Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#61

Post by petercooper » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:52 PM UTC

Andi wrote: post #9

henrikschroder wrote: post #6

Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down. It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed. During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a…

I cannot agree. You are stuck in a view that energy needs to be cheap and that energy must be available despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

It has seemed to be a pretty "natural direction" for humanity so far, at least, and technical progress continues to give humanity so much while costing us so little.

To me it seems no more bizarre a view that technical progress is a good direction for humanity to take as believing that education should become better over time, our life expectancy should continue to go up over time, or that, one day, it'd be kinda nice to travel to the stars. All those things need technical progress.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#62

Post by lispm » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:54 PM UTC

mrich wrote: post #12

Let's see how long this decision holds up, In 2000 they decided to switch off old plants by 2011 (labor+green party). This was anulled by end of 2010 by the conservatives. Only because of Fukushima (and pending elections) did they anull this again. The green party has been winning in the last elections since Fukushima, and the ruling conservatives have lost ground. This is their opportunistic way of trying to avoid b…

In five years renewable energy will be MORE competitive, not less.

The government decision to increase the life time of the nuclear power plant was highly unpopular. In the German society the majority of people were ten years ago already in favor for the shutdown. You can bet that the next government will not have the FDP and CDU in power and that the move to renewable energy has broad support even then.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#63

Post by ugh » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:54 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #40

henrikschroder wrote: post #6

Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down. It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed. During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a…

Germany has increased the use of renewable energy in a decade from 6 to 16% for the generation of electrical energy. The laws and regulation have been put in place: the EEG. This law has been copied world-wide by dozens of countries. The goal is to be at 100% with renewable energy in 2050. The closing down of the nuclear power plants is only one milestone on that way. The fossil-based plants will be reduced over time…

Keeping old nuclear power plants running is not expensive, building them is expensive. Dismantling nuclear power plants is also expensive but there is no way around those costs, anyway.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#64

Post by lispm » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:55 PM UTC

zhoutong wrote: post #25

That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon. We shouldn't ignore the fact that 70% of France's energy consumption is backed by nuclear plants, and this makes France one of the cleanest country in terms of energy consumption in the world. I just don't understan…

I don't think anybody here in Germany would call the nuclear industry 'clean'. That's a french marketing term nobody believes here.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#65

Post by mixmax » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:56 PM UTC

timdorr wrote: post #42

mixmax wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with wind and solar energy is that you can't plan for when you need power, and you can't feasibly store large amounts of electricity. This means that wind and solar can't be the primary powersource, at least until the storage problem is solved which doesn't seem to be on the horizon. On windy sunny days you'll have too much electricity and on windless nights you won't have enough. There's a EU project und…

Actually, MIT solved the storage problem 2 years ago. It's just got to make it's way to market: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

Very interesting article. Unfortunately there's usually a long way from the lab to industrial production, but of course if you don't try you won't succeed.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#66

Post by berntb » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #54

junklight wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's got bugger all to do with any gods or deities. I can't help noticing that the natural tendency of the human species is to expand and adapt - that is what we are. I also notice that the various movements that advocate more basic living patterns have never really caught on. So you are going to have two options: 1) Refuse to do anything about power, let it get more and more expensive until enough people die that yo…

The time of cheap power is over. The challenge will be to have enough power at all.

>>The time of cheap power is over.

The time of cheap oil seems to be over.

For the rest: You know that you don't know what will happen. So why do you make blanket statements like that?

For example: Some analysts claim that solar energy will solve all energy problems in ten years. Maybe some of the small fusion projects will work? Thorium? And so on.

Edit: Yeah, since Germany has panicked like a herd of cattle, the time limit is so short that there is very little to do. But the way the electricity prices will go, solar will become attractive earlier.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#67

Post by junklight » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:59 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #54

junklight wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's got bugger all to do with any gods or deities. I can't help noticing that the natural tendency of the human species is to expand and adapt - that is what we are. I also notice that the various movements that advocate more basic living patterns have never really caught on. So you are going to have two options: 1) Refuse to do anything about power, let it get more and more expensive until enough people die that yo…

The time of cheap power is over. The challenge will be to have enough power at all.

I'm not totally sure about that. There is a lot of investment in this area (albeit tossed and blown on the winds of political trends). Things like photovoltaics are only a few years off being viable on a large scale (at current levels of investment which turns out to be the biggest problem).

But I agree it's going to be a struggle and one that may go badly wrong for a while.

But the key thing here is that we have to get the knee jerk politics out of it. It doesn't matter if there is global warming or not because if we stay dependant on fossil fuels there are just going to be endless conflicts over the them, if the greens can persuade everyone in the whole world to live a life of abstinence that's cool - but we need to bet that they can't - because their failure mode is that we all die horribly.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#68

Post by lispm » Mon, May 30, 2011, 1:59 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #32

zhoutong wrote: post #25

That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon. We shouldn't ignore the fact that 70% of France's energy consumption is backed by nuclear plants, and this makes France one of the cleanest country in terms of energy consumption in the world. I just don't understan…

That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon Or, far more likely, we'll still be burning coal. Hey, it's no skin off my nose, I'm an Australian. If the Germans wanna quit importing our uranium and start importing our coal instead then that's cool, I just think…

We currently have most of our nuclear power plants off grid. Nothing happened so far.

How do you come up with the number 50 by 2011???

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#69

Post by ugh » Mon, May 30, 2011, 2:01 PM UTC

bluedanieru wrote: post #8

henrikschroder wrote: post #6

Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down. It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed. During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a…

What I suspect will happen is more power will be imported from nations that flagrantly pollute the environment. The Chinese might be on to something with putting the engineers in charge. Sometimes the public really doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, and should be completely ignored.

Look at it from a different perspective: The engineers failed to convince society and have only themselves to blame.

Re: Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022

#70

Post by john61 » Mon, May 30, 2011, 2:03 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #24

latch wrote: post #15

Germany is a leader in solar power. They installed more panels last year than the rest of the world combined. They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did. If they can further establish themselves as leaders and experts in new-energy, it'll make them even more disproportionally well positioned to most of Europe. However, it's a shame they see no future in nuclear. Seems like they are betting against s…

The problem with wind and solar energy is that you can't plan for when you need power, and you can't feasibly store large amounts of electricity. This means that wind and solar can't be the primary powersource, at least until the storage problem is solved which doesn't seem to be on the horizon. On windy sunny days you'll have too much electricity and on windless nights you won't have enough. There's a EU project und…

There are huge electr. pumped storage hydro power stations in use in Austria und Switzerland for decades...

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpspeicherkraftwerk#.C3.96ste...

Also smart grids (trinding price due to current demand and consumption and intelligent consumer hardware automatically controlled by this price) are emerging.

Also the weather forecast and therefore solar and wind energy producing forecast for the next 24 hours is very accurate nowadays. Far-sighted and intelligent planning of the energy-mix in the smart grid is therefore possible.