You're right too. That's why it's a difficult question. But putting lives of millions at the risk of immediate death to save billions' long term health is ehh kinda bad too. It's my personal opinion though
Your personal opinion is wrong, I'm sorry I am being so brash but I don't know how else to say it. The fly ash from fossil fuel combustion contains radioactive material that's spread over an enormous area when it's burnt. The amount of radioactive exposure we receive everyday from burning fossil fuels is orders of magnitude more than all the nuclear accidents combined. As counter intuitive as it is, closing nuclear power plants exposes the general public to more radiation not less.
In my personal opinion, globally humanity should not be building very many new nuclear reactors. Admittedly there are certain applications that nuclear energy is the responsible choice. Renewable energy sources are the clear winner, safe, reliable. Closing the nuclear power plants we have will only accelerate climate change and in a roundabout way expose us to more radiation. I realize that nuclear energy is scary but the dangers we don't immediately see from fossil fuels are worse.
It's not a "personal opinion." And your "opinion" is NOT of equal worth to factual information. You're just trying to save face because you don't like admitting when you're wrong. Maybe find some factual information that backs up your perspective rather than just baselessly claim that nuclear reactors put "millions at risk of immediate death" and run away when you can't back it up. All it takes is a quick google search to disprove how it puts "millions at risk of immediate death."
I have other things to do rather than "saving my face" on a random political forum. I commented using my own personal opinion and I didn't ask for a discussion. Of course most of the people are going to disagree and they do have the right to do so. Also, everyone has their own moral beliefs and value of facts. Mine are just not common
Look, if your personal opinion of the moon is that it's a hologram, it's definitely worth less than, say, Buzz Aldrin's opinion of the moon being made of rock.
I don't know who told you a personal opinion is worth exactly as much as someone else's, but they were wrong.
Giving value to bad opinions like "Oh Trump won we gotta storm the capitol" or "Vaccines cause autism" or "Nuclear is worse than coal" and refusing to engage with all evidence of the contrary and just leaving the conversation by saying "Mine are just not common" is an extremely unhealthy way to be a part of society. I live in Australia and the bush fires are getting worse. There's a noticeable cost of lives and livelihoods. You're not saving millions of lives from a nuclear meltdown by tearing down nuclear plants. You're putting millions of lives in danger from climate disasters by tearing down nuclear plants.
I'd say I define a "personal opinion/belief" and a "scientific fact-proven piece of information" as different things. Personal opinions may be inspired by and dependent on religions, preferences, radical moral positions and other things (fact-proven information can be like that too but it's different). Though I don't know if it's any right
Conflict avoidance does not make you better than the "arguing masses." In fact, it is my opinion that it is quite pathetic to try to place youself above others and I'm getting radical vibes from you.
I don't think this is a credible source. Have you checked who the members of this organisation are?
https://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/membership/our-members.aspx
This is s lobby organisation to support the nuclear power producers.
No, their opinion is worth more than yours because it's better supported by material facts
You're wrong and because you're a deeply unserious person you're trying to exit the interaction without learning or growing as a person by pulling this false modesty bullshit.
It's not a question of either coal or nuclear. We have to get rid of both and that is exactly what's happening in Germany at the moment. 2023 was the end of nuclear power production. 2038 is scheduled to be the end of coal power production and 2045 is scheduled to be the year of climate neutrality. Germany is one of eleven countries to have made this a law.
What does Chernobyl have to do with modern reactors. Not to mention that even Chernobyl was a result of a poorly thought out experiment as opposed to some inherent flaw in the reactor.
German goverment seems to be pretty hazardous to me. This coal shit, participation in Ukraine war, repression of people protesting against genocide in Gaza, supporting said genocide, vassalization to most dangerous belligerent government on Earth...
"So far" is the most important part of that sentence and there are not only countries but also terroristic and radical groups which are much more dangerous for nuclear plants than regular wars
So far, is not really the most important part of that sentence at all as it's obvious that it would help neither side to create a radioactive disaster in a war zone. There is literally zero benefit in destruction of a nuclear facility. And I guess we should just abandon all technology and civilization because spooky terrorists might attack infrastructure.
What like "oops I took a wrong turn and crashed into the core of a nuclear reactor?" We have some revolutionary new technology that they've been cooking up in the lab to help with that, it's called a fence / walll / bollards
Argument has been offered repeatedly and phrased in many different ways. Maybe spend some time working on your reading comprehension than spamming your copypasta here.
I don't think that's true. Instead of offering arguments to support your point in a civil discussion you called me "unable to read", all of Germany "imbeciles" and so on, without ever addressing other opinions or supporting yours with credible sources or arguments
And you are entitled to yours. And I offered arguments and IMHO credible sources to support my view and undermine yours. You did not. So your simply stating an opinion but you do not engage in a discussion.
I did, but you feel free to keep pretending otherwise if it makes you feel better. It's clearly very important to you to feel like you won an argument on the internet.
You keep responding because you're perseverating as evidenced by you regurgitating the same phrases over and over long after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate.
Come on now. I'm sure that anyone who can keep the overview over all the brackets in a line of Lisp code, has the mental capacity to engage in a civil discussion, offer arguments to support their view and cite credible sources. So let's try again.
My argument is as follows:
As long as there is no adequate long term storage facility for nuclear waste, we should not produce more nuclear waste
I've answered this question a number of times in this thread in several different ways. It's pretty clear that there's a communication gap here. I'm not able to express my point any more clearly than I already have.
I'm really curious what it is you're trying to achieve here. If you've stated your arguments, and provided your sources then be confident in the quality of the argument you've made and move on. You're not going to get me to agree with the point you're making or change my point of view. It's just not going to happen. Other people reading this thread can make up their own mind whose argument they find more persuasive.
However, going over and over in circles and regurgitating the same points achieves absolutely nothing. There will be no breakthrough in this discussion. As someone who has mental capacity to write code, I also have mental capacity to detect when a conversation reaches a halting state. It's a skill I'd encourage your to try and develop to avoid wasting your life on pointless discussions.
Nope, I've addressed your arguments repeatedly and early on as anybody reading this thread will be able to see. The rest of this thread has consisted of your perseverating and claiming to be personally attacked. Again, I wonder what you're trying to achieve here.
You have in no way responded to my point that it's irresponsible to produce more nuclear waste while we do not have adequate long term storage facilities. You have not produced credible sources or arguments in favour of your opinion.
I want to achieve a civil discussion as stated before.
The fact that you keep repeating that I haven't responded to your point is precisely why productive discussion is no longer possible. If you want to achieve a civil discussion then you should go back and read my responses, and address them meaningfully.
I don't think that's true. You have on no occasion addressed my argument, that we should not produce more nuclear waste as long as we do not have a long term storage facility. You just said that such a facility can be built, and I agree that it's technically possible, but not politically feasible at that point in time in Germany.
So given the fact that there is no long term storage facility, why do you think that it's still viable to produce more nuclear waste?
That's what you failed to respond to.
Also looking at this discussion you have not once presented data from credible sources to support your claim that this is no issue.
You don't think it's true, and I think it is true. Therefore we're at an impasse here. I've responded to your point repeatedly and in different ways. I told you that Germany could build the facilities and negotiate with other countries that already have such facilities in the meantime. Meanwhile, plenty of sources have been presented in this thread, and I've specifically presented a source discussing nuclear waste storage. Again, I do not see any value in continuing this discussion with you. I'm entirely comfortable with the points I've made here.
There is no imminent threat from nuclear waste in Germany, and Germany has been operating reactors for a while now. So, the claim that all of a sudden it's not possible to do because there's no facility that's up to your standards is just fear mongering. The reality is that Germany simply chooses not to build this facility. Also, maybe should read the links you post as it clearly contradicts your claim:
In addition, the directive also provides for the possibility of transporting spent fuel and radioactive waste to other EU member states or third countries on the basis of bilateral agreements.
Google translate: https://www-bund-net.translate.goog/themen/atomkraft/atommuell/zwischenlager/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Thank you for trying to use arguments and sources.
There seems to be another misunderstanding: The cited directive only allows for transportation of nuclear fuel to other EU member states or third party states for e.g. reprocessing. The responsibility for storing the nuclear waste lies with the producer:
The directive is based on the general principle that ultimate responsibility for the safe disposal of spent fuel and radioactive waste lies with the Member States in whose territory these materials were generated. Specifically, the national framework to be drawn up by the member states must provide that the main responsibility for the disposal of these materials is in principle assigned to the producers. Member States must therefore ensure that anyone who has been granted authorization to carry out an activity related to waste disposal cannot shirk their associated responsibilities
It's the same source:
https://www-base-bund-de.translate.goog/DE/base/bundesamt/aufbau/archiv/bfs-stellungnahmen/DE/2011/02-17-eu-richtlinie.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
What that says is that the responsibility of ensuring safe disposal lies with the states producing nuclear waste. It says nothing regarding where the waste is disposed as far as I can see. So, again, I don't see anything here there precludes Germany from making a deal say with France to dispose of nuclear waste there while facilities are being built in Germany.
Meanwhile, the risks of storing nuclear waste on the surface level are a result of unwillingness to build facilities to store nuclear waste underground. It is a self inflicted problem.
The export of radioactive waste is still authorised but under much stricter rules. A nation receiving highly radioactive waste must have a deep underground repository. Such deep geological repositories do not exist anywhere in the world, the commission said, adding that none is under construction outside the EU. It takes at least 40 years to build one.
Yet, many EU nations use nuclear power, and it accounts for 80% of France's energy needs. So clearly there is a way to store nuclear waste in EU. What makes Germany such a unicorn?
Of course there's a way to store the nuclear waste. It's stored on the surface where it is prone to environmental or other hazards. The majority of German populace don't think this is safe.
BTW France is facing new problems for a couple of years now and had to power down nuclear power plants because the rivers had not enough water to cool them. This will probably happen a lot in the foreseeable future, so e.g. France needs to import power during the summer months.
Again, what's so special about Germany. Do you believe Germans are just more enlightened than the rest of the world and can see dangers nobody else can? Nuclear power is being used safely all over the globe, and the waste is being dealt with. Numerous studies show that nuclear power is safer than most other sources of energy, some of these studies have been linked in this thread.
The problems France is facing aren't unsolvable. Also, there are plenty of different kinds of reactor designs nowadays. For example, China is now starting to build thorium molten salt reactors that don't require water cooling https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3224183/china-gives-green-light-nuclear-reactor-burns-thorium-fuel-could-power-country-20000-years
No, I don't think that Germans are enlightened. But I do think that the protests during the 70s and 80s led to an open public discussion about the risks of nuclear energy production and an increased consciousness of the dangers of nuclear waste.
A rational position is to compare the dangers of nuclear power to other alternatives. The hard data that's available to us shows that nuclear power is one of the safest and most reliable options for producing electricity at scale.
I don't think that's true. Here's a source detailing the dangers of nuclear fission reactors:
https://www-bund-net.translate.goog/themen/atomkraft/gefahren/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Up until the challenger accident space travel using the shuttles was incredibly save as well, when looking only at the accidents that occurred. But I think noone would have declared space travel risk free. There's a different between accidents that actually happened and the risk involved.
It's the same for nuclear waste. The risk is high.
We've already had big accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, and nuclear power continues to be a safe even accounting for these disasters. And it's only getting safer with newer reactor designs. The claim that the risk is high is not evidence based. This is just a neuroticism that appears to be uniquely German.
I don't agree. Calling nuclear power production safe after there have been massive contamination of the biosphere is quite cynical.
It's estimated that tens of thousands people have developed cancer as a direct cause of the Chernobyl disaster:
https://blog.ucsusa.org/lisbeth-gronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated/
Far more people die due to pollution from fossil fuels we're currently using, and far less people would be dying if we were using nuclear instead. That's not even mentioning the whole climate crisis we're already in. Also https://www.wired.com/story/the-chernobyl-disaster-might-have-also-built-a-paradise/
Yes and to reiterate: Being against nuclear power does not make me a fossil power proponent. We have to get rid of both and need to concentrate to transition to 100% renewables.
There are no viable alternatives available despite what people who promote renewables claim. Renewables simply can't produce energy at the necessary scale. This is why China, which is leading the world in producing renewables by a huge margin, is also deploying nuclear at scale. People who claim that we can transition away from fossils to renewables in the timescale we have available are either uninformed or lying.
Recent studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and desalination well before 2050 is feasible.
The track record we have clearly shows otherwise. The only country that's actually meeting climate goals is China, and they are massively investing in nuclear.
Can you provide sources for this claim?
It will not be easy to achieve climate neutrality by 2045 and Germany is currently struggling to achieve this. But I think it's entirely feasible.
Here is a source to back up my claim:
https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Pools/Broschueren/climate_action__figures_2019_brochure_en_bf.pdf
Sorry but I completely lost the overview🤣 it's been some time now and I don't know how many comments us two have posted.
Next time we'll discuss functional vs. imperative programming and it will get even worse, hrhr
That's objectively untrue. The RBMK reactor type as it was used in Chernobyl has a design flaw. It's called the positive void effect:
This positive coefficient was another key aspect of the RBMK in reactor unit 4 of the Chernobyl power plant. In the events of the accident, the excess production of steam (meaning an increase of voids) caused the void coefficient to become unsafely large. When the power began to increase, even more steam was produced, which in turn led to an increase in power.[2] This led the reactor to produce over 100x its rated power output, causing extreme temperatures and pressures inside the core, and causing failure.
The positive void coefficient was directly responsible for the disaster: During low power operations the effect caused water vapour bubbles to be created in the reactor. Because of the lower density of the vapour the moderation of the reaction did no longer work and the reactor spiraled out of control. All the while there was no feedback to the control room about the increased reactivity, so the personal had no chance to assess the situation correctly. This lead to the uncontrolled chain reaction and the explosion of block 4.
After a while Nikolai Steinberg conducted an experiment in the other blocks of Chernobyl which showed that the positive void coefficient was causing the reactor to spiral out of control in low energy production scenarios.
There's a really good documentary about that, but alas it's in German:
https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/tschernobyl-die-katastrophe-paradies-100.html
Nikolai Steinberg also coauthored a book about the accident:
https://www.perlego.com/book/3418623/chernobyl-past-present-and-future-pdf
That's not right. The experiment was conducted after the explosion in an effort to prove Nikolai Steinberg's suspicion that the positive void coefficient caused the disaster. The experiment was a success and Steinberg's suspicions have been verified.
On 25 April, prior to a routine shutdown, the reactor crew at Chernobyl 4 began preparing for a test to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power to the main circulating pumps following a loss of main electrical power supply. This test had been carried out at Chernobyl the previous year, but the power from the turbine ran down too rapidly, so new voltage regulator designs were to be tested.
Exactly and during that test the positive void coefficient caused the reactor to spiral out of control with no feedback to the control room, as detailed in the earlier post.
Here's a paper about that:
https://hal.science/hal-03117177/document
Even the nuclear power lobby organisation World Nuclear Association acknowledges that this is a massive design flaw:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx
The question is how you conduct the tests, and of course we have learned a lot since that time. Modern reactors incorporate these lessons making them much safer.
Fukushima is a reactor design from the 70s, and the risk with that design were identified at the time. Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident. The problem with Fukushima was caused by capitalism.
And by extension I'm saying that it has no relevance when discussing modern reactors which do not have the problems Fukushima reactor had. Meaning that you're trying to use a disingenuous argument to make your point.
I don't agree. I think these accidents should make us aware of the dangers of nuclear power production and that there will always be a risk attached to it. There have been more than 30 nuclear power plant accidents with damage to the environment and the biosphere:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents
I know you don't agree. I've repeatedly stated that this discussion is pointless because we're not changing each other's minds here. It seems like you just want to keep restating what you believe over and over. I don't know to what end however. As the link I provided in the other reply shows, biosphere is doing just fine after nuclear incidents. If anything, it's actually doing better in Chernobyl than it did before the accident because humans are now gone from there.
You do know that the tens of thousands of people who developed cancer in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster are part of the biosphere?
https://blog.ucsusa.org/lisbeth-gronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated/
Do you know that people develop cancer as a result of pollution from fossil fuels? https://www.targetedonc.com/view/fossil-fuels-present-considerable-cancer-risks
Yes and again: Being against nuclear power production does not mean I'm a fossil fuel proponent. I think we have to get rid of both and achieve 100% renewables which is entirely feasible according to recent studies.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
Not a realistic option, especially if you want to have industry. I suppose Germany may just be advocating for NIMBY strategy here though. Perhaps you plan to just deinudstrialize and outsource manufacturing to countries like China so that your energy needs go down enough to make all renewables viable.
I mean we can just look at Germany and how things are going with the transition right now https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/291963-why-renewables-alone-cannot-meet-our-energy-needs/
There are also lots of studies, e.g. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2542435119302144
Research into this topic is fairly new, with very few studies published before 2009, but has gained increasing attention in recent years. The majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable.
Not sure what you're basing this grand assertion that most studies show the transition is feasible and economically viable. For every study that shows this, I can find you one that shows the opposite. In fact, as you admit, this is a new research topic with a lot of unknowns, and we are in a middle of a global crisis that threatens our whole civilization. Using proven technologies that are known to work seems like a far better thing to do than to experiment in a middle of a crisis.
That's a valid point. There is no consensus yet. But what's the worst that would happen if we can't achieved this goal in Germany, when we try? We will buy french nuclear power again. But what happens when it works out? Germany will be climate neutral and will be independent of nuclear power. No fission material is required, no uranium mining will be required for power production. So there's the possibility to mitigate the negative impact of uranium mining, while getting rid of the dangers of nuclear power plants and not creating more nuclear waste for future generations to take care of. IMHO that's a great opportunity that we should seize.
The worst that will happen is that our civilization collapses because we failed to transition away from the use of fossil fuels. Buying energy from France is the best case scenario, using more coal and other dirty fuels if the transition fails is another very likely scenario. And once again, I'll note that there are alternatives to uranium such as thorium. The only reason uranium is used traditionally is because it doubles up as weapons material. Thorium reactors are cheaper, safer, and don't require water cooling. Why not explore all options, and find a mix of solutions that work reliably. In a situation where there are many unknowns, it's generally best not to put all the eggs in one basket.
Hers an interesting article on the dangers of Thorium reactors, including nuclear proliferation concerns:
https://www.nature.com/articles/492031a
Here's an article detailing why nuclear power production is not climate neutral. There a lot of CO2 emissions involved in nuclear power production: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315
Fossil fuel is IMHO no alternative and will only play a minimal role after 2038. Most of the countries, that have pledged to become climate neutral by 2050 will build new nuclear reactors to achieve this. So there will probably be enough energy to go around and Germany can buy such energy if the transition to 100% renewables did not work out as planned. But if it works out we will have a viable way to produce energy in climate neutral way without the hazards that accompany nuclear power production. If this can be proved to work, other countries would be able to emulate this strategy. IMHO this is an opportunity we can not let go to waste.
Every technology has pros and cons. The rational thing to do is to weigh those against each other instead of simply pointing out what the negatives are. Meanwhile, there are also CO2 emissions involved in producing solar panels or wind turbines.
The reality is that majority of western countries continue to miss their pledges to transition from fossil fuels. Given past precedent, I would bet against Germany accomplishing its stated goals by 2038. IMHO gambling with the fate of humanity for ideological reasons is unethical.
The data include accidents. You might feel differently about wind if a loved one died doing a wind turbine installation. The logic goes both ways.
I will reiterate: it's literally safer than wind.
Look at the fucking numbers and not your feelings.
This is the list of the thirty worst accidents in civilian nuclear power plants. These have all been categorised as having caused substantial health damage. There is a definite risk in using nuclear energy
The above data include accidents. You are literally killing people by not going nuclear. Nuclear accidents are highly publicized but if (hypothetically) one person dies for every wind installation but they never make the news, it's a death by a thousand cuts, and nuclear comes out ahead. That is hyperbolic but it's emblematic of the situation, look at the fucking numbers. Nuclear is safer.
It's not a choice of either nuclear or coal power. We have to and we as a society decided to phase both of them out. Because of the concerns regarding nuclear energy production and the waste being produced, Germany opted for phasing out nuclear power production in 2023 and aims to phase out coal power production in 2038 in order to get climate neutral by 2045 by using renewables energy in conjunction with green hydrogen power plants, of which forty are planned to be build in the foreseeable future.
Nuclear power production is not risk free, and there have been massive contamination of ground water in Germany in the old storage facility "Asse". The situation in there is so horrific, that it has been decided to get all the nuclear waste out again and store it on the surface again.
Google translate:
https://www-ndr-de.translate.goog/geschichte/schauplaetze/Marodes-Atommuell-Endlager-Asse-Der-lange-Weg-zur-Raeumung,asse1410.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
I don't think the effects of mistakes like these in handling nuclear waste are included in the before mentioned data. As are the possible horrific scenarios with high level nuclear waste stored on the surface.
"Massive contamination", "horrific", and yet the article points out most of the seepage is radiologically harmless. It is important to clear out the mine and it will be really expensive, I won't deny that, but let's not scaremonger and act like it's Chernobyl 2. As well, let's not pretend that new nuclear projects would suffer the same problems. A functioning country would see this mistake, regulate how waste can be stored, and that would be the end of it. As many other countries have done.
Let's be clear: nuclear waste is a solved issue. We know how to store it safely, we know how to reprocess fuel to make it safe within hundreds instead of thousands of years. Whether or not we do that is an entirely political question.
Regarding the safety of surface level waste: https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU
And what then is the alternative? Wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine. Battery storage would be prohibitively expensive and the amount of lithium required to be mined to supply an entire country's electricity storage needs would be horrendous for the environment. Hydroelectric storage is ecologically devastating to a scale the public is largely unaware of and geography-dependent.
I am very skeptical about green hydrogen because it is far too politically easy to sweep the source of your hydrogen under the rug under bureaucratic obfuscation and the most economically viable method to produce hydrogen is to use fossil fuels and emit CO2 in the process, making it not really green.
"Every day, 13,000 liters of water flow into the Asse II nuclear waste storage facility in Lower Saxony, which is in danger of collapsing"
"There are quite a few quantities. If you just think about it: these 102 tons of uranium, 87 tons of thorium, then these 28 kilograms of plutonium. And then we have a mix of many different chemotoxic agents and pesticides. We have about 500 kilograms of arsenic. And plutonium is not only radioactive, it is deadly even at the size of a grain of dust. You shouldn't even think about what would happen if this shaft were to flood, that would still be possible. And the mountain really pushes upwards due to its pressure. Into the groundwater. That's a catastrophe."
"These are waters that have direct contact with the radioactive waste, they run through a storage chamber and there we obviously have different pollution than with this water, which we collect up here..."
"We have pictures from the chamber where we see, among other things, a yellow metal barrel that was squeezed between a concrete barrel and a chamber wall, meaning it was completely destroyed by the rock mechanical pressure. And we have also seen damaged lost concrete shields."
Google translation:
https://www-bund-net.translate.goog/themen/atomkraft/atommuell/zwischenlager/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
As stated before the idea is to employ renewable energy to produce green hydrogen for use in gas power plants. If you have no more coal power plants which is the target for 2038, you can not use it for hydrogen production. Germany wants to be self sufficient with regard to energy production, so we will have no other way to produce the hydrogen.
You are right in being sceptical, but IMHO the strategy is viable and can be implemented. And producing zero nuclear waste and be climate neutral at the same time is something we will have to achieve in the near future.
I understand and support the idea. Even though nuclear power can significantly reduce carbon emissions, it might put lives of millions at risk
carbon emissions put lives of billions at risk
The cartoon is not really about building twice as many new nuclear power plants, but using and maintaining and upgrading the ones we already have.
You're right too. That's why it's a difficult question. But putting lives of millions at the risk of immediate death to save billions' long term health is ehh kinda bad too. It's my personal opinion though
Your personal opinion is wrong, I'm sorry I am being so brash but I don't know how else to say it. The fly ash from fossil fuel combustion contains radioactive material that's spread over an enormous area when it's burnt. The amount of radioactive exposure we receive everyday from burning fossil fuels is orders of magnitude more than all the nuclear accidents combined. As counter intuitive as it is, closing nuclear power plants exposes the general public to more radiation not less.
In my personal opinion, globally humanity should not be building very many new nuclear reactors. Admittedly there are certain applications that nuclear energy is the responsible choice. Renewable energy sources are the clear winner, safe, reliable. Closing the nuclear power plants we have will only accelerate climate change and in a roundabout way expose us to more radiation. I realize that nuclear energy is scary but the dangers we don't immediately see from fossil fuels are worse.
I will not argue. My personal opinion is not worth more than yours and vice versa
It's not a "personal opinion." And your "opinion" is NOT of equal worth to factual information. You're just trying to save face because you don't like admitting when you're wrong. Maybe find some factual information that backs up your perspective rather than just baselessly claim that nuclear reactors put "millions at risk of immediate death" and run away when you can't back it up. All it takes is a quick google search to disprove how it puts "millions at risk of immediate death."
https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-are-the-effects-of-nuclear-accidents.aspx
Happy cake day Hestia! Doing the good work in the posting trenches
I have other things to do rather than "saving my face" on a random political forum. I commented using my own personal opinion and I didn't ask for a discussion. Of course most of the people are going to disagree and they do have the right to do so. Also, everyone has their own moral beliefs and value of facts. Mine are just not common
Look, if your personal opinion of the moon is that it's a hologram, it's definitely worth less than, say, Buzz Aldrin's opinion of the moon being made of rock.
I don't know who told you a personal opinion is worth exactly as much as someone else's, but they were wrong.
Giving value to bad opinions like "Oh Trump won we gotta storm the capitol" or "Vaccines cause autism" or "Nuclear is worse than coal" and refusing to engage with all evidence of the contrary and just leaving the conversation by saying "Mine are just not common" is an extremely unhealthy way to be a part of society. I live in Australia and the bush fires are getting worse. There's a noticeable cost of lives and livelihoods. You're not saving millions of lives from a nuclear meltdown by tearing down nuclear plants. You're putting millions of lives in danger from climate disasters by tearing down nuclear plants.
I hope you change for the better.
I'd say I define a "personal opinion/belief" and a "scientific fact-proven piece of information" as different things. Personal opinions may be inspired by and dependent on religions, preferences, radical moral positions and other things (fact-proven information can be like that too but it's different). Though I don't know if it's any right
You're commenting on a political forum and you're NOT looking for a discussion?
Yes because I'm trying to be above the arguing masses. Though I do admit that I'm still not that good at it unfortunately
Conflict avoidance does not make you better than the "arguing masses." In fact, it is my opinion that it is quite pathetic to try to place youself above others and I'm getting radical
vibes from you.
I don't think this is a credible source. Have you checked who the members of this organisation are? https://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/membership/our-members.aspx
This is s lobby organisation to support the nuclear power producers.
No, their opinion is worth more than yours because it's better supported by material facts
You're wrong and because you're a deeply unserious person you're trying to exit the interaction without learning or growing as a person by pulling this false modesty bullshit.
Makes sense
Reddit brain
It's not a question of either coal or nuclear. We have to get rid of both and that is exactly what's happening in Germany at the moment. 2023 was the end of nuclear power production. 2038 is scheduled to be the end of coal power production and 2045 is scheduled to be the year of climate neutrality. Germany is one of eleven countries to have made this a law.
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It's literally safer than wind
That's an american vision. Let's see what you'd say if half of your relatives were victims of the Chernobyl
What does Chernobyl have to do with modern reactors. Not to mention that even Chernobyl was a result of a poorly thought out experiment as opposed to some inherent flaw in the reactor.
That's right but Chernobyl wasn't the only incident. There was one in Japan too...
Ah yes, I totally forgot about all those land tsunamis Germans have to worry about.
There are other hazards as unlikely as Tsunamis.
do tell
German goverment seems to be pretty hazardous to me. This coal shit, participation in Ukraine war, repression of people protesting against genocide in Gaza, supporting said genocide, vassalization to most dangerous belligerent government on Earth...
indeed
Wars
So far, the war in Ukraine is evidence to the contrary.
"So far" is the most important part of that sentence and there are not only countries but also terroristic and radical groups which are much more dangerous for nuclear plants than regular wars
So far, is not really the most important part of that sentence at all as it's obvious that it would help neither side to create a radioactive disaster in a war zone. There is literally zero benefit in destruction of a nuclear facility. And I guess we should just abandon all technology and civilization because spooky terrorists might attack infrastructure.
Random. Vehicle. Accidents. The only 3 words you need
Yup, time for us to abandon civilization.
Not yet. Just get some good security and a decent uninhabited zone around the nuclear plants and you should be fine
uhm right sure
What like "oops I took a wrong turn and crashed into the core of a nuclear reactor?" We have some revolutionary new technology that they've been cooking up in the lab to help with that, it's called a fence / walll / bollards
I'm sure you have the capacity to think of some on your own and don't need my help with that.
Thanks for confirming that you're just fear mongering here.
Again no argument, just attacking me personally. I'd like to recommend this quick read to you:
https://firstamendmentmuseum.org/10-tips-to-a-civil-conversation-and-actually-change-someones-mind/
It's pretty obvious there isn't a mind to be changed here.
Ad hominem. No argument offered, just personal attacks.
Argument has been offered repeatedly and phrased in many different ways. Maybe spend some time working on your reading comprehension than spamming your copypasta here.
I don't think that's true. Instead of offering arguments to support your point in a civil discussion you called me "unable to read", all of Germany "imbeciles" and so on, without ever addressing other opinions or supporting yours with credible sources or arguments
You're entitled to your opinion.
And you are entitled to yours. And I offered arguments and IMHO credible sources to support my view and undermine yours. You did not. So your simply stating an opinion but you do not engage in a discussion.
I did, but you feel free to keep pretending otherwise if it makes you feel better. It's clearly very important to you to feel like you won an argument on the internet.
I don't want to have an argument: I want to have a discussion with arguments offered, sources cited and less logical fallacies and personal attacks.
Then you should find somebody who wants to have the kind of discussion you want with you. Learn to take a hint.
I don't keep responding for your sake. I think you misinterpreted my intentions.
You keep responding because you're perseverating as evidenced by you regurgitating the same phrases over and over long after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate.
That's evasion again. Please try supporting your arguments with credible sources or arguments next time.
no
IMHO not offering arguments or credible sources make you're opinion moot.
ok
Come on now. I'm sure that anyone who can keep the overview over all the brackets in a line of Lisp code, has the mental capacity to engage in a civil discussion, offer arguments to support their view and cite credible sources. So let's try again. My argument is as follows:
As long as there is no adequate long term storage facility for nuclear waste, we should not produce more nuclear waste
What's your antithesis?
I've answered this question a number of times in this thread in several different ways. It's pretty clear that there's a communication gap here. I'm not able to express my point any more clearly than I already have.
I'm really curious what it is you're trying to achieve here. If you've stated your arguments, and provided your sources then be confident in the quality of the argument you've made and move on. You're not going to get me to agree with the point you're making or change my point of view. It's just not going to happen. Other people reading this thread can make up their own mind whose argument they find more persuasive.
However, going over and over in circles and regurgitating the same points achieves absolutely nothing. There will be no breakthrough in this discussion. As someone who has mental capacity to write code, I also have mental capacity to detect when a conversation reaches a halting state. It's a skill I'd encourage your to try and develop to avoid wasting your life on pointless discussions.
This is just another ad hominem attack, undermining my personality, while ignoring my arguments and the sources I cited to support them.
Nope, I've addressed your arguments repeatedly and early on as anybody reading this thread will be able to see. The rest of this thread has consisted of your perseverating and claiming to be personally attacked. Again, I wonder what you're trying to achieve here.
You have in no way responded to my point that it's irresponsible to produce more nuclear waste while we do not have adequate long term storage facilities. You have not produced credible sources or arguments in favour of your opinion.
I want to achieve a civil discussion as stated before.
The fact that you keep repeating that I haven't responded to your point is precisely why productive discussion is no longer possible. If you want to achieve a civil discussion then you should go back and read my responses, and address them meaningfully.
I don't think that's true. You have on no occasion addressed my argument, that we should not produce more nuclear waste as long as we do not have a long term storage facility. You just said that such a facility can be built, and I agree that it's technically possible, but not politically feasible at that point in time in Germany. So given the fact that there is no long term storage facility, why do you think that it's still viable to produce more nuclear waste? That's what you failed to respond to. Also looking at this discussion you have not once presented data from credible sources to support your claim that this is no issue.
You don't think it's true, and I think it is true. Therefore we're at an impasse here. I've responded to your point repeatedly and in different ways. I told you that Germany could build the facilities and negotiate with other countries that already have such facilities in the meantime. Meanwhile, plenty of sources have been presented in this thread, and I've specifically presented a source discussing nuclear waste storage. Again, I do not see any value in continuing this discussion with you. I'm entirely comfortable with the points I've made here.
No you did not. Claiming that building such a facility is possible it's not the same as there actually existing such a facility in Germany.
Exporting nuclear waste to other countries is not possible because of 2011/70/EURATOM. So the waste has to be handled where it is produced.
Sources: https://www.base.bund.de/DE/base/bundesamt/aufbau/archiv/bfs-stellungnahmen/DE/2011/02-17-eu-richtlinie.html (Google translation: https://www-base-bund-de.translate.goog/DE/base/bundesamt/aufbau/archiv/bfs-stellungnahmen/DE/2011/02-17-eu-richtlinie.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
I once again responded to your claims with arguments and a credible source. This is IMHO how a civil discussion works.
There is no imminent threat from nuclear waste in Germany, and Germany has been operating reactors for a while now. So, the claim that all of a sudden it's not possible to do because there's no facility that's up to your standards is just fear mongering. The reality is that Germany simply chooses not to build this facility. Also, maybe should read the links you post as it clearly contradicts your claim:
Here is a source detailing the threats of storing nuclear waste on the surface level:
https://www.bund.net/themen/atomkraft/atommuell/zwischenlager/
Google translate: https://www-bund-net.translate.goog/themen/atomkraft/atommuell/zwischenlager/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Thank you for trying to use arguments and sources.
There seems to be another misunderstanding: The cited directive only allows for transportation of nuclear fuel to other EU member states or third party states for e.g. reprocessing. The responsibility for storing the nuclear waste lies with the producer:
The directive is based on the general principle that ultimate responsibility for the safe disposal of spent fuel and radioactive waste lies with the Member States in whose territory these materials were generated. Specifically, the national framework to be drawn up by the member states must provide that the main responsibility for the disposal of these materials is in principle assigned to the producers. Member States must therefore ensure that anyone who has been granted authorization to carry out an activity related to waste disposal cannot shirk their associated responsibilities
It's the same source: https://www-base-bund-de.translate.goog/DE/base/bundesamt/aufbau/archiv/bfs-stellungnahmen/DE/2011/02-17-eu-richtlinie.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
What that says is that the responsibility of ensuring safe disposal lies with the states producing nuclear waste. It says nothing regarding where the waste is disposed as far as I can see. So, again, I don't see anything here there precludes Germany from making a deal say with France to dispose of nuclear waste there while facilities are being built in Germany.
Meanwhile, the risks of storing nuclear waste on the surface level are a result of unwillingness to build facilities to store nuclear waste underground. It is a self inflicted problem.
The export of radioactive waste is still authorised but under much stricter rules. A nation receiving highly radioactive waste must have a deep underground repository. Such deep geological repositories do not exist anywhere in the world, the commission said, adding that none is under construction outside the EU. It takes at least 40 years to build one.
Yet, many EU nations use nuclear power, and it accounts for 80% of France's energy needs. So clearly there is a way to store nuclear waste in EU. What makes Germany such a unicorn?
Of course there's a way to store the nuclear waste. It's stored on the surface where it is prone to environmental or other hazards. The majority of German populace don't think this is safe.
BTW France is facing new problems for a couple of years now and had to power down nuclear power plants because the rivers had not enough water to cool them. This will probably happen a lot in the foreseeable future, so e.g. France needs to import power during the summer months.
Sources:
https://balkangreenenergynews.com/climate-change-water-scarcity-jeopardizing-french-nuclear-fleet/
https://www.energate-messenger.com/news/223699/nuclear-power-plant-problems-make-france-an-electricity-importer
Again, what's so special about Germany. Do you believe Germans are just more enlightened than the rest of the world and can see dangers nobody else can? Nuclear power is being used safely all over the globe, and the waste is being dealt with. Numerous studies show that nuclear power is safer than most other sources of energy, some of these studies have been linked in this thread.
The problems France is facing aren't unsolvable. Also, there are plenty of different kinds of reactor designs nowadays. For example, China is now starting to build thorium molten salt reactors that don't require water cooling https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3224183/china-gives-green-light-nuclear-reactor-burns-thorium-fuel-could-power-country-20000-years
No, I don't think that Germans are enlightened. But I do think that the protests during the 70s and 80s led to an open public discussion about the risks of nuclear energy production and an increased consciousness of the dangers of nuclear waste.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germany
Again, are there some specific risks of nuclear energy that Germans are uniquely aware of?
I don't think so. But I do think that Germans are more conscious about the dangers of nuclear waste as detailed in the earlier post.
A rational position is to compare the dangers of nuclear power to other alternatives. The hard data that's available to us shows that nuclear power is one of the safest and most reliable options for producing electricity at scale.
I don't think that's true. Here's a source detailing the dangers of nuclear fission reactors: https://www-bund-net.translate.goog/themen/atomkraft/gefahren/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
And here are actual hard numbers clearly showing that nuclear power is incredibly safe
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
Up until the challenger accident space travel using the shuttles was incredibly save as well, when looking only at the accidents that occurred. But I think noone would have declared space travel risk free. There's a different between accidents that actually happened and the risk involved. It's the same for nuclear waste. The risk is high.
We've already had big accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, and nuclear power continues to be a safe even accounting for these disasters. And it's only getting safer with newer reactor designs. The claim that the risk is high is not evidence based. This is just a neuroticism that appears to be uniquely German.
I don't agree. Calling nuclear power production safe after there have been massive contamination of the biosphere is quite cynical. It's estimated that tens of thousands people have developed cancer as a direct cause of the Chernobyl disaster: https://blog.ucsusa.org/lisbeth-gronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated/
Far more people die due to pollution from fossil fuels we're currently using, and far less people would be dying if we were using nuclear instead. That's not even mentioning the whole climate crisis we're already in. Also https://www.wired.com/story/the-chernobyl-disaster-might-have-also-built-a-paradise/
Yes and to reiterate: Being against nuclear power does not make me a fossil power proponent. We have to get rid of both and need to concentrate to transition to 100% renewables.
There are no viable alternatives available despite what people who promote renewables claim. Renewables simply can't produce energy at the necessary scale. This is why China, which is leading the world in producing renewables by a huge margin, is also deploying nuclear at scale. People who claim that we can transition away from fossils to renewables in the timescale we have available are either uninformed or lying.
Recent studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and desalination well before 2050 is feasible.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
The track record we have clearly shows otherwise. The only country that's actually meeting climate goals is China, and they are massively investing in nuclear.
Can you provide sources for this claim? It will not be easy to achieve climate neutrality by 2045 and Germany is currently struggling to achieve this. But I think it's entirely feasible. Here is a source to back up my claim: https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Pools/Broschueren/climate_action__figures_2019_brochure_en_bf.pdf
I gave some sources in the other reply, perhaps we can stick with a single thread if we have to keep this going?
Sorry but I completely lost the overview🤣 it's been some time now and I don't know how many comments us two have posted. Next time we'll discuss functional vs. imperative programming and it will get even worse, hrhr
Hypocritical piece of shit just moments after a smugfuck "lol I can say whatever the fuck I want and not provide evidence"
But I can provide arguments rather than attacking my opposition personally.
Not as we've seen here
Please provide examples where I have been attacking people rather than their arguments. I'm sure I did not do this.
I was merely pointing out that personal attacks are no way to have a civil discussionm, when you replied to me:
Silence.
See, you don't understand the difference between ad hominem and being rude.
And you're the special kind of stupid that thinks shouting the names of logical fallacies is a response
Not. As. We've. Seen. Here.
Please provide the lie
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That's objectively untrue. The RBMK reactor type as it was used in Chernobyl has a design flaw. It's called the positive void effect:
This positive coefficient was another key aspect of the RBMK in reactor unit 4 of the Chernobyl power plant. In the events of the accident, the excess production of steam (meaning an increase of voids) caused the void coefficient to become unsafely large. When the power began to increase, even more steam was produced, which in turn led to an increase in power.[2] This led the reactor to produce over 100x its rated power output, causing extreme temperatures and pressures inside the core, and causing failure.
Source: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/RBMK
What caused the accident?
The positive void coefficient was directly responsible for the disaster: During low power operations the effect caused water vapour bubbles to be created in the reactor. Because of the lower density of the vapour the moderation of the reaction did no longer work and the reactor spiraled out of control. All the while there was no feedback to the control room about the increased reactivity, so the personal had no chance to assess the situation correctly. This lead to the uncontrolled chain reaction and the explosion of block 4.
After a while Nikolai Steinberg conducted an experiment in the other blocks of Chernobyl which showed that the positive void coefficient was causing the reactor to spiral out of control in low energy production scenarios.
Sources:
https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28271/chernobyl-chapter-i-the-site-and-accident-sequence
There's a really good documentary about that, but alas it's in German: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/tschernobyl-die-katastrophe-paradies-100.html
Nikolai Steinberg also coauthored a book about the accident: https://www.perlego.com/book/3418623/chernobyl-past-present-and-future-pdf
To sum up, there was an experiment conducted that caused the disaster, as opposed to it being a result of normal operation of the reactor.
That's not right. The experiment was conducted after the explosion in an effort to prove Nikolai Steinberg's suspicion that the positive void coefficient caused the disaster. The experiment was a success and Steinberg's suspicions have been verified.
This is what caused the disaster
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx
Exactly and during that test the positive void coefficient caused the reactor to spiral out of control with no feedback to the control room, as detailed in the earlier post.
Here's a paper about that: https://hal.science/hal-03117177/document
Even the nuclear power lobby organisation World Nuclear Association acknowledges that this is a massive design flaw: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx
Right, it was a test that was conducted as opposed to normal operation of the reactor itself.
Tests will always have to be conducted to ensure normal operation. That's nothing out of the ordinary.
The question is how you conduct the tests, and of course we have learned a lot since that time. Modern reactors incorporate these lessons making them much safer.
I agree that newer reactors are more safe than old reactors but there's still a significant risk involved. See Fukushima.
Fukushima is a reactor design from the 70s, and the risk with that design were identified at the time. Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident. The problem with Fukushima was caused by capitalism.
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287
So your saying the reactor was not safe and should have never been built that way? I agree.
And by extension I'm saying that it has no relevance when discussing modern reactors which do not have the problems Fukushima reactor had. Meaning that you're trying to use a disingenuous argument to make your point.
I don't agree. I think these accidents should make us aware of the dangers of nuclear power production and that there will always be a risk attached to it. There have been more than 30 nuclear power plant accidents with damage to the environment and the biosphere: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents
I know you don't agree. I've repeatedly stated that this discussion is pointless because we're not changing each other's minds here. It seems like you just want to keep restating what you believe over and over. I don't know to what end however. As the link I provided in the other reply shows, biosphere is doing just fine after nuclear incidents. If anything, it's actually doing better in Chernobyl than it did before the accident because humans are now gone from there.
You do know that the tens of thousands of people who developed cancer in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster are part of the biosphere? https://blog.ucsusa.org/lisbeth-gronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated/
Do you know that people develop cancer as a result of pollution from fossil fuels? https://www.targetedonc.com/view/fossil-fuels-present-considerable-cancer-risks
Yes and again: Being against nuclear power production does not mean I'm a fossil fuel proponent. I think we have to get rid of both and achieve 100% renewables which is entirely feasible according to recent studies. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
Not a realistic option, especially if you want to have industry. I suppose Germany may just be advocating for NIMBY strategy here though. Perhaps you plan to just deinudstrialize and outsource manufacturing to countries like China so that your energy needs go down enough to make all renewables viable.
Can you substantiate your claim by offering a source, or is this your personal assessment?
I mean we can just look at Germany and how things are going with the transition right now https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/291963-why-renewables-alone-cannot-meet-our-energy-needs/
There are also lots of studies, e.g. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2542435119302144
Research into this topic is fairly new, with very few studies published before 2009, but has gained increasing attention in recent years. The majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable.
https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.apenergy.2020.116273
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-05843-2
https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/cheap_safe_100_renewable_energy_possible_before_2050_says_finnish_uni_study/10736252
https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.rser.2021.110934
Not sure what you're basing this grand assertion that most studies show the transition is feasible and economically viable. For every study that shows this, I can find you one that shows the opposite. In fact, as you admit, this is a new research topic with a lot of unknowns, and we are in a middle of a global crisis that threatens our whole civilization. Using proven technologies that are known to work seems like a far better thing to do than to experiment in a middle of a crisis.
That's a valid point. There is no consensus yet. But what's the worst that would happen if we can't achieved this goal in Germany, when we try? We will buy french nuclear power again. But what happens when it works out? Germany will be climate neutral and will be independent of nuclear power. No fission material is required, no uranium mining will be required for power production. So there's the possibility to mitigate the negative impact of uranium mining, while getting rid of the dangers of nuclear power plants and not creating more nuclear waste for future generations to take care of. IMHO that's a great opportunity that we should seize.
The worst that will happen is that our civilization collapses because we failed to transition away from the use of fossil fuels. Buying energy from France is the best case scenario, using more coal and other dirty fuels if the transition fails is another very likely scenario. And once again, I'll note that there are alternatives to uranium such as thorium. The only reason uranium is used traditionally is because it doubles up as weapons material. Thorium reactors are cheaper, safer, and don't require water cooling. Why not explore all options, and find a mix of solutions that work reliably. In a situation where there are many unknowns, it's generally best not to put all the eggs in one basket.
Hers an interesting article on the dangers of Thorium reactors, including nuclear proliferation concerns: https://www.nature.com/articles/492031a
Here's an article detailing why nuclear power production is not climate neutral. There a lot of CO2 emissions involved in nuclear power production: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315
Fossil fuel is IMHO no alternative and will only play a minimal role after 2038. Most of the countries, that have pledged to become climate neutral by 2050 will build new nuclear reactors to achieve this. So there will probably be enough energy to go around and Germany can buy such energy if the transition to 100% renewables did not work out as planned. But if it works out we will have a viable way to produce energy in climate neutral way without the hazards that accompany nuclear power production. If this can be proved to work, other countries would be able to emulate this strategy. IMHO this is an opportunity we can not let go to waste.
Every technology has pros and cons. The rational thing to do is to weigh those against each other instead of simply pointing out what the negatives are. Meanwhile, there are also CO2 emissions involved in producing solar panels or wind turbines.
The reality is that majority of western countries continue to miss their pledges to transition from fossil fuels. Given past precedent, I would bet against Germany accomplishing its stated goals by 2038. IMHO gambling with the fate of humanity for ideological reasons is unethical.
The data include accidents. You might feel differently about wind if a loved one died doing a wind turbine installation. The logic goes both ways. I will reiterate: it's literally safer than wind. Look at the fucking numbers and not your feelings.
This is the list of the thirty worst accidents in civilian nuclear power plants. These have all been categorised as having caused substantial health damage. There is a definite risk in using nuclear energy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents
The above data include accidents. You are literally killing people by not going nuclear. Nuclear accidents are highly publicized but if (hypothetically) one person dies for every wind installation but they never make the news, it's a death by a thousand cuts, and nuclear comes out ahead. That is hyperbolic but it's emblematic of the situation, look at the fucking numbers. Nuclear is safer.
It's not a choice of either nuclear or coal power. We have to and we as a society decided to phase both of them out. Because of the concerns regarding nuclear energy production and the waste being produced, Germany opted for phasing out nuclear power production in 2023 and aims to phase out coal power production in 2038 in order to get climate neutral by 2045 by using renewables energy in conjunction with green hydrogen power plants, of which forty are planned to be build in the foreseeable future.
Nuclear power production is not risk free, and there have been massive contamination of ground water in Germany in the old storage facility "Asse". The situation in there is so horrific, that it has been decided to get all the nuclear waste out again and store it on the surface again.
https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/schauplaetze/Marodes-Atommuell-Endlager-Asse-Der-lange-Weg-zur-Raeumung,asse1410.html
Google translate: https://www-ndr-de.translate.goog/geschichte/schauplaetze/Marodes-Atommuell-Endlager-Asse-Der-lange-Weg-zur-Raeumung,asse1410.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
I don't think the effects of mistakes like these in handling nuclear waste are included in the before mentioned data. As are the possible horrific scenarios with high level nuclear waste stored on the surface.
"Massive contamination", "horrific", and yet the article points out most of the seepage is radiologically harmless. It is important to clear out the mine and it will be really expensive, I won't deny that, but let's not scaremonger and act like it's Chernobyl 2. As well, let's not pretend that new nuclear projects would suffer the same problems. A functioning country would see this mistake, regulate how waste can be stored, and that would be the end of it. As many other countries have done.
Let's be clear: nuclear waste is a solved issue. We know how to store it safely, we know how to reprocess fuel to make it safe within hundreds instead of thousands of years. Whether or not we do that is an entirely political question.
Regarding the safety of surface level waste: https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU
And what then is the alternative? Wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine. Battery storage would be prohibitively expensive and the amount of lithium required to be mined to supply an entire country's electricity storage needs would be horrendous for the environment. Hydroelectric storage is ecologically devastating to a scale the public is largely unaware of and geography-dependent.
I am very skeptical about green hydrogen because it is far too politically easy to sweep the source of your hydrogen under the rug under bureaucratic obfuscation and the most economically viable method to produce hydrogen is to use fossil fuels and emit CO2 in the process, making it not really green.
"Every day, 13,000 liters of water flow into the Asse II nuclear waste storage facility in Lower Saxony, which is in danger of collapsing"
"There are quite a few quantities. If you just think about it: these 102 tons of uranium, 87 tons of thorium, then these 28 kilograms of plutonium. And then we have a mix of many different chemotoxic agents and pesticides. We have about 500 kilograms of arsenic. And plutonium is not only radioactive, it is deadly even at the size of a grain of dust. You shouldn't even think about what would happen if this shaft were to flood, that would still be possible. And the mountain really pushes upwards due to its pressure. Into the groundwater. That's a catastrophe."
"These are waters that have direct contact with the radioactive waste, they run through a storage chamber and there we obviously have different pollution than with this water, which we collect up here..."
"We have pictures from the chamber where we see, among other things, a yellow metal barrel that was squeezed between a concrete barrel and a chamber wall, meaning it was completely destroyed by the rock mechanical pressure. And we have also seen damaged lost concrete shields."
Source: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/marodes-atommuelllager-die-wachsende-gefahr-von-asse-ii-100.html
There is no long term storage site for high level nuclear waste in Germany. So the issue of nuclear waste is clearly not solved.
Intermediate storage facilities for high level nuclear waste are a security concern:
https://www.bund.net/themen/atomkraft/atommuell/zwischenlager/
Google translation: https://www-bund-net.translate.goog/themen/atomkraft/atommuell/zwischenlager/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
As stated before the idea is to employ renewable energy to produce green hydrogen for use in gas power plants. If you have no more coal power plants which is the target for 2038, you can not use it for hydrogen production. Germany wants to be self sufficient with regard to energy production, so we will have no other way to produce the hydrogen.
You are right in being sceptical, but IMHO the strategy is viable and can be implemented. And producing zero nuclear waste and be climate neutral at the same time is something we will have to achieve in the near future.