- Germany trying to find a nuclear waste deposit since ages (that doesn't have to be evacuated due to ground water later on)*
- Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so
- Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years
- State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies
- French nuclear plants that had some interesting failures in the last years, while we can just watch and hope they're treated correctly. Meanwhile you're told "nono, everything is fine".
Theoretically nuclear power can be effective. Practically we're using corporations that want to profit and have a human factor. So no wonder it's not safe to operate in reality. The next fukushima could be at your door, with your government then also claiming the radiation to be safe, because they can't afford to keep people out of their work and houses for so long.
No nuclear company is insured for the real amount of money they'd have to pay for the next fukushima or Tschernobyl. Because there is no insurance for that amount of money.
* And USA still pouring money into a final solution for a underground storage
Also I don't give much about USA and their regulations. It's the country with stories like these: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-... And oh wonder: https://truthout.org/articles/evidence-of-fracking-chemicals...
I could even suspect USA influence to prevent more solar money to china or gas/oil money to russia.
That's politics.
"Failed nuclear plants"
That's not quite true and doesn't have to happen.
"Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years"
This is just plain wrong. Maybe 1000 years even then, we are extracting a tiny fraction of the energy. As we get better, all that 'waste' is actually 'fuel'.
Far from a bad example, France is a good example.
If France were to have built 2x the capacity instead of stopping where they did, they might have already been Carbon Neutral.
Is sounds like you just have a problem with authority.
Even with all nuclear disasters included it is still a far safer energy source (in deaths per kWh) than any other we have ever developed.
And that figure about 100 years? Wildly misleading.
The same fact is true about oil. Except we keep discovering more, and we would with uranium as well if demand was increasing enough.
In addition, and most importantly, nuclear plants that reprocess fuel have enough supply to generate all of humanity's exponentially growing power needs for 10,000+ years.
Waste can be refined to safe levels these days. It's just not being done on a wide scale.
> Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so
We're paying unfathomable amounts of money dealing with carbon emissions - way more than millions, which is a drop in the bucket of taxpayer revenue, anyway.
> Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years
And? That's 100 years of clean energy and a more livable planet. 100 years for more research. 100 years for other forms of energy capture or generation.
It's 100 years of bought time.
> State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies
"always" makes it sound like every week involves another nuclear "disaster". That's not accurate, at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
There are a few other lists that are related but I imagine this is what you intended. Please study the amount of people affected, directly, by those incidents.
By contrast, the heat wave this year killed at least 2,300 people in India alone.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-he...
> French nuclear plants that had some interesting failures in the last years, while we can just watch and hope they're treated correctly. Meanwhile you're told "nono, everything is fine".
Who is saying "everything is fine"? That's a seemingly extreme reduction of public outreach, especially since the IAEA has been trying to do good about being transparent with the world's nuclear operations.
> No nuclear company is insured for the real amount of money they'd have to pay for the next fukushima or Tschernobyl.
While I don't disagree things could be improved there, I'm so tired of Chernobyl being used as some "all nuclear is bad" example. Chernobyl was a cost-cutting endeavor, and the design was known to be faulty well before it failed. It was implemented in an incredibly corrupt system and poorly operated. The safety measures were not developed yet, and regulatory committees simply didn't exist at the time like they do now.
Chernobyl ignored the science. It was, quite literally, a ticking time bomb. Yes, we could be doomed to repeat this if we so chose, but that's such a far reaching example that it's throwing the baby out with the bath water.
> It's the country with stories like these:
This is entirely unrelated and FUD from two clearly biased publications.
> I could even suspect USA influence to prevent more solar money to china or gas/oil money to russia.
This is speculation, fullstop.
Please tell me more about how it is bad, or do you only cherry pick your arguments?
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroder oversaw the shutdown of Germany's nukes.
Now he's on the board of Rosneft, a giant fossil fuel company controlled by the Russian Government.
Everyone knows that, and there are even more such scandals. Yet a lot of people vote for them (at least they got their worst ever election results in this years elections)
This is incorrect.
Germany decided to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima desaster. This was well into Merkels's chancellorship, and there are still nuclear power plants.
Cost is already a lost cause for the new reactors. No one making them expects to break even without subsidies.
For waste and safety, we'll see. But given it will take 40 years to tell and the last generations except the first were all sold as completely waste free and impervious to any incident...
This is the big issue with nuclear: it will take 40 years and billions of dollars to find out (and maybe some additional meltdowns and tonnes and tonnes of waste) to find out.
I’ve yet to see a reactor selling power to the grid 5 years after construction approval.
conservation and efficiency are huge opportunities being squandered right now. "We need McDonalds right now" is almost similar -- superficial and demanding. Spend your own money on nukes then, tell everyone about how great they are
there are maintenance-less designs which generate power for 30 years perhaps, after which they can be dug out of their pits and shipped to the factory for refueling/reprocessing - or glassed and buried. smaller, closer to power recipients, 100% passively cooled in case of scram, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S. i'm afraid that ship has sailed, though, and the coal/natgas/large scale battery storage have their own non-trivial challenges.
It is like if there is a crash it is going to be very bad. But it is also true that your chances to have a crash in a car is just higher.
No exploding coal plant will render a whole region unlivable for >30 years. Both happened at Tschernobyl and Fukushima.
According to this [1], for every death caused by nuclear power, 350 people die because of coal power.
Note that most of these people died as a consequence of Chernobyl accident (~4000 vs ~500), so by current standards Nuclear Power is probably even safer.
The issue with nuclear is that deaths are concentrated in a few "big" accidents, that have much more visibility and leave a lasting impressions, thus scaring the population much more. (This is not unique to nuclear power though, something similar happens with plane vs car travel: the latter causes generally more deaths, but plan accidents are more newsworthy).
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
That’s pretty nasty, I’d rather be close to a nuclear power plant.
Unlivable for humans. The exclusion zone around Chernobyl became a de facto wild-life sanctuary. To the extent that some environmentalists now argue benefits of officially maintaining it as one indefinitely. Human supporting activities such as farming, mining and habitat expansion often come at a serious cost to local ecosystems. Nature ends up flourishing over time in humans excluded regions exactly because they are unlivable for > 30 years.
As pointed out by others, one effect of burning coal is the concentration of its radioactive elements in fly ash. And since less care is taken, more radioactive material ends up released into the environment by coal plants than nuclear plants. It's worth pointing out however, when contrasted with background, risks from exposure to radioactivity is not significantly raised by living near coal plants. The real killer from coal is pollution. Having said that, accumulation of fly ash over time could be a concern, especially wherever it gathered under non-uniform dispersal. As far as I know, this is yet to be shown.
Perhaps a stronger example of society's inconsistent reasoning about radioactivity exposure is inhalation of tobacco smoke. It's curious that information on the significant amounts of radioactive material in tobacco smoke did not percolate widely and probably would not have changed habits anyway, given its known carcinogenic nature was already not enough to do so.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
The reverse of your analogy would be if cigarettes were actually good for you but we banned them because two people died of lung cancer.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history/inde...
Truly, it's new built nuclear compared compared to renewables, storage and long-distance distance transmission. Spatial and temporal arbitrage of energy.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
You can get life insurance/death benefits as a mercenary or even as a centarian. It will be expensive because of the high risk of payout but you can get it. Because while it is probable that you will cack it from being so damn old/being a combatant in unstable regions with lesser support it is extremely unlikely every mercenary or centarian they have insured will die at once.
> The study proves for the first time the years of market distortion in favor of nuclear energy and at the expense of the competition, said Uwe Leprich from the Saarbrücken University of Technology and Economics. "The study also shows that if you look at the economy from a regulatory perspective, nuclear energy is not competitive."
https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761...
I would just do one thing myself: I would make mandatory to label products with the pollution manufacturing process: this used coal, this used nuclear, this used blabla. This is the amount of waste produced to the environment. And let people choose, with the appropriate information.
In that setup, if nuclears are not worth, they would disappear by themselves.
I think a lot of half-paying-attention people confused the reactor and the tsunami. Of course the news coverage and in-hindsight-unnecessary evacuation didn't help either.
For example: https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/fukushima/canada-i...
Your average oil spill does 100x more damage to the ecosystem and economy than fukushima
I'm trying to compromise a bit with the "at least"s :)
And Fukushima is still not under control.
https://apnews.com/article/world-news-japan-tsunamis-5a5a70d...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-idUSKCN11D0...
I think the 6-7x 9/11 is the foundation of pain, even if nuclear is an extra salient cherry on top.
I don't know. For who lived near the plant and escaped, it's definitely true. But for others, Lost decades are serious than the accident.
> So is there a guarantee
> that it is safe
People go insane about airline safety whenever one plane crashes, even though commercial passenger airplanes are 1000x safer than any other form of transportation. You could have a plane bombed, hijacked, whatever, every single day, for 10 years, and would still be 1000x safer than any other form of transport. People wouldn't think it was safe, though, because when it does fail, it fails spectacularly.
And that's the mentality of an anti-nuclear person. Who cares that the outcomes are almost always better? The one time it's not better is really scary, so I don't want it in my back yard.
That said, nuclear is pretty safe. I would live next door to a nuclear power plant, and if I did I would be likelier to die slipping in the shower.
You need safety against external threats e.g. a nuclear plant can be targeted during war or by terrorists
You need safety around illegal dumping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Illegal_dump...
Also, extremely centralized energy production creates political risks (coups, corruption, hiding mismanagement)
Nuclear proliferation risk.
Investment risk: solar keeps getting cheaper and nuclear has very long ROI that might grow indefinitely
>https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article24874...
Look at how many coal ash spills there have been...and those come with nice forever things like mercury.
For the other points I'd say that I'd rather build solar to replace coal plants first before replacing nuclear plants.
Proliferation is not a binary 1 or 0.
> For the other points I'd say that I'd rather build solar to replace coal plants first before replacing nuclear plants.
That's a false dichotomy.
I think climate change poses a bigger existential risk than the nuclear proliferation risk from Germany continuing the nuclear energy production they're already doing.
> That's a false dichotomy.
Sure we can do both, but the reality is we're not doing both. The last time Germany closed its nuclear plants they were replaced by coal plants.
Three Miles Island happened years before Chernobyl and killed no one, because it wasn't a dodgy, duct-taped together soviet piece of junk.
In the last 30 years, the only nuclear power accident was Fukushima and again, caused just one victim. Fossil fuel depot fires have killed thousands more in that time.
Is it the usual talking points on both sides? Or is there a Teutonic shade to the debate that doesn't surface in e.g. America?
- Chernobyl. Being in close proximity, the event had a far stronger impact than in the US: There was widespread contamination from fallout drifting over from Ukraine and consequently restrictions in day-to-day life for many germans. As with covid: You tend to value a topic differently if it directly affects your life than when it just seems to happen on TV.
- Gorleben. [2, 3] Since the late 70s there have been efforts by the government to construct a permanent disposal site for nuclear waste in the Gorleben mine - against the explicit wishes of the nearby residents. This led to a decades-long resistance movement which tied into a general progressive movement for civil rights and an embrace of green technologies.
Those events mean that nuclear in Germany is both tied stronger to personal experiences and is much more aligned with political boundaries than it is likely in the US.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germa...
[2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomm%C3%BClllager_Gorleben (german only)
There is also a popular sentiment in eco/progressive circles that the german phase-out of nuclear is to an extent hypocritical - because germany will keep consuming nuclear energy through belgian and french reactors.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tihange_Nuclear_Power_Station
[2] https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/german-city-aachen-sue-belgian-nuc...
Doel 1 : 15 février 2025
Doel 2 : 1er décembre 2025
Doel 3 : 1er octobre 2022
Doel 4 : 1er juillet 2025
Tihange 1 : 1er octobre 2025
Tihange 2 : 1er février 2023
Tihange 3 : 1er septembre 2025
But I doubt Belgium could move a lot of nuclear energy out of the national grid considering the gas power plants needed to replace nuclear aren't built yet.
Belgium is also auctioning the building and operating of gas power plants: https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/167347/b... to replace nuclear plants. They aren't built yet but the first auction (for the building) takes place this week and the second one for operation some months later.
There might be a last chance for nuclear if somehow participants to the auctions can't prove it can be done but the government is dead set on retiring nuclear plants so it would only be a small respite for nuclear.
I am all for believing that renewables can keep on growing up but I read that our government is betting for some new tech in battery and power grid appliances to achieve 2050 objectives. Seems bold to me but I am not qualified to comment on that.
In many debates people argue about why Germany should go ahead and quit using nuclear if the neighboring countries keep building and running new plants, also posing a huge risk to Germany in the event of a catastrophic failure (actually the risk in case of a failure is probably higher for Germany than it is for France or Belgium).
They already wrote the loss of revenues in their accounting books.
(Yes, nuclear power / nuclear weapons, but in the 70s that wasn't a clear distinction)
"To date, there is no evidence that the reactor accident has caused adverse health effects due to radiation in Germany."
In some regions they are still today monitoring the cesium content of grass and moss, and bringing sheep and reindeer in for the weeks before slaughter to be fed hay from other regions to ensure the meat is within acceptable dose limits.
Edit - link to map: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Timothy-Mousseau/public...
In 1986 one plant had a major accident, and look at all that contamination across western and northern Europe, thousands of kilometers away. Hundreds of millions of people were affected, and the consequences are still quite real, 35 years later.
https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mush...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone#/medi...
Do we know if younger Germans are more open to nuclear power than Cold War era ones?
Considering that Germany is an american vassal with significant russian influence, it's more likely political factions tied to US and Russia. US doesn't want Germany to develop nuclear energy because nuclear energy research is the same thing as a nuclear weapons research. A nuclear armed germany is pretty much an independent germany which is something no empire desires. Empire and freedom/independence/sovereignty don't mix. And russians don't want germany to develop nuclear energy because they want to sell more oil/gas to germany and gain more influence over germany/europe.
Completely wrong. A NATO-Russia war could have been (and still could) be fought entirely in central Europe. This might include tactical nuclear weapons, delivered by short- and medium-range missiles and aircraft. This is why it was said that "In Germany, the towns are only two kilotons apart" (<https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/12/11/n...>).
To put another way, it's possible to realistically imagine a war in which Germany is hit with nuclear weapons but the US and Russia aren't. It's not realistic to imagine a war in which the US and Russia are hit with nukes but Germany isn't.
Also, people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Light_Teams
Unfortunately from talking to some of my (really smart) colleagues, this issue is so deeply ingrained that they don't even want to look at other options, or don't really think about that this is a long term problem vs the urgency of climate collapse...
One article that goes a bit about this - https://www.dw.com/en/germany-may-not-see-proper-nuclear-was...
Perhaps more informed people are having more nuanced conversation but I sure haven't heard it.
no rush on that -- we have another 21,000 years of half-life to talk about it, right?
Every time someone tells me how safe modern power plants are I think "great, now get rid of all the old ones".
So instead of building new, safer power plants that will actually help us fight climate change, many places are still running old power plants as they can't afford to shut them down. There are still RMBK (Chernobyl-like) plants running today!
Mind you, Fukushima was not the only power plant that was subject to an earthquake and a tsunami. All others safely shutdown. Actually Fukushima shutdown too - and would have survived if not by the tsunami and some braindead decisions. Fukushima is like a Ford Model T that's thrown into a highway accident. It should have been replaced way before the accident.
Germany should be leading the effort here. Maybe they could take a page from France.
And burn some more coal in the meantime.
A half-life of infinity would mean that the isotope is not radioactive at all.
While there are certainly other nuances involved such as what kind of radiation is emitted (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron), and what the immediate fission products are, if all other factors are equal, the longer the half life, the less radioactive the material is. That's literally the definition.
The really nasty isotopes are ones like Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days, has an affinity for the human thyroid gland) and Strontium-90 (half-life 28.79 years, has an affinity for human bones). While saying that something has a "half-life of forty million billion trillion years" may sound scary-impressive, what it actually means is "this stuff is only very mildly radioactive).
Second, the amount of material is not at all mentioned in your definition. One half of one gram of material, is not the same as the many kilograms of spent fuels from a working reactor, or the 2000 metric tons of spent fuel generated now in the USA each year. So I ridicule that in an unexpected way, with another extreme example, comparing something tiny, to something massively large that everyone knows.
There is some false confidence in my opinion, about "know the facts" of radiactive materials.. when bio-accumulation in the food chain, uncontained dispersion, poisoning fresh or salt waters where life exists, and human exposure over time, and repeated exposure, are serious things.
When someone says "(a substance) has a (very large) half-life" it is typically an attempt to make the substance sound more dangerous, when in general a longer half-life makes the material less dangerous, not more.
Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.