this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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You still can't safely eat mushrooms in parts of Germany that got contaminated by Chernobyl.
It's not a binary choice between coal (and other fossil fuels) and nuclear. Both are bad for the environment, and we should be looking to renewables instead. I fully agree that the climate crisis is the more pressing issue. I'm personally involved in climate activism. But this post is specifically about radioactivity, not overall impact
Germany is actively closing nuclear plants, one of the safest and cleanest energy sources, and replacing them with coal, the most dangerous and dirty one.
This is not what's happening. Germany is shutting down both coal and nuclear. Due to the incompetent CDU (the conservatives are ruining everything once again) there was a lot of back and forth on nuclear, and their lobbyist friends delayed the exit from coal. But there finally is a plan to shut down all coal, but build more, and all nuclear plants are shut down and in the process of being dismantled, and turning them back on would not accelerate the shutting down of coal. Building nuclear is a slow and expensive process. Could this have been handled better 20 or even 50 years ago? Absolutely. But in the situation we're currently in, nuclear is not the solution.
Nuclear is the solution until all coal plants are shut down. Coal kills millions each year (1000x more than coal) in addition to being a massive contributor to global warming. Nuclear is one of the safest power sources in the world and emits no greenhouse gas.
Shutting down nuclear plants while coal plants still exist is a crime against humanity.
You know what, I actually agree on that. Countries that currently have running nuclear plants should keep them running until they've eliminated coal (and gas, although their use not really overlaps - base load vs peak), but then shut them down.
Then we can totally agree. It's not what Germany did though.
Yes, but it's too late to reverse that course. Germany's nuclear plants are out of operation, and refitting and restarting them would take many years (most of them were at their end of life when they were shut down), and involve costs better spend towards the long term by building up renewables directly, and shutting down coal.
No, because Germany didn't replace nuclear power with coal.
Shutting down a nuclear plant while keeping coal ones open is replacing nuclear with coal. And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don't know where you are getting these ideas from.
No, it's going down. There was a sharp decline in 2019, in 2020 it was even lower due to the pandemic and then went up again to the level of around 2019. 2022 was a little worse because of lower gas consumption due to the war in Ukraine, gas was partially replaced with coal. The last nuclear power plants were shut down in April 2023, yet 2023 also saw lower coal consumption than even in 2020, which strongly suggests that nuclear isn't replaced by coal.
Honestly even gas should be phased out before nuclear.
Well, if we look at nuclear and gas we can also see that nuclear wasn't replaced by gas in Germany. Gas and nuclear have very different purposes in the grid, on can be spun up almost on demand the other can't. Anyway, at least in Germany there is no nuclear power anymore so arguing that something else should be phased out first is pointless, and saying that nuclear was replaced by coal or gas is spreading fakenews.
Every nuclear plant that is closed is a coal or gas plant that could be closed, so yes, coal is replacing it.
That's not what https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/ein-jahr-kernkraftausstieg is saying. Lignite ("Braunkohle") -29TWh, hard coal ("Steinkohle") -26TWh. A big factor of dealing with the evolved situation are much fewer energy exports (-23TWh).
If you close a nuclear power plant before closing a coal one, you are effectively replacing the nuclear with coal. It makes no sense to shut down nuclear plants before all the coal ones are shut down first.
And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don't know where you are getting these ideas from.
That's not how words work.
Your data source is outdated. You're looking at data up to 2022, whilst his data shows 2023-2024, which is more recent.
2022 also saw problems like the Ukraine war frustrating gas supply, forcing the use of more coal. And there was covid throwing a wrench into things as well.
Nuclear powerplants in Germany were beyond their lifespan and fixing and modernizing them was not economically feasible. Just too expensive compared to other forms of energy.
Germany certainly hasn't been "replacing nuclear with coal".
Closing a nuclear plant means you keep a coal plant open. So you are in effect replacing nuclear with coal. If you kept the nuclear plant open you could close the coal plants instead. Idiotic move.
The nuclear plants in Germany were too old and too expensive to maintain. At some point a reactor is just end-of-life. They get operational issues causing semi-frequent shutdowns. The reliability issues become a problem that skyrockets the costs further.
Closing a nuclear plant like that puts enough money back in the budget to afford a faster transition to renewables, which ultimately closes down the coal plants faster too. It's about the big picture, it's not as simple as simply saying "we'll do less coal" or "we'll do less nuclear".
I'd like to believe that this is true, but after the revelations of how much Merkel and Schroeder were in bed with the oil industry as well as the green party's role in this, I'm skeptical to say the least.
Merkel and Schroeder gambled on Russian gas imports as a holdover to transition from the aging nuclear plants and coal plants towards renewables. They did so because according to Merkel "it made sense at the time" and she did not really see the larger geopolitical picture. When Russian gas suddenly dried up due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they had to delay the closure of several coal plants to keep the power on.
So they're trying to replace nuclear and coal with gas.
I got this idea from reading (and linking) a recent 2024 source that you clearly didn't read or ran through a translator. Your 2022 source is outdated.
Mate, they closed the power plants because they have long surpassed their design operating hours. The upkeep alone costs so ridiculously much, no one can pay that kind of shit. Germany has even postponed the closing date due to the immediate crisis the Russians have created.
I'd like to believe that this is true, but after the revelations of how much Merkel and Schroeder were in bed with the oil industry as well as the green party's role in this, I'm skeptical to say the least.
Yet even accounting for all of that, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear is still 1000x safer than coal and as safe as wind and solar.
Bbbeeee aaaafffffrrrraaaiiiiiddddddddddddd!1!!1!!!1!!!!1!!1!!!!!1!!!
C'mon. Chernobyl was like a drunk driver bypassing the blow device, and now you want to ban all cars everywhere for everyone and everything for eternity. Just to replace it with horses that kill even more people.
When I misuse a coal plant, it breaks down and potentially pollutes the vicinity. When I misuse a photovoltaic plant, it might get damaged. If I misuse a nuclear plant, an area becomes uninhabitable for centuries.
But accidents are not the main concern, when there are currently nuclear power plants being held hostage in an ongoing war
Coal plants kill more when they work properly than nuclear plants do when they break. Every coal plant is worse than Chernobyl or Fukushima.
See you're treating all nuclear plants and operation of those plants as the same. It's not. Just like car designs are not the same as they were in 1950, nuclear plant designs are not the same as they were in the 1950s.
You know Chernobyl was because they threw the operating procedure out the window right? But you want to act as if that's just the normal operating procedure. And that it could just happen just because, just from normal operating or something. It's insane.
So you think the US, UK, France, Germany, etc etc etc nuclear plants will be taken hostage by Russians? See you're on your fear campaign once again. Beee aaafffrraaaaiiiiddd!1!11!! That's all it is.
*Have to correct "misuse coal". It's not misuse, it's use. Using coal guarantees polluting both locally and the entire planet.
I mean, can you tell for sure that there will not be any war in France or Germany in the next 70 years? I don't think it's likely, and I'm clearly of the opinions that we should apply whatever carbon reduction that is most carbon effective, nuclear included, given the current climate emergency, but considering a nuclear power plant could be targeted by an army or terror group is not that far-fetched.
Is everyone afraid yet? Better keep going even though Russia just humiliated themselves by being held off by one of the poorest countries in Europe. Always be aaaffrraaaiiiddd.
Ok, I'm with you on most of your points but you are mistaken in thinking Ukraine is a poor country. They are literally the bread basket of eastern Europe. That's one of the biggest reasons Putin is so intent on taking it.
Bread basket does not mean rich. Look at the gdp numbers per capita, they are shockingly poor.
Let me throw in my two cents.
We have people in the U.S. who shoot up schools. We have people who stormed the capitol when their great orange godking failed to be made King President.
I, for one, am afraid of what the kind of person who instigates an insurrection could do with a target like a nuclear power plant.
With the safety features built into all nuclear plants, it would have to be a crazed nuclear engineer and the place would have to be abandoned and yet still somehow functioning. This is real life, not the Simpsons.
TIL security does not exist. Be afraid!!11!!!! JFC.
That's fine, I don't like mushrooms anyways