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Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

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Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#171

Post by lispm »

smuemd wrote: post #170
TeMPOraL wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear is simply not cost effective in a democratic society. Phrased this way, this is less of a problem with nuclear and more a problem with said democratic society.

This is exactly right. > In “Der Atomstaat” (“The Nuclear State”) Jungk quotes the Austrian scientist Helga Novotny, who back in the day worked at the IIASA (International Institute für Applied Systems Analysis) in Vienna/Laxenburg. She said that “the opposition against nuclear energy roots in the resistance against those who profit from the increasing economical and scientific focus. The opposition is directed again…

It's the Atomstaat which works against the democracy.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#172

Post by renaudg »

lispm wrote: post #159
renaudg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not true. Right this moment, coal is the single largest source of electricity production in Germany (33.66% of the total) They're emitting nearly 400gCO2eq/kWh, compared to nuclear-first France's 70. That is an abysmal result. https://www.electricitymap.org/

That's simply wrong. Renewable energy for electricity is at 46% last year. Up from 6% in 2000. Coal has been declining a lot from 2000 (when the Energiewende startet) to today. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Energiem...

You're just focusing on the wrong metric.

Because coal is so bad in terms of carbon intensity (800 gCO2/kwH), Germany's greenhouse gas emissions figures are still terrible on average.

"Why Aren't Renewables Decreasing Germany's Carbon Emissions?" https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/10/10/why-arent...

"Why solar and wind won’t make much difference to carbon dioxide emissions" https://blog.oup.com/2017/10/solar-wind-energy-carbon-dioxid...

"German electricity was nearly 10 times dirtier than France's in 2016" http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/11/german-e...

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#173

Post by microtherion »

AJ007 wrote: post #161
microtherion wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in the US, a nuclear reactor would be: * Approved by Donald Trump * Regulated (until last month) by Rick Perry * Constructed by companies like Halliburton and Bechtel * Operated by utilities like PG&E, collaborating with traders like Enron. I don't know about you, but to me, the whole setup does not scream competence, good judgment, incorruptibility, and adherence to the highest ethical standards.

Are you aware Enron went out of business in 2001?

Indeed I am (that's why I wrote "like"), but they were the household name in the field. Frankly, I don't know who plays that role now, but how confident are you that they behave fundamentally different, as opposed to just not having been caught yet?

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#174

Post by merb »

renaudg wrote: post #130
lispm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just that Germany did not switch to coal.

That is simply not true. Right this moment, coal is the single largest source of electricity production in Germany (33.66% of the total) They're emitting nearly 400gCO2eq/kWh, compared to nuclear-first France's 70. That is an abysmal result. https://www.electricitymap.org/

btw. this map is bullshit. french basically netted zero co2 emissions for their nuclear power plant. I mean 90% of their uranium ore comes from nigeria. it's not like that stuff gets teleported to the reactors. the uraniums needs to be mined, refined, transported.

see: - https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg23531450-700-7-generat... - https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...

etc... of course it's way less than coal. but it's stupid to let some countries "export" their emission to third world countries. the map bases their nuclear plants with 12gCO2eq/kwh. which is basically just insanly low and is only the median and does not factor everything in (no build, decomission of the plant (because that is unknown and different for each reactor) and basically the icc does in fact not factors in mining with all their transport routes, mostly it's just a nuclear energy favored estimate)

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#175

Post by renaudg »

lispm wrote: post #168
renaudg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put the myth of nuclear waste to rest by putting things in perspective : The amount of energy required to run France's trains for one whole year is 9 TWh. In terms of waste you can take your pick between : * assuming 100% nuclear energy : 200kg of nuclear waste * assuming 100% coal : 700.000 tons of solid ash (usually stored in the open air), plus 1.000 tons of soot and fine particles, including tons / dozens o…

That's all irrelevant. The world production of nuclear power is basically flat for the last 30 years. Renewable energy is expanding rapidly. That's currently the only viable option. The best is to phase out all costly nuclear reactors and invest the money into renewable energy expansion. Storage of electricity can be done in multiple ways and we will see larger new installations in ten years from now. Models for runn…

> The world production of nuclear power is basically flat for the last 30 years.

I'm glad that China proves you wrong. If they had gone all in with coal+renewables like Germany, climate change would be an even bigger issue than it already is.

> Renewable energy is expanding rapidly. That's currently the only viable option. The best is to phase out all costly nuclear reactors and invest the money into renewable energy expansion.

No, again Germany has tried that. It. doesn't. work. 20 years later, even now at 46% from renewables, the country still has one of the worst carbon intensity figures of all European countries.

Besides, there's an upper limit to the expansion. Wind farms require 360 times (!) as much land area as nuclear, solar 75 times as much for the same output.

It's a beautiful idealistic dream that I hope will work one day, but causes us all terrible harm in the meantime.

> Storage of electricity can be done in multiple ways and we will see larger new installations in ten years from now. Models for running countries with like the US with electricity from 100% renewable are looking feasible.

This is hot air, nothing more than wishful thinking. And you can't build a power grid on wishful thinking. Also we can't afford "hopefully, one day" to tackle the climate emergency. Another commenter put it best : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996271

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#176

Post by renaudg »

philipkglass wrote: post #74
looping__lui wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, well, the phasing out of coal has been decided long time even before that - and still nothing happened. So “was decided long time ago by the Green party” is more a “who cares - I believe it when I see it”. Merkel made it happen for real (unfortunately). The decision to end nuclear power has been one of the “Merkel just decides without really caring” decisions. Germans are not entirely stupid. We have lived thro…

Coal's contribution to German electricity is not flat. It declined markedly in 2019: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-ge... German electricity from coal is down 35% since 2010 and 46% since 2000: https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/20191212-BRD_Stromerzeug...

These percentages are largely irrelevant because coal remains the only non-intermittent source that Germany can rely on (in the absence of nuclear), and it's so much more carbon-intensive than the rest that the average figures are still terrible.

Because of the intermittence problem, there is simply no chance that Germany can catch up with the best gCO2/kWh results (France and Nordic countries) without an hypothetical breakthrough in battery storage for renewables. Its electricity's carbon intensity is currently 5-10 times higher. Pretty much only Poland is doing worse.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#177

Post by RobLach »

beloch wrote: post #71

"Nuclear energy, to start with, is ultimately not safe, and the Germans have always been particularly uneasy with it. After the nuclear accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the “Atomausstieg,” the exit from nuclear energy once and for all. Why? Because, as Ms. Merkel put it back then: “The residual risk of nuclear energy can be accepted only if one is convinced th…

To put things into perspective.

The US Navy currently has 83 (known) active watercraft that are nuclear powered. Across all the reactors the Navy use and have used, they have amassed over 5300 “reactor years” without reactor incident.

With adequate processes and training, Nuclear is incredibly safe and green.

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#178

Post by renaudg »

merb wrote: post #174
renaudg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not true. Right this moment, coal is the single largest source of electricity production in Germany (33.66% of the total) They're emitting nearly 400gCO2eq/kWh, compared to nuclear-first France's 70. That is an abysmal result. https://www.electricitymap.org/

btw. this map is bullshit. french basically netted zero co2 emissions for their nuclear power plant. I mean 90% of their uranium ore comes from nigeria. it's not like that stuff gets teleported to the reactors. the uraniums needs to be mined, refined, transported. see: - https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg23531450-700-7-generat... - https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... etc... of course i…

Nope sorry, it takes all of this into account. From their FAQ :

"We use a life cycle analysis (LCA) approach, meaning that we take into account emissions arising from the whole life cycle of power plants (construction, fuel production, operational emissions, and decommissioning)."

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#179

Post by manfredo »

trickstra wrote: post #133
antris wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this is why nuclear power is fundamentally unsafe: the operators have conclusively proven that they just cannot be trusted. Repeatedly. So let's just keep reliably killing people with coal around the year like we do now...? The fact is that nuclear power kills the least amount of people per unit of energy produced, with all accidents taken into account. If that's "unsafe" then you cannot consider any electricit…

Germany is heavily investing in solar and wind. Why do you bring up coal? Also - even if the nuclear power plant is 100% safe, it still produces nuclear waste that nobody wants to keep anywhere near their city and will be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years, that's longer than humanity has been around - it's just the same trap as burning fossil fuels. Why would we want to make the same mistake again?

Because solar and wind leads to continued dependency on coal and gas. The reality is, nuclear is the only geographically independent method of providing carbon free energy around the clock. The closure of nuclear plants leads to increased usage of coal and gas: https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/11/09/germany-is-missi...

Re: Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

#180

Post by MiroF »

brutt wrote: post #144
Dumblydorr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal has already killed far more beings than the highly rare nuclear power station disaster. If you care about wellbeing and human lives, swapping nuclear for coal is downright stupid.

This millennia is not ended yet, so it is too early to count total number of victims of nuclear accidents.

This argument makes no sense
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