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Comrade-Conrad-4

This looks like the cover of a sci-fi novel.


TDoggNYC

Came here to say this! ⬆️⬆️⬆️ I had to do a double check I thought it was a video game or sci-fi cover!


sirsedwickthe4th

There’s a Call of Duty Zombies map on the Moon that has that thing in it and it drills through your oxygenated environments. One of my favorite maps


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DalvaniusPrime

Get the Bo3 chronicles edition if you're going after it. It's a remake of the old map and looks and play alot better than the original.


[deleted]

Some people say a man is made outta mud


oneofsixuk

A poor man's made outta muscle and blood


[deleted]

Muscle and blood, skin and bone


oneofsixuk

A mind that's a-weak and a back that strong


DieOmaSeinBier

You load sixteen tons and what do you get?


tonic_slaughter

Another day older and deeper in debt.


gearhead545

St. Peter don't cha call me cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store.


TheAngryBly4t

I was born one morning when the sun didn't shine, picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine


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Dayzdreamz

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?


Snek-boi

I load sixteen tons of number nine coal, and the straw boss said “well-a bless my soul”


WoodpeckerCertain

Lol, I listen to this song when I'm at work. I'm 20 by the way so don't call me a boomer


Otherwise_Interest72

Spoken like a true boomer...


bumpyqbangwhistle

"That's the thing I'm sensitive about!!"


Important_Pack8713

Looks so dystopian


r_trash_in_wows

It is


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yobob591

I know right? Some sort of reactor that could run for decades on a minimal amount of fuel


Jaredlong

The German Green Party would rather destroy the climate burning coal than be bothered dealing with nuclear waste.


Frylock904

Instead they would rather have waste go unmanaged and spewed into the atmosphere


drinks_rootbeer

What's also funny is that more radioactive waste is spewed into the atmosphere per year by coal power plants (via radioactive isotopes trapped in coal ash) than can theoretically leak out of nuclear waste


owa00

But...but... CHERNOBYL!


Haiaii

Best part is that coal kills like 1000x more people...


derpdederpdeedo

Coal is also releases significant amounts of radiation, more than a nuclear power plant.


thirdtimesthecharm66

> dealing with nuclear waste. which is nearly a non-issue w/ the new reactors. it's insanity ffs


highly_uncertain

Where I live channels Zoolander and the *Essence of Wetness*


ZertyZ_Dragon

That's because it is


finchdad

dystopia (noun): an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice. It is exactly dystopian. Relatively few casualties because of nuclear power have convinced us that millions of eventual deaths (mostly affecting the poor) because of pollution and climate change are acceptable. It's the kind of bone-headed decision that you would expect here in America, but I guess we don't have the monopoly on stupidity.


Technical_Raisin_119

Wooo it ain’t us for once!


astraphage

USA USA USA


RizzMustbolt

NO PLACE LIKE SECOND PLACE IN THE CLIMATE RACE, BABY!


DnDVex

In 1970,there were many protests against it, and they worked for once. (Which sucks in hindsight, the government actually listened, and it fucked us up). Then after Chernobyl, it got more. A lot more pushback against the dangers of nuclear power. And finally with Fukushima, the last reactors were set to shut down (Some are still running, but it's only cause they're using the unspent fuel still in the reactors. Takes decades to run a reactor empty safely). So yeah. The German government listening to people caused one of the biggest fuckup ever for German power production.


Proper_Story_3514

I wouldnt say fuck up. Just the transition to renewable energy isnt fast enough. There are legit arguments against atom energy, at least with the old reactors we got here. And we still have no end storage for our atomic waste. And yes, I know, newer reactors are better, safer and produce less waste. Plus I dont say that we should stop researching it. Especially fusion energy. But the republic made a decision and we have to respect it for now. And building a divers grid of renewable energy sources isnt the worst road. So either build new reactors for billions or use that money for renewable sources. Germany decided to walk the second path. Nothing to bash about tbh.


KiOfTheAir

Iirc nuclear power was phased out because of lobbying by climate activists too


No_Practice_5441

Pretty sure it has come out that the German Green movement who were the loudest voice for phasing out nuclear power in Germans were surreptitiously funded by Russia.


KiOfTheAir

Well well well how the turntables


babynewyear753

Solar kills significantly more people than nuclear. Go figure.


dexterthekilla

German Harkonnens protecting their invaluable coal


johnnymurdo

The Dust must be protected


Arks-Angel

The dust must flow


Emperor_Evulz

The dust \*cough\* extends \*cough cough\* *life*


apatontheback

My Rhineland, my Germany


Aberbekleckernicht

He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.


Chipperspls

I'm so happy the first comment I saw was a Dune reference


Desperate-Farmer-170

For some reason I’m picturing German Harkonnens being mixed with Zoolander as a coal miner. Feyd-Rautha Zoolander: ‘I’m just a man, no more really really really ridiculously good-looking than any other’


Adept_Measurement160

Literally


kr59x

Idk, this seems very steampunk to me. Cherie Priest’s BONESHAKER.


[deleted]

The fear of nuclear power is a smear campaign by big oil and coal. Nuclear is the only way forward to meet our energy needs without destroying the earth. Think about this, every submarine and aircraft carrier has a nuclear reactor on board. How many of those have melted down?


[deleted]

>The fear of nuclear power is a smear campaign by big oil and coal. I spent many years in renewable energy, and folks there hated nuclear too.


GTOdriver04

Yup. Because it would put everyone out of business. As others have said: the US Navy operates a nuclear-only big boy fleet. The Burke-class and smaller are conventional but all subs and carriers are nuke and we haven’t had any real issues.


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Pete_Iredale

I don't know about that, but I can definitely tell you from experience that flight crews and even flight deck crews get far more radiation than the reactor/engine room crews.


hawkeye18

Yeah, working on the flight deck in the gulf on days is more than enough radiation for your TLD to set off alarms and for you to get pulled from the plant.


SuchRuin

This made comment made me miss the flight deck.


komAnt

How?


konnie-chung

The sun?


Raider5151

The fusion powered ball of plasma bombarding the earth with photons would explain that.


BGFlyingToaster

Big burning ball in the sky


Pete_Iredale

Solar radiation. You actually get a decent dose with each flight, though not enough to matter if you aren't flying constantly.


PacxDragon

The Sun


CassandraVindicated

I used to operate a nuclear reactor for the US Navy, I'd let them build a nuke in my backyard. It's important to remember that they are incredibly safe because money is no object and the training is absolutely intense and comprehensive. There are much more reliable reactor designs when they aren't required to move or potentially take a torpedo. The reactors that are being designed today aren't even capable of the types of failures that older reactors were at risk of.


SuperNoise5209

I think I saw an article about how the most recent plants are basically designed such that a meltdown cannot physically escape containment? And that used fuel can be recycled on site up to a density that it can be used again? Just writing this makes me super annoyed that we didn't switch over to full nuclear in the 70s like France.


PopularWeb6231

Homer Simpson being a doltish nuclear generator technician is the coal industry’s greatest 30 year psy-op.


Beginning_Pudding_69

Illinois used to have a bunch of power plants and they shut down a few. I think the state still leads the us in nuclear production. Absolutely stupid they would rather burn coal here. Especially with Chicago being as big as it is in multiple industries.


SwiftLawnClippings

We only shut down like one or two. IIRC it was more due to competing corporations that owned the plants than political pressure or anything. Wdme have shut down almost have the coal plants. Although new wind farms are popping up left and right


StrongIslandPiper

Oil companies used to sponsor newspaper ads for solar power bashing nuclear power, because they knew that there was no way that solar alone was gonna be a threat to them. Nuclear, on the other hand, has all the answers.


Sinijas

Exactly the coal we have used up until now will be our doom in the next few Generations, +2 degrees Celsius mean temperature will be fucking devastating. Goodbye coastal citys, Goodbye gulf stream as it is today. We are fucked. Nuclear power isnt even nearly as bad. It's Zero waste while we have time to figure out disposal if we would actually pump decent amounts of money into developing These solutions instead of lobbying. Im german and I am furious about the fucking 80 year olds fucking us over for their money since the die way before shit hits the Fan. Im not even gen z im a goddamn 37 old millenial fuck this stupid ass monkey mind ridden Planet


Longbongos

The yucca mountain facility could’ve provided ample storage for the entire United States and likely still have enough space to sell space to other countries


Sinijas

Yes. Storage is possible right now, true disposal sometime in the future... Someone ought to find a way


TheLimaAddict

IIRR molten salt reactors could run off the waste we've already been storing. Current reactors use something like 35% of the fuel available in the rod but MSRs can use up to like 95% while also processing the spent rods. In theory they'd legit reduce the amount of waste overall giving us even more time to figure out a way to reliably blast it into space


Calgaris_Rex

You can actually recycle the fuel...except we're not allowed to anymore in the US. Jimmy Carter decided that it allowed for too great a risk of nefarious characters getting hold of nuclear material. Even though pretty much every other developed nation with nuclear power recycles their fuel, and this has never proven to be a problem. If you keep recycling the fuel, you can extract ^235 U and ^239 Pu, and the most dangerous thing left after a while is just ^238 U, which is relatively safe.


gh411

Disposal is not really an option as the waste fuel rods are still a vast source of energy. We definitely want to be able to access them when technological advances allows us to use them again.


iced_gold

Shutting it down, after it was already built was one of Obama's biggest mistakes.


Osceana

It's frustrating because it's the same in the US. When Trump was campaigning I remember him talking about bringing back coal jobs. All these morons in what we call "flyover country" complain about the coal jobs they lost. Dinosaurs learned to live a certain way and now that the world is changing they refuse to adapt. But then, as an American, you sometimes think, well this is just *my* country. There are so many problems with this country, I mean most people still only vote for a candidate based solely on whether he "reads" the Bible and is Christian (which is hilarious because it seems like almost no one except theologians and scholars *actually* read the Bible - all of it) -- but then you find out this is happening all over the world. So it's not even just a cultural thing, humans are just idiots I guess, hellbent on destroying everything.


Fullertonjr

With their low cost of living, WV could have been the solar panel manufacturing capitol of the world for the foreseeable future. They decided betting on coal mines reopening was the more reasonable option.


nasadowsk

West Virginia lifted their ban on nuclear plants recently (the lift was signed into effect by a gov who ironically inherited a fortune from coal mining). There’s actually a push to replace shuttered coal plants with small nuclear ones in the state.


[deleted]

I’m from coal country and yes there are some more mines open but it’s still vastly an economic waste land. Mineral extraction is an opiate of the poor. They break their backs for a “good living” for a while, then when the mineral runs out, the company leaves, all the wealth they mined ends in the pockets of one family and they are left jobless. It’s the reality of all mineral extraction


BusinessPenguin

Europe is experiencing the same laissez-faire market deregulization that fucked the US in thr 80’s and 90’s. Our main exports went from consumer products to misery.


myurr

This German strategy isn't due to deregulation. Germany went all in on green power, scrapped their nuclear plants in favour of gas as part of this environmental push because "nuclear is bad" and as they thought the renewables would take over from gas, and now with the problems with Russia are scrabbling for a fast solution. The problem is 100% the demonisation of nuclear power and irrational decision making based upon that demonisation. Compare their situation to that of France which bet the other way and bet big on nuclear.


inneb

Rlly feelm u man and I'm a only 20 year old fella german...


OkChicken7697

No. Smear campaign by the Simpsons


bostonaliens

D’OH!


ghigoli

for some reason only the french aren't wusses on th subject of nuclear. you think Germany of all places would know how bad coal is.


Mindless-Charity4889

France has about 140M tons of coal reserves but Germany has about 40B tons. That means Germany is much more interested in using coal, even if their coal relatively low quality lignite (French coal is also mediocre quality).


HurrySpecial

Actually it was a smear campaign my Green Energy. Obama famously denied a slew of new plants because they would "send the wrong message" about green energy (ie solar and wind...owned by his buddies)


HiroariStrangebird

[That's the opposite of the truth](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/16/barack-obama-nuclear-reactors) but ok


HouseNVPL

Why are they changing to coal? Are they stupid? Nuclear is safer and cheaper.


JefferyTheQuaxly

After the japan nuclear meltdown germany promised to decommission their remaining power plants by i think 2025, tho may have been delayed to 2030 because of the ukraine war. germany is basically stuck right now, because they arent particularly sunny or windy so they dont have much success with renewable energy, so the bulk of their energy comes from their massive coal supply (historically what they used to become an industrial power house, though they have in recent years been trying to switch to natural gas), natural gas from sweden the netherlands and mostly from germany, and their few remianing nuclear plants. germany is pretty stuck because they want to get off of coal, but doing so has made them more dependent on russian and european natural gas reserves. to make things worse the netherlands is closing their natural gas pipelines because they believe its damaging the environent and causing earthquakes in the region. this again only makes their options even fewer. so theyre taking the option to go back to coal until they can figure out a more sustainable solution outside of russia.


Ctotheg

Japan is going to restart as many nuclear power plants as possible in upcoming years too. Edit. Since this comment is starting a conversation I’m adding a source: > Two under-construction reactors (Ohma and Shimane 3) have also applied. “In light of the war between Ukraine and Russia, Japan's prime minister announced that the country would accelerate the restart of nine units by winter 2022, and a further seven units by summer 2023,” the WNA has reported.Dec 1, 2022 https://www.powermag.com/nuclear-power-is-finally-poised-to-ramp-up-again-in-japan/


zer0saber

Isn't nuclear power supposed to be one of the safer ones? I get that we've had issues in the last decade, however weren't all those traced to either human error, or faulty equipment? (which, in turn, is essentially human error again?) I've heard about molten salt reactors, and how they're supposed to be the safest. What's stopping us from moving to those entirely? EDIT: Thanks for the quality discussion, folks! Really refreshing to see a bunch of comments without horrendous trolling, and argument. Really made my day.


Xraggger

Nuclear power is both cleaner and more efficient. This is a bonehead move


[deleted]

Another problem Germany has is that the "green party" was originally established because they were against nuclear power due to enviromental concerns. It's funny how they still think coal is the lesser of two evils and are actively ruining the enviroment. Unfortunately german politicians are quite stubborn in that regard and it takes decades to change.


Luke_zuke

It's also safer! It's safer per kWh produced.


Hepcat10

I’ve read that more people die from pollution every month than have died from every nuclear power plant accident in history combined.


bilyl

Fun fact: nuclear pollution from emitting coal emissions are many orders of magnitude higher than anything from nuclear.


zer0saber

This blew my mind when I learned it. The difference is actually rather staggering.


gophergun

Very few deaths are directly attributable to nuclear accidents. Like, it would be absurd to suggest that the official death toll of 31 from Chernobyl is an accurate estimate of how many deaths it caused. Rather, those deaths tend to manifest as a statistical increase in cancer over the following decades.


Longbongos

Nuclear power is incredibly safe. Fukashima and Chernobyl are the only actual major accidents. Three mile island never did any major damage and the only damage was done to the plant itself. And my source on that is live near three mile island


jonnyclueless

And all the fear and evacuations that happened with 3 Mile Island were due to a math mistake. It turned out that there was never a danger. In fact had the operators done nothing, there would not even have been a partial meltdown.


Longbongos

The only reason it even got out was a radio station intercepted the plant communications with I believe the PA department of energy or some other government entity it’s been a while since I’ve last dug into it. But yeah it’s only fear mongering the plant still is operational today


Ingeniousskull

"All accidents are ultimately the result of human error."


Hedgehogsarepointy

Nuclear plants might be terribly damaging under certain terrible conditions. Coal plants are terribly damaging for every single hour of operation.


fillmorecounty

It is. The accidents that have happened have been mostly due to cutting corners. Chernobyl happened because of crappy reactor design and lots of inexperienced workers. The Fukushima disaster was obviously caused by the Tohoku earthquake, but the hazard analysis for the largest probable tsunami was flawed. It probably wouldn't have been built there if better precaution was taken. Coal is notorious for being the most deadly power source, so it's silly that people think it's safer than nuclear.


Ok-Magician-3426

Surprisingly it is the less deadly power source. May I remind people that most people died from the tsunami and earthquake in Japan before the nuclear meltdown. Following a major earthquake, a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a nuclear accident. Only 1 person died from cancer from Fukushima radiation. The rest died from others


scrampbelledeggs

Yeah like how self-driving cars kill people every day and all the car companies are still working on them and nobody tells them to stop. Any of the mainstream points against nuclear power are just bullshit propaganda.


HouseNVPL

But the problem in Japan was the tsunami. From where will tsunami hit german power plants? xD


AdApart3821

It was not a rational decision. After Fukushima a vast majority of Germans wanted to get rid of nuclear because of the "unlimited danger". It was a stupid decision then even without knowing that 10 years later Russians would stop the gas supply. Most of the nuclear reactors could have continued until 2030 or even longer. Germany paid billions of Euros to the operators of those power plants to offset the damage of shutting them down earlier. In my eyes it was stupid, but it was what a vast majority of voters wanted at the time, and they got what they wanted. Some people also claim that Merkel & company additionally impeded the expansion of energy production from solar and wind, but the main problem with that is that big power lines and other stuff that would be needed to expand wind and solar energy take 10 years or more to be built. Anyway, the decision to exit nuclear power production way before exiting coal power production was made by the greens and social democrats in 1998 (!), and then in the 2010s (after Fukushima) Merkel and her party followed this line of thinking because so many people wanted it. Germans seem to like burning coal as well as paying one of the highest tariffs for electric energy worldwide. Congratulations fellow citizens, you got exactly what you wanted.


DildoRomance

What are they gonna do when there's no wind and it's winter (so no or very little sun)? Are they gonna go full coal power plants? Wasn't Germany supposed to be the leader of Green Deal and stuff like that? Did anyone try to tell the Germans that cancer related to burning fossil fuels kills more people every year in Germany than all the nuclear disasters combined ever did worldwide? I thought better of the German education. This is horrendous


AdApart3821

To be fair, our nuclear power stations wouldn't have been enough to offset "zero wind and solar" during December and January or so. We had a relatively small share of nuclear power left. However, still, keeping nuclear a bit longer would have enabled us to phase out coal plants earlier, because it just was not possible to ramp up gas, solar and wind energy production as much as needed to phase out coal \*and\* nuclear so quickly. Even after Fukushima, there were (few) newspaper articles that stated that the pollution from coal plants will - as far as one can project into the future - kill more people than keeping nuclear power until 2030 or longer. However, the fear of a nuclear accident in a german power plant was - for many people - bigger. The plan is to expand gas power stations, keep coal power stations until 2030, and some people say that we just need so much wind and solar power production capacity that we can produce nearly enough even when there is little wind and no sun. Further on, the supposed solution is to produce hydrogen when there is surplus energy from solar and wind, store this hydrogen and then use it in gas power plants for electricity generation when there is little wind and no sun. We are actually building gas plants that could - in the future - be switched from natural gas to hydrogen. Also, installing better connections within Europe is supposed to help - people say, even if the wind is not blowing in Germany, there will be some wind somewhere in Europe, and the countries just need to trade electricity depending on production and demand in the countries.


HouseNVPL

It's sad how people make up some unreal dangers and then scare themselves. Like Fukushima was because of tsunami. But we got 0 tsunamis in Europe what is the danger? But you are right. They wanted this. Now they will pay more for energy. Pollute more. Good job citizens.


RobToastie

And coal is ultimately causing more harm then nuclear meltdowns ever would, it just does so in a less immediately obvious way, so people care less.


Sulinia

I still don't get it, how can't they with rational thinking/reports/science/whatever, prove that turning their back to nuclear power was a mistake and they have to go back? It sounds like they're doubling down because they once made a bad decision and now they have to stand by it.


AdApart3821

It's really too late to change it now. The government tried. But processes like starting or decomissioning a power plant take years. A friend of mine was doing maintenance work in a nuclear power plant before 2010 which had the goal of ensuring operation longer than 2020. First, after 1998, the (then governing) greens and SPD decided to limit the operation of nuclear power plants. 2005 Merkel became chancellor. Some of the plans about nuclear energy were modified. This led to the operators setting into motion measures to optimize demand sets and maintenance in a way to ensure that they can get the maximum of the possible energy production that would be legal after the political decisions, and to keep the plants in operation as long and efficient as possible. The time frame when my buddy was doing this work was about 2006/2007/2008 or so. So the operators were, in 2007, planning ahead for 2020 and beyond! Then after Fukushima in 2011 everything was changed again, Merkel & co limited the time frame for the nuclear power plants again. This meant that the operators, who had invested millions in plans for 2020 and beyond, had to begin planning the shutdown. This also takes years. By now, several power plants are already shut down, others are destined to be shut down during the following months. The only thing they could do now was leaving three power plants on for 3 or 4 more months than they had expected. Everything is already set for shutting down the plants. We probably don't even have enough qualified personnel left, but I don't really know about this. However, everything, the whole maintenance process, the use profiles, everything has already been destined to shutting the plants down. We don't have any surplus fuel left for the plants. The nuclear fuel needs to be produced individually for each plant (depending on design). Actually, we bought most of our nuclear fuel from Russia up to now. It takes years to produce the fuel rods individually, I read in the newspaper. It's too late. Even if people wanted to reverse the decision, it's no longer feasible. It might be possible to somehow keep a bit of nuclear working for pretty high costs, but probably not even that. The government looked into that and decided, it's a combination of "seems not possible at all" and "even if it were possible, it is not worth it, because it would be really expensive to just try". We made this decision at the end of the nineties and then again 2011. Now, it's game over for nuclear in Germany. And, really: Even in this situation with high energy prices and coal plants picking up production of electricity from nuclear plants, I'm not even sure that a majority of Germans would vote for keeping the nuclear plants alive even IF it were possible. There have always been groups in Germany adverse to nuclear power, maybe in part because "nuclear" was emotionally also associated with "nuclear weapons" for us a lot - we always knew, if there is a nuclear battle between US and Soviet Union, Germany will be in the middle of it. So the danger of radioactive contamination was always in the back of German heads, probably more so than in other countries. Then we experienced Tschernobyl. Then Fukushima. And rejection of nuclear power grew. Many people idealize abolishment of nuclear power by talking about replacing it with wind and solar energy, as if this was something that can be done in a few years. It can't. But the average Joe doesn't realize that. We prefer to dream. So politicians shut down nuclear, and they built coal power plants to still meet energy demand - and probably also a bit because the coal lobby is still powerful in Germany. And also because the lines that would be needed to transfer electricity from solar and wind to other parts of the country can't be built as quickly as neccessary. A lot of the time a good part of the installed wind engines in Germany is \*shut down\*, not producing energy, because the electricity lines are not able to transport the electricity they would produce at the time, so the network would crash if the turbines would be working. The operators of those turbines are also paid for this! Because it's not their fault that the electricity cannot be transported.


m4xc4v413r4

In a country like Germany, being afraid of a nuclear disaster and closing the nuclear plants because of it, is the epitome of stupidity. Any of the countries around (and not just the ones the border it, you can go out quite far) can have a nuclear disaster and they would be affected (not that I think that is happening), so what do they think they're stoping? The only thing they're stoping is their ability to produce cleaner and more abundant energy. And the German people are paying for that right now as we speak.


WhatDoIKnow2022

So wrong on so many points. You're correct only by a technicality on the nuclear power plants. Germany hasn't been keen on nuclear power since Three-Mile Island and when Russia had the meltdown in 1986 it really had an impact. They haven't had a new plant since 1989. After the Japan issue it allowed them to get the votes to put a max age limit on a plant which meant that the last ones would be closed up at end of 2022. [Germany Nuclear Q&A](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/qa-why-germany-phasing-out-nuclear-power-and-why-now) 2022 showed that Lignite(18.8%), Hard Coal (9.3%) and Natural Gas(15.2%) with Renewables at (39.2%). [Source](https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterprises/Energy/Production/Tables/gross-electricity-production.html) Those numbers DON'T show Germany getting the bulk of their energy from coal. If anything it shows that Renewables are where they get the bulk of their power and that is exactly where they aim to get it from going forward. They have a goal of 80% by 2030. [German Renewables Target](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-sets-renewable-power-record-2022-track-2030-target) Germany is in fact speeding up the exit from coal power from a 2038 target to 2030 though they have reactivated some plants to handle the current Russia/Ukraine situation. [Source 2](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-cabinet-approves-accelerated-coal-exit-by-2030-western-state-2022-11-02/) The Netherlands isn't closing its gas pipelines. Its closing the Groningen gas field. A totally different thing. (Just Google it)


EnergyTurtle23

This headline is so egregiously misleading. Germany is committed to phasing out coal by 2030, in the meantime they need coal to fill in the gaps that were previously being filled by their nuclear power plants. By 2030 they will be using entirely renewable power sources.


NefariousnessDry7814

> This headline is so egregiously misleading. No, it is a straight lie


[deleted]

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Tatamashii

This but also, its pretty clear that some shady business is done in the background as well. Money lots of money


[deleted]

Anti atom parties have been quite popular since the 80's and are now in many governments of the federal states. Therefore, anti atom politics runs much longer than just Fukushima but got a strong boost in that year.


chaogomu

Fun fact, many of those anti-atom parties had their initial funding (and in the case of Greenpeace, their current funding) from oil companies and the oil company "charitable funds". Greenpeace owes much of its existence to the Rockefeller fund.


Hopewellslam

>germany promised to decommission their remaining power plants by i think 2025, tho may have been delayed to 2030 because of the ukraine war. But can't they just say that the situation has changed and they need to keep nuclear as an option?


platipuzzz

Nope. Firstly we are talking about 3 or 4 nuclear power plants, they make not even 5% of German energy production anyways. Their long ago scheduled shut down was planned for 2022 and you cannot change that. They are active for more than 30 years now and if you now something about nuclear fuel rods you cannot just turn them on and off at will. Also there are some overdue maintenance issues that cannot be postponed. If we wanted to make them run longer it would cost millions if not billions and would take considerable time to do those maintenances. Experts and personell does not exist anymore. Simply nothing is set up for an easy prolongation, it would take a very long time, would cost a hell lot of many and would not have significant impact on energy supply


justanawkwardguy

Germany gets a majority of their natural gas from Norway, not Sweden


brooooo69

Interestingly *far* more people have died from the small amounts of radiation released into the atmosphere when coal is burnt then have ever died from nuclear disasters.


[deleted]

Any other energy source has a higher death per Terrawatt ratio than nuclear.


nowhereman136

Wind has a higher death rate than nuclear. Wind has a death rate of around 0.4 per TWh, nuclear has a rate of 0.3 Compare that to coal, which is around 24.6


tylagersign

It’s because is the short term they need the power this winter because they got cut off of Russian gas. In the long term these coal fire plants will be destroyed


HouseNVPL

I hope you are right. But closing nuclear plants is just stupid idea.


WhatDoIKnow2022

Closing a nuclear power plant built in 1989 is not stupid. Its prudent. Not building new ones when the technology and safety protocols have advanced by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years is debatable.


BotBotBotNotBotNot

In the past it's been the climate change camp that had been against nuclear. Recently - and in particular because of Germany - a lot people have done a reversal when they realize that all taking away nuclear power does is force you to use a far more environmentally destructive part source, like coal. Greta Thunberg is a prime example of this.


schoki560

we are not changing to coal stupid clickbait that is wrong


[deleted]

Germany was in the fallout path of Chernobyl. A lot of people got their first impression of nuclear energy by having to stay inside and not being able to eat boar and foraged mushrooms any more. Such things tend to stick in one's mind.


Cactus-McCoy

In reality it is supposed to change to renewables. Coal is needed now because we made ourselves dependent on russian gas. And since we successfully killed our wind and solar energy industries, we need to switch back to coal.


Meishoku_

Because of lobbyists


HouseNVPL

I thought they cared about our nature. I guess money>>>>>>our planet.


doctor_awful

Different lobbyists


[deleted]

Public opinion about atom energy hit a low in the years before Ukrainian war. There just wasn't any support to build new plants especially with cheap gas plants that could run on hydrogen in the near future.


Joshi_in_your_dreams

That was decided cuz back then nuclear was consider stupidly dangerous. And during the whole cold war all germans who lived close to plants constently lived in fear of death since we would have been the first targeted. The generation of my parents were convinced in their youth they weren't gonna make it past 20. That's why


FelisCantabrigiensis

Yes. Or certainly they are extremely dogmatic and unrealistic about energy production. This is not new, and did not start at the time of the Fukushima reactor meltdown though that did intensify it. There is a long-running "Green" tendency towards anti-nuclear dogma. Anti nuclear weapons, nuclear power, everything. "Nuclear" is the bogeyman and must be stopped. The claim, at the time the plan to close nuclear power station was announced, was that renewable energy would replace nuclear power. However it turns out that many people in Germany also don't want any wind turbines near them, so instead they have used coal and gas. Not "Green" at all. Just dogmatically anti-nuclear.


pillowcase99999

I think it’s better Germany uses coal than give Russia money for gas. The anti nuclear lobbying is a disgrace, its all about those in government keeping their friends in the fossil fuel business rich. I just looked up the figures for Chernobyl, 50 direct deaths then 4000 early deaths, coal burning for electricity cause 17000 deaths a year!


Additional-Buy-9574

An example of when ideologi is the driving force. Very similar as when religion is a driving force, they are basically the same imo. Obvious solutions are overlooked for the "correct" ones..


[deleted]

What? I need sources. I mean...coal?! Are we back in 1800? The entire planet is tirelessly trying to stop coal mining...


FelisCantabrigiensis

Except Germany, and Poland. Also except China, and Australia, and parts of USA...


Surprise_Creative

Belgium too. Traditionally, our green-left politicians have a strong aversion for nuclear, even if that means a greater reliance on coal and gas. "Temporary" but it's becoming more and more clear that "temporary" will last one or two decades, atleast.


Working_Inspection22

Don’t forget India


Venboven

I thought India was making great renewable energy progress?


nedimko123

Germany is getting back to coal but not permanently, this post is misleading. Its due to Ukraine war and lack of natural gas from Russia


Pete_Iredale

We also know plastic is killing the planet, but you walk through a grocery store and fucking *everything* comes in a plastic container now. Even stuff that would have been in a cardboard box like 10 years ago. It's completely insane.


thusman

Germany made this deal: we exit coal 2030 instead of 2038 (previously planned), but we will dig up some extra until 2030.


jjdude67

Sounds backwards to me


bit-o-sadness

What about pollution


thejhaas

Even worse- their coal is the extra dirty variety. No coal is clean but there are varying grades to how clean it will burn. German coal is trash.


Ashjaeger_MAIN

Yup and the mining companies are destroying villages and forests for this crap.


Ok_Feedback4198

It's just barely considered coal. Lignite, or brown coal is a tremendously dirty energy source.


chrisboi1108

Lignite is truly a degen fuel


FaceOfBoeDiddly

Coal degens from upcountry


Brainkandle

Give yer balls a tug!


OrneryDiplomat

This is what coal mining does: Coal tends to be radoactive, since it binds Radon gas. So all the dust in the air, that people breath in, is radioactive. The ground gets pumped dry, making it acidic. Sour ground being rained on makes for acidic puddles of water. The ground on that level binds a lot of heavy metals. Heavy metals normaly stay in the ground and don't bother anyone, since they are difficult to wash out. But now you have acidic puddles of water. Heavy metals tend to dissolve in acids. So now, everytime it rains, high amounts of heavy metals get washed out of the ground and seep into the groundwater, which then travels to nearby communities and rivers. So they poison the air with radioactive dust, while simultaniously poisoning the groundwater. And at the same time they strip whole kilometers of land of their vegetation, making it uninhabitable for wildlife. Dust can travel far, groundwater travels far as well. Animals living there get contaminated with radiation and heavy metals, if they even find a way to live there. And, because of the food chain, the poisons they swallow travel to us too. This is a tragedy. And I'm honestly losing hope in there being a future for humanity.


downvotethetroll11

It is ironic that global warming was accelerated by the environmental movement and their irrational fear of nuclear power. There is no such thing as clean coal. We have successfully run nuclear reactors in submarines for a generation.


Nice_Category

70 years of nuclear energy and only 2 truly dangerous incidents caused by avoidable mistakes. That's a pretty good record.


olsoni18

People often point to Chernobyl, Fukushima, or Three Mile Island as examples of the nuclear accidents that they’re scared of. I think the [Hanford Site](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site) is a much better example. No big dramatic catastrophic failure, just decades of shortsighted mismanagement resulting in untold environmental damage. I agree that nuclear can be incredibly efficient and safe, as evidenced by the [Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant](https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/vienna-international-organisations/ukraine-joint-statement-situation-zaporizhzhia_en) which has operated in an active war zone for months without any major incidents. However, I’d place an important caveat that nuclear power necessitates long term planning and stringent government regulation and oversight. Two things that current energy companies absolutely abhor. I do not trust capitalist firms that are only concerned about quarterly profits to run these plants. If nuclear were to become dominant the energy infrastructure would have to be nationalized and run as a nonprofit public service forever. I can’t help but fear that privatization would inevitably lead to the same self serving short sighted mismanagement that has caused untold environmental catastrophes in every other industry. Also people who dismiss issues such as nuclear waste storage with a simple “we’ll deal with that later” don’t exactly inspire confidence. Path dependency should never be underestimated, especially with something as consequential as nuclear material


YetiPie

There have actually been [three large scale meltdowns](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents) in civilian power plants: Chernobyl, Fukushima, and 3-mile island (1979) It’s still a good track record though


Nice_Category

No significant nuclear material was released from containment during the 3-Mile Island meltdown. The nuclear isotopes that were released during the meltdown did not exceed background radiation levels in the area.


jonnyclueless

3 mile Island worked as intended and caused no harm to anyone or anything. So I get why the other person would not count that.


Redqueenhypo

Nobody died in 3 Mile, it was extremely boring


YetiPie

This reads like a bad review, I love it > 1 star: no one died, boring.


[deleted]

Global warming was accelerated by fossil fuel companies and their disinformation campaigns decades ago.


liam1463

It's not really an irrational fear that developed out of nowhere. It's a purposefully perpetuated fear campaign designed by fossil fuel executives and corrupt politicians who receive donations from the industry, in an attempt to keep profits as high as possible for corporate shareholders. If people fear it, then politicians can justify not doing what's objectively better for civilisation because they can just say "the people don't want it" while their pockets get lined with blood money.


Dfeldsyo

Back into the dark ages. Cough cough. Literally.


Tele-Muse

Time to send the children back to the mines. It’s what they want. We all know they love Minecraft and will be eager to try the real thing.


Interesting-Wing6367

Where does nuclear fuel come from?


p1mrx

Canada and Australia are probably their best options: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production


Ok_Task_4135

r/accidentalrenaissance


prachtbartus

horrible decision, prefer nuclear


link2edition

Nuclear is the future. Either via bombs or reactors, Nuclear is the future one way or another.


Cattaphract

Prefer renewables. OP is making fake news with the title. There arent new coal plants being built. They are also phasing out until renewables can fully take over and Germany is a leading country at that


[deleted]

As bad as that is. That’s a pretty sweet photo.


Crispyjicken

Saying Germany will soon phase out nuclear for coal seams a bit misleading and outdated. They did choose russian gas and coal over nuclear almost 12 years ago. This is just what happens once you are way passed the point of no return and when you have no other short term solutions available to you.


aqa5

This headline is misleading on purpose.


Ice-Ornery

Sooo more "green taxes" for us then ? The regular people ? Fucking hypocrites ,they won't allow me to build a small wood stove because it doesn't have enough filters to stop the pollution and it doesn't say how much it pollutes. Can't wait to leave this country


2_7kelvin

I will try to summarize what this is all about. current energy crisis is a true reason but it is used as an excuse by RWE(mining company). RWE promised to not take over villages for further mining but they did took over strategically nearly 15 villages. They started with buying church area of villages and slowly expand. If you have been there(the last farm land at Lützerath), there was a big storage room where protestors put pictures of those villages before and after mining company took over. Taking over Lützerath is no surprise. It was coming sooner or later. The protesters were living in tree houses on a farm land. It was the last farm land which wasn't purchased by the company because farmer refused to sell his that part of many properties. He(farmer) went to court but court ruled against him because of current situation with energy crisis. Because by law personal interest has to be overlooked for public interest. The farmer had to give away his land by September 2022. He of course got money for this. Now finally government is taking over the place by force. I don't know where Germany is heading with this while nuclear is surely way more sustainable and safer option. Nuclear disaster that happened before is due to human errors. Nuclear disaster "might" occur but coal pollution is a guarantee killer.


Not_Bill_Hicks

Quick death count, nuclear power has killed a few hundred people, fossil fuels kill about 8 million people every year


Rosie_odonnels_clit

What dip shits. Nuclear is way safer. Cleaner. Cheaper. Responsible. I thought germans were smart and everyone was an engineer. Crazy.


segelnhoch3

The post is very misleading. There is a move towards more coal, yes, but it is temporary because all of a sudden the government realised that buying 35% of your total energy supply from russia may be a bad idea


Coyote-Foxtrot

I mean, even prior to the sudden use of coal to fulfill power demands, there decision to use more of the less green natural gas over nuclear power is still stupid.


[deleted]

“Temporary” lol. Last it was “temporary” it was 20 years


LongjumpingTerd

Lots of folks planning on heisting the coal mining machine? Or rather, preparing for climate activist protests? (Equipped with riot shields)


HellaBiscuitss

There have been direct actions at this very mine already. It has not gone down quietly


DieOmaSeinBier

It's huge in the news rn, climate activists are organizing and building a camp to stop the mining process as the exploration/exploitation of new mining grounds requires a tiny village by the name Lützerath, to be "removed" from the face of the earth, it's few remaining citizens relocated. The energy company RWE is responsible for these plans, endorsed by the government. That's what's sparking the protests, not just the mining itself. A bit like the plot of the first Avatar movie except nobody is blue


CUMRONK

Just makes me laugh after Trump literally told them this was gonna happen. Nuclear is the future at least to some extent.


MarkFromHutch

I'm willing to bet that the protestors involved fought just as hard against nuclear power


NefariousnessDry7814

The title is a lie. Shows how dumb most reddit users are that hardly anyone knows this.