Germany joins Swiss, ends ALL nuke plants

[D.Turtle]

I also wanted to address the following post as it is often bandied about (my internet unfortunately cut out for two days, otherwise I would have addressed it earlier):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13257804

Costly green solution

snip - supposed NIMBYism

Will be interesting to see if objections on a local level to both nuclear and green options manage to stall this. Nuclear may not be popular, but I suspect it'll be more popular than anything that affects locals.

There was a report on this a few weeks ago in Frontal 21 (german) a regular investigative news program.

In it they cover some examples of the supposed NIMBYism problems that occur with expanding the electricity net. Among other things, they mention that of the current 24 projects to expand the electricity net, only 8 are behind planning, and in only 3 of those are public opposition the cause of that delay. And in even those cases it is not the problem that there is complete opposition to any new building, but constructive criticism with alternative routes, etc. In some cases it has gone so far, that groups of investors who built the wind turbines installed the required infrastructure on their own, as it went faster, cheaper, and less obtrusively than the alternatives that were tried to force through by the electricity companies.

[Thanas]

I just wanted to address the question of the image some of you were asking about.

That image depicts the plans of the CSU (regional party controlling the coalition government in Bavaria) for the phase-out of nuclear energy in Bavaria.

And I will also mention that it envisions more than a doubling of renewable energy from 24% to 53% by 2020 - hardly insignificant.

Thank you for that. So it does indeed look as if people did not know their sources and jumped on any graphic as "ZOMG official plans for all of Germany".

[Terralthra]

I just wanted to address the question of the image some of you were asking about.

That image depicts the plans of the CSU (regional party controlling the coalition government in Bavaria) for the phase-out of nuclear energy in Bavaria.

And I will also mention that it envisions more than a doubling of renewable energy from 24% to 53% by 2020 - hardly insignificant.

Thank you for that. So it does indeed look as if people did not know their sources and jumped on any graphic as "ZOMG official plans for all of Germany".

I was well aware it was the plan for Bavaria alone. I again point out that it envisions a 200% rise in renewable sources overall, and a >400% increase in natural gas usage.

[Thanas]

Which is meaningful considering we are talking about the entirety of Germany how?

[K. A. Pital]

Will the use of natural gas in all of Germany decrease? By how much, if at all?

[Thanas]

I doubt it will decrease, seeing that there are three (four? cannot remember) new gas plants going online. However, the question is how much the usage will increase.

[K. A. Pital]

The most optimistic studies I've read postulate an overall 3-4% increase in gas demand. Those studies were made in 2010, and consequently ignored the "no nuclear power by 2020!" shift.

[D.Turtle]

The role of natural gas will very likely increase in the short and medium term, as it has the lowest CO2 output of fossil fuels, is quite efficient, has a relatively short building time, and is relatively cheap in construction costs. At least, those are the arguments brought forth by the ethics commission that was put in place by the current government.

[Thanas]

The most optimistic studies I've read postulate an overall 3-4% increase in gas demand. Those studies were made in 2010, and consequently ignored the "no nuclear power by 2020!" shift.

Are you sure about that? Iirc the (now revoked) decision to extend the lifecircle beyond 2020 was only made in mid-2010.

[K. A. Pital]

That is from December 2010. The fall in nuclear power in Europe is too small to factor such a great change as a 10-year reduction in lifecycle, methinks. However, I freely admit I may be wrong on this count.

[Kane Starkiller]

World total yearly energy consumption is about 510 exajoules. Total installed nuclear power generation capacity is about 380GW which means about 12 exajoules per year. In other words 2.35% of total energy consumption. Shutting down all nuclear plants in the world won't make much of a difference as far as fossil fuel consumption goes.

In order for nuclear power to actually supplant fossil fuels number of nuclear reactors would have to increase something like 20-30 times. Lets say there was one major disaster so far, Chernobyl. Let's say that is 99.99% chance every 50 years for ,let's use current number of power plants, 441. That means that the chance that there will be a failure among the 441 powerplants within a year is 16.82%. Which means that chance a single powerplant will fail within a year is 0.04%.
If however the number is increased from 441 today to 10000 then the chance one of those 10000 fill fail in any given year is 98%.
Of course I'm assuming that current and future powerplants are no more secure than Chernobyl but how much more secure are they?

In the end why fuck around with nuclear radiation when other alternatives like wind power are readily available. Building continental sized wind power grid coupled with storage like batteries or water reservoires would compensate for the fact that wind doesn't blow at a constant rate. You have a practically infinite source of energy and absolutely no chance of any ecological disaster.

[Lord Insanity]

Of course I'm assuming that current and future powerplants are no more secure than Chernobyl but how much more secure are they?

Comparing a modern pebble bed reactor to a 50 year old design boiling water reactor like Chernobyl or Fukushima is kind of like comparing a modern ocean liner to the Titanic. There are fundamental design flaws that flat out don't exist on newer designs. According to this thread all of the current reactors in Germany are of the old design and older reactors near the end of their shelf life anyway, so its no wonder they want those shut down ASAP. Why they don't want modern reactors to replace them (as opposed to coal and natural gas) while their renewable plan is being implemented is the real question.

[Master of Ossus]

The role of natural gas will very likely increase in the short and medium term, as it has the lowest CO2 output of fossil fuels, is quite efficient, has a relatively short building time, and is relatively cheap in construction costs. At least, those are the arguments brought forth by the ethics commission that was put in place by the current government.

Coal is the most natural replacement for nuclear, though. Even CCGT doesn't offer the low lifetime costs, high-availability of coal, which makes it ideal for baseline plants (just like nuclear ones). CCGT and older gas designs are higher in marginal cost, albeit lower in capital/installed MW, and so they're better suited for not-quite-always-on plants.

[Surlethe]

Coal is the most natural replacement for nuclear, though. Even CCGT doesn't offer the low lifetime costs, high-availability of coal, which makes it ideal for baseline plants (just like nuclear ones). CCGT and older gas designs are higher in marginal cost, albeit lower in capital/installed MW, and so they're better suited for not-quite-always-on plants.

Does this marginal cost include the diffuse contribution to global warming?

[Master of Ossus]

Coal is the most natural replacement for nuclear, though. Even CCGT doesn't offer the low lifetime costs, high-availability of coal, which makes it ideal for baseline plants (just like nuclear ones). CCGT and older gas designs are higher in marginal cost, albeit lower in capital/installed MW, and so they're better suited for not-quite-always-on plants.

Does this marginal cost include the diffuse contribution to global warming?

Yes.

In California, at least, environmental groups have raised such an incredible stink about how "dirty" coal is that the coal plants the state does have are all operating more efficiently in terms of CO2/MW output than anything but a modern CCGT--so they're better than something like 80% of the state's natural gas plants in terms of environmental friendliness. Not that that's stopped the environmentalists from whining about them, mind you.

[Skgoa]

But coal has to be dug up. There are big environmental and health problems with that.

Why they don't want modern reactors to replace them (as opposed to coal and natural gas) while their renewable plan is being implemented is the real question.

The problem started with the people who have/had a vested interest in nuclear power lying about it's safety. And they are still lying all the time, recent scandals are more than proof enough. Thus, for many laypeople - who have no way of checking for themselves - its just the more logical position to NOT trust the same people saying the same things (that had turned out to be lies in all the other cases) for the umpteenth time. And I must say, even though I do understand the physics and engineering involved to a reasonable degree... its kinda hart to disagree with that.
Take the "core catcher" as an example: after Fukushima, one of the arguments made for the safety of our plants had been that while THAT design had a vulnerability to core meltdown, the invention of the core catcher* had made that fear obsolete. What they didn't say was that NO german NPP has a core catcher.
Another good example is the EPR, the new NPP that is being built in Finland. On paper, its the most secure design ever. But they used cheap imported labour from east europe and EVEN THOSE then complained about the criminal negligence of their employers.
I have argued (in real life) for at least keeping R&D up and building new prototype reactors many times... but the above is very hard to argue against.
edit: Also, new construction would be awarded to the same people who fucked up before. No, I don't want Siemens et.al. to be allowed to build anything nuclear in a 10k km radius around me.


* basicaly a bowl under the plant that keeps the liquid core out of contact with the ground in case of a meltdown

[Hamstray]

What they didn't say was that NO german NPP has a core catcher.

The SNR-300 does, possibly the safest nuclear power plant ever ,
mainly due to the fact that it never went online and is now a theme park.
strange how upon the list of nuclear power plants successfully blocked by protestors in europe the amount of FNRs is disproportionately high, even though the most widespread arguments amongst the anti nuclear crowd are the ones concerning nuclear waste (which are the ones i find most comprehensible).
Yes, sodium is probably not the most safest coolant (and i doubt the SNR-300's thermal coefficient was all too great) but european GFR/LFR technologies are still a decade away, most likely due to all the setbacks FNR technology has suffered from politics.

[Thanas]

The SNR-300 was also one of those projects where the people involved lied and continued to ly when they were caught, coupled with oversight neglect and other issues that any sensible company would have resolved before attempting such a project.

[aerius]

I'm curious, how did the German nuclear industry become such a total mess? From what I'm reading here, it looks like any rule which can be violated, has been violated, and that this has been ongoing for decades complete with a cover-up operation. It just seems so out of character from my impressions of Germans.

[Thanas]

I'm curious, how did the German nuclear industry become such a total mess? From what I'm reading here, it looks like any rule which can be violated, has been violated, and that this has been ongoing for decades complete with a cover-up operation. It just seems so out of character from my impressions of Germans.

Nuclear power was very popular at first, and was heavily defended by people out of ideological reasons. Which led to the politicians dropping the ball more than once on it.

Oh, and of course greed.

[D.Turtle]

What puzzles me however is the sheer scale of the whole thing. We have multiple cases in multiple countries that show massive problems with nuclear power plants on the regulatory, oversight, maintenance, etc side.

Is that just the case for nuclear energy, or also the case in other sectors, just not as visible?

I'm thinking that it might be more the case that with other technologies, these problems are there, but lead to a multitude of smaller "disasters" that individually are not really remarkable and thus get ignored, while nuclear - due to its nature - tends to have fewer, but larger disasters that get lots of attention?

Pretty much the effect of multiple car crashes not being news worthy, despite killing more people than airplane crashes - which can dominate news?

[Thanas]

I also cannot remember many industries in which a small error can have that many consequences.