistently voted to lengthen contracts with nuclear providers and consistently advocated for pro-nuclear policies, even when the power companies themselves had long since committed to ceasing all nuclear pow…

I agree, and yet this is reported on, over and over.

Same like any bullcrap Söder comes up on any given day, no matter how absurd.

From a distance, it seems like the whole world agreed it'd be a good idea to only come up with ragebait over and over again :(

Re: Germany's Merz admits nuclear exit was strategic mistake

#140

Post by eru »

defrost wrote: post #126
eru wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could bury power lines. It's just pretty expensive.

Horizontal directional drilling costs $10 to $30 (USD) per linear foot with upfront fixed costs of $30K or so. How does that compare to building above ground towers to support cable weight in all conditions? I'd assume / guesstimate that route planning, community advisement, actual cable length, etc. costs are more or less the same in either case.

> Horizontal directional drilling costs $10 to $30 (USD) per linear foot with upfront fixed costs of $30K or so.

Underground power lines are expensive, but not that expensive. As far as I know, you dig a ditch, put the power line into it, and then put the material back in over the top.

Why would you drill?

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