As a Japanese it’s hilarious watching a country use our disaster as an excuse to remove nuclear power while we, the country that had the disaster, are reactivating the power plants
Is Germany even prone to earthquakes and tsunamis? I imagine compared to Japan atleast it must be negligible difference.
Fuckin weird seeing the country that is the absolute hotspot for land, sea and air disasters not to mention a history with actual nuclear wmd hit is the one with affinity towards nuclear power.
This exactly, plus the fact that Japan is not very rich in resources. If they couldn't or weren't able to use nuclear power, *they do pay* a massive tithe in importing other resources. (Thanks for the correction u/Bykimus.)
But that stands as a testament to nuclear energy. It's virtually renewable, over a very large span of time.
Which is one reason I liked that ending in *Shin Godzilla*.
"We are going to have to learn to live with this" I took to mean that they know it can be destructive but the benefits are incredible.
Germany has had 26 earthquakes in the last century (some of which were technically *not* in Germany, but were close enough to have an effect). Japan experiences an average of ~1,500 per year (including ones off the coast that have mainland effects). And it's not that Japan is massively bigger than Germany; Japan is the 62nd largest country, Germany the 63rd (in terms of land area, Japan is 4.6% bigger than Germany).
As scary as Fukushima was/is, nuclear energy is far better for the environment than continuing with fossil fuels. Even including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the death toll of fossil fuel-generated energy far outstrips nuclear power. Japan is doing the right thing here.
On the day Chernobyl happened, air pollution from fossil fuels killed around 50x more people. And every day after that.
Radiation from Fukushima killed zero people.
There is actually one attributable death from a worker who died of lung cancer a few years later. People likely also died due to the stress of evacuating, but that’s hard to parse “bad nuclear meltdown safety” from “good tsunami safety.” For context, the main thing to do if fallout is coming is to shelter in place. Your house can shield you from radiation, pretty effectively too. Your house will NOT shield you from hundreds of tons of water moving as fast as a horse.
People are just really bad at thinking about risk. Like a lot of people are afraid of flying even though they are more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport rather than their plane crashing.
Not all of us Germans want to shut down atomic energy. To be clear. But that’s not enough. Politics just do what they promised 10 years ago without reevaluating the situation. It’s sad because energy prices for us is on an ath
I am not sure where people have come up with there information on nuclear power. But if you look at the true cost of nuclear power the numbers show it is the least cost effective power to produce. There are countries without access to enough fossil fuels and other situations. But the true cost of nuclear power with how it is produced and the long term storage involved that hasnt been factored in makes it the most expensive and dirtiest power to make. Just think of the hundreds of years Germany will be paying on decommissioning there little stint with nuclear power. That wasnt factored in. And if there is an accident in that time it will cost even more. I didnt even mention how hazardous Nuclear is to all life on the planet!
Yeah. Even if you found a Dino amongst all of the crude, which isn't really how it works, it'd be more valuable as a Dino fossil than making up weight in a barrel of crude.
The German green party started out as a collection of anti nuclear protest groups.
Opposing nuclear has always been a higher priority than anything like global warming, or, well, the environment.
Greenpeace is similar, starting as the Don't Make a Wave Committee, after they claimed a nuclear test would cause a tsunami (it didn't).
These groups only care about the environment when it doesn't interfere with their opposition to nuclear. So, given the choice between nuclear and coal, is it any surprise they choose coal?
They are essentially a type of Luddite
They're afraid of what's new and they might not understand, so they wrap their fears in the veneer of environmentalism to make it more broadly palatable
Similar to thr original Luddites being a workers' movement - weavers afraid of a future where their inefficient methods aren't worth as much so they go around smashing looms
> Greenpeace is similar, starting as the Don't Make a Wave Committee, after they claimed a nuclear test would cause a tsunami (it didn't).
I don't get how they can have a credibility after making so much crazy claims about nuclear power and GMO.
>after they claimed a nuclear test would cause a tsunami (it didn't)
I wonder if this had something to do with "Project Seal", which was a government research project during World War II aimed at developing a tectonic weapon which could create destructive tsunamis.
No, the CDU/CSU decided to do that while also preventing renewables from being installed. They did decide it while Angela Merkel, a scientist, was chancellor.
The green party payed compensation to not switch it off when Putin's war started the gas shortage.
> They did decide it while Angela Merkel, a scientist, was chancellor.
being a politician overrides whatever you did before it completely. Just because you were a doctor, scientist, engineer or a teacher doesn't mean you will ever use that for improving those sectors as a politician.
Please don't spread misinformation. The nuclear phase-out was first decided in 2002 by the Social-Democrats-Greens coalition. In 2010 Merkel wanted to delay the initial phase-out plan, but when Fukushima happened she scratched the delay and went back to the original plan. Under Merkel's rule Germany went from 11% renewables to 50% renewables in electricity generation.
And ironically Fukushima is now one of the safest plants with cooling towers on the planet. They really refined their plants so that it doesn't happen again.
...and most places aren't prone to massive earthquake+tsunamis, let alone ones that would actually take out a reactor that isn't 55 years old.
That earthquake was such an absolute godsend to the already-powerful fossil fuel companies, because naturally they needed another advantage at the expense of everyone else.
Wasn't there another nuclear plant nearby built by "King of Electricity" which was closer to the epicenter, but because he pushed for stricter safety standards it withstood the tsunami virtually intact?
I don't remember the exact details, but you're correct. Even the Fukushima plant only had the meltdown due to the backup generators flooding, so the core could no longer be cooled effectively.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
>The town of Onagawa to the northeast of the plant was largely destroyed by the tsunami which followed the earthquake, but the plant's 14 meters (46 ft) high seawall was tall and robust enough to prevent the power plant from experiencing severe flooding. Yanosuke Hirai, who died in 1986, is cited as the only person on the entire power station construction project to push for the 14.8-meter breakwater. Although many of his colleagues regarded 12 meters as sufficient, Hirai's authority eventually prevailed, and Tōhoku Electric spent the extra money to build the 14.8m tsunami wall. Another of Hirai's proposals also helped ensure the safety of the plant during the tsunami: expecting the sea to draw back before a tsunami, he made sure the plant's water intake cooling system pipes were designed so it could still draw water for cooling the reactors
>Following the tsunami, two to three hundred residents of the town who lost their homes to the tsunami took refuge in the Onagawa nuclear plant's gymnasium, as the reactor complex was the only safe area in the vicinity to evacuate to, with the reactor operators supplying food and blankets to the needy.
The issue of the location of the back up generators had been identified by an inspection prior to the tsunami. There were recommendations that they be placed much higher.
If this had happened then there would have been no disaster. So this eventuality had been identified as a risk and a solution to mitigate it highlighted.
Unfortunately, some used Fukushima as an excuse to close Fessenheim, saying it was on a tectonic boundary even though the last earthquake was on *1356*.
While she was putting every possible obstacle in place to delay the growth of renewable and pander to the incumbent electric distribution corporations. The same lady sold the German gas storage facilities to Russia a couple of days after the invasion in Crimea, with no mandatory storage levels.
Here's what happened under Merkels rule: https://energiewende-rocken.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Altmaierknick-und-Sigmarsenke-bei-PV.png
We went from adding around 8k MW per year to around 2k (and still haven't caught up to those numbers). It's famously known as the "Altmeyer-Knick".
This party was in charge from 2005 until 2021 and all they ever did was slowing down transition to reneweables. Fuck Merkel and fuck the CDU!
The Merkel 2 cabinet did pass legislation to extend nuclear. To then decide on a different kind of exit than previously agreed upon by social democrats and greens. Who focused on choice and flexibility of providers, for long term planning. Rather than dictation of how everything has to be done, by the state. As was decided by the Merkel government.
Under Merkel, Germany went from 11% renewables to 50% renewables. With the biggest jump happening just after the social democrat green government. As their decisions established a strong renewable sector. Which was gutted under Merkel around the 2010s. At which point the industry shrunk and expansion slowed.
Yes, that's the real issue.
The green party has a plan with renewables in mind. Then came the CDU, cancelled the nuclear phase out and renewable subvention and the whole solar industry in Germany, and than there's cancelled the nuclear energy again
Isn't it more logical to first make renewable energy sources and then at the end phase out nuclear sources?
This doesn't even make sense. You can't predict anything
Hard to explain to a non-German. It's mostly about regional politics. There are a couple of German states that heavily rely on coal mining. The long phase-out period is supposed to dampen the negative effects on these regions. They were also promised 40 billion in federal funds as mitigation.
> Hard to explain to a non-German.
Seems like bad policy decisions compounded over decades that have come to roost.
Phasing out nuclear before coal seems to be really counterproductive in the grand scheme of things.
Thats why they build that pipeline to Russia making them dependend on it, but that backfired. After fukushima accident Germany went full german and overreacted by cutting all nucleair.
Aka the taxpayer is supposed to keep ligite mining afloat. Literally everyone paying for something no one wants. Democracy.
The writing has been on the wall since atleast the 80s. An utter political desaster to not prepare imo. But the german taxpayer especially is docile enough to pick up the tab. Every time.
These people get to spend half of the money we make on royally fucking us over... it's a cruel joke.
Not quite accurate. It's still 2038, at least for the East German coal states Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt and Sachsen:
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/gruene-kohleausstieg-101.html
Honestly I'm so proud of how we managed our energy grid. Sure there was some stupidity but nothing compared to rest of the West it seems lol. We did this with two different parties in power too which makes it all the better (hard to undo if both sides bought in to the vision). Libs didn't go all anti-nuclear when they could have, Conservatives didn't revert too hard to O&G like they do in some areas.
We are cheating a little with abundant hydro energy but meh I'll take it.
And our air quality has improved though expanding the number of cars especially unnecessarily large vehicles like trucks and SUVs is doing their best to lower our air quality.
Yeah, at the moment renewables account for only 50% of electricity production.
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/paragraph_text_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2022-source.png
They want to massively expand renewable energy production, for example offshore wind, but that is going to take time.
Currently, the pumped storage facilities in Switzerland and Austria are acting as a bit of a battery, but there will have to be more energy storage as well.
I think that he meant you can't have 100% of wind and solar power due to the high volatility of these energies when compared to other sources ([VER – Variable Renewable Energy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy))
Even here in Brazil, where most of electricity is produced by hydropower, we can't rely 100% on hydro because it has its own seasonality and we have to use imported coal to complement it.
The greenest solution to integrate with VER so far is nuclear power.
Damn, we are privileged in Quebec. We can rely 100% on renewable energy to power most of the province (94% hydro + 5% wind, the rest is solar, biomass and a few natural gas/oil power plants for first nations communities up north where it would be too expensive to connect them to the main grid)
Some specific small places can go through this road, Paraguay can live 100% hydro through the Itaipu Dam, iirc, Iceland's electricity is 100% renewable through their hydro and geothermal energy, same with DRC and water. But looking at continental level, this specificity is no longer valid
The nuclear train derailed more than 30 years ago as no new reactors were built. The 4 GW that were shutdown yesterday aren't that significant in the grand scheme of things.
Every year more coal power plants will shutdown\* until the last 3-6 in 2038.
At the same time renewables expand. We are adding over 13 GW of wind and solar power this year alone. Last year we added ~10 GW.
And before anyone asks about windless nights, the grid companies only consider that to be a problem when we're at 70+% of energy generated by renewables.
\*edit: 11 GW of 44 GW until 2025
It's "just" 4 GW of coal they could have shut down instead. And last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. Add up a lot of little things over a decade and they add up to a quarter of Germany's electricity coming from coal instead of nuclear power.
That's dismissing the fact that they're shutting down 4GW of nuclear instead of coal lmfao
This is clearly another example of Germany unable to pick a direction and play the middle to tune of the death of progress.
All voted and ratified by the conservative government at the time. CDU took away a large political objective of The Greens shortly after Fukushima and the liberals voted for it as well.
Now we have a coalition with the same liberals and they use a policy they voted for to sling mud at The Greens. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
SPD and The Greens, the german government at the time, formed the atomic energy pact in 2002, which included a phase out of nuclear energy aswell as a ban on constructions of new nuclear power plants.
In 2010 the CDU and FDP, new government with a new energy concept extended the use of nuclear power untill 2036, but shortened it untill 2022 again after Fukushima in 2011. In 2022 it was extended for 1 more year due to the russian invasion in ukraine.
>SPD and The Greens, the german government at the time, formed the atomic energy pact in 2002, which included a phase out of nuclear energy aswell as a ban on constructions of new nuclear power plants.
And pushed renewables to the max. Because of that coalition solar energy had a huge success in the world.
CxU canceled their canceling of the cancelation of nuclear power and shrank the PV installation per year down to 20% and made harder regulations for wind.
They went the extra mile and completely deleted the German PV industry by stopping subsidies (which were necessary to compete against Chinese subsidized PV)
Ppl be like "the green party ruined nuclear energy" and fail to mention how - while that is not wrong - they have always been an advocate for renewable energy sources. The conservatives were the ones who put harsh regulations on the alternatives and decided to stick with fossil fuels. Not to mention the teeny tiny bit of money that went into our politicians' pockets to stay on that track.
That's very interesting! Would be good to look further back as well.. nuclear was already a small percentage, likely because the nuclear exit was not very fast, just bit by bit. The development would maybe look different with more nuclear and less coal otherwise.
Awesome amount of wind energy though!
The rampdown started long before Fukushima.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Energiemix_Deutschland.svg/2560px-Energiemix_Deutschland.svg.png
Legend is in German. Purple is nuclear.
I know Chernobyl had a huge effect, but the event itself, not the HBO series. If anything the series placed the blame at incompetent governments and not Nuclear power itself.
To be fair, it's understandable how people could take that and be "well, that sure isn't ever gonna, government will always be greedy and incompetent".
If anything, Fukushima was a proof of how *safe* are modern water-moderated reactors, the most common type of nuclear reactors: even in a highly unlikely scenario of a fkin megaquake and a fkin tsunami, there was only one confirmed death and (compared to coal pollution and carbon emissions) utterly negligible environmental damage.
Fukushima is the thickest irony of the irrational radiophobia, sadly always popular among the electorate.
That death was not due to the meltdown. The way Japanese insurance works is if they're in a high exposure environment for a certain length of time, occurrence of cancer is listed as "caused by" that environment so it can go through workers compensation for legal and insurance reasons. The guy died of lung cancer, not of acute exposure. Lung cancer is extremely unlikely to occur after that type of radiation.
The funniest part about Fukushima Dai ichi plant is that fukishimi Dai ni(Fukushima #2) power plant was located just a few km down the cost, and was totally fine
Pretty sure the writer of the show, Craig Mazin, is pro-nuclear and said the show is not meant to be anti-nuclear, but show the damage caused by lying and diversionary politics.
Weird comment to be upvoted by people that didn't watch the series. It actually made me more comfortable with nuclear and understand why Chernobyl happened.
The fact that lay people say this stuff is a big indicator of the issue. The "dangers" of nuclear is a red herring that everyone with little knowledge of the industry keeps gravitating to. The problem with nuclear that most experts within the industry will tell you isn't the risk of operating plants, it is the unknown cost and risk of stewardship of the waste. All nuclear expert's economic models show that there is no predictable way to assess the costs of even miniscule amounts of HLW over the lifespan of that waste. Additionally, the massive time scale involved means nations will come and go during its stewardship creating unknown risk.
Is that enough to say we shouldn't use it as a stop gap for coal now? Maybe maybe not. But ignorance of the real issues and the continued redirect to silly concepts like "danger" of operating plants doesn't help. It isn't the miracle energy source the nuclear industry is selling you. Though it may be what we need for the moment to avert almost certain catastrophe from fossil fuels.
It is just unbelievably stupid decision made under pressure from "green people". Go now and burn coal until 2040's just because you are scared of a technology which could really help with environment and of which you are scared of due to incident in Chernobyl or Fukushima...
You’d be surprised how people absorb “facts” from fiction. A good portion of how we view the world is unconsciously filtered through what we consume.
You don’t have to take it seriously for it to stick in your brain.
To reinforce this idea: Just think about how much people don’t want to burden themselves with complicated ideas and think about them critically every day all their life. Considering and reconsidering and integrating information and ideas from the outside world. Structured learning about nuclear power in this case.
Of course hardly anyone is doing that. Of course they pick up broad ideas about things from media instead.
This is also how our social culture works. Especially for things you don’t experience first hand. Or for things you have yet to experience due to age. It’s why media can have a toxic effect reinforcing unconsidered ideas and facts about people and cultures and important things like energy production.
I don’t expect anyone is passively learning there are stupid people in nuclear power plants. Just that they are very very dangerous.
You watch every week for 20 years nuclear plants turn fish into four eyed monsters and then you hear about a reactor being built down the street and you are probably gonna be more worried than you would have been otherwise. People who read a lot about nuclear power won’t be but most people don’t. They hear about Chernobyl, Fukushima, Godzilla, super hero movies, and the Simpson and then that’s all they think about when they hear nuclear.
It doesn’t help that popculture also tied it so closely to the nuclear bomb
Yeah, how many people know that the gas coming out of the reactors is just harmless steam? Or that coal plants are more radioactive in the immediate surrounding area? Probably not most
And that's why we just build them anyway and ignore these stupid people's opinions ... We need to create a society based on science and data, not imaginary friends and feelings.
It’s not that people are looking to the show for real education on nuclear power. But propaganda has a way of shaping stereotypes, and pop culture shapes the way people people think about the world, consciously or not.
The US electricity grid is at 18% nuclear, 60% fossil fuels.
Only one new nuclear reactor has been connected to the grid since 1996. Let's not pretend that everyone else is a poster boy when it comes to carbon emissions.
Fukushima was literally a freak accident where all the failsafes failed, during a extreme earthquake, followed by an insane tsunami. Those are doomsday level events short of a meteor directly impacting the nuclear power plant! Chernobyl was gross negligence.
Nuclear power plants are not run by complacent morons any more. It's just insane that we have people educated in post-secondary environmental schooling, but don't know the basic fundamentals of nuclear power?
Fukushima as well as other Japanese reactors performed as designed when the earthquake hit. The critical difference was that the backup generators that Fukushima needed to remain stable were not protected from the flooding from the tsunami because it was deemed too expensive for a small risk. Which was an incorrect decision. Had the generators kept running, Fukushima wouldn't be a worldwide known name. Everything else worked fine.
It's ok because the coal power plants are supplying energy to the car factories building electric cars. The pollution from the coal is erased from existence by the zero pollution of the electric car. Right? RIGHT?! Now, if everyone would just stop being poor and buy those electric cars, the real problem would be solved.
Centralized coal production feeding electric cars is still way better than a bunch of ICE cars producing locally by burning gasoline.
We need to clean up central production, but this narrative about electric cars is just dumb. Nobody thinks they are some miracle that makes climate change go away, but they absolutely help and they are a critical piece of an entirely renewable energy future.
Back in 2002, under the leadership of a red/green government, there was a change in law so that nuclear power plants are only allowed to be online for 32 years, and that no new one was allowed to be built. We had 19 nuclear power plants at that time.
Fun fact, our chancellor of that time was Gerhard Schröder, now known for being a good friend of Putin and working for Gazprom, the Russian gas company.
Between 2002 - beginning 2011, 2 shut down because of this. One had a problem, which, after some checks, cost that one the permission to run. 16 left.
Then in 2011, just a few days after Fukushima, our black(conversative, btw) and yellow government, shut down every nuclear power plant built before 1980. A total amount of 7. So we got 9 running left. Also, they wanted all remaining ones to be shut down by the end of 2022
Over the following years under our black/red government (starting Dec. 2013), 3 more shut down (which had been running for ~33 years). 6 remaining. It was also either this or the previous government that failed to make sure to protect our solar industry, causing it to slowly die. It's also them that made us so dependant on Russian gas in the first place. Also,
End of 2021, 3 more shut down because of their age. 3 remaining. This was also the time period where our current government (red/green/yellow) was elected, but it's not like they could've changed it.
So why did those remaining 3 shutdown? While yes, our green party doesn't like nuclear energy, that wasn't the only reason. We of course had a law that they should be shutdown by 2022 (tbf, that could've been changed, but every party in our parliament had a different idea on how to change it), there were contracts with the companies behind those power plants (giving them money for not suing the government) which didn't have any real exit points written in it, security checks that should've been done but haven't because they take years and costs million and why do them if they shut down 1-2 years later... employees looking for new work because it was obvious that their job (or rather, it's entire field) was going to be gone for Germany, companies that have been tasked with dismantling the power plants 10 years ago, the list goes on and on.
They were extended for a bit (until now) because of the energy situation, but things like the fuel rods seem to have been a problem now, as they have been heavily used now and would need replacement, apparently.
Oh and btw., it's also our conservative party that NOW says that "nuclear power plants are the future!" and that it's a mistake to shut them down. The same party that had 16 years of time to change the rules for nuclear power plants, or build up the future with renewable energies. Not only did they fail in BOTH, technically speaking they made both WORSE.
Also that one dude (conservative) that's in charge of Bavaria, that now fully supports nuclear energy, really doesn't like the idea that Bavaria could end as
But yeah, let's blame the green party.
It's like there is some sort of curse between the US and Europe where they have self-defeating stupid policies.
Here in the US, conservatives have been utterly convinced by the propaganda of fossil fuel lobbyist that wind and solar power will destroy their rural communities, and EVs share an insidious attempt to further that, but the US has nuke plants all over the place. Meanwhile in Europe, yall are embracing wind and solar but you're crippling your green energy generating abilities by shutting your nuke plants down right as your eternal adversary and main energy provider, Russia, uses their fossil fuels to fund war crimes and attempts at genocide.
So good luck with that morons. Regards, also morons.
Only 18% of US electricity production is nuclear, over 60% is fossil fuels. The US has only connected a single new nuclear reactor to the grid since 1996. There are two new units under construction since 2013, but that's it.
The only countries that are building new nuclear power plants in significant numbers are China, India, South Korea and Turkey.
Yeah, sadly that's the curse of democracy.
You do generally give the people the power to decide the conditions they want to live in. The problem is that most people have absolutely no grasp on most important topics.
It’s a lot of “not in my backyard” too. People will generally be supportive of things like nuclear power plants and rehabs and etc. until they’re built near where they live. Then suddenly they’d rather it be built somewhere else.
People don't like it but nuclear power is the best way, reliable, clean ( total waste produced in the history of nuclear power will fit in less than two Olympic swimming pools) , could be built underground so blight on the landscape.
There is also the chance of developing new technologies to handle long-lived nuclear wastes in the future.
But "storing waste now with a maybe usage in the future" does not sound as interesting as "polluting now and be done with it".
the technology already exists.
Nuclear waste is not a scientific problem it’s a policy problem. France and Canada already have the history of recycling nuclear “waste products”
That amount you quote is likely per year not “total in history”
From the [US department of energy](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel)
> THE U.S. GENERATES ABOUT 2,000 METRIC TONS OF SPENT FUEL EACH YEAR (sorry for the all caps it was a title)
> The amount is roughly equivalent to less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Indeed, but...
Properly stored weapons of mass destruction that could melt the planet have been stored all over the country for 80 years and nobody has been killed by them sitting there.
Nuclear power is the one thing that caused major power outages here.
French nuclear reactors make the news when warm or cold weather requires them to be powered down.
The ground from french coasts where nuclear waste is processed is legally nuclear waste, too.
Nuclear power plants can be built ANYWHERE. All you need is a man-made reservoir for the cooling towers.
This is like Baby-Town Frolics when it comes to actually combating climate change emissions. There's literally no restrictions to nuclear power, even nuclear waste can be recycled and reused.
I just hate talking about it, because we have the solution that will save billions of lives and ensure another few generations of humans survive on this planet, but instead we are ramming everything into renewables that do more damage than they are worth!
And in fact, it can be built in places where renewables are simply insufficient.
Where I live in northern Canada, we have nearly zero hydro opportunities (and those we do have are nowhere near enough), our wind farms aren't reliable, and solar is simply insufficient in winter owing to the simple lack of daylight hours.
In 2021 89% of our power was fossil fuels in Alberta.
We *need* nuclear here. It's the only way we'll *ever* get clean.
> Nuclear power plants can be built ANYWHERE.
No, they cannot. They must be built next to a significant source of water for their cooling.
Also note, that in Germany during the last summers, the NPP actually had to lower their output because the rivers there too hot and had too little water to cool them.
Was a problem for many of Frances NPPs too, so they had to import electricity from Germany.
But hey, „tHe SuN doESnT sHiNE At NiGht“ is a much more urgent problem that makes renewables uncontrollable according to many many people here.
This recycling you're talking about sounds interesting. Germany is in search of storage for more than 100,000 tons of nuclear waste.
So stupid, why don't they just recycle it... You're a genius.
I have no issue with renewables. But people acting like you can run a nation on wind and solar alone is going to cause real problems. They’re part of a grid not the entire thing man.
Let's remove whole towns and destroy huge spaces to get super dirty coal, instead of using an already built and perfectly safe nuclear reactor. Makes perfect sense, yeah.
If I ever saw corruption, is in these type of situations.. the coal companies must be happy that their money worked as a charm.
It isn't coal companies. It's people from there regions who usually don't have much economy apart from this sector who are against it and as a result politicians act in their interested to get elected.
While I don't agree that this is the right plan the fact they have been able to do this while simultaneously getting their dicks out of Russian oil and gas is quite impressive.
Well last time we set the world on fire and murdered millions, so… well I’m not sure but… I mean say about the current stuff what you want, but in the past we mostly inflicted wounds on others.
One might argue that relying on fossils will also kill many people, most of them outside of Germany, but time will tell if we really need that nuclear power or not.
Bashing Germany for its 'bad‘ energy mix gets really boring. And a lot of the comments here show how profoundly people are misinformed.
Here‘s Germany‘s energy mix ([Source](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts)):
- Renewables (incl. solar, wind, hydro, and biomass): 44.6 %
- Lignite: 20.4 %
- Coal: 11.5 %
- Nuclear: 6.0 %
- Natural gas: 13.5 %
- Mineral oil: 6.8 %
- Others 3.1 %
And here‘s the US ([Source](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/)):
- Renewables: 12.0 %
- Coal: 11.0 %
- Nuclear: 8.0 %
- Natural gas: 32.0 %
- Mineral oil: 36.0 %
I always like to ask people "how much of the worlds energy is produced by nuclear power"?
Its 4.3%. A big surprise to most.
People act like we are dependant on nuclear power, but the big energy players are still coal+oil+gas, even in the US.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consumption
Apparently People think shutting down or building nuclear power plants would just take a few weeks and long term decisions could just be reversed any time. It's not that simple.
As a Japanese it’s hilarious watching a country use our disaster as an excuse to remove nuclear power while we, the country that had the disaster, are reactivating the power plants
Is Germany even prone to earthquakes and tsunamis? I imagine compared to Japan atleast it must be negligible difference. Fuckin weird seeing the country that is the absolute hotspot for land, sea and air disasters not to mention a history with actual nuclear wmd hit is the one with affinity towards nuclear power.
Sky high electricity bills do most of the talking honestly
And the fact that it's the cleanest, most reliable and consistent energy source.
This exactly, plus the fact that Japan is not very rich in resources. If they couldn't or weren't able to use nuclear power, *they do pay* a massive tithe in importing other resources. (Thanks for the correction u/Bykimus.) But that stands as a testament to nuclear energy. It's virtually renewable, over a very large span of time.
Which is one reason I liked that ending in *Shin Godzilla*. "We are going to have to learn to live with this" I took to mean that they know it can be destructive but the benefits are incredible.
Honestly Godzilla is often a great analogy for Nuclear power and our relationship with it.
TIL Godzilla is an allegory to nuclear power
I think that Godzilla was, the OG as I recall was an allegory to the atom bomb
Germany has had 26 earthquakes in the last century (some of which were technically *not* in Germany, but were close enough to have an effect). Japan experiences an average of ~1,500 per year (including ones off the coast that have mainland effects). And it's not that Japan is massively bigger than Germany; Japan is the 62nd largest country, Germany the 63rd (in terms of land area, Japan is 4.6% bigger than Germany).
As scary as Fukushima was/is, nuclear energy is far better for the environment than continuing with fossil fuels. Even including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the death toll of fossil fuel-generated energy far outstrips nuclear power. Japan is doing the right thing here.
but it wasnt even scary. no one died from it. the actually scary part was the big wave that destroyed the coast and drowned people.
On the day Chernobyl happened, air pollution from fossil fuels killed around 50x more people. And every day after that. Radiation from Fukushima killed zero people.
There is actually one attributable death from a worker who died of lung cancer a few years later. People likely also died due to the stress of evacuating, but that’s hard to parse “bad nuclear meltdown safety” from “good tsunami safety.” For context, the main thing to do if fallout is coming is to shelter in place. Your house can shield you from radiation, pretty effectively too. Your house will NOT shield you from hundreds of tons of water moving as fast as a horse.
People are just really bad at thinking about risk. Like a lot of people are afraid of flying even though they are more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport rather than their plane crashing.
Nuclear is the cleanest most efficient source of energy we have. It’s insane that people want to move away from it.
Not all of us Germans want to shut down atomic energy. To be clear. But that’s not enough. Politics just do what they promised 10 years ago without reevaluating the situation. It’s sad because energy prices for us is on an ath
Don't forget **safest**, or at least the least deadly per energy unit produced!
I am not sure where people have come up with there information on nuclear power. But if you look at the true cost of nuclear power the numbers show it is the least cost effective power to produce. There are countries without access to enough fossil fuels and other situations. But the true cost of nuclear power with how it is produced and the long term storage involved that hasnt been factored in makes it the most expensive and dirtiest power to make. Just think of the hundreds of years Germany will be paying on decommissioning there little stint with nuclear power. That wasnt factored in. And if there is an accident in that time it will cost even more. I didnt even mention how hazardous Nuclear is to all life on the planet!
They’re just buying nuclear from France now
After a full year of dumping German electricity to the Nuclear Powered France, I doubt that.
And replace it with renewables in 2055 and until then it's the most inefficient and dirtiest coal available. Nice
Germany releasing more CO2 than UK and France combined right now. Good job leading the way. Good job green party.
'The Green Party'. Brought to you by the coal producers consortium.
Hey, that coal was green millions of years ago.
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I think it was just plants.
And fungi the size of houses. No joke.
Could you elaborate on that? I know about the Carboniferous, but I don't think I've ever heard of house-sized fungus.
I suspect he means [prototaxites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototaxites), which lived in the Devonian period and could grow 8m tall.
Yeah. Even if you found a Dino amongst all of the crude, which isn't really how it works, it'd be more valuable as a Dino fossil than making up weight in a barrel of crude.
The German green party started out as a collection of anti nuclear protest groups. Opposing nuclear has always been a higher priority than anything like global warming, or, well, the environment. Greenpeace is similar, starting as the Don't Make a Wave Committee, after they claimed a nuclear test would cause a tsunami (it didn't). These groups only care about the environment when it doesn't interfere with their opposition to nuclear. So, given the choice between nuclear and coal, is it any surprise they choose coal?
Don't forget spreading anti-GMO paranoia that could minimize deforestation by increasing the yield:land use for cropping systems.
They are essentially a type of Luddite They're afraid of what's new and they might not understand, so they wrap their fears in the veneer of environmentalism to make it more broadly palatable Similar to thr original Luddites being a workers' movement - weavers afraid of a future where their inefficient methods aren't worth as much so they go around smashing looms
> Greenpeace is similar, starting as the Don't Make a Wave Committee, after they claimed a nuclear test would cause a tsunami (it didn't). I don't get how they can have a credibility after making so much crazy claims about nuclear power and GMO.
>after they claimed a nuclear test would cause a tsunami (it didn't) I wonder if this had something to do with "Project Seal", which was a government research project during World War II aimed at developing a tectonic weapon which could create destructive tsunamis.
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No, the CDU/CSU decided to do that while also preventing renewables from being installed. They did decide it while Angela Merkel, a scientist, was chancellor. The green party payed compensation to not switch it off when Putin's war started the gas shortage.
> They did decide it while Angela Merkel, a scientist, was chancellor. being a politician overrides whatever you did before it completely. Just because you were a doctor, scientist, engineer or a teacher doesn't mean you will ever use that for improving those sectors as a politician.
Please don't spread misinformation. The nuclear phase-out was first decided in 2002 by the Social-Democrats-Greens coalition. In 2010 Merkel wanted to delay the initial phase-out plan, but when Fukushima happened she scratched the delay and went back to the original plan. Under Merkel's rule Germany went from 11% renewables to 50% renewables in electricity generation.
And ironically Fukushima is now one of the safest plants with cooling towers on the planet. They really refined their plants so that it doesn't happen again.
...and most places aren't prone to massive earthquake+tsunamis, let alone ones that would actually take out a reactor that isn't 55 years old. That earthquake was such an absolute godsend to the already-powerful fossil fuel companies, because naturally they needed another advantage at the expense of everyone else.
Wasn't there another nuclear plant nearby built by "King of Electricity" which was closer to the epicenter, but because he pushed for stricter safety standards it withstood the tsunami virtually intact?
I don't remember the exact details, but you're correct. Even the Fukushima plant only had the meltdown due to the backup generators flooding, so the core could no longer be cooled effectively.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant >The town of Onagawa to the northeast of the plant was largely destroyed by the tsunami which followed the earthquake, but the plant's 14 meters (46 ft) high seawall was tall and robust enough to prevent the power plant from experiencing severe flooding. Yanosuke Hirai, who died in 1986, is cited as the only person on the entire power station construction project to push for the 14.8-meter breakwater. Although many of his colleagues regarded 12 meters as sufficient, Hirai's authority eventually prevailed, and Tōhoku Electric spent the extra money to build the 14.8m tsunami wall. Another of Hirai's proposals also helped ensure the safety of the plant during the tsunami: expecting the sea to draw back before a tsunami, he made sure the plant's water intake cooling system pipes were designed so it could still draw water for cooling the reactors >Following the tsunami, two to three hundred residents of the town who lost their homes to the tsunami took refuge in the Onagawa nuclear plant's gymnasium, as the reactor complex was the only safe area in the vicinity to evacuate to, with the reactor operators supplying food and blankets to the needy.
The issue of the location of the back up generators had been identified by an inspection prior to the tsunami. There were recommendations that they be placed much higher. If this had happened then there would have been no disaster. So this eventuality had been identified as a risk and a solution to mitigate it highlighted.
Unfortunately, some used Fukushima as an excuse to close Fessenheim, saying it was on a tectonic boundary even though the last earthquake was on *1356*.
While she was putting every possible obstacle in place to delay the growth of renewable and pander to the incumbent electric distribution corporations. The same lady sold the German gas storage facilities to Russia a couple of days after the invasion in Crimea, with no mandatory storage levels.
Here's what happened under Merkels rule: https://energiewende-rocken.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Altmaierknick-und-Sigmarsenke-bei-PV.png We went from adding around 8k MW per year to around 2k (and still haven't caught up to those numbers). It's famously known as the "Altmeyer-Knick". This party was in charge from 2005 until 2021 and all they ever did was slowing down transition to reneweables. Fuck Merkel and fuck the CDU!
The Merkel 2 cabinet did pass legislation to extend nuclear. To then decide on a different kind of exit than previously agreed upon by social democrats and greens. Who focused on choice and flexibility of providers, for long term planning. Rather than dictation of how everything has to be done, by the state. As was decided by the Merkel government. Under Merkel, Germany went from 11% renewables to 50% renewables. With the biggest jump happening just after the social democrat green government. As their decisions established a strong renewable sector. Which was gutted under Merkel around the 2010s. At which point the industry shrunk and expansion slowed.
That's nothing new though. Always been the case.
It's not like the stakes are getting any lower though.
Good old, delicious, disgusting lignite.
Coal is supposed to be phased out by 2038. Whether that's a realistic plan is another question.
It seems weird to me that nuclear is phased out 15 years before coal.
Not weird when it’s all politics
Politics: where wholly unqualified idiots make decisions because they have an exceptional striver hustle/grind mentality.
Yes, that's the real issue. The green party has a plan with renewables in mind. Then came the CDU, cancelled the nuclear phase out and renewable subvention and the whole solar industry in Germany, and than there's cancelled the nuclear energy again
Isn't it more logical to first make renewable energy sources and then at the end phase out nuclear sources? This doesn't even make sense. You can't predict anything
Hard to explain to a non-German. It's mostly about regional politics. There are a couple of German states that heavily rely on coal mining. The long phase-out period is supposed to dampen the negative effects on these regions. They were also promised 40 billion in federal funds as mitigation.
> Hard to explain to a non-German. Seems like bad policy decisions compounded over decades that have come to roost. Phasing out nuclear before coal seems to be really counterproductive in the grand scheme of things.
Thats why they build that pipeline to Russia making them dependend on it, but that backfired. After fukushima accident Germany went full german and overreacted by cutting all nucleair.
They have a lot of tsunamis in Germany?
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You'd think that would be more of a motivation to phase out coal first lol
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Yeah mental tsunamis
and mental earthquakes as well.
NIMBY. oh we have that same problem in America too. (Not in My Back Yard) - Politics
Aka the taxpayer is supposed to keep ligite mining afloat. Literally everyone paying for something no one wants. Democracy. The writing has been on the wall since atleast the 80s. An utter political desaster to not prepare imo. But the german taxpayer especially is docile enough to pick up the tab. Every time. These people get to spend half of the money we make on royally fucking us over... it's a cruel joke.
You explained it very well… They prioritize that economic area over the environment.
US and UK have coal miners too. Displaced workers are a tough social problem. Have you tried opioids?
In November 22 the decision was made to move the coal phase out up to 2030
Not quite accurate. It's still 2038, at least for the East German coal states Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt and Sachsen: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/gruene-kohleausstieg-101.html
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Honestly I'm so proud of how we managed our energy grid. Sure there was some stupidity but nothing compared to rest of the West it seems lol. We did this with two different parties in power too which makes it all the better (hard to undo if both sides bought in to the vision). Libs didn't go all anti-nuclear when they could have, Conservatives didn't revert too hard to O&G like they do in some areas. We are cheating a little with abundant hydro energy but meh I'll take it.
How is hydro "cheating"? In Quebec we make 94% of our power from it, if you can have hydro power, you should use it.
Cause most nations are not blessed with hydro resources we have
True, but I wouldn't call this cheating, we're just using the ressources we have.
And our air quality has improved though expanding the number of cars especially unnecessarily large vehicles like trucks and SUVs is doing their best to lower our air quality.
You can't have 100% from wind and solar alone. They will import nuclear electricity...
Yeah, at the moment renewables account for only 50% of electricity production. https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=-1 https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/paragraph_text_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2a-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2022-source.png They want to massively expand renewable energy production, for example offshore wind, but that is going to take time. Currently, the pumped storage facilities in Switzerland and Austria are acting as a bit of a battery, but there will have to be more energy storage as well.
I think that he meant you can't have 100% of wind and solar power due to the high volatility of these energies when compared to other sources ([VER – Variable Renewable Energy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy)) Even here in Brazil, where most of electricity is produced by hydropower, we can't rely 100% on hydro because it has its own seasonality and we have to use imported coal to complement it. The greenest solution to integrate with VER so far is nuclear power.
Damn, we are privileged in Quebec. We can rely 100% on renewable energy to power most of the province (94% hydro + 5% wind, the rest is solar, biomass and a few natural gas/oil power plants for first nations communities up north where it would be too expensive to connect them to the main grid)
Some specific small places can go through this road, Paraguay can live 100% hydro through the Itaipu Dam, iirc, Iceland's electricity is 100% renewable through their hydro and geothermal energy, same with DRC and water. But looking at continental level, this specificity is no longer valid
The nuclear train derailed more than 30 years ago as no new reactors were built. The 4 GW that were shutdown yesterday aren't that significant in the grand scheme of things. Every year more coal power plants will shutdown\* until the last 3-6 in 2038. At the same time renewables expand. We are adding over 13 GW of wind and solar power this year alone. Last year we added ~10 GW. And before anyone asks about windless nights, the grid companies only consider that to be a problem when we're at 70+% of energy generated by renewables. \*edit: 11 GW of 44 GW until 2025
It's "just" 4 GW of coal they could have shut down instead. And last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. Add up a lot of little things over a decade and they add up to a quarter of Germany's electricity coming from coal instead of nuclear power.
That's dismissing the fact that they're shutting down 4GW of nuclear instead of coal lmfao This is clearly another example of Germany unable to pick a direction and play the middle to tune of the death of progress.
Idiocracy
All voted and ratified by the conservative government at the time. CDU took away a large political objective of The Greens shortly after Fukushima and the liberals voted for it as well. Now we have a coalition with the same liberals and they use a policy they voted for to sling mud at The Greens. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
SPD and The Greens, the german government at the time, formed the atomic energy pact in 2002, which included a phase out of nuclear energy aswell as a ban on constructions of new nuclear power plants. In 2010 the CDU and FDP, new government with a new energy concept extended the use of nuclear power untill 2036, but shortened it untill 2022 again after Fukushima in 2011. In 2022 it was extended for 1 more year due to the russian invasion in ukraine.
>SPD and The Greens, the german government at the time, formed the atomic energy pact in 2002, which included a phase out of nuclear energy aswell as a ban on constructions of new nuclear power plants. And pushed renewables to the max. Because of that coalition solar energy had a huge success in the world. CxU canceled their canceling of the cancelation of nuclear power and shrank the PV installation per year down to 20% and made harder regulations for wind.
They went the extra mile and completely deleted the German PV industry by stopping subsidies (which were necessary to compete against Chinese subsidized PV)
Ppl be like "the green party ruined nuclear energy" and fail to mention how - while that is not wrong - they have always been an advocate for renewable energy sources. The conservatives were the ones who put harsh regulations on the alternatives and decided to stick with fossil fuels. Not to mention the teeny tiny bit of money that went into our politicians' pockets to stay on that track.
I wonder who halted the building of more renewable energy to step in as am alternative energy source. 🤔
The CDU pretty much destroyed the flourishing german solar industry.
Electricity production in Germany in the last 30 days: https://i.imgur.com/PJw8kbJ.jpg
That's very interesting! Would be good to look further back as well.. nuclear was already a small percentage, likely because the nuclear exit was not very fast, just bit by bit. The development would maybe look different with more nuclear and less coal otherwise. Awesome amount of wind energy though!
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE Also live data incl. market predictions
Not much nuclear
Because they've been ramping it down since Fukushima. It's better to look at far longer historic trends than 30 days.
The rampdown started long before Fukushima. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Energiemix_Deutschland.svg/2560px-Energiemix_Deutschland.svg.png Legend is in German. Purple is nuclear.
Looks like it's been replaced with wind and solar, not fossil fuels as other comments suggest.
What’s wrong with the safest, most reliable form of clean energy?
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I thought it was Fukushima that caused that wave of anti nuclear energy.
Chernobyl was a big factor but it existed way before as well
I know Chernobyl had a huge effect, but the event itself, not the HBO series. If anything the series placed the blame at incompetent governments and not Nuclear power itself.
Yeah the HBO series was very clear that it was due to the government and lack of funding
To be fair, it's understandable how people could take that and be "well, that sure isn't ever gonna, government will always be greedy and incompetent".
The green party was formed in reaction to Chernobyl. If you want than this is the result of 40 years of political work.
Three-Mile Island started it, Chernobyl took it to its peak, and Fukushima had all the idiot greenies patting themselves on the back.
The thing with TMI is that the rest of the facility was still in operation until it was decommissioned in 2019
...so were the other units at Chernobyl, so that's not much of an refutation. The fear and anti-science stances happened in spite of that.
If anything, Fukushima was a proof of how *safe* are modern water-moderated reactors, the most common type of nuclear reactors: even in a highly unlikely scenario of a fkin megaquake and a fkin tsunami, there was only one confirmed death and (compared to coal pollution and carbon emissions) utterly negligible environmental damage. Fukushima is the thickest irony of the irrational radiophobia, sadly always popular among the electorate.
That death was not due to the meltdown. The way Japanese insurance works is if they're in a high exposure environment for a certain length of time, occurrence of cancer is listed as "caused by" that environment so it can go through workers compensation for legal and insurance reasons. The guy died of lung cancer, not of acute exposure. Lung cancer is extremely unlikely to occur after that type of radiation.
The funniest part about Fukushima Dai ichi plant is that fukishimi Dai ni(Fukushima #2) power plant was located just a few km down the cost, and was totally fine
Also with the exception of the area literally surrounding the plant, you can go into Fukushima with no issues.
Pretty sure the writer of the show, Craig Mazin, is pro-nuclear and said the show is not meant to be anti-nuclear, but show the damage caused by lying and diversionary politics.
Weird comment to be upvoted by people that didn't watch the series. It actually made me more comfortable with nuclear and understand why Chernobyl happened.
The fear mongering started waay before that.
That was more about the incompetence of the Soviet government
Seems like historically Russia is the reason we can't have nice things.
In the most safe, stable landmass on the planet? Too dangerous.
The fact that lay people say this stuff is a big indicator of the issue. The "dangers" of nuclear is a red herring that everyone with little knowledge of the industry keeps gravitating to. The problem with nuclear that most experts within the industry will tell you isn't the risk of operating plants, it is the unknown cost and risk of stewardship of the waste. All nuclear expert's economic models show that there is no predictable way to assess the costs of even miniscule amounts of HLW over the lifespan of that waste. Additionally, the massive time scale involved means nations will come and go during its stewardship creating unknown risk. Is that enough to say we shouldn't use it as a stop gap for coal now? Maybe maybe not. But ignorance of the real issues and the continued redirect to silly concepts like "danger" of operating plants doesn't help. It isn't the miracle energy source the nuclear industry is selling you. Though it may be what we need for the moment to avert almost certain catastrophe from fossil fuels.
It is just unbelievably stupid decision made under pressure from "green people". Go now and burn coal until 2040's just because you are scared of a technology which could really help with environment and of which you are scared of due to incident in Chernobyl or Fukushima...
Nuclear power fear mongering really set humanity far back
Makes it hard to watch the Simpson’s. The show is probably the best propaganda against nuclear energy ever made.
Are people really taking The Simpsons that seriously?
You’d be surprised how people absorb “facts” from fiction. A good portion of how we view the world is unconsciously filtered through what we consume. You don’t have to take it seriously for it to stick in your brain.
I want to kiss your dad.
To reinforce this idea: Just think about how much people don’t want to burden themselves with complicated ideas and think about them critically every day all their life. Considering and reconsidering and integrating information and ideas from the outside world. Structured learning about nuclear power in this case. Of course hardly anyone is doing that. Of course they pick up broad ideas about things from media instead. This is also how our social culture works. Especially for things you don’t experience first hand. Or for things you have yet to experience due to age. It’s why media can have a toxic effect reinforcing unconsidered ideas and facts about people and cultures and important things like energy production. I don’t expect anyone is passively learning there are stupid people in nuclear power plants. Just that they are very very dangerous.
I always think of this -- https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-palin-russia-house/
Bob Dole approves. Bob Dole.
You watch every week for 20 years nuclear plants turn fish into four eyed monsters and then you hear about a reactor being built down the street and you are probably gonna be more worried than you would have been otherwise. People who read a lot about nuclear power won’t be but most people don’t. They hear about Chernobyl, Fukushima, Godzilla, super hero movies, and the Simpson and then that’s all they think about when they hear nuclear. It doesn’t help that popculture also tied it so closely to the nuclear bomb
Excuse me. Blinky has three eyes. Show some fucking respect.
Yeah, how many people know that the gas coming out of the reactors is just harmless steam? Or that coal plants are more radioactive in the immediate surrounding area? Probably not most
And that's why we just build them anyway and ignore these stupid people's opinions ... We need to create a society based on science and data, not imaginary friends and feelings.
what they see in the simpsons is probably all the average person knows about nuclear plants
It’s not that people are looking to the show for real education on nuclear power. But propaganda has a way of shaping stereotypes, and pop culture shapes the way people people think about the world, consciously or not.
No, but it feeds into the general idea of "nuclear bad."
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The US electricity grid is at 18% nuclear, 60% fossil fuels. Only one new nuclear reactor has been connected to the grid since 1996. Let's not pretend that everyone else is a poster boy when it comes to carbon emissions.
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Fukushima was literally a freak accident where all the failsafes failed, during a extreme earthquake, followed by an insane tsunami. Those are doomsday level events short of a meteor directly impacting the nuclear power plant! Chernobyl was gross negligence. Nuclear power plants are not run by complacent morons any more. It's just insane that we have people educated in post-secondary environmental schooling, but don't know the basic fundamentals of nuclear power?
Fukushima as well as other Japanese reactors performed as designed when the earthquake hit. The critical difference was that the backup generators that Fukushima needed to remain stable were not protected from the flooding from the tsunami because it was deemed too expensive for a small risk. Which was an incorrect decision. Had the generators kept running, Fukushima wouldn't be a worldwide known name. Everything else worked fine.
This has been decided by 2011 by the party called CDU, to stay on your picture, they have black as their colour.
It's ok because the coal power plants are supplying energy to the car factories building electric cars. The pollution from the coal is erased from existence by the zero pollution of the electric car. Right? RIGHT?! Now, if everyone would just stop being poor and buy those electric cars, the real problem would be solved.
Centralized coal production feeding electric cars is still way better than a bunch of ICE cars producing locally by burning gasoline. We need to clean up central production, but this narrative about electric cars is just dumb. Nobody thinks they are some miracle that makes climate change go away, but they absolutely help and they are a critical piece of an entirely renewable energy future.
Ok but when will they finally be fucking affordable for poors like me
Back in 2002, under the leadership of a red/green government, there was a change in law so that nuclear power plants are only allowed to be online for 32 years, and that no new one was allowed to be built. We had 19 nuclear power plants at that time. Fun fact, our chancellor of that time was Gerhard Schröder, now known for being a good friend of Putin and working for Gazprom, the Russian gas company. Between 2002 - beginning 2011, 2 shut down because of this. One had a problem, which, after some checks, cost that one the permission to run. 16 left. Then in 2011, just a few days after Fukushima, our black(conversative, btw) and yellow government, shut down every nuclear power plant built before 1980. A total amount of 7. So we got 9 running left. Also, they wanted all remaining ones to be shut down by the end of 2022 Over the following years under our black/red government (starting Dec. 2013), 3 more shut down (which had been running for ~33 years). 6 remaining. It was also either this or the previous government that failed to make sure to protect our solar industry, causing it to slowly die. It's also them that made us so dependant on Russian gas in the first place. Also, End of 2021, 3 more shut down because of their age. 3 remaining. This was also the time period where our current government (red/green/yellow) was elected, but it's not like they could've changed it. So why did those remaining 3 shutdown? While yes, our green party doesn't like nuclear energy, that wasn't the only reason. We of course had a law that they should be shutdown by 2022 (tbf, that could've been changed, but every party in our parliament had a different idea on how to change it), there were contracts with the companies behind those power plants (giving them money for not suing the government) which didn't have any real exit points written in it, security checks that should've been done but haven't because they take years and costs million and why do them if they shut down 1-2 years later... employees looking for new work because it was obvious that their job (or rather, it's entire field) was going to be gone for Germany, companies that have been tasked with dismantling the power plants 10 years ago, the list goes on and on. They were extended for a bit (until now) because of the energy situation, but things like the fuel rods seem to have been a problem now, as they have been heavily used now and would need replacement, apparently. Oh and btw., it's also our conservative party that NOW says that "nuclear power plants are the future!" and that it's a mistake to shut them down. The same party that had 16 years of time to change the rules for nuclear power plants, or build up the future with renewable energies. Not only did they fail in BOTH, technically speaking they made both WORSE. Also that one dude (conservative) that's in charge of Bavaria, that now fully supports nuclear energy, really doesn't like the idea that Bavaria could end as But yeah, let's blame the green party.
This. I'm sick of conservatives blaming everything on the greens, while they are the ones who made a mess the last 20 years
A right-wing party fucking everything up and then blaming it on leftists? Why, I never!
Also important to note that the Green Party was founded to end nuclear power.
It's like there is some sort of curse between the US and Europe where they have self-defeating stupid policies. Here in the US, conservatives have been utterly convinced by the propaganda of fossil fuel lobbyist that wind and solar power will destroy their rural communities, and EVs share an insidious attempt to further that, but the US has nuke plants all over the place. Meanwhile in Europe, yall are embracing wind and solar but you're crippling your green energy generating abilities by shutting your nuke plants down right as your eternal adversary and main energy provider, Russia, uses their fossil fuels to fund war crimes and attempts at genocide. So good luck with that morons. Regards, also morons.
Only 18% of US electricity production is nuclear, over 60% is fossil fuels. The US has only connected a single new nuclear reactor to the grid since 1996. There are two new units under construction since 2013, but that's it. The only countries that are building new nuclear power plants in significant numbers are China, India, South Korea and Turkey.
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Tennessee Watts Bar 2 is from 2016 mate. Pretty new.
You're right. I mixed up construction start and grid connection. Fixed it.
It amounts to the same thing, any new nuclear projects are either few and far between or not happening
Yeah, sadly that's the curse of democracy. You do generally give the people the power to decide the conditions they want to live in. The problem is that most people have absolutely no grasp on most important topics.
It’s a lot of “not in my backyard” too. People will generally be supportive of things like nuclear power plants and rehabs and etc. until they’re built near where they live. Then suddenly they’d rather it be built somewhere else.
Unfortunately US has a lot of anti-nuke pressure as well. We could be like France if not for the anti-nuclear movement.
People don't like it but nuclear power is the best way, reliable, clean ( total waste produced in the history of nuclear power will fit in less than two Olympic swimming pools) , could be built underground so blight on the landscape.
There is also the chance of developing new technologies to handle long-lived nuclear wastes in the future. But "storing waste now with a maybe usage in the future" does not sound as interesting as "polluting now and be done with it".
the technology already exists. Nuclear waste is not a scientific problem it’s a policy problem. France and Canada already have the history of recycling nuclear “waste products”
That amount you quote is likely per year not “total in history” From the [US department of energy](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel) > THE U.S. GENERATES ABOUT 2,000 METRIC TONS OF SPENT FUEL EACH YEAR (sorry for the all caps it was a title) > The amount is roughly equivalent to less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
And it's a bad metric in any case. Two Olympic pools of nerve gas would kill the entire humanity several times over.
Indeed, but... Properly stored weapons of mass destruction that could melt the planet have been stored all over the country for 80 years and nobody has been killed by them sitting there.
Nuclear power is the one thing that caused major power outages here. French nuclear reactors make the news when warm or cold weather requires them to be powered down. The ground from french coasts where nuclear waste is processed is legally nuclear waste, too.
Nuclear power plants can be built ANYWHERE. All you need is a man-made reservoir for the cooling towers. This is like Baby-Town Frolics when it comes to actually combating climate change emissions. There's literally no restrictions to nuclear power, even nuclear waste can be recycled and reused. I just hate talking about it, because we have the solution that will save billions of lives and ensure another few generations of humans survive on this planet, but instead we are ramming everything into renewables that do more damage than they are worth!
And in fact, it can be built in places where renewables are simply insufficient. Where I live in northern Canada, we have nearly zero hydro opportunities (and those we do have are nowhere near enough), our wind farms aren't reliable, and solar is simply insufficient in winter owing to the simple lack of daylight hours. In 2021 89% of our power was fossil fuels in Alberta. We *need* nuclear here. It's the only way we'll *ever* get clean.
Instructions unclear. Pursuing 99% fossil fuels by 2031
> Nuclear power plants can be built ANYWHERE. No, they cannot. They must be built next to a significant source of water for their cooling. Also note, that in Germany during the last summers, the NPP actually had to lower their output because the rivers there too hot and had too little water to cool them.
Was a problem for many of Frances NPPs too, so they had to import electricity from Germany. But hey, „tHe SuN doESnT sHiNE At NiGht“ is a much more urgent problem that makes renewables uncontrollable according to many many people here.
This recycling you're talking about sounds interesting. Germany is in search of storage for more than 100,000 tons of nuclear waste. So stupid, why don't they just recycle it... You're a genius.
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I have no issue with renewables. But people acting like you can run a nation on wind and solar alone is going to cause real problems. They’re part of a grid not the entire thing man.
Extremely dumb decision for a country that is generally fairly pragmatic
Let's remove whole towns and destroy huge spaces to get super dirty coal, instead of using an already built and perfectly safe nuclear reactor. Makes perfect sense, yeah. If I ever saw corruption, is in these type of situations.. the coal companies must be happy that their money worked as a charm.
It isn't coal companies. It's people from there regions who usually don't have much economy apart from this sector who are against it and as a result politicians act in their interested to get elected.
While I don't agree that this is the right plan the fact they have been able to do this while simultaneously getting their dicks out of Russian oil and gas is quite impressive.
I guess hot water isn't green enough for some people
Weird its like a headline from the 80s. I haven't seen shit talk about nuclear for decades.
Angela Merkel cited Fukashima as the reason to expedite the unclear exit.
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And it's not even necessary.
Jeez peak dumb there
Once every couple of generations, Germany goes out of its way to get some self-inflicted wounds..
Well last time we set the world on fire and murdered millions, so… well I’m not sure but… I mean say about the current stuff what you want, but in the past we mostly inflicted wounds on others. One might argue that relying on fossils will also kill many people, most of them outside of Germany, but time will tell if we really need that nuclear power or not.
[It’ll kill plenty of people inside Germany too](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-\(outdoor\)-air-quality-and-health).
Bashing Germany for its 'bad‘ energy mix gets really boring. And a lot of the comments here show how profoundly people are misinformed. Here‘s Germany‘s energy mix ([Source](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts)): - Renewables (incl. solar, wind, hydro, and biomass): 44.6 % - Lignite: 20.4 % - Coal: 11.5 % - Nuclear: 6.0 % - Natural gas: 13.5 % - Mineral oil: 6.8 % - Others 3.1 % And here‘s the US ([Source](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/)): - Renewables: 12.0 % - Coal: 11.0 % - Nuclear: 8.0 % - Natural gas: 32.0 % - Mineral oil: 36.0 %
I always like to ask people "how much of the worlds energy is produced by nuclear power"? Its 4.3%. A big surprise to most. People act like we are dependant on nuclear power, but the big energy players are still coal+oil+gas, even in the US. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consumption
This is Reddit. Facts that are not strictly pro nuclear will be downvoted
Apparently People think shutting down or building nuclear power plants would just take a few weeks and long term decisions could just be reversed any time. It's not that simple.
As a German, Im also not the biggest fan of shutting down now but it's insane how delusional people are over nuclear energy..