
Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost? - Bostonian
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/opinion/nuclear-power-germany.html
======
beloch
"Nuclear energy, to start with, is ultimately not safe, and the Germans have
always been particularly uneasy with it. After the nuclear accident at the
Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the
“Atomausstieg,” the exit from nuclear energy once and for all. Why? Because,
as Ms. Merkel put it back then: “The residual risk of nuclear energy can be
accepted only if one is convinced that — as far as it is humanly possible to
judge — it won’t come to pass.” After Fukushima, Ms. Merkel, a trained
physicist, was no longer able to believe that a nuclear disaster would not
occur. That there was a catastrophe even in a high-tech country like Japan
made her change her mind."

This article dismisses nuclear power as "not safe" with nothing more than the
decision of Merkel to justify it. Yes, Merkel has a background in physics, but
she made that decision as a politician. It's an unfortunate truth that science
is rarely the first consideration in political decisions.

Merkel's decision ignored the truly extraordinary circumstances of the
Fukushima disaster, which was triggered by an earthquake and tsunami that,
each individually, exceeded the design parameters of the reactor, which was 40
years old at the time of the disaster. Updated studies indicated the reactor
was vulnerable to tsunami, but were ignored. Repeatedly.

The reactors of 40-50 years ago can indeed be unsafe if operated poorly (e.g.
Chernobyl) or if necessary threat mitigation is totally ignored. Newer designs
are safer, and older designs can be made safer if people don't bury their
heads in the sand about necessary updates.

Ultimately, nuclear reactors are designed and operated by humans, and mistakes
do happen. However, the fact is that the Fukushima disaster has killed fewer
people in total than coal power kills every year under normal operating
conditions.

Is Germany paranoid about nuclear power? Yes.

~~~
fbender
But this is exactly the point. Catastrophes like Fukushima are practically
always a combination of individual deficiencies in design, process, and
operator errors. Designs can be improved, processes adapted, and people
trained better, but that will not prevent accidents from happening. This is
mostly because human imagination is limited and humans are fallible, and
what‘s not covered by the previous two is lack of knowledge & understanding.

Said in other words, if you wait long enough, a catastrophe is inevitable. And
history, both old and recent, has told us that the time you‘ll have to wait is
much shorter that you‘d think.

I work in aerospace operations and every freakin‘ day things go different than
planned and anomalies happen. In „my“ „industry“, we try to prepare for off-
nominal situations and that buffers the effects, but you can only do so much
and you end up in contingencies very often. You can also easily see when a new
player enters the stage as they very quickly (should) learn that you‘ll have
to react and adapt your plans very often and tone down any promises …

Long story short, whatever means you put up to prevent catastrophic events,
they will never be enough. Then the question of cost arises, which is
undoubtedly extremely high for nuclear events, especially in such a densely
populated and small country like Germany, and you’ll quickly realise that you
probably do not want to take that risk even if probability is very low.

And finally, we have yet to find a working way to handle our nuclear waste for
the next 10k-100k years. (I am aware of the options but obviously we are not
there yet and it‘s unclear if we ever reach the state of „acceptable solution“
instead of pushing the issue to generations to come.)

~~~
Dumblydorr
Coal has already killed far more beings than the highly rare nuclear power
station disaster. If you care about wellbeing and human lives, swapping
nuclear for coal is downright stupid.

~~~
brutt
This millennia is not ended yet, so it is too early to count total number of
victims of nuclear accidents.

~~~
MiroF
This argument makes no sense

~~~
brutt
Radioactive contamination of soil has very long tail, so we should wait until
radioactivity will be lower than background level to count total number of
victims. I.e. 1 victim per year x 100 years = 100 victims, while 1 victim per
year x 1000 years = 1000 victims, order of magnitude more victims.

------
Dagonfly
I'm pro-nuclear, but I find these articles about Germany's anti-nuclear stance
extremely frustrating.

Blaming the current situation on Fukushima is historically inaccurate. Imo,
there are 2 major reasons for the current stance:

1\. Chernobyl: After the disaster in 1986 the anti-nuclear movement gained
massive traction. The radioactive cloud spread all the way to West Germany and
warnings had to be issued (mushrooms, venison, crops, ...). It was a real
turning point, since everyone was made aware of the concerns. [1]

2\. "Endlager"-discussion: The search for a permanent nuclear waste deposit
was/is a political shitshow. The trial run at Asse (in the 70s) failed: We are
currently getting all canisters out of there, after they found contaminated
sludge and flooded areas. [2] Further, the decision to select Gorleben as one
possible locations was mostly political. The whole process is politically
loaded, expensive and devoid of any scientific reasoning. [3]

The anti-nuclear decision has been made years before Fukushima for imo valid
concerns. The "latest" reactor in Germany went online in 1989, and the
decision to phase-out was made in 2002. So the reactors being phased out now
are all 30+ years old. Nowadays, I don't think any energy provider in Germany
would be willing to invest in NEW fission plants. By the time they will be
online, renewables might be way cheaper per kWh.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
nuclear_movement_in_Germa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
nuclear_movement_in_Germany) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine)
[3]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_(Kerntechnik)](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endlager_\(Kerntechnik\))

~~~
ofrzeta
> 1\. Chernobyl: After the disaster in 1986 the anti-nuclear movement gained
> massive traction. The radioactive cloud spread all the way to West Germany
> and warnings had to be issued (mushrooms, venison, crops, ...). It was a
> real turning point, since everyone was made aware of the concerns.

That is true. And also, still today, when in our forests a boar gets killed by
a hunter it has to be brought to the administration to meter the radioactivity
(due to Cesium 137). A lot of boar gets discarded instead of being eaten
because it exceeds the threshold (600 Bq/kg). I don't know what they are doing
with it though.

~~~
moepstar
According to my neighbour (hunter), every 2nd has to be discarded due to
radioactivity.

Being in South-East Germany, we've been hit pretty hard by the fallout winds
in 86...

~~~
ofrzeta
That's probably worst case but a figure I have heard/read, too. With some
animals the radiation level is as high as 5000-10000 Bq/kg.

Here's an interactive map on the topic:
[http://www.umweltinstitut.org/themen/radioaktivitaet/messung...](http://www.umweltinstitut.org/themen/radioaktivitaet/messungen/wildschweine.html)

To put that figure into perspective, it is said that eating 6 kg of boar meat
with 3000 Bq/kg is equivalent to 240 micro Sievert which equates 12 x-rays of
the lung.

------
Barrin92
I absolutely hate this narrative of the demise of nuclear energy largely being
politically motivated because nuclear energy is not just falling in Germany,
_it 's diminishing virtually across the entire world_ (with very few
exceptions).

It's true that Germany has a historical anti-nuclear and green sentiment but
other countries are no different. Nuclear energy may be clean, but it is also
exceedingly expensive and unable to compete in price in most countries
including the US.[1] Even China, the large last country to buckle the trend as
of late seems to have reduced the role of its nuclear energy policy and seems
to be missing targets [2].

[1] [https://e360.yale.edu/features/industry-meltdown-is-era-
of-n...](https://e360.yale.edu/features/industry-meltdown-is-era-of-nuclear-
power-coming-to-an-end) [2] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-
losing-its-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-
taste-for-nuclear-power-thats-bad-news/)

~~~
magduf
Expensive compared to what? Are you comparing the full costs of coal plants to
nuclear, or are you just externalizing the costs as most comparisons do? The
costs of coal need to include all the effects of coal emissions into the
atmosphere, which may very well be incalculable.

Solar and wind of course are great, but has anyone figured out how to make
those supply 100% of a nation's power needs, 24/7? I don't believe so: we
don't have the storage technology yet.

~~~
tomatotomato37
Compared to renewables. One of the unanticipated side effects of our current
focus on solar/wind is that being decentralized technologies compared to a
single complex for coal/gas/hydro/nuclear/whatever mandated a focus on unit
reliability since you can't have someone babysit each unit when those units
are smeared across a 10 square miles or mounted on an entire suburbs'
rooflines. This focus is in direct contrast to nuclear's greatest weakness
that no one talks about; it's maintenance and manpower costs. Turns out using
a power source that works by restructuring everything around it on the atomic
level is a bit hard on the surrounding infrastructure.

~~~
vkou
> This focus is in direct contrast to nuclear's greatest weakness that no one
> talks about; it's maintenance and manpower costs.

You say weakness - and I say that more people die from falls, from installing
rooftop solar panels, than do in nuclear accidents.

Power generation is inherentantly dangerous. Just because you distribute the
danger around, instead of centralizing it, does not mean that you've reduced
the danger.

As for the economics of nuclear, as time goes on we are finding that the
_actual_ alternative to nuclear is not renewables. It's natural gas, sourced
from either fracking, or Russia.

Compared to the uptick in natural gas, renewables are a rounding error.

~~~
tomatotomato37
Manpower salary weakness, not literal life/death weakness. Paying the
population of Rhode Island to use exercise bikes connected to generators all
day would also be a way to generate pollution-free safe power (in fact
considering the obesity rate it would probably end up saving lives), yet
there's still an obvious economic reason why such an idea would be completely
stupid.

~~~
vkou
Sure, the economics of nuclear aren't great.

The economics of non-nuclear are _terrible_ , though. All roads that don't
include it as a major generator of electricity rely on burning carbon, in the
form of natural gas.

If you think I'm wrong - would you mind explaining why natural gas deployment
_last two years_ (~20% increase, so about ~5% of global energy generation) was
as much as the deployment of renewables, for the last decade? (also ~5% of
global generation)

If you are right - could you give me your best guess for when you expect gas
plant deployment to go net negative? 2020? 2025? 2050? 20-never? What
mechanism (political, economic, etc) do you expect to drive that inflection
point?

[1] [https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-
da...](https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-data.html)

[2] [https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/wind-solar-share-
el...](https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/wind-solar-share-electricity-
production.html)

------
m4rtink
Looking at the list of nuclear reactors in Germany Wikipedia has, while there
are quite a few they don't seem to be very "good". There are disparate classes
with little commonality and nothing in operation that has been built after
~1990.

A far cry for the massive french nuclear power program, which managed to
achieve large cost benefits by deciding on a single reactor type and then
deploying at a large scale, with only incremental updates in later
generations.

In this light their decision to shutdown seems a little less insane, still
could be bad to loose all the related knowledge and industry as a result,
which might make deployment of new reactors in the future hard.

~~~
dv_dt
I think France made one of the few smart moves with nuclear in the day, but
today even France is closely studying tradeoffs between reinvesting in the
next gen of nuclear fission plans vs renewable. In publicised studies
renewable is looking like the better option.

~~~
m4rtink
Still, it at least so far it worked well, they avoided releasing a lot of
emissions and are now in a much better position to decide what to do next.

~~~
dv_dt
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-
po...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-power-costs-
will-rise-if-renewables-are-sidestepped)

"France will save 39 billion euros ($44.5 billion) if it refrains from
building 15 new nuclear plants by 2060, and bets instead on renewable energy
sources to replace its all its aging atomic facilities, a government agency
said."

If France with it's experience with last gen, and one of the most built next
gen designs is thinking this, then it doesn't really bode well for fission
plants. I think the world should go hard for renewable and storage as
imperfect as they are, while increasing research for fusion plants.

The basic tech/economic balance point is that fission plant tech is highly
matured to a high-cost point that is unlikely to shift downwards anytime soon,
while renewables and even more so storage tech is on a rapid cost decrease in
the manufacturing s-curve - with quite a bit more to run, and they're at
pretty close to parity with nuclear in price/watt. Renewables + storage are
faster to put up at watt/time - which factors into even more reduced project
costs - and more importantly a much wider range of financing options and
players who have or can rapidly develop capability to put up renewable plants,
leading to even more cost reductions.

~~~
selimthegrim
Someone from EDF's US division came to our department (this was late 2016) to
give a colloquium and try to recruit undergrads to work in their renewables
research division. He and I got into a massive fight about what would happen
if they had any revenue bonds out on peaker plants (or nuclear) and something
like this happened.

------
IfOnlyYouKnew
German subsidies in the 2000-2010 decade almost single-handedly financed the
improvements in solar cells that sees them competitive with even coal today.

And because the environmental goals had higher rank than economic and selfish
ones, they did not enact trade barriers, or lobby for them on an EU Level,
even when it became clear it would be Chinese manufacturers reaping the
profits of mass production.

~~~
yorwba
_A Brussels committee [in 2017] agreed to set minimum import duties for
Chinese solar modules and cells that could price them up to 30% above market
levels with “huge negative effects” for the industry, according to trade
groups._

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/solar-
in...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/solar-industry-
says-eu-tariffs-chinese-imports-will-raise-panel-prices)

EDIT: they scrapped the tariffs in 2018:
[http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1904](http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1904)

------
BitwiseFool
Sadly, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany is very strong. Germany also has a
declining Coal industry. So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to
shutter nuclear plants and return to coal. The worst part? German coal is some
of the worst in terms of sulfur and pollutants.

~~~
this_user
> So after Fukushima shrewd politicians moved to shutter nuclear plants and
> return to coal.

That's not true. The phasing out of nuclear energy was decided in the late 90s
after the Social Democrats and Greens had taken over the government. This was
part of a larger green energy package. This had been a major issue for the
Greens since at least the 80s when the party was founded.

The Merkel government attempted to roll some of that back in 2010, but was
blindsided by the Fukushima accident that caused public opinion to become much
more polarised again w.r.t. nuclear energy.

Please stop spreading this misinformation that the end of nuclear energy in
Germany was caused by Fukushima.

~~~
looping__lui
Yeah, well, the phasing out of coal has been decided long time even before
that - and still nothing happened. So “was decided long time ago by the Green
party” is more a “who cares - I believe it when I see it”. Merkel made it
happen for real (unfortunately).

The decision to end nuclear power has been one of the “Merkel just decides
without really caring” decisions. Germans are not entirely stupid. We have
lived through Chernobyl, we know what a Tsunami is - the French and Belgians
run much more unreliable reactors in direct vicinity of large densely
populated areas. It was not “the will of the people” - but Merkel. Just like
the end of the compulsory military service, the bailouts for southern Europe,
the refugee crisis... Nothing democratic about that. The German public has
nothing to say in these decisions and I don’t recall that ANY of these topics
were actually discussed agenda points by any party. The stock prices of
publicly traded energy companies folded - keep in mind: they PURCHASED the
power plants from the government and were then told to shut them down. The
stock price development is an economic reflection how fair the “compensation
payment” was.

Electricity prices are now about 30 Ct/kWh in Germany. That is 50% higher than
the UK and 100% higher than France. And they keep rising.

I would not infer that Bild headlines (aka the German Sun) are “public
opinion”. Of course nuclear power was discussed quite heavily - but ever
rising electricity prices, coal’s contribution to electricity remaining flat
and the increasing resistance against wind farms certainly paint a more
differentiated picture.

~~~
philipkglass
Coal's contribution to German electricity is not flat. It declined markedly in
2019:

[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-
ge...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-germany-
closer-2020-climate-target)

German electricity from coal is down 35% since 2010 and 46% since 2000:

[https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/20191212-BRD_Stromerzeug...](https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/20191212-BRD_Stromerzeugung1991-2019.pdf)

~~~
renaudg
These percentages are largely irrelevant because coal remains the only non-
intermittent source that Germany can rely on (in the absence of nuclear), and
it's so much more carbon-intensive than the rest that the average figures are
still terrible.

Because of the intermittence problem, there is simply no chance that Germany
can catch up with the best gCO2/kWh results (France and Nordic countries)
without an hypothetical breakthrough in battery storage for renewables. Its
electricity's carbon intensity is currently 5-10 times higher. Pretty much
only Poland is doing worse.

~~~
xxgreg
It's worth noting that none of Germany's reactors were ever run in load
following mode (1). So the nuclear reactors also didn't/don't contribute to
stabilising the German grid. Also note a 1GW nuclear plant also needs to be
backed up to a certain degree by load following plants in-case it trips.

The unflexibility of the nuclear reactors is also a problem to network
operators, as is the intermittency of wind and solar.

1) Brokdorf was run in loading following mode as an experiment, but the
reactor failed, and begun decommissioning early.

------
plupopit
The article misses to mention that Germany is actually quite active in fusion
reactor research (eg. Wendelstein 7x the world's largest stellerator was just
opened a few years ago). Its yet to be seen if fusion power will ever reach
production level. But stating that Germany cut itself off of nuclear energy
research is not exactly right.

~~~
alexgmcm
Nuclear Fusion should be treated completely differently though.

It shares nuclear in the name and the similarities pretty much end there (the
'waste' from neutron activation of plasma facing components is negligible).

Fusion seems to be doing well these days with good progress on ITER, nice
results from MAST and the approval of STEP. I remember Chen liked the idea of
the Stellarator as it removed the need for the plasma current so perhaps we
can expect good results from W7x as well.

The last thing I want is for fusion to have political issues due to being
linked with fission power just because of the name.

------
renaudg
Every time this topic comes up, I find it useful to share this fascinating
real time map of electricity production and its carbon intensity around the
world :

[https://www.electricitymap.org/](https://www.electricitymap.org/)

I think it helps frame the debate and put things in perspective. Needless to
say that Germany's mediocre figures here are not worthy of the country's
reputation for pragmatism and engineering excellence.

~~~
solstice
That reputation has suffered anyway quite significantly in the recent past:
BER (Berlin's hilariously failed "new" airport) VW et al. cheating on
emissions tests...

------
donjoe
Rainer Moormann's [0] recent statement concerning current nuclear costs
Germany is facing in a single case:

" Here an info about #NuclearWaste. A particularly bad kind are the 900,000
HTR-balls from Hamm and Jülich. It is being considered to export them to the
USA against the resistance of the ecosystem. Would cost about 1 billion €,
including transportation. From the globes, 4.4 TWh, i.e. 0.15% of the German
nuclear power was produced. If disposal would be generally so expensive, we
would have 700 billion €, but even with LWR=factor 5 cheaper (more realistic)
we would end up with 6 times what is available (24 billion €) Addendum: In the
USA the graphite of the spheres is to be gasified and the CO2 is to be
released into the atmosphere together with the radioactive C14. It's a
military facility, they're allowed to do that. In the EU this would be
excluded in the civilian sector. But it makes disposal cheaper. Here detailed
information on the Jülich spherical castors radientelex.com/Stx_18_748-749...
There are a total of 453 Castors with balls. The castors are however smaller
than LWR castors (25 t instead of 120 t) One more addendum: The acquisition
costs of the 455 castors alone were almost as high as the value of the
electricity generated with the balls. And one more thing: The transport is to
be carried out by an armed special ship, some dozens of trips would be
necessary " [1]

(sorry, dirty twitter unroll & deepl translation)

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Moormann](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Moormann)
[1]
[https://twitter.com/MoormannRainer/status/120112832873803776...](https://twitter.com/MoormannRainer/status/1201128328738037761?s=19)

Edit: Typo

~~~
kmmlng
Note that Jülich was not exactly a typical nuclear power plant: it was a
prototype pebble bed reactor linked to a research facility.

------
wazoox
Germany invested 300 billions euros in windmills and solar, and achieved 0%
emission reduction, thanks to its abandonment of nuclear power. Worse, they
now realise that windmills last only about 20 years, while nuclear plants last
at the very least 40 to 60 years. With similar amounts invested in nuclear
they would be coal free by now.

------
kisstheblade
Why do we still talk about "safety" when discussing nuclear even though this
has been handled over 30 years ago. Or in other words I haven't seen any
arguments presented in this paper "debunked".
[http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/](http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/)

In short a few points:

\- nuclear power is the safest form of energy production by far

\- storing the waste is an easy problem (store on site and reuse later with
better technologies), or just make glass cubes of it and dump in the ocean
(yes really)!

\- the high price of building nuclear power plants is in many ways the result
of "nucular paranoia"

\- non-military reactors (ie. all "western reactors") can't have the same
failure modes as chernobyl had

------
AlphaGeekZulu
Germans do not have to decide between Nuclear Energy or Climate Catastrophe.
They have to decide between the potential risks of radioactive pollution or
the impairment of landscape by wind turbines and power lines. There is not
much tragedy in this decision.

~~~
toohotatopic
In France and Belgium, which are West of Germany, there are plenty of nuclear
reactors. This is in a region with prevailing west winds.

If Germany would want to minimize the risk of radioactive pollution, it would
have to build plenty nuclear reactors at its eastern border and sell that
energy to France below market value.

Then, as long as France doesn't cut Germany off, the French nuclear reactors
would be shut down and the risk of nuclear pollution for Germany would be
reduced.

~~~
looping__lui
And adding to that: the public DOES understand this. People in Western Germany
(especially in NRW where they have to suffer from coal and are close to French
and Belgium reactors) just shake heads in disbelief while having to swallow
the highest electricity prices in Europe...

------
fxj
Here is a by the minute diagram of the german energy consumption. Germany
would be fine with all the nuclear power plants switched off. They invest
heavily in renewable energy which shows off.

[https://energy-charts.de/power_de.htm?source=all-
sources&yea...](https://energy-charts.de/power_de.htm?source=all-
sources&year=2019&week=51&fbclid=IwAR2JVsfqMXAFKj5b21u0Rzj_0-Rpz6iyxngF3vvmEzNfzv-
GkBRzZaj4O58)

~~~
renaudg
Their "heavy investment" in renewables doesn't do much for Germany. It's
really coal and gas "saving" them from nuclear, and that's problematic.

[https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...](https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=DE)

#1: coal, 34% #2: wind, 18% #3: gas, 13% #4: nuclear, 12% (Solar is zero of
course, it's night right now : inconveniently, this tends to happen rather
regularly)

for a whopping average of 400gCO2/kW, compared to France 68, Sweden's 42, or
Iceland's 28.

"It shows" indeed, but nothing to be proud of.

------
trhway
to add some geopolitics - shutting down nuclear&coal and relying on renewables
Germany would need more and more of natural gas plants - the cleanest option
and most convenient one due to high speed of bringing up/down among the
"dirty" ones - with more and more of the natural gas coming from Russia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#Controversies_of_N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#Controversies_of_Nord_Stream_1)).
While Germans seem to be ok with it (Stockholm syndrome?:), other countries,
like US and various Germany neighbors, are naturally either don't like it or
actively against it, and as result i think a lot of anti- German anti-nuclear
PR and renewables scaremongering is coming from here.

------
gumby
Bittner ignores that energy will be imported — from Danish windmills sure, but
also French and Czech nukes

------
vmchale
I'm not surprised this happened, but it is bitter. Glad to see the failure is
being pointed out to the public.

------
bawana
people are using the words 'nuclear power' like the word 'disease'. There
multiple different kinds of nuc power. I disagree with our use of fast
breeders and other reactions that also keep our supply of weapons grade
fissile material 'fresh'. However there are other much safer reactions that
are much safer and aimed more at energy generation like molten salt reactors -
thorium, fluoride?

Just like there are diseases with which we can cope(chickenpox) and others
which are horrible(smallpox), we should not use the words 'nuclear power' in
planning or discussion among educated people. 'Nuclear power' is only useful
in third grade science class.

------
anovikov
Well, let's see: wind parks are a tough sell to the public, will new nuclear
plants be an easier sell? I doubt it. So they seem to be on the right path.

And yeah, proportion of renewables in total net energy consumption has been
46% in 2019 already.

------
llampx
Try pointing this out in Germany. Most people have no idea what kind of
electricity they are actually buying, apart from choosing a greenwashed energy
provider and paying through the nose.

~~~
sesuximo
Im sure there's large variance in different pockets of people, but I dont
think this holds true based on my convenience sample

------
biolurker1
Greenpeace won. They killed millions by denying access to GMO rice and they
will make the planet more polluted too

------
Christmas-8
Climate change is much in the news these days, but one important reason for it
is never even mentioned: the “nuclear industry”.

A radioactive gas, Krypton 85, is released into the atmosphere by the
reprocessing of nuclear reactor fuel rods. It is considered harmless because
it rises to the upper atmosphere and will not come into contact with any life.
There is now several million times as much KR85 as in 1945, at the start of
the Atomic Age.

KR85 is a radioactive gas, and radioactive gases consist of charged particles.
When charged particles enter a magnetic field, they migrate to the poles. The
earth is a giant magnet, so the KR85 ends up equally at the North and South
poles. There it interacts with the charged stream entering the earth's
atmosphere from space, known to astronomers as the Wilson Current, a part of
the Wilson Circuit, which keeps the earth charged up.

The discharge portion of the Wilson Circuit is lightning, most of which is in
the belt of constant thunderstorm activity that circles the earth at the
Equator. As the inflow of charge at the poles weakens, so does the amount of
lightning decrease everywhere on earth.

And lightning is essential to plants. Plant life cannot use the nitrogen in
the atmosphere unless it is "fixed" into compounds, which can be done by two
processes: certain types of bacteria, and lightning strikes.

There are some plants that have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing
bacteria on their roots and do not need lightning, but many plants, especially
in tropical forest areas where there is normally a lot of lightning, are
lightning-dependent, and cannot get enough nitrogen to thrive without
lightning.

So the widespread use of nuclear power is decreasing the amount of lightning
all over this planet, and causing deterioration of forests, especially in the
tropics, from nitrogen starvation.

And that is the worst form of climate breakdown currently happening. The mass
extinction of countless species of plant life all over the world is much more
significant than all other effects of climate destabilization combined.

The increase in both frequency and severity of storms in the temperate and
polar zones is also being augmented by the build-up of charge at the poles
from KR85.

The strong tropical storms that form along the Equator are highly-charged
systems. How far they travel from their birthplace along the Equator toward
the poles is determined by two factors: The strength of the charge of the
storm itself, and that of the pole that is attracting it. As KR85 builds up at
the poles, these strong tropical storms are drawn farther from their normal
home in the tropics and sub-tropics toward the poles, bringing with them
tropical heat, as well as more frequent and stronger storm activity to areas
not formerly accustomed to such weather.

The observations of decrease of ice in the polar zones and more frequent and
severe storms in the polar and temperate regions is only one more symptom of
the build-up of charge at the poles caused by radioactivity from the nuclear
industry.

Another side-effect of particular consequence in the Arctic is the damaging
ultra-violet radiation that has been observed reaching the surface of the
earth from above. It seems to be from beyond the atmosphere, and is
conventionally thought to be from outer space, and reaching the surface
because of a thinning of a filtering layer of ozone, but is actually being
produced in the upper atmosphere by the interaction between the influx of
charge of the Wilson Current, and the layer of KR85 that now exists there.

The conventional explanations being thought up to explain what is happening in
the atmosphere fall far short of the mark. So far, none of the mainstream
scientific community has dared to mention the possible role of radioactivity
in causing the breakdown of the climatic regime that has prevailed for the
last 5,000 years or so. A large part of the reason for this glaring omission
is the lack of any mechanism understood by orthodox meteorology that could
account for the observations.

There IS a well-worked out theory that explains all the manifold observations,
and is supported by enough solid evidence to be convincing to anyone who
examines it objectively. But the history of this theory, along with the
personal reputation of it's originator, ensures that it will not be examined
at all. That, however, is a defect in the education of the scientific
community, not a defect in the theory.

~~~
yourapostasy
This is wild, can you please point to the literature that links Kr85 release
into the environment leads definitively to decreasing the atmospheric charge?
I was able to source descriptions of how nitrogen fixing is performed by
lightning [1], and that Kr85 is released in nuclear fuel re-processing [2],
but that Wikipedia article leads to a study [3] that says the release
increases conductivity with uncertain meteorologic effects, so I'm stymied
trying to look up more detailed explanations of the mechanism behind your
fascinating description.

[1]
[https://wxguys.ssec.wisc.edu/2018/07/09/lightning/](https://wxguys.ssec.wisc.edu/2018/07/09/lightning/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton-85](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton-85)

[3]
[https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994AtmEn..28..637H/abstra...](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994AtmEn..28..637H/abstract)

------
goatinaboat
_Nuclear energy, to start with, is ultimately not safe_

Solar kills more people than nuclear per watt, so that’s the reporter’s
personal agenda talking

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-
worldw...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-
energy-source/)

~~~
dv_dt
The killings that nuclear may make are difficult to pin down (did that cancer
come from nuclear exposure, or a chemical, or just a chance cosmic ray?) and
so may be unattributed.

~~~
funklute
A well-developed statistical model should be able to take that into account.
My understanding is that the academic consensus is fairly strongly leaning
towards nuclear being the safest energy option, based on robust statistical
models. Would be interested in hearing the opinions on this from someone
actually in this academic field though...

~~~
dv_dt
A model could provide an estimate there, but nuclear deaths are not estimated
that way from the posted source. They are only directly attributable deaths.
e.g. cherynobyl was attributed from the posted source as 7 deaths while
statistical modeling puts it in at least the tens of thousands range. Even the
7 of the link is questionable as reports of firefighter deaths during the
accident as 27.

e.g. [https://heavy.com/news/2019/05/how-many-people-died-at-
chern...](https://heavy.com/news/2019/05/how-many-people-died-at-chernobyl/)

------
DasIch
Let's assume for a moment there would be no opposition to nuclear in Germany.
How does nuclear energy help with climate change?

Looking back to 2000, nuclear energy at peak was responsible for 32.1% of
electricity production[1].

We'd need to at least double that. That would take a huge amount of money.
More importantly it would take time. We can barely manage to build a single
fucking airport in 1-2 decades. Building this many nuclear reactors would
easily take this long, if not longer.

It seems to me that nuclear energy as a solution to climate change might look
good on paper. Sci-fi also looks good on paper though and it's just as
realistic.

[1]:
[https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/29295/umfrage...](https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/29295/umfrage/anteil-
der-atomenergie-an-der-stromerzeugung-in-deutschland/)

~~~
pthreadses
There were great strides in increasing the overall percentage of renewable
power. If the proportion of nuclear power had stayed constant, that would mean
usage of coal could have been reduced even further than it already has been,
which helps fight climate change.

~~~
lispm
That's not how it works. Energy production is a huge market with lots of
political corruption and huge amounts of money involved.

Nuclear AND coal is both owned by a few monopolistic companies. In Germany
there were four regions for electricity production and these four companies
each owned one: basically all production and distribution of electricity.

None of these companies had any interest to invest in renewable energy or to
open up their markets for competition. Politicians were given jobs in these
companies after their political career.

It took literally decades to break up this system and the Energiewende was the
first movement towards open energy markets, competition and renewable energy
production. It's a system which takes decades to reform and rebuild. Whether
nuclear or coal is first to go out is a minor issue over that time scale.

The money invested into renewable created a lot of effects which will drive
down electricity prices in many other countries much faster than nuclear will
do. Germany served as a first example how to build up technology, increase
efficiency, etc. For example, the real benefit for solar will not be in
Germany, but in many other countries which have lots of sunshine and lots of
ways to deploy that kind of lower tech - compared to extremely complex nuclear
technology.

And this was kickstarted here.

~~~
pthreadses
It’s not at all a minor issue. These are real emissions that will continue to
exist which didn’t need to. You’ve made zero argument to refute that fact.

~~~
lispm
> These are real emissions that will continue to exist which didn’t need to

They won't continue. Renewable will replace them much faster than nuclear
could. Nuclear simply does scale much slower and much more expensive than
nuclear.

~~~
close04
While the statements you made might _coincide_ with reality, you don't support
any of them with an actual credible source. And you ignore the fact that you
keep comparing bleeding edge tech to 50 year old tech to prove that the old
one shouldn't be researched and improved, a line of argumentation that makes
no sense. You insist nuclear should be gimped by not doing any research and
then use that as an argument for it not performing well enough now. The tech
is old because politicians are weary of promoting research into improving
nuclear tech (not talking about "holy grails" like cold fusion) due to the
stigma associated with the "nuclear" label and losing their average Joe
constituents.

By your own line of argumentation research in renewables should stop because
coal and oil are cheaper and scale much better than them. If you can't keep
your reasoning consistent it's not much of a reasoning. 20 years ago people
like you insisted that electric tech in cars doesn't make sense because it was
tried around the 1900s and didn't take off, proof that it should not be
researched further.

In the meantime in 2013 the BARD Offshore 1 400MW wind turbine farm cost 3bn
Euros and for a long time it cost ratepayers 2m Euros per day by not supplying
most of the planned energy. So you see, anything can be disastrous if you
don't do it right. If you don't invest in technology don't complain that it's
not up to date. You don't blame technology for the blunders of mega-project
management unless you're doing it in bad faith or truly have little
understanding of the topic.

~~~
lispm
The World Nuclear Report:

> Renewables Continue to Thrive

> * A record 165 GW of renewables were added to the world’s power grids in
> 2018, up from 157 GW added the previous year. The nuclear operating capacity
> increased by 9 GW6 to reach 370 GW (excluding 25 GW in LTO), a new historic
> maxi- mum, slightly exceeding the previous peak of 368 GW in 2006.

> * Globally, wind power output grew by 29% in 2018, solar by 13%, nuclear by
> 2.4%. Compared to a decade ago, non-hydro renewables generate over 1,900 TWh
> more power, exceeding coal and natural gas, while nuclear produces less.

> * Over the past decade, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar
> dropped by 88%, wind by 69%, while nuclear increased by 23%. Renewables now
> come in below the cost of coal and natural gas.

That's today.

If you want more research into Nuclear (which has research in the range of
hundreds of billions since the 50s) then you need to say: where, what for and
with what goal.

Currently it's clear that the investing even more money into nuclear won't
bring any breakthrough with visible effects in the next 20 years.

~~~
close04
> it's clear that the investing even more money into nuclear won't bring any
> breakthrough with visible effects in the next 20 years

The world will never become carbon neutral with PV and wind turbines. Our
needs grow much faster than this tech will, short of an unexpected
breakthrough, much like the one nuclear is still looking for and might
actually be closer. It's just a great stopgap solution.

Your _assumption_ (mind you, not a fact) that it will never happen does not
preclude the investment in nuclear tech. We invested in PV for decades before
they became anything near economically feasible. And they're not great for
places that don't have the land to spare and/or are far away from the places
that do. Not great when you are at the mercy of (ever changing) weather and
climate.

But as usual your quotes have nothing to do with my point - that renewables
projects can be astonishingly expensive too (nuclear level expensive for some
wind turbines) and underdeliver, or that the reason there's no nuclear
research has nothing to do with lack of potential but with preconceptions that
it _must_ be dangerous. So it's a self inflicted wound where you oppose
improving nuclear tech and then you blame it for being old and inefficient.
You are part of the reason we don't have good nuclear.

And to highlight the dissonance of your point you insist that there should be
no investment in new nuclear tech because _old_ tech is expensive and doesn't
scale compared to renewables. And then insist we should invest in new
renewables even if they are more expensive and don't scale as well as fossil.
How is that? You either invest in the tech that scales and is cheap, or you
don't. Or perhaps you invest in the technology that shows promise. And scary-
nuclear-label aside, nuclear tech always showed a lot of promise, if only
people like you didn't shoot it in the foot and then whined that it's limping.

Just google for "breakthrough in nuclear power" and see what advancements have
been made even with a strong opposition of the uneducated. Now imagine what
could be achieved if it actually received some solid support. In the meantime
we're burning coal.

~~~
lispm
> The world will never become carbon neutral with PV and wind turbines.

That's your assumption. Fact is: currently only renewable has a chance to make
an actual impact for the next 30 years.

> that renewables projects can be astonishingly expensive

That was long ago and in the case of German offshore the reason was that the
technology was challenging (because of deep and rough water in the North Sea)
and needed to be developed and deployed. Today scaling it is a bit easier and
more cost effective. Solar (PV) was also expensive in the first years, but it
was always clear that mass-production would bring prices down.

> the reason there's no nuclear research has nothing

There is nuclear research.

> you insist that there should be no investment in new nuclear tech because
> old tech

No, I insist that there is no need to invest in DEPLOYMENT of nuclear, because
the current nuclear has been proven to be a dead end.

> insist we should invest in new renewables even if they are more expensive
> and don't scale as well as fossil

No I insist to invest in renewables, because they are the cheapest and fastest
way to REPLACE fossil.

> And scary-nuclear-label aside, nuclear tech always showed a lot of promise,
> if only people like you didn't shoot it in the foot and then whined that
> it's limping.

Nuclear has totally shown its own failure: remember Russia? Worst security.
Remember Japan? Fully nuclear. One event took out ALL reactors. Remember the
US? No expansion of Nuclear despite having all the technology in the last 30
years. Remember France? A single reactor under construction in last 20 years.
Late and cost explosion. 70 years and no storage solution. 70 years and the
cost building them is increasing. In the US, in France, ... in core nuclear
power countries.

> Now imagine what could be achieved if it actually received some solid
> support

You believe in Santa Claus. Look around. Read the 'Nuclear World Report' and
it paints a bleak picture.

------
PeterStuer
The pro-nuclear lobby likes to pretend it offers a clean solution. I really
want to believe, as it would make things easy. Sadly, not only is nuclear not
clean, the worst part is humans can't handle the required responsibility for
this technology.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-
yF35g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU)

~~~
magduf
The French seem to have handled nuclear technology quite well for many decades
now.

~~~
PeterStuer
If by "handling well" you mean examples like buying the Belgian energy sector
and then buying the Belgian politicians with generous revolving doors to keep
open extremely dated and deteriorating reactors in Wallonia (Thiange) and
Flanders (Doel) and playing deaf to the objections of neighboring states
scared shitless of having these things operating in a dilapidated state so
close to their borders, then yes, I guess they are doing a-ok.

~~~
renaudg
Part of the German public and political class can be "scared shitless" until
they're blue in the face, they have no leg to stand on.

If I were Belgian, I sure would remain deaf to a lecture about energy and the
environment, by one of the worst European contributors to CO2 emissions and
emitter of deadly fine coal particles causing dozens of thousands of deaths
_now_

Germany, this is so out of character for you. You have the resources and
smarts to be leading this effort instead of clinging to one terribly misguided
populist decision 20 years ago. Until you do though, I would keep a low
profile on these matters.

~~~
PeterStuer
Have you ever considered that maybe it is because they have the smarts that
they are getting out of both nuclear and coal?

And you might want to read up on Thiange before you tell Belgians to ignore
and carry on.

~~~
renaudg
Whatever you say, the hard inconvenient facts remain and as I write this
around midnight CET, coal is the #1 source of electricity in Germany, and
their CO2 emissions per kWh are 5.71 times those of France.

You simply cannot solve this problem (the most urgent in our times) today by
getting out of both nuclear and coal, because battery storage technology isn't
ready, the sun doesn't shine at night, the wind isn't always blowing, and
Germany doesn't have the geography for hydro like Sweden or geothermal sources
like Iceland. It really is as simple as that, in the current state of
technology.

