France managed to scale nuclear power with the consent of the population, and it's gone fine, but for some reason countries right next door don't see anything worth learning.
I guess you could say the same about America and Canada, but some of us are accustomed to seeing Europeans as more enlightened than us politically. I suppose people around the world are not that different in the end.
Germany's nuclear infrastructure was just as "sustainable" (and that is a strange word for nuclear industry considering the investments, the mining, etc) as the French one, but smaller and entirely civilian.
...Hrrm... There has been a strange clustering of Leukemia in children near Geesthacht, with much fuss about why that could be, and that it can't be at all related to the NPP Krümmel and adjoining research center there.
There has been a tv-documentary by the ZDF in 2006, titled "Und keiner weiss warum... Leukämietod in der Elbmarsch" a few articles in the mainstream media, and some blogposts then.
From my memory it was all very strange, much hush-hush by the local government, defamation of concerned citizens, and even stranger the burning up of evidence in of all possible places, a fire station involved several times with emergencies there. By random chance...imagine....
( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch... /
https://www.atommuellreport.de/daten/detail/forschungszentru... /
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/geesthacht-labor-bestrei... /
https://netzwerk-regenbogen.de/atomgk070413.html )
Also harassment and hampering of scientists which collected ground samples all over the area, and found no lab willing to examine them in all Germany. So they got it done in Minsk, Belorussia. Funny, isn't it?
What was found there where so called 'spherules', not bigger than one millimeter, hollow ceramic spheres, with (meanwhile?) weakly radioactive matter in them.
Obviously artificial. And unknown. Speculation ensues. Micronukes...
Conspiracy!1!!
Interestingly very similar stuff was also found in Hanau.
( www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/hanau-ermittlungen-wegen-radioaktiver-stoffe-im-wald-a-195069.html )
Whatever, call me sceptic regarding 'civilian'. Especially when the names of Kurt Diebner and Erich Bagge are involved :-)
There were never even rumors anybody wanted a nuclear weapons program. No dark funds. The IAEA is also controlling everything. So yes, any such speculation is ridiculous.
Drunken with Jägermeister, or what? And so much more. Some points are listed in the german wiki-article I linked.
I tend to think about that sort of ridiculing the other way around. As ignorance.
Oh, also Franz Yussuf Strauß, err... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Strau%C3%9F
https://taz.de/Franz-Josef-Strauss-und-die-Gelueste-auf-eine...
https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/kalter-krieg-als-die-us-ar...
That is a good thing regarding nuclear energy but much more problematic when it comes to issues like the recent pension reforms.
When Social Security was founded in 1935, the full retirement age was 65, and life expectency at birth was 60. Immigration was, though not at record levels, high. As a result, there were ~147 working people paying into Social Security for every beneficiary.
These days, full retirement age is 67, but life expectancy at birth is now 76.1 (was 78.8 in 2019 - the rapid decline is a completely separate issue that deserves it's own thread). Net immigration into the US is at record lows. As a result, there are now fewer than 3 people paying into Social Security for every recipient, about 2.6 last time I ran the numbers.
The average (mean) check for SS recipients (OASI) as of Feb 2023 is $1,693.88. I could not find numbers for the median SS check.
The average individual income in the US as of 2020 is $53,383, while the 2020 median income was $34,612.
Of FICA taxes, 6.2% each from the employer and employee goes to Social Security, the other 1.45% each is earmarked for Medicare. This does NOT include ordinary federal income taxes, state income taxes, county or city income taxes, etc.
So there is an effective tax rate of 12.4% feeding Social Security. It virtually all goes to OASI (Old Age Survivorship Insurance - "retirement" Social Security, distinct from DI, Disability Insurance, which costs a teeny tiny fraction of what OASI costs).
12.4% of the mean individual annual income of $53,383, divided by 12 to get a monthly value, gives us $551.62/month in Social Security funding from the mean income.
12.4% of the median individual annual income of $34,612, divided by 12 to get a monthly value, gives us $357.65/month in Social Security funding from the mean income.
So right now, there is about: 2.6 × [$357.65 to $551.62] roughly responsible for funding $1,693.88 per person. Now multiply that deficit by 67 million, the number of people receiving OASI. No prize for spotting the problem here.
Raising taxes probably won't help as much as proponents think it will, especially if you were to only raise them on the "rich" by raising or removing the FICA cap. Individually, it would be a lot more from those wealthy folks in theory, but the mega-rich of the world don't receive ordinary income the way us mere mortals do, and thanks to the 6,000+ page tax code, they often end up paying far less than we do as an effective tax rate on their income.
I see two solutions: scrap the absurdly complex tax code so the wealthy actually pay what they should be paying according to progressive tax rates to buy some time, and use that time to start figuring out how to solve the massive logistical complexity problems of spinning down the largest mathmatically unsustainable pyramid scheme in the history of all of humanity, the OASI component of Social Security. Mathematically, there is no need to disturb the Disability Insurance component of Social Security, which also helps those who have a far greater legitimate need for supplemental income than people who want to retire on the taxpayer's dime.
Germany was prevented from having nuclear weapons by various treaties.
You can also see this in the rail networks, if you ignore that france invested more into it's rail there's also a different philosophy. France not only connected major population centres, it is also quite focused on paris. Exactly as some planners, sitting in paris and planning top-down would devise them. Germany tries to interconnect as much as possible, benefitting as many as possible.
A bit more than that. Meat from wild boars in saxony and bavaria must be tested, before it can be sold and they do not disclose how much has to be thrown away.
So how come they're destroying entire villages to mine more coal? Coal, which is far more polluting than nuclear power?
I'm not a fan of nuclear power either, but the German addiction to coal is incomprehensible.
They are the typical union-jobs with large corporations in the background.
Having so much available renewable electricity that German coal plants would almost shut down for a few days would be a newsworthy event. For France not burning coal is just a regular day (except for last year's hiccups).
No. It's also because they moronically shut down nuclear right after Russia happened instead of keeping it longer. Since they can't replace gas too easily, the coal peak will be longer into the future not just current.
>Coal is used to replace gas
No. Coal is used to generate electricity. Do you know what else they could have used to generate electricity? Nuclear.
The reasoning you provided is just the same ol' anti-nuclear propaganda spewed all over German politics and media: "Oh, it's Russia's fault. We can only use coal. Never nuclear."
No, in the first place it's used to generate heat, which is also used for generating electricity, but also to heat up homes and other systems. Nuclear Plants are simply not in a location where they can serve this purpose.
I thought they just restarted old coal plants.
All while accumulating massive debts and deferred maintenance (and relying on german coal).
I'd rather my country have debts than burn coal in large amount for decade (likely decades) to come.
Which makes me think it fails to paint the whole picture, given the events in the following decade. In all dimensions. Be it nuclear phase out, be it geopolitical changes and instability because of war and broken supply chains, be it coal and climate, or the blow-up of Northstream and switching to LNG, be it extension of wind and solar...
Sorry, but mostly useless pretty pictures, considering all the changes that happened meanwhile.
All I can see is:
Russia invaded Ukraine, the great German idea of relying on Russian gas to manage the intermitent nature of Energiewende dreams went down the drain.
Even more coal and lignite were dug up, more burnt ashes with plenty of radioactive particles were put in German air for all to inhale.
LNG terminals were built to import x3 price American shale gas, making our collective CO2 blanket even thicker...
No matter how you see it, the picture is incomplete then, not up to date. That's not a good base for discussion.
https://medias.vie-publique.fr/data_storage_s3/rapport/pdf/2...
Speak for yourself.
Well, it is dangerous and therefore expensive. Mining Uranium is dirty. Handling the waste is expensive. And handling a big accident is very expensive.
The alternatives are just expensive as well and not without risk either.
So sure, big parts of those fears are definitely irrational. The risks of the invisible dangers of things people do not understand. This is always hard, especially coupled with the fear of a nuclear war. It should probably have been propagated more, that radiation is a very natural thing and without nuclear energy, there likely would be no life on earth, as the earth would be way colder, without fission inside the crust (and core?) warming the earth.