Timeline for Why did Germany hurry to phase out nuclear energy usage increasing the risk of fossil power use and Russian gas dependency?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 22, 2021 at 13:28 | comment | added | J... | @TooTea The general public's fear isn't an accident - the general public does exactly what they're told. And they've been told to fear nuclear power by powerful people with deep economic interests in fossil fuel technology. And the people believe whatever they're told. The only problem is that the regulatory structure of nuclear power means that nobody really has an economic interest in nuclear power succeeding, and nine of the top ten uranium producers in the world are countries that the US doesn't want to be dependent on. Our tribal nature is the real issue. | |
| Nov 21, 2021 at 0:20 | comment | added | Crazymoomin | @J... Perhaps, but the timescale required for required adoption is likely measured in decades, possibly longer than it would take to build a nuclear power station that doesn't need it. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 16:16 | comment | added | J... | @Crazymoomin It's a challenge, but at present I don't think it's a barrier. There are proven emerging technologies that, by all measures, appear to be able to meet the scale and price targets required for effective decarbonization. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 14:09 | comment | added | Crazymoomin | @TooTea Overregulation can have the opposite effect long term though, it can make the public perceive a technology to be far more dangerous than it actually is, therefore less palatable. "All these regulations must be for good reason" will be the line of thinking. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 14:04 | comment | added | Crazymoomin | @J... The scale of storage required is the real barrier. You can design better batteries all you want, but the fact still remains the world needs to build additional PWh of storage on a very short timescale to phase out fossil fuels in line with current COP targets. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 10:53 | comment | added | ilkkachu | @Jasen, but most civilian-use reactors aren't those. Which doesn't matter either, since the folks who want nuclear weapons seem to be just fine with building specialized facilities just for that. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 3:13 | comment | added | Jasen | @OscarBravo Fast breader reactors exist precisely because of their potential to destroy our civilisation, (by making the ingredients for nuclear weapons) | |
| Nov 19, 2021 at 7:43 | comment | added | Oscar Bravo | @TooTea That's basically it - nuclear lost a public relations war. It's a shame; nuclear power has the potential to produce really serious industrial accidents - on a par with the plastics, chemical, oil, and coal industries. But it does not have the capacity to destroy our civilisation. Fossil fuel does. | |
| Nov 19, 2021 at 7:42 | comment | added | JonathanReez | @TooTea the general public can be sold anything if you package it right, they don't understand the nuances of engineering. Its the governments job to package things up nicely so that Average Joe buys it vs. overengineering everything as a knee jerk reaction. | |
| Nov 19, 2021 at 7:21 | comment | added | TooTea | @JonathanReez Yeah, but those regulations are there for a really good reason: To make nuclear at least half palatable to the general public. There's a plainly ludicrous level of risk aversion among the people when it comes to nuclear power, mostly because "nuclear" translates to "magic" for most. Even if coal kills way more people than all nuclear accidents combined, people will still fear nuclear unless you regulate the hell out of it. There's no quick fix for that public perception issue, maybe even no fix at all. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 19:40 | comment | added | JonathanReez | One very important clarification: the reasons costs are so high is due to ridiculous overregulation. If the rules were rolled back to 1985 standards with some minor adjustments, nuclear would be much more competitive. Most of the post-Chernobyl regulations are seen as over-engineering by nuclear experts. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 18:26 | comment | added | Pete W | @Oscar Bravo - that is a good point, and one could quibble about the hidden cost of nuclear waste too. In any case, I was trying to point it out from the point of view of the money-driven part of the world, to which, for better or worse, we granted the power to make all the biggest decisions. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 15:54 | comment | added | Oscar Bravo | When considering the cost of methane combustion stations, did you factor in the cost of the waste disposal? Or, as the fossil fuel industry has been doing since for ever, did you assume it to be zero? As we now know, the cost of dumping CO2 in the atmosphere is very far from zero... | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 14:33 | history | edited | Pete W | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 18, 2021 at 14:17 | comment | added | Pete W | @Zeus - re: existing vs new nuclear - I agree. Sorry if that wasn't more clear in the answer. Since the question is talking about Germany, I took it as a given that the decision was already made permanent. Decommissioning has been underway for several years. Only 8GW are still active, and these were scheduled to be taken offline in the next 2 years | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 13:57 | comment | added | J... | @RedSonja Grid storage technology is maturing rapidly. The evidence that it will become widespread in the coming decades is alll around. I don't think that's a controversial statement. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 11:47 | comment | added | Simon Richter | @Zeus, even the investments to keep existing stations running are planned ten years in advance -- for example training programs for operators have been phased out, and it will be difficult to convince anyone to attend such a training now, without a perspective for long-term employment. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 8:19 | comment | added | RedSonja | "The problem of short-term storage (e.g. overnight) will probably be solved." Neat bit of hand-wavery there. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 8:18 | comment | added | Zeus | This is reasonable when considering building new power stations (if you accept the "solar is better than nuclear" argument). But for existing stations the capital cost is already largely spent, and keeping them "for a few more years" might easily be reasonable, even if it creates excess of power most of the year. For one, this could delay (or spread over longer time) the urgent need to build highly manoeuvrable peak stations (which still have to cover a great portion of the total peak demand). | |
| Nov 17, 2021 at 19:26 | history | edited | Pete W | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 17, 2021 at 19:18 | history | edited | Pete W | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 17, 2021 at 19:12 | history | answered | Pete W | CC BY-SA 4.0 |