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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

#241

Post by llsf »

karamanolev wrote: post #174
epivosism wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was 1 disputed radiation/nuclear related death from Fukushima. And mention of 2200 related to the (post-tsunami) evacuation. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_ac...

That aside, what about price? Completely cleaning up and taking apart the plant could take a generation or more, and comes with a hefty price tag. In 2016 the government increased its cost estimate to about $75.7 billion, part of the overall Fukushima disaster price tag of $202.5 billion. I'm a fan of nuclear, but those are eye-watering numbers.

The cost to dismantle a nuclear power plant is the same as for coal/gaz power plants. ~10% of the initial price. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#242

Post by evilos »

fsh wrote: post #113
Lev1a wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after Fukushima And can we talk about how stupid and actively malicious it is to use the Fukushima accident as a reason for shutting down nuclear plants in Germany? Fukushima: nuclear plant in a seismically very active region in very close proximity to the ocean where tsunamis are not really a rarity vs. German nuclear plants: not very seismically active (if at all), no tsunamis i've ever heard of, not counting flo…

The Fukushima reactors and a lot of the german ones were built by the same company. They overlooked the flood risk on the japanese coast (which has huge tsunamis every few decades). What did they overlook elsewhere? After Chernobyl, politicians promised that western reactors could not possibly explode. Fukushima proved them wrong.

Comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl is not really justified

Chernobyl: Core meltdown and catastrophic explosion of entire reactor. Caused by gross negligence when safety system disabled. Direct deaths: Fukushima: Caused by 4th largest earthquake in history. No core explosion. Hydrogen explosion destroyed non structural part of building (this was by design). Core meltdown but largely contained. Contamination of air/water from venting to atmosphere. Direct deaths: 1 employee died of cancer Estimated indirect deaths: 300-2000

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#243

Post by peaslock »

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…

It is measurable, but not harmful to a meaningful extent. There are lots of sources of low-dose radiation in the natural human/primate/.../mammalian environment.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#244

Post by evilos »

V__ wrote: post #231
evilos wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would hope they are planning for the worst-case. I want the government to have contingency plans. Doesn't mean it will happen.

That's the amazing thing. They are not. Most likely it will be far worse than they are imagining. I hope I am wrong.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#245

Post by godelski »

peaslock wrote: post #243
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…

It is measurable, but not harmful to a meaningful extent. There are lots of sources of low-dose radiation in the natural human/primate/.../mammalian environment.

For what it is worth, I did an estimate on here awhile ago (welcome to search my history) where IIRC you had to eat several kilos of boar and mushrooms every day to approach limits for radiation workers (which has a large safety margin).

I think many people forget that we are really good at detecting radiation. This is mostly due to Cold War era fear and so a lot of research got put into this and we have cheap and sensitive devices. Cheap enough that there are large public networks of radiation monitoring set up by citizens. Not too dissimilar from citizen weather projects.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#246

Post by V__ »

evilos wrote: post #244
V__ wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope they are planning for the worst-case. I want the government to have contingency plans. Doesn't mean it will happen.

That's the amazing thing. They are not. Most likely it will be far worse than they are imagining. I hope I am wrong.

I don't know about any evidence to support this claim. By law, industry will be shut down before any private home is affected. About 40% of gas and electricity is respectively used in industries. That means there is a lot of reserve before any home gets a blackout. Short term rolling blackout maybe, anything longer highly unlikely.

EDIT: Just saw the edit. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a big deal to me. In 2019 after a damaged cable, there was a 31-hour blackout in some parts of Berlin. In comparison a 2 to 3 hour one happens all the time during storms etc.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#247

Post by karamanolev »

llsf wrote: post #241
karamanolev wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That aside, what about price? Completely cleaning up and taking apart the plant could take a generation or more, and comes with a hefty price tag. In 2016 the government increased its cost estimate to about $75.7 billion, part of the overall Fukushima disaster price tag of $202.5 billion. I'm a fan of nuclear, but those are eye-watering numbers.

The cost to dismantle a nuclear power plant is the same as for coal/gaz power plants. ~10% of the initial price. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

That's irrelevant to this particular discussion. I'm not talking about regular "dismantling a nuclear plant", but if 1/100 of the plants have 1000x the cleanup costs due to accidents, that changes the math. I pulled the above numbers out of my hat, they're probably wrong. I'm just adding a bit of nuance to the TCO calculation.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#248

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #236
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing they exported 15% of their domestic energy production to the friendly state of Russia - in the form of natural gas imports ($20B per year). What could possibly go wrong?

96% of european uranium demand is met by imports, 4% is domestic, and 20% are imported from russia. Source: Euratom Supply Agency - Annual Report 2021 - Page 14 https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/publications/esa-annual-... Also look at page 26ff which states that it would take years to replace current dependency on russia, not only in raw ressources, but also enrichment and recycling services.

You can import 100% of Uranium from actual allies without problem.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#249

Post by karamanolev »

metadat wrote: post #240
karamanolev wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just take a brief look at the list of nuclear accidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... There's various kinds of human errors (and humans will continue to make errors), equipment malfunctions, problems during equipment maintenance and so on. Can you call "human incompetence" something to be planned for? Yes, sure, you have to plan for it. Can you plan it well enough so that it simply…

A good reactor design would account for the human factor, and perhaps this is the truly difficult problem with practical nuclear power.

Agreed. "A good reactor design" to that definition is enormously hard though - I'll be incredibly happy if that gets solved, hopefully with a modular "built in a factory" design that can be easily replicated and remain very safe.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#250

Post by djbebs »

someweirdperson wrote: post #237
dane-pgp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the experience of the US Navy in nuclear power generation, I don't think their doomsday scenarios are inevitable. I often see this given as a reason for why nuclear power generation can be safe, but I think it overlooks the fact that military reactors operate in a very different context from civilian ones. For a start, do we know how expensive (per unit energy) US Navy reactors are? It doesn't matter how safe…

> For a start, do we know how expensive (per unit energy) US Navy reactors are? Price does not matter. It has to work reliably, not only in calm days of peace, but during times of war. Having a source of power to move the big boats without relying on external supplies is worth the price. There even were experiments to generate jetfuel using nuclear power on carriers, certainly not because it is cheap.

Price does matter though.
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