Germany to abandon nuclear power by 2022
- Thread starter DarthTom
- Start date
Big advances have been made in the efficiency and cost of solar but like wind it's still beholden to climate conditions to be an effective alternative.
I still maintain that for most communities, natural gas is the most cost effective and environmentally 'safe,' choice for the next 20-30 years.
Unless your blessed with Geo-thermal energy like say, Iceland, you are going to be hard pressed to make large inroads in power generation with "renewable" energy for the following reasons.
1) They have variable power generation, some days they produce tons of power, some days none at all.
2) They have a tendecy to produce power at non-peak hours.
3) Windmills kill a lot of flying wildlife, and solar cells produce tons of nasty chemicals.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of solar cells or windmills to lower a building's use of the power grid, but you will need main baseline power generation, and that will come though Coal (which is a nasty form of power), natural gas (which is really clean but limited), or Nuclear (which scares the bejebers out of a lot of people, even if coal kills tons of more people each year and sickens tons of people with bad air.)
The Japanise plants where sceduled to be shut down soon as they where out of date, and they where not designed to deal with a tsunami that was three times higher then the historical record. The failures are specific to issues to the Mark I boiling rectors, not the more common PWR designs.
Renewable energy is a good investment. I'm not claiming otherwise. But so is nuclear. Diversification is always best in any investment strategy.
That is indeed a problem. Some future nuclear designs would theoretically produce waste that doesn't take nearly so long to decay (< 100 years). Of course, it's hard to move ahead in developing such designs if no one funds the research.
One lesson to take away from this is that nuclear storage is not just fire-and-forget. Monitoring will be required, which is an expense but a manageable one.
That is indeed a problem. Some future nuclear designs would theoretically produce waste that doesn't take nearly so long to decay (< 100 years). Of course, it's hard to move ahead in developing such designs if no one funds the research.
One lesson to take away from this is that nuclear storage is not just fire-and-forget. Monitoring will be required, which is an expense but a manageable one.
Well, Germany's power generation is already rather diversified. I don't really see the problem. I'm also surprised by the international interest (and outrage even in some places, though thankfully not in this thread) this decision is receiving, considering that it's merely a return to the status quo that had been in effect for 10 years. Experts agree that it can be done, although they disagree about how fast it can be done. The date now determined is pretty close to the conservative estimates, though.
"The difference between something that can go wrong and something that can't possibly go wrong is that when something that can't possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." Douglas Adams.
Fuck all that nuclear shit. I don't understand why some people are so obsessed with that.
Fuck all that nuclear shit. I don't understand why some people are so obsessed with that.
It looks futuristic. 
And at the time it looked like a really good idea and the answer to the world's energy problems. But well, it really isn't.
And at the time it looked like a really good idea and the answer to the world's energy problems. But well, it really isn't.
The issue with waste that most folks do not recognize is that the long lived isotopes it is not the radiation that is the biggest concern, it is the fact that these are heavy metals, like lead, and are poison like lead. It is the shorter lived isotopes that produce the heavy radiation and can cause health issues, but storing waste for 90-120 years is not something that is beyond are abilities when the amount of waste is so small.
For example, Denver Co background radiation is (10 mSv) per year, (which is a more then a CT scan) but you don't have people causing a panic over that.
The reason why the Nuclear choice that Germany made is so ill chosen is that the only way to drop the nuclear pie is to build more coal plants, and coal power kills a ton more then nuclear. It just that its old fashioned and doesn't scare people.
For example, Denver Co background radiation is (10 mSv) per year, (which is a more then a CT scan) but you don't have people causing a panic over that.
The reason why the Nuclear choice that Germany made is so ill chosen is that the only way to drop the nuclear pie is to build more coal plants, and coal power kills a ton more then nuclear. It just that its old fashioned and doesn't scare people.
It looks futuristic.
And at the time it looked like a really good idea and the answer to the world's energy problems. But well, it really isn't.
Exactly. Didn't you know, all nuclear power plant workers use Ipad 2's on their job and have the entire Trek collection on DVD blueray.
Am I remembering correctly that Austria have no nuclear tech? And instead you're energy dependent on gas piped over from Russia.
There was an incident last year iirc, where Russia reduced the supply to eastern europe, and Austria was forced to rely on what it had in storage. Earlier this month there was a story in the news of how Russia is again short of gas and that they may have to reduce exports.
That was a small protest organised by campact. They demanded a faster exit from nuclear power.
Yes, Europe and for that matter Japan has very few good alternatives to nuclear as a 'home grown,' alternative. Whereas here in the US we have an abundance of natural gas.
I certainly understand why the French rely on nuclear power for the majority of their electrical production.
It just seemed odd to me when I read this story that Germany of all European countries would abandon a power generation source which they've become experts at manufacturing for everyone else.
^I saw a big yellow banner with a skull and thought;
'they must love skulls over there.'
It's not odd at all. Even though we've lost first place to China in recent years, we're still the second largest exporter on the planet, our national economy relies heavily on exporting goods and technology - there is no contradiction here.
There is a huge mid to long term economical benefit to maintaining and strengthening our global technological leadership in terms of renewable energy, but of course the existing know-how on civilian use of nuclear power will continue to be capitalized upon.
No natural ressources and a strategic need for energetic independance.
^I saw a big yellow banner with a skull and thought;
'they must love skulls over there.'
Yes, of course, that's what any sane person would think...
I get it. As I said up thread to count zero. Sell the Americans the big S class Mercedes with the 19 MPG fuel economy and keep the fuel efficient one's for Germans.
Nice lookin out.
Yes, Austria doesn't have any nuclear power plants, since a referendum on that question was extremely narrowly defeated in the 70s and an already built nuclear plant never went online.
I've never heard that there's a big issue with the natural gas supply from Russia though except that Ukraine and Belarus occasionally fuck with the pipelines running through their country. The majority of electricity comes from water power in Austria.