It's interesting how Poland's electricity mix has been 80% coal for decades and this passes without comment, but what really enrages some people is a few nuclear power plants in Germany being mostly swapped out with solar and wind energy.
Doesnt seem like environmentalism is really the core issue driving this.
That’s simply untrue. Nuclear reactors are permanently maintained and improved, especially in Germany because of §19a Atomgesetz.
Nuclear power plants can run 60 years and longer. The nuclear reactor in Beznau went first online 1969 and it’s still operational. The reactors Germany is shutting down now went online in 1988 and 1989.
See also: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
Those reactors were never designed to operate this long. As time goes on, you'll run into increasingly rare failures which weren't even considered during their design. Getting replacement parts is going to become increasingly difficult, as you're now looking for a replacement for a one-off part which was created decades ago by a company which doesn't even exist anymore. And you're missing out on six decades of innovation - including safety improvements.
Running reactors well beyond their original design lifespan is irresponsible. We are already seeing this in practice in France: in 2022 28 out of 56 reactors were offline due to technical issues or maintenance. 2023 saw a repeat of this, with 32 out of 56 offline at the same time.
If you want a stable supply of power using nuclear reactors, you're going to have to build new ones sooner rather than later.
Most of our nuclear energy experts are already 50+. New generations are told that the industry is shrinking (unless you move to the forward-thinking PRC).
Also, it's better to be down for maintenance even for small issues than to play fast and loose. Nuclear safety regulations and agencies are generally well respected, and those frequent maintenance downtimes are a sign of that.
Similar to what is being attempted right now with chip production, you could of course try to spin up all of this infrastructure and the required workforce with a ton of public investment. But why do that when you can build perfectly workable solar/wind power plants in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost? Even if Germany would end up importing nuclear power from France, Poland, UK, Sweden, etc. why try to spend a boatload of money and political capital on an industry that those countries are positioned infinitely better to run? (Given all of these countries' problems with nuclear, I doubt that Germany will end up net importer, but that is beside the point).
If people were presenting Poland as the model for environmentalism then that strategy would likely raise even harsher criticism.
Except they didnt. Unlike Poland they reduced the amount of coal they used by rather a lot.
While US media is extremely critical of Germany for "not reducing its use of coal fast enough" it is apparently entirely unbothered by Poland not reducing it at all.
This is the American media feigning environmental concern because Germany was less obedient than Poland in following American foreign policy goals.
In ten years, Poland‘s electricity mix will be much cleaner than Germany‘s.
EXPORTS
In 2021, Poland exported $926M in Electricity. The main destination of Electricity exports from Poland are: Lithuania ($430M), Slovakia ($388M), Czechia ($56.5M), Germany ($28.8M), and Sweden ($23M).
IMPORTS
In 2021, Poland imported $1.45B in Electricity. Poland imports Electricity primarily from: Germany ($911M), Sweden ($299M), Lithuania ($131M), Ukraine ($63.4M), and Czechia ($43.5M).Politically hard to ignore? Yes.
Practicaly hard to ignore? No. Germany doesn't get any tsunamis and even if it did, the consequences of a fukushima level accident every few decades are less bad than the direct pollution effects of coal, even ignoring the CO2.
The next nuclear catastrophe probably won't look like Fukushima or Chernobyl but I imagine it will happen partly as a result of skimped/badly done maintenance on a plant whose operating life has been extended a bit too far.
Separately, that $800B cleanup cost is something some dude pulled out of his arse. The actual latest government estimate was $200B.
Which is almost entirely due to the radiation panic. For example the permanent evacuation (and subsequent need to compensate everyone driven out of their homes) was almost entirely of people in areas were they had aless that 1% extra risk of cancer. And the managers of the decontamination do things like spend years dithering over whether to just release a bunch of contaminated water which would increase locals yearly radiation exposure by under 0.04%.
But lets take those costs as a given. The developed world has around a hundred commercial nuclear reactors and has done so for more around 50 years. The vast majority of disaster cleanup is Fukushima. An extra $2B factored into the cost of each plant to deal with accident chance chance isn't going to break the bank given these things produce around 500B kWh during their life time, which sells on the electricity market for around $50B.
It really does. If you remove the free insurance and let the plants shoulder the full cost it renders an already extremely expensive enterprise completely financially unviable. Thats why governments gave liability indemnification to plants in the first place.
The $800 billion is about more than cleanup costs, fwiw. It also includes stuff like turning on coal power plants to replace the power produced by the dead reactor. It wasnt Japan "overreacting".
All of this has happened before and it will happen again and because appropriately priced insurance WOULD break the bank taxpayers will be on the hook next time. Again.
The latest nuclear bill in America focused entirely on extending the legal lifetime of existing nuclear power plants. Good thing Fukushima's demise wasn't about its age, eh?
That's pretty much Fukushima. It was an old plant, older than Chernobyl by 6 years by date of commissioning. It was supposed to shut down in early 2011, but was granted an eleventh-hour 10-year extension in February that year. The earthquake and tsunami happened a month later, in March.
Granted, it probably wouldn't actually have made any difference as it would have been operating that specific month, but it was still a bit of a "he was only 2 weeks from retirement" moment. Unless actions like moving the backup generators uphill would have been done beforehand if it was known the plant was going to keep going until 2021.
I think what enrages people is that unlike Poland, Germany is actively going in the wrong direction. They are stopping all nuclear power, not just closing old plants. All scientific evidence points to this being a terrible decision.
There's an expectation that Germany has the means and governance able enough to avoid taking disastrous decisions when it comes to fields which are almost entirely technical and non-political. So it was a shocking development, especially coming from a conservative majority that most people would assume would be generally pro nuclear.
Well to be fair, this comment chain was explicitly about Germany. There are lots of bad energy policies.
Germany does not get on iota of good faith on that. They knew.
Not for Japan[1]. The truth is that after Fukushima, the pro-nuclear parties lost a few state elections, which caused them to panic and give up on nuclear. Today, even Japan is over it, but in germany no one wants to admit that mistake.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#Post-Fu...
It's the same reason Iran, Sweden and South Korea maintain a nuclear industry despite it not being particularly economic for any of them. They all have geopolitical concerns that drive them to want to be able to manufacture a nuke at short notice.
Unlike with Sweden, South Korea and Japan we are told to believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear power as a means of being able to acquire weapons.