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Comment by in3d | Hacker News Reader

It will go down to 0% in Germany in several months. Germany is shutting down its last six nuclear power plants and no new ones can be built. Italy, Switzerland and Belgium also want to shut down their nuclear power plants. Shameful, unscientific public opinion in Western Europe despite more people realizing the danger of global warming.

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The mistakes were made 30 years ago and once more after Fukushima. Germany should have gotten off coal first, then nuclear.

Or it should have built modern reactors 20 years ago. Now it's too late, too long and too expensive.

Not being able to eat certain mushrooms or animals for decades in whole regions because of radioactive rain does that to a population yeah.

I still remember the teacher in med school showing us how exclusively eating mushrooms and wild boars[1] while living in a poorly ventilated granite house (radon gas) in eastern France still wouldn’t reach the levels of exposure one would get from the soil in some western parts of France.

It was enlightening, to say the least.

But then, it isn’t really a risk worth taking in any case.

[1]: because one can’t just live on mushrooms, but boars do eat a lot of those

Do you mean the other way around?

This map suggests that western France is fine:

https://www.wsl.ch/en/2020/07/new-map-for-radioactive-soil-c...

This appears to be a map of just cesium, not all radionuclides.

No, just as I meant it. But I honestly don’t remember what the causes where; it was over 10 years ago and lessons were dense in information.

I can only recall a few tidbits here in there, including the specifications of a, as of now probably outdated, surgery probe meant to detect isotopes.

It was awesome! Swappable tips, a main unit on a wheeled stand giving it great mobility and awesome battery life! A great tool! Still don’t get the point of learning about it in first year though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, and throwing dwarves in nightclubs is unethical, even with the dwarf's consent, because human dignity is inalienable.

There are no nuclear plants in Italy producing commercially available electricity AFAIK.

A referendum after Chernobyl forced the Italian government to shut down all nuclear power plants in Italy before the 90s

Eastern will happily pick up the slack on new nuclear power plants and sell that electricity to balance the trade.

Both Czechs and Slovaks are building new nuclear blocks (Temelin and Mochovce) but the progress is slow and riddled by corruption. So it's doubtful they will come online soon.

What's the purpose in shutting them down?

They're mostly old and EOL.

Italy doesn't have nuclear plants.

While I understand the fear of nuclear, especially in Europe where Chernobyl took place, I find it kind of silly that countries like Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, etc are shutting down THEIR nukes, while bordering France (and other countries) who aren't shutting them down.

Do they imagine that the radiation / fallout from their neighbor's catastrophe would respect national borders?

It was and is idiotic populism.

France is pretty much winding their industry down. The only one under construction is Flammanville 3 [0] which is currently projected to cost €19.1 billion compared to the initial budget of €3.3 billion. The current goal is 50% reduction to 2035 with no new plans being decided until Flammanville 3 is completed. [1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Recent...

I'm pro-nuclear but your argument is the same used by people saying "what's the point of my country reducing its CO2 emissions because it's only contributing to X% (X << 10) of global emissions?"

Some of France's neighbor are asking for the shutdown of some nuclear plants. It's much easier to ask this when you don't have any yourself

I'd say the co2 emissions example you quote makes more sense. That's simply "you're asking me sacrifice X in exchange for a benefit Y where Y is very small [because my country emissions are less than 1/30 of China's]".

Co2 emissions are also global and influence some areas of the world more than others; a nuclear fallout would hit primarily France, even though neighbours would be affected as well.

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