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Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

spiegel.de

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Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#291

Post by formerly_proven »

GordonS wrote: post #152
formerly_proven wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irrational fear-factor associated with anything nuclear is highlighted by how much attention Fukushima, the nuclear disaster, which gravely injured like a dozen people, gets relative to the earthquake and tsunami causing it, which killed 20k people and leveled a huge stretch of coast.

If you asked 100 random people on the street, I'll bet most would say the Fukushima nuclear disaster killed hundreds or thousands of people. As a single data point, I just asked my wife (who, for background, is well educated and pays close attention to the news), and her guess was "hundreds". The modern mass media has a lot to answer for.

Media, perhaps, but interest groups probably share more of the blame, because the FUD originates with them. E.g. Greenpeace claims one million deaths from Chernobyl, GSS claimed something to the effect of "more than 1.5 million with most of the damage still to come" a few years ago. I almost can't blame people in an environment like that when they think TMI or Fukushima killed hundreds or thousands and gave a lot of people cancer or whatever.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#292

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab »

_ph_ wrote: post #289
aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But according Germans that’s impossible, because they’re net exporters* in electricity! (* terms and conditions apply, grid stability is not guaranteed)

Can you do anything but make stupid comments without content? Yes, Germany is a net exporter, but Germany is part of the European grid. There is a joint market, where electricity is balanced across Europe every minute. The same country which is a net exporter can import in some parts of the day. France is a good example, because they mostly use rather slow nuclear power plants. But as they are part of the European gr…

I recommend you study the so-called “duck curve”.

Peak consumption occurs after sunset across Europe, when German photovoltaics generate zero electricity. So what do the Germans do to keep up with the demand? They spin up their extremely polluting coal plants, or buy electricity from their neighbours, forcing them to spin up their peaking plants.

>The same country which is a net exporter can import in some parts of the day.

Yeah, except the time when they want to import is precisely the time when everyone else is experiencing peak demand. Now tell me, what happens in a market when demand increases across the board? The price point moves higher along the demand curve, bravo!

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#293

Post by LudwigNagasena »

kurthr wrote: post #246
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is fighting separatists that aren’t recognized by any UN state should lead to reestablishment of Austria-Hungary?

How is jailing people after trial (but not extraditing the Catalonian European delegates), equivalent to the utter destruction of civilian occupied Grozny? Or are you suggesting that in 2008 Germany should have supported Georgia in South Ossetia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Russo-Georgian...

> How is jailing people after trial (but not extraditing the Catalonian European delegates), equivalent to the utter destruction of civilian occupied Grozny?

The equivalence is in aversion to separatism. I think if the leaders of Ichkeria would agree to be jailed, the Russian government wouldn’t destroy the city. I am not sure what alternative you propose for a country that wants to ensure its internationally recognized claim to a territory.

> Or are you suggesting that in 2008 Germany should have supported Georgia in South Ossetia? > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Russo-Georgian...

There is a well-recognized contradiction between the principle of sovereignty and self-determination in the international law. What one should do is not clear if you agree with those principles less so if you don’t recognize them. So it is a quite complicated question. So those things almost always devolve to realpolitik.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#294

Post by panick21_ »

Ekaros wrote: post #275
panick21_ wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually people are very prepared for that. In the US for example, the US collected a waste fee for 50 years and had many, many billions on an account. Easily enough money to develop the technology for burning up the fuel. Literally many times the money then required. But rather then using rational technology solution politicians grid-locked themselves over an incredibly stupid Yucca Mountain project that makes no se…

And deep hole in the ground isn't horrific policy either. Wasteful yes, but not horrific. It is just that evil politicians don't want to make reasonable trade-offs...

Given how much it cost to make that hole and the opportunity cost, I would call it horrific.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#295

Post by [deleted] »

parineum wrote: post #206
koonsolo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Belgian I only want 1 thing: no money going to Russia. I'm willing to pay the price for that.

One of the best things about nuclear is that it can really be put anywhere. It's hard to price in the benefit of energy independence/sovereignty but it's definitely should be a huge factor in it's favor.

[deleted]

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#296

Post by benhurmarcel »

cycomanic wrote: post #35

It is interesting to note how everyone talks about the dependency on gas in Germany, while nobody mentions France. If we look at the two graphs: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/En... https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/abm6r4/germanys_en... We can see that both Germany and France use about the same percentage of gas in their energy mix. Making this discussion a reason to revive nuclear…

You're comparing total energy for France to only electricity production for Germany.

The graph for France includes heating, cars, etc... You can see the electricity production here: https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/france#what-source...

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#297

Post by xorcist »

number6 wrote: post #276
xorcist wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the idea is to adjust the price over time. The hard part is getting such a system in place, not ramping it up.

There is a finite number of certificates - like bitcoin. Price adjusts as certificates are uses up. New certificates can be created by capturing carbon... similar to bitcoin mining.

Yes, but the supply of certificates has been set as to ensure a soft transition to this system. When the supply tightens, prices will go up. At least that's the theory.

In the current political climate where politicians all over the world compete on subsidizing electricity and fossil fuels to combat the recent price hikes for all poorly insulated home owners and car drivers, who knows what will happen.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#298

Post by [deleted] »

Muromec wrote: post #66
Cwizard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don’t understand is how those two incidents are even relevant. Chernobyl happened because of a faulty design + mismanagement and Fukushima was located on a region prone to earthquakes/tsunami’s caused by earthquakes. The factors do not really apply to Germany. And even if it did, the deaths caused by those accidents were quite low. Meanwhile coal pollution is killing people by the thousands but this is somehow…

> Meanwhile coal pollution is killing people by the thousands but this is somehow ok? There is a tram going on a track, killing 10 children each week. You can switch it yo another track where it has a small chance of killing a thousand and you will be blamed for that.

[deleted]

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#299

Post by panick21_ »

adrianN wrote: post #264
panick21_ wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you essentially stop any technology progress for 40 years in one technology, other technologies might catuch up. But there is a MASSIVE amount of potential for nuclear to be cheaper and better. People in 2000~ were more then happy to predict massive improvement in cost for renewables if money was invested but absolutely denied that the same could happen with nuclear. Had the same amount been invested in nuclear, p…

We don't have another twenty years to wait for nuclear costs to maybe come down and then another twenty years to build enough cheap nuclear to become carbon neutral. Renewables are cheap today and can be built much faster than nuclear.

Even if the first generation is not cost effective, neither was the first generation of wind and solar.

However we have 28 years until 2050 and for really deep carbonation having advanced nuclear would be really awesome. Not to mention other benefits like radio isotopes, medical isotopes, rational solution to the removal of the current waste, a backup option in case a volcano disrupts solar on a large scale and so on.

We are not doomed just because not every single $ of spending is going into more solar panels.

Re: Germany sees shift in sentiment toward atomic energy

#300

Post by panick21_ »

bildung wrote: post #274
panick21_ wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wrong. Literally almost the opposite is true. There are lots and lots of countries who use nuclear civilian energy and don't have nuclear weapons. While at the same time there are lots of countries who have nuclear weapons but no civilian nuclear power. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that countries who have civilian nuclear power are less likely to have nuclear weapons. https://en.wikipe…

Please compare the list of countries with plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country with the list of countries with nukes: https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/worldwide . Note that most of the exceptions in Eastern Europe and Asia were formerly part of the Soviet Union or Warshaw Pact. Japan is indeed a notable exception as the country also has enrichment capabilities etc. Though note that they…

Of course many of the original countries have both. However you are ignoring many exception in both directions, there are a number of countries with nuclear weapons but not nuclear power, and the other way around also.

So 9 countries have nuclear weapons. Of those, 2 don't use civilian nuclear power, that's 22%.

You have 32 countries with civilian nuclear power, that means 25 with no nuclear weapons. These 25 are literally distributed over all 5 continents. That is 80%.

And notably non of the 9 with nuclear weapons have primarily used civilian nuclear power to bootstrap the bomb.

So the data you provided is literally proving my point.

> Though note that they, too, seem to phase out the usage, though. Switzerland is planning it's phase out too, AFAIK.

That really has nothing to do with what we are talking about. But it was one of the worst votes in Swiss history. The campaign was totally based on absolutely absurd argument and driven by pure demagoguery. And we are not actively shutting down, we have just decided not to build anything new.

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