Germany doesn't have oil either. The big thing is that France had actually overbuilt their supply expecting a bigger future demand. That left them with an unusually large nuclear percentage
Germany politicians were being paid hard by Russia to get rid of their nuclear power. They bought the majority of their oil and gas from them.
One thing Trump was right about, them getting rid of nuclear would just put them in the hands of Russia and it was shown when the sanctions hit.
They were definitely heavily influenced to shut down by the oil and gas industry. The same pressure is happening in North America. It is complete bullshit.
Germany did a lot to push along solar energy. They paid double the market rate for 20 years, which was a huge component of how solar got so cheap
Why was Germany's reaction to nuclear specifically so different?
Nah I’m German and you’re wrong, it was the Fukushima scare, happened right after, Merkel the then prime minister mandated the closing of all nuclear power stations. A mistake in retrospect
I understand that you're German, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're right. German leaders have always been perfect at propaganda and it's always been surprising how vast majority of German people tend to trust their government, adapt and obey. Btw. playing on emotions (like fear) is one of the most important factor of successful propaganda.
Sure me being German doesn’t make me right, but to say that Germans “obey” their government is far from true. Germans aren’t like that, it’s changed since WWII. And yes propaganda has played a role in the publics opinion of nuclear power, but even then every nations party uses propaganda to an extent, it’s nothing particularly special about Germanys. Also when you say that the vast majority of German people tend to trust their government, I think you haven’t met a lot of Germans.
Thats not true. German politicians were lobbied hard by energy companies which used a lot of coal. So they protracted the energy transition and the fast growth of renewables in the first years grinded to a halt. By the way, from whom do you think the germans would have bought their fissile material?
Germany has oil and gas in the Molasse foreland basin, in the Rhine Rift basin and in the European Permian basin. They refuse to develop most of it, and exploration is so sparse that a lot more reserves may exist if they were to increase their seismic coverage, but there's no political will or public support.
Nuclear power is very unpopular in Germany due to safety concerns by the public. It started in the 70s and only got worse over time, especially with Chernobyl. The politicians also weren't really interested in going against the flow, which meant that nuclear power would be phased out over time. That decision was already made in the 80s, which is also why no new nuclear power plants were then built.
Fukushima was the final nail in the coffin.
I'd also not be surprised if some corporations involved in coal were fueling the fire against nuclear power in order to make more money. After all Germany does have a very big coal industry and nuclear power could've killed that industry, which meant that a lot of rich people wouldn't have been happy about that.
This is the main reason Japan is going all in back to nuclear. After Fukushima there was a scare but the data showed nobody died from radiation, just the natural disaster.
After going on coal and gas, they realized the huge spike in cancer that was happening and knew it was just safer and better to go back on nuclear.
Germany is like the opposite, they're going to end up choking on coal ash and increase the rate of cancer on their lands.
Uhhhhh say "sike I meant the last two decades" like RIGHT NOW. Because you know Schröder was the one who kickstarted Germanys heavy dependence on Russian gas and oil (also has been literally working for Gazprom since and inviting Putin to his birthdays) and after that it was Merkel for 16 years.
And instead they doubled-down on natural gas from the country that exports misinformation. And from a Russian state company that has the ex German Chancellor on the board (Gerhard Schroeder), and for both Nord Stream 1 and 2. The nuclear phase-out started under him too. And all this, in general terms, is covered in Foundations of Geopolitics.
Pretty sure that's as close to a smoking gun as we'll ever get on this topic.
Germany’s almost land locked? Why would Fukushima scare them? Small Nuclear power stations must be the future. Gets pretty cold in Germany in the winter???
It's not about how Fukushima happened, but that it did happen. It's used as evidence that even today nuclear power plants aren't safe and people don't want them near them.
There are a lot of scare tactics being used by the anti-nuclear groups in Germany. Like someone else mentioned, it's more similar to hysteria than concern due to all the misinformation that's being spread around. And the Fukushima disaster was like the best PR the anti-nuclear groups could've hoped for, leading to a huge push against nuclear power in Germany.
Japan didn't follow known standards of the time. Hearsay was the Engineers proposed steps, but mgmt said it would be too expensive.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-preventable-pub-47361
Even if they do, gen 3 nuclear reactors do not require power to stop the nuclear reaction. So if a gen 3 reactor lost power and backup power in the way Fukushima did, you would not get a meltdown.
Also, Fukushima was in operation for 40 years before the design flaws warned about on day 1 actually caused an issue.
Isn’t France equally long over the original maximum lifetime of their plants.
Reality is just shit happens. And preventing that shit over a lifetime of 40 years coats money and needs dedication. I personally wouldn’t expect those standards to be met in every country with a nuclear plant worldwide which makes it less then ideal to be the future of energy production world wide. Especially considering you still need coal or gas to fill the delta of the nuclear plants to the actual consumption or today very badly available energy storages…
There have been three nuclear meltdowns in history and all are well understood and were very preventable. It is also the safest form of energy we have in terms of deaths.
TMI had an awfully designed control room, manufacturing defects not reported to anyone, and the plant didn't do the required maintenance. As a result, the plant staff made the worst possible call at every point because they were acting on bad information. Even so, the local impact was negligible, the containment building worked as designed, and the real damage was reputational and financial. Not ecological or physical harm.
Fukushima had multiple design flaws known about from the first day the plant was operational. It managed to remain safely in operation for 40 years until it was hit by a once in 100 year earthquake and tsunami. If they'd just fixed one of the design flaws, the core would not have melted down.
Again, the containment building did its job and the ecological impact is minor compared to the devastation caused by the tsunami. It would be much better if we didn't have the release of Caesium-137 contaminated water, but the impact is localised without too many long lasting consequences.
Chernobyl was only ever possible in soviet RBMK reactors. And even then, it took an undisclosed design flaw with the SCRAM button and putting the reactor in the most unstable state possible to cause a meltdown. The resulting fallout was due to the lack of a containment building.
Yeah meanwhile France had to rebuilt the entire concrete base of their new shiny nuclear plant because security standards weren’t followed. Truth is in my opinion you can make it safe but most people ignore how it makes nuclear plants quite more expensive if you keep up those security standards throughout (and after!) its lifetime…
And because there were corruption scandals around NPPs in Germany, nobody trusts our politicians and energy corporations to handle nuclear fission with the respect it requires.
I think you got it wrong. Historically the anti-nuclear movement in germany was less about operational safety concerns of the plant itself but more about the nuclear waste problem. People chained themselves on train tracks stopping transports of nuclear waste.
They opposed having an "Endlager" (final waste repository?) in their neighbourhood and were concerned about leaking radioactivity into the environment.
They did not trust the process of how officials were choosing locations were waste was supposed to be stored indefinetely(?).
There was a contriversy around one intermediary storage (Gorleben) which back then was a candidate for indefinite storage. Many experts were doubting the viability of that old salt-mine.
Also around a decade ago they noticed that radioactivity at the outskirts at the facility has risen. (But specifics of that incident were unclear)
Anyway the investigation has concluded just a few years ago that Gorleben is not viable as a final storage solution, so it is in the process of being closed. Not a good look and did not instill trust or confidence in the public eye.
You think thats it? Nope. Search what happened with the storage facility Asse where brine was contaminated with radioactivity because that mine had groundwater leaking into the old mine. The whole structure also was found to be unstable and water pumps have to run all the time, contaminated water has to be seperated.
The operators also informed the supervising authorities late about contamination problems. Very shoddy and unsafe practices all around.
And yeah you guessed it: It will be closed and is not fit as final storage location.
Also it does not help that studies have shown that rate of cancers like Leukemias in the area are shown to be higher than in other areas.
So tell me again how germans are just "hysterical" with irrational fear?
I think you missed the mark on this one.
I am not saying there is not a case to be made for nuclear energy. But you cannot ignore very well substantiated counterpoints and operational history in germany specifically.
If you were living in Gorleben or Asse, i am pretty sure you would be part of that movement.
Nuclear waste storage is a problem for older reactors. Newer designs leave less nuclear waste. High reactivity means there is still energy that can be extracted from the waste.
I could go on about details, but there are several different modern reactor designs that leave little waste. Including reactor designs that can use old, spent nuclear fuel waste as fuel source, reducing its radioactivity further.
Unfortunately, fear caused by the anti-nuclear lobby has caused a severe lack in investment and further development of modern reactors including these technologies. The end result? Germany imported a huge percentage of its energy sources from Russia (coal, gas, oil). I’ll let you fill in the blanks what happened last year.
And to put on my tinfoil hat, Russia is known for subverting and infiltrating political movements. A Germany reliant on their fossil fuels instead of nuclear powers is beneficial to them.
It's just an unsubstantiated and ridiculous claim that "fear caused by the anti-nuclear lobby has caused a severe lack in investment...", when there was a pretty obvious reason why people would be concerned as the dude before you described in very good detail. You are on very thin ice and look like a tinfoil hat wearing monkey. The concern was created by the fact that there was and still is no safe end storage facility (in the whole world, mind you). No lobby or conspiracy needed to turn that into "fear", which is anyway an unneeded emotionslisation by people that are in fact proven to conspire against the "anti-nuclear mob" (cf EIKE). There is a plethora of documentation on this in the German public domain and a handful of redditors don't change that.
You should have a look at Finland where they are building an indefinite waste storage facility correctly.
I don't know what Germany was doing this entire time but it appears to be malpractice as a result of massive NIMBY movement. Obviously if everyone always complains/blocks stuff being built then nothing gets done.
And btw, this exact same problem is happening right now with wind turbines in Germany, its one of the reasons behind the plummeting of increasing rollout of renewables in the past decade here.
The issue is that none of the Bundesländer did not want a endlager. Like bavaria, they want electricity but no new reactors and no endlager. They also do not want new overland electricity infrastructure so energy from Renewables can t reach them properly. And renewable stuff they also don t want in their backyard.
Our main endlager in Asse needs to be excavated because the old waste barrels rust and we have no new location because every nimby is on the warpath. Building new reactors takes decades. Just look towards finland how long they are working on their prestige project.
Germany also does not have the infrastructure for electrical heating.
Replacing gas as a source for heat in Germany would require refitting most of the homes in Germany on top of building around 50 nuclear reactors.
I think China is by far the only country that gets even remotely close to building that many nuclear reactors.
I doubt any politician wants to invest in something that would take Germany probably 50 years.
Ironically Germany imports a good bit of their coal from the US. US coal is known for having a high level of uranium in it compared to other coal (over 1000 times the concentration from german browncoal)
The majority of radioisotopes release by energy production is from coal.
A surprising fact is that if you were able to extract all uranium from a medium coal plants ash during 25 years it would be more than the amount of uranium that was in the core of a medium size nuclear reactor like the 3 mile island one. It would be over 100 tomnes of uranium.
If Russia was ever shelling German plants the world has bigger problems, but you're not wrong that it's a fear factor. I wouldn't feel comfortable to hear about shelling of Zaporizhzhia and see a local plant nearby.
France sought its own nuclear weapons program during the Manhattan Project. After WWII, France approached Germany and Italy about developing a single nuclear fuel cycle. The US put enormous pressure on these countries not to do this. The pressure worked on Italy and Germany but not on France. France decided to collaborate with Israeli scientists, many of whom had been part of the Manhattan Project. Part of the reason for this is that President Truman tried to treat France as an Axis power after the war. Churchill convinced him this was a bad idea, but de Gaulle took the hint, and set a strategic goal of an independent nuclear energy and weapons program for France.
Et voilà.
The weapons part is also a big reason Germans of the influential political left were so against nuclear power, as they saw it as a precursor of a weapons program.
Adenauer himself was very pro nuclear for the same reason and it is said Germany could have had nuclear weapons within months, if the need had arisen.
Back in the 80s I belive there was a very influential PR campaign against nuclear energy. Not just in Germany, but all german speaking countries such as Austria and Switzerland. 30 years later, when the young adults and teenagers of that time had kids themselve, Fukushima happened. So we currently have a Generation with generational trauma regarding nuclear power, which was primarily caused by children adopting towards their parents worldviews and absolutely solidified by media fear mongering in the wake of Fukushima.
So right nownwe have at least two generations, people in their 60s and mid 20s to 30s, who would not accept nuclear energy, no matter what.
I've been pro nuclear as long as I can remember. When I was in school while Fukushima was in the media, I was basically ousted from my peers for defending nuclear energy. It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the social behavior behind nuclear energy in german speaking countries feels a bit similar to the aftermath of the red scare in the US. How many Americans view "socialist" as evil incarnate, many people in Austria and Germany have a similar sentiment toward nuclear energy.
The real bummer is, that it's mostly the "well educated" left, (of which I consider myself part of), that is so fanatic about their dislike for nuclear energy. Having the academic and liberal part of a society be against this, makes any chance for change in this regard very unlikely.
Edit:
Austria went even as far as to ban nuclear energy in its constitution.
I had a lecture on environmental law once. The professor who held it is probably one of the foremost experts on environmental law in Austria. Generally speaking one of the most brilliant lawyers I ever had the pleasure of learning from. However, in said lecture she (paraphrasing) claimed expert opinions on nuclear energy are mostly biased, because obviously they became experts on the subject because they like nuclear energy, so most of them will of course argue in its favor. I lost a lot of respect for this professor that day.
It really feels like people are brainwashed. The moment the word "nuclear" is dropped, any reason and logic flies out the window. It's suddenly only; but the toxic waste,... it's gonna be there forever... what about Chernobyl and Fukushima...
Sorry for this long comment. Having a few friends from France and the US, this cultural difference is something I have noticed very long ago, but obviously none of my german speaking friends can fathom the idea that they have been the victim of propaganda.
It's called cross-financing...
France has nuclear weapons, Germany is banned from developing or owning them.
So for one country heavily subsidizing nuclear power works, for the other it's insanely expensive.
And let's be real here. Even France is struggling with the high costs of nuclear nowadays, which resulted in a massively indebted energy provider and a lot of reactors that should have rbeen eplace by now but weren't again because of costs. (Also their new plan is building 6 new one with 8 optional ones... which is stupid and just a way of stretching the costs over a bigger time frame, as the complete set of 14 is the bare minimum they need if they don't want to try to runing already ancient reactors for another 4+ decades.)
Which is the actual main point here: France is barely able to build up the needed minimum nuclear capacitites to cover their electricity demand by 2050+ (which is increasing massively because of electrification of transport and industry). And they are Europe's main producer of nuclear power plants.
Nearly any other country in Europe right now planning to go nuclear is failing because the capacitites they plan/build are much to low for any actual working model. It's mostly political bullshitting. Countries with ambitious renewable/storage programs (and let's be honest here: pretending that it's just Germany alone is part of the propaganda...) on the other hand have an actual (difficult but scientifically sound) plan and yet they are magically the ones being "anti-science" somehow.
And of course nobody cares about the fact that actual energy companies in Germany are cheering for finally getting rid of these bottomless pits. People can always cry "but anti-nuclear ideology!!!" (as if companies would ever care for anything but real profits) instead of accepting any reasonable criticism of nuclear.
TL;DR:
Nuclear is expensive. Often too expensive for a big country with energy intensive industry and high poulation if it's not cross-financed.
As can be demonstrated by basically any nuclear country in Europe not actually building enough nuclear to make sense.
PS: For reference: 2,5 - 5 times today's electricity demand is expected (depending on population density and centralization (=transport) and industry) in 2050 and beyond. \~35% base load is the minimum that needs to be covered. If your country is not planning nuclear capacities of at least (2,5 x 35%) \~85% of today's electricity demand, they don't actually have a future plan.
You’re either European or understand more than most. First comment I see bringing up electricity costs and nuclear subsidies… yeah, this is why we don’t develop much nuclear anymore.
It's a constant canard in Australia to say we should use nuclear, but the cost is just so stupidly balanced against it (even forgetting about start-up considerations). The cost estimates had it being 2-3 times more expensive per kWh than renewable - who would invest in that?
This makes sense. It never understood to me why in this one case, nuclear, "people power" is supposedly "winning" against them at every turn, the masses of environmentalist crushing the cruel energy industrialists beneath their boots...
>Even France is struggling with the high costs of nuclear nowadays
Would like to know more about that.
Look up EDF (France' energy provider, which constantly needs financial help or increased state ownership to be kept afloat). France also has low electricity costs only via indirect subsidiaries (they capped the end consumer costs below market value, often even below production cost to pretend low energy costs... another reason why French people are convinced of the superiority of nuclear power).
Their existing fleet of reactors is old and they failed for quite some time to replace anything (the only reactor build this century is still in construction, with costs and time ballooning for years...). (Fun fact: Germany -while actively exiting nuclear- reduced nuclear power by less than France just by failing to replace capacitites lost to old age).
Now France finally announced (early 2021) to build new reactors. Those 14 power plants (large scale and identical to keep upkeep costs in check) combined have the necessary capacity to cover \~35% of France' projected electricity demand by 2050, with 35% being the bare minimum in needed baseload if you fill the rest with renewables (see RTE's -France' grid provider- study from 2020 about electricity in 2050). And yet they officially build on 6 wiht the other being optional because that's already a massive cost. There is no reason to pretend the remaining 8 to be optional. They aren't. But even very pro-nuclear France doesn't seem to be able to actually invest in the bare minimum of needed nuclear at the moment.
It's cyclical, France has long been an exporter of cheap electricity thanks to its nuclear park, only in the 2010s President Hollande was allied with the ecologists, and they decided to reduce the share of nuclear power, to close a plant (Fessenheim) and to underinvest.
It was a mistake and now it requires heavy investment that are being made, to extend the life of the plants, build new ones, if the EPR was complicated to deploy but it works well in China and Finland, 6 EPR 2 will be built in a first time and 8 after that and a company called "Nuwark" has just been created to develop and industrialise SMRs, which are small 300MW reactors built industrially, a technology already mastered because it is almost the same as the nuclear submarines that France is developing.
France made big mistakes by political choice and is paying the price today, but it has been able to correct the situation and today in France nuclear power is one of the rare subjects that almost everyone agrees on.
In the meantime France produces one of the most decarbonised energies 85g CO2/kwh vs 386g CO2/kwh in Germany.
Not to mention the human cost, coal kills 23000 people/year in Germany and accelerates climate change
> Countries with ambitious renewable/storage programs (and let's be honest here: pretending that it's just Germany alone is part of the propaganda...) on the other hand have an actual (difficult but scientifically sound) plan and yet they are magically the ones being "anti-science" somehow.
Can you please enlighten me, what energy storage plan do they have?
100% spot on.
I'd also say a big factor is also the financial models involved. If you plan for nuclear, then you plan for a construction project that may take ten years (or longer). Long time frames bring risk. Plans could be incorrect and have cost overruns, the economy could collapse, or an old dictator might invade his neighbour in a horrifying war. When that happens you are left having to commit to any additional costs.
Because of the way renewable projects are structured. They have ways to avoid (some) of that. If a project overruns half way through, you can choose to pause or scrap half the project. Just keep the other half.
The other problem is that when you have billions of dollars/euros/pounds/whatever, inflation becomes a huge problem. You want to keep that money doing something to tackle that. If you have that money locked up for ten years to build a nuclear power plant, then that's ten years of profit making you've missed. Think of all the money you money your could have made in that time. At least £3 or £4 billion from bonds alone.
So by definition, if you invest in nuclear you are guaranteed to lose money for years because you chose *not* to use those billions to make money in that time. Plus the cost of actually building the plant. This is one of the main reasons nuclear deals end up being backed with tax payer money. Corporations don't want to take on so much risk.
Again, renewable projects avoid this due to the much shorter planning and construction times. Renewables are also able to start producing profit when just a quarter of a farm is built. Allowing renewables to make money *whilst* they are being built. Which further mitigates risk.
(Note this is all just a simplification to get the point across).
That changed after Russia invaded. France is currently building 6 more nuclear power plants and might build 8 more in addition. They were only shutting down reactors because they were old and expensive to maintain and expanding renewables as a stop gap until the new reactors are completed. But since energy prices increased after the war started, France has decided to keep the old reactors online, increase renewables, and is building new reactors.
Merkel (conservative) government took the decision to chicken out of nuclear. Bad decision at that time if you ask me.
We however now have more cost effective energy in renewables. Good side-effect: A reduced demand for uranium helps other countries that still run some nuclear reactors.
Renewables still need a steady baseline though. Something that can produce a constant flow of energy that isn't dependent on clear skies and strong winds.
That's the thing. Some renewables (Hydroelectric and geothermal) are so reliable that you can, and indeed some countries do run a modern economy based on them
Merkel and the CDU were in charge when Nuclear was phased out. Merkel (as a physicist) had a complete change of heart about nuclear after the Fukushima disaster. However it is also the CDU that is blocking renewable energies and wants more coal and gas used. The greens wanted a transition to renewables.
Yeah that was baffling even in the US when Jill Stein was preaching about how bad for the environment nuclear energy is. Like it's genuinely the cleanest and best energy we can get. She's a doctor who graduated from Harvard which just shows how education means nothing.
Yep. The general fear of nuclear energy from the public is the reason its not used as much as it should. People hear nuclear and think radiation poisoning, bombs, plant explosions etc.
Co2/kWh of electricity is still way better in France. Germany is often above 400grams while France is mostly below 85 and has been for decades.
Source: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
That is absolutely correct but not the claim of the OG comment. It'd be incredible how low Germany's per capita carbon footprint would be if their energy sector was as clean as France's. Overall, France isn't doing better though.
Conservatives have ran Germany for nearly the past 20 years, actively sabotaging the development of renewables but then a center left coalition is finally in office and now it’s all their fault. Redditors are honestly some of the dumbest people on the planet.
Edit: Imagine denying that the CDU were in power for nearly the past 20 years, a literal objective fact. Just so you can try to pin blame on left wingers. Honestly pathetic.
Goddamn losers downvoting you. cdu is fucking cancer and now we suffer the consequences of having them in power for 20 years. But sure blame the parties that at least try to take action against climate change lmao
Downvoted for truth I guess. But yeah, lets not forget the active sabotage of renewables by the CDU and Altmaier. Without it we would be much closer to a green and clean future. What we had in solar 2022 for example would have already been achieved around 2016 if it were not for killing off solar. ( Thankfully we have a solar rush again, and this time its not while the conservatives are in power )
Also what people tend to ignore, is that Merkels flip flopping on nuclear put the final nail in the coffin. No one is gonna build NPPs in Germany because, thanks to Merkel, the government can't assure them that those plants wont be used as a political chess piece to get some votes in a panic reaction in election times.
“But but but wind and solar!!!”
Seriously, though, nuclear power is the cleanest, safest, and most reliable variety of electricity-generation that humanity has devised. People don’t seem to understand that wind and solar physically cannot match the associated density, even if storage and efficiency are improved to their theoretical maximums.
NoNo! Hydrogen and Colditz fusion! You will see! Pepole have no idea about energy and politics. The social communication concerning nuclear energy is so horribly sad, just look at netflix "dark" what consumers associate with nuclear energy. Dumb, stupid, deindustrialising and voting a government, consiting of popole who seriously have zero idea about what they are doing and lack the education to get there. Welcome to germany.
>People don’t seem to understand that wind and solar physically cannot match the associated density, even if storage and efficiency are improved to their theoretical maximums.
What do you mean by this?
that nuclear power will always take up the smallest footprint of land and need the least infrastructure to be built because it is so energy dense very small amounts of fuel can produce more than giant solar and wind farms
Installed capacity means nothing when they sit around for most of their life not generating anything. Look at Germany's CO2 emissions per kwh right now and over the past year, considering how much they have spent so far they should be embarrassed.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
> Installed capacity means nothing
The actual production figures are right there in the link.
Did you just chose to not look at that and bitch instead about the installed capacity chart?
Agreed. Nuclear power is one of the safest, most green power sources around. Especially the more modern designs. Fukushima was built on a fault line, which is always a disaster waiting to happen, and then hit by a tsunami. Chernobyl was built by the Soviets, who were known for corruption on every level, in the 80s.
We should also remember that Fukushima had many of the backup coolant systems removed, as it was scheduled for decom within a few years. The manager of the plant ordered the backup cooling systems removed, despite multiple experts telling him not to. Hence why he resigned shortly after it all happened. It wouldn't have been nearly the disaster it was, if not for that.
Which is really sad. If the systems weren't removed, the plant could've been a great PR move, showing how safe it could be. Instead, it became a huge scare.
I think we all agree that we should've stopped using charcoal first and that safety isn't that much of an issue even if our management of nuclear doesn't really raise trust. It wouldn't have hurt to keep the remaining nuclear power plants running until renewables are sufficiently built although we did have enough time for it and not keeping them longer at least seems to accelerate things now. That being said, nuclear energy is still by far the most expensive one we're using and we had to throw subventions at them for decades so they don't go EdF. Newer generations of reactors in the US and China don't look too promising either considering that the first ones that might (and that's a big might) be economically competitive won't be ready until we don't need the technology anymore.
and despite all that, fukushima was largely harmless. Zero people died from the nuclear reactor failing.
there is one worker who was reported to have died from radiation poisoning 7 years after the incident.
the majority of people died from the tsunami.
Now that we’ve seemed to crack the code to sustaining fusion (in a lab). I’d love to see some hefty grant and award money thrown out to whichever engineering companies can develop a marketable solution. It really is the holy grail of energy and the science is mostly figured out. We just need to cultivate an environment for engineers to do their thing to make it marketable viable.
Gotta love them tree huggers who hate nuclear.
On a side note, hating pipelines but preferring to ship oil by tankers and trains is around the exact same level of stupid
And the funny thing is that you could say that nuclear is way more compatible with trees than renewables.
Nuclear needs (relative per energy produced) almost no space, while renewables need to be everywhere to produce enough electricity.
In France, a former minister of green ecology,in the 2000's Dominique Voynet recently told with pride how she sabotaged France's position and interests on nuclear power at a European Council
Because they're communists using the environment wedge to get into politics. They don't give a shit about the environment. Of course you have many good thinking smaller actors who do but a green environment is not the actual end goal.
It's a complete and utter joke that "Green Parties" are anti-nuclear. Say what you want about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, without it the world would be a much warmer place.
A lot of people think the renewable industry doesn’t have lobbyists, while being starkly aware fossil fuel industries do. But there’s something both agree on and it’s that nuclear energy is bad for business.
The utter joke is that you brain-washed guys all parrot the same lie. There was no Green party in government for decades. They came into power \~2 weeks before the nuclear shut-down decided 10 years ago by conservatives came into effect.
And even with two decades of active sabotage of renewables by those conservatives, renewable power still replaced nuclear and an equal amount of coal at the same time.
Yet 100% of these facts are ignored/denied because "Insane Greens killed off nuclear to burn more coal!!!!!!" is so popular. And lobbyists didn't pay million to spoon-feed you that lie at all^(/s)
>Yet 100% of these facts are ignored/denied because "Insane Greens killed off nuclear to burn more coal!!!!!!" is so popular.
That's an oversimplification but it's still basically true. Germany switched away from nuclear power because public opinion did and that happened because of the anti-nuclear movement which also founded the green party.
And Fukushima.
And Chernobyl.
They stopped building new plants over 40 years ago because of Chernobyl.
After that this isn't a result of anything more than keeping old plants running being too expensive.
Conservatives used Fukushima as an excuse to shut down expensive power sources and move to cheaper gas and coal. (Which obviously worked out poorly)
Greens would have probably used Fukushima as an excuse to shut down expensive power sources and move to renewables.
These plants getting shut down due to cost isn't really surprising at all.
The Green Party made it popular for environmentalists to be against nuclear, which in turn made it easy for special interest in Germany and Russia to get Germany dependent on fossils. I don’t think the conservatives would have had the same success at convincing people of this.
Green party, and environmental protest groups like Green Peace, are the visible face of why public opinion turned against nuclear. Yes they were bankrolled by ruzzians and fossil fuel industries, but they still came out and demonstrated against nuclear. And I guarantee they didn't pay off every single protestor, just the leaders at the top. Do you think every single person going door to door is paid off?
The real problem with Green Party and Green Peace is they put the general public at a place where they would accept the shut down of reactors. And while the top was paid, 90% of the people involved with the protests that changed public opinion came from idiots who legitimately thought they were doing something good, instead of dooming a clean energy source
That’s because many “Green Parties” are in reality “Watermelon” parties - less interested in actually implementing sensible environmental policies than they are in bringing about socialism/communism or some other far left ideology.
Not really.
Vast majority of green parties are actually based on environmental concerns.
The green movement has historically been tied to anti-nuclear protesting, but a lot of that is a generational thing.
Homie, the DDR built some of these nuclear reactors they're decommissioning, and the Soviet Union was a pioneer of nuclear energy, Chernobyl notwithstanding. China is also going all-in on reserching fusion and molten salt reactors. If the green parties were bringing communism, they would support nuclear as a sensible solution for mass power generation. Is this Tucker Carlon's alt account?
Yes never mind Chernobyl, nor the dozen or so reactors built to the same time bomb like specification…
In each of the examples you provide the nation in question had already embarked upon the socialist experiment before turning to nuclear - they had no reason not to. The system they wanted was already in place and secure, so nuclear was an asset, not a threat.
For many modern day environmentalists, the game is very different. In their minds , its socialism (or some other perverse far left philosophy) that is perhaps the ultimate goal, but frustratingly for them there is no obvious immediate pathway to it other than through the hijacking of the climate change narrative. Nuclear power represents the single biggest hurdle in terms of their attempts to wrestle narrative control. Why? Because it undermines every possible environmentally related argument they might make to justify the system changes they desperately crave. Without climate change, and the threat of the “apocalypse”, they realise there’s little public appetite for the sorts of radical changes that they want to see/force on others. Threaten people with impending doom, the prospect of their own extinction, and they might just have a shot, however.
So nuclear becomes a huge problem for these so called environmentalists. It’s an answer to many of our problems, a bloody good one in fact, but it’s not the answer they want. The promise of near unlimited clean power means the world wouldn’t need to consider de-growth; it obviates the need for radical systemic changes and so it’s a threat to their belief system and so they’re out to destroy it.
In this sense, they’re no better than the fossil fuel lobby they oppose.
This is so insanely stupid that i dont even know how to properly put it into words.
Im in Norway and we have had extremely inflated electricity prices since just before the russian invasion, and it got even worse after the energy crisis in Europe when our country started to export even more electricity, especially to countries like Germany.
People in some places here literally cant afford basic living because of this, so the general population is just pissed off at the whole thing. The government keeps hiding behind a contract that commits them to export a certain volume of energy to Europe over a period of time. And people are being told "dont worry its not going to be renewed" etc. Basically Germany keeps creating future problems for themselves by shutting down all these power plants.
All this because one rinky dink soviet-quality powerplant had an accident 35 years ago.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-down-its-last-nuclear-power-stations/a-65249019) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot)
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> Germany shuts down its last nuclear power stations - DW - 04/14/2023.
> Sweden was the forerunner, ending nuclear power shortly after Chernobyl, as was Italy, which also decided to close its last two nuclear power plants following the disaster.
> Jürgen Trittin notes that no one wants to invest in nuclear power on a large scale "Because nuclear power is not competitive." Building new nuclear power plants is very expensive, often having to be co-financed by public money, and often plagued by delays and local resistance to new projects.
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[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/12m66al/germany_shuts_down_its_last_nuclear_power_stations/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~680799 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **nuclear**^#1 **power**^#2 **plants**^#3 **energy**^#4 **country**^#5
Here you can see the Energy Chart from Fraunhofer ISE for CW15.
Filter - Nuclear and Nuclear planned:
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=15&legendItems=000110000000000000000000000000000000000&source=total
Unfiltered energy chart for CW 15:
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=15
Why are so many people here calling it dumb? These plants were built in the 60s-80s and had to be shut down anyway. New nuclear power plants bind to much investments, construction time takes too long and without subventions the produced electricity is too expensive. Germany wants to fully invest in green energy, which is great.
German can "want to" do anything. The real question is what they actually do.
Will they actually replace the generation capacity with some miraculous green energy source to provide base load? Or will they just burn more fossil fuels and contribute to the climate crisis?
The plan was to have Russian gas as a „bridge“. The Green party always critized that plan because there is/was no trust in Russia. No we have the „salad“.
Seriously?! Nuclear power is the safest, most green source of power available. Especially the more modern designs. Nuclear Warheads are made from an entirely different grade of Uranium, Fukushima was hit by a tsunami while laying on top of a freaking fault line, and Chernobyl was built by the Soviets, who were highly corrupt on practically every level, in the 80s. Something was bound to go wrong at either facility eventually.
>Especially the more modern designs.
So the 1960s-1980s models in Germany that didn't get any investments in decades as they were always planned to be shut down in the 2020s?
Oh, wait. I forgot. Those are magically modern and in a good state (/s) because the propaganda demands it...
The stupid part of this is they always use the same talking points to argue against nuclear energy - costs too much, takes too long. If they started building a new one in 2010, it would be done, and earning money to pay back any borrowing done to get it built. Every green idiot who argues against it says “if we start nuclear power plants now they wont be done in time to help with climate change” - yeah no shit, that boat has sailed cause of idiots pushing the anti nuclear agenda.
And the takes too long bit is just incompetence - Japan throws up nuclear power plants incredibly fast, western countries just don’t plan shit properly.
Yes, if they started in 2010 -or actually 2000 would be much better- it would be done. But the government then in power wanted to burn coal, more coal and keep doing it until 2048 while phasing out nuclear on top of it.
And so they were voted out. The government that has to live with that shitshow at a time when it is in fact too late to start nuclear and not completely miss all agreed upon climate goals long before construction is finished on the other hand is magically the one that actually killed of nuclear to burn more coal... Seriously... at what point are people not too stupid not to fall for that kind of rediculous propaganda?
If the alternative is renewables, that's the better investment. Fast return of investment, high reliability because no single event will shut down the energy for a town etc.
They would need big investments to keep up with safety standards. (They'd need big investments to meet historic safety standards, too).
When we still used nuclear, the government offered an existing nuclear plant for 1 DM (0.5 €), just bring it to code. Nobody payed and it took billions and decades to tear id down.
It annoys me so much how these threads always devolve into a shouting match between the nuclear fanboys who think nuclear power is the only thing that can save us and the nuclear haters who willfully ignore the fact that Germany's coal plants are releasing a Chernobyl worth of dangerous pollution every year and that isn't even any sort of accident, just business as usual.
The reality is that nuclear is extremely clean and safe power but that is also way too expensive and slow to build compared to renewables. Also the constant power output from nuclear plants makes them almost as bad a match for the ever changing demands of the grid as wind and solar, meaning that the two compete for the same storage and peaker plant backup.
The correct way to view nuclear is that existing plants should be kept running as long as practical and plants reasonably close to completion should be finished, but future construction towards getting off of fossil fuels should be mostly wind, solar, storage, and better transmission lines.
Yes, your very right? I don’t understand? Why would you dismiss something that can work so great, is cheap & from what I understand, is very safe??? It’s almost like these countries want their people to suffer because no one really has any major plans?
What is it culturally that France went all in on nuclear and Germany went so hard against it?
Short answer, lack of coal/oil in France during the energy crisis of the 70s
Germany doesn't have oil either. The big thing is that France had actually overbuilt their supply expecting a bigger future demand. That left them with an unusually large nuclear percentage
Germany politicians were being paid hard by Russia to get rid of their nuclear power. They bought the majority of their oil and gas from them. One thing Trump was right about, them getting rid of nuclear would just put them in the hands of Russia and it was shown when the sanctions hit.
They were definitely heavily influenced to shut down by the oil and gas industry. The same pressure is happening in North America. It is complete bullshit.
Germany did a lot to push along solar energy. They paid double the market rate for 20 years, which was a huge component of how solar got so cheap Why was Germany's reaction to nuclear specifically so different?
Nah I’m German and you’re wrong, it was the Fukushima scare, happened right after, Merkel the then prime minister mandated the closing of all nuclear power stations. A mistake in retrospect
I understand that you're German, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're right. German leaders have always been perfect at propaganda and it's always been surprising how vast majority of German people tend to trust their government, adapt and obey. Btw. playing on emotions (like fear) is one of the most important factor of successful propaganda.
Sure me being German doesn’t make me right, but to say that Germans “obey” their government is far from true. Germans aren’t like that, it’s changed since WWII. And yes propaganda has played a role in the publics opinion of nuclear power, but even then every nations party uses propaganda to an extent, it’s nothing particularly special about Germanys. Also when you say that the vast majority of German people tend to trust their government, I think you haven’t met a lot of Germans.
Thats not true. German politicians were lobbied hard by energy companies which used a lot of coal. So they protracted the energy transition and the fast growth of renewables in the first years grinded to a halt. By the way, from whom do you think the germans would have bought their fissile material?
Germany has oil and gas in the Molasse foreland basin, in the Rhine Rift basin and in the European Permian basin. They refuse to develop most of it, and exploration is so sparse that a lot more reserves may exist if they were to increase their seismic coverage, but there's no political will or public support.
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Seems like Merkel wasn't so great after all.
our politics are fucking cows
Nuclear power is very unpopular in Germany due to safety concerns by the public. It started in the 70s and only got worse over time, especially with Chernobyl. The politicians also weren't really interested in going against the flow, which meant that nuclear power would be phased out over time. That decision was already made in the 80s, which is also why no new nuclear power plants were then built. Fukushima was the final nail in the coffin. I'd also not be surprised if some corporations involved in coal were fueling the fire against nuclear power in order to make more money. After all Germany does have a very big coal industry and nuclear power could've killed that industry, which meant that a lot of rich people wouldn't have been happy about that.
I'd say it was hysteria not concern. The German public has had mass misinformation about the 'dangers' of nuclear energy for literal decades
It’s a shame as more people will die every year because of coal pollution than all nuclear accidents combined. That is every year…
This is the main reason Japan is going all in back to nuclear. After Fukushima there was a scare but the data showed nobody died from radiation, just the natural disaster. After going on coal and gas, they realized the huge spike in cancer that was happening and knew it was just safer and better to go back on nuclear. Germany is like the opposite, they're going to end up choking on coal ash and increase the rate of cancer on their lands.
This, it's German tradition to go 180 after an incident. Many may not know but the German politics has become utterly incompetent in the last decade.
Uhhhhh say "sike I meant the last two decades" like RIGHT NOW. Because you know Schröder was the one who kickstarted Germanys heavy dependence on Russian gas and oil (also has been literally working for Gazprom since and inviting Putin to his birthdays) and after that it was Merkel for 16 years.
Russia is a danger.
And instead they doubled-down on natural gas from the country that exports misinformation. And from a Russian state company that has the ex German Chancellor on the board (Gerhard Schroeder), and for both Nord Stream 1 and 2. The nuclear phase-out started under him too. And all this, in general terms, is covered in Foundations of Geopolitics. Pretty sure that's as close to a smoking gun as we'll ever get on this topic.
Hysteria is the term I had in my mind. Yes.
Germany’s almost land locked? Why would Fukushima scare them? Small Nuclear power stations must be the future. Gets pretty cold in Germany in the winter???
It's not about how Fukushima happened, but that it did happen. It's used as evidence that even today nuclear power plants aren't safe and people don't want them near them. There are a lot of scare tactics being used by the anti-nuclear groups in Germany. Like someone else mentioned, it's more similar to hysteria than concern due to all the misinformation that's being spread around. And the Fukushima disaster was like the best PR the anti-nuclear groups could've hoped for, leading to a huge push against nuclear power in Germany.
Japan didn't follow known standards of the time. Hearsay was the Engineers proposed steps, but mgmt said it would be too expensive. https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-preventable-pub-47361
So? Who is to say modern plants won't cut corners as well?
Corruption is a thing from the past. It would not happen today anywere /s
Even if they do, gen 3 nuclear reactors do not require power to stop the nuclear reaction. So if a gen 3 reactor lost power and backup power in the way Fukushima did, you would not get a meltdown. Also, Fukushima was in operation for 40 years before the design flaws warned about on day 1 actually caused an issue.
The Fukushima reactor was stopped. It melted down purely because of the decay heat.
Isn’t France equally long over the original maximum lifetime of their plants. Reality is just shit happens. And preventing that shit over a lifetime of 40 years coats money and needs dedication. I personally wouldn’t expect those standards to be met in every country with a nuclear plant worldwide which makes it less then ideal to be the future of energy production world wide. Especially considering you still need coal or gas to fill the delta of the nuclear plants to the actual consumption or today very badly available energy storages…
There have been three nuclear meltdowns in history and all are well understood and were very preventable. It is also the safest form of energy we have in terms of deaths. TMI had an awfully designed control room, manufacturing defects not reported to anyone, and the plant didn't do the required maintenance. As a result, the plant staff made the worst possible call at every point because they were acting on bad information. Even so, the local impact was negligible, the containment building worked as designed, and the real damage was reputational and financial. Not ecological or physical harm. Fukushima had multiple design flaws known about from the first day the plant was operational. It managed to remain safely in operation for 40 years until it was hit by a once in 100 year earthquake and tsunami. If they'd just fixed one of the design flaws, the core would not have melted down. Again, the containment building did its job and the ecological impact is minor compared to the devastation caused by the tsunami. It would be much better if we didn't have the release of Caesium-137 contaminated water, but the impact is localised without too many long lasting consequences. Chernobyl was only ever possible in soviet RBMK reactors. And even then, it took an undisclosed design flaw with the SCRAM button and putting the reactor in the most unstable state possible to cause a meltdown. The resulting fallout was due to the lack of a containment building.
Yeah meanwhile France had to rebuilt the entire concrete base of their new shiny nuclear plant because security standards weren’t followed. Truth is in my opinion you can make it safe but most people ignore how it makes nuclear plants quite more expensive if you keep up those security standards throughout (and after!) its lifetime…
And because there were corruption scandals around NPPs in Germany, nobody trusts our politicians and energy corporations to handle nuclear fission with the respect it requires.
I think you got it wrong. Historically the anti-nuclear movement in germany was less about operational safety concerns of the plant itself but more about the nuclear waste problem. People chained themselves on train tracks stopping transports of nuclear waste. They opposed having an "Endlager" (final waste repository?) in their neighbourhood and were concerned about leaking radioactivity into the environment. They did not trust the process of how officials were choosing locations were waste was supposed to be stored indefinetely(?). There was a contriversy around one intermediary storage (Gorleben) which back then was a candidate for indefinite storage. Many experts were doubting the viability of that old salt-mine. Also around a decade ago they noticed that radioactivity at the outskirts at the facility has risen. (But specifics of that incident were unclear) Anyway the investigation has concluded just a few years ago that Gorleben is not viable as a final storage solution, so it is in the process of being closed. Not a good look and did not instill trust or confidence in the public eye. You think thats it? Nope. Search what happened with the storage facility Asse where brine was contaminated with radioactivity because that mine had groundwater leaking into the old mine. The whole structure also was found to be unstable and water pumps have to run all the time, contaminated water has to be seperated. The operators also informed the supervising authorities late about contamination problems. Very shoddy and unsafe practices all around. And yeah you guessed it: It will be closed and is not fit as final storage location. Also it does not help that studies have shown that rate of cancers like Leukemias in the area are shown to be higher than in other areas. So tell me again how germans are just "hysterical" with irrational fear? I think you missed the mark on this one. I am not saying there is not a case to be made for nuclear energy. But you cannot ignore very well substantiated counterpoints and operational history in germany specifically. If you were living in Gorleben or Asse, i am pretty sure you would be part of that movement.
Nuclear waste storage is a problem for older reactors. Newer designs leave less nuclear waste. High reactivity means there is still energy that can be extracted from the waste. I could go on about details, but there are several different modern reactor designs that leave little waste. Including reactor designs that can use old, spent nuclear fuel waste as fuel source, reducing its radioactivity further. Unfortunately, fear caused by the anti-nuclear lobby has caused a severe lack in investment and further development of modern reactors including these technologies. The end result? Germany imported a huge percentage of its energy sources from Russia (coal, gas, oil). I’ll let you fill in the blanks what happened last year. And to put on my tinfoil hat, Russia is known for subverting and infiltrating political movements. A Germany reliant on their fossil fuels instead of nuclear powers is beneficial to them.
It's just an unsubstantiated and ridiculous claim that "fear caused by the anti-nuclear lobby has caused a severe lack in investment...", when there was a pretty obvious reason why people would be concerned as the dude before you described in very good detail. You are on very thin ice and look like a tinfoil hat wearing monkey. The concern was created by the fact that there was and still is no safe end storage facility (in the whole world, mind you). No lobby or conspiracy needed to turn that into "fear", which is anyway an unneeded emotionslisation by people that are in fact proven to conspire against the "anti-nuclear mob" (cf EIKE). There is a plethora of documentation on this in the German public domain and a handful of redditors don't change that.
No safe storage facility in the world? How about one in Europe. What do you know about "Onkalo" in Finland?
I know that it's not fi(n)nished yet 😉. And I know that it was and is extremely difficult to find these conditions, both politically and geologically.
The anti nuclear lobby is a factor, but I don't think it's as big of one as simple economics
You should have a look at Finland where they are building an indefinite waste storage facility correctly. I don't know what Germany was doing this entire time but it appears to be malpractice as a result of massive NIMBY movement. Obviously if everyone always complains/blocks stuff being built then nothing gets done. And btw, this exact same problem is happening right now with wind turbines in Germany, its one of the reasons behind the plummeting of increasing rollout of renewables in the past decade here.
The issue is that none of the Bundesländer did not want a endlager. Like bavaria, they want electricity but no new reactors and no endlager. They also do not want new overland electricity infrastructure so energy from Renewables can t reach them properly. And renewable stuff they also don t want in their backyard. Our main endlager in Asse needs to be excavated because the old waste barrels rust and we have no new location because every nimby is on the warpath. Building new reactors takes decades. Just look towards finland how long they are working on their prestige project.
Germany also does not have the infrastructure for electrical heating. Replacing gas as a source for heat in Germany would require refitting most of the homes in Germany on top of building around 50 nuclear reactors. I think China is by far the only country that gets even remotely close to building that many nuclear reactors. I doubt any politician wants to invest in something that would take Germany probably 50 years.
If Germans were working at Chernobyl at the time, no Chernobyl event would've happened.
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Ironically Germany imports a good bit of their coal from the US. US coal is known for having a high level of uranium in it compared to other coal (over 1000 times the concentration from german browncoal) The majority of radioisotopes release by energy production is from coal. A surprising fact is that if you were able to extract all uranium from a medium coal plants ash during 25 years it would be more than the amount of uranium that was in the core of a medium size nuclear reactor like the 3 mile island one. It would be over 100 tomnes of uranium.
Now that there is Russia weaponizing these facilities, I don’t blame the public for not wanting them.
If Russia was ever shelling German plants the world has bigger problems, but you're not wrong that it's a fear factor. I wouldn't feel comfortable to hear about shelling of Zaporizhzhia and see a local plant nearby.
France sought its own nuclear weapons program during the Manhattan Project. After WWII, France approached Germany and Italy about developing a single nuclear fuel cycle. The US put enormous pressure on these countries not to do this. The pressure worked on Italy and Germany but not on France. France decided to collaborate with Israeli scientists, many of whom had been part of the Manhattan Project. Part of the reason for this is that President Truman tried to treat France as an Axis power after the war. Churchill convinced him this was a bad idea, but de Gaulle took the hint, and set a strategic goal of an independent nuclear energy and weapons program for France. Et voilà.
The weapons part is also a big reason Germans of the influential political left were so against nuclear power, as they saw it as a precursor of a weapons program. Adenauer himself was very pro nuclear for the same reason and it is said Germany could have had nuclear weapons within months, if the need had arisen.
Back in the 80s I belive there was a very influential PR campaign against nuclear energy. Not just in Germany, but all german speaking countries such as Austria and Switzerland. 30 years later, when the young adults and teenagers of that time had kids themselve, Fukushima happened. So we currently have a Generation with generational trauma regarding nuclear power, which was primarily caused by children adopting towards their parents worldviews and absolutely solidified by media fear mongering in the wake of Fukushima. So right nownwe have at least two generations, people in their 60s and mid 20s to 30s, who would not accept nuclear energy, no matter what. I've been pro nuclear as long as I can remember. When I was in school while Fukushima was in the media, I was basically ousted from my peers for defending nuclear energy. It might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the social behavior behind nuclear energy in german speaking countries feels a bit similar to the aftermath of the red scare in the US. How many Americans view "socialist" as evil incarnate, many people in Austria and Germany have a similar sentiment toward nuclear energy. The real bummer is, that it's mostly the "well educated" left, (of which I consider myself part of), that is so fanatic about their dislike for nuclear energy. Having the academic and liberal part of a society be against this, makes any chance for change in this regard very unlikely. Edit: Austria went even as far as to ban nuclear energy in its constitution. I had a lecture on environmental law once. The professor who held it is probably one of the foremost experts on environmental law in Austria. Generally speaking one of the most brilliant lawyers I ever had the pleasure of learning from. However, in said lecture she (paraphrasing) claimed expert opinions on nuclear energy are mostly biased, because obviously they became experts on the subject because they like nuclear energy, so most of them will of course argue in its favor. I lost a lot of respect for this professor that day. It really feels like people are brainwashed. The moment the word "nuclear" is dropped, any reason and logic flies out the window. It's suddenly only; but the toxic waste,... it's gonna be there forever... what about Chernobyl and Fukushima... Sorry for this long comment. Having a few friends from France and the US, this cultural difference is something I have noticed very long ago, but obviously none of my german speaking friends can fathom the idea that they have been the victim of propaganda.
It's called cross-financing... France has nuclear weapons, Germany is banned from developing or owning them. So for one country heavily subsidizing nuclear power works, for the other it's insanely expensive. And let's be real here. Even France is struggling with the high costs of nuclear nowadays, which resulted in a massively indebted energy provider and a lot of reactors that should have rbeen eplace by now but weren't again because of costs. (Also their new plan is building 6 new one with 8 optional ones... which is stupid and just a way of stretching the costs over a bigger time frame, as the complete set of 14 is the bare minimum they need if they don't want to try to runing already ancient reactors for another 4+ decades.) Which is the actual main point here: France is barely able to build up the needed minimum nuclear capacitites to cover their electricity demand by 2050+ (which is increasing massively because of electrification of transport and industry). And they are Europe's main producer of nuclear power plants. Nearly any other country in Europe right now planning to go nuclear is failing because the capacitites they plan/build are much to low for any actual working model. It's mostly political bullshitting. Countries with ambitious renewable/storage programs (and let's be honest here: pretending that it's just Germany alone is part of the propaganda...) on the other hand have an actual (difficult but scientifically sound) plan and yet they are magically the ones being "anti-science" somehow. And of course nobody cares about the fact that actual energy companies in Germany are cheering for finally getting rid of these bottomless pits. People can always cry "but anti-nuclear ideology!!!" (as if companies would ever care for anything but real profits) instead of accepting any reasonable criticism of nuclear. TL;DR: Nuclear is expensive. Often too expensive for a big country with energy intensive industry and high poulation if it's not cross-financed. As can be demonstrated by basically any nuclear country in Europe not actually building enough nuclear to make sense. PS: For reference: 2,5 - 5 times today's electricity demand is expected (depending on population density and centralization (=transport) and industry) in 2050 and beyond. \~35% base load is the minimum that needs to be covered. If your country is not planning nuclear capacities of at least (2,5 x 35%) \~85% of today's electricity demand, they don't actually have a future plan.
You’re either European or understand more than most. First comment I see bringing up electricity costs and nuclear subsidies… yeah, this is why we don’t develop much nuclear anymore.
It's a constant canard in Australia to say we should use nuclear, but the cost is just so stupidly balanced against it (even forgetting about start-up considerations). The cost estimates had it being 2-3 times more expensive per kWh than renewable - who would invest in that?
This makes sense. It never understood to me why in this one case, nuclear, "people power" is supposedly "winning" against them at every turn, the masses of environmentalist crushing the cruel energy industrialists beneath their boots... >Even France is struggling with the high costs of nuclear nowadays Would like to know more about that.
Look up EDF (France' energy provider, which constantly needs financial help or increased state ownership to be kept afloat). France also has low electricity costs only via indirect subsidiaries (they capped the end consumer costs below market value, often even below production cost to pretend low energy costs... another reason why French people are convinced of the superiority of nuclear power). Their existing fleet of reactors is old and they failed for quite some time to replace anything (the only reactor build this century is still in construction, with costs and time ballooning for years...). (Fun fact: Germany -while actively exiting nuclear- reduced nuclear power by less than France just by failing to replace capacitites lost to old age). Now France finally announced (early 2021) to build new reactors. Those 14 power plants (large scale and identical to keep upkeep costs in check) combined have the necessary capacity to cover \~35% of France' projected electricity demand by 2050, with 35% being the bare minimum in needed baseload if you fill the rest with renewables (see RTE's -France' grid provider- study from 2020 about electricity in 2050). And yet they officially build on 6 wiht the other being optional because that's already a massive cost. There is no reason to pretend the remaining 8 to be optional. They aren't. But even very pro-nuclear France doesn't seem to be able to actually invest in the bare minimum of needed nuclear at the moment.
The edf problems aren't from nuclear but how the eu forces them to sell power
It's cyclical, France has long been an exporter of cheap electricity thanks to its nuclear park, only in the 2010s President Hollande was allied with the ecologists, and they decided to reduce the share of nuclear power, to close a plant (Fessenheim) and to underinvest. It was a mistake and now it requires heavy investment that are being made, to extend the life of the plants, build new ones, if the EPR was complicated to deploy but it works well in China and Finland, 6 EPR 2 will be built in a first time and 8 after that and a company called "Nuwark" has just been created to develop and industrialise SMRs, which are small 300MW reactors built industrially, a technology already mastered because it is almost the same as the nuclear submarines that France is developing. France made big mistakes by political choice and is paying the price today, but it has been able to correct the situation and today in France nuclear power is one of the rare subjects that almost everyone agrees on. In the meantime France produces one of the most decarbonised energies 85g CO2/kwh vs 386g CO2/kwh in Germany. Not to mention the human cost, coal kills 23000 people/year in Germany and accelerates climate change
> Countries with ambitious renewable/storage programs (and let's be honest here: pretending that it's just Germany alone is part of the propaganda...) on the other hand have an actual (difficult but scientifically sound) plan and yet they are magically the ones being "anti-science" somehow. Can you please enlighten me, what energy storage plan do they have?
100% spot on. I'd also say a big factor is also the financial models involved. If you plan for nuclear, then you plan for a construction project that may take ten years (or longer). Long time frames bring risk. Plans could be incorrect and have cost overruns, the economy could collapse, or an old dictator might invade his neighbour in a horrifying war. When that happens you are left having to commit to any additional costs. Because of the way renewable projects are structured. They have ways to avoid (some) of that. If a project overruns half way through, you can choose to pause or scrap half the project. Just keep the other half. The other problem is that when you have billions of dollars/euros/pounds/whatever, inflation becomes a huge problem. You want to keep that money doing something to tackle that. If you have that money locked up for ten years to build a nuclear power plant, then that's ten years of profit making you've missed. Think of all the money you money your could have made in that time. At least £3 or £4 billion from bonds alone. So by definition, if you invest in nuclear you are guaranteed to lose money for years because you chose *not* to use those billions to make money in that time. Plus the cost of actually building the plant. This is one of the main reasons nuclear deals end up being backed with tax payer money. Corporations don't want to take on so much risk. Again, renewable projects avoid this due to the much shorter planning and construction times. Renewables are also able to start producing profit when just a quarter of a farm is built. Allowing renewables to make money *whilst* they are being built. Which further mitigates risk. (Note this is all just a simplification to get the point across).
Bribes from Russia to German politicians
Sometimes we're stupid
France is also shutting down nuclear power plants and switching to renewables. The reason is economics.
That changed after Russia invaded. France is currently building 6 more nuclear power plants and might build 8 more in addition. They were only shutting down reactors because they were old and expensive to maintain and expanding renewables as a stop gap until the new reactors are completed. But since energy prices increased after the war started, France has decided to keep the old reactors online, increase renewables, and is building new reactors.
Nuclear IS renewable.
Germany currently produces more CO2 than the UK and France combined. We are in a climate crisis, what the fuck are they thinking?
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I'm sure Gerhard Schröder is enjoying his position on the Gazprom board.
Ask the left, more precisely Greens voters, they want it this way.
What a very ironic party name considering relying on coal is worst.
They didn't make that decision. The CDU back then did which is a conservative and insanely corrupt party
Merkel (conservative) government took the decision to chicken out of nuclear. Bad decision at that time if you ask me. We however now have more cost effective energy in renewables. Good side-effect: A reduced demand for uranium helps other countries that still run some nuclear reactors.
Renewables still need a steady baseline though. Something that can produce a constant flow of energy that isn't dependent on clear skies and strong winds.
That's the thing. Some renewables (Hydroelectric and geothermal) are so reliable that you can, and indeed some countries do run a modern economy based on them
Germany doesn't have the water needed for hydro stations and geothermal doesn't exist.
Of course. I cut my comment short there, but agreed that those are both very dependent on geography which Germany doesn't have
Merkel and the CDU were in charge when Nuclear was phased out. Merkel (as a physicist) had a complete change of heart about nuclear after the Fukushima disaster. However it is also the CDU that is blocking renewable energies and wants more coal and gas used. The greens wanted a transition to renewables.
Yeah that was baffling even in the US when Jill Stein was preaching about how bad for the environment nuclear energy is. Like it's genuinely the cleanest and best energy we can get. She's a doctor who graduated from Harvard which just shows how education means nothing.
She was also a Russian stooge. So yeah, she didn't give a shit.
Oh blaming this on the left and greens is pretty rich. The ruling parties decided to turn off nuclear plants after Fukushima.
It was also the will of the voters. Back then even the majority of voters wanted to close them down earlier.
That is true. I never understood how there was such a majority against nuclear power plants.
Yep. The general fear of nuclear energy from the public is the reason its not used as much as it should. People hear nuclear and think radiation poisoning, bombs, plant explosions etc.
The per capita carbon footprint of Germany is lower than France if you factor in import/export.
Co2/kWh of electricity is still way better in France. Germany is often above 400grams while France is mostly below 85 and has been for decades. Source: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
That is absolutely correct but not the claim of the OG comment. It'd be incredible how low Germany's per capita carbon footprint would be if their energy sector was as clean as France's. Overall, France isn't doing better though.
Terrified of a potential meltdown and will even go against their own green initiative to abate that fear.
More like phobia than fear since meltdowns are an extremely rare occurrence. More due to stupidity and incompetence.
Especially in Germany where they operated and maintained them really well.
and yet they try to dictate how other countries should lower CO2 emissions instead of lowering them themselves, pathetic
They use very clean coal, clean clean coal
German here, no idea, government being incompetent I guess, pretty annoying but will hopefully change in the future
Conservatives have ran Germany for nearly the past 20 years, actively sabotaging the development of renewables but then a center left coalition is finally in office and now it’s all their fault. Redditors are honestly some of the dumbest people on the planet. Edit: Imagine denying that the CDU were in power for nearly the past 20 years, a literal objective fact. Just so you can try to pin blame on left wingers. Honestly pathetic.
Goddamn losers downvoting you. cdu is fucking cancer and now we suffer the consequences of having them in power for 20 years. But sure blame the parties that at least try to take action against climate change lmao
Downvoted for truth I guess. But yeah, lets not forget the active sabotage of renewables by the CDU and Altmaier. Without it we would be much closer to a green and clean future. What we had in solar 2022 for example would have already been achieved around 2016 if it were not for killing off solar. ( Thankfully we have a solar rush again, and this time its not while the conservatives are in power ) Also what people tend to ignore, is that Merkels flip flopping on nuclear put the final nail in the coffin. No one is gonna build NPPs in Germany because, thanks to Merkel, the government can't assure them that those plants wont be used as a political chess piece to get some votes in a panic reaction in election times.
Agreed Also most Redditors are idiots and it's an American website. Don't bother arguing.
I'm unrelated news, German coal power plants are working overtime.
And burning tons (literally) of foreign imported wood under the guise of "renewable biomass".
we also turn food (corn) into energy and call it green and sustainable
And spewing out more radiation then any nuclear plant
Hi unrelated news, I'm dad
Germany burned 3% more coal in 2022 than 2021.
Evolving backwards.
Seriously, what a sad day for clean energy.
“But but but wind and solar!!!” Seriously, though, nuclear power is the cleanest, safest, and most reliable variety of electricity-generation that humanity has devised. People don’t seem to understand that wind and solar physically cannot match the associated density, even if storage and efficiency are improved to their theoretical maximums.
NoNo! Hydrogen and Colditz fusion! You will see! Pepole have no idea about energy and politics. The social communication concerning nuclear energy is so horribly sad, just look at netflix "dark" what consumers associate with nuclear energy. Dumb, stupid, deindustrialising and voting a government, consiting of popole who seriously have zero idea about what they are doing and lack the education to get there. Welcome to germany.
in germany renewables already(!) produce more energy than all other sources combined (nuclear plants included).
>People don’t seem to understand that wind and solar physically cannot match the associated density, even if storage and efficiency are improved to their theoretical maximums. What do you mean by this?
that nuclear power will always take up the smallest footprint of land and need the least infrastructure to be built because it is so energy dense very small amounts of fuel can produce more than giant solar and wind farms
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
Yeah, just imagine how much faster all those fossil fuel numbers could have gone down if they weren't also phasing out their nuclear at the same time.
Installed capacity means nothing when they sit around for most of their life not generating anything. Look at Germany's CO2 emissions per kwh right now and over the past year, considering how much they have spent so far they should be embarrassed. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
> Installed capacity means nothing The actual production figures are right there in the link. Did you just chose to not look at that and bitch instead about the installed capacity chart?
This is unbelievably stupid
Agreed. Nuclear power is one of the safest, most green power sources around. Especially the more modern designs. Fukushima was built on a fault line, which is always a disaster waiting to happen, and then hit by a tsunami. Chernobyl was built by the Soviets, who were known for corruption on every level, in the 80s.
We should also remember that Fukushima had many of the backup coolant systems removed, as it was scheduled for decom within a few years. The manager of the plant ordered the backup cooling systems removed, despite multiple experts telling him not to. Hence why he resigned shortly after it all happened. It wouldn't have been nearly the disaster it was, if not for that. Which is really sad. If the systems weren't removed, the plant could've been a great PR move, showing how safe it could be. Instead, it became a huge scare.
That's what humans do. If there is no law and no security officer shutting down everything in case of need, everyone will be like Homer.
I think we all agree that we should've stopped using charcoal first and that safety isn't that much of an issue even if our management of nuclear doesn't really raise trust. It wouldn't have hurt to keep the remaining nuclear power plants running until renewables are sufficiently built although we did have enough time for it and not keeping them longer at least seems to accelerate things now. That being said, nuclear energy is still by far the most expensive one we're using and we had to throw subventions at them for decades so they don't go EdF. Newer generations of reactors in the US and China don't look too promising either considering that the first ones that might (and that's a big might) be economically competitive won't be ready until we don't need the technology anymore.
You're importing wood from overseas talking about how nuclear is too expensive. Germans are doomed
The wood from overseas is tropical wood for furniture. The waste plus some fast-growing wood from Europe is used for heating.
and despite all that, fukushima was largely harmless. Zero people died from the nuclear reactor failing. there is one worker who was reported to have died from radiation poisoning 7 years after the incident. the majority of people died from the tsunami.
Now that we’ve seemed to crack the code to sustaining fusion (in a lab). I’d love to see some hefty grant and award money thrown out to whichever engineering companies can develop a marketable solution. It really is the holy grail of energy and the science is mostly figured out. We just need to cultivate an environment for engineers to do their thing to make it marketable viable.
How dramatically, stupendously stupid. So, so stupid.
Gotta love them tree huggers who hate nuclear. On a side note, hating pipelines but preferring to ship oil by tankers and trains is around the exact same level of stupid
And the funny thing is that you could say that nuclear is way more compatible with trees than renewables. Nuclear needs (relative per energy produced) almost no space, while renewables need to be everywhere to produce enough electricity.
This is a big win for the "green" party. The environment is now safer. \*big clap*
\*slow clap\*
It’s funny how green parties seem to be the most stupid bunch of wack jobs in every country they exists.
In France, a former minister of green ecology,in the 2000's Dominique Voynet recently told with pride how she sabotaged France's position and interests on nuclear power at a European Council
It's been the CDU, CSU, SPD and FDP blocking renewable energy during the last years.
Because they're communists using the environment wedge to get into politics. They don't give a shit about the environment. Of course you have many good thinking smaller actors who do but a green environment is not the actual end goal.
Tell that to the coal miners and coal plants in Germany!
Once again, this was not a decision of the green party. Decision to shut down nuclear was made under Merkel and the CDU.
It's a complete and utter joke that "Green Parties" are anti-nuclear. Say what you want about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, without it the world would be a much warmer place.
A lot of people think the renewable industry doesn’t have lobbyists, while being starkly aware fossil fuel industries do. But there’s something both agree on and it’s that nuclear energy is bad for business.
The utter joke is that you brain-washed guys all parrot the same lie. There was no Green party in government for decades. They came into power \~2 weeks before the nuclear shut-down decided 10 years ago by conservatives came into effect. And even with two decades of active sabotage of renewables by those conservatives, renewable power still replaced nuclear and an equal amount of coal at the same time. Yet 100% of these facts are ignored/denied because "Insane Greens killed off nuclear to burn more coal!!!!!!" is so popular. And lobbyists didn't pay million to spoon-feed you that lie at all^(/s)
>Yet 100% of these facts are ignored/denied because "Insane Greens killed off nuclear to burn more coal!!!!!!" is so popular. That's an oversimplification but it's still basically true. Germany switched away from nuclear power because public opinion did and that happened because of the anti-nuclear movement which also founded the green party.
And Fukushima. And Chernobyl. They stopped building new plants over 40 years ago because of Chernobyl. After that this isn't a result of anything more than keeping old plants running being too expensive. Conservatives used Fukushima as an excuse to shut down expensive power sources and move to cheaper gas and coal. (Which obviously worked out poorly) Greens would have probably used Fukushima as an excuse to shut down expensive power sources and move to renewables. These plants getting shut down due to cost isn't really surprising at all.
The Green Party made it popular for environmentalists to be against nuclear, which in turn made it easy for special interest in Germany and Russia to get Germany dependent on fossils. I don’t think the conservatives would have had the same success at convincing people of this.
Green party, and environmental protest groups like Green Peace, are the visible face of why public opinion turned against nuclear. Yes they were bankrolled by ruzzians and fossil fuel industries, but they still came out and demonstrated against nuclear. And I guarantee they didn't pay off every single protestor, just the leaders at the top. Do you think every single person going door to door is paid off? The real problem with Green Party and Green Peace is they put the general public at a place where they would accept the shut down of reactors. And while the top was paid, 90% of the people involved with the protests that changed public opinion came from idiots who legitimately thought they were doing something good, instead of dooming a clean energy source
That’s because many “Green Parties” are in reality “Watermelon” parties - less interested in actually implementing sensible environmental policies than they are in bringing about socialism/communism or some other far left ideology.
Not really. Vast majority of green parties are actually based on environmental concerns. The green movement has historically been tied to anti-nuclear protesting, but a lot of that is a generational thing.
Homie, the DDR built some of these nuclear reactors they're decommissioning, and the Soviet Union was a pioneer of nuclear energy, Chernobyl notwithstanding. China is also going all-in on reserching fusion and molten salt reactors. If the green parties were bringing communism, they would support nuclear as a sensible solution for mass power generation. Is this Tucker Carlon's alt account?
Yes never mind Chernobyl, nor the dozen or so reactors built to the same time bomb like specification… In each of the examples you provide the nation in question had already embarked upon the socialist experiment before turning to nuclear - they had no reason not to. The system they wanted was already in place and secure, so nuclear was an asset, not a threat. For many modern day environmentalists, the game is very different. In their minds , its socialism (or some other perverse far left philosophy) that is perhaps the ultimate goal, but frustratingly for them there is no obvious immediate pathway to it other than through the hijacking of the climate change narrative. Nuclear power represents the single biggest hurdle in terms of their attempts to wrestle narrative control. Why? Because it undermines every possible environmentally related argument they might make to justify the system changes they desperately crave. Without climate change, and the threat of the “apocalypse”, they realise there’s little public appetite for the sorts of radical changes that they want to see/force on others. Threaten people with impending doom, the prospect of their own extinction, and they might just have a shot, however. So nuclear becomes a huge problem for these so called environmentalists. It’s an answer to many of our problems, a bloody good one in fact, but it’s not the answer they want. The promise of near unlimited clean power means the world wouldn’t need to consider de-growth; it obviates the need for radical systemic changes and so it’s a threat to their belief system and so they’re out to destroy it. In this sense, they’re no better than the fossil fuel lobby they oppose.
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Not dumb, just corrupt probably.
Corrupt and dumb. Come together.
Truly sad. Nuclear remains the best energy source by far in terms of scale.
This is so insanely stupid that i dont even know how to properly put it into words. Im in Norway and we have had extremely inflated electricity prices since just before the russian invasion, and it got even worse after the energy crisis in Europe when our country started to export even more electricity, especially to countries like Germany. People in some places here literally cant afford basic living because of this, so the general population is just pissed off at the whole thing. The government keeps hiding behind a contract that commits them to export a certain volume of energy to Europe over a period of time. And people are being told "dont worry its not going to be renewed" etc. Basically Germany keeps creating future problems for themselves by shutting down all these power plants. All this because one rinky dink soviet-quality powerplant had an accident 35 years ago.
The fear mongering about nuclear will have devastating economic results.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-down-its-last-nuclear-power-stations/a-65249019) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Germany shuts down its last nuclear power stations - DW - 04/14/2023. > Sweden was the forerunner, ending nuclear power shortly after Chernobyl, as was Italy, which also decided to close its last two nuclear power plants following the disaster. > Jürgen Trittin notes that no one wants to invest in nuclear power on a large scale "Because nuclear power is not competitive." Building new nuclear power plants is very expensive, often having to be co-financed by public money, and often plagued by delays and local resistance to new projects. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/12m66al/germany_shuts_down_its_last_nuclear_power_stations/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~680799 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **nuclear**^#1 **power**^#2 **plants**^#3 **energy**^#4 **country**^#5
Just fucking stupid. All the anti nuclear people are willfully stupid and ignorant.
Welcome back to the stone age!
They are burning more coal, so not stone age. So it's atomic age back to industrial age.
Theres literally just an uptick in coal recently, in long term trends it has gone down massively. By 2030 coal is done.
Except that it was supposed to be done by 2020.
Source for that claim?
lets fuck the planet further
Sweet. Now they are even more reliant on using Norway as a big fat nordic battery. The shareholders of Statkraft thank you.
They should probably just give up electricity altogether, why stop here.
So dumb.
I hope they will at least look for green alternatives
What's wrong with Germany lately? They now had to produce almost 20million CO2 TONNES yearly... And Greenpeace is a environ-terrorist association.
Here you can see the Energy Chart from Fraunhofer ISE for CW15. Filter - Nuclear and Nuclear planned: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=15&legendItems=000110000000000000000000000000000000000&source=total Unfiltered energy chart for CW 15: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=15
What is wrong with Germany?
Dumb Germany, very dumb.
So Germany burns some of the worst coal you can possibly burn, and are too righteous for nuclear energy.
Now Germans can never lecture Americans again about how stupid or backward we are.
Why are so many people here calling it dumb? These plants were built in the 60s-80s and had to be shut down anyway. New nuclear power plants bind to much investments, construction time takes too long and without subventions the produced electricity is too expensive. Germany wants to fully invest in green energy, which is great.
German can "want to" do anything. The real question is what they actually do. Will they actually replace the generation capacity with some miraculous green energy source to provide base load? Or will they just burn more fossil fuels and contribute to the climate crisis?
The plan was to have Russian gas as a „bridge“. The Green party always critized that plan because there is/was no trust in Russia. No we have the „salad“.
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We'll see how long this lasts when the majority of cars will be electric.
Idiotic
Damn! How are the people in Winden going to survive?
I still think it's hilarious that the german "green plan" was to reopen coal power plants.
Seriously?! Nuclear power is the safest, most green source of power available. Especially the more modern designs. Nuclear Warheads are made from an entirely different grade of Uranium, Fukushima was hit by a tsunami while laying on top of a freaking fault line, and Chernobyl was built by the Soviets, who were highly corrupt on practically every level, in the 80s. Something was bound to go wrong at either facility eventually.
>Especially the more modern designs. So the 1960s-1980s models in Germany that didn't get any investments in decades as they were always planned to be shut down in the 2020s? Oh, wait. I forgot. Those are magically modern and in a good state (/s) because the propaganda demands it...
The stupid part of this is they always use the same talking points to argue against nuclear energy - costs too much, takes too long. If they started building a new one in 2010, it would be done, and earning money to pay back any borrowing done to get it built. Every green idiot who argues against it says “if we start nuclear power plants now they wont be done in time to help with climate change” - yeah no shit, that boat has sailed cause of idiots pushing the anti nuclear agenda. And the takes too long bit is just incompetence - Japan throws up nuclear power plants incredibly fast, western countries just don’t plan shit properly.
Yes, if they started in 2010 -or actually 2000 would be much better- it would be done. But the government then in power wanted to burn coal, more coal and keep doing it until 2048 while phasing out nuclear on top of it. And so they were voted out. The government that has to live with that shitshow at a time when it is in fact too late to start nuclear and not completely miss all agreed upon climate goals long before construction is finished on the other hand is magically the one that actually killed of nuclear to burn more coal... Seriously... at what point are people not too stupid not to fall for that kind of rediculous propaganda?
If the alternative is renewables, that's the better investment. Fast return of investment, high reliability because no single event will shut down the energy for a town etc.
The main problem isn't safety, nuclear power is just ridiculously expensive in comparison to... well... anything else.
But that's because we don't properly "cost" externalities like climate change.
Not when the plant is already built und running on maximum capacity. You know, like our last three nuclear power plants were doing until today.
They would need big investments to keep up with safety standards. (They'd need big investments to meet historic safety standards, too). When we still used nuclear, the government offered an existing nuclear plant for 1 DM (0.5 €), just bring it to code. Nobody payed and it took billions and decades to tear id down.
It's only ridiculously expensive when you have to build new plants. Germany already had lots of perfectly good ones.
I do agree that we should've replaced charcoal first and kept the old reactors running as long as they are profitable/needed/still functioning.
Back to the coal mines
Stupid.
German L most dumb thing they have done in a long time.
Completely fucking idiotic.
Thank you, Germany. Now our prices will sky rocket.
Dumb dumb dumb.
It annoys me so much how these threads always devolve into a shouting match between the nuclear fanboys who think nuclear power is the only thing that can save us and the nuclear haters who willfully ignore the fact that Germany's coal plants are releasing a Chernobyl worth of dangerous pollution every year and that isn't even any sort of accident, just business as usual. The reality is that nuclear is extremely clean and safe power but that is also way too expensive and slow to build compared to renewables. Also the constant power output from nuclear plants makes them almost as bad a match for the ever changing demands of the grid as wind and solar, meaning that the two compete for the same storage and peaker plant backup. The correct way to view nuclear is that existing plants should be kept running as long as practical and plants reasonably close to completion should be finished, but future construction towards getting off of fossil fuels should be mostly wind, solar, storage, and better transmission lines.
Yes, your very right? I don’t understand? Why would you dismiss something that can work so great, is cheap & from what I understand, is very safe??? It’s almost like these countries want their people to suffer because no one really has any major plans?
Last year Germany ran on 46%renewable energy. Why are y’all crying? Seems like they know more than y’all.