Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution: study

Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by charlieyu1 on Monday April 10, 2023 @06:55PM (#35518387)

All things work perfectly until they don't. We are at a stage of humanity right before fusion power becomes the norm anyway. No point using a short term solution where an accident makes land of the size of a city uninhabitable for 1000 years.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by Georgelemental on Monday April 10, 2023 @06:59PM (#35518430)

> where an accident makes land of the size of a city uninhabitable for 1000 years.

It… really doesn't. Even someone with full control of a modern plant, who actively wanted to cause as terrible an accident as possible, would not be able to cause nearly that much damage. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are poisoning people right now

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by okamiueru on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:01PM (#35518451)

> accident makes land of the size of a city uninhabitable for 1000 years

Maybe just me, but I would gladly take that risk vs the whole world becoming uninhabitable due to global warming, not to mention the possible nuclear fallout from WW3 due to global unrest.

The greatest political disappointment I've felt in recent years was when the Merkele government decided to shut down a bunch of Nuclear power-plants. It made up for it by burning coal.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by deepsun on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:15PM (#35518569)

Merkele government was played by Kremlin. The previous chancellor, Gerhard Schröder actively lobbied for Russia and had(has?) seats in Russian state-owned companies.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by ChuckNorris89 on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:30PM (#35518704)

>Merkele government was played by Kremlin.

She (and Schroeder) wasn't some puppet put there by Putin, the German people voted for her, several times over actually. It's their fault and their responsibility for the choices they made. That's how democracy works.

Next time choose your leaders more wisely, but sadly, I feel like no lessons have been learned in Germany and the voters will double down on their flawed ideology over reality.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by c4mpute on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @06:15AM (#35523037)

Also, there is no choice in political parties with those issues. After Merkel went back on her promise to strengthen nuclear and changed her mind, there was no party left supporting nuclear power in Germany. The only option one has there is to vote for the far-right AfD (10-15%, shunned by all coalitions, so basically a wasted vote if not >40%) or the capitalist-liberal FDP (5-10%, currently part of the coalition in power, but too small to make a difference).

So no matter what you vote for, it won't change anything.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by deepsun on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @01:19PM (#35528159)

Do Germans vote for measures/provisions? In US voting for positions is only half, if not less, of the total ballot. The most interesting part is measures and provisions. BUT, it's only state and municipal provisions, there's no voting for nation-wide issues.

The only country I know where there's a way to vote for particular issues is Switzerland.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by natmaka on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @01:28AM (#35521193)

In 2010 ((...)) Angela Merkel ((...)) decreed a 12-year delay of the schedule ((of nuclear phase-out))

Then Fukushima happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Closu...

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by Schroedingersat on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @12:25AM (#35520818)

They replaced all the nuclear with renewables (in spite of that same government sabotaging the rollout), and the hydro shortfall.

The coal replaced the gas and french nuclear.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by notfromhere on Monday April 10, 2023 @06:57PM (#35518405)

There is little evidence to suggest we’re anywhere near fusion power.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by charlieyu1 on Monday April 10, 2023 @06:59PM (#35518425)

Not 10-20 years maybe, but 50 years? Pretty high chance.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by nippoo on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:01PM (#35518455)

We've been saying it's 50 years away for about 50 years...

https://www.engineering.com/story/why-is-fusion-power-is-alw...

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by charlieyu1 on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:02PM (#35518467)

15 years ago AI was pretty much a dead end.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by TimTheTinker on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:06PM (#35518492)

At our stage of world development, mathematical and algorithmic breakthroughs happen at a much faster pace than physical/mechanical breakthroughs.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by afterburner on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:26PM (#35518670)

It's still not that impressive, more a result of computational power than anything fundamental.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by lucb1e on Monday April 10, 2023 @08:45PM (#35519258)

Fusion milestones have been newly achieved in the past 10 years. You may be right that it'll remain "50 years away" for generations still, but it's not evident to me that this will be the case. We barely had fission energy stable 60 years ago, we now know a lot more about the requirements and limitations for fusion, and we're allegedly still saying 50 years? That's a lot more reliable, and note that n=2 here (a bit more than one set of fifty years having gone by, a second fifty being underway and it still seeming like that). If it were "always 10 years away" since the 50s, that'd be quite a different story.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by Krssst on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:32PM (#35518725)

We would still need to go from 0W to 2-3TW production once we get actual generation; that's a lot of work planet-wide.

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Re:Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution:... by BenFranklin100 on Monday April 10, 2023 @07:12PM (#35518544)

The era of practical fusion being deployed at scale is 50 years off no matter how exciting some may find the recent press releases.

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