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Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

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Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#61

Post by wewxjfq »

looping__lui wrote: post #19
melling wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fear of tsunamis hitting nuclear plants in Germany seems remote. How do Germans feel about all those nuclear power plants next door in France? Does anyone have any fear of the health effects of burning coal decade after decade?

The majority of Germans want nuclear power back. But politicians don’t want to. Green party has always been against nuclear power. It’s their ideology. And the Merkel’s party who shut them down (CDU) and changed their mind now is no longer on power. German politics bas been ideological madness for the past 18 years or so…

Accusing the Greens of being ideology driven when they have shown to be pragmatic is a joke. Not sticking to any ideology is the reason their politicians top the popularity polls.

And wanting something back is one thing, getting something back another. If you want nuclear power back, you must build new plants - good luck, it will only take 20 years!

The Green-led BMWK explained in detail the many real hurdles that come with prolonged use of nuclear power. Strangely, I have never seen any oh-so rational nuclear power lover dissect their arguments.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#62

Post by lucb1e »

askvictor wrote: post #47
Dalewyn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes no sense to not go nuclear. For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology ther…

> For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? Sure it's more compact, but it has other complications regarding transport. They're still going to be reliant o…

Imagine the sheer volume of solar panels needed to supply even a fraction like 1/5th of the energy demand. You don't manufacture and ship that to Germany in a few big orders, that's a decades-long process. By the time that's done, the oldest panels are up for renewal. Any country that is not producing solar panels (and that isn't a place like Norway or Iceland with hydro or geothermal plentiful) is effectively relying on foreign 'fuel' as well. It's almost as though we're going to have to learn to live together on planet A.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#63

Post by Dalewyn »

emodendroket wrote: post #52
Dalewyn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes no sense to not go nuclear. For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology ther…

> For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology thereof. The meltdowns at Fukushima #1 could have been completely avoided had the government of the time not been a bunch of worthless fools (hint: TEPCO wanted to scuttle the reactors before they melted down). Surely there is no reason to believe that couldn't happen again.

Humans being humans will always be a thing, but if we let that be the showstopper then we can't do anything period.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#65

Post by emodendroket »

Dalewyn wrote: post #63
emodendroket wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology thereof. The meltdowns at Fukushima #1 could have been completely avoided had the government of the time not been a bunch of worthless fools (hint: TEPCO wanted to scuttle the reactors before they melted down). Surely there is no reason to believe that couldn't happen again.

Humans being humans will always be a thing, but if we let that be the showstopper then we can't do anything period.

If nuclear power requires more vigilance or competence from the people running it to avert disaster then that's a real demerit.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#66

Post by mpweiher »

locallost wrote: post #29
glogla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but not only. The German way - turning off nuclear power to replace it with coal and gas while running token amount of renewables which will never cover the base load (because the required amount of storage would be insane), is very much the dream of traditional coal, gas and oil industries. Yet the Germans argue it is the best way because "what about the waste?!!!111" It is a shame that whole country manag…

Stop spreading disinformation. Germany not only switched off nuclear plants but reduced its coal use drastically compared to levels 10 years ago. I've posted data on this a billion times, and am too lazy to do it now -- checking the actual data for once before posting an opinion should not be too difficult. Sorry, but this is beyond pitiful.

Stop spreading disinformation.

Reduction has been minimal, and now that we no longer have the Russian gas that we used to substitute coal, we are turning coal plants back on. While at the same time shutting down clean nuclear.

The mind boggles.

Go to https://www.electricitymaps.com On almost every day, Germany is the 2nd least green country in Europe, only after Poland.

In 2014, Germany was the largest producer of CO2 emissions in Europe, by a wide margin.

https://gefira.org/en/2015/12/15/germany-the-largest-co2-emi...

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#67

Post by tony69 »

wewxjfq wrote: post #42
hsn915 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand, the FUD campaign was actually orchestrated by Russian gas companies to make Germany more dependent on Russian gas, and it seems to have worked.

Saying this while nuclear power depends greatly on Russia and no country could sanction Rosatom shows how grounded in reality these discussions are.

To be fair, the amount of money in uranium and refining is orders of magnitude less than the amount of money in natural gas (which is one of the arguments pro nuclear), so your counter argument isn’t so strong either

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#68

Post by tannhaeuser »

ycuser2 wrote: post #3

As a German this is quite bizzare to me. Here, our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. People are scared of nuclear energy. And now Japan goes max nuclear.

It was Ms Merkel who captured the Green Party's long standing stance of zero nuclear power after the Fukushima event - like she did with political positions of other opponents as a general strategy.

Today, it's Mr Habeck who'd be responsible for extending lifetimes of nuclear power plants. But of course his investigation into viability of doing just that was bound to come to negative conclusions - everything else would be political suicide for a member of a party that started life out of the "Atomkraft? Nein danke" movement late 70s/early 80s.

Decisions elsewhere in the world, even in Japan, don't matter, co2, geopolitics, energy-intensive industries, and emobility at stupid prices be damned - the fundamentalist Green Party and their dangerously half-educated electorate are afraid of "the rays."

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#69

Post by lucb1e »

looping__lui wrote: post #19
melling wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fear of tsunamis hitting nuclear plants in Germany seems remote. How do Germans feel about all those nuclear power plants next door in France? Does anyone have any fear of the health effects of burning coal decade after decade?

The majority of Germans want nuclear power back. But politicians don’t want to. Green party has always been against nuclear power. It’s their ideology. And the Merkel’s party who shut them down (CDU) and changed their mind now is no longer on power. German politics bas been ideological madness for the past 18 years or so…

> The majority of Germans want nuclear power back.

Not the ones I talk to. It's not like they're energy or nuclear experts, working in a security consultancy, but they're also not uneducated or unfamiliar with looking things up on the internet. Every single one of them will, when directly asked, say "yeah okay coal first but then nuclear should close too!". Not a mention of the reliance on gas (until one year ago, of course), let alone that they would say "as soon as there is enough renewable energy available, we should close nuclear". The indoctrination runs deeper than the fundamental knowledge that we should build out renewables before we can turn off things we don't like without losing the power grid.

I think AfD wants it (the local racism party), which is possibly the worst kind of advertising one could do, regardless of who's actually right.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#70

Post by wewxjfq »

mpweiher wrote: post #54
wewxjfq wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying this while nuclear power depends greatly on Russia and no country could sanction Rosatom shows how grounded in reality these discussions are.

Here's some grounding in reality: - Russia mines 5% of the world's Uranium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining - The reason we only use less than 5% of the Uranium fuel, so throwing away 95%, is that the fuel is so cheap (= abundant) that it is cheaper to just throw it away - Fuel costs are basically a negligible component of the lifecycle costs of a nuclear reactor

The hard facts are that Russia processes half of the world's uranium and no country, not even the US, could sanction their nuclear energy sector. This is the reality, not your fuel efficiency and breeder reactor hopium.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-i...

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