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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

The Fukushima scare. Germany decided to go nuclear free afterward.

I really hate how irrational green groups are on nuclear power generation. And how much the media stokes irrational fears about nuke plants.

There were no deaths directly attributable to radiation exposure (although 300 Tepco workers were exposed to above lifetime legal limit radiation). WHO estimated life time risk of thyroid cancer for infants in the immediate area increased by 0.5 per cent, relying on the linear no threshold hypothesis (an untested hypothesis that the UN has recently backed away from).

More generally, the IPCC calculated nuclear fission to be the second safest form of power generation in human morbidity and mortality terms end to end, mining to waste disposal (the first being hydro electric). The stupidity of the German decision makes me want to scream.

While Fukushima did not claim lifes, it made a huge area uninhabitable. The public has to suffer the damages, not the company that profited from the plant.

Last time I checked, Germany has infinitesimally small chances of being struck by tsunamis.

Tsunamis yes. But unfortunatly, quite a few studies have proven that the german nuclear reactors are susceptible to earth quakes, terrorists and floods. With almost no precautions taken, the big energy companies have noone to blame but themself.

Yet, a nuclear plant, at a river that frequently floods in autumn, with not-working emergency generators, is in quite a risky position, don’t you think? It’s about the same risky position Fukushima was in.

And most German plants are like that.

Then add the fact that German inspections are a corrupt business regarding nuclear plants, and that the nuclear waste storage was a huge disaster polluting tap water for a large area, and you can see where the problems come from.

Hey I'm not saying that's right. All I'm saying is that responding to Fukushima by shutting down the second safest form of energy production (according to the IPCC), which also happens to emit no CO2, is a special kind of stupid.

Site selection turns out to be pretty important for nuke plants.

The germany decision is not at all stupid once you read up on the Asse II nuclear waste storage site (or, a more fitting name, Asse II ground water contamination site).

One of our largest nuclear waste storages, and it’s all leaking into the ground water.

I read the Wikipedia page but didn't get a great deal of information. From what I gathered, they decided to use a structurally/mechanically unsound abandoned salt mine as an 'experimental waste dump', and now there are concerns that if the mine floods, nuclear waste byproducts will get into the ground water? You're probably more acquainted with the issue so perhaps you can fill in the holes here?

At any rate, shutting down all German nuke plants because of something like this is akin to shutting down all coal mines because someone held a BBQ and accidentally started a fire.

>I really hate how irrational green groups are on nuclear power generation

It was Angela Merkel's decision. She's a physicist.

That's very short-sighted and reactionary. Shame on them. What about the every-other-day Beijing/Shanghai smog scare?

And what about the 20,000 people killed in coal mining accidents every year[0]? What about the 130 million tonnes[1] of radioactive waste[2] produced by coal plants annually? Why are we still building a new coal power plant every other week[3]?

[0]http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595235...

[1]https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-basics

[2]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-r...

[3]http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/as-u-s-shutte...

Welcome to germany, land of the green and people who consider their morality to be superior. We spend $25bn/year to produce 1% of our energy usage by renewables. We shut down our mostly modern atom reactors to burn more coal. We now spend ~30 dollar cent per kilowatt hour to have much dirtier energy than most of the rest of europe. We pay money to our neighbours so they take away our surplus of energy at peaks and push the energy distribution to the limits which results in instabilities. Newbuild house prices have increased by 40% in the last ten years just because of the extremely high energy standards home builders have to adhere too (insulation, stupid energy exchangers et. al)

And all the while we are the only sane people in our own eyes.

> We spend $25bn/year to produce 1% of our energy usage by renewables. We shut down our mostly modern atom reactors to burn more coal. We now spend ~30 dollar cent per kilowatt hour to have much dirtier energy than most of the rest of europe.

This is so wrong I don't know if you're pushing some sort of agenda or just trolling.

Read the facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany

We spend $25bn/year to produce 1% of our energy usage by renewables.

In 2015, the total power generation in Germany was 559 TWh. Renewables amount to about 121 TWh, i.e. about 22%. [0]

Newbuild house prices have increased by 40% in the last ten years

That sounds like a lot. From what I can find, construction prices have increased by about 20% since 2005 -- that goes for virtually all kinds of construction, including road construction[1][2]. Must be all the heat exchangers in those new roads... I'm not sure if that figure is corrected for overall inflation, it doesn't appear to be (cumulative inflation in Germany since 2005 is about 15%[3]).

[0] https://www.energy-charts.de/energy_de.htm [1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Preise/B... [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baupreisindex#/media/File:Baup... [3] http://www.zinsen-berechnen.de/inflationsrechner.php

Yeah you get nice numbers if you ignore the total energy usage. The numbers you gave are only one fifth of Germanys total energy consumption. I was off by 2% though, 3% is covered by renewables. We are not only talking electric, but total energy: heat, oil etc.

http://m.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article156130737/Energie...

Renewable energy is usually only framed in terms of electrical power generation, but taking a wider perspective is sensible.

Primary energy is 3704 TWh[0], so 3% jives with the numbers I gave (so you were off by a factor of 3). 27% of that is heating, 39% transportation. The key to reducing those is gains in efficiency, ie. things like insulation, combined heat and power, renewable heat on the one hand, more efficient cars and more public transportation on the other hand.

[0] https://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Redaktion/PDF/E/energiestatistiken-...

While they doubled down on phasing out nuclear after that, initially Germany's exit was decided upon in '98.

It was a, if not the major topic in the first federal election I was allowed to vote in.

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