Germans be like
Germans be like
206 comments
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Meanwhile fly ash from coal is MORE radioactive than being near a nuclear plant.
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All the comments about the nuclear reactor disasters remind me of a Vsauce video called Risk. . Michael talks about a hypothetical world where "one cigarette pack out of every eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty contains a single cigarette laced with dynamite that, when lit, violently explodes, blowing the user's head off. People would be loudly and messily losing their heads every day all over the world but in that imaginary universe the same number of people would die every day because of smoking that already do". Nuclear disasters are messy, but affect less people than coal plants operating normally.
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Yeah, but the only choice isn't between smoking cigarettes and smoking dynamite sticks. Coal being bad doesn't make nuclear good. Meltdowns aren't the only bad things that nuclear reactors can cause. Where I live, people are losing their heads talking about how we need more nuclear power so we can get bigger electric cars to replace bicycles and public transport (not to replace cars with internal combustion engines, of course, because how else would people get on board with building infrastructure for giant electric sports cars than to let pre-existing rustbuckets roam free and keep gas stations in operation).
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Coal being bad doesn’t make nuclear good
Except it does, because every single second that you're running fossil fuels is causing more irreversible damage to our biosphere at a scale we can't possibly contain, and you must produce electricity somehow. When demand is completely inelastic, a bad option can become a good option as long as there are worse alternatives.
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Don't spoil the fun, people want to feel smart with no effort.
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It's not a question of either using coal or nuclear power in Germany. The idea is to phase out coal power production by 2038 and replaced them by building 40 green hydrogen plants in order to be climate neutral by 2045 with renewables, which already are 52% of the German mix and the before mentioned green hydrogen plants.
Here's a Google translation of a source about the energy transition in Germany:
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Nuclear disasters are messy, but affect less people than coal plants operating normally.
Not just that, but the disasters we do have with nuclear plants are with old ones. Fukushima was built in 1971, 40 years before the 2011 incident. The meltdown it experienced wouldn't just be more difficult in modern reactors. It would be impossible by design. We should be building new nuclear partially to retire old dangerous plants.
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I understand that it's supposed to be a shitty comic and not a balanced, reasonable take, but if you'd like to hear a German perspective anyways:
I'm not aware of any official representative lobbying other countries to end nuclear, except of course in nations that build their totally safe reactors near our border. I'm also not aware of us being awarded or recognized for our stance. Individual Germans, like me, will of course have been fed different propaganda than you and will argue accordingly.
No one here likes the coal generators. And with how much cheaper solar is these days, they're definitely on the way out. But we don't have a dictatorship anymore, luckily, so even obviously good paths will face pushback, like from entire regions whose jobs are in the coal industry.
We've just been able to get a consensus on abolishing nuclear much more quickly for multiple reasons:- Chernobyl directly affected us, including the people running our country. Russia also attacked nuclear reactors in the Ukraine, which certainly reminded people of Chernobyl.
- At the start of the Ukraine war, it was unclear whether Russia might also launch attacks on us, including our nuclear reactors.
- Russia also cut off our natural gas supply. We have practically no own Uranium deposits either, so reducing dependence on foreign nations was definitely in our interest, too.
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At the start of the Ukraine war, it was unclear whether Russia might also launch attacks on us, including our nuclear reactors.
Russia hasn't attacked any nuclear reactors in Ukraine for obvious reasons. The notions that Russia would attack nuclear reactors in Germany is pure absurdity that no sane person could believe.
Russia also cut off our natural gas supply. We have practically no own Uranium deposits either, so reducing dependence on foreign nations was definitely in our interest, too.
That's a straight up lie. Russia never cut off gas supply to Germany, and in fact has repeatedly stated that one of Nord Stream pipelines is operational. German government is choosing to buy Russian LNG through third parties instead of buying pipeline gas directly.
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Well, I don't know what to tell you. These things have been broadly reported here in Germany. Whom of us was mislead, doesn't matter for explaining why us Germans have a different stance on things.
Here's two random articles, but I can send a whole list of links, if your search engine isn't turning up anything:
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- Russia stopped delivering gas to 5 european countries in May 2022 because those countries refused to pay in rubels.
- Then they announced in June 2022 that they would only deliver half of the agreed-upon volumes to Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czechia and Italy.
- In September 2022 Russia stopped gas transfers via Nord Stream 1 completely, "because of technical difficulties".
Those are facts. Russia stopped these gas transfers. No one else.
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Foreign dependance is just false. In own country produced coal is clearly less foreign dependant than importing uranium.
All your other points are up for debate and by far not as black and white or right and wrong as you seem to believe.
We are yet to see these fancy schmancy super reactors online in Europe. Just about every new nuclear construction site in Europe in the past 15 years has become nothing short of a financial bottomless pit.
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What does Chernobyl have to do with Germany deciding to appease a few billionaires and burn more coal?
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I'm not aware of those billionaires caring whether they get paid to burn coal or paid to build solar farms.
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Nuclear plants are uneconomical and produce nuclear trash we dont have the storage for. It was the best decision we could do shutting them down. Lemmy and reddit are so far into nuclear power propaganda they dont even see the actual mistake we made. It was not to shut down nuclear. It was stopping investing in our very successful solar tech.
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produce nuclear trash
If by "trash" you mean "free energy".
we dont have the storage for
Dig hole -> put stuff in hole -> cover hole -> wait a few years -> dig stuff out of hole and use in newer, more efficient reactors
in our very successful solar tech.
You mean the solar tech that requires rare earth minerals and causes untold damages in mining?
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I don't think german engieneers are worse than russian ones in terms of extracting good stuff from "trash".
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Yeah at a key moment. Why did they pull the plug? Germany was on track to be the world leading solar producer...
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We can not use nuclear energy as long as we do not know what to do with the waste. IMHO it's as easy as that.
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We've known what to do with the waste for a long time now. Also, when you use fossil fuels you're just directly polluting the environment.
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There is no current facility for storing nuclear waste in a safe manner in Germany. Most of the high level waste is stored on the surface near the waste production sites. Let's take a look at the dangers of plutonium-239: If inhaled a minute dose will be enough to increase the cancer risk to 100%. If ingested a minute dose is almost as dangerous because of it's heavy metal toxicity. It's half life is about 24k years. "It has been estimated that a pound (454 grams) of plutonium inhaled as plutonium oxide dust could give cancer to two million people." (1) So IMHO it's very irresponsible to create more nuclear waste, as long as we as a society have no way to get rid of it in a safe manner. 100% renewable is achievable and I think we should concentrate on this path since it will be safer and also cheaper in the long run. (2)(3)
Sources:
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239
2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
3: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
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You can put nuclear waste in a box and decide what to do with it later. CO² is less helpful that way.
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We currently do not know what to do with the waste from coal and other fossil fuel plants either though. At least nuclear waste is local and manageable. Dumping all the fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere is not working well, and is almost impossible to clean up.
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This is true and that's why Germany decided to phase out fossil fuel and nuclear power production. Fossil fuel based power plants will be phased out 2038 and Germany aims to be climate neutral by 2045 using a mix of renewables and green hydrogen power plants.
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This is an interesting documentary about the topic: Into eternity. The documentary has a depressing and ephemeral feeling, but I find it extremely amusing that we are taking steps to protect people that will live thousands of years from now.
Taking decisions like "nuclear or not nuclear", "how to dispose the waste", etc. is hard, but doing so ignoring the people that invest their whole life studying the topics is just dumb.
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I do think we should protect coming generations from our nuclear waste and I do not think this is ridiculous at all. In the same way we should leave our children with a world with a livable climate we should not leave them with a heritage of tons of highly radioactive material stored on the surface because we have no long term storage facility.
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Putting it in the ground is a viable solution. And it doesn't damage the environment for it to be in there and it's not like it's going to escape.
At some point in time will develop the technology to do something else with it but for now putting it in big concrete containers underground is a viable solution.
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France and Japan just fire more reactors with the waste. Been doing it since at least the 70s
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Meanwhile Germany has more than twice the renewables than the US (and still more than their renewables and nuclear combined), and is set to quit coal entirely by 2038. Still too slow, but how about instead of shilling the dangerous¹ technology that is nuclear, you start pointing fingers at those doing next to nothing to change for the better?
¹ not necessarily during regular operations to regular people. But since Germany doesn't have uranium it would introduce foreign dependencies, nuclear power plants are high value targets both for terrorism and state warfare, as seen in Ukraine. There is no safe way to store nuclear waste long-term. Mining of uranium is furthermore massively harmful to workers and the environment.
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The UK hit zero coal in 2020 without even trying. 2038 is actually a piss take. If you used nuclear like France and China you would be able to do it much sooner lol.
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Oh, it's bullshit, don't get me wrong. But nuclear is not changing that, the UK has less than 10% as well.
Besides, nuclear power station take a minimum of 20 years to construct, so even if we reversed course, we wouldn't have them running until the 40s. Contrast that with less than 5 for most renewables. Nuclear is also really expensive, so we could instead invest the money into a better and more flexible grid.
Nuclear is not the answer to climate change. Let existing plants run until coal is gone, then shut them off in favor of renewables.
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Everything we do is harmful. Using more coal is even worse. The very dirty coal that Germany is using worse worse. Depending on the method of mining coal, it is massively harmful to the workers. I don't think the method Germany is using is as bad as say the method the Appalachian miners used.
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That's why Germany wants to phase out coal next after nuclear energy production has been phased out in 2023. In 2038 coal is planned to be completed passed out and be replaced by climate neutral energy consisting of renewables and green hydrogen gas power plants until 2045.
BTW mining uranium is in no way better than mining coal: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-are-health-and-environmental-impacts-mining-and-enriching-uranium
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Yes, let's reverse that and and make ourself dependent from Russia again...
Also, coal production has been doing nothing than falling since we made the switch. Renewables have been the major energy source 2023, for the first time, and are only prosepected to grow, while Germany is transitioning away from coal. One of the main reasons for the increase in coal in 2022 were the outages of frech nuclear plants...
After coal-fired power plants in Germany ramped up their production in 2022 due to outages of French nuclear power plants and distortions in the electricity market caused by the war in Ukraine, their share in electricity production fell significantly in 2023. Due to the drop in exports of coal-fired power and this years favorable wind conditions, electricity generation from coal-fired power plants in November 2023 was 27% below the generation in November 2022.
You can look at the graphs here to see how coal is already back to where it was pre-shutdown.
And as can be seen here, Germany has been able to cover their baseload only with renewables more and more. This is expected to increase, as renewables are growing and battery technology advances.
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Germany is still entirely dependent on Russian LNG, so not sure what you're talking about there. Also, seems like you conveniently forgot that Germany imports electricity from France where most electricity production is done using nuclear power
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/germany/electricity-imports-and-exports/electricity-imports-france
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Germany imported Electric from France during summer 2023, due to lower energy costs in neighboring countrys and high Co2 certificate prices.
In total, Germany has been a net Exporter for Energy in 2023.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/germany/electricity-imports-and-exports/electricity-balance-france
And while Germany has been an importer from France in general, this switched in 2022 when France nuclear reactors had to be shut down due to a record warm summer, showing how nuclear is not fit to withhold the stresses of the climate crisis upon us.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/germany/electricity-imports-and-exports/electricity-balance-france
As too your other statement I'd like to ask for a source. I found nothing pointing towards this.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-imports-from-russia/
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Last summer France imported large amounts of electricity from neighbours. Dry hot summer make rivers run dry which causes reactor shutdowns while demand is high because of airco. More solar in the french mix woild have filled the gap.
There is no 1 single magic bullet in the energy situation. It's an energy mix and always will be a mix. Nuclear is not the one magic fix it all today solution.
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Yes, let's reverse that and and make ourself dependent from Russia again...
You mean gas?
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I understand and support the idea. Even though nuclear power can significantly reduce carbon emissions, it might put lives of millions at risk
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It might out millions of lives at risk (extremely low risk) whereas we know that CO2 from burning coal is putting billions of lives at risk.
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People are really bad at calculating risk. Everyone will die from climate change. Some people might die from a radioactive leak.
Climate change is this nebulous thing that feels impersonal and a lot of people kind of don't even really believe in so they think it's an acceptable compromise.
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"we should use nuclear because coal is bad" flawless logic
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It's making fun of Germany shutting down nuclear plants and then making up the difference with coal and other worse polluting options
Setting aside the usual discourse around STARTING to use a nuke plant: shutting one down to be replaced with coal or similar is objectively the bad environmental move
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surly the solution is green energy sources and cutback on energy consumption and not nuclear.
Because
- it takes 10-20 years to build a nuclear powerplant, so it doesnt solve anything today.
- it cant be run profitable unless the taxpayer pays for the construction and the deconstruction and the disposal of the waste,
- it needs a huge amount of river water for cooling which is not safe for climate catastrophe, because the rivers dry up at least temporarily, e.g. france
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Yes, because nuclear is significantly cleaner, safer, and provides more power than any alternative.
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I don't think that it's safe. I do think having sixteen intermediate storage facilities on the surface with high level nuclear waste is a massive security concern that we should address immediately. As long as we don't have a long term solution in Germany, we should not produce more nuclear waste. That's why it has been such a long running open question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_management
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206 comments
What comes out of a coal power plant is unburnt coal, which will contain some amount of carbon 14 which is slightly radioactive.
What comes out of a nuclear power station is water vapor. Which is not even slightly radioactive.
Therefore coal power stations output more nuclear material than nuclear power stations, which output none. We live in a world of idiots.
I think we should include nuclear waste in the output calculation of nuclear power plants. Just the high level waste from nuclear power plants is hundreds of thousands times more radioactive and toxic than coal plant output.
But your are right, we should move away from both of these: coal and nuclear power. And this is actually exactly what the German people want and what the government has decided. Ending coal burning is scheduled for 2038 and complete switch to renewable energy production is scheduled for 2045. This is called the Energiewende (Energy Transition) and here is the government's page on this topic: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte/klimaschutz/faq-energiewende-2067498
Google translate: https://www-bundesregierung-de.translate.goog/breg-de/schwerpunkte/klimaschutz/faq-energiewende-2067498?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Germans agree with this policy and we even want it faster: https://www.fr.de/wirtschaft/78-prozent-der-deutschen-wollen-eine-schnellere-energiewende-zr-92219363.html
Google translate: https://www-fr-de.translate.goog/wirtschaft/78-prozent-der-deutschen-wollen-eine-schnellere-energiewende-zr-92219363.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Fission is still much less impactful in terms of environmental damage and hazard in the transitionary period.
2038? My country stopped burning coal in 2020. This is a piss take by nuclear haters.
But burning natural gas is still a-ok under this plan.
Sure, but the difference is unburnt coal is a negative externality, and nuclear waste is a negative internality (I don't think this is a word, but it should be). Unburnt coal is not handled by the people producing it, and it's forced on everyone else. Nuclear waste is easily controlled and managed, and paid for by the people producing it. That's part of the reason nuclear costs what it costs. It doesn't hurt anyone and takes up a very small amount of space. Contained in a concrete container, you can stand around it, lick it, or do whatever else you want with it with essentially zero risk. The biggest issue with nuclear is just the bureaucracy that makes them take so long to build that they can't help with the current issue, and that's also why micro-reactors are being looked into more seriously lately.
The half life of C14 is about 4500 years. Due to the age of coal, generally millions on years it tends to contain crazy small amounts of C14, just like petrol.
Crazy small amounts is still a larger amount than zero.