

Germany to be nuclear-free by 2022 - extension
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/30/us-germany-nuclear-idUSTRE74Q2P120110530

======
henrikschroder
Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was
about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down.

It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one
whole plant was closed.

During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and
although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is
that each time we close a nuclear reactor, we have to import a lot more
electricty from Danish or German coal-powered plants.

So the net result for the environment is negative, but the environmentalist
movement thinks it's a huge win.

I'm willing to wager that this German proposal will have the exact same end
result. The _only_ way to successfully switch to renewable energy is by making
renewable energy _cheaper_ than coal or nuclear.

~~~
bluedanieru
What I suspect will happen is more power will be imported from nations that
flagrantly pollute the environment.

The Chinese might be on to something with putting the engineers in charge.
Sometimes the public really doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, and
should be completely ignored.

~~~
nl
China has stopped waterfront nuclear power station approvals:

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-suspends-
waterfront-n...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-suspends-waterfront-
nuclear-power-approvals-2011-04-06)

and suspended all other development:
[http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/china.nuclea...](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/china.nuclear/?hpt=T2)

Don't believe everything the nuclear power fans tell you. Sometimes the
engineers really do know what they are doing.

~~~
bluedanieru
They're halting approvals until the safety standards have been revised. That's
hardly the same thing.

------
dexen
Closing nuclear powerplants early makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy as
well, unfortunately.

The only solid argument against nuclear goes along the lines, ``nuclear power
is too expensive because of the costs of disposal of wastes''.

Thing is, in normal operation the cost is amortized year by year. Normal life
of a nuclear plant is a few decades; say 30 years. Could be longer, but the
technological progress is so fast it just makes sensible to replace hardware
before it's completely worn down.

But it becomes a hefty one-time fee if the plants are closed mid-life. The
overall costs barely go down. The difference in amount of waste is small --
because large portion of nuclear wastes stems from decommissioning of the
plant itself. The spent fuel itself is not that much. [1]

And the headlines in press go, ``See? It's too expensive''.

\----

[1] been touring recently a nuclear powerplant in Greifswald, Germany, that
undergoes decommissioning right now. Most of the waste is NOT the fuel, but
infrastructure of the plant (granted, it was built with old technology).

~~~
rubashov
> The only solid argument against nuclear goes along the lines,

The main argument against nuclear goes that it creates a dangerous set of
problems that must be handled over many human lifetimes. People simply cannot
do that.

In fact, it's a little ridiculous to safely assume your successors perhaps 100
years hence will have the means to shut down a plant and safely store all the
waste. What if things have gone all Mad Max? What if the financial condition
of the nation happens to be worse than Greece, but theres this massively
capital intensive need to decommission several plants that are now quite
dangerous? Heck, what if there's a financial crisis only ten years after the
thing is built and all the people who keep it running safely aren't getting
paid?

Nuclear is definitely taking a dump on the grandkids, so to speak.

~~~
swombat
If things have gone Mad Max I could care less about the decommissioning of
power plants.

In all other cases, it is reasonable for other countries and NGOs to pool in
to avoid a nuclear disaster - much like they've done with dangerous facilities
in other poor countries, e.g. toxic waste dump cleaning, etc.

~~~
eliasmacpherson
Somalia is closer to Waterworld than Mad Max I will grant you however it is
not as if the international community has leapt to their aid in the manner you
describe: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4312553.stm> "Tsunami waves could
have spread illegally dumped nuclear waste and other toxic waste on Somalia's
coast, a United Nations spokesman has said."

------
latch
Germany is a leader in solar power. They installed more panels last year than
the rest of the world combined. They generate more electricity from solar than
Fukushima did. If they can further establish themselves as leaders and experts
in new-energy, it'll make them even more disproportionally well positioned to
most of Europe.

However, it's a shame they see no future in nuclear. Seems like they are
betting against something we've just scratched the surface of (my money is on
Thorium)..for the wrong reasons. The damage from the oil and coal that they
burn is far worse.

~~~
mixmax
The problem with wind and solar energy is that you can't plan for when you
need power, and you can't feasibly store large amounts of electricity. This
means that wind and solar can't be the primary powersource, at least until the
storage problem is solved which doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

On windy sunny days you'll have too much electricity and on windless nights
you won't have enough.

There's a EU project underway to scale up powerlines so that electricity can
be moved across the EU as needed. The thinking is that it's always windy
_somewhere_ , and though you can't store electricity you can move it without
too much loss. So if the wind is blowing in Portugal they can export theis
excess power to a windless Denmark and vice versa.

~~~
timdorr
Actually, MIT solved the storage problem 2 years ago. It's just got to make
it's way to market: <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html>

~~~
mixmax
Very interesting article. Unfortunately there's usually a long way from the
lab to industrial production, but of course if you don't try you won't
succeed.

------
andrest
Throughout the whole article no mention of any specific alternatives to be
used? 23% is a big amount to make up to.

A relevant TED talk by Bill Gates (Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero):
<http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html>

In short, the most viable option currently, in his opinion, is the thorium
reactors. Current uranium reactors can be converted to work with thorium.

"The main point of using thorium, in addition to the proliferation issues with
uranium, is that there is 10 fold amount of it available compared to Uranium.
If you take into account also the fact that we only use uranium-235 in our
nuclear reactors, and this consitutes only 0.7% of the total amount of
uranium, the increase is 100 fold.

Thorium reactors also operate by burning uranium. This is created from thorium
by bombarding it with neutrons. This forms uranium 232, which is highly
radioactive and is hence hard to deal. This is why U232 can't be used for
nuclear weapons, it's hard to handle."

~~~
lispm
Germany does not want a different form of nuclear power. Nuclear power is no
option.

The goal is to develop renewable energy to 100% over the next 40 years.

~~~
andrest
Don't take this the wrong way, but when the scientists or the government set
an ambitious goal like this, that are 4 decades away. It usually means that
currently we have no clue how to go about solving it and hopefully our
successors will figure it out.

As Bill Gates explains the current renewable technology is not viable. This is
because of various reasons, such as low ratio of energy invested vs energy
returned, instability (eg. what you do when the wind is not blowing?),
requirements for a possible site, et cetera.. I fully agree that it should be
the long term goal to switch over to renewable energy, but with current
technology it is out of reach. Therefore we a need a stepping stone that the
nuclear energy can provide us with.

It is too early to go all in.

~~~
lispm
You are on a discussion level of ten years ago.

All the questions you mention have been discussed for a full decade here.
Numerous research institutes have been working on that for a decade. Several
plans have been proposed and discussed. As a first step Germany has jump
started its renewable energy industry a decade ago. We moved from 6 to 16%
during that decade and now have several hundred thousand employees in that
industry, numerous small and medium companies, numerous research institutes,
... we are already exporting a lot of that technology. It is expected that in
a few years this industry will be larger than our automotive industry.

Our government actually does something for the tax payer money:

Read it here:

<http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/inhalt/47124/3860/>

Renewables' contribution to energy supply in Germany continued to rise in 2010

17 percent share of electricity supply 370,000 employees in the sector

The share of renewable energies in Germany's electricity supply rose further
in 2010. At 17 percent, the share was about half a percentage point higher
than the previous year. These are the preliminary results calculated by the
Working Group on Renewable Energy Statistics (AGEE-Stat) for the Federal
Environment Ministry. This growth was achieved in spite of the sector being
hampered by adverse weather conditions. As there was very little wind in 2010,
the wind power yield of 36.5 billion kilowatt hours (KWh) was the lowest since
2006. Even so, wind energy remained the key pillar of renewables, with around
a 6 percent share of the total electricity supply. Clear increases were
recorded for electricity generation from biogas and the photovoltaic sector.
Solar power almost doubled its contribution, covering around 2 percent of
total electricity demand.

Current scenarios show that in just ten years, renewables can cover 40 percent
of Germany's electricity supply. An increase of 12 terawatt hours (TWh) per
year is considered realistic. (1 terawatt hour = 1 billion kWh).

The renewables' share in total final energy consumption for heat rose from 9.1
percent in 2009 to just under 10 percent in 2010. The renewables' share in
fuel consumption rose slightly to an estimated 5.8 percent (2009: 5.5
percent).

Overall, in 2010 renewables covered around 11 percent of Germany's total final
energy consumption for electricity, heat and fuels. This is significantly
higher than the previous year (2009: 10.4 percent) and is remarkable because
energy consumption was considerably higher than in 2009, due to both the
economic recovery and the cold weather.

Renewables also increased their contribution to climate protection. In 2010,
around 120 million tonnes of greenhouse gases were avoided through the use of
renewable energies (2009: 111 million tonnes). Around 58 million tonnes of
these savings can be attributed to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG)
alone.

The figures prove that renewable energies were able to keep pace with the
economic recovery and continue their trend of a steadily growing share in our
energy supply.

Alongside this, renewable energies also gained importance as an economic
factor. Initial estimates for the BMU show that, at around 26 billion euros,
investments in renewable energy installations were around one quarter higher
than in 2009 (20.7 billion euros).

This development is reflected in the employment figures linked to the
expansion of renewables. Last year, employment in renewables rose again and
latest estimates show there are now around 370,000 jobs in the sector. This is
an increase of around 8 percent compared to the previous year (around 339,500
jobs), and well over twice the number of jobs in 2004 (160,500).

~~~
andrest
These numbers show the point I'm trying to make here. The resources currently
occupied in putting the current inefficient technology to use could be instead
used in R&D to develop the next generation solutions faster. During this
period of time nuclear reactors (or thorium reactors in the future) could
provide a fairly clean and stable source of energy until viable renewable
alternatives are found.

~~~
lispm
There is little inefficiency.

Thorium reactors won't provide any sizeable contribution until 2050. Plus then
we go the nuclear route, but again differently. Germany tried already:

* boiling water reactor * pressurized water reactor * Thorium pebble bed reactor * Fast Breeder

and more

enough is enough

Nobody wants a Thorium reactor in Germany. We had one already. It failed.

------
mrich
Let's see how long this decision holds up, In 2000 they decided to switch off
old plants by 2011 (labor+green party). This was anulled by end of 2010 by the
conservatives. Only because of Fukushima (and pending elections) did they
anull this again. The green party has been winning in the last elections since
Fukushima, and the ruling conservatives have lost ground. This is their
opportunistic way of trying to avoid becoming meaningless.

In 5 years, energy prices will be high, Fukushima will be forgotten, new
reactor designs may be available (pushed by Chinese who will have to depend on
nuclear?) Let's see what happens then.

~~~
lispm
In five years renewable energy will be MORE competitive, not less.

The government decision to increase the life time of the nuclear power plant
was highly unpopular. In the German society the majority of people were ten
years ago already in favor for the shutdown. You can bet that the next
government will not have the FDP and CDU in power and that the move to
renewable energy has broad support even then.

------
zhoutong
That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will
happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be
possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon.

We shouldn't ignore the fact that 70% of France's energy consumption is backed
by nuclear plants, and this makes France one of the cleanest country in terms
of energy consumption in the world.

I just don't understand why people are so hesitant to invest in nuclear
energy, which is extremely cheap, infinitely available, non-polluting and
moderately safe (burning coals may emit radioactive materials directly to the
air).

Nuclear energy won't kill thousands of people underground (like coal), nor
will it kill tens of thousands of bird (like wind mills). It also doesn't trap
heat (like what solar panel does to retain all the heat), or emit greenhouse
gases.

It seems that nuclear energy is an ideal energy source for the future. We
should spend more time and money to find out better ways (like fusion) to
build nuclear plants instead of worrying about the rare accidents (in terms of
death per watt, I don't think nuclear energy is going to lose out).

~~~
hugh3
_That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will
happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be
possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon_

Or, far more likely, we'll still be burning coal.

Hey, it's no skin off my nose, I'm an Australian. If the Germans wanna quit
importing our uranium and start importing our coal instead then that's cool, I
just think the German greens are gonna wind up looking pretty stupid when they
suddenly need to build fifty new coal power plants by 2011.

~~~
lispm
We currently have most of our nuclear power plants off grid. Nothing happened
so far.

How do you come up with the number 50 by 2011???

~~~
hugh3
I derived it _ex anum_. But I did mean 2021.

~~~
lispm
How did you compute the 50 then?

------
woodpanel
Sorry for this rant, but we germans are rather stupid by going down that road.
we keep saying that the costs of renewable energies have gone down, but thats
only due to massive subsidies.

Thanks to fukushima the green party is like a political Steve Jobs on steroids
right now: they can promote whatever dumb legislation and nobody questions it.
nobody talks about the coal plants that we gonna need to supplement this. it's
astonishingly dumb of my people.

but as we germans have almost no economical education classes in our schools,
we're easily fooled. as long as it sounds nice (i.e. humane, ecological,
responsible, sustainable blah blah) anyone who calls for soundness is
comitting political suicide.

~~~
xenonite
come on, another german trait is that everyone believes that everyone is to be
fooled easily. People are not that stupid. Most just do not care.

~~~
woodpanel
Nuclear plants are a serious political issue here in Germany. Sound voices are
not the ones to ride on those political waves.

Last poll on this issue: 22% of Germans are in huge fear of foreign nuclear
plants, 29% are in great fear of it, 29% fear it, 20% don't care.

[http://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/tsunami-in-
japan/umfrage-m...](http://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/tsunami-in-
japan/umfrage-mehrheit-der-deutschen-will-atomausstieg_aid_609183.html)

------
blumentopf
Debunking myths:

"This won't have consequences, it didn't have any in Sweden either."

=> After the nuclear phase-out was enacted in 2000, two power plants were shut
down as planned (Stade 2003, Obrigheim 2005).

=> After the Fukushima incident, eight additional plants were shut down and
will never return to the grid again.

"This just leads to increasing energy imports."

=> Germany exported 9 billion kWh in 1Q2010, can hands-down afford shutting
down nuclear power plants. Source:
[http://www.klimaretter.info/energie/hintergrund/6271-deutsch...](http://www.klimaretter.info/energie/hintergrund/6271-deutschland-
stromexport-weltmeister)

~~~
dexen
_> "This just leads to increasing energy imports." => Germany exported 9
billion kWh in 1Q2010, can hands-down afford shutting down nuclear power
plants. Source:
[http://www.klimaretter.info/energie/hintergrund/6271-deutsch...](http://www.klimaretter.info/energie/hintergrund/6271-deutsch..).
_

That's theory; compare it to practice:

Germany already imports electricity from France[1] -- during peak hours. The
capacity your source cites is the optimistic variant. The industry simply
can't run on the somewhat fickle solar and wind energy, so energy has to be
imported. Of course there are ways around that -- energy storage of various
kind, or vastly excess capacity, but those raise costs substantially. And
that's the core of the problem: the green power companies shift the costs
elsewhere, out of public sight. The sleight of hand works, because the numbers
-- the optimistic capacity -- are right.

\----

[1] sorry, no link here. They explained it during lecture in Greifswald's
powerplant.

~~~
lispm
Germany exports electricity to France, already.

There are two things going on:

* there is an energy market. Energy is traded for different prices at different times. Sometimes energy from France is cheap (well, it is government subsidized anyway) - sometimes not. For example the Nuclear Power Plants of France are idling a lot on the weekend, when the demand is low.

* there are times when the nuclear power plants have not enough capacity to power France. In winter the demand is possibly very high, like last winter, when it was cold and France was heating a lot with electricity (which we do not that much in Germany). In summer the nuclear power plants have to reduce their capacity, because the rivers are dry and there is not enough cooling water for them.

------
sapper2
Good move aka burning bridges. If managed right, this will enhance the
development and use of better technologies.

~~~
vladd
Nuclear is the safest form of energy that we currently have. More people die
from installing solar panels than deaths occurred in nuclear accidents:
[http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-
ener...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-
sources.html) .

~~~
pella
>Nuclear is the safest form ..

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_accidents_by_coun...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_accidents_by_country)

 _"The nuclear industry says that new technology and oversight have made
nuclear plants much safer, but 57 accidents have occurred since the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986. Two thirds of these mishaps occurred in the US. The French
Atomic Energy Agency (CEA) has concluded that technical innovation cannot
eliminate the risk of human errors in nuclear plant operation. An
interdisciplinary team from MIT have estimated that given the expected growth
of nuclear power from 2005 – 2055, at least four serious nuclear power
accidents would be expected in that period"_

[http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/docs/policy-
briefs/201101_RSU_Poli...](http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/docs/policy-
briefs/201101_RSU_PolicyBrief_1-2nd_Thought_Nuclear-Sovacool.pdf)

~~~
pjscott
Nobody claimed that nuclear power was _absolutely_ safe; only that it's a lot
safer than the alternatives we have right now. You're arguing against a straw
man.

~~~
pella
very strange that ..

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster don't changed the statistics.

------
Derbasti
I guess it is pretty obvious that a non-nuclear energy strategy will
definitely result in higher energy prices in the short term. That said, some
people might be comfortable with this as long as the price increase is
moderate.

In the long run however, renewable energy sources are absolutely the way to
go. It might actually pay off nicely to invest a lot of resources in renewable
energy early on and come out ahead of the pack once coal, uranium, gas and oil
become more expensive.

Whether or not Germany will actually be able to carry this off and reap the
benefits of it will remain to be seen, though.

~~~
latch
I agree..except that's assuming a static world for the next decade. Both China
and India are intently looking into Thorium reactors (and the US sorta
is)...that's where I'd put my money too.

~~~
rrrazdan
Yup. Thorium fuel cycle is the holy grail of Indian nuclear research. Its the
main focus if not the only major focus. This could change but with our
investments in renewable energy and closed thorium cycle, we could be looking
at a more cleaner future for the world.

As for the risks associated with the nuclear power, its clearly a necessary
risk. India consumes 1/25th of the American per capita consumption. Even
assuming we consume less than US that's a lot of new electricity that has to
be added to the grid. Something renewable energy can't provide. I would rather
have us build reactors than coal plants. Of course all bets are off, if we
ever tame fusion.

<http://www.physorg.com/news205141972.html>
<http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/19093.asp>

------
sktrdie
Italy has always been nuclear free because it couldn't afford it. I guess
sometimes it pays off being economically weaker.

------
Kliment
Also discussed at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2598475>

------
erikb
I'm a German and I think myself that it is really stupid. The way to think
should not be "Don't do nuclear power anymore" but "do X". We have no plan
what X is. So we didn't solve any problem.It's so frustrating. We really had a
chance with the strong movement from most people here.

~~~
lispm
We have plans. Maybe you should get in contact with our government and check
it out. There are a lot of publications from them about the future energy
strategiy.

------
tomp
In march, I was flying over Germany on a sunny day. I saw hundreds of wind
turbines polluting the landscape. They are ugly, inefficient, and apparently a
huge danger for the birds. I really cannot see how that is environmentally
friendly.

AFAIK, nuclear fuel cannot be produced, it can only be distilled. So, we're
only using whatever radioactive materials exist on Earth anyhow. Were they
mined from deep underground? Let's bury the waste deep underground, and there
should be no problem.

I see three long-term solutions. 1) Use nuclear energy in a safe and
responsible way. 2) wait until solar panels are developed enough and use them.
However, both these solutions still have a big problem: batteries suck (they
are heavy, inefficient, expensive and toxic, short-lived). Final solution: 3)
grow genetically modified algae and use them to produce bio-diesel. The only
problem would be the concentration of CO2 and other exhaust gasses in urban
areas.

~~~
lispm
I find wind mills much nicer than the huge nuclear sites heating up the
rivers, their large cooling towers with the large clouds, their large power
lines, ...

I find it much better if a city has their windmills, compared to huge mega
corporations and monopolies of the nuclear industry backed by corrupt
politicians.

------
pnathan
Well, that's a shame. I think the famed German ingenuity and attention to
detail could provide some really great nuclear innovation and development.

------
bluedanieru
Meanwhile Japan itself, which has weathered the effects of several nuclear
disasters (Fukushima being the mildest), is doing no such thing.

And apparently Germany will continue to import power derived from nuclear
plants.

~~~
nextparadigms
Yes, they are actually.

[http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/inhabitats-week-in-
green-...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/inhabitats-week-in-green-
hydrogen-powered-space-plane-japans/)

 _Speaking of solar power, Japan unveiled plans to construct 10 new solar
power plants in the wake of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis, while Switzerland
announced that it will completely phase out the use of nuclear power._

~~~
bluedanieru
What does that link have to do with anything? You claim Japan intends to
follow Germany's lead in becoming nuclear-free? Anything to support that?

