1) they had been not doing normal routine maintenance that wasn't going to be needed if they were shutting down, and figuring out what all needs to be done to change gears does take some time (and careful thought)
2) they were at one time buying their fuel for nuclear plants from Russia
Now I believe both of these points have been addressed, and I'm glad of it, but it was not totally unreasonable to raise them and not immediately change course.
Activist politicians who value their cause more than the well being of their citizens.
And shaming these people isn't the solution. The solution is to bring them around to seeing the virtue of using nuclear power. They may be wrong about the relative safety of nuclear power but they aren't morally defective people, so shaming them isn't appropriate.
Much like recycling or jaywalking, it's a way for an industry to diffuse and downplay their own advocacy and push the fault onto the public.
Like yeah, it would be better if Greenpeace supported nuclear... but they're not the ones sitting in senator's offices getting bills passed subsidizing the fossil-fuel industry. Even the "climate change" bill had to throw almost 10% of its spending to fossil-fuel subsidies.
They sit in the government.
I think a lot of people are negatively disposed to nuclear based on beliefs that are not justified by the relative risk and reward of nuclear power generation at this stage in humanity's technological evolution. I don't think we have a combination of (better, cleaner, more reliable) base load generation power source that's available right now (which is the question to consider when contemplating "we have a working nuclear reactor; should we shut it down?")
I often see this given as a reason for why nuclear power generation can be safe, but I think it overlooks the fact that military reactors operate in a very different context from civilian ones.
For a start, do we know how expensive (per unit energy) US Navy reactors are? It doesn't matter how safe they are if they are twice as expensive as renewables (plus storage / power-to-gas).
More generally, though, given the secrecy around military and nuclear programs, would we even know how many near-meltdowns and embarrassing accidents US Navy reactors have experienced (at least in the past few decades)?
do we know how expensive (per unit energy)
US Navy reactors are? It doesn't matter how safe
they are if they are twice as expensive as
renewables (plus storage / power-to-gas).
To be clear, the capacity factor of France's nuclear power stations is "about 70%"[a] (and was "61 percent"[b] in 1988), while recent offshore wind farms manage a "65% capacity factor"[c].
It's also worth noting that there is less parallelism in nuclear reactor designs than in wind farms, so a single mechanical or structural fault (or just the need for regular maintenance and inspection) can take out an entire nuclear reactor, whereas a wind farm can shut down a single turbine without much impact.
So there are certainly differences in the sorts of guarantees that the different types of power station can provide, but I think you need to be a lot more precise about what you mean by "reliable" in order to judge what, if anything, renewables are lacking as an alternative energy source.
[a] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
[b] http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/electricit%...
[c] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/worlds-first-fl...
Price does not matter. It has to work reliably, not only in calm days of peace, but during times of war. Having a source of power to move the big boats without relying on external supplies is worth the price. There even were experiments to generate jetfuel using nuclear power on carriers, certainly not because it is cheap.
Nevertheless, I don't think the anti-nuclear movement is evil. They're guided by extreme fear, not malice. I don't know how you can bring them around though, unless your offering some form of therapy. But even with that, would they accept it? Would you accept therapy to change some of your deeply held beliefs that you don't view as 'wrong'?
* actually we have almost 30% of known viable resources, but only contribute 8% or 9% of the world total supply currently, producing less than a 5th of Kazakhstan, by far the most prolific supplier.
Of course there are risks, but everything has risks attached -- we calculate the probabilities and then stop worrying about the risks if they're minuscule. And of course there's an economic part to consider, but I'm pretty sure if you counted the amount of hours Germans have spent in 2022 talking about the energy crisis, we could've been well on our way to 100% nuclear coverage if we had spent that time productively instead.
However, I'm not sure the distinction is too useful. Ultimately we're judged by actions, not intentions.
This is a dramatic understatement. It was coordinated by the Rockefeller Foundation from the very beginning:
https://atomicinsights.com/how-did-leaders-of-the-hydrocarbo...
>They may be wrong about the relative safety of nuclear power but they aren't morally defective people, so shaming them isn't appropriate.
The moral failing that you're missing is arrogance. People who actually study radiation were not leading this movement.
No, it was short term thinking that has brought on these opinions. Thats who funds these anti nuclear opinions anyway, people who are invested such to benefit in the near term over preventing adoption of nuclear energy, not actual scientists engaging in long term thinking.
Why do you appoint morality a higher ground than rationality?
Edit: Typo
Well-meaning anti-nuclear activists have reasoned incorrectly, but that doesn't mean they should be shamed. Shame is not the appropriate way to correct somebody who has reasoned incorrectly. Shaming them is counterproductive since they know themselves to have good intentions. If you want to bring them around to your point of view, you should use rational arguments.
Use shaming tactics against those who know they've done wrong, like those paid to lie by coal companies. They actually have something to be ashamed of.
most of the people who ended up aligning with that
movement did have good intentions. They were reasoning
that in the long term, nuclear power would bring great
misery to humanity. Long term thinking is good, right?
Even the occasional Fukushima or Chernobyl is preferable to the irreversible fossil fuel-induced hell we're about to experience, with potentially billions of people displaced and so forth. It's especially galling since protecting the planet was their entire raison d'etre.
And there were certainly who opposed nuclear power with evil intentions, specifically the fossil fuel industry.
I'm not sure which one is worse. At least the fossil fuel industry never claimed to be noble.
We have so much other, more real, more tangible and even right now happening vectors of "problems", starting with Covid, not ending with the real chance of WW3, and we whine about miniscule pollution of square kilometers at worst? Hard to get.
Other one I would quote is "perfection is the enemy of good" - it seems nuclear is good, but they would not give up only on good. It had to be perfect where renewable sources are 100% ideal.
Since when? A few days, since the green party convention... Before that, the top figures unmistakenly said nuclear is dead, despite enegery crisis.
> Remember, the current, and hastly implemented nuclear exit, was a CDU led kneejerk reaction
So? And the greens would have exited even faster if they had the chance.
Stop twisting things.
I wouldn’t call 700% increase over just two years ago „reasonable”…
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/business/france-sends-gas...
The rivers won't be low in the winter.
And whose fault is that? Why can't their much-vaunted Energiewende manage to keep people warm? After half a trillion dollars of public investment in green energy?
Germany is in the process of moving to greener energies, not just on the state level but also in private homes. But that's mostly true for new constructions of which there are comparatively few. Coincidentally, the German government has recently announced to de-incentivize new construction and rather suggest updating existing houses. It will take many years, though, to get all those houses to move off of gas and oil, especially because Germany has a relatively high percentage of rentals over home owners. There's no real reason for landlords to update the heating system of their investment properties because the cost for heating is paid by the tenants anyway.
If you don't supply it yourself then it isn't unforeseeable. In fact, I'd say it's inevitable. It's only unforeseeable as to when it will occur. Energy independence is a great thing for this reason.
Yes and why is that? Electric heating is not some space-age technology. It has been around for a century. There are countries where it's ubiquitous.
Saying "Germany doesn't have the infra for electric heating" is not an explanation. It's just restating the problem in different words. It isn't some accident, it happened by deliberate policy.
I keep harping on this point, but the German government has spent cumulatively half a trillion USD on moving toward green energy, ostensibly in the name of combatting global warming. And yet with all that money and effort, they couldn't transition towards ubiquitous electric heating? Instead, they wrecked their one dependable green energy source (uranium) and became further dependent on Russian gas, which fuels global warming even more (despite propaganda to the contrary). It's all because wind and solar are intermittent, there's nowhere near enough storage capacity on the grid and there won't be for decades, and their politicians have their heads in the sand about the whole business.
Gas price was 4 ct/kWh two years ago, electricity at 35 ct/kWh. People always take what is currently the cheapest.
> It's all because wind and solar are intermittent, there's nowhere near enough storage capacity on the grid and there won't be for decades, and their politicians have their heads in the sand about the whole business.
They didn't put their heads in the sand. The former government sabotaged the whole renewable industry again and again (e. g. they didn't allow building new renewable power plants for years, storage facilities need to pay for the grid when they store energy and when they release it so they can't be competetitive to gas).
Except it was foreseeable and foreseen [1] just very politically and economically inconvenient.
1. https://www.gmfus.org/news/why-germans-ignored-putins-true-n...
If the 2014 invasion of Ukraine wasn't a dead giveaway, I don't know what else could habe make it more foreseeable.
It was very foreseeable. Both the US and other Eastern European nations warned about this but Germany chose to be ignorant till the very end.
The russian invasion of Ukraine happened because Germany is dependant on Russian gas.
The previous government's. Scientists have been criticizing them for years now that they failed to provide the necessary infrastructure and statutory framework for the "Energiewende" to work.
It's a more difficult situation if the house lacks water circulation (heated floors/radiators).
So lesser countries in Europe already managed to have higher count of green energy sources, while lots of construction yards in Germany are blocked on ongoing court cases.
The grid isn't build for such a load.
> An electric heater usually consumes 2000 Watt, that is not really something that should bring the electric grid to its knees.
That's an additional 40GW when all gas-heated apartments use one of those heaters. You'd need ~30 additional nuclear reactors to sustain such a load -- the 3 remaining ones in Germany provide 1.4GW each.
That's why experts are warning people to not suddenly switch from gas to electric heating this winter.
This would be the case during normal times. We're not in normal times though. There has been widespread panic buying of portable electric heaters all throughout summer. Owners of single-family homes are also increasingly switching to heat pumps as the main source of heating (as is strongly encouraged by the government).
If we actually run into a gas crunch this winter, blackouts could ironically be a knock-on effect if everyone turns on their electric heater at the same time.
So, for the context of this conversation where Germany is prefering solar and wind to nuclear, and worse, turning to coal in place of natural gas, nuclear is effectively carbon free.
Strip-mining for coal, devastating huge areas? This is fine.
Radioactive emissions from burning coal? Don't care.
Deaths caused by coal pollution and coal mining, compared to deaths caused by nuclear power? 'tis but a scratch.
Permanent problems with groundwater caused by decades of coal mining? Lalala I can't hear you.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/CO2_Emis...
Germany's main source of heating is gas and yes, gas is used to generate electricity, so nuclear can reduce gas consumption. However, only about 10% of gas is used for electricity and Germany has enough electricity. In a worst-case scenario, those nuclear power plants can help stabilize the grid, but they are not needed in general.
The downside is, that they were already in the process of being shut down. They now need to undergo new safety checks, the fuel rods are nearly spend and this will cost 100 millions. Money which can be spent better.
This winter also isn't predicted to be particularly cold, so the full gas storages in combination with the soon opening LNG-terminals will suffice.
Energy prices in Germany suggest otherwise. Also, Germany is facing a gas pinch given the geopolitics right now, so freeing up 10% is nothing to sneeze at.
Due to the fact that nuclear is base load and gas plants are mostly used for grid compensation, it would result (according to estimates) in a 1-2% increase in gas usage.
"Title: Maintenance on eight French nuclear reactors delayed by strike ... French nuclear availability is currently at 51% of total capacity with 26 reactors offline for maintenance."
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-says-strike-hits...
German household electricity is double the price of America’s and considerably higher than France or Italy [1]. Were this not the case, more houses could be heated with electricity instead of gas and the coming recession made less painful.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...
It could make a dent if seriously pursued, e.g. by focussing transitioning vulnerable households. The economic benefits of reduced electricity prices would also immediately accrue.
The high energy prices in Germany are to a large degree political. For instance to make the switch to renewables. It doesn't mean the base cost of energy is high. It is in fact lower for the most part.
The three plants don't do too much, only when you really need every Watt of energy you can muster. Not worthwhile economically to let them run really, as the decommission needs to be reorganized. The owners of the plant weren't too happy.
A number of cities also use district heating, where the heat is taken directly from the cooling circuits of nearby power stations. No idea what percentage of total heating this is and if nuclear plants are involved here, but this would be another way how those plants could (theoretically) contribute to heating.
I usually belong to the anti-nuclear crowd, but even I don't think that would be an issue.
From what I know, one of the iron rules of nuclear plant design is that the contaminated stuff never leaves the reactor building. Even the steam circuit that powers the generator is separated from the (contaminated) primary circuit and receives energy through a heat exchanger [1].
The lines for district heating would probably be separated from the primary circuits by several of those.
A worse case scenario would had been windless cold winter with gas supplies empty, and a government that have to bailout both the industry, the government institutions, and private people. 3 nuclear power plants provides a bit of backup for that situation.
Oh no, here's hoping they learned a lesson from that money.
Without affordable gas, they'll be buying electric heaters. I believe that's already under way. [1]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germans-switch-costl...
However, I don't thing those costs are comparable. Those nuclear plants won't have a dramatic impact on the price of gas or energy, so the cost of the federal programs will be there nonetheless.
Even if it doesn’t change the price of gas, wouldn’t it mean buying/burning less gas than you would otherwise? That, in itself, would be a huge savings.
Maybe I’m just missing some data, but this seems like a no-brainer to me on several levels. It’s hard for me to understand anyone being against this.
China knows this, which is why they're adding 150 new nuclear power plants in the next 15 years. [1]
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...
I agree completely. Along with solar, wind, hydro (+storage appropriate to each) and probably even natural gas peaker plants.
> But building new right now isn't cheap and will just take to long.
Yep, definitely - but it should be done. If you're interested I'd suggest listening to the most recent Odd Lots with Jigar Shah, who's in charge of the DoE loan program (~300B in capital). He talks about how building reactors right now is like building airports - each one a custom specimen for the given landscape and conditions - whereas he believes we should move to a model of building airplanes, mass-producing reactors that fit only where conditions permit out of reusable components.
> I'm looking forward to see how new reactor designs and modular solutions will fare in the next few years.
Me too!
EDIT: Not 2 to 3 blackouts, 2 to 3 hour blackouts. When grid is overstressed.
EDIT: Just saw the edit. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a big deal to me. In 2019 after a damaged cable, there was a 31-hour blackout in some parts of Berlin. In comparison a 2 to 3 hour one happens all the time during storms etc.
Designed to cynically "care" about the environment, but in reality meant to destroy Europe's energy independence.
Are there any more specific references what exactly has come to light here?
As it stands, this question just reads as a pretty cheap attempt to frame any and all environmental concerns or pro-renewable/anti-fossil fuel advocacy as russian propaganda. (which doesn't even make sense as gas itself is not renewable - greens usually see gas as the lesser evil compared to coal and nuclear but by no means as an end goal)
The german environmental and anti-nuclear movement predates the reunification, let alone russian gas deals or putin. While there might be some groups who are russian fronts or receive russian funding, the majority of the movement has quite strong motivations of its own.
This doesn't even take the "new" parts of the climate movement into account, such as Fridays for Future.
Yaaawn.. this doomsday propaganda is really getting old, and lets meet in 6 month again and lets see how much impact and necessity those 3 plants had at all on heating here..
Wait, your are likely not from Germany nor even Europe and state "Germany was facing a cold winter" like fact based on what please?
Germany is going to need the little gas it has for heating and its industry. It's going to need all the gas it can save by using Nuclear for electricity (instead of gas) cold winter or not.
Source: I'm German and live in California now. Not a surprise to me that homes here don't have any heating at all, unthinkable in Germany.
Old people would literally die.
I have memories of when our heating would break down in some winters, living in an old building with bad insulation (which is very common). You could wear a thick jacket inside and a thick blanket but your hands are freezing so much you can't even type on a keyboard.
Eeeeh not really, most building are heated by gas, the industry runs on gas, nuclear does't really help with either.
Germany was facing a cold winter, without energy for heating, and the potential for rolling blackouts. With this change, it does not eliminate the threat but makes it less likely.
Who in their right mind would decom any type of energy that could help stave off pain for their citizenship - especially one that has no carbon footprint.