German Government Lied About Nuclear
michaelshellenberger.substack.com
michaelshellenberger.substack.com
Here is the real statement of the ministry WITH the nuclear experts from all energy companies. Yes, they could run them longer... two for 80 days in a lower efficiency "Steckbetrieb" and one for ONE year but they all have no certification to run. Expected more from a bestselling author...
https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nuklear...
How is he a “conspiracy nutjob“?
It's his job to create conspiracy nutjobs, so he does sound like one sometimes, like when he writes articles saying that environmentalists don't like nuclear power because they are intentionally trying to destroy modern society.
But he doesn't actually believe any of it, which makes it worse.
There is no electricity shortage in germany, there is a large dependency of the industry on natural gas in production processes. Sometimes used for heating, which might get substituted by elctrical heating. More often gas is used in chemical processes, where there is no direct substitute.
And it could be that those fuel rod offers were refused for a technical reason or something. It feels a bit like we're only getting one side of the story here.
What good is solving nuclear waste storage that might become a problem in a thousand years, if we are done in by global warming (which nuclear can help offset) in a hundred?
And we're not going to be extinct from global warming. It's a huge unprecedented problem but nobody said it's going to wipe us out.
> Through recycling, up to 96% of the reusable material in spent fuel can be recovered.
That 4% is still substantial and very long lived (10,000 year+)
In that case, solar energy isn't long-run sustainable either -- the sun is going to burn out in just a few billion years.
Huh? Current "Western" (= more or less global) civilisation is a direct continuation (via the Renaissance and Enlightenment) of medieval European civilisation, which was a pretty direct continuation (via "Dark ages" and Migration Era) of antique Graeco-Roman civilisation. So a couple millennia, not centuries.
I don't even get that logic. The easy substitution for gas heating is electric heating (all you need is to plug a cheap portable electric heater in a power socket).
[edit] also it seems 12% of the german electricity is generated with gas. So more nuclear should directly translate in more gas available to some other use, shouldn't it?
Therefore any gas freed up, by not being used to generate electricity or heat homes, can be used for those industrial purposes in stead. So using nuclear power in stead of gas to generate electricity, and electricity in stead of gas to heat homes, frees up some gas for industrial use.
Sheesh.
In 2021, gas was used for 17% of the generated electricity [1]. This percentage is artificially high, since CO2 offsets for gas compared to other energy resources made it very attractive.
Adjusting that down, the remaining 10% or so can easily be replaced by other sources, or imported.
OTOH, about 50% of German households are heated with gas. You cannot replace all 200 million of those installations with electric heating (even if we wanted to, electric heating wastes the most energy).
The industry is also highly dependent on natural gas, e.g. to produce glass (including solar panels), or as a raw material, e.g. to produce fertilizer, or other chemicals. That cannot be replaced by electricity. Should those industries not be able to continue working because of a gas shortage, this will have a ripple effect for the whole German economy.
Yet the internet echo chamber mob continues to claim that Germany has an electricity problem, and could just instantly turn off the Russian gas if they'd just switch to nuclear... and you have to tell every single one of the to do some research. The internet has truly become an ugly place.
[1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/03...
Why not? That seems entirely tractable to me, given 4 months and a large enough budget. It’s undesirable for other reasons, sure, but if it’s between literally freezing to death and surviving, I know which one I’d choose.
Everyone who is advocating sanctioning is putting europe in a grave danger. Be it "green" agenda or anti-russian agenda.
Sadly it's the modern way to redistribute wealth.
You might want to check out what they're saying about the rest of Europe.
The conversation is becoming pointless, if you’d like to believe Russia would conquer the whole Europe it’s your choice. My only advice would be to switch off the tv and think.