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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

#71

Post by luckylion »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #29
tomschlick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who in their right mind Activist politicians who value their cause more than the well being of their citizens.

I don't think this is fair. Although I think some among the anti-nuclear movement may have had subversive intent, most of the people who ended up aligning with that movement did have good intentions. They were reasoning that in the long term, nuclear power would bring great misery to humanity. Long term thinking is good, right? If you believe in the eventual probability of those doomsday scenarios, and you value the…

I agree. The problem with that position is that pretty much everyone ever believed that their actions would make things better, even if they were very wrong and just made everything worse.

Nevertheless, I don't think the anti-nuclear movement is evil. They're guided by extreme fear, not malice. I don't know how you can bring them around though, unless your offering some form of therapy. But even with that, would they accept it? Would you accept therapy to change some of your deeply held beliefs that you don't view as 'wrong'?

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#72

Post by Lev1a »

squid322 wrote: post #17
_dain_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole political position of this party rests on their fanatic opposition to Nuclear power. Btw if anyone thinks this is exaggeration, it's not. They are evil fanatics: https://twitter.com/giuliasaudelli/status/158097313099012505... >"Nuclear power and fossil fuels brought us here. They caused this crisis, they are not the solution." >Strong and at times emotional speech by Robert Habeck, after weeks under pressu…

The decision to turn off nuclear plants in Germany was __not__ made by the greens. It was made years ago by the CDU after Fukushima.

> 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 floods as those are

1. easier to foresee and manage and

2. very much less intense than a sudden wall of water razing everything in its path.

Also in Japan you kinda have to build near the coast since its surrounded by ocean on all sides while being stretched out long and not that wide with mountains as a backbone in the middle. Germany on the other hand only has the North and Baltic Sea at its northern end then progressively gets higher above sea level the more south you go, ultimately ending at the northern end of the Alps.

This decision and especially this reasoning didn't make sense then and still doesn't nowadays. It was just a kneejerk reaction to retain voter support by exploiting the fear of the uneducated and the anti-nuclear crowd.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#74

Post by legulere »

clemensley wrote: post #7

Finally. Opposition to nuclear is beyond unreasonable. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

That statistic is only about deaths. You still have to deal with nuclear accidents leading to evacuation of huge areas happening once around every 30 years (unknown unknowns and what not).

Germany has a high population density. Such a catastrophe happening in Germany would lead to millions getting evacuated.

Another issue is the safe disposal of nuclear waste. It might seem like a low risk, but over the huge timespan nuclear waste needs to be safeguarded that risk adds up. Of course there's also other sources of nuclear waste, but it's best to keep the amounts low.

Last, nuclear currently in the west runs into economic problems. New reactors are plagued by enormous cost overruns and struggle to compete with renewables. But also old reactors are starting to become prohibitively expensive to keep running.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#75

Post by JumpCrisscross »

V__ wrote: post #70
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #4

Good. Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely. Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that has no carbon footprint.

Whether one is pro nuclear or not, I think it makes sense to look at the specific situation at hand. Was it a mistake to shut down all nuclear reactors while not pushing for more renewables and replacing all gas and coal plants first? I think so. Should the last three remaining nuclear plants be kept online? I don't think so. Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to generate electricity, so nuc…

> only about 10% of gas is used for electricity and Germany has enough electricity

German household electricity is double the price of America’s and considerably higher than France or Italy [1]. Were this not the case, more houses could be heated with electricity instead of gas and the coming recession made less painful.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#76

Post by mabbo »

legulere wrote: post #42
maliker wrote: post #18

In case anyone was curious, Germany used to get 25% of its generation from nuclear (now more like 10%), and they had as many as 17 nuclear reactors as of 2010. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany

And all of it was replaced by renewables: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschla...

They could have instead replaced the fossil fuel electrical generation with those renewables, and kept the nuclear plants. That would have been a massive reduction in carbon emissions by Germany.

Odd choice.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#77

Post by ajmurmann »

jansan wrote: post #58
legulere wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't switch 40 million heating systems overnight, though it's picking up steam ( https://www.waermepumpe.de/presse/zahlen-daten/ ).

Simply install an air conditioner and you will have very efficient room heating (no hot water, though). They cost about 1500€ and are really easy to install. I know in Bulgaria many households have switched from oil heating to air conditioners.

That's not that easy with German homes as they are heated with hot water pipes and walls are typically solid. You could maybe install a device that emits hot air in a single room, but to install a forced air system, you'd need to in essence remodel the entire home. In addition, you'd have worse outcomes because now the nice warm floors are gone.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#78

Post by xg15 »

V__ wrote: post #70
OrangeMonkey wrote: post #4

Good. Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely. Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that has no carbon footprint.

Whether one is pro nuclear or not, I think it makes sense to look at the specific situation at hand. Was it a mistake to shut down all nuclear reactors while not pushing for more renewables and replacing all gas and coal plants first? I think so. Should the last three remaining nuclear plants be kept online? I don't think so. Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to generate electricity, so nuc…

> Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to generate electricity, so nuclear can reduce gas consumption. However, only about 10% of gas is used for electricity and Germany has enough electricity. In a worst-case scenario, those nuclear power plants can help stabilize the grid, but they are not needed in general.

A number of cities also use district heating, where the heat is taken directly from the cooling circuits of nearby power stations. No idea what percentage of total heating this is and if nuclear plants are involved here, but this would be another way how those plants could (theoretically) contribute to heating.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#79

Post by legulere »

systemvoltage wrote: post #38
clemensley wrote: post #7

Finally. Opposition to nuclear is beyond unreasonable. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

How do we make sure we don’t do this again? What are current things that are unpopular today but will be regrettable in 10-20 years? We need to eradicate the root cause, because we will make costly mistakes like this over and over. That means taking an extremely rational approach towards problems regardless of their popularity and allow opposition to emotion-driven zeitgeists that thrive through oppression and curbin…

> What are current things that are unpopular today but will be regrettable in 10-20 years?

Wind turbines and power lines in my backyard. It's already regrettable today.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#80

Post by scythe »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #29
tomschlick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who in their right mind Activist politicians who value their cause more than the well being of their citizens.

I don't think this is fair. Although I think some among the anti-nuclear movement may have had subversive intent, most of the people who ended up aligning with that movement did have good intentions. They were reasoning that in the long term, nuclear power would bring great misery to humanity. Long term thinking is good, right? If you believe in the eventual probability of those doomsday scenarios, and you value the…

>Although I think some among the anti-nuclear movement may have had subversive intent

This is a dramatic understatement. It was coordinated by the Rockefeller Foundation from the very beginning:

https://atomicinsights.com/how-did-leaders-of-the-hydrocarbo...

>They may be wrong about the relative safety of nuclear power but they aren't morally defective people, so shaming them isn't appropriate.

The moral failing that you're missing is arrogance. People who actually study radiation were not leading this movement.

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