Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online(euractiv.com)
euractiv.com
Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online
https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/german-intellectuals-urge-state-to-keep-nuclear-plants-online/
388 comments
The view I share with a majority of Germans: Costs of nuclear energy are very much a burden that future generations will have to carry. A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price. It is also clear now that the the companies running the plants will not pay for the deconstruction of the plants after they reached their end of life. Tax payers have to pay for this, and a large part of the remains will need to be stored safely for millenia as well. This is the opposite of sustainability and fairness towards future generations. Worldwide there still exists only a single final storage solution for nuclear waste - in Finland for the finish waste. In densly populated Germany the search for a storage site has been going on since the late 1950s, so far without success. All this on top of the risk of a system failure that would devastate huge territories. In a country where, as we've recently seen, simple emergency warning systems are basically non-existent and fax is still the main communication tool for the authorities...
It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar.
>The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
>The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
One generally underappreciated aspect to nuclear energy opposition is the intrinsic link to nuclear weapons. Some of it is scientifically illiterate nonsense (a lot of people seem to think power reactors can have a nuclear explosion). And some of it is just historical association. But some of it is a lot harder to dismiss.
A world without nuclear reactors or enrichment facilities is a world without nuclear weapons. Any medium or large industrialized country with power reactors could build nukes very quickly. It's bad enough half a dozen already have. This notion keeps some people up at night, I think. If you consider nuclear weapons to be an existential threat to the species -- perhaps worse than climate change -- then building infrastructure that would allow their more easy construction might seem like madness.
A world without nuclear reactors or enrichment facilities is a world without nuclear weapons. Any medium or large industrialized country with power reactors could build nukes very quickly. It's bad enough half a dozen already have. This notion keeps some people up at night, I think. If you consider nuclear weapons to be an existential threat to the species -- perhaps worse than climate change -- then building infrastructure that would allow their more easy construction might seem like madness.
It may be pragmatic - but politically tough - to keep the nuclear plants open longer, if that can be done safely, and invest heavily in renewables + storage to take all that awful lignite/coal power generation offline. And phase out the nuclear plants once enough (storage) capacity has been built.
I wonder if people have modeled for how fast that could be done, and how expensive it would be. We have the technology (cf. grid scale storage, there is a fascination array of options, several of which are tried and tested), it's "just" a matter of scaling it up.
The current plan only phases out coal by 2038 which seems... way way way too late. Cf. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal...
I wonder if people have modeled for how fast that could be done, and how expensive it would be. We have the technology (cf. grid scale storage, there is a fascination array of options, several of which are tried and tested), it's "just" a matter of scaling it up.
The current plan only phases out coal by 2038 which seems... way way way too late. Cf. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal...
Good luck with the Greens now as the #3 party. The authors of the letter are right, Germany will miss its 65% emissions target and politicians will try to fix this with carbon credits and other policy BS which of course doesn't quite work in practice, since clean electricity doesn't come out of thin air.
The discussion and debate about nuclear energy needs to be a constant war of attrition against the long held and stubborn inertia of anti-nuclear sentiment.
This letter signed by 25 "intellectuals" (oddly vague name for writers and journalists) is part of the puzzle insofar as it gets the discussion into the news. But unless there is a sustained conversation which carries the attention of the public and really drives and beats back the misinformation back to the shadows, nothing will change.
The same tired anti-nuclear talking points need to be systemically deconstructed and refuted over and over again until it is pushed into being a fringe belief.
Unfortunately humans are really not set up to have these conversations about "boring" things like global warming and nuclear energy. Unless there is a crisis front and center (like the pandemic) it is hard to reverberate change throughout society.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but watching all this play out is like witnessing a devastating car crash happen in slow motion, and being helpless to do anything to prevent it.
This letter signed by 25 "intellectuals" (oddly vague name for writers and journalists) is part of the puzzle insofar as it gets the discussion into the news. But unless there is a sustained conversation which carries the attention of the public and really drives and beats back the misinformation back to the shadows, nothing will change.
The same tired anti-nuclear talking points need to be systemically deconstructed and refuted over and over again until it is pushed into being a fringe belief.
Unfortunately humans are really not set up to have these conversations about "boring" things like global warming and nuclear energy. Unless there is a crisis front and center (like the pandemic) it is hard to reverberate change throughout society.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but watching all this play out is like witnessing a devastating car crash happen in slow motion, and being helpless to do anything to prevent it.
Too late, they blew up the Philippsburg power plant 30km from my home last year:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zsSswlxThqo
One of the blocks was really old so I'm glad to see it go. I'm in favor of building new, safer reactors. Bill Gates is an investor in a startup that developed such a design, but it will probably be hard to get it tested.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
China apparently also has made advances.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zsSswlxThqo
One of the blocks was really old so I'm glad to see it go. I'm in favor of building new, safer reactors. Bill Gates is an investor in a startup that developed such a design, but it will probably be hard to get it tested.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
China apparently also has made advances.
Wish it was invest and expand and not please don't decommission. It's a win, win, win when played right...
I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party members at rallies for having differing viewpoints about nuclear.
Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.
Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.
Neverminding the politics and legalities, is it technically possible to "un-decommision" the plants already closed? Or our too many blueprints lost, people retired, etc.?
Forgive the optimism, just trying to think ahead.
Forgive the optimism, just trying to think ahead.
> Germany is in danger of missing its 2030 climate target, despite all its efforts
Which efforts? Germany might look quite progressive when it comes to renewables but lacks a holistic strategy. Energy storage is not discussed at all.
It's good that the Greens are part of the government again to put in larger restrictions but they'll be limited by the other 2 parties. Real change is probably going to be provided by companies like Tesla which actually provide a solution to the storage problem.
Also the article is behind a paywall and from Welt which is from the same publisher as the notorious yellow press publication Bild. Die Zeit (Former editor-in-chief of it is mentioned) hasn't put it on its start page.
Which efforts? Germany might look quite progressive when it comes to renewables but lacks a holistic strategy. Energy storage is not discussed at all.
It's good that the Greens are part of the government again to put in larger restrictions but they'll be limited by the other 2 parties. Real change is probably going to be provided by companies like Tesla which actually provide a solution to the storage problem.
Also the article is behind a paywall and from Welt which is from the same publisher as the notorious yellow press publication Bild. Die Zeit (Former editor-in-chief of it is mentioned) hasn't put it on its start page.
not again. I can’t go through 641st “nuclear vs solar/wind” thread on HN about :)
Isn’t this an objective data driven problem and we can decide what’s better for short / medium / long term?
Isn’t this an objective data driven problem and we can decide what’s better for short / medium / long term?
Biggest issue with older nuclear plants is the material degradation as a consequence of radiation, after a some decades of constant irradiation steel can become as brittle as glass, which is not only not reversible, but it also means that the actual rebar and concrete surrounding the core becomes damaged and the only way to replace that is to rebuild the whole core
I am rather against setting up new reactors, given that they are so centralized on the matter of costs, management, overruns and of course safety, the more safe you try to make them, the slower to build and more expensive they will end up being which is far from an ideal situation, but I am of course fully in favor of refactoring old ones, but it is important to understand that even when there might be political will to redactor them, that might just be technically unfeasible
I am rather against setting up new reactors, given that they are so centralized on the matter of costs, management, overruns and of course safety, the more safe you try to make them, the slower to build and more expensive they will end up being which is far from an ideal situation, but I am of course fully in favor of refactoring old ones, but it is important to understand that even when there might be political will to redactor them, that might just be technically unfeasible
I know that Germany already invested quite a bit in wind and solar energy. I wonder if Germany, being a rich, progressive, social country, simply side-step all the criticism like what is on this thread by issuing a moratorium on all the existing nuclear reactors - say 6 months, and invest completely in solar and wind over the 6 months to add capacity?
Germany’s geo location makes it possible to be part of the EU power grid sharing the renewable power across neighbours to make it all work. The political cost of such a drastic measure would actually be a nett positive in a country like Germany I hope.
If only politicians stop thinking short term and be the leaders they are expected to be …
Germany’s geo location makes it possible to be part of the EU power grid sharing the renewable power across neighbours to make it all work. The political cost of such a drastic measure would actually be a nett positive in a country like Germany I hope.
If only politicians stop thinking short term and be the leaders they are expected to be …
China consumes over 4 billion tonnes of coal a year. Germany less than 300,000 million. Now, the best course of action is to get VW out of the chinese market to reduce emissions there! Win, win!!!
No way with the Green Party part of gov. They've literately started out with "Atomkraft - Nein danke" stickers in late 1970s. Mostly seen on cars, then and today.
All the nuclear threads here are the same, and they're all deeply frustrating. HN isn't exactly a bastion of liberal speech (here fucked up conservative hot takes reign supreme) - but ostensibly the populace is more technically literate than average. Yet it's the same stupid bullshit every time.
It's dangerous!!11!! fukushima! chernobyl!1!!
> nope look at some statistics it's very safe
ok, the waste!11! scary spicy rocks!! glowing cats! landscape of thorns!!11
> nope just bury it like finland, or leave it in the pool
ok ok only finland is special enough to dig holes for spicy rocks
> ...
it's expensive!!!11! it's too expensive!! the future is wind turbines and solar panels and turning bolivia into a giant battery
The water is lapping at our feet. We are doomed.
It's dangerous!!11!! fukushima! chernobyl!1!!
> nope look at some statistics it's very safe
ok, the waste!11! scary spicy rocks!! glowing cats! landscape of thorns!!11
> nope just bury it like finland, or leave it in the pool
ok ok only finland is special enough to dig holes for spicy rocks
> ...
it's expensive!!!11! it's too expensive!! the future is wind turbines and solar panels and turning bolivia into a giant battery
The water is lapping at our feet. We are doomed.
In Germany, Fusion and not Fission is the future (ducks and runs).
Safe nuclear power needs German engineering.
If I look how close to the German border France built their nuclear plants, we could just have kept ours...
emblematic imo of an extremely & admittedly fairly deserved high level of distrust of our general ability to take care of/maintain things.
The original letter is in German and behind a paywall.
Here is an English translation: https://cleanenergyrevolution.org/publications
Here is an English translation: https://cleanenergyrevolution.org/publications
Michael Shellenberger's TED talk from 2017, "Why I changed my mind about nuclear power", is still relevant:
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_why_i_change...
He also has a great Substack where he writes on a variety of topics, including nuclear power. He just wrote an article titled "Nations Go Nuclear As Prices Spike & Renewables Fail" that is timely: https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/nations-go-nucle...
He also has a great Substack where he writes on a variety of topics, including nuclear power. He just wrote an article titled "Nations Go Nuclear As Prices Spike & Renewables Fail" that is timely: https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/nations-go-nucle...
France, too: https://www.ft.com/content/d06500e2-7fd2-4753-a54b-bc16f1faa.... Looks like cooler heads might actually prevail there.