• smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
    ·
    9 months ago

    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

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      9 months ago

      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

      • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        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

          • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
            ·
            9 months ago

            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.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
              hexagon
              ·
              9 months ago

              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.

              • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                ·
                9 months ago

                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

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  9 months ago

                  And here are actual hard numbers clearly showing that nuclear power is incredibly safe

                  Show

                  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh

                  • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                    ·
                    9 months ago

                    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.

                    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      9 months ago

                      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.

                      • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                        ·
                        9 months ago

                        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/

                        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                          hexagon
                          ·
                          9 months ago

                          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/

                          • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                            ·
                            9 months ago

                            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.

                            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                              hexagon
                              ·
                              9 months ago

                              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.

                              • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                                ·
                                9 months ago

                                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

                                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                                  hexagon
                                  ·
                                  9 months ago

                                  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.

                                  • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                                    ·
                                    9 months ago

                                    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

                                      • smegforbrains@lemmy.ml
                                        ·
                                        9 months ago

                                        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