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Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#261

Post by andbberger »

All the nuclear threads here are the same, and they're all deeply frustrating. HN isn't exactly a bastion of liberal speech (here fucked up conservative hot takes reign supreme) - but ostensibly the populace is more technically literate than average. Yet it's the same stupid bullshit every time.

It's dangerous!!11!! fukushima! chernobyl!1!!

> nope look at some statistics it's very safe

ok, the waste!11! scary spicy rocks!! glowing cats! landscape of thorns!!11

> nope just bury it like finland, or leave it in the pool

ok ok only finland is special enough to dig holes for spicy rocks

> ...

it's expensive!!!11! it's too expensive!! the future is wind turbines and solar panels and turning bolivia into a giant battery

The water is lapping at our feet. We are doomed.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#262

Post by mistrial9 »

anshumankmr wrote: post #27
imtringued wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outdated information is quite relevant for nuclear power plants. Fukushima was older than Chernobyl. Every time someone tells me how safe modern power plants are I think "great, now get rid of all the old ones".

Wouldn't that be better than the gigatonnes of CO2 we keep emitting into the atmosphere?

there are lots of ways to emit less CO2 right now without any nukes pro or con.. yet, stall...

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#263

Post by arcticbull »

andbberger wrote: post #261

All the nuclear threads here are the same, and they're all deeply frustrating. HN isn't exactly a bastion of liberal speech (here fucked up conservative hot takes reign supreme) - but ostensibly the populace is more technically literate than average. Yet it's the same stupid bullshit every time. It's dangerous!!11!! fukushima! chernobyl!1!! > nope look at some statistics it's very safe ok, the waste!11! scary spicy r…

This has been my experience too, speaking as someone who's usually the ">" line.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#264

Post by eecc »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #124
aagd wrote: post #104

The view I share with a majority of Germans: Costs of nuclear energy are very much a burden that future generations will have to carry. A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price. It is also clear now that the the companies running the plants will not pay for the deconstruction of the plants after they reached their end of life. Tax payers have to pay for this, and a…

Aren't there newer nuclear technologies that use alternative fissionable materials that have much shorter half-lives?

If you’re referring to Thorium and pebble bed, they’re both not proliferation safe and have their issues with ecological confinement of highly active waste.

So unfortunately they never managed to overcome the initial “should we even seriously try it” cost/benefit analysis

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#265

Post by rich_sasha »

jrsdav wrote: post #169
retrac wrote: post #125

One generally underappreciated aspect to nuclear energy opposition is the intrinsic link to nuclear weapons. Some of it is scientifically illiterate nonsense (a lot of people seem to think power reactors can have a nuclear explosion). And some of it is just historical association. But some of it is a lot harder to dismiss. A world without nuclear reactors or enrichment facilities is a world without nuclear weapons. A…

I am calling out my ignorance here, but are there not reactor types that don't require enriched uranium? Sodium-cooled, Molten Salt, etc. I'm curious about the current state of reactor technology and if it addresses your concern.

They all need some enrichment, but then apparently it’s still very hard to go from a civilian reactor to weapons-grade uranium. Just, I guess, much easier than from a heap of coal.

I understand that with adequate supervision from the IEA proliferation is generally a non-issue.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#266

Post by eecc »

adrr wrote: post #208
eutectic wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nuclear power station is not exactly a university or an art gallery.

It does benefit society by creating a baseline energy source that is cleaner than coal or natural gas.

Which ignorants can - and will - proceed to piss away on terrace heaters to have drinks while having a smoke outside on the street

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#267

Post by armada651 »

goodpoint wrote: post #106
armada651 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least two of those points don't hold when you're talking about existing plants though. Germany already hosts nuclear weapons courtesy of the US, so where's the proliferation risk from nuclear power? And there's nothing worse for ROI than shutting down the plant. For the other points I'd say that I'd rather build solar to replace coal plants first before replacing nuclear plants.

> Germany already hosts nuclear weapons courtesy of the US, so where's the proliferation risk? Proliferation is not a binary 1 or 0. > For the other points I'd say that I'd rather build solar to replace coal plants first before replacing nuclear plants. That's a false dichotomy.

> Proliferation is not a binary 1 or 0.

I think climate change poses a bigger existential risk than the nuclear proliferation risk from Germany continuing the nuclear energy production they're already doing.

> That's a false dichotomy.

Sure we can do both, but the reality is we're not doing both. The last time Germany closed its nuclear plants they were replaced by coal plants.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#268

Post by michilehr »

aagd wrote: post #104

The view I share with a majority of Germans: Costs of nuclear energy are very much a burden that future generations will have to carry. A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price. It is also clear now that the the companies running the plants will not pay for the deconstruction of the plants after they reached their end of life. Tax payers have to pay for this, and a…

Totally agree.

"Der Graslutscher" has written 6 parts about "Energy transition in 10 years". Sorry it is in german but it is worth reading.

https://graslutscher.de/how-to-energiewende-in-10-jahren-tei...

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#269

Post by Cybiote »

red_trumpet wrote: post #49
fsflover wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is statistically safer than almost anything even if you take Chernobyl and Fukushima into account.

What do you mean by "safer"? Less accidents compared to eg coal plants? No exploding coal plant will render a whole region unlivable for >30 years. Both happened at Tschernobyl and Fukushima.

> No exploding coal plant will render a whole region unlivable for >30 years

Unlivable for humans. The exclusion zone around Chernobyl became a de facto wild-life sanctuary. To the extent that some environmentalists now argue benefits of officially maintaining it as one indefinitely. Human supporting activities such as farming, mining and habitat expansion often come at a serious cost to local ecosystems. Nature ends up flourishing over time in humans excluded regions exactly because they are unlivable for > 30 years.

As pointed out by others, one effect of burning coal is the concentration of its radioactive elements in fly ash. And since less care is taken, more radioactive material ends up released into the environment by coal plants than nuclear plants. It's worth pointing out however, when contrasted with background, risks from exposure to radioactivity is not significantly raised by living near coal plants. The real killer from coal is pollution. Having said that, accumulation of fly ash over time could be a concern, especially wherever it gathered under non-uniform dispersal. As far as I know, this is yet to be shown.

Perhaps a stronger example of society's inconsistent reasoning about radioactivity exposure is inhalation of tobacco smoke. It's curious that information on the significant amounts of radioactive material in tobacco smoke did not percolate widely and probably would not have changed habits anyway, given its known carcinogenic nature was already not enough to do so.

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