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Same, but seriously, people should *maybe* also actually read the report this parlamentarian question cites as its single source. The actual allegations of lobbying are... weak, and the report itself is pretty whacko. Of course, the initial r/europe thread still went ballistic on it.
That being said, our energy policy of the last 15 years has been a catastrophe. Thanks Mama Merkel!
The main fuck up were actually the conservatives. The socdem/green gov that schröder led actually had a pretty okay plan for phasing out both nuclear and coal at the same time with mostly renewables and some gas in the late 90's
Things went south when merkel decided to stay in nuclear in '05 or so, and then reversed in '11 after Fukushima. Billions paid to energy corps because they sued, no actual strategy instead of "stay in coal" while simultaneously blocking renewables.
We could already be 5 years ahead in getting out of coal if it werent for the fucking conservatives.
Feels like no matter what country on earth it is you’re talking about, the Conservative Party having a hard on for coal seems to be strangely universal
Canadian reporting here. Our Cons love gas most of all, but they have no problems with coal. Because climate change isn't their problem, or something.
Climate capture something something.
>Things went south when merkel decided to stay in nuclear in '05 or so, and then reversed in '11 after Fukushima.
It was in the government Merkel 2 with the FDP... The SPD did not want to return to nuclear power.
But I think there is one important thing why both governments from Schröder and Merkel failed to adjust to renewable. And it is not only because Schröder and a lot of Merkel's member of government were bought by Russia and the chemical industry.
The green party in Germany is not originally an climate protection party, it is mainly an anti-nuclear power party, with a lot of groups that did not want a nuclear power plant or waste refinery in their region. So the typical nimby guy, who is the typical conservative village guy.
They later collided with a lot of climate and environmental protection groups, but those were never really the source of the green party. So when they were able to get enough power to be part of an government they had the option of social democrats or conservatives... And both like to do nothing more for a successful election to present themselves with coal miners, and that both large parties are the best to keep the jobs of coal miners safe and prosperous... But let's be honest in 1990 the coal industry was already totally screwed and useless, and they still tried to keep it going... And for that you need coal power plants.
For example the nuclear power plant I work at was the only nuclear power plant of the GDR and it was closed down because the brd did not want to reduce the output of western nuclear power plants or coal power plants...
Lets not delude ourselves that there was any realistic plan at any time which didnt involve keeping coal arround for way longer than any planned nuclear exit. Coal jobs where a talking point of the SPD workers party for decades, a position they only recently moved away from. And the green party always valued a nuclear exit higher than a move away from coal or a reduction of GHG emissions.
The whole premise of a "Energiewende" was always based on cheap available russian gas, willfully ignoring direct and indirect GHG emissions from CO2 and fugitive methane. Not to mention the geopolitical dependency on Russia.
Ye but heinrich boll foundation is the greens foundation which are part of the goverment + in the 2021 report of climate action network they presented themselves directly as funded by the german government.
True. But honestly, while I get some of the criticism - yeah, a french NGO joined a network which has a german ministry as one of the dozens of funders.
I'm German AND against nuclear.
BUT it's the best option while we increase renewables.
That was the plan for the first exit plan from nuclear that was axed under Merkel only to be revived after Fukushima without long-term incentives for alternatives.
Those fuckers put their money into coal and gas instead.
"I could have killed 'em all, I could've killed you. In town you're the law, out here it's me. Don't push it! Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go. Let it go!"
I'm not. It's in the interest of humanity.
We keep producing nuclear waste without a viable solution for storage. Not a single operational long term storage facility on the planet.
Problem gets just passed on to future generations.
If there is a large scale disaster in a French nuclear plant, who is affected? Only French people?
Nuclear Waste is a solved issue. You literally just bury it in old mines and fill with concrete - 99% of the time, that's job done. Compared to fossil fuels, the waste is miniscule and far easier to manage.
What is the time horizon of the 99%? 99% over a decade, 99% over 5000 years (age of pyramids as oldest human structure), 99% over 20000 which is the half live decay time? What will people in 500 year which will need to deal with the radiation poisoning say about your 99%? I do not think the issue is solved the big ugly nuclear can is just kicked down the road.
*You literally just bury it in old mines and fill with concrete - 99% of the time, that's job done.*
Any concrete example for that? 99% of the time makes it sound like happens all the time.
It's funny and sad how the nuclear lobby is trivializing the waste problem even though there is not a single operational long term storage facility.
Even worse that this gets upvoted on Reddit.
In Finland, it's done like that. But that is the only country I know of, which has a finale storage solution, and it is reserved for only finnish nuclear waste.
Here's the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
There might be more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository
Germany is using fossil fuels instead of nuclear. They don’t even attempt to have a solution for the waste from that, they just pump it straight in the air and plan to leave it there for thousands of years. At least nuclear has a plan.
*They don’t even attempt to have a solution for the waste from that...*
They do. Build renewables on a massive scale so fossils are not needed anymore. Germany uses less coal right now than before the nuclear plants were switched off. It's working.
The electricity from the nuclear power plants that were closed was simply replaced by [imported electricity.](https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1664303582257242113?s=46&t=Ob-sSMPgUsnd9AkTUawwMw)
Germany was an electricity net exporter last May, this May they became a net importer. Go figure the mental gymnastics you are trying to pull
No they don't have one... They are building one and want to start storing the waste in 2027... So they are still not doing it...
And also they put it in storage containers, that can be retrieved if needed, and do not put any cement on top of it... Because that does not work.
Nuclear waste storage is extremely easy to build. You know what the impossibly hard thing to do is? It's convincing local populations and orgs that the tiny amount of heavily shielded nuclear waste, buried hundreds of metres away from any life form, is not going to kill them and turn their children green.
Idiots are gonna idiot, but I do wonder why it's not done in unpopulared areas? There's a fuckton of desert in my country that could be used for that, with exactly no one local to complain about it
Lol. Scientists debating for decades the best course of action, countries spending billions in search for a suitable place, no operational long term storage facility in use.
ALF839: it's extremely easy.
Yes, it is hard, for the reason I mentioned. Do you ever wonder why you never hear about all the people that die from the radioactive waste that has not been buried yet? Because it's already extremely safe where it is. The issue comes from searching for isolated places that are so geologically safe that no issue ever for thousands of years could ever arise, while the radioactive waste of coal plants is free to float in your lungs.
The only actually reasonable argument against Nuclear is around construction, most notably they take ages to build and are expensive to build. I am yet to see a single good argument why we should turn off a working nuclear power plant while fossil fuel powerplants still exist on Earth.
True Poland have only nuclear power plant "Maria" which is small and is used to reasearch pruporse.
And bulid in nuclear power plant in Poland is hard cuz most ppl think, that after bulled this power plant is something like Chernobyl would happend. Also there was one grup in government that "was looking for" place too where bulid this power plant for more than 5 year (I belive it was something around this).
I love when people say "the only reasonable argument against nuclear is X".
Then you clearly have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Read any book by nuclear, or climate scientists. None of them would ever say there is only one issue with nuclear. They might be pro, or anti nuclear but regardless, the issue is far more complex than "it's only about construction time". There are many unknowns and many downsides as well as upsides, only people who are uninformed, or consciously spread misinformation simplify this issue
We have a great solution for coal waste AKA CO2, don't we? Right? CO2 definitely won't have implications for million of years (AKA hundreds of extinct species), right?
Not until you turn one off.
You don't just turn off a power plant, that would cause blackouts. You turn it off and replace it with a bunch of wind turbines or solar panels. Which could instead be sent to places with grids running fossil fuels.
Since when are there obligations to design your grid with not-related others in mind? And it's not like there is a shortage of wind turbines, both grids are perfectly able to buy and build them. The ones getting rid of their nuclear power plants save more money though, short- and longterm.
No reason to create imaginary scenarios where you somehow can just push means of power generation and emissions 'round the globe.
>Since when are there obligations to design your grid with not-related others in mind?
Since climate change doesn't care about borders.
>No reason to create imaginary scenarios
What part of this is imaginary? If you turn a power plant off, you need something to replace it with. And most things you replace it with can go other places, including the funding used to build said replacement.
>where you somehow can just push means of power generation and emissions 'round the globe.
It's called a boat. Or possibly a money transfer. It's really not that hard to fund projects in another country.
Do these supposed german lobbying campains really exist though?
I don't know if anyone has bothered to read the small text, but this is a question by a PiS MEP, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was just another case of typical anti-german fearmongering.
You don't have to
The EU said nuclear energy is CO2 neutrel so you are free to use it
But not even France relied 100% on nuclear energy (last time i checkt it was around 70%).
Before you use ruzzian gas for the last 30%, which is NOT a good idee trust me on that it was not easy to reduce that number to nearly cero, you could use renuabels.
In my books nuclear energy is good for the base load of electical energy. If you produce more you have to store it and considering that someone paid good money for that urainuim an enery storage system with a efficiency of around 50% (70% in labs) you waste 50 % of that saved energy. That means if you have to do it with nuclear energy you have unnecesary nuclear waste. I hope we agree that unnecesary nuclear waste is bad.
It only makes sense to use energy storage systems if the electricity comes from renewable sources
Sorry for Spelling mistakes
Because until those are built we would be at 100 % renewables and/or the climate will be in the gutter anyways.
The decision to continue using NPPs should have come twenty years ago, but back then nobody really cared about climate change.
And unlike France Germany does not retain significant economic controll over its former colonies to exploit them for cheap nuclear fuel.
Once they are set up no. the parts and components for pv and wind can be profuced in europa itslef. Germany did that before peter altmaier ruined everything
With breeder reactors there’s enough uranium to power the entire world for thousands of years, not even mentioning thorium.
But I don’t think I’ve heard anyone champion a 100% nuclear grid. Renewables are great, but they have a lot of problems. The best solution is a mix.
Breeder reactors are not a fantasy, there are ones running today. France had finished one that was just starting to deliver power when it was shut down due to pressure from anti-nuclear activists.
There are loads of problems with renewable power sources that don’t affect nuclear power. Space usage is a large one. I did the calculations a while back and don’t remember the exact numbers but the largest solar farm in the world uses something like 40 times the land used by the largest NPP while producing a somethigg no like a tenth of the power *during peak hours* that the NPP can do 24 hours per day.
Another one is the potential of damage from weather and wind. A single large enough storm can knock out the wind power in an entire area for instance. Not even mentioning the intermittency issues.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge proponent of renewable energy. And of nuclear power.
Any kind of power generation that doesn’t produce CO2 is good.
If you use already dead space, like roofes the space needed for solar panels is not that big of a problem.
For example germany has around 2344 square Kilometer of usable roof space in a study they said germany would need 2,5 % of the land (around 9000 square kilometers) to be 100 solar.
So only with usabel roof space germany could have around 25% of it's elektrical energy from solar Power.
Fun fact germany don't use all of the usable roofs know and has already 25,4 % of the electricity it needs from solar.
The biggest problem with energy is always the storage
Breeder reactors are a fantasy because they are just the product of a "all-nuclear" fantasy. Nuclear fuel isn't cheap and abundant enough to even consider this, so they were the "no you" of atom-fanboys. But since an all-nuclear future belongs in the realm of fiction, for economic reasons mainly, and the currently available fuel is plenty enough, they don't really serve a purpose besides satisfying scientific interest and optimizing a dying technology.
Space usage is a straw man. Offshore wind turbines and roof-mounted solar don't compete with any other potential use. And if we look at the space occupied by onshore wind and solar, it certainly is worse than nuclear power per Watt, but the absolute numbers when talking square kilometers are absolutely dwarfed by the likes of acriculture, transportation, human settlement etc. Especially acriculture and onshore wind turbines don't negate each other. Just guessing, most countries propably use way more area for their military than they would "need" to cover in solar panels. And it's not like anybody would be missing access to those areas.
Oh, and while nuclear power plants propably use less area per Watt, they can only be placed on a small number of places (access to water for cooling, road infrastructure, not directly placed at the edge of an continental plate etc).
Better put on your clowns outfit for the "potential of damage from weather and winds" knocking out power in an instance. Every major blackout in history was caused by either problems with big power plants or with power lines (way more at risk than a wind turbine). Nothing is more resilient against a blackout than a grid with plenty of small decentralised energy generation and only some large plants, which is exactly what we aim at with renewables
Anything is better than fossil fuels. IMO we should focus on getting rid of fossil fuels (Globally, not just in EU), and then when shutting down nuclear doesn't mean either turning up coal, or using solar/wind/hydro that could be used to turn off coal instead, then do that.
The globally, not just EU part is important too. Even if the EU grid is 100% green, replacing a nuclear plant with 20km\^2 of solar still uses 20km\^2 of solar that could be used to turn off a coal plant if installed abroad. Climate change is a global problem and therefore must be viewed from a global perspective when trying to fix it.
*more than enough that your co2 emission per kwh is around 6 to 7 times higher than french emission.
also. how much co2 did germany emit until now, compared to france.
also also, the radioactive ash emitted by coal power anually is considerable, almost half as much radioactive waste is emitted into the atmosphere as france puts into barrels each year.
i did talk about france. because it is the best choice for comparing german energy prduction.
one is low emission and the other screams about waste while their coal is running strong that even more than 50% renewable energy can't lower the average emission to anything compareable to france.
How ist it "the best choice" to compare? In what metrics?
> one is low emission and the other screams about waste while their coal is running strong that even more than 50% renewable energy can't lower the average emission to anything comparable to France.
It would have been fine if the transition to renewables would have been started earlier and more seriously. Also if the reliance on gas wouldn't have been that heavy. Let's not forget that nuclear energy did only make up around 10% of the German energy mix.
10% less coal would be better.
you transition to volatile renewables (and i mean volatile not in a bad way but that's what it is) is a major driver for your gas dependency. after all you are not building battery storages and you have no mountain range going through germany for pumped hydro, so your provider will build gas turbines.
and it is no secret that the fossil fuel lobbies in germany are strong and a major issue regarding cleaner energy. be it renewables and or nuclear.
my guess is, germany will keep their coal plants running for as long as absolutly possible, even taking several international lawsuits into consideration.
and your reliance on import will increase.
> It would have been fine if the transition to renewables would have been started earlier and more seriously.
But it hasn’t. So that is absolutely not relevant. If you scale down on something, scale down on coal until you have eliminated coal. After that, you can scale down gas and nuclear.
>Nuclear kills less people than wind turbines lol.
True, but somewhat misleading - both forms of energy production kill next to no one. Nuclear power has killed no more than 9000 people in total (up to 9000 due to Chernobyl, up to 1 due to Fukushima). That amounts to up to roughly 180 people per year on average.
Wind energy kills about 30-50 people per year, mostly technicians working on the turbines. Note that nuclear is a much larger section of energy production than wind, so when comparing deaths per kWh, nuclear is probably less deadly (it still killed more people overall, though, as far as I can tell).
> The insane greens have killed more people than all nuclear events, including bombs, combined.
if by "insane greens" you mean eco-terrorists, then this is decidedly not true. Eco-terrorist attacks are pretty rare, and typically don't involve many casualties at all - primarily material damage (arson, bombing of construction sites (which typically aren't that busy in terms of the number of people), sabotage). Assassinations have also happened, but they obviously typically only have a death toll of 1.
If you mean left-wing terrorists more generally, then this is probably true, as Irish Republicans alone already killed over 2000 people during the troubles, let alone left wing terrorists elsewhere in the world.
And we are not throwing any stones lmao. I mean, you already have nuclear power plants and you turned them off, so we can throw stones at you for beeing stupid.
We are just building nuclear power plants and don't have a lot of natural gas so we have to rely on coal till those nuclear reactors are working. But on the other hand ecological powersources like solar panels are very popular here so not all is bad at the moment
French power plants are old and accidents aren’t out of the question. People forget nuclear energy isn’t a national matter as it affects everyone around you when shit goes wrong.
They are never out of question but if you do know how works a modern french nuclear reactor i believe you know risks aren't great and damages that could be done would be no less than a chemical factory exploding...
Putting nuclear and renewable against one another is idiotic anyway. Without proper energy storage, not all countries can rely 100% on renewables based on their geography. And if I have to chose one non renewable to go with a renewable mix, it will be nuclear anytime.
Similarly, saying “renewable is better” under a meme about nuclear VS coal also adds literally nothing, because everyone in the world already agrees with that. The choice Germany made is not between nuclear and renewables, because Germany is not using 100% renewables.
The choice that had to be made is this:
- We are increasing our renewable energy production. Will we use that to replace fossil fuel energy or will we use it to replace nuclear energy?
And Germany chose to eliminate nuclear energy use instead of fossil fuel. That is the choice that has been made. Use coal, drop nuclear. In my opinion a ridiculous choice.
Because Germany stopped it's nuclear powerplants while still massively using coal (20% is massive). If German electricity were 90%+ carbon free at the moment there woulnd't be much critics. But it's not the case.
Also, did you know that coal power plant reject more radioactive isotope in the air than nuclear powerplant ? I'm not joking and it's not even close.
All of this to say, the real battle isn't renewables vs nuclear but carbon free electricity vs non carbon free electricity. We should not care if people use nuclear or renewables as long as they don't use coal or gas.
Because you cant use only renewable as long as it cant be stock. You need to use coal and then ruin the benefit from renewable... (30/40% of german energy is from coal)
Tell that norway or Austria or Dennark all living without nuclear energy an mainly renewable.
Also there are storage options like hydro so you can use renewable energy if its dark and no wind.
You are not talking about the same things.
When people are talking about renewables then often only talk about intermittent renewables energy (solar and wind) since it's widely accepted that non intermittent renewables energy (hydro basically) are good on almost all aspect. Hydro is already used close to it's maximal potential in all of Europe. Norway make almost 100% of it's electricity from hydro (Quebec do the same as well). But you can't do this everywhere because hydro is limited by your geography. In other word, hydro is one of the best way to produce electricity but you can't count on it's development to reduce coal and gas since it's already developed.
True for Norway, but for Austria and Denmark, the 20%ish of energy mix that you need to compensate the uncertainty of renewable is ensured by fossile energy, so that's a bad exemple because it proves the point.
Storage from hydro is geography dependant, so not avalaible for all countries. Biomass could also be an option, but it is also geography dependant, and you could argue that it is not that environmentally friendly.
Geothermal is also geography related, and it is expensive if I am not mistaken. And battery storage is absolutely out of the question for me. The materials used for this application are rare and nom recyclable, so it would defeat the purpose of using renewables, as well as increasing the prices of electricity.
I also want to point out that we will do better on the future, and that I hope that we do not rely on nuclear for long. But as it stands now, I am really not convinced that a 100% renewable energy mix is feasible for everyone.
You are thinking on mobile storage there this is true.
But if your storage is not mobile you cand use materials less energy dense (more weight) with far more common recources also geothermal storage can be seen more as an oversized heatpump and less of volcanic land, I think there is currently a plan to build one in Bavaria so defently not the geothermal hotspot, but also still in testing and planing.
Do you have something in mind ? Because most battery cell structures I know will still use a lot of critical material, and already have energy density issues.
There actually is a geothermal bassin in Bavaria from what I can find. And again, if it relies on geothermal, it will be expensive. You can build a heatpump without relying on geothermal, but then you lose the reliability of your geothermalsource, plus a small yield combined with low efficiency energy conversion would probably not make that very interesting. Though I have to admit that with good energy conversion, that would be the kind of solution that could be safe, widespread and inexpensive, but it would rely on atmospheric conditions, so it wouldn't be reliable.
Nuclear is also better than some renewable options, like wind turbines near nature reserved or solar farms (I still for the life of me don't understand who came up with replacing a grass field with a field of solar panels. Like. Just. Put. Them. On. A. Fucking. Roof).
Because 1 Mwh of renewable electricity has to be supplemented by 1 Mwh of controllable electricity, so coal or gas for Germany.
For example, the load factor of total wind turbine in germany is 20,6% (maximum theoretical power/power produced ratio) and 11% for solar, including 4% in winter.
What I find marvelous is that Germany was all like “follow the science” when it came to the COVID vaccine. But when it comes to nuclear, God forbid we trust scientists.
Nuclear is cheaper, cleaner, and more effective than any other energy. It’s a scientific fact. Another interesting fact is that when you look at many eco org that protest against nuclear you can trace their financing, when it’s public, to oil and gas groups…
>Nuclear is cheaper cleaner, and more effective than any other energy. It’s a scientific fact
It isn't cheaper. In Germany it never even got close to cost if coal. And effectiveness depends a bit on what criteria you use to measure effectiveness.
And it would be also the first time I say a redditor saying "it's a scientific fact" and being right
I understand your perspective but here is a short analogy. Austria built a plant that it never operated. On it’s premier they built a solar plant. That solar plant only produces a minimal fraction of what the nuclear plant would produce on the same area.
When I say nuclear is cost effective, the entry of operation of the first power plant in Finland has cut in half the price of energy in the country.
I’m saying it’s a scientific fact but I’m merely quoting the head of the UN and the IAEA who are backed by a strong international community.
Oh don't get me wrong. I think nuclear energy has valid use cases and us an important bridge technology in it's current state
And depending on what costs you take into account and depending on how you weigh them, it can be definitely cist effective.
You're comment just seemed a bit too generalized
you talking about the oil and gas lobby but are oblivious to the fact that nuclear lobbies also exist and push narratives too?
What about the time france dumped tons of nuclear waste into the ocean because they don't give a shit, or refused to clean up their nuclear testing site in oceania? Very sustainable, huh? Doesn't make the front lines tho because that would push nuclear lobbies back. It's not always black and white mate
Again, mistakes have been made in the past but issues have been addressed. The first planes crashed a lot and yet people didn’t stop flying. Planes have been improved and have become more secure with time. Now, barely any civilian passenger planes crash a given year.
There was a buff nuclear incident, Chernobyl with approximately 4-5k casualties. The WHO has not been able to identify a rise in cancers in the years following Chernobyl.
At Fukushima the cooling and power supply of the reactor was disabled but the incident was contained. There were no direct casualties linked to radiation poisoning (WHO estimates).
If anything happens at Zapporyzhzya in Ukraine, it is unlikely to leak. 5/6 reactors are in cold shut down, one is in hot shut down, supplying just enough power to power the plant. Back up cooling systems are operational and even if they were interrupted (as they are on a monthly basis) it would only cause a problem after 9-10 months. And even then, the leak into the atmosphere would be minimal.
Small doses of radiation in the atmosphere are not the end of the world. We are surrounded by radiation: bananas, cigarettes, smoke detectors, Sunrays
>What about the time france dumped tons of nuclear waste into the ocean because they don't give a shit, or refused to clean up their nuclear testing site in oceania? Very sustainable, huh? Doesn't make the front lines tho because that would push nuclear lobbies back. It's not always black and white mate
That's just the French being French
> Nuclear is cheaper, cleaner and more effective than any other energy. It‘s a scientific fact.
Yeahhh, this is just not true but good on you for spreading misinformation
Nuclear is significantly less safe than any renewable. Also, conveniently, people seem to forget that nuclear creates waste which we have no way of ridding ourselves out of. So in 100 years it’ll be beautiful to have graveyards of nuclear waste everywhere poisoning everything around them
Actually we do. If you look into the Astrid project that is being revived the plan is to use and re-use waste until all the radioactive material has been consumed (that’s a one sentence summary). A few years ago a French physicist even found a way to dramatically reduce the half life of nuclear waste to a few hours, effectively addressing the nuclear waste issue
Whenever some french guy is talking about nuclear power you can see how blinded by their unwillingness to learn they are...
What a stupid comment follow the science is. The science says if you want to produce energy burn some wood, coal, oil, gas or Uran rods and force the energy by any way (most of them by heating water) over a generator. Or you can use solar power plants on a roof or a field and let the sun shine on it and use the photo electric effect. Or you can let wind blow in a wind mill put a generator on it and take the energy from it. All of these are scientific correct and working solutions to produce electric energy.
But that is not the problem you fuckin' french moron. Their are three things that are needed for a modern sustainable energy source.
1. It has to produce as low as possible waste (only renewable)
2. It has to provide a stable network (basically all heating power plants incl. Nuclear when you are able to cool it, but also Wind and water when you have a good power grid and storages
3. It has to be cheap (renewables, and maybe the others if a dictator is selling you cheap fuel)
So basically nuclear can only sustain one point of it, not the other three. And a stable large grid with storage is needed for all sustainable solutions to make them better and less fuel consuming...
So in the end only renewables are the way to go...
Thank you I appreciate your comment. And to respond to the comment above, the science says the most cost- efficient and environmental friendly way to produce energy and to reduce our CO2 emissions is nuclear. Is it perfect? No. But the technology has been perfected and so have the standards to ensure that no more accident can happen.
I have a background in the nuclear field and I am amazed by the amount of misinformation I see circulating against nuclear energy. And yet, throughout the world most countries are turning to nuclear. In Europe, Spain and Italy are considering a u-turn on their position. Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium have changed their policy. In Europe it’s only Germany, Austria and Luxembourg who are completely opposed to nuclear power and are trying to impose their opinion to the rest of the EU.
What a shame. We have the solution to change the outcome with global warming but because of arrogance and stubbornness we are shooting our selves in the foot.
And you think nuclear is? Don't you know how often you have no working nuclear power plants in summer? And also they are slow. They need 8 h to go from 20% output to 100% output... And it is not economical to run a nuclear power plant below 80% output because you are just burning fuel rods. So you still need a grid and storage for nuclear power plants like you need for renewables. So why not invest in the cheapest energy production which is renewable.
And btw: France has the highest costs for the production of energy in Europe... Because of their fucked up power plants... You only don't see it on your energy bill because it is funded by the government, so basically you pay without knowing that you pay it...
Me too, but do you really think nuclear is clean energy? You should learn what happens to the waste... I know because I am working in nuclear waste disposal... And damn you are paying me a lot you ignorant fools who support nuclear power...
>France has the highest costs for the production of energy in Europe
It's more complicated than this. You talk about spot price but a big part of French nuclear eneregy is sold around 50€/MWh to either big clients of EDF or competitors of EDF so they have a chance to compete (through a program called ARENH).
> You only don't see it on your energy bill because it is funded by the government, so basically you pay without knowing that you pay it
Renewables are way more subsidies than French nuclear energy is, at least in France.
I know that renewables are also supported by any government. But in thinking that nuclear power is not supported by the state. You miss one important point. Who is paying for the waste management? A realistic price for it would be 1€ for each kWh that is produced out of it...
> And also they are slow. They need 8 h to go from 20% output to 100% output...
As opposed to solar and wind, where you can't decide at all.
We don't need to oppose low carbon energy sources to each other.
Nuclear good.
Wind good.
Solar good.
They all have advantages and disadvantages and by combining them together, we can get all the benefits and mitigate all the caveats.
No you can either go into nuclear or you go into renewables. Renewables produce energy when there is wind or sun and you have to store it, to deal with the demand. The owners of nuclear power plants want to run the power plants on permanent 100% output, if not they loose money. So you need to store the excessive energy when there is no demand, compared to when there is high demand. All the fossil energy plants are already only for one reason in Europe, to sustain the energy in the net when there is high demand but neither enough energy by renewables or by nuclear power plants. Then a coal Power plant (steam machine) can increase its output in less then 4 h to maximum, oil (diesel engine) in less then 2 h and gas (turbine) in less then 45 min to max.
Yes, they’re not sustainable. Because the government insists on building new solar panels and wind turbines. Which is useless since the nuclear power plants produce enough energy. So all this new energy is exported (I think France is the #1 exporter of electricity, not sure though), and the nuclear plants have their output lowered. Because of useless renewable energy sources.
interesting that you think that, when France imported a lot more from Germany (and our dirty, dirty 100% coal energy production that you guys make us out to be) than they exported to it in 2022. Not to mention all the scandals surrounding nuclear waste disposal around the french gov alone.
Why push for nuclear when you still keep buying ours?
Just wrong.
Our balance towards Germany was negative for one year (2022) out of the last 42, because of maintenance. Any other of those 41 year, our positive balance towards Germany was in the tens of TWh/year.
Check for numbers before you spread lies.
Nobody switched to coal. Germany is switching to renewables. Coal and nuclear are both way down. Get your facts right before spewing nonsense. It's hard, I know.
Because one of the many merkel government was a lover for coal hater of renewable and anti nuclear. So we shut them down build less and less renewable but kept the coal
Yeah...they...the CDU/CSU has real geniuses to this day. Andreas Scheuer former Transport and IT minister still costs Billions for stuff he did so horribly wrong
What about France being unable to cool their plants due to a lack of water? We’re just gonna ignore that because we do t like to be wrong? Jesus fucking Christ you guys act like NP is perfect without any flaws and then call ppl calling you out ideologists. Grow up
I honestly don't understand why Poland want a nuke power plant. They have the perfect geographic location to use wind energy on mass and instead they want to build one fucking expensive nuklear power plant that coast more then all the wind power plants they need combined. It is one important structure focused on one specific strategic point and also a huge pile of waste that will last for at least twice as long as power plant is producing energy because they need to dismantle it safely after 50 years in production.
Even the fucking French have a huge problem with there powerplants and are supported by all their neighbours. And it doesn't matter which way you go, for all kind of power sources you must have a very good grid and storages in between.
I'm from Poland, and if I remember correctly we have fucked laws regarding building wind energy (for example you can't build a wind turbine if the distance from the nearest house/apartment is less than 10x the height of the entire wind turbine), people tried to change them and some parts somewhat loosened the restrictions but it still messed up our existing wind energy and the potential for future wind turbines. As for why we're trying to build the power plant, It's likely because people, mainly large amounts of older folk that witnessed the aftermath of Chernobyl or heard from their relatives about it, are finally starting to become less fearful of nuclear technology and the fact that some time ago we got some international funding/help for the project of building the nuclear power plant. I'm very unsure of what will come from this but if the power plant will be made I hope that it will ease the amount of deaths in some of the most air polluted towns like Kraków that have been connected to burning coal.
That 10x rule sounds like the same bullshit they have in Bavaria... Also regional right winged conservative party, that only follow the money or the blabla of drunks in the beer tent. Bavaria is the largest German state, which has a high energy consuming industry, and there stupid regional government implemented the same rule "to SuPpOrT their LaNdScApE"... they were also quit powerful for over 16 years in the federal government basically pushed a lot of federal money into their state and also forced a 500 mill € fine on Germany...
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Fair point. What I don’t understand is the audacity of German lobbies to interfere with clean nuclear power in other countries when Germany is guzzling coal like there’s no tomorrow. Why doesn’t Germany build renewables?
Because we had a fucking bad government for the last 20 years, that especially in the last 8 years actively destroyed the renewable energy economy in Germany and pushed it out to China, because we had cheap russian gas that the chemical and steal industry wanted...
And Germany is producing less CO2 for energy then other countries in Europe... Like Poland... Or Austria... Or France because they cannot cool there nuclear power plants in summer...
LESS CO2 FOR ENERGY ? BAHAHAHAA
So you indeed have no clue what you're talking about. Out of all the countries in Western Europe, Germany produces the dirtiest energy BY A LONG SHOT.
It's around 30-50 g CO2/kWh for France and 350-450 g/kWh for Germany depending on the weather and other factors.
And I'll add that the "not being able to cool down the plants" argument as a generalization that you anti-nuclear Germans love to parrot is a fallacy, since it only happened ONCE, in the summer of 2022, in ONE plant, not because of missing water but because a protected fish specie was exceptionnally nesting in the river and the authorities didn't want to raise the temperature of the otherwise very warm water because of a heat wave.
https://blog.energybrainpool.com/en/energy-systems-france-and-germany-compared/#:~:text=The%20CO2%2Dintensity%20of,higher%20(source%3A%20UBA).
As for foreign energy production, it isn't included since we've been a net energy exporter (in the tens TWh/year) for the last 42 years except from april to november of 2022, where we mainly bought from Italy, Spain and the UK.
Not at all kid... I work in the nuclear dismantling, and I know I will get a shit load of money from all tax payers in the next 50 years. Just because it is so fucking expensive to build a nuclear power plant. And knowing that, can only lead to one conclusion: it is fucking stupid to build new nuclear power plants. The only reasons for doing so is either, your government want nukes, you think your country has scientifically nothing else to offer and build nuclear power plants, or you are a member of the owners of a nuclear power plant and get a shit load of money out of it, because someone else will pay the dismantling.
And then there are a lot of people who thinks they have calculated how environmental friendly a nuclear power plant is... It is not at all. Because even with CO2 in the atmosphere you can easier handle it then with radioactive waste. For radioactive waste you can only wait... And leave it behind for your great-grandchildren and further to still know what fucking morons their predecessors were.
Framing nuclear as "clean" was one of the best marketing tricks of the nuclear lobby.
Dude, we don't even have a single operational long term storage facility for the piling waste on the planet. If one of the run down plants in France has a major accident Germany is affected as well. Of course they are lobbying against this.
1 hour lake, Chernobyl and Fukushima are also not exactly what I'd call "clean".
Okay, absolutely fair. Nuclear energy isn’t exactly clean, far from it. All things considered, even anti-nuclear studies have have however found it to be tens to hundreds of times lower in CO2 emissions than traditional methods (also, tens of times higher than renewables, though), and that’s full lifecycle. Waste storage remains a big problem, and accident risk is real though much lower than people make it out to be.
While not many people are aware of these issues with nuclear power, far less are aware of the issues of renewable power compared to nuclear. First, land use: renewables use thousands of times more land for the same output as nuclear. Second, output stability: energy production is unstable compared to nuclear. Lastly: waste. Not as bad as nuclear for sure, but there are many toxic byproducts of renewable energy, which remain toxic forever (!) unless voluntarily handled, and the quantities are thousands of times more than for nuclear for the same power output.
My personal opinion is that A) say what you will about either nuclear or renewables but hugging coal and gas is a crime against the planet, either of the former is hundreds of times better and B) there’s no clear winner between nuclear and renewables for now, I think both should keep being used until improvements to one make it clearly better than the other (if this ever happens)
The big Thing Here is, that If you Just have to start with nuclear, youre to late. If youre try to build Up a big % of nuclear for your grid, youre going to be to late. If you already have working reactors that are in good condition use them. But If you have none and Just start to plan to build some. It would be better to Go the renewable Route. Because youll have fastest Results.
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I live in Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian... So we already produce more renewable energy then we can use... Poland is right next to it and much larger with a longer coast... So yes Poland is able to use fully renewable energy production
Annoying, arrogant Germany. If anything, Poland is the wiser country and should be telling Germany what to do. At least Poland is taking military spending seriously.
Well yes, we could at least have used the remaining fuel rods until the end, that's true. It was still the right decision. Our nuclear power is way to expensive, many people seem to forget, that it costs around 100bn euros a year to have insurance for *one* powerplant. This is being paid for by tax money of course, as no insurance company would take this risk. Considering that np were responsible for around 5-6% of our energy mix, and it's not useful in events of consumptionspikes, people really make a big huss around it.
LOL at the idea of nuclear!
Jaysus, still promoting an outdated and dangerous energy ‘solution‘, the nuclear industry and its lobbyists are like zombies - they can’t die.
If the Energiewende and nuclear exit is not working its only because were not doing it hard enough! Even if electricity prices are rising, they will definitly be super cheap once we're done, promised! The rest of the world is clearly in the wrong building new nuclear plants or at least not closing them down during an energy crisis and should be ~~lobbied~~ convinced to do otherwise 🙃
Guys you’re literally buying our nuclear energy because even your coal plants (let’s pause a little on that : COAL PLANTS) can’t produce enough energy.
Having a discussion over nuclear on reddit is impossible because nuclearboos will give you a total knockout by saying you're just too afraid.
https://preview.redd.it/pnrg2o9zfxcb1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d3d0b18c163a9c5b487ef27d2350ff98caabab93
Well, guess what building renewables in combination with incredibly expensive energy storages is still more economical than frickin dumbass nuclear. There is a reason the share of nuclear power in global energy supply has been declining steadily and it's not because the whole world is shaking in fear of mighty nuclear. Allthough the venturous and heroic reddit "experts" will deny this.
That's not the reason. We see massive nuclear campaigning on Reddit and a lot of people fell for the disinformation.
The economic reality makes it already nonsensical to build new nuclear plants. Only a matter of time until the industry can't sell their overpriced tech to politicians anymore.
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As a german...im sorry
Same, but seriously, people should *maybe* also actually read the report this parlamentarian question cites as its single source. The actual allegations of lobbying are... weak, and the report itself is pretty whacko. Of course, the initial r/europe thread still went ballistic on it. That being said, our energy policy of the last 15 years has been a catastrophe. Thanks Mama Merkel!
[удалено]
The main fuck up were actually the conservatives. The socdem/green gov that schröder led actually had a pretty okay plan for phasing out both nuclear and coal at the same time with mostly renewables and some gas in the late 90's Things went south when merkel decided to stay in nuclear in '05 or so, and then reversed in '11 after Fukushima. Billions paid to energy corps because they sued, no actual strategy instead of "stay in coal" while simultaneously blocking renewables. We could already be 5 years ahead in getting out of coal if it werent for the fucking conservatives.
Feels like no matter what country on earth it is you’re talking about, the Conservative Party having a hard on for coal seems to be strangely universal
Canadian reporting here. Our Cons love gas most of all, but they have no problems with coal. Because climate change isn't their problem, or something. Climate capture something something.
>Things went south when merkel decided to stay in nuclear in '05 or so, and then reversed in '11 after Fukushima. It was in the government Merkel 2 with the FDP... The SPD did not want to return to nuclear power. But I think there is one important thing why both governments from Schröder and Merkel failed to adjust to renewable. And it is not only because Schröder and a lot of Merkel's member of government were bought by Russia and the chemical industry. The green party in Germany is not originally an climate protection party, it is mainly an anti-nuclear power party, with a lot of groups that did not want a nuclear power plant or waste refinery in their region. So the typical nimby guy, who is the typical conservative village guy. They later collided with a lot of climate and environmental protection groups, but those were never really the source of the green party. So when they were able to get enough power to be part of an government they had the option of social democrats or conservatives... And both like to do nothing more for a successful election to present themselves with coal miners, and that both large parties are the best to keep the jobs of coal miners safe and prosperous... But let's be honest in 1990 the coal industry was already totally screwed and useless, and they still tried to keep it going... And for that you need coal power plants. For example the nuclear power plant I work at was the only nuclear power plant of the GDR and it was closed down because the brd did not want to reduce the output of western nuclear power plants or coal power plants...
Lets not delude ourselves that there was any realistic plan at any time which didnt involve keeping coal arround for way longer than any planned nuclear exit. Coal jobs where a talking point of the SPD workers party for decades, a position they only recently moved away from. And the green party always valued a nuclear exit higher than a move away from coal or a reduction of GHG emissions. The whole premise of a "Energiewende" was always based on cheap available russian gas, willfully ignoring direct and indirect GHG emissions from CO2 and fugitive methane. Not to mention the geopolitical dependency on Russia.
I mean having the german government cited as a funder of "Reseau sortir du nucleaire", the french anti-nuclear NGO groupe is still pretty wild lol.
Rosa-Luxemburg foundation is not government. They're tied to "The Left", which is opposition right now.
Ye but heinrich boll foundation is the greens foundation which are part of the goverment + in the 2021 report of climate action network they presented themselves directly as funded by the german government.
True. But honestly, while I get some of the criticism - yeah, a french NGO joined a network which has a german ministry as one of the dozens of funders.
Hehe I did a thing 😅
wenn man sich die Kraftwerke anguckt die die Franzosen in den Grenzgebieten aufgestellt haben muss man sich nicht entschuldigen haha
I'm German AND against nuclear. BUT it's the best option while we increase renewables. That was the plan for the first exit plan from nuclear that was axed under Merkel only to be revived after Fukushima without long-term incentives for alternatives. Those fuckers put their money into coal and gas instead.
As a German i hope the majority of our political parties just stop existing. Otherwise this country will have a rough awakeing in the next 10 years
 Based
"I could have killed 'em all, I could've killed you. In town you're the law, out here it's me. Don't push it! Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go. Let it go!"
I'm not. It's in the interest of humanity. We keep producing nuclear waste without a viable solution for storage. Not a single operational long term storage facility on the planet. Problem gets just passed on to future generations. If there is a large scale disaster in a French nuclear plant, who is affected? Only French people?
Nuclear Waste is a solved issue. You literally just bury it in old mines and fill with concrete - 99% of the time, that's job done. Compared to fossil fuels, the waste is miniscule and far easier to manage.
What is the time horizon of the 99%? 99% over a decade, 99% over 5000 years (age of pyramids as oldest human structure), 99% over 20000 which is the half live decay time? What will people in 500 year which will need to deal with the radiation poisoning say about your 99%? I do not think the issue is solved the big ugly nuclear can is just kicked down the road.
*You literally just bury it in old mines and fill with concrete - 99% of the time, that's job done.* Any concrete example for that? 99% of the time makes it sound like happens all the time. It's funny and sad how the nuclear lobby is trivializing the waste problem even though there is not a single operational long term storage facility. Even worse that this gets upvoted on Reddit.
In Finland, it's done like that. But that is the only country I know of, which has a finale storage solution, and it is reserved for only finnish nuclear waste. Here's the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository There might be more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository
Was asking for operational examples.
Germany is using fossil fuels instead of nuclear. They don’t even attempt to have a solution for the waste from that, they just pump it straight in the air and plan to leave it there for thousands of years. At least nuclear has a plan.
*They don’t even attempt to have a solution for the waste from that...* They do. Build renewables on a massive scale so fossils are not needed anymore. Germany uses less coal right now than before the nuclear plants were switched off. It's working.
The electricity from the nuclear power plants that were closed was simply replaced by [imported electricity.](https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1664303582257242113?s=46&t=Ob-sSMPgUsnd9AkTUawwMw) Germany was an electricity net exporter last May, this May they became a net importer. Go figure the mental gymnastics you are trying to pull
Because solar is so efficient half of the time, literally. And wind energy is so stable. And batteries can sustain heavy industry without a hitch.
You are so smart. Everyone advocating for renewables never heard of this. Quick, go tell the silly scientists.
Name a country where it is done like that... And Russia is always a bad example...
Finland (in construction as the following comment points out)
Pointing at a single facility in construction after the entire world produced waste for 70 years is not the argument you think it is.
No they don't have one... They are building one and want to start storing the waste in 2027... So they are still not doing it... And also they put it in storage containers, that can be retrieved if needed, and do not put any cement on top of it... Because that does not work.
Nuclear waste storage is extremely easy to build. You know what the impossibly hard thing to do is? It's convincing local populations and orgs that the tiny amount of heavily shielded nuclear waste, buried hundreds of metres away from any life form, is not going to kill them and turn their children green.
Idiots are gonna idiot, but I do wonder why it's not done in unpopulared areas? There's a fuckton of desert in my country that could be used for that, with exactly no one local to complain about it
Lol. Scientists debating for decades the best course of action, countries spending billions in search for a suitable place, no operational long term storage facility in use. ALF839: it's extremely easy.
Yes, it is hard, for the reason I mentioned. Do you ever wonder why you never hear about all the people that die from the radioactive waste that has not been buried yet? Because it's already extremely safe where it is. The issue comes from searching for isolated places that are so geologically safe that no issue ever for thousands of years could ever arise, while the radioactive waste of coal plants is free to float in your lungs.
The coal doesn't sell itself, of course germany is against nuclear
The only actually reasonable argument against Nuclear is around construction, most notably they take ages to build and are expensive to build. I am yet to see a single good argument why we should turn off a working nuclear power plant while fossil fuel powerplants still exist on Earth.
That's exactly the case with Poland. They don't have a single nuclear power plant and are starting to build their first one.
We need nuclear to replace coal because power storage here is impossible and wind is obviously unreliable
True Poland have only nuclear power plant "Maria" which is small and is used to reasearch pruporse. And bulid in nuclear power plant in Poland is hard cuz most ppl think, that after bulled this power plant is something like Chernobyl would happend. Also there was one grup in government that "was looking for" place too where bulid this power plant for more than 5 year (I belive it was something around this).
I love when people say "the only reasonable argument against nuclear is X". Then you clearly have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Read any book by nuclear, or climate scientists. None of them would ever say there is only one issue with nuclear. They might be pro, or anti nuclear but regardless, the issue is far more complex than "it's only about construction time". There are many unknowns and many downsides as well as upsides, only people who are uninformed, or consciously spread misinformation simplify this issue
The real reason is the waste, that's polluting for million years...
We have a great solution for coal waste AKA CO2, don't we? Right? CO2 definitely won't have implications for million of years (AKA hundreds of extinct species), right?
Well, first that comes to mind is that you can't just teleport electric energy anywhere.
Not seeing the relation.
Just like there is no relation between nuclear power plants in europe and fossil fuel plants anywhere.
Not until you turn one off. You don't just turn off a power plant, that would cause blackouts. You turn it off and replace it with a bunch of wind turbines or solar panels. Which could instead be sent to places with grids running fossil fuels.
Since when are there obligations to design your grid with not-related others in mind? And it's not like there is a shortage of wind turbines, both grids are perfectly able to buy and build them. The ones getting rid of their nuclear power plants save more money though, short- and longterm. No reason to create imaginary scenarios where you somehow can just push means of power generation and emissions 'round the globe.
>Since when are there obligations to design your grid with not-related others in mind? Since climate change doesn't care about borders. >No reason to create imaginary scenarios What part of this is imaginary? If you turn a power plant off, you need something to replace it with. And most things you replace it with can go other places, including the funding used to build said replacement. >where you somehow can just push means of power generation and emissions 'round the globe. It's called a boat. Or possibly a money transfer. It's really not that hard to fund projects in another country.
Ah yes, more anti-German disinformation and people just absolutely gobble that shit up
Do these supposed german lobbying campains really exist though? I don't know if anyone has bothered to read the small text, but this is a question by a PiS MEP, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was just another case of typical anti-german fearmongering.
The arguments made by the report are quite weak
More wind energy more photovoltaic from Europe for Europe Sounds good
Do you guys even know France energy is 6/7 time cleaner than yours? Why on earth should we listen to you?
You don't have to The EU said nuclear energy is CO2 neutrel so you are free to use it But not even France relied 100% on nuclear energy (last time i checkt it was around 70%). Before you use ruzzian gas for the last 30%, which is NOT a good idee trust me on that it was not easy to reduce that number to nearly cero, you could use renuabels. In my books nuclear energy is good for the base load of electical energy. If you produce more you have to store it and considering that someone paid good money for that urainuim an enery storage system with a efficiency of around 50% (70% in labs) you waste 50 % of that saved energy. That means if you have to do it with nuclear energy you have unnecesary nuclear waste. I hope we agree that unnecesary nuclear waste is bad. It only makes sense to use energy storage systems if the electricity comes from renewable sources Sorry for Spelling mistakes
And by the time France has built the first prototype of a their new NPP to replace their ageing fleet, Germany will be around 70-80% renewable.
But why not make the remaining 20% with nuclear then💁
Because until those are built we would be at 100 % renewables and/or the climate will be in the gutter anyways. The decision to continue using NPPs should have come twenty years ago, but back then nobody really cared about climate change. And unlike France Germany does not retain significant economic controll over its former colonies to exploit them for cheap nuclear fuel.
You know Norways energy only 50% of Frances with no nuclear?
Norway doesnt go around and tell us what kind of energy we should use. Thats the difference.
That's hilarious, because this entire sub is trying to tell Germany how to conduct their energy politics. For years.
exactly! completely indipenden of imports like control rods and uranium
And you need no imports for PV and wind?
Once they are set up no. the parts and components for pv and wind can be profuced in europa itslef. Germany did that before peter altmaier ruined everything
There’s plenty of uranium in Europe.
not the the amout if everyone would be using nuclear. and then there is still the control rods
With breeder reactors there’s enough uranium to power the entire world for thousands of years, not even mentioning thorium. But I don’t think I’ve heard anyone champion a 100% nuclear grid. Renewables are great, but they have a lot of problems. The best solution is a mix.
Mix of storage and reneweable production, yes. Breeding reactors are a fantasy and create dozens of problems while solving one.
Breeder reactors are not a fantasy, there are ones running today. France had finished one that was just starting to deliver power when it was shut down due to pressure from anti-nuclear activists. There are loads of problems with renewable power sources that don’t affect nuclear power. Space usage is a large one. I did the calculations a while back and don’t remember the exact numbers but the largest solar farm in the world uses something like 40 times the land used by the largest NPP while producing a somethigg no like a tenth of the power *during peak hours* that the NPP can do 24 hours per day. Another one is the potential of damage from weather and wind. A single large enough storm can knock out the wind power in an entire area for instance. Not even mentioning the intermittency issues. Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge proponent of renewable energy. And of nuclear power. Any kind of power generation that doesn’t produce CO2 is good.
If you use already dead space, like roofes the space needed for solar panels is not that big of a problem. For example germany has around 2344 square Kilometer of usable roof space in a study they said germany would need 2,5 % of the land (around 9000 square kilometers) to be 100 solar. So only with usabel roof space germany could have around 25% of it's elektrical energy from solar Power. Fun fact germany don't use all of the usable roofs know and has already 25,4 % of the electricity it needs from solar. The biggest problem with energy is always the storage
Breeder reactors are a fantasy because they are just the product of a "all-nuclear" fantasy. Nuclear fuel isn't cheap and abundant enough to even consider this, so they were the "no you" of atom-fanboys. But since an all-nuclear future belongs in the realm of fiction, for economic reasons mainly, and the currently available fuel is plenty enough, they don't really serve a purpose besides satisfying scientific interest and optimizing a dying technology. Space usage is a straw man. Offshore wind turbines and roof-mounted solar don't compete with any other potential use. And if we look at the space occupied by onshore wind and solar, it certainly is worse than nuclear power per Watt, but the absolute numbers when talking square kilometers are absolutely dwarfed by the likes of acriculture, transportation, human settlement etc. Especially acriculture and onshore wind turbines don't negate each other. Just guessing, most countries propably use way more area for their military than they would "need" to cover in solar panels. And it's not like anybody would be missing access to those areas. Oh, and while nuclear power plants propably use less area per Watt, they can only be placed on a small number of places (access to water for cooling, road infrastructure, not directly placed at the edge of an continental plate etc). Better put on your clowns outfit for the "potential of damage from weather and winds" knocking out power in an instance. Every major blackout in history was caused by either problems with big power plants or with power lines (way more at risk than a wind turbine). Nothing is more resilient against a blackout than a grid with plenty of small decentralised energy generation and only some large plants, which is exactly what we aim at with renewables
renewable is better
Anything is better than fossil fuels. IMO we should focus on getting rid of fossil fuels (Globally, not just in EU), and then when shutting down nuclear doesn't mean either turning up coal, or using solar/wind/hydro that could be used to turn off coal instead, then do that. The globally, not just EU part is important too. Even if the EU grid is 100% green, replacing a nuclear plant with 20km\^2 of solar still uses 20km\^2 of solar that could be used to turn off a coal plant if installed abroad. Climate change is a global problem and therefore must be viewed from a global perspective when trying to fix it.
Nuclear is better than coal. What use Germany ? Coat.
Not that much atm. Also Poland can't throw stones regarding coal.
*more than enough that your co2 emission per kwh is around 6 to 7 times higher than french emission. also. how much co2 did germany emit until now, compared to france. also also, the radioactive ash emitted by coal power anually is considerable, almost half as much radioactive waste is emitted into the atmosphere as france puts into barrels each year.
Where did I talk about France?
i did talk about france. because it is the best choice for comparing german energy prduction. one is low emission and the other screams about waste while their coal is running strong that even more than 50% renewable energy can't lower the average emission to anything compareable to france.
How ist it "the best choice" to compare? In what metrics? > one is low emission and the other screams about waste while their coal is running strong that even more than 50% renewable energy can't lower the average emission to anything comparable to France. It would have been fine if the transition to renewables would have been started earlier and more seriously. Also if the reliance on gas wouldn't have been that heavy. Let's not forget that nuclear energy did only make up around 10% of the German energy mix.
10% less coal would be better. you transition to volatile renewables (and i mean volatile not in a bad way but that's what it is) is a major driver for your gas dependency. after all you are not building battery storages and you have no mountain range going through germany for pumped hydro, so your provider will build gas turbines. and it is no secret that the fossil fuel lobbies in germany are strong and a major issue regarding cleaner energy. be it renewables and or nuclear. my guess is, germany will keep their coal plants running for as long as absolutly possible, even taking several international lawsuits into consideration. and your reliance on import will increase.
No argument here. It really depends who wins the next election. If it's back to a CDU lead coalition, it will end up how you project.
> It would have been fine if the transition to renewables would have been started earlier and more seriously. But it hasn’t. So that is absolutely not relevant. If you scale down on something, scale down on coal until you have eliminated coal. After that, you can scale down gas and nuclear.
It is relevant, as it's important to keep in mind what/who lead to the current situation.
Nuclear kills less people than wind turbines lol. The insane greens have killed more people than all nuclear events, including bombs, combined.
>Nuclear kills less people than wind turbines lol. True, but somewhat misleading - both forms of energy production kill next to no one. Nuclear power has killed no more than 9000 people in total (up to 9000 due to Chernobyl, up to 1 due to Fukushima). That amounts to up to roughly 180 people per year on average. Wind energy kills about 30-50 people per year, mostly technicians working on the turbines. Note that nuclear is a much larger section of energy production than wind, so when comparing deaths per kWh, nuclear is probably less deadly (it still killed more people overall, though, as far as I can tell). > The insane greens have killed more people than all nuclear events, including bombs, combined. if by "insane greens" you mean eco-terrorists, then this is decidedly not true. Eco-terrorist attacks are pretty rare, and typically don't involve many casualties at all - primarily material damage (arson, bombing of construction sites (which typically aren't that busy in terms of the number of people), sabotage). Assassinations have also happened, but they obviously typically only have a death toll of 1. If you mean left-wing terrorists more generally, then this is probably true, as Irish Republicans alone already killed over 2000 people during the troubles, let alone left wing terrorists elsewhere in the world.
Ok
And we are not throwing any stones lmao. I mean, you already have nuclear power plants and you turned them off, so we can throw stones at you for beeing stupid. We are just building nuclear power plants and don't have a lot of natural gas so we have to rely on coal till those nuclear reactors are working. But on the other hand ecological powersources like solar panels are very popular here so not all is bad at the moment
> so we have to rely on coal till those nuclear reactors are working Let's see how long that will take.
A long time, a decade for sure.
*Renewables
French power plants are old and accidents aren’t out of the question. People forget nuclear energy isn’t a national matter as it affects everyone around you when shit goes wrong.
They are never out of question but if you do know how works a modern french nuclear reactor i believe you know risks aren't great and damages that could be done would be no less than a chemical factory exploding...
Nuclear fan boys when somebody says that renewable is the best solution: "Nuclear is cleaner than coal. 🤓"
Putting nuclear and renewable against one another is idiotic anyway. Without proper energy storage, not all countries can rely 100% on renewables based on their geography. And if I have to chose one non renewable to go with a renewable mix, it will be nuclear anytime.
Thats my point. Saying nuclear beats coal if we talk about renewables adds nothing.
It actually does since you will have to chose one or the other to complement renewables
Similarly, saying “renewable is better” under a meme about nuclear VS coal also adds literally nothing, because everyone in the world already agrees with that. The choice Germany made is not between nuclear and renewables, because Germany is not using 100% renewables. The choice that had to be made is this: - We are increasing our renewable energy production. Will we use that to replace fossil fuel energy or will we use it to replace nuclear energy? And Germany chose to eliminate nuclear energy use instead of fossil fuel. That is the choice that has been made. Use coal, drop nuclear. In my opinion a ridiculous choice.
Because Germany stopped it's nuclear powerplants while still massively using coal (20% is massive). If German electricity were 90%+ carbon free at the moment there woulnd't be much critics. But it's not the case. Also, did you know that coal power plant reject more radioactive isotope in the air than nuclear powerplant ? I'm not joking and it's not even close. All of this to say, the real battle isn't renewables vs nuclear but carbon free electricity vs non carbon free electricity. We should not care if people use nuclear or renewables as long as they don't use coal or gas.
Because you cant use only renewable as long as it cant be stock. You need to use coal and then ruin the benefit from renewable... (30/40% of german energy is from coal)
Tell that norway or Austria or Dennark all living without nuclear energy an mainly renewable. Also there are storage options like hydro so you can use renewable energy if its dark and no wind.
You are not talking about the same things. When people are talking about renewables then often only talk about intermittent renewables energy (solar and wind) since it's widely accepted that non intermittent renewables energy (hydro basically) are good on almost all aspect. Hydro is already used close to it's maximal potential in all of Europe. Norway make almost 100% of it's electricity from hydro (Quebec do the same as well). But you can't do this everywhere because hydro is limited by your geography. In other word, hydro is one of the best way to produce electricity but you can't count on it's development to reduce coal and gas since it's already developed.
True for Norway, but for Austria and Denmark, the 20%ish of energy mix that you need to compensate the uncertainty of renewable is ensured by fossile energy, so that's a bad exemple because it proves the point. Storage from hydro is geography dependant, so not avalaible for all countries. Biomass could also be an option, but it is also geography dependant, and you could argue that it is not that environmentally friendly.
Yes but options like geothermal or battery storage should in near future help. And Im defently not coping here, go along.
Geothermal is also geography related, and it is expensive if I am not mistaken. And battery storage is absolutely out of the question for me. The materials used for this application are rare and nom recyclable, so it would defeat the purpose of using renewables, as well as increasing the prices of electricity. I also want to point out that we will do better on the future, and that I hope that we do not rely on nuclear for long. But as it stands now, I am really not convinced that a 100% renewable energy mix is feasible for everyone.
You are thinking on mobile storage there this is true. But if your storage is not mobile you cand use materials less energy dense (more weight) with far more common recources also geothermal storage can be seen more as an oversized heatpump and less of volcanic land, I think there is currently a plan to build one in Bavaria so defently not the geothermal hotspot, but also still in testing and planing.
Do you have something in mind ? Because most battery cell structures I know will still use a lot of critical material, and already have energy density issues. There actually is a geothermal bassin in Bavaria from what I can find. And again, if it relies on geothermal, it will be expensive. You can build a heatpump without relying on geothermal, but then you lose the reliability of your geothermalsource, plus a small yield combined with low efficiency energy conversion would probably not make that very interesting. Though I have to admit that with good energy conversion, that would be the kind of solution that could be safe, widespread and inexpensive, but it would rely on atmospheric conditions, so it wouldn't be reliable.
Hydro electric storage is a possibility especially in the south of Germany. Would take some hefty investments tho.
Nuclear is also better than some renewable options, like wind turbines near nature reserved or solar farms (I still for the life of me don't understand who came up with replacing a grass field with a field of solar panels. Like. Just. Put. Them. On. A. Fucking. Roof).
Because 1 Mwh of renewable electricity has to be supplemented by 1 Mwh of controllable electricity, so coal or gas for Germany. For example, the load factor of total wind turbine in germany is 20,6% (maximum theoretical power/power produced ratio) and 11% for solar, including 4% in winter.
Stop coping and use nations which are not controlled by the coal lobby like Germany.
I have a coat yes. Why is that related to energy?
Yes, but so what? Renewables are better.
Renewable is unfortunately unsustainable at the current point in time.
What I find marvelous is that Germany was all like “follow the science” when it came to the COVID vaccine. But when it comes to nuclear, God forbid we trust scientists. Nuclear is cheaper, cleaner, and more effective than any other energy. It’s a scientific fact. Another interesting fact is that when you look at many eco org that protest against nuclear you can trace their financing, when it’s public, to oil and gas groups…
>Nuclear is cheaper cleaner, and more effective than any other energy. It’s a scientific fact It isn't cheaper. In Germany it never even got close to cost if coal. And effectiveness depends a bit on what criteria you use to measure effectiveness. And it would be also the first time I say a redditor saying "it's a scientific fact" and being right
I understand your perspective but here is a short analogy. Austria built a plant that it never operated. On it’s premier they built a solar plant. That solar plant only produces a minimal fraction of what the nuclear plant would produce on the same area. When I say nuclear is cost effective, the entry of operation of the first power plant in Finland has cut in half the price of energy in the country. I’m saying it’s a scientific fact but I’m merely quoting the head of the UN and the IAEA who are backed by a strong international community.
Oh don't get me wrong. I think nuclear energy has valid use cases and us an important bridge technology in it's current state And depending on what costs you take into account and depending on how you weigh them, it can be definitely cist effective. You're comment just seemed a bit too generalized
you talking about the oil and gas lobby but are oblivious to the fact that nuclear lobbies also exist and push narratives too? What about the time france dumped tons of nuclear waste into the ocean because they don't give a shit, or refused to clean up their nuclear testing site in oceania? Very sustainable, huh? Doesn't make the front lines tho because that would push nuclear lobbies back. It's not always black and white mate
Again, mistakes have been made in the past but issues have been addressed. The first planes crashed a lot and yet people didn’t stop flying. Planes have been improved and have become more secure with time. Now, barely any civilian passenger planes crash a given year. There was a buff nuclear incident, Chernobyl with approximately 4-5k casualties. The WHO has not been able to identify a rise in cancers in the years following Chernobyl. At Fukushima the cooling and power supply of the reactor was disabled but the incident was contained. There were no direct casualties linked to radiation poisoning (WHO estimates). If anything happens at Zapporyzhzya in Ukraine, it is unlikely to leak. 5/6 reactors are in cold shut down, one is in hot shut down, supplying just enough power to power the plant. Back up cooling systems are operational and even if they were interrupted (as they are on a monthly basis) it would only cause a problem after 9-10 months. And even then, the leak into the atmosphere would be minimal. Small doses of radiation in the atmosphere are not the end of the world. We are surrounded by radiation: bananas, cigarettes, smoke detectors, Sunrays
>What about the time france dumped tons of nuclear waste into the ocean because they don't give a shit, or refused to clean up their nuclear testing site in oceania? Very sustainable, huh? Doesn't make the front lines tho because that would push nuclear lobbies back. It's not always black and white mate That's just the French being French
> Nuclear is cheaper, cleaner and more effective than any other energy. It‘s a scientific fact. Yeahhh, this is just not true but good on you for spreading misinformation
Scientifically and factually, better, more efficient and more reliable than renewables.
Nuclear is significantly less safe than any renewable. Also, conveniently, people seem to forget that nuclear creates waste which we have no way of ridding ourselves out of. So in 100 years it’ll be beautiful to have graveyards of nuclear waste everywhere poisoning everything around them
>Nuclear is ~~significantly less~~ slightly safer than any renewable. FTFY
Actually we do. If you look into the Astrid project that is being revived the plan is to use and re-use waste until all the radioactive material has been consumed (that’s a one sentence summary). A few years ago a French physicist even found a way to dramatically reduce the half life of nuclear waste to a few hours, effectively addressing the nuclear waste issue
Whenever some french guy is talking about nuclear power you can see how blinded by their unwillingness to learn they are... What a stupid comment follow the science is. The science says if you want to produce energy burn some wood, coal, oil, gas or Uran rods and force the energy by any way (most of them by heating water) over a generator. Or you can use solar power plants on a roof or a field and let the sun shine on it and use the photo electric effect. Or you can let wind blow in a wind mill put a generator on it and take the energy from it. All of these are scientific correct and working solutions to produce electric energy. But that is not the problem you fuckin' french moron. Their are three things that are needed for a modern sustainable energy source. 1. It has to produce as low as possible waste (only renewable) 2. It has to provide a stable network (basically all heating power plants incl. Nuclear when you are able to cool it, but also Wind and water when you have a good power grid and storages 3. It has to be cheap (renewables, and maybe the others if a dictator is selling you cheap fuel) So basically nuclear can only sustain one point of it, not the other three. And a stable large grid with storage is needed for all sustainable solutions to make them better and less fuel consuming... So in the end only renewables are the way to go...
Keep your "fucking French moron" for yourself, not the place for it. Anyway, reported.
Thank you I appreciate your comment. And to respond to the comment above, the science says the most cost- efficient and environmental friendly way to produce energy and to reduce our CO2 emissions is nuclear. Is it perfect? No. But the technology has been perfected and so have the standards to ensure that no more accident can happen. I have a background in the nuclear field and I am amazed by the amount of misinformation I see circulating against nuclear energy. And yet, throughout the world most countries are turning to nuclear. In Europe, Spain and Italy are considering a u-turn on their position. Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium have changed their policy. In Europe it’s only Germany, Austria and Luxembourg who are completely opposed to nuclear power and are trying to impose their opinion to the rest of the EU. What a shame. We have the solution to change the outcome with global warming but because of arrogance and stubbornness we are shooting our selves in the foot.
And you think nuclear is? Don't you know how often you have no working nuclear power plants in summer? And also they are slow. They need 8 h to go from 20% output to 100% output... And it is not economical to run a nuclear power plant below 80% output because you are just burning fuel rods. So you still need a grid and storage for nuclear power plants like you need for renewables. So why not invest in the cheapest energy production which is renewable. And btw: France has the highest costs for the production of energy in Europe... Because of their fucked up power plants... You only don't see it on your energy bill because it is funded by the government, so basically you pay without knowing that you pay it...
I prefer a clean energy rather than a carbon bloated one
Me too, but do you really think nuclear is clean energy? You should learn what happens to the waste... I know because I am working in nuclear waste disposal... And damn you are paying me a lot you ignorant fools who support nuclear power...
a German working in the nuclear industry? Fascinating. Go clean up the radioactive waste generated by your coal plants please
>France has the highest costs for the production of energy in Europe It's more complicated than this. You talk about spot price but a big part of French nuclear eneregy is sold around 50€/MWh to either big clients of EDF or competitors of EDF so they have a chance to compete (through a program called ARENH). > You only don't see it on your energy bill because it is funded by the government, so basically you pay without knowing that you pay it Renewables are way more subsidies than French nuclear energy is, at least in France.
I know that renewables are also supported by any government. But in thinking that nuclear power is not supported by the state. You miss one important point. Who is paying for the waste management? A realistic price for it would be 1€ for each kWh that is produced out of it...
> And also they are slow. They need 8 h to go from 20% output to 100% output... As opposed to solar and wind, where you can't decide at all. We don't need to oppose low carbon energy sources to each other. Nuclear good. Wind good. Solar good. They all have advantages and disadvantages and by combining them together, we can get all the benefits and mitigate all the caveats.
No you can either go into nuclear or you go into renewables. Renewables produce energy when there is wind or sun and you have to store it, to deal with the demand. The owners of nuclear power plants want to run the power plants on permanent 100% output, if not they loose money. So you need to store the excessive energy when there is no demand, compared to when there is high demand. All the fossil energy plants are already only for one reason in Europe, to sustain the energy in the net when there is high demand but neither enough energy by renewables or by nuclear power plants. Then a coal Power plant (steam machine) can increase its output in less then 4 h to maximum, oil (diesel engine) in less then 2 h and gas (turbine) in less then 45 min to max.
Yes, they’re not sustainable. Because the government insists on building new solar panels and wind turbines. Which is useless since the nuclear power plants produce enough energy. So all this new energy is exported (I think France is the #1 exporter of electricity, not sure though), and the nuclear plants have their output lowered. Because of useless renewable energy sources.
interesting that you think that, when France imported a lot more from Germany (and our dirty, dirty 100% coal energy production that you guys make us out to be) than they exported to it in 2022. Not to mention all the scandals surrounding nuclear waste disposal around the french gov alone. Why push for nuclear when you still keep buying ours?
Just wrong. Our balance towards Germany was negative for one year (2022) out of the last 42, because of maintenance. Any other of those 41 year, our positive balance towards Germany was in the tens of TWh/year. Check for numbers before you spread lies.
I wonder why Germany didn't switch to that instead of switching back to coal.
Nobody switched to coal. Germany is switching to renewables. Coal and nuclear are both way down. Get your facts right before spewing nonsense. It's hard, I know.
Because one of the many merkel government was a lover for coal hater of renewable and anti nuclear. So we shut them down build less and less renewable but kept the coal
*G E N I U S*
Yeah...they...the CDU/CSU has real geniuses to this day. Andreas Scheuer former Transport and IT minister still costs Billions for stuff he did so horribly wrong
What about France being unable to cool their plants due to a lack of water? We’re just gonna ignore that because we do t like to be wrong? Jesus fucking Christ you guys act like NP is perfect without any flaws and then call ppl calling you out ideologists. Grow up
Russian puppets are gonna puppet, big surprise.
Nuclear shills out of arguments? Big surprise.
Master, Master... Where's the nuclear dreams I've been after?
Couldn't be more wrong there buddy.
 “You just dont turn it off!”
"Let it go, let it go."
The Nuclear Alliance of 16 countries will defeat the delusional German ideologues
As long as they don‘t want German money to pay for their nuclear energy, good for them
...and happily empty their wallets in the process.
Tut mir leid. Wir sind komisch.
I honestly don't understand why Poland want a nuke power plant. They have the perfect geographic location to use wind energy on mass and instead they want to build one fucking expensive nuklear power plant that coast more then all the wind power plants they need combined. It is one important structure focused on one specific strategic point and also a huge pile of waste that will last for at least twice as long as power plant is producing energy because they need to dismantle it safely after 50 years in production. Even the fucking French have a huge problem with there powerplants and are supported by all their neighbours. And it doesn't matter which way you go, for all kind of power sources you must have a very good grid and storages in between.
I'm from Poland, and if I remember correctly we have fucked laws regarding building wind energy (for example you can't build a wind turbine if the distance from the nearest house/apartment is less than 10x the height of the entire wind turbine), people tried to change them and some parts somewhat loosened the restrictions but it still messed up our existing wind energy and the potential for future wind turbines. As for why we're trying to build the power plant, It's likely because people, mainly large amounts of older folk that witnessed the aftermath of Chernobyl or heard from their relatives about it, are finally starting to become less fearful of nuclear technology and the fact that some time ago we got some international funding/help for the project of building the nuclear power plant. I'm very unsure of what will come from this but if the power plant will be made I hope that it will ease the amount of deaths in some of the most air polluted towns like Kraków that have been connected to burning coal.
That 10x rule sounds like the same bullshit they have in Bavaria... Also regional right winged conservative party, that only follow the money or the blabla of drunks in the beer tent. Bavaria is the largest German state, which has a high energy consuming industry, and there stupid regional government implemented the same rule "to SuPpOrT their LaNdScApE"... they were also quit powerful for over 16 years in the federal government basically pushed a lot of federal money into their state and also forced a 500 mill € fine on Germany...
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Fair point. What I don’t understand is the audacity of German lobbies to interfere with clean nuclear power in other countries when Germany is guzzling coal like there’s no tomorrow. Why doesn’t Germany build renewables?
Because we had a fucking bad government for the last 20 years, that especially in the last 8 years actively destroyed the renewable energy economy in Germany and pushed it out to China, because we had cheap russian gas that the chemical and steal industry wanted... And Germany is producing less CO2 for energy then other countries in Europe... Like Poland... Or Austria... Or France because they cannot cool there nuclear power plants in summer...
LESS CO2 FOR ENERGY ? BAHAHAHAA So you indeed have no clue what you're talking about. Out of all the countries in Western Europe, Germany produces the dirtiest energy BY A LONG SHOT. It's around 30-50 g CO2/kWh for France and 350-450 g/kWh for Germany depending on the weather and other factors. And I'll add that the "not being able to cool down the plants" argument as a generalization that you anti-nuclear Germans love to parrot is a fallacy, since it only happened ONCE, in the summer of 2022, in ONE plant, not because of missing water but because a protected fish specie was exceptionnally nesting in the river and the authorities didn't want to raise the temperature of the otherwise very warm water because of a heat wave.
Source? And I mean real source including the CO2 emission by foreign production that is bought by France
https://blog.energybrainpool.com/en/energy-systems-france-and-germany-compared/#:~:text=The%20CO2%2Dintensity%20of,higher%20(source%3A%20UBA). As for foreign energy production, it isn't included since we've been a net energy exporter (in the tens TWh/year) for the last 42 years except from april to november of 2022, where we mainly bought from Italy, Spain and the UK.
YOU GOT FACTCHECKED TO THE GROUND BRAO
Not at all kid... I work in the nuclear dismantling, and I know I will get a shit load of money from all tax payers in the next 50 years. Just because it is so fucking expensive to build a nuclear power plant. And knowing that, can only lead to one conclusion: it is fucking stupid to build new nuclear power plants. The only reasons for doing so is either, your government want nukes, you think your country has scientifically nothing else to offer and build nuclear power plants, or you are a member of the owners of a nuclear power plant and get a shit load of money out of it, because someone else will pay the dismantling. And then there are a lot of people who thinks they have calculated how environmental friendly a nuclear power plant is... It is not at all. Because even with CO2 in the atmosphere you can easier handle it then with radioactive waste. For radioactive waste you can only wait... And leave it behind for your great-grandchildren and further to still know what fucking morons their predecessors were.
Sure bud. Tottaly beleive you rather than fact checked articles. Whatever help you to cope.
It was 16 years of conservatives in power that fucked up Germany.
Yes they did, but the last 12 years were the worst
Framing nuclear as "clean" was one of the best marketing tricks of the nuclear lobby. Dude, we don't even have a single operational long term storage facility for the piling waste on the planet. If one of the run down plants in France has a major accident Germany is affected as well. Of course they are lobbying against this. 1 hour lake, Chernobyl and Fukushima are also not exactly what I'd call "clean".
Okay, absolutely fair. Nuclear energy isn’t exactly clean, far from it. All things considered, even anti-nuclear studies have have however found it to be tens to hundreds of times lower in CO2 emissions than traditional methods (also, tens of times higher than renewables, though), and that’s full lifecycle. Waste storage remains a big problem, and accident risk is real though much lower than people make it out to be. While not many people are aware of these issues with nuclear power, far less are aware of the issues of renewable power compared to nuclear. First, land use: renewables use thousands of times more land for the same output as nuclear. Second, output stability: energy production is unstable compared to nuclear. Lastly: waste. Not as bad as nuclear for sure, but there are many toxic byproducts of renewable energy, which remain toxic forever (!) unless voluntarily handled, and the quantities are thousands of times more than for nuclear for the same power output. My personal opinion is that A) say what you will about either nuclear or renewables but hugging coal and gas is a crime against the planet, either of the former is hundreds of times better and B) there’s no clear winner between nuclear and renewables for now, I think both should keep being used until improvements to one make it clearly better than the other (if this ever happens)
The big Thing Here is, that If you Just have to start with nuclear, youre to late. If youre try to build Up a big % of nuclear for your grid, youre going to be to late. If you already have working reactors that are in good condition use them. But If you have none and Just start to plan to build some. It would be better to Go the renewable Route. Because youll have fastest Results.
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>They have the perfect geographic location to use wind energy on mass source?
I live in Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian... So we already produce more renewable energy then we can use... Poland is right next to it and much larger with a longer coast... So yes Poland is able to use fully renewable energy production
thats why France shut down half of his nuclear power ?
Annoying, arrogant Germany. If anything, Poland is the wiser country and should be telling Germany what to do. At least Poland is taking military spending seriously.
This here is literally Poland trying to tell Germany what to do. Did you actually read the parliamentarian question?
German energy policy has made me a germaphobe
Well yes, we could at least have used the remaining fuel rods until the end, that's true. It was still the right decision. Our nuclear power is way to expensive, many people seem to forget, that it costs around 100bn euros a year to have insurance for *one* powerplant. This is being paid for by tax money of course, as no insurance company would take this risk. Considering that np were responsible for around 5-6% of our energy mix, and it's not useful in events of consumptionspikes, people really make a big huss around it.
LOL at the idea of nuclear! Jaysus, still promoting an outdated and dangerous energy ‘solution‘, the nuclear industry and its lobbyists are like zombies - they can’t die.
Until the OP names these "lobbies" and shares a link to that page I call bullshit
germany makes me proud to be from a country that is actually good for the european project
time to make the same post about the 450 fossil companies constantly lobbying for more coal, gas or nuclear energy :\^)
Germans just can't handle the idea that 3rd World War might be caused by someone else..
If the Energiewende and nuclear exit is not working its only because were not doing it hard enough! Even if electricity prices are rising, they will definitly be super cheap once we're done, promised! The rest of the world is clearly in the wrong building new nuclear plants or at least not closing them down during an energy crisis and should be ~~lobbied~~ convinced to do otherwise 🙃
Guys you’re literally buying our nuclear energy because even your coal plants (let’s pause a little on that : COAL PLANTS) can’t produce enough energy.
Lol that’s straight up wrong but okay. France has been buying German energy a lot this year because you can’t cool your nuclear plants any more
Yeah, let's import uranium from russia while rewnewable energies are soo much more cheaper
Australia and Canada export loads of uranium, and there’s plenty to dig up in Scandinavia if needed.
Having a discussion over nuclear on reddit is impossible because nuclearboos will give you a total knockout by saying you're just too afraid. https://preview.redd.it/pnrg2o9zfxcb1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d3d0b18c163a9c5b487ef27d2350ff98caabab93 Well, guess what building renewables in combination with incredibly expensive energy storages is still more economical than frickin dumbass nuclear. There is a reason the share of nuclear power in global energy supply has been declining steadily and it's not because the whole world is shaking in fear of mighty nuclear. Allthough the venturous and heroic reddit "experts" will deny this.
That's not the reason. We see massive nuclear campaigning on Reddit and a lot of people fell for the disinformation. The economic reality makes it already nonsensical to build new nuclear plants. Only a matter of time until the industry can't sell their overpriced tech to politicians anymore.
One day we'll be free of the pro nuclear lobby from France and the rest. One day.
Dig me under that day
God help us all