Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power

Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power by marvinblum on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @06:44AM (#29890313)

I'm German and I don't know what we're doing. Prices are insane right now. New electricity contracts cost 45 cents per kilowatt-hour. Heating my home (82 sqm) with electricity costs about 400 euros a month right now alone. This will obviously get better in spring, but I don't know how citizens with lower incomes handle it.

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Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power by IAmEveryone on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @06:46AM (#29890334)

Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral. It's all the emissions of burning coal, multiplied by 3 due to generator and transmission losses.

Besides, energy prices saw a steep rise in all of Europe, so it doesn't make much sense to blame the end of nuclear energy for it.

Also, just a single reactor has shut down so far, 11 days ago. A single plant shutting down isn't enough to influence prices to such a degree. Besides, prices were at current levels well before that.

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Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power by marvinblum on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @07:11AM (#29890573)

> Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral.

Well, I built it last year, so I didn't know how much energy it would consume. Also, I'm still up to adding a photovoltaics plant on my roof and energy sources should be mostly green on windy and/or sunny days in Germany.

> Besides, energy prices saw a steep rise in all of Europe, so it doesn't make much sense to blame the end of nuclear energy for it.

I didn't blame nuclear specifically for it, but the German electricity politics are insane and far off from reality. Shutting down _any_ energy plant is a bad idea, considering how close we got to a blackout last year.

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Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power by asplake on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @07:01AM (#29890472)

> Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral.

That's trivialising something complex. If coal is the source, perhaps. It's its way out though, and there'll come a point in the easily foreseeable future where to burn fossil fuel – gas, say – will be the least moral option.

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Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power by fsflover on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @07:12AM (#29890575)

> Heating a home with electricity is simply immoral.

Not if it uses a green energy source, e.g., nuclear.

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Re:Why Germans remain so jittery about nuclear power by formerly_proven on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @08:14AM (#29891083)

Resistive heating is, heat pumps are okay.

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