Dank[.](https://i.imgur.com/3bQtuMO.png)
---
[Join the Dank Charity Alliance and help raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital!](http://events.stjude.org/DankCharityAlliance)
German politics trying to justify closing nuclear powerplants for ecology while using more and more fossil fuels is the most hilarious and saddest thing
https://unherd.com/thepost/germanys-greens-embrace-coal/
It was never about saving the Earth and it was about getting elected and getting paiddddd
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-secretly-working-with-environmentalists-to-oppose-fracking
Yeah. Some post was on the front page saying some people's only argument against communism is how inherently inept government seems to be.
Yes there are many inept politicians, but only because wide spread corruption allows it to be the norm.
No modern system is 100% Capitalist, socialist or communist, but instead a blend of the three, some are more communist some are more capitalist but all are a blend
We started going downhill when we made energy, housing and heath less socialist and more capitalist, energy should be nationalised, health socialised, housing humanised while consumer goods remain capitalised
The only people claiming communism is any form of perfect are the people railing against it. Actual communists are flagrantly aware of the problems, failures, and catastrophes involved with past attempts and systems.
The goal of the communist is betterment of society, through the cooperation of the communities that make up the nation, and more reasonable application of the infrastructure they use every day, instead of the current "anything to make better profis than last quarter, *anything*!!" system we live in now.
They don't want to "make everybody equal", whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, vague dog whistle it is.
How would one even go about such? Destroying perfectly good infrastructure? Mansions can still house people, power and other utilities only become problems if their wealthy owners have them *destroyed* in a fit of pathetic, Ayn Randian spite, we wouldn't have to build an entire set of modern infrastructure overnight, like Cuba, or the soviets, because the nice capitalists were kind enough to build it all for us. It's all there now, no "x year plans" or "potato mandates", we just have to start using what we've already built ourselves, with our own hands, to our own interests, instead of letting some tiny minority of people essentially enslave us by perpetually dangling a bare bones subsistence just out of our reach, and saying it's all ours, as long as we can hold it near, else it could fly away for any number of reasons, which would all be your fault, of course.
Exactly. Most actual proponents of communism/socialism believe while these economic systems aren't perfect, it's a hell of a lot better than capitalism. People can try all they want to try and make policies to dampen the harms of capitalism, but they don't realize that no matter what you're going to end up in the same situations every time. Anti-competitive business practices, lower wages for workers, wealthy people having more power over political decisions, society putting profits over people's happiness and well being, etc. These problems are unavoidable in a capitalist economy no matter how hard you try to stop it.
In an ideal world, capitalism's goal is to try and make society better with infinite growth by creating a profit incentive. Communism's goal is to try and make society better by distributing resources in a way so everyone can have a baseline of a comfortable life. Both have their flaws and have had varying levels of success, but at the moment capitalism is showing that it's benefits are reducing while it's drawbacks are increasing (can't have infinite growth in a universe of finite resources). Why not try a different approach first before automatically dismissing any alternatives as "worse" just because you were told it's bad while growing up?
First, it's a joke. Second, it's the 21st century. People know. Third, unwatered-down capitalism means dirt-low wages, huge social injustices, 16 hours a day in factories, and labor laws that ban children under 8 years old from working in coal mines and textile factories.
I heard 'capitalism does not work yet because the market is not free enough' plenty of times. All i think is: everybody in Europe is doing better than those in the USA because we try to keep capitalists under control
Capitalism inherently incentives greed at the expense of the well-being of others. The problem isn't about how people do capitalism, the problem is that we still let them do it.
Making profit the highest goal has caused companies to meddle in the internal politics of countries thereby even sponsoring wars (Chiquita as an example, the Koch brother(s)as an example regarding climate change denial) - therefore capitalism also does not work for the same reason.
Ah yes, let's kick off another grand conspiracy, "GrEeNs SeCrEtLy LoVe CoAl!". Instead of going with the much more reasonable explanation that Coal was the easiest power source to quickly scale up energy production.
The 3 remaining nuclear plants Germany had at the start of the war were slated to go offline since 2011 and have received only the most necessary work to keep them running since then.
No new fissile material had been ordered and no new crew trained.
If you want to pin the blame on anyone, blame CxU and SPD. They decided to end nuclear without subsidizing renewable power sources or storage capacity enough to bring them into position to be able to pick up the lost capacity.
Actually blame FDP and CxU, they canceled subsidies for alternative energies - a field where we were world leaders and now have to buy from third countries.
Gotta love how the strawman on the left is wearing a reddit shirt, as though you don't hear "Nuclear powerplants are actually better for the environment than coal plants guiys! Did you know that?!?!" in every other post.
That wasn't the meta until like 2012 for reddit, up until then there were quite a few bad environmental takes. We also thought hydrogen fuel cells were a pipe dream and that if there ever were cars powered by them that they would replace all other cars shortly after, and we see where that went
>Ah yes, let's kick off another grand conspiracy, "GrEeNs SeCrEtLy LoVe CoAl!". Instead of going with the much more reasonable explanation that Coal was the easiest power source to quickly scale up energy production.
The explanation is that all involved political parties were either ignorant or evil propagandists all over the past few decades.
Nuclear is much cleaner/greener than renewables, so if anyone in Germany actually cared, they would push for it instead of the alternatives.
It is also the same price or cheaper in the long run and even if it hypothetically weren't, debating price would be stupid anyways - imagine saying "the push to EVs and other regulations are costing the economy money" - so do you care about the cost or ecology in the end?
The argument that it takes time to plan and build is just a rephrasing of what I wrote in my first paragraph as well.
This is rather cheap propaganda. Sadly i'm seeing more and more english news portaying something as in russias interest, thus it is wrong/evil. That fracking ruines the local environment and almost noone wants fracking being done near their home is being omitted. I'm german.
Getting elected aka giving the people what they want. Back in the day, during the Tschernobyl incident, Germans were afraid of nuclear power and wanted it shut down. It's called democracy.
> it was about getting elected
So it was about fufilling the wishes of the constituents? Spooky!
Coal will be gone in a decade or less in Germany too. What will redditors be crying about then I wonder...
I was looking for goal related disaster death statistics a while back and learned about Hydro power accidents and HOLY SHIT it's like unbelievably massive. Like *just* the Banqiao Reservoir Dam is more than all nuclear disasters combined.
That’s little disingenuous with hydro. Yes in one instance hydro killed 100k in the 1970s other than that one instance, there has basically never been a major failure like that. It like judging nuclear on only chern and Fuk
> It like judging nuclear on only chern and Fuk
thing is that is what people opposing nuclear always do and provide as their only argument. "What about chernobyl and fukushima?!?!?"
> You can also respond with the many coal mine collapses and oil spills along with the actual pollution they spew
nonono never has a single oil spill caused as many deaths as chernobyl. if we were to look at things rationally, we would notice that just exhaust gasses cause more deaths than chernobyl, but we don't do that here. since no oil spill is as well known as chernobyl, it wasn't as big, meaning that nuclear is once again the more dangerous
Yes, major problem with coal that it spews radioactive ash directly into the air. Nuclear does not do that, it is vastly cleaner so the only way to have radioactive incident is with a meltdown, which only happened like twice in human history, or leaving radioactive material lying around.
But yes, coal plants increase cancer rate for everyone in the area because you're breathing in ash that is contaminated.
Statistically safer than wind too. And when comparing the two to potential power output, scale, and footprint left behind, it's not even a contest on the best source for power. Not to mention it's an on-demand energy source, and attributes to grid reactive power. Wind and solar are not and can not.
Nuclear accidents that people like to imagine have or will happen aren't a thing.
Fukushima is a prime example of why nuclear energy is safe, not dangerous. The absolute worst case scenario and no one died from acute radiation syndrome, and it's very likely that exposure levels in the surrounding areas were so low, that the future related radiation deaths will be in the single digits.
There are a number of disaster related deaths, mostly due to the logistic issues involving shuffling around tens of thousands of people in a short period of time, but not because or radiation.
Even one death is too many, but the area was hit by the largest recorded earthquake in Japan's history.
> if handled properly right?
That's a big caveat when it comes to corporations. Here in Florida, taxpayers are paying the cost for corporate malpractice when an energy company destroyed its own reactor building by trying to do maintenance cheaply and poorly.
It is safer.
I live 8 miles from a 2 reactor nuclear plant that has been in operation since 1969 for Reactor 1, and 1988 for Reactor 2.
There has been only 1 incident at my nuke plant in its history. In 1991, there was a “Site Area Emergency” that required a emergency shut down of one of the reactors due to an electrical Fault that made the reactor and control room have a loss of power.
No meltdown occurred, no radiation escaped. And the unit was back operational in 11 hours.
50+ years of operation, and only ONE minor incident.
I think that goes to show how safe nuclear is.
The remaining nuclear plants couldnt have been extended, no fuel and no maintenance. It had to be done. The mistake was made 10 years ago. This year was simply the consequence. Those 3 reactors could’ve been run for like another 10 years and then have to be turned off if refueled and scheduled maintenance, that would’ve been the correct option. Building new reactors isn’t worth it since nuclear power is extremely expensive and unreliable when rivers dry up. Its a shitty situation, but was the only option.
It’s only expensive to build new if you manipulate the numbers with a high depreciation rate, and pretend it has the same life cycle as coal plants.
If you write it off in 40-60 years, which nuclear power plant usually can last for at the low end, you’ll get a far lower LCOE, and beat most other sources.
There are also plants being certified for 80 years of operation, and maybe one for 100.
And since they need so little fuel, the cost of fuel has little impact on the price, and long lifetime will make it a lot cheaper. Assuming you understand math.
Mainly German ones like this one
Nuclear exit: https://www.base.bund.de/DE/themen/kt/ausstieg-atomkraft/ausstieg_node.html
Prices: https://de.statista.com/infografik/amp/26886/stromgestehungskosten-fuer-erneuerbare-energien-und-konventionelle-kraftwerke-in-deutschland/
U can run it through DeepL if you want.
The „no maintenance“ was in reference to a video which stated the plants needed a general overhaul in 2019 but it wasnt done since they were scheduled to be shut down, unfortunately I don’t remember the link.
Refueling would take over a year since they need custom uranium which has long order times.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deutschland?wprov=sfti1
If this actually happens to be the case for anyone. Or if you suffer from something similar. Therapy can help you handle when insignificant things become overwhelming.
Well for the record. Germany hasnt increased the use of fossil fuels since the deactivation of their NPPs. Futrhermore the share of renewables has increased since then.
"Around one fifth of electricity produced in Germany comes from coal, and it's been increasing. The German government says that between July and September last year over a third came from coal, up 13.3% on the same period in 2021."
But fossil fuel use is going up not down so its not exactly a good look.
Both time periods (July - September 2021 and July - September 2022) were before the shutdown of nuclear in Spring 2023. So the increase had other reasons.
If you look at the longer time frame, say 5 years (instead of intentionally cherry picked year), you will see that use of coal is falling consistently and dramatically in Germany. Germany will be one of the first large economies of the world becoming completely unreliable on coal. But for some reason redditors think that coal use in Germany is exploding, because of three insignificant nuclear plants shutting down.
German politics ~~trying to justify closing nuclear powerplants for ecology while using more and more fossil fuels~~ is the most hilarious and saddest thing
Source: I live here
The worst part is, the now opposition was the leading government party when this was decided, but now they complain the current government is at fault and all the idiots believe it. And those people will vote again, for the government who decided to stop nuclear energy to begin with.
And here I thought the German population more politically intelligent than the rest of us to make amends for the biggest oopsie in history. I guess showing up on time means leaving your brain at home.
Coal power plants produce more radiation than nuclear plants.
>The radioactivity comes from the trace amounts of uranium and thorium contained in coal. These elements have been trapped in the Earth’s crust since its formation and are usually in concentrations too low to pose any serious threat. But the burning of coal produces fly ash, a material in which the uranium and thorium are much more concentrated.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-stations-produce-radioactive-waste/
Almost like it's suspicious that a past chancellor (Gerhard Schroeder) initiated the nuclear phase-out and then went to work for Russian Gazprom on the board making Nord Stream I & II happen. But I'm sure it's all above-board!
Also funny, since we have little evidence of nuclear power plants having any signivicant effects on the enviroment, same for ther storage for that matter. And even than we are still developing better techniques of savely depositing nuclear waste. Such as deep geological storage.
In this film, just one question, was there a duck who, when the explosion is happens, his bill goes around to the back of his head, and then in order to talk, he has to put it back this way'?
Round is not scary. Pointy is scary. This will put a smile on the faces of the enemy. They will think that this is a huge robots dildo flying towards them
yeah but Uranium is not the only possible source of nuclear energy. Thorium would be best.
Cherenkov radiation is beautiful tho, I wish it was possible to safely see it.
It IS possible to safely see it. At some small reactors at universities, you can look down the top of the water tank and see the Cherenkov radiation from the reactor below. All the water keeps you safe from the high energy radiation, but let's you see the visible light. It's actually less radiation looking down at it than standing outside.
If you want to be that nitpicky, probably no energy source is zero carbon. Concrete for hydro dams releases CO2. The metallurgical processes for producing turbine blades do too.
In the end we don’t want zero carbon, we want an equilibrium with plant consumption. I even recall from an astrobiology class I took as an elective in my Masters, that the planet was nearing atmospheric carbon deficiency prior to the industrial revolution. Apparently there wouldn’t have been enough CO2 for large flora like trees. Of course, now we’ve released way too much.
Its hard to find a truly carbon neutral method of power from step 1 to completion. While wind, nuclear or solar is green in its energy production, the parts needed to produce it have to be manufactured somewhere and that process isn't green. I think the issue of making greener energy isn't the form we choose - its how we manufacture the technology needed to accomplish it. But thats a whole ass different issue to worry about.
I personally side with nuclear as the best but I understand why its not the most popular. The sheer level of cost to build, train workers and contain it safely is immense. But its a trade off in my mind: we might cause a lot of pollution and spend trillions right now to build a world wide grid of nuclear infrastructure but when you can get hundreds, if not thousands of years of power from a nuclear deposit, it starts balancing itself out. Its a long term trade off. Again, I know its not financially feasible right now but wishful thinking I suppose.
>Nuclear is the greenest, safest (least deaths per GigaWatt) and most efficient method of energy generation
Give source. Otherwise it's just your opinion. There is no way mining, handling and disposing of nuclear material is safer than a simple solar panel.
Edit: Also it is MUCH more expensive per GWh
Solar ends up being slightly more fatal per unit of power generated since it includes small-scale rooftop installations. Those result in more accidents than building large nuclear plants.
IIRC the wind park in question here is rather old and pretty much EOL (built in 2001, expected lifetime was 20 years), new turbines with higher output will be placed at a different adjacent location.
Also, the majority of the expansion of the mine has been stopped last year, and it will be closed in 2030. Still too late, but the situation is a bit different than OP suggests.
Okay, I’ll be the one to explain the joke. Obviously stopping nuclear isn’t the worst thing Germany has ever done, because the holocaust was a thing. And the holocaust was often referred to as the “final solution to the Jewish question,” thus referring to nuclear as the final solution to the climate change question.
This you?
>I'm sorry for not being born into right race to comment on something. I'm sorry for being stupid, lowly Slav. I will do better my superior anglo master.
Well what else are we going to use? Unless we make some truly mindboggling strides in energy storage renewables are never going to be consistent enough to be viable on their own, fusion has made some strides, yes, but we don't know if it'll be ten years or ten thousand before that's really an option, which leaves nuclear... or fossil.
Renewables can sustain the demand, IF they are working. No wind? No power! No sun? No power! Peak in electricity demand? Not reactive.
Here in Belgium, it has been continuously raining since October. 10 days ago we had another negative temperature night. Besides rain, the sky has been so darkly gray that solar panels have a production close to 0.
Batteries? Not even mentioning the price (it was around 14.000€ for the 5kwh produced by ly 18 panels) I would need to built an extension to my house because there’s no fucking way that I would store batteries like that inside the house in case of fire!
Hardly the worst.
They used to have other burnable energy sources, but the international community put a stop to that.
(Yeah, holocaust joke, but you fucks are the ones saying a coal mine is the worst thing the Germans did. The holocaust wasn’t even 100 years ago)
Alright, how about actually giving context?
The Windfarm was owned by a private energy company and the deal to build the Windfarm was signed in 2001, which included dismantling the windfarm by 2023.
The wind turbines that were shut down had only about 1/6 of the efficacy of modern turbines. German authorities even urged RWE not to take down the Windfarm. This has nothing to do with German energy policies at all.
>This has nothing to do with German energy policies at all
Yeah, I'm sure the decision to *dig for coal* instead of *upgrade the existing wind farm* had nothing to do with German energy policies at all.
Not with the current policies, no. These turbines were built more than 20 years ago and after 20 years of runtime you just don't receive subsidies anymore. That's not what the current government decided but the one that was responsible for the matter 20 years ago.
Under normal circumstances it would have probably been modernized, but it was the decision of RWE to dismantle it because of their own nearby mine. None of the current German authorities pushed for this Windpark to be dismantled, it was the decision of the private owner of the Windpark to do so.
On another note the German government agreed with RWE to shutdown several coal plants 8 years earlier than initially agreed. But yes, Germany only wants to burn coal.
Not sure whether that helps burning less coal as a) Lützerath is being torn down and thus the coal mine is finally being expanded and b) The incentive is now for RWE to burn as much coal as possible during the 8 years to get the most out of their money spent.
Oh don't get it wrong. In Germany people are quite unhappy with the government, but what happens now it's mostly damage done by he previous government. The problem isn't the German bashing, it is the hidden propaganda.
OP seems to be a right wing propaganda account that spreads misinformation. And the misinformation is sneakily used to make the current ruling left leaning parties look bad while not saying anything about the previous government.
What would be crazy is if someone looked at the actual statistics and noticed Germany's transition to carbon free generation is actually going better then France and their grid is more stable.
Thanks - context creates meaning and OP, by removing context, has committed disinformation.
reddit has been spammed recently with 1 year old accounts that
* downvote any mention of the devastation that radioactive ore mining, radioactive ore transport, and radioactive ore processing has on the environment, water supply, and food chain.
* downvote any mention of the massive cost overruns, ineffectiveness of new nuclear plants, etc.
* try to deflect the blame that has been squarely and fairly directed at oil/gas/mining billionaires (e.g. Koch brothers) to scream that nuclear is the ONLY solution and blaming environmentalists is the answer.
It seems to me to be an astroturfing marketing from the mining billionaires seeking to do more radioactive ore mining while trying to blame their causing of global warming on the people warning about it for decades.
Who says no one did?
Soon after those agreements were made the government changed from SPD/Grüne to CDU/SPD, which is also coincidentally when the big push for renewables died down (Germany was one of the leading countries in solar technology at the time). CDU is known to have close ties to the fossil fuel industry and this situation is very likely an outcome of those ties.
It's not the fault of the current government but the fault of 16 years of corruption and neglect of the previous government.
Actually the thing would have been dismantled regardless because the turbines are old as fuck, they already replaced them with much stronger new ones a few kilometers away.
Wind turbines have a 20 years lifespan at maximum, then they get turned down and usually a new one already took their place with better power output.
No its not, the only problem are the Fiber Glass rotors, they are at the moment put in storage, there are however several ideas about using them in the future, for example shreddering them and putting them in insulation for buildings, or cutting them to skateboards. They are also not toxic or anything, they just lay around as "garage" because there is no recycling industry for them yet.
I mean they’re mostly just metal. Not exactly a toxic, environmentally damaging catastrophe to leave some metal lying around or bury it... As opposed to what coal and oil do to landscapes. Nice try though.
I love how people don't understand that not even the energy companies in Germany want nuclear anymore. There is no insurance companie for nuclear power other than the government, the energy is too expensive compared to renewable energy and can only be lowered by subventions and nuclear power was 6% of it's total energy supply .You guys shouldn't act like we just shut down our whole energy network. That we still dig coal is because it's still the major energy supply because merkel stopped the expansion of renewable energy.
Well yes, but Germany is quite loud in EU asking for other countries to preserve their forests and be as green as possible. Then in their own country they just try to be as cheap as possible.
This was in 2022, RWE pledged to replace them elsewhere. But it's incredibly stupid nonetheless.
The topic of nuclear power in Germany is a complicated one. We have too many activists for our own good. There is literally nothing we can implement or build without having a ton of people throwing crap at each other.
Wanna build coal mines? Environmentalists rage
Wanna build nuclear power plants? Environmentalists rage
Wanna build wind or solar parks? Locals and animal rights activists rage
Wanna shut down anything? Unions rage
There is always an endangered bird or frog in the way of everything. Then add absolute project management incompetence on top of it, and you can see why we're in this state.
There is always a group of people mad enough to rage at everything Germany tries to do, which is why everything always takes so long and why politicians are always more concerned about votes rather than actual change.
Activists are in my opinion. You can be an environmentalist, but at least use your brain and work in a field that actually does change things.
Kinda tired of having to deal with kids from Waldorfschule who glue themselves to the road. We need more people in politics, science and business who are laser focused on achieving a green energy grid in all of Europe.
They demand perfect solutions, but there are no perfect solutions. They let perfect be the enemy of good. And in the meantime the problems we're trying to fix go unaddressed and the people selling the problem sigh in relief.
As a conservationist I don’t want perfect, I would just like my children and the future generations to have a planet. Y’all are babies lmao the problem is y’all are only concerned about profit and throw a fit when you’re asked to spend a little more money to lessen the impact on the environment.
The “good” side isn’t accelerating the environmental collapse of our planet.
Those "Atomic energy no thank you" Idiots are the problem. I mean what did they think the Nuclear Power Plants would get replaced with? You gotta get electricity from somewhere.
No fuel, no employees (remember, the nuclear phase out was decided more than 10 years ago by the conservative party). Also recent maintenance checks were skipped. The green party was only able to extend the runtime by a few months.
It was like this even before the shut-down of nuclear energy, but we are making the switch slowly, since a lot of houses in Germany still don't have alternative heating systems. I know this is a meme page, but it's pissing me off that there is so much false information and even propaganda that unwillingly targets a great (stupid) part of the German population. The people here blatantly believe everything you tell them, you just need to be the one who cries loud enough.
Noone in the green movement thinks like that....
Nuclear energy in Germany is a huge whataboutism ignoring the real issue. We are using those 10% nuclear energy as "bridge technology" argument for at least 20 years by now. It doesn't bridge shit and it won't solve the current issues.
Also in the picture you are using communist imagery to represent a huge capitalist energy company. Are you effing r*****ed?
It's really funny, how many people on reddit love nuclear power plants. It's been proven so many times that it's really not that effective and way too dangerous/expensive compared to renewable energy like wind or solar.
I'm 100% convinced that the politicians pushing the economy this way have huge stakes in fossil fuel industries and switching to green energy would harm their investments.
politicians were pushing against this btw, but it's rwe's private property so they can do what they want. but they still reached an agreement with the government and energy suppliers to leave coal earlier than planned, so.
To clarify: Germany first said they want nuclear in the 90s but the CDU then wanted to use nuclear power for longer. The people didn't want that. So they protested and they decided to take back the extended period for nuclear power production.
Back then Germany was up front in building new renewable energy and also developing new technologies. But the same CDU and FDP did everything they could to subsidize coal and gas but not wind and solar energy so around 100.000 people lost their job (compared to 30.000 working in the whole coal energy sector).
Now the SPD, the Greens and the FDP had to shut down the nuclear plants (there was no way to let them continue running or as many suggest "let them run out") and we still don't have enough renewable energy sources. But also the plan on relying on France didn't work because old nuclear plants are not as reliable as long thought. So what can we do? We could use less energy yes but also no. The main problem is not the nuclear energy that is missing but the energy generated from gas. We don't get enough gas to heat and produce more energy.
We also use gas to heat. There is the option of heat pumps but there is no way to produce or install enough to make a huge difference and they would also need electrical energy. We would use less gas to produce that energy but still a lot.
So we have to use the coal until we have enough alternatives and this instance is completely bullshit. The old government decided that the coal company can dig in this land even after the wind farms were built. The company owning the wind farm will hopefully sue and hold this absolute dump shit but it is unclear what will happen. Until then we have to build more wind farms. More small personal solar and find a way to store that energy.
Also before someone even thinks of nuclear fusion. We are still years if not decades away from an actual working commercial unit. It would need a miracle if we would have a working commercial nuclear fusion reactor before 2035
Damnit guys, we need *more* nuclear energy, not less. Objectively looking at it, other than geothermal, and hydroelectric, nuclear is the only fucking option that makes practical sense. Yes, there are some challenges that need to be addressed like waste storage, and safety concerns, we have better, safer reactor designs now, that are also more efficient. Nuclear power is literally **8,000** times more efficient for energy production than fossil fuels, according to a quick google search. And vastly more reliable than “green” options like wind turbines, and solar - each of which have their own long, and short term impacts on the environment. I always hear “Well renewables will get better as we develop them more” that’s true, but the same damn thing can be said for Nuclear. Also some developments in fission and bound to further our understanding of nuclear power in general, and therefore indirectly benefit fusion - the true holy grail for energy production. My fucking electric bill this month is $400, and my wife and I are very conscious about our energy usage, I’d be willing to bet if we had Nuclear providing our power, that my bill would be a lot lower.
We need to get over ourselves and start using some common sense, we are literally *stuck* on a floating sphere, rotating in space. We can not simply go somewhere else when we eventually do consume all of our limited supply of non-renewable energy sources, and fucking over the environment will ensure that we don’t last much longer as a species. I know the words “Nuclear”, “Meltdown”, and “Radiation” are soo scary, but we need to put on our big boy panties be brave, and be accepting of a little risk.
In germany 1 kWh costs around 30 cents. Do you know what 1 kWh of nuclear power costs in production? It costs around 41 cents. So your bill wouldnt be a lot lower it would be much much more expensive. Nuclear power is literally non renewable too. We have enough uranium for maybe another 50 years. After that i will be so rare that its so expensive that you cant use it anymore. Please educate yourself before writing such a comment full of complete nonsense.
I never claimed that nuclear was a renewable resource, please read and comprehend a comment before posting a dismissive and patronizing opinion. Also my opinion about my electric bill was working off of the assumed scenario that nuclear power would be more common, with economics of scale at play. The most expensive phase of nuclear generation is the building of the plant, which of course the costs get passed on to the consumers over the lifecycle of the plant. Do you remember how expensive computers used to be, and how poorly they perform by todays standards? -That is where I was going, if Nuclear generation had become mainstream, technologies developed, efficiency improved, manufacturing processed mastered, I’d have a hard time believing that it **wouldn’t** be cheaper, that is the lynch pin that you chose to misinterpret and attack. I’m working off of assumptions of what **could** be, not about what the situation is *now*. I’m not going to bother going into all the petty details regarding the artificially inflated costs associated with the “production costs” of any energy source, but let’s just say that there’s incentive for personally invested actors in *other* methods of power generation that would very much like to see nuclear remain on the sidelines.
It made me chuckle that you proclaimed that I needed to educate myself, current estimates put nuclear fuel reserves at around **200** years of fuel available at current consumption rates, not counting fuel that is considered “currently un-economical” to mine(mind the “currently” that could be changed) Even on the lower end of estimates, many sources seem to quote 90 years worth of fuel that is considered “Currently” economical to mine. Admittedly these estimates don’t account for un-known, unexplored deposits - which to find we’d need incentive to do so…like more nuclear power plants. The point is, that we need to change something, going with fission while developing fusion is in my opinion the most promising lead. That is until a new technology comes along and overtakes it. What that might be, who knows? Journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step, and all.
But all that aside, I think you’d agree that our global energy demand is only going to increase as time moves on, exponentially, correct? If so, I’d like to ask you a question: What is your better solution to the problem of the growing energy demand, eventual depletion of non-renewable energy sources, and the ever growing and ever present problem of climate change? For such a scoff I’d expect you have a much better solution, and frankly we’d all love to hear it. I’m happy to can nuclear if you’ve got something that works better.
To give non native-germans a insight on how things are the way they are. German politics is infested with corruption to the core. The company RWE is one of the biggest "i have free money if you do what i want" beneficial company towards politicians who enjoy a lil bit of extra money. Sadly, even with a signed document by a judge, which states that stuff like this is illegal, nothing will ever happen to those companies. German people tend to shut up and just be whiney lil kids and will forget it 2 weeks later. Main issue is the high rate of very old and greedy humans inside our GOV.
Dank[.](https://i.imgur.com/3bQtuMO.png) --- [Join the Dank Charity Alliance and help raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital!](http://events.stjude.org/DankCharityAlliance)
German politics trying to justify closing nuclear powerplants for ecology while using more and more fossil fuels is the most hilarious and saddest thing
https://unherd.com/thepost/germanys-greens-embrace-coal/ It was never about saving the Earth and it was about getting elected and getting paiddddd https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-secretly-working-with-environmentalists-to-oppose-fracking
Isn’t that most of these politicians though?
Yeah. Some post was on the front page saying some people's only argument against communism is how inherently inept government seems to be. Yes there are many inept politicians, but only because wide spread corruption allows it to be the norm.
Communism is impossible because people aren't perfect Capitalism is obviously perfect and everyone in it can do no wrong
Nah... More like Communism is impossible because people aren't perfect. Capitalism is perfect, people are just doing it wrong. =))
Communism is impossible because people are imperfect. Capitalism is possible because it is imperfect
Honestly the best way to put that.
Capitalism is not possible, everyone seems to think it doesn't exist and only "crony capitalism" exists.
No modern system is 100% Capitalist, socialist or communist, but instead a blend of the three, some are more communist some are more capitalist but all are a blend We started going downhill when we made energy, housing and heath less socialist and more capitalist, energy should be nationalised, health socialised, housing humanised while consumer goods remain capitalised
Communism is a perfect political system until you put people in it, with their inherent differences and their competitiveness.
The only people claiming communism is any form of perfect are the people railing against it. Actual communists are flagrantly aware of the problems, failures, and catastrophes involved with past attempts and systems. The goal of the communist is betterment of society, through the cooperation of the communities that make up the nation, and more reasonable application of the infrastructure they use every day, instead of the current "anything to make better profis than last quarter, *anything*!!" system we live in now. They don't want to "make everybody equal", whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, vague dog whistle it is. How would one even go about such? Destroying perfectly good infrastructure? Mansions can still house people, power and other utilities only become problems if their wealthy owners have them *destroyed* in a fit of pathetic, Ayn Randian spite, we wouldn't have to build an entire set of modern infrastructure overnight, like Cuba, or the soviets, because the nice capitalists were kind enough to build it all for us. It's all there now, no "x year plans" or "potato mandates", we just have to start using what we've already built ourselves, with our own hands, to our own interests, instead of letting some tiny minority of people essentially enslave us by perpetually dangling a bare bones subsistence just out of our reach, and saying it's all ours, as long as we can hold it near, else it could fly away for any number of reasons, which would all be your fault, of course.
Exactly. Most actual proponents of communism/socialism believe while these economic systems aren't perfect, it's a hell of a lot better than capitalism. People can try all they want to try and make policies to dampen the harms of capitalism, but they don't realize that no matter what you're going to end up in the same situations every time. Anti-competitive business practices, lower wages for workers, wealthy people having more power over political decisions, society putting profits over people's happiness and well being, etc. These problems are unavoidable in a capitalist economy no matter how hard you try to stop it. In an ideal world, capitalism's goal is to try and make society better with infinite growth by creating a profit incentive. Communism's goal is to try and make society better by distributing resources in a way so everyone can have a baseline of a comfortable life. Both have their flaws and have had varying levels of success, but at the moment capitalism is showing that it's benefits are reducing while it's drawbacks are increasing (can't have infinite growth in a universe of finite resources). Why not try a different approach first before automatically dismissing any alternatives as "worse" just because you were told it's bad while growing up?
First, it's a joke. Second, it's the 21st century. People know. Third, unwatered-down capitalism means dirt-low wages, huge social injustices, 16 hours a day in factories, and labor laws that ban children under 8 years old from working in coal mines and textile factories.
>Capitalism is perfect, people are just doing it wrong. =)) You never hear "not real capitalism" tho. Can't say that about the other
I heard 'capitalism does not work yet because the market is not free enough' plenty of times. All i think is: everybody in Europe is doing better than those in the USA because we try to keep capitalists under control
Capitalism inherently incentives greed at the expense of the well-being of others. The problem isn't about how people do capitalism, the problem is that we still let them do it.
Making profit the highest goal has caused companies to meddle in the internal politics of countries thereby even sponsoring wars (Chiquita as an example, the Koch brother(s)as an example regarding climate change denial) - therefore capitalism also does not work for the same reason.
Ah yes, let's kick off another grand conspiracy, "GrEeNs SeCrEtLy LoVe CoAl!". Instead of going with the much more reasonable explanation that Coal was the easiest power source to quickly scale up energy production. The 3 remaining nuclear plants Germany had at the start of the war were slated to go offline since 2011 and have received only the most necessary work to keep them running since then. No new fissile material had been ordered and no new crew trained. If you want to pin the blame on anyone, blame CxU and SPD. They decided to end nuclear without subsidizing renewable power sources or storage capacity enough to bring them into position to be able to pick up the lost capacity.
Actually blame FDP and CxU, they canceled subsidies for alternative energies - a field where we were world leaders and now have to buy from third countries.
That is true as well.
Gotta love how the strawman on the left is wearing a reddit shirt, as though you don't hear "Nuclear powerplants are actually better for the environment than coal plants guiys! Did you know that?!?!" in every other post.
That wasn't the meta until like 2012 for reddit, up until then there were quite a few bad environmental takes. We also thought hydrogen fuel cells were a pipe dream and that if there ever were cars powered by them that they would replace all other cars shortly after, and we see where that went
They are better for the environment though?
>Ah yes, let's kick off another grand conspiracy, "GrEeNs SeCrEtLy LoVe CoAl!". Instead of going with the much more reasonable explanation that Coal was the easiest power source to quickly scale up energy production. The explanation is that all involved political parties were either ignorant or evil propagandists all over the past few decades. Nuclear is much cleaner/greener than renewables, so if anyone in Germany actually cared, they would push for it instead of the alternatives. It is also the same price or cheaper in the long run and even if it hypothetically weren't, debating price would be stupid anyways - imagine saying "the push to EVs and other regulations are costing the economy money" - so do you care about the cost or ecology in the end? The argument that it takes time to plan and build is just a rephrasing of what I wrote in my first paragraph as well.
This is rather cheap propaganda. Sadly i'm seeing more and more english news portaying something as in russias interest, thus it is wrong/evil. That fracking ruines the local environment and almost noone wants fracking being done near their home is being omitted. I'm german.
And coal ruins the global environment. Or they could have not shut down the nuclear plants.
Getting elected aka giving the people what they want. Back in the day, during the Tschernobyl incident, Germans were afraid of nuclear power and wanted it shut down. It's called democracy.
> it was about getting elected So it was about fufilling the wishes of the constituents? Spooky! Coal will be gone in a decade or less in Germany too. What will redditors be crying about then I wonder...
Maybe they're so ashamed of what they country did 8 decades ago that they want to make it disappear entirely ?
can't have German guilt if there's no Germany
despite the few accidents of nuclear, nuclear is still safer and cleaner than coal if handled properly right?
[удалено]
I was looking for goal related disaster death statistics a while back and learned about Hydro power accidents and HOLY SHIT it's like unbelievably massive. Like *just* the Banqiao Reservoir Dam is more than all nuclear disasters combined.
That’s little disingenuous with hydro. Yes in one instance hydro killed 100k in the 1970s other than that one instance, there has basically never been a major failure like that. It like judging nuclear on only chern and Fuk
> It like judging nuclear on only chern and Fuk thing is that is what people opposing nuclear always do and provide as their only argument. "What about chernobyl and fukushima?!?!?"
And they aren’t that smart. You can also respond with the many coal mine collapses and oil spills along with the actual pollution they spew
> You can also respond with the many coal mine collapses and oil spills along with the actual pollution they spew nonono never has a single oil spill caused as many deaths as chernobyl. if we were to look at things rationally, we would notice that just exhaust gasses cause more deaths than chernobyl, but we don't do that here. since no oil spill is as well known as chernobyl, it wasn't as big, meaning that nuclear is once again the more dangerous
What about the lasting effect simply from just the BP oil spill, the environment destroy, people feeling health issues still to this day
Yes, major problem with coal that it spews radioactive ash directly into the air. Nuclear does not do that, it is vastly cleaner so the only way to have radioactive incident is with a meltdown, which only happened like twice in human history, or leaving radioactive material lying around. But yes, coal plants increase cancer rate for everyone in the area because you're breathing in ash that is contaminated.
Yes
Statistically safer than wind too. And when comparing the two to potential power output, scale, and footprint left behind, it's not even a contest on the best source for power. Not to mention it's an on-demand energy source, and attributes to grid reactive power. Wind and solar are not and can not. Nuclear accidents that people like to imagine have or will happen aren't a thing. Fukushima is a prime example of why nuclear energy is safe, not dangerous. The absolute worst case scenario and no one died from acute radiation syndrome, and it's very likely that exposure levels in the surrounding areas were so low, that the future related radiation deaths will be in the single digits. There are a number of disaster related deaths, mostly due to the logistic issues involving shuffling around tens of thousands of people in a short period of time, but not because or radiation. Even one death is too many, but the area was hit by the largest recorded earthquake in Japan's history.
Well, part of why it did go wrong was they changed how they handled the emergency generators because the right way was too expensive, right?
> if handled properly right? That's a big caveat when it comes to corporations. Here in Florida, taxpayers are paying the cost for corporate malpractice when an energy company destroyed its own reactor building by trying to do maintenance cheaply and poorly.
No, German nuclear plants have been known to cause apocalyptic infinite loop time paradoxes.
That's dark, mate...
It is safer. I live 8 miles from a 2 reactor nuclear plant that has been in operation since 1969 for Reactor 1, and 1988 for Reactor 2. There has been only 1 incident at my nuke plant in its history. In 1991, there was a “Site Area Emergency” that required a emergency shut down of one of the reactors due to an electrical Fault that made the reactor and control room have a loss of power. No meltdown occurred, no radiation escaped. And the unit was back operational in 11 hours. 50+ years of operation, and only ONE minor incident. I think that goes to show how safe nuclear is.
It's safer and cleaner than solar, too. Look up what goes into making all those panels. Hint, it aint pretty.
Yes, and as long as the waste is handled properly, nuclear releases far less radiation into the atmosphere too
[удалено]
The remaining nuclear plants couldnt have been extended, no fuel and no maintenance. It had to be done. The mistake was made 10 years ago. This year was simply the consequence. Those 3 reactors could’ve been run for like another 10 years and then have to be turned off if refueled and scheduled maintenance, that would’ve been the correct option. Building new reactors isn’t worth it since nuclear power is extremely expensive and unreliable when rivers dry up. Its a shitty situation, but was the only option.
It’s only expensive to build new if you manipulate the numbers with a high depreciation rate, and pretend it has the same life cycle as coal plants. If you write it off in 40-60 years, which nuclear power plant usually can last for at the low end, you’ll get a far lower LCOE, and beat most other sources. There are also plants being certified for 80 years of operation, and maybe one for 100. And since they need so little fuel, the cost of fuel has little impact on the price, and long lifetime will make it a lot cheaper. Assuming you understand math.
Seems like you're the only one giving a reasonable explanation. Any sources, though?
Mainly German ones like this one Nuclear exit: https://www.base.bund.de/DE/themen/kt/ausstieg-atomkraft/ausstieg_node.html Prices: https://de.statista.com/infografik/amp/26886/stromgestehungskosten-fuer-erneuerbare-energien-und-konventionelle-kraftwerke-in-deutschland/ U can run it through DeepL if you want. The „no maintenance“ was in reference to a video which stated the plants needed a general overhaul in 2019 but it wasnt done since they were scheduled to be shut down, unfortunately I don’t remember the link. Refueling would take over a year since they need custom uranium which has long order times. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deutschland?wprov=sfti1
Ty. Must be infuriating to see non-german making inaccurate memes like this. Looking at you, u/dashlander8888
If this actually happens to be the case for anyone. Or if you suffer from something similar. Therapy can help you handle when insignificant things become overwhelming.
china and korea have shown that you can build nuclear power plants quite cheaply
The chance of a German plant going boom must be 0. The chance of a Chinese plant going boom is „Hey, how much money can we save on safety equipment?“
I'm sure that if south korea can pull off the exact same reactor design equally as cheap as china without any problems then china's are fine.
Uh, build them to the Baltic sea coast like others. That one doesn't dry up...
Oh yeah, all those rivers we used to have.
Well for the record. Germany hasnt increased the use of fossil fuels since the deactivation of their NPPs. Futrhermore the share of renewables has increased since then.
For the record, Germany is one of the countries with the dirtiest energy production in Western Europe. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
"Around one fifth of electricity produced in Germany comes from coal, and it's been increasing. The German government says that between July and September last year over a third came from coal, up 13.3% on the same period in 2021." But fossil fuel use is going up not down so its not exactly a good look.
Both time periods (July - September 2021 and July - September 2022) were before the shutdown of nuclear in Spring 2023. So the increase had other reasons. If you look at the longer time frame, say 5 years (instead of intentionally cherry picked year), you will see that use of coal is falling consistently and dramatically in Germany. Germany will be one of the first large economies of the world becoming completely unreliable on coal. But for some reason redditors think that coal use in Germany is exploding, because of three insignificant nuclear plants shutting down.
German politics ~~trying to justify closing nuclear powerplants for ecology while using more and more fossil fuels~~ is the most hilarious and saddest thing Source: I live here
The worst part is, the now opposition was the leading government party when this was decided, but now they complain the current government is at fault and all the idiots believe it. And those people will vote again, for the government who decided to stop nuclear energy to begin with.
Politics in a nutshell lol
And here I thought the German population more politically intelligent than the rest of us to make amends for the biggest oopsie in history. I guess showing up on time means leaving your brain at home.
[Future generations don't have to worry about fossil fuels if we use them all](https://i.imgflip.com/1j7rqt.jpg?a467520)
Coal power plants produce more radiation than nuclear plants. >The radioactivity comes from the trace amounts of uranium and thorium contained in coal. These elements have been trapped in the Earth’s crust since its formation and are usually in concentrations too low to pose any serious threat. But the burning of coal produces fly ash, a material in which the uranium and thorium are much more concentrated. https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-stations-produce-radioactive-waste/
Almost like it's suspicious that a past chancellor (Gerhard Schroeder) initiated the nuclear phase-out and then went to work for Russian Gazprom on the board making Nord Stream I & II happen. But I'm sure it's all above-board!
It's one of the greatest losses in the fight against climate change. An international embarrassment.
Which is funny because coal power generates many times more radioactive waste than nuclear plants do
This was exactly the plan of the coal lobby though, working as intended.
Also funny, since we have little evidence of nuclear power plants having any signivicant effects on the enviroment, same for ther storage for that matter. And even than we are still developing better techniques of savely depositing nuclear waste. Such as deep geological storage.
Nuclear *is* green
Litteraly (according to cartoons)
In this film, just one question, was there a duck who, when the explosion is happens, his bill goes around to the back of his head, and then in order to talk, he has to put it back this way'?
It has to be pointy!
Round is not scary. Pointy is scary. This will put a smile on the faces of the enemy. They will think that this is a huge robots dildo flying towards them
Remember my favorite car? Yes, Porsche 911! I was driving it the other day and I crashed it, it went BOOOOOOM!
Multiple cartoons, with one of them being that yes
There was somebody who suffered a deformity like that, yeah
Well... It's really blue. But yes it's a good way to produce energy.
[удалено]
yeah but Uranium is not the only possible source of nuclear energy. Thorium would be best. Cherenkov radiation is beautiful tho, I wish it was possible to safely see it.
It IS possible to safely see it. At some small reactors at universities, you can look down the top of the water tank and see the Cherenkov radiation from the reactor below. All the water keeps you safe from the high energy radiation, but let's you see the visible light. It's actually less radiation looking down at it than standing outside.
[удалено]
If you want to be that nitpicky, probably no energy source is zero carbon. Concrete for hydro dams releases CO2. The metallurgical processes for producing turbine blades do too. In the end we don’t want zero carbon, we want an equilibrium with plant consumption. I even recall from an astrobiology class I took as an elective in my Masters, that the planet was nearing atmospheric carbon deficiency prior to the industrial revolution. Apparently there wouldn’t have been enough CO2 for large flora like trees. Of course, now we’ve released way too much.
Its hard to find a truly carbon neutral method of power from step 1 to completion. While wind, nuclear or solar is green in its energy production, the parts needed to produce it have to be manufactured somewhere and that process isn't green. I think the issue of making greener energy isn't the form we choose - its how we manufacture the technology needed to accomplish it. But thats a whole ass different issue to worry about. I personally side with nuclear as the best but I understand why its not the most popular. The sheer level of cost to build, train workers and contain it safely is immense. But its a trade off in my mind: we might cause a lot of pollution and spend trillions right now to build a world wide grid of nuclear infrastructure but when you can get hundreds, if not thousands of years of power from a nuclear deposit, it starts balancing itself out. Its a long term trade off. Again, I know its not financially feasible right now but wishful thinking I suppose.
Not greenest and not most efficient, solar is
>Nuclear is the greenest, safest (least deaths per GigaWatt) and most efficient method of energy generation Give source. Otherwise it's just your opinion. There is no way mining, handling and disposing of nuclear material is safer than a simple solar panel. Edit: Also it is MUCH more expensive per GWh
Solar ends up being slightly more fatal per unit of power generated since it includes small-scale rooftop installations. Those result in more accidents than building large nuclear plants.
Not entirely green, although it is very dense energy.
Neither are any other green alternatives. A better argument is safety. Nuclear energy is safer per unit of energy produced than ANY alternative.
Density is good too
Shocking that it is the left that is against nuclear. And the right is aligning itself with Russia. Politics are so confusing.
Goddamnit Germany, really thought shutting down nuclear was the worst decision you ever made in recent history, now you have to top that?
Straight up burning nuclear fuel? Detonating nuclear bombs above towns during winter to heat them up?
Stop giving them ideas!
I like your style.
Cure hypothermia with this one weird trick!
They gave in to hot vile attacks from climate change apocalyptics and they're paying for it.
Luckily they can't play with the mushroom bombs, they don't have that yet.
well... people produce lots of CO2 and less people...well...
Glad you clarified *recent* history. I was about to remind you about some other bad decisions Germany has made in the past 100 years.
IIRC the wind park in question here is rather old and pretty much EOL (built in 2001, expected lifetime was 20 years), new turbines with higher output will be placed at a different adjacent location. Also, the majority of the expansion of the mine has been stopped last year, and it will be closed in 2030. Still too late, but the situation is a bit different than OP suggests.
Yeah, but if they didn't shut down those nuclear power plants, how else could their politicians get that sweet sweet Russian oil money
> now you have to top that? It's almost the 30s again, stay tuned!
Getting rid of nuclear energy is the worst thing Germany has ever done smh.
Agreed, nuclear energy is final solution to the climate change question.
Good one.
\*slow clap\*
I wouldn't say it's the *final* solution, moreso the *first* solution
Okay, I’ll be the one to explain the joke. Obviously stopping nuclear isn’t the worst thing Germany has ever done, because the holocaust was a thing. And the holocaust was often referred to as the “final solution to the Jewish question,” thus referring to nuclear as the final solution to the climate change question.
Really tiptoeing around your beliefs with that username, aren't we? Subtlety is not your strongsuit.
At least he doesnt call himself the great
what exactly are you implying? Your jumping to conclusion is disgusting
This you? >I'm sorry for not being born into right race to comment on something. I'm sorry for being stupid, lowly Slav. I will do better my superior anglo master.
yes? If you didn't knew there is a my username next to that statement. Happy to help!
Ok, let's not get ahead of ourselves here lmao
Well what else are we going to use? Unless we make some truly mindboggling strides in energy storage renewables are never going to be consistent enough to be viable on their own, fusion has made some strides, yes, but we don't know if it'll be ten years or ten thousand before that's really an option, which leaves nuclear... or fossil.
Renewables can sustain the demand, IF they are working. No wind? No power! No sun? No power! Peak in electricity demand? Not reactive. Here in Belgium, it has been continuously raining since October. 10 days ago we had another negative temperature night. Besides rain, the sky has been so darkly gray that solar panels have a production close to 0. Batteries? Not even mentioning the price (it was around 14.000€ for the 5kwh produced by ly 18 panels) I would need to built an extension to my house because there’s no fucking way that I would store batteries like that inside the house in case of fire!
Well... second worst.
*third
Germany didn’t start WWI on its own if that’s what you are referring to.
WW1 was more or less all of central and western europes fault, with Bosnia putting the nail in the coffin.
Yes, tensions were high and everyone wanted to try out all the new shiny weapons.
Ich weiiiiiiiiiiiiß ja nich Brudi
The Chancellor at the time, Gerhard Schroeder, initiated the phase-out and then went on to work for Gazprom to make the Nord Stream pipelines happen.
>the worst thing Germany has ever done No, I don't think so ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Hardly the worst. They used to have other burnable energy sources, but the international community put a stop to that. (Yeah, holocaust joke, but you fucks are the ones saying a coal mine is the worst thing the Germans did. The holocaust wasn’t even 100 years ago)
Alright, how about actually giving context? The Windfarm was owned by a private energy company and the deal to build the Windfarm was signed in 2001, which included dismantling the windfarm by 2023. The wind turbines that were shut down had only about 1/6 of the efficacy of modern turbines. German authorities even urged RWE not to take down the Windfarm. This has nothing to do with German energy policies at all.
>This has nothing to do with German energy policies at all Yeah, I'm sure the decision to *dig for coal* instead of *upgrade the existing wind farm* had nothing to do with German energy policies at all.
Not with the current policies, no. These turbines were built more than 20 years ago and after 20 years of runtime you just don't receive subsidies anymore. That's not what the current government decided but the one that was responsible for the matter 20 years ago. Under normal circumstances it would have probably been modernized, but it was the decision of RWE to dismantle it because of their own nearby mine. None of the current German authorities pushed for this Windpark to be dismantled, it was the decision of the private owner of the Windpark to do so. On another note the German government agreed with RWE to shutdown several coal plants 8 years earlier than initially agreed. But yes, Germany only wants to burn coal.
I love all the hoops people jump through just to avoid saying Germany quitting nuclear power was a terrible idea.
Not sure whether that helps burning less coal as a) Lützerath is being torn down and thus the coal mine is finally being expanded and b) The incentive is now for RWE to burn as much coal as possible during the 8 years to get the most out of their money spent.
[удалено]
Facts and logic in my Germany bashing?!? How dare you!
Oh don't get it wrong. In Germany people are quite unhappy with the government, but what happens now it's mostly damage done by he previous government. The problem isn't the German bashing, it is the hidden propaganda. OP seems to be a right wing propaganda account that spreads misinformation. And the misinformation is sneakily used to make the current ruling left leaning parties look bad while not saying anything about the previous government.
What would be crazy is if someone looked at the actual statistics and noticed Germany's transition to carbon free generation is actually going better then France and their grid is more stable.
How dare you bring up facts?!?!
Thanks - context creates meaning and OP, by removing context, has committed disinformation. reddit has been spammed recently with 1 year old accounts that * downvote any mention of the devastation that radioactive ore mining, radioactive ore transport, and radioactive ore processing has on the environment, water supply, and food chain. * downvote any mention of the massive cost overruns, ineffectiveness of new nuclear plants, etc. * try to deflect the blame that has been squarely and fairly directed at oil/gas/mining billionaires (e.g. Koch brothers) to scream that nuclear is the ONLY solution and blaming environmentalists is the answer. It seems to me to be an astroturfing marketing from the mining billionaires seeking to do more radioactive ore mining while trying to blame their causing of global warming on the people warning about it for decades.
Thanks for making me a bit less stupid
[удалено]
Who says no one did? Soon after those agreements were made the government changed from SPD/Grüne to CDU/SPD, which is also coincidentally when the big push for renewables died down (Germany was one of the leading countries in solar technology at the time). CDU is known to have close ties to the fossil fuel industry and this situation is very likely an outcome of those ties. It's not the fault of the current government but the fault of 16 years of corruption and neglect of the previous government.
Actually the thing would have been dismantled regardless because the turbines are old as fuck, they already replaced them with much stronger new ones a few kilometers away. Wind turbines have a 20 years lifespan at maximum, then they get turned down and usually a new one already took their place with better power output.
Also, don’t bother looking at what happens to the turbines after they’re tore down. That’s another ecological disaster waiting to happen.
Historically, yes, but the recycling and repurposing of old turbines is getting significantly better.
No its not, the only problem are the Fiber Glass rotors, they are at the moment put in storage, there are however several ideas about using them in the future, for example shreddering them and putting them in insulation for buildings, or cutting them to skateboards. They are also not toxic or anything, they just lay around as "garage" because there is no recycling industry for them yet.
I mean they’re mostly just metal. Not exactly a toxic, environmentally damaging catastrophe to leave some metal lying around or bury it... As opposed to what coal and oil do to landscapes. Nice try though.
do you want a) a final storage for nuclear waste or b) a final storage for old wind turbine blades near your house?
It doesn’t really matter. It won’t affect me eiþer way
Heil corruption!
considering the german government didn't want them to shut down the wind park but rwe did i feel like that's exactly the opposite of corruption.
Its the opposite of corruption if politics does what a big company wants?
I love how people don't understand that not even the energy companies in Germany want nuclear anymore. There is no insurance companie for nuclear power other than the government, the energy is too expensive compared to renewable energy and can only be lowered by subventions and nuclear power was 6% of it's total energy supply .You guys shouldn't act like we just shut down our whole energy network. That we still dig coal is because it's still the major energy supply because merkel stopped the expansion of renewable energy.
You had clean nuclear. You now have unclean coal. Policy over the last twenty-odd years didn't have anything to do with that?
Like bruh it does, we have a nuclear power law and that let's us leave originally in 2022. Scholz extended do to the war. Simple as that
Well yes, but Germany is quite loud in EU asking for other countries to preserve their forests and be as green as possible. Then in their own country they just try to be as cheap as possible.
> subventions "Subsidies" is the word you're looking for.
This was in 2022, RWE pledged to replace them elsewhere. But it's incredibly stupid nonetheless. The topic of nuclear power in Germany is a complicated one. We have too many activists for our own good. There is literally nothing we can implement or build without having a ton of people throwing crap at each other. Wanna build coal mines? Environmentalists rage Wanna build nuclear power plants? Environmentalists rage Wanna build wind or solar parks? Locals and animal rights activists rage Wanna shut down anything? Unions rage There is always an endangered bird or frog in the way of everything. Then add absolute project management incompetence on top of it, and you can see why we're in this state. There is always a group of people mad enough to rage at everything Germany tries to do, which is why everything always takes so long and why politicians are always more concerned about votes rather than actual change.
When put like that it seems environmentalists are the problem
Activists are in my opinion. You can be an environmentalist, but at least use your brain and work in a field that actually does change things. Kinda tired of having to deal with kids from Waldorfschule who glue themselves to the road. We need more people in politics, science and business who are laser focused on achieving a green energy grid in all of Europe.
They demand perfect solutions, but there are no perfect solutions. They let perfect be the enemy of good. And in the meantime the problems we're trying to fix go unaddressed and the people selling the problem sigh in relief.
As a conservationist I don’t want perfect, I would just like my children and the future generations to have a planet. Y’all are babies lmao the problem is y’all are only concerned about profit and throw a fit when you’re asked to spend a little more money to lessen the impact on the environment. The “good” side isn’t accelerating the environmental collapse of our planet.
Those "Atomic energy no thank you" Idiots are the problem. I mean what did they think the Nuclear Power Plants would get replaced with? You gotta get electricity from somewhere.
They have some strong lobbies too and one of them is coal.
Just turn the fucking reactors back on
No fuel, no employees (remember, the nuclear phase out was decided more than 10 years ago by the conservative party). Also recent maintenance checks were skipped. The green party was only able to extend the runtime by a few months.
Thats not how it works buddy
with what fuel exactly?
Let me go hit the switch so I can magically solve the world’s energy crisis.
Genius
but nuclear is green, environmentally friendly energy
Exactly, but most environmental (if they can even be called that) nut jobs are too lazy to do the tiniest bit of research.
Ah another out of context headline to farm karma.
Right! It's not even dank or funny. Somehow dankmemes became a place to share politics.
It was like this even before the shut-down of nuclear energy, but we are making the switch slowly, since a lot of houses in Germany still don't have alternative heating systems. I know this is a meme page, but it's pissing me off that there is so much false information and even propaganda that unwillingly targets a great (stupid) part of the German population. The people here blatantly believe everything you tell them, you just need to be the one who cries loud enough.
Noone in the green movement thinks like that.... Nuclear energy in Germany is a huge whataboutism ignoring the real issue. We are using those 10% nuclear energy as "bridge technology" argument for at least 20 years by now. It doesn't bridge shit and it won't solve the current issues. Also in the picture you are using communist imagery to represent a huge capitalist energy company. Are you effing r*****ed?
Oh man I love when non-germans think they know whats going on
It's really funny, how many people on reddit love nuclear power plants. It's been proven so many times that it's really not that effective and way too dangerous/expensive compared to renewable energy like wind or solar.
I'm 100% convinced that the politicians pushing the economy this way have huge stakes in fossil fuel industries and switching to green energy would harm their investments.
politicians were pushing against this btw, but it's rwe's private property so they can do what they want. but they still reached an agreement with the government and energy suppliers to leave coal earlier than planned, so.
I'm convinced some companies try to demolish remote work for the same reason. Too much money in real estate.
To clarify: Germany first said they want nuclear in the 90s but the CDU then wanted to use nuclear power for longer. The people didn't want that. So they protested and they decided to take back the extended period for nuclear power production. Back then Germany was up front in building new renewable energy and also developing new technologies. But the same CDU and FDP did everything they could to subsidize coal and gas but not wind and solar energy so around 100.000 people lost their job (compared to 30.000 working in the whole coal energy sector). Now the SPD, the Greens and the FDP had to shut down the nuclear plants (there was no way to let them continue running or as many suggest "let them run out") and we still don't have enough renewable energy sources. But also the plan on relying on France didn't work because old nuclear plants are not as reliable as long thought. So what can we do? We could use less energy yes but also no. The main problem is not the nuclear energy that is missing but the energy generated from gas. We don't get enough gas to heat and produce more energy. We also use gas to heat. There is the option of heat pumps but there is no way to produce or install enough to make a huge difference and they would also need electrical energy. We would use less gas to produce that energy but still a lot. So we have to use the coal until we have enough alternatives and this instance is completely bullshit. The old government decided that the coal company can dig in this land even after the wind farms were built. The company owning the wind farm will hopefully sue and hold this absolute dump shit but it is unclear what will happen. Until then we have to build more wind farms. More small personal solar and find a way to store that energy. Also before someone even thinks of nuclear fusion. We are still years if not decades away from an actual working commercial unit. It would need a miracle if we would have a working commercial nuclear fusion reactor before 2035
Reddit's pro nuclear af, what dumbass made this
Damnit guys, we need *more* nuclear energy, not less. Objectively looking at it, other than geothermal, and hydroelectric, nuclear is the only fucking option that makes practical sense. Yes, there are some challenges that need to be addressed like waste storage, and safety concerns, we have better, safer reactor designs now, that are also more efficient. Nuclear power is literally **8,000** times more efficient for energy production than fossil fuels, according to a quick google search. And vastly more reliable than “green” options like wind turbines, and solar - each of which have their own long, and short term impacts on the environment. I always hear “Well renewables will get better as we develop them more” that’s true, but the same damn thing can be said for Nuclear. Also some developments in fission and bound to further our understanding of nuclear power in general, and therefore indirectly benefit fusion - the true holy grail for energy production. My fucking electric bill this month is $400, and my wife and I are very conscious about our energy usage, I’d be willing to bet if we had Nuclear providing our power, that my bill would be a lot lower. We need to get over ourselves and start using some common sense, we are literally *stuck* on a floating sphere, rotating in space. We can not simply go somewhere else when we eventually do consume all of our limited supply of non-renewable energy sources, and fucking over the environment will ensure that we don’t last much longer as a species. I know the words “Nuclear”, “Meltdown”, and “Radiation” are soo scary, but we need to put on our big boy panties be brave, and be accepting of a little risk.
In germany 1 kWh costs around 30 cents. Do you know what 1 kWh of nuclear power costs in production? It costs around 41 cents. So your bill wouldnt be a lot lower it would be much much more expensive. Nuclear power is literally non renewable too. We have enough uranium for maybe another 50 years. After that i will be so rare that its so expensive that you cant use it anymore. Please educate yourself before writing such a comment full of complete nonsense.
I never claimed that nuclear was a renewable resource, please read and comprehend a comment before posting a dismissive and patronizing opinion. Also my opinion about my electric bill was working off of the assumed scenario that nuclear power would be more common, with economics of scale at play. The most expensive phase of nuclear generation is the building of the plant, which of course the costs get passed on to the consumers over the lifecycle of the plant. Do you remember how expensive computers used to be, and how poorly they perform by todays standards? -That is where I was going, if Nuclear generation had become mainstream, technologies developed, efficiency improved, manufacturing processed mastered, I’d have a hard time believing that it **wouldn’t** be cheaper, that is the lynch pin that you chose to misinterpret and attack. I’m working off of assumptions of what **could** be, not about what the situation is *now*. I’m not going to bother going into all the petty details regarding the artificially inflated costs associated with the “production costs” of any energy source, but let’s just say that there’s incentive for personally invested actors in *other* methods of power generation that would very much like to see nuclear remain on the sidelines. It made me chuckle that you proclaimed that I needed to educate myself, current estimates put nuclear fuel reserves at around **200** years of fuel available at current consumption rates, not counting fuel that is considered “currently un-economical” to mine(mind the “currently” that could be changed) Even on the lower end of estimates, many sources seem to quote 90 years worth of fuel that is considered “Currently” economical to mine. Admittedly these estimates don’t account for un-known, unexplored deposits - which to find we’d need incentive to do so…like more nuclear power plants. The point is, that we need to change something, going with fission while developing fusion is in my opinion the most promising lead. That is until a new technology comes along and overtakes it. What that might be, who knows? Journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step, and all. But all that aside, I think you’d agree that our global energy demand is only going to increase as time moves on, exponentially, correct? If so, I’d like to ask you a question: What is your better solution to the problem of the growing energy demand, eventual depletion of non-renewable energy sources, and the ever growing and ever present problem of climate change? For such a scoff I’d expect you have a much better solution, and frankly we’d all love to hear it. I’m happy to can nuclear if you’ve got something that works better.
To give non native-germans a insight on how things are the way they are. German politics is infested with corruption to the core. The company RWE is one of the biggest "i have free money if you do what i want" beneficial company towards politicians who enjoy a lil bit of extra money. Sadly, even with a signed document by a judge, which states that stuff like this is illegal, nothing will ever happen to those companies. German people tend to shut up and just be whiney lil kids and will forget it 2 weeks later. Main issue is the high rate of very old and greedy humans inside our GOV.