As EU is asked to mobilise all available energy, anger at Germany grows | Hacker News Reader

As EU is asked to mobilise all available energy, anger at Germany grows

euractiv.com

29 pointsDma54rhs58 comments

Are there any German's that can give some context as to why the rest of the ruling coalition don't just turn around to the greens and tell them to go stuff themselves and keep the nuclear power plants running for another couple of years. Are there no other possible partners or is it politically impossible to break coalition agreements I Germany? I'm assuming that the German greens are not amenable to reason when it comes to nuclear powerand pollution.

Populism. The average European is afraid of nuclear energy. Pleasing your potential voters is much easier than educating them.

There is no average European, I know at least 2 very different countries (France and Romania) where nuclear energy is popular.

It’s become vogue to blame everything on populism. This sounds like too simplistic of an excuse, and not even a real answer to OP’s question.

Not German but the issues here are generic. If they could do that it almost by definition wouldn't be a coalition. Nuclear is apparently a red line for the Greens. If they were to be kicked out of government then that government would collapse. Forming new governments can take a very long time in European PR systems - half a year isn't unheard of. The choice here is really one of either:

1. Convince the Greens to change. If they do they'll probably be destroyed at the next election, because they have relatively few well known positions and they already abandoned some of them. If they abandon their opposition to AKW then they will be left with nothing.

2. Collapse the government, meaning no decision making ability at all.

The latter may potentially open up the possibility of new alliances, but they would be between ideologically opposed parties and therefore highly unstable. Lesser of two evils, right?

I believe France is the only smart country in Europe (and maybe the world) when it comes to energy. They have built and still use nuclear instead of going all into green. Nuclear is a great bridge to when green energy is able to scale up.

And I agree, why Germany is disabling nuclear now is crazy, even Japan is looking again at nuclear, and I think they will restart one of their reactors. If any country has a good reason to avoid nuclear it is Japan. Why, Japan is right on the "ring of fire".

No, they kinda also failed with it. They had the capacity, but they didn't continue to replace it or keep reasonable level of skill for producing new plants. Now the fleet is aging and showing issues all at the same time.

I'm not sure there is any countries that have done particularly well with their production or networks. Norway and Sweden both have hydro, but have failed to upgrade their North-South(substantial distance) grids to sufficient capacity.

France having gone the extra 2000 miles & building breeder reactors is chef kiss. It's much harder, but using more than 1% or 2% of the energy in the fuel & burning your wastes feels like the only acceptable long term solution. Storing vast quantities of nuclear waste indefinitely, as most reactors do, is something we are still bad at, will probably never be good at, and is a problem that will far outlast any kind of imaginable forseeable future. The only responsible path seemingly available is to burn up transuranics & other waste, to build fast reactors.

But that doesnt seem to be where nuclear design has headed. Cheaper plants that externalize the infinitely long storage costs seems to be the reckless path we're on. We should do nuclear, but do it well, that doesnt spawn vast nuclear waste storage problems.

Ukraine shows how fragile and dangerous the reliance on reactors is. If the world can't behave responsibility.

The long term costs of nuclear are just crap. You would be better investing in battery tech to store renewable energy.

The likelihood of a meltdown that causes contamination into the atmosphere at that facility is extremely unlikely even if the reactor is bombed.

If power is disrupted, there is 2 weeks of fuel to power the cooling mechanism. If that fails there will be a meltdown inside the reactor but unlike Fukushima there is no possibility of a hydrogen explosion in this type or reactor. The meltdown will be contained in the reactor. If now the reactor is bombed there is a possibility of radiation escaping but it takes a lot. Additionally the winds blow towards Russia so this would be a very foolish endeavor and everyone knows it.

The Ukrainians are bombing it because Russia is using it as a launch pad but they also know that a Fukushima or Chernobyl is almost impossible.

Thanks to nuclear Ukraine was (is?) selling electricity to the EU even during this war. Their nuclear power-stations has shown surprising resilience.

Long term is exactly where nuclear rules.

It'd better be, since the radioactive waste will have to be stored for a million years, which is many times the age of homo sapiens.

Of course we have to hope for technical advances to convert it to a more manageable form.

> millions of years

Ridiculous. From NRC:

“ Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure.”

Go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You see people. WEIRD!!!!

You quoted me and changed the text in the quote.

Have a look here for a source for a million years:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2019/11/26/the-stag...

> Of course we have to hope for technical advances to convert it to a more manageable form

What do you mean by that? Dry-cask storage is very manageable and have been used for decades.

> radioactive waste will have to be stored for a million years

Uranium-235 is a naturally formed isotope of uranium, and it has a half-life of 703 million years. In a nuclear reactor, U-235 is split into many different fission products such as Caesium-137, Caesium-135, Zirconium-93 and many others. The longest living fission product is Iodine-129, which has a half-life of about 1.57 million years.

In essence, we have high-radiation and high half-life isotopes naturally formed everywhere on earth. Once they are mined and burnt in a fission reactor, these stable isotopes are split them into many different isotopes, which last for a shorter amount of time. It is a little bit nonsense to say we need to store it for a million years. It would be the same as saying we currently need to store U-235 for 703 million years.

It is all about concentrations and the type of radiation that is emitted. Nuclear waste is not "a problem" - it is a process. Right not it is safe, relatively cheap and somewhat efficient.

The earth has stored nuclear elements for millions and billions of years. It is thought that in some places naturally occurring nuclear reactors have happened.

Of course, the civilization needs more orderly storage and disposal, and nuclear waste can be polluting but it is also the thing that is produced by completely natural processes. Some places have higher levels of radioactive radon gas produced by radioactive decay of elements deeper underground.

Ukraine showed that renewable policies are non functional since everybody was using gas as a backup source...

The whole war itself is partially due to Germany's dependency to gas

It's a very good example of long term strategic thinking.

They looked at their options and decided that nuclear was the best way to produce the electricity the country needed while keeping a maximum of independence by minimising imports of fossil fuels (especially from 'unreliable' countries), so they went all in and kept to it.

It is good yes, but, EDF is now basically bankrupt and was in dire straits even before the sanctions on Russia. French energy policy involves making massive losses, so the nuclear may be sustainable from a fossil fuels perspective but financially it's something else.

Governments distorting the market do not negate the value of nuclear energy. France have many sectors involving massive loses on purpose, not because they are not economically viable.

Well, part of that issue is coming from a requirement to sell electricity below production cost to "competitors"

France has their own issues as well, the greens manage to convince everybody renewables would take over and replace the existing grid, the public is waking up now but it's a bit late to save this winter.

Rightfully so. Merkel c.s. sold us out for her idealism. The "green" ideologists should be held accountable for this mess together with the ECB..

Germans are living beyond their means. 10 years of austerity should fix it.

It seems that the public doesn't understand the nature of industrial civilization. Clearly this is going to have disastrous consequences in the near term future.

Management by fear just doesn't work, it's how we got here.

These texts implicitly calling for Germany to abandon it's policy of leaving nuclear energy in the dustbin of history are getting tiresome. It is as if the literati don't realize that it is a lethally hazardous source of energy that has the potential to lay the continent barren, given a the right conditions.

Conditions like coordinated terrorist attacks, natural disasters, technical mishaps. And like war.

Now war in continental Europe has of course been unthinkable for a long time. Well think again. In spite of the obviously untenable situation in Zaporizhzhia playing out in real time right before our eyes we still have people calling for more nuclear. It's outrageous.

So in my mind, Germany is doing the right thing. In spite of Russia doing their best to prove that Europe needs this vulnerability they are leading the way towards the new economy that spells self reliance and resilience. The type of centralized energy production that nuclear represents is a defense liability, in addition to a health and environmental hazard for thousands of years to come as far as we know now.

Dude what are you talking about?

Nuclear power is the safest known form of energy, statistically speaking.

Even the worst nuclear energy disasters in history killed like 50 people, whereas millions die from fossil fuel air pollution every year.

Statistically speaking? I have read somewhere that you are more likely to be killed by a meteor impact than winning the jackpot in ⟨some lottery⟩. Statistically speaking, that is nonsense. Nobody is known to have been killed by meteor impact, but many people have won the jackpot. I don’t know if the claim is true or not, but if it is, it is because some possible meteor impacts could kill millions, possibly even billions. They are just too rare to show up in a statistically meaningful way yet (fortunately). I hope the relevance of this example to the discussion of nuclear safety is obvious. I believe the technical term is “long tails” (of a probability distribution). Long tails are notoriously difficult to reason about.

This is not to say that I am absolutely opposed to nuclear power, but I don’t think the debate is easily settled one way or the other.

see my answer to rogerkirkness

Unless there are hard safety reasons it does not make any practical difference to Germany's policy of leaving nuclear energy whether they close their few remaining nuclear power plants now, next year, or in 2024.

But it makes a big difference to energy production through this winter, in the middle of a big energy crisis.

So IMHO, Germany is again putting ideological and domestic political concerns before realism and a pragmatic approach.

You know what's vastly, profoundly worse for the environment than any nuclear accident? The fossil fuels that nuclear power could have replaced 50 years ago.

No plausible amount of Chernobyls would have collapsed ocean phytoplankton levels, or destroyed the entire Great Barrier Reef.

Agreed we need to move off fossil fuels. Nuclear never had the potential to replace fossile fuels though, not 50 years ago, and not now IMO. Fossil fuels can only be replaced now with recent advances in electrification of transport and industry, and a general awareness about the climate impact that the burning fossil fuels has.

The question is where do we get the energy to power this electrification? Through a potentially hazardous, expensive technology like nuclear or through cheap, safe and environmentally friendly, sustainable sources like sun, wind, wave and deep geothermal? The answer will become evident in the next decades, but I know what I'm rooting for at least.

And oh, you might like to hear that the entire Great Barrier Reef is not really destroyed, yet. But we need to act soon, in the right direction.

Why can't we get the energy from all these sources? Investing in solar, wind, nuclear etc. are not mutually exclusive.

Because nuclear is hazardous, and because of that, also vastly more expensive. The people here that claim it isn't a patently dangerous source of energy are not being honest IMO, maybe not even to themselves.

It is not so dangerous though, it’s one of the safest energy sources together with wind and solar.

https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Oh, please. You say "It is not so dangerous" (note the it is) and then refer to a webpage that makes some handwavy aggregation of deaths and attribute them to this or that source of energy, based on the events up to now. That may or may not be accurate (probably not), the real problem with nuclear is not the disasters that have happened so far (and are still ongoing), it is mainly what potentially can happen.

I say so without diminishing the fact that people have heroically sacrificed their health and lives in order to prevent even greater disasters at primarily Chernobyl and Fukushima [0]. Or that we are no longer able to eat wild mushrooms in large swathes of Sweden where I live because of the fallout in 1986, and much of the hunted game, especially wild boar, is not fit for human consumption. [1]

It honestly doesn't impress me much when people simply spout the industry talking points seemingly without even considering that there is a risk involved: 'here, look at this website it says "safe"'. The wikipedia entry on the debate is more like what one could expect from otherwise thinking people: there are some pros and grave cons [2]. The pros are in my opinion negligible, now that we have safer and cheaper sources, and nuclear can be scrapped in an orderly fashion, for example by demanding that each plant starts paying their own insurance cost. Which would make the whole thing economically unsustainable because the insurance companies would charge an insane premium. [3] Which says it all really.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/chernobyl-volunteers-divers-...

NB: Both Chernobyl and Fukushima are at the top level 7 of the International Nuclear Event Scale, which is a good reminder that those things that the nuclear industry say can never happen, actually do happen. Anyway, it's just Murphys law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sc...

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/06/08/chernobyl...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_debate

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...

So exactly how do you propose we calculate how dangerous nuclear power is except for deaths per TWh up to now? You keep claiming how dangerous it is, yet you post no numbers at all. Perhaps because the numbers don't look so bad?

If certain species of wild mushrooms now being inedible in the Scandinavian wilderness is the worst you can come up with, considering how much life nuclear power has given by keeping us warm and fed, well I consider it a pretty decent trade off.

FWIW I work in the energy sector(with wind power no less) and how people can still have such strong anti-nuclear opinions boggles my mind. We need every non-fossil energy source up and running ASAP, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, all of it.

> If certain species of wild mushrooms now being inedible in the Scandinavian wilderness is the worst you can come up with

OK, tror inte vi kommer längre här Gud. Ha en god kväll.

Detsamma!

The Great Barrier Reef is not destroyed, it's in excellent health. From the Australian government:

https://www.aims.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-08/AIMS_LTM...

"In 2022 the GBR continues to recover, registering the highest levels of coral cover yet recorded in the Northern and Central regions over the past 36 years of monitoring. While recovery continued on many Southern GBR reefs, regional coral cover declined slightly due to ongoing outbreaks of crown-of-thorn starfish."

The idea that the reef is being destroyed by global warming has been proven false. When examined closely it turns out to be have been based on extremely low quality research. Data about the reef was only collected for short periods of time before scientists became willing to make very long term projections.

Another big reason why people incorrectly believe CO2 has destroyed coral health was fraud by scientists:

https://www.science.org/content/article/star-marine-ecologis...

Among the papers is a study about coral reef recovery that Dixson published in Science in 2014, and for which the journal issued an Editorial Expression of Concern in February. Science—whose News and Editorial teams operate independently of each other—retracted that paper today.

The investigative panel’s draft report, which Science’s News team has seen in heavily redacted form, paints a damning picture of Dixson’s scientific work, which included many studies that appeared to show Earth’s rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels can have dramatic effects on fish behavior and ecology. “The Committee was repeatedly struck by a serial pattern of sloppiness, poor record keeping, copying and pasting within spreadsheets, errors within many papers under investigation, and deviation from established animal ethics protocols,” wrote the panel, made up of three UD researchers.

Nuclear is probably the safest form of energy possible next to deep geothermal, if you include the damage done to humans involved in the production of solar panels. Germany is choosing to regress itself into a pre industrial society with no upside.

It is still incompatible to our current system. Allthough there are very efficient solution to recycle nuclear garbage and bring it on faster decay chains, this process is messy and nobody wants to really touch it. We have the capability, but there is little money to be made and it comes with insane liabilities. Politicians would need to create a robust and efficient framework, but it is more lucrative to move the waste around with ever exploding costs and fear monger towards the public. We will never see this clearly.

Oil can be bought by the barrel and moved around the globe quite easily, while the carbon footprint can be blamed on any of the producer or you the customer. Wind energy and solar can be injected without much care and little regulation. Both can make a ton of money and need little care. A nuclear driven hydrogen and methanol economy on the other hand, that disposes of the waste with complicated processes, is expensive, complicated, thankless and nearly impossible. Especially with an ever changing political framework.

Well it is "probably safe" until some even greater catastrophe then the ones hitherto occurs, then it isn't probable any more. Nuclear has that potential, and if you deny that then you are either ill informed or dishonest.

Deep geothermal is what will probably totally obliterate any lingering doubts about the blessings of nuclear, so I'm fairly optimistic about where this is heading.

Calling people names for disagreeing with you generally doesn't fly here, you need to justify your arguments.

Nuclear has gotten safer over time, as the failure modes have become better understood, and it's always been considerably safer than fossil fuels. There simply isn't any justification for your wild fear mongering.

Well, agree that name calling is not acceptable. But you know, another thing that doesn't fly is mischaracterizing someone's comments. If you mean my "ill informed or dishonest" remark qualifies, then I will dispute that. But I believe "wild fear mongering" fits the bill, but that wasn't my comment however.

I think we have already faced the worst possible failure mode with Tsernobyl. That is the fuel going up in the air with burning material. Can't get any worse than that, and compared to produced electricity it resulted in not that many deaths.

It's nuclear or nothing at all. It's nuclear or upper middle class gets energy. It's nuclear or "stoneage-with-smartphones".

It's nuclear or we need thousands of 24/7 on-call maintenance jobs for all the renewables, and the landfills they will produce.

Well, I suspect you just feel obliged to post hyperbole for some reason. But if you actually believe any of that then I hate to break it to you, you've been fooled in that case. None of your statements are true.

Because talking about “laying the continent barren” was not hyperbole.

I must assume you are uniformed about the effects of most or all of Europes nuclear reactors losing their cooling. The relative limited catastrophe in Chernobyl is still rendering wild game in Sweden unfit for human consumption. Maybe you weren't aware?

All the nuclear reactors losing their cooling is less likely than global thermonuclear war. Actually, one nuclear reactor in the middle of war losing its cooling and going off is less likely than global thermonuclear war.

Source: recent events. Putin is out of control and has made numerous threats of global-scale retaliation. Zaporizhzhia NPP has made no threats, and is under control and ready to take offline.

Chernobyl is still rendering wild game in Sweden unfit for human consumption.

Not really true. Yes you can still measure heightened Cesium levels in wild game, as well a fish and mushrooms. However Those levels are consistently below the levels set as safe for human consumption in basically all game. The only exception are the levels in wild mushrooms and animals that eat a lot of wild mushrooms (like wild boar in certain areas)

This was even true 10 years ago [0]

[0] https://svenskjakt.se/uncategorized/sparen-efter-tjernobyl-f...

What wild game is unfit for human consumption in Sweden because of Chernobyl?

Not the person you were asking but wild boars in Southern Germany are still considered unfit for human consumption because of soil contamination in forests.

The reason I’m asking is because hunting wild game in Sweden is very common and the parent poster made it sound like the consequences of the radiation fallout is a lot worse than it actually is.

Edit: It seems the case is similar in Sweden. Wild boar in the regions hit hardest by the fallout is not safe to eat.

https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/press/nyheter/2021/...

For those unaware: the reason boar are singled out is that they forage by digging up the ground, so they're more likely to be directly affected by contaminated soil, even if the contamination would normally be underground at this point.

I'm not sure what the situation is with burrowing animals like rabbits but I'd wager the problem with boar is also that they are more likely to actually ingest contaminated soil in addition to simply being covered in it.

They're not? So how come nuclear reactors keep ticking for decades while photovoltaic properties whither away, wind turbines are taken offline for maintenance, and hydropower plants are a geographic rarity?

Most importantly, an NPP does not depend on constant and timely supply chains. You don't care if Asia embargos the west or any scenario like that.

> You don't care if Asia embargos the west or any scenario like that.

You wouldn't?

Russia and Russian allies control close to 70% of the world's uranium exports (2018) [0]

"Only a handful of facilities in the world convert milled uranium into uranium hexafluoride; Russia produced approximately one-third of the 2020 supply, much of it made with uranium from Kazakhstan. Russia also has 43% of the global enrichment capacity" [1]

"The Biden administration reportedly is considering nuclear sanctions on Russia. U.S. utilities oppose this step for fear that it would make uranium fuel scarcer and more expensive. Many U.S. nuclear plants are already struggling economically." [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...

[1] https://theconversation.com/russias-energy-clout-doesnt-just...

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