Germany rejects EU’s climate-friendly plan, calling nuclear power ‘dangerous’

https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/germany-rejects-eus-climate-friendly-plan-calling-nuclear-power-dangerous/article

by nixass • 5 years ago

23 16 5 years ago

digitaljournal.com

fsflover• 5 years ago

This is just ridiculous and outrageous. A few related links:

EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document (reuters.com)

482 points by accountinhn 9 months ago | 552 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464

Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says (arstechnica.com)

425 points by nixass 9 months ago | 356 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987

nixass2• 5 years ago

The rejection of nuclear power is so rooted into German society that there's no meaningful time frame to re-educate "concerned population". Energiewende is failing every day more and more, burning hundreds of billions of Euros, while kissing Putin's chocolate starfish in the process

KarlKemp2• 5 years ago

Hundreds of billions of Euros? Germany's tax revenue is around 200 billion Euros p. a., so I doubt it.

0: https://www.google.com/search?q=germany+tax+collected&client...

kmlx• 5 years ago

This is just ridiculous and outrageous.

it might be, but it's also very much expected.

the german green party recently won their biggest share of votes. they're now part of a coalition government. one of their core pledges was to kill off nuclear, something that was set in motion by the previous government after the tsunami induced fukushima nuclear accident.

dane-pgp4• 5 years ago

To keep this discussion grounded with some numeric facts, it's worth looking at the trend in Germany's electricity generation capacity over the past 20 years[0]. For example, fossil and nuclear capacity are both down from their peak in 2010, and their nuclear capacity is currently less than even that of biomass. Other charts are available on the same page[1].

[0] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

[1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

IAmEveryone• 5 years ago

Also: the last time nuclear was anywhere near competitive costs was 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_energy#/medi.... Today, it's easily 5x as expensive as wind or solar.

(note: "levelized" costs are total costs divided by total real-world production, so it's already adjusted for "the time the sun doesn't shine" etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_energy

dane-pgp4• 5 years ago

That's a great point. Also, the more renewable capacity is installed, the less often fossil and nuclear plants need to run at full capacity, which means they generate less energy (and less RoI) over their design life, which pushes up their "levelized" costs further.

As you say, the inflection point for that economic effect was probably years ago in a lot of places, although if the world had made an economically rational coordinated response to climate change 40 years ago, it could well have made sense to mass-produce nuclear power stations and use the excess energy for atmospheric carbon capture.

macilacilove2• 5 years ago

By that metric if you produce lots of electricity at the exact times when no one needs it, you are a hero because lots of MWh for some small build cost.

That metric ignores how much real world economy is being enabled by the power that you generated, roughly the price for which you could sell your energy in a free market.

My point would be that energy is much more important when the sun is not shining, etc. that makes e.g. solar not as good as a naive calculation would say. That sould be accounted for right?

GekkePrutser• 5 years ago

So they walk their talk sure. Does that necessarily imply they have some perverse incentive to say this?

KarlKemp2• 5 years ago

Last I checked, nuclear power is, indeed, dangerous. It may be a danger we have gotten good at controlling. Or we may think that. But a can of gasoline is a dangerous good even if you have a fire extinguisher pointing at it at all times.

Also: the reaction is motivated more by the simultaneous labeling of natural gas as a "green technology", because the ridiculousness of a fossil fuel being subsidized to achieve climate goals is rather obvious.

valesco• 5 years ago

Uranium is not a fossil fuel, it’s a metal.

Germany rejects EU’s climate-friendly plan, calling nuclear power ‘dangerous’

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