

Germany shuts down seven reactors‎ because of Fokushima - y0ghur7_xxx
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/germany-nuclear-idUSLDE72E17620110315

======
bhousel
This strikes me more as a political stunt by Merkel to rally the conservative
base in Germany than anything else.

Still, it doesn't surprise me that this is such a hot button issue right now.
I've long been a supporter of nuclear power, but the events of the past week
have made me start to reconsider a lot of my beliefs about its safety.

~~~
jgrahamc
Which beliefs? That a nuclear power station situated in a major earthquake
zone next to the coast could magically survive a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami?

Right now, we don't know how serious this situation is, it could be that this
will end with a small amount of radiation leaked and four reactors that have
to be decommissioned. Or it could end with a major environmental disaster. We
simply don't know yet.

I'd caution calm and not following in the footsteps of Germany. Let's wait and
see. In a few weeks we may be reconsidering nuclear power, or we may be
marveling at how well those plants survived what happened to them.

~~~
paganel
> That a nuclear power station situation in a major earthquake zone next to
> the coast could magically survive a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami?

The un-posed question is "what happens if a group of terrorists fly an A380
directly into one of these plants"? Someone on reddit was mentioning that a
nuclear plant in Texas was built to "withstand a direct hit from an F-16
traveling at supersonic speeds", but I guess an A380 is so much heavier and
larger than a F-16. Because right now terrorists don't even need to get access
to the US aerial space, they can hit a nuclear plant in Mexic (let's say this
one
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laguna_Verde_Nuclear_Power_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laguna_Verde_Nuclear_Power_Station))
and still be able to cause important damage to the US population.

Here's the reddit comment I was talking about:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/g3tfr/and_you_are_tell...](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/g3tfr/and_you_are_telling_me_nuclear_power_isnt_safe/c1kpxqk)

~~~
krschultz
K=1/2*mv^2?

My intuition (as a mechanical engineer, desinging military systems as my day
job) is that the F16 going supersonic is far worse. Either way, there is no
possible way you have enough information to make any of the claims you just
made.

A better question to ask yourself how safe your highway transportation is,
because within an hour of my house we've had 15 people killed in bus accidents
in the last 72 hours. And that doesn't even begin to count car accidents. I
live within 5 miles of over 10 nuclear reactors and they have never and will
never scare me because I actually understand the engineering behind them.
Nuclear power is not magic. Small doses of radiation scare me far less than
the concussions I get from sports I play.

~~~
paganel
> Either way, there is no possible way you have enough information to make any
> of the claims you just made.

I took out this from this report
([http://www.euronuclear.org/reflections/nuclear-
facilities.ht...](http://www.euronuclear.org/reflections/nuclear-
facilities.htm)), which I think was also mentioned by jgrahamc:

> The studies showed that even if knowledgeable insiders could disable key
> safety equipment, redundant systems would provide backup protection. In
> scenarios where all engineered safety systems were ruined, there was still a
> period of hours to take corrective actions before onset of core damage.

Now, you may argue that what indeed went wrong in the case of the Fukushima
plant was that the "redundant systems" didn't provide the "backup protection"
the experts relied on. I see this report is confident this would not be the
case were the terrorists to hit a nuclear plant, but based on what happened in
the last few days I'd say the confidence level for that scenario is bellow
100%.

Anyway, thx for those downvotting me, and I hope I'll never be proven right.

~~~
bl4k
The backup generators that they bought on site had the wrong types of plugs on
them.

When this is all done, I am sure that most of the problems at Fukishima will
be found to be administrative rather than design.

As an aside, that plant was designed to withstand an 8.4 earthquake. Design
requirements and actual strength are two different issues. Even a complete
meltdown, such as at Three Mile Island, should be contained.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
'had the wrong types of plugs on them'

I have seen this as one of the biggest failures so far.

------
jrockway
Nice to know that there is another country out there that's as irrational as
the US.

Does Germany have a lot of tsunamis?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Naww, but soon they'll have more people with lung cancer from breathing all
that burning coal and oil for energy.

I think this is a political move that is going to help in the next election.
The "greens" will see this as a handout to them and nuclear power is too
complex and scary an issue to have someone defend it properly. Oh well, back
to fossil fuels!

~~~
sasvari
the situation is a little bit more complex in Germany: after the former
government negotiated the nuclear power exit with the four big power companies
maintaining nuclear power stations, these big four were able to adapt their
strategy for the _days after_ , which they did. so especially the concession
made by the current government about letting the old power plants run longer
than planned is considered to be just a huge gift to these companies by a lot
of germans ( _unexpected_ bonanza for the companies).

------
pieter
I guess a knee-jerk reaction can be expected in a country where nuclear power
is currently pretty controversial.

~~~
wladimir
It's only a temporary measure anyway, the plants will be inspected and (if
everything well) turned on again until 2023 or so.

Personally, I'd feel a lot safer if all nuclear plants were turned off
forever. Sure, the chance of something going horribly wrong is low, but if it
goes wrong it is a big big mess. Just too horrible to warrant any of the
advantages that nuclear power has.

~~~
nopassrecover
The deaths from other fuel sources, while not as immediately obvious as "oh
look that nuclear plant just blew up" are potentially far greater.

~~~
wladimir
Frankly, I have heard that argument many times. I know other fuel sources
cause deaths too. Gas tanks can explode, fossil fuels exhaust gasses can be
poisonous, oil can leak into the sea, and so on.

And still I'd rather be exposed to all of those risks than worry about one
nuclear explosion. As I said, the consequences can be just too horrible, for
too many people.

I'd love to move on from fossil fuels to something else, but not something
that can cause such disasters.

~~~
nopassrecover
That's because you're mind is clouded by the effects of a mental fallacy (the
availability heuristic to be precise)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic>

~~~
wladimir
You have the full right to disagree with me; I voiced my post as my personal
opinion. But you're very rude to say my mind is clouded. I simply don't like
large downside risks.

~~~
wladimir
Huh, I cannot react to your post directly.

No matter how you compute statistics, a nuclear meltdown is a big downside
risk. It _can_ happen, and if it happens it's extremely destructive. It's an
event with a small chance of occurence but with great consequences.

That's qualitatively different from something like traffic accidents. The
chances of those happening are much higher, but if they happen, they affect at
most a few people, They won't turn your city into a 'wildlife reserve' for
years to come.

Even though the total amount of people that die of traffic accidents is
higher, to me it's less scary. The risks are more manageable: you have some
degree of control over it (drive safely) and the consequences are visible.

------
masklinn
Germany's green party has been trying to kill the nukes there fore quite some
time now: the SPD/Greens officially announced their desire to phase out all
nuclear power in Germany in 2000, and two power plants had been shut down in
2003 and 2005 and were planned for dismantling.

The CDU (Merkel's party) was an opponent to the phase-out, and has been very
open about it since 2008, but I'm guessing they saw the writing on the wall:
the Fukushima events can only fuel the already powerful german anti-nuclear
movement (we're talking rallies of tens of thousands in recent years) further
and there's no point in wasting political capital on a lost battle.

~~~
ugh
The phase out seems to have become political consensus during the last years,
there is only disagreement about the time table.

------
more_original
Context: The previous government had decided to phase out nuclear power by
2020. After the last election the current revoked that decision and even
allowed old power plants that were due to be shut down to operate longer. So,
if they hadn't revoked that decision, the seven reactors we are talking about
her would have been shut down already or would be about to be shut down
anyway.

~~~
ajju
What are they replacing nuclear power with? From what I understand, Germany is
one of the few countries ramping up manufacturing, which is a huge consumer of
power. It's interesting that they are essentially cutting supply as demand
increases.

~~~
ugh
Fossil fuels and energy imports (short term) and renewable energy (long term).

In 2010, 16 percent of all electric power in Germany came from renewable
sources (6.4 percent wind, 4.2 percent bio mass, 3.2 percent water, 1 percent
photovoltaics, 0.8 percent waste). Coal is at 43 percent, nuclear energy is at
23 percent, oil and natural gas are at 15 percent. (Source:
[http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Navigation/Energie/Statistik-und-
Pro...](http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Navigation/Energie/Statistik-und-
Prognosen/Energiedaten/energietraeger.html))

The current government thinks that ramping up renewable energy to replace
nuclear energy until 2030 is realistic.

------
ch0wn
They are not permanently shut down. This is most likely a move because of the
impending elections, as nuclear energy is quite controversial here in Germany.

------
bryanwb
The events in Japan represent the end of nuclear energy as a viable long-term
option.

~~~
frisco
"Long-term" is a long time. The next few years? Maybe. The next hundred? Of
course not.

------
cpr
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/print.html)
has a fairly sober analysis that shows just the safeguards are generally
working even in a scenario not even imagined.

(Yes, yes, one has to imagine all possibilities, but all human life involves
some risk.)

------
waterlesscloud
The real lesson here is that you've got to evaluate options on the basis of
what happens when the system fails.

Because the system WILL fail.

This is one of the hardest lessons for engineers to learn. That you simply
cannot prevent failure. You can make it less common. You can take all
reasonable steps to prepare against it. But failure will happen.

So what are the consequences when it does?

The answer in the case of nuclear power is that the cost comes at a level and
in a form that many societies are not willing to pay. You can argue the
irrationality of that, but you'll lose the argument. Societies don't make
decisions on a rational basis. And they're never going to.

This incident is in fact a failure of engineering. There was radioactive
material released into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. It doesn't
matter if it gets worse or better, that's the thing that absolutely was not
supposed to happen. It did. The system failed.

------
tobias-ch
Since when was Germany in a major seismic zone? Political grandstanding I
fear.

~~~
fxj
<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basler_Erdbeben>

know your own history...

------
silentium
This move will push renewable energy know how in germany.

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astrange
Fukushima. It's Fukushima.

------
goombastic
Stunt.

