Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#221

Post by BitwiseFool » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

this_user wrote: post #175

worldvoyageur wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Chernobyl happened I was a physics undergrad in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and was spending the summer term on campus. We (the grad students really) went up to the roof of the physics building and started measuring for the radiation. There was much rejoicing when it turned up, which as I imperfectly remember was about two weeks after the incident. Which is to say, that the radiation could be measured is different…

Not all of us have the luxury of having more than 7000 km between us and the next nuclear accident, though. But I can send you some mushrooms from the forests of southern Germany if you would like to explore the health risks further.

>"But I can send you some mushrooms from the forests of southern Germany if you would like to explore the health risks further."

Sounds like the GP would receive mushrooms that have elevated levels of radionuclides that are within the legal limit of what is considered safe to consume.

"Around 95% of wild mushroom samples collected in Germany in the last six years still showed radioactive contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, albeit not above legal limits, the German food safety regulator said on Friday."

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/three-decades-g...

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#222

Post by purplerabbit » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

Kon5ole wrote: post #192

clemensley wrote: post #7

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

Here are three arguments that I personally find both reasonable and convincing. 1) Nuclear fuel and waste are clearly dangerous. Your linked article makes a logical fallacy in that it claims a dangerous activity is safe because few people have died from it. But we know things are dangerous even when nobody dies from it. The level of security surrounding nuclear is beyond anything else, and it's required to keep it sa…

These are all valid. However, if only nuclear can get us past "bottleneck events" (e.g., oil supply chains falling apart due to deglobalization or the world's oil running out, either of which would (or possibly will) cause catastrophic effects), then that supersedes #2 and #3, and probably #1 as well in most analyses.

I'm not well-versed enough in hard evidence to assert that we absolutely need nuclear to make it through bottleneck events. But it's plausible that we do. And so we shouldn't rule it out unless there is high-certainty evidence we don't need it.

In other words: I think the burden of proving that nuclear is unnecessary is on the anti-nuclear crowd. I've heard plenty of arguments that wind/solar will be enough, but haven't seen an analysis that seems to prove it based on numbers. (If you know of any such analysis, please share!)

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#223

Post by kzrdude » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

andirk wrote: post #169

naasking wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And new reactor designs are meltdown proof, so what's the problem exactly?

Can you cite your claim? Meltdown-proof? So a huge earthquake and tsunami won't cause nuclear waste leaks in the slightest? Nothing will?

Meltdown is a specific type of catastrophe (overheat and fuel rods literally melting). So being proof says nothing about other kinds of leaks.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#224

Post by danans » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

weberer wrote: post #49

preya2k wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but by no means does nuclear power "have no carbon footprint". It's still a very carbon-friendly technology, but it's definitely not carbon free. (See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_em... )

Neat, nuclear power has only a quarter of the carbon footprint as solar. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/CO2_Emis...

Nuclear and solar both have about 1/10th the carbon emissions of natural gas, and 1/20th the carbon emissions of coal.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#225

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #221

this_user wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all of us have the luxury of having more than 7000 km between us and the next nuclear accident, though. But I can send you some mushrooms from the forests of southern Germany if you would like to explore the health risks further.

>"But I can send you some mushrooms from the forests of southern Germany if you would like to explore the health risks further." Sounds like the GP would receive mushrooms that have elevated levels of radionuclides that are within the legal limit of what is considered safe to consume. "Around 95% of wild mushroom samples collected in Germany in the last six years still showed radioactive contamination from the 1986 C…

It's tree moss that is the larger risk apparently. It 'breathes' particles and keeps them. Wild boar love it; you shoot a wild boar, you have to get it tested with a Geiger counter to make sure it's safe. Like mercury in salmon, boar are a concentrator for fallout!

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#226

Post by cedilla » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #199

andirk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite your claim? Meltdown-proof? So a huge earthquake and tsunami won't cause nuclear waste leaks in the slightest? Nothing will?

Gen III+ reactors are pretty fucking close to meltdown proof. Any reactor in use today will have a negative void coefficient. Which means, if you don't put power into it, the reaction naturally stops. Then you've got control rods and neutron moderators that will fall back upon the core if there's no power. Then Gen3+ includes a core catcher in which, should it breach its reactor, it just falls in there and cools down…

All five large reactor disasters occurred with reactors that also had fail-safes that rendered them theoretically safe. In the case of Three-Mile-Island, unlucky technicians had to work very hard against the reactor's system to sustain the failure.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#227

Post by evilos » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

V__ wrote: post #70

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #4

Good. Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely. Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that has no carbon footprint.

Whether one is pro nuclear or not, I think it makes sense to look at the specific situation at hand. Was it a mistake to shut down all nuclear reactors while not pushing for more renewables and replacing all gas and coal plants first? I think so. Should the last three remaining nuclear plants be kept online? I don't think so. Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to generate electricity, so nuc…

Based on the fact that Berlin is planning for 2-3 hour* organized blackouts, I don't think they have enough electricity.

EDIT: Not 2 to 3 blackouts, 2 to 3 hour blackouts. When grid is overstressed.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#228

Post by LatteLazy » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

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…

Most nuclear accidents are caused by greed, laziness and shortsightedness. Japan seems to be one of the few societies (possibly the only wealthy one) that doesn't suffer too badly from these issues. When I worry about nuclear power here in the UK, I don't worry about earthquakes, I worry to PMs cousin will get a billion pounds to build a containment unit and not do it. Or the reactor will need to be shut down but the CEO will decide to keep it running because safety and maintenance are just "cost centres"...

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#229

Post by cedilla » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #157

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 While I agree the German position is more complex, the conclusion is reducto ad absurdum given the Fukushima reactor meltdown is an extraordinarily complex issue without a single definitive root cause which could be attributed to simple human control. Any human control is predicated and annotated by known assumptions and performance envelopes. Failure modes can be pre…

...you do understand that your "sensible" minds only decided to keep three reactors online for six months, right?

It seems like argument you have is that the "sensible" minds are agreeing with you, and a whole litany of name-calling for the people who advocated abandoning nuclear - who are largely the exact same people by the way.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#230

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #189

wlll wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 according to wikipedia. Isn't the pacific now significantly polluted by radiation from the plant? That seems like a pretty bad outcome, even if the direct number of deaths was re…

The pacific's radiation levels have increased by about 0%. The total releases from all of Fukushima was on the order of 30 PBq. Water has a natural radioactivity of 13 Bq/L. So, if you want to only double the natural radioactivity of water (which is still basically nothing), you need to dilute ask this radiation in 2e15 L of water. The entire pacific is 7.10e20 L of water. Even the area around Japan is thousands of t…

It's worth noting that oceanic water is actually very poorly mixed, with only the first 200m or so mixing well with the atmosphere, so the radioactive emissions likely wouldn't increase in the deep ocean water. On the other hand, that basically only lops a zero off your number.