Germany getting rid of nuclear power

Great Debates
1

The government in Germany has decided to completely phase out nuclear power over the next couple of decades.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000615/wl/germany_nuclear_dc_7.html

According to another article, Germany gets about one-third of its electricity from atomic power.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_791000/791597.stm

So where do they think the replacement power will come from?

  1. The obvious answer is more fossil-fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) power plants. But while the 20-year phaseout at least gives the utilities time to build new plants, adding polluting power stations runs up against treaties that Germany has signed regarding the reduction of greenhouse gases.

  2. Buy electricity from other countries, most of which have excess power because of their own nuclear power stations (France), and some of which have lax nuclear safety standards when compared to the Germans (can you say cash-poor but nuke-rich Ukraine?).

  3. The Greens, the main proponents of scrapping nuclear power, claim that Germany can replace nuclear-generated electricity with conservation measures and with those holy grails of the eco-crowd, solar and wind power. Conservation measures equalling 30% of the present power consumption? In a country with modern industry (and electric railways, I might add)?!?

Here in this country, environmental groups are variously pushing for the end of nuclear power and the removal of vast hydroelectric dams. About 20% of U.S. electricity comes from nuclear power and another 10% comes from hydroelectric dams. Even that idol of the eco-crowd, wind power, has come in for flak from some environmentalists because large wind power stations in California have chopped up migrating birds. Apparently, there is no means of generating electricity that is ecologically correct.

Or maybe that’s the point. Choke off the electricity on which the ecological evil of the world – modernized, comfortable, industrial society – is based and we’ll have to go back to that perfect age before technology when humankind (numbering all of 100 million or so around the world) lived in harmony with nature.

2

Personally I am a staunch environmentalist (guess that makes me part of the eco-crowd). Yet I never quite understood the beef against nuclear power. Granted nuclear waste is not something one wants to build one’s home upon, but it would seem that nuclear power plants produce less general waste than most fossil-fuel plants. Am I missing something (I might be)

Now I wouldn’t necessarily shed a tear if all the big hydroelectric dams went away, but I acknowledge we need to figure out some clean way of getting replacement power first. Windmills probably aint gonna be it, as the OP seemed to imply. I guess we’ve gotta hold out for someone to invent a practical fusion generator.

<breath holding commencing now!>

3

avalongod, you don’t like hydroelectric power? It’s a renewable resource, and it doesn’t leave waste by-products that are radioactive for 10,000 years…

4

tracer says:

Of course, the fuel is radioactive for hundreds of millions of years, so that’s a net gain.

(Both my logic and tracer’s are flawed. Can you point out why?)

5

A: I believe it would be the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics you are referring to (there are no net gains in the world of physics)

Tracer…my problems with the hydroelectric stuff is that is seems to do tons of damage to the river/lake systems them employ…though I will admit it is better than fossil fuels.

6

Finally, a question I’m good at:

A good question, although in any case not from oil. I also can’t believe they’re going to build more hard or brown coal plants to replace nuclear. Do they really think that the gas supply from the new pipelines from the ex-Soviet block is going to be that reliable?

That’s what Sweden was looking to do. They get rid of their evil, satanic coal plants and nuclear, and buy energy from other evil and satanic coal and nuclear plants in other countries. So no one wants the responsibility of generation, they’ll just “buy from the grid”, huh? Can you say “10,000 Euro kW*hr”?

And while Ukraine may appear to have some excess power their equivalent availability is very poor - those stations are falling apart at the seams. I just finished assisting on a study of the energy outlook for the former Soviet block for the next 10 years. Repeat the phrase “rolling brownouts” over and over, and you get the picture.

Conservation can work, but at a potential reduction in quality of life. Note I say potential. Here in the US, I have conducted energy audits for regions (no, I can’t give sources, they’re proprietary) that show in most areas of the US, as much as a 10-15% reduction in energy usage could be achieved at no additional cost to the consumer and no reduction in quality of life - we really waste that much, folks. In an EC country like Germany, I would estimate that the value of reduced consumption without reductions in quality of life is no more than 5%. Not to sell that short, but it’s not 30% either.

True. What’s really appalling is how scientifically ignorant the green activists I meet are. It’s almost as appalling as how ignorant of energy usage the average American is.

You are correct - that is their point.

The problem with energy is - we have enough to last for a long while, especially if we conserve a hell of a lot more than we do. But the cost of using it is serious pollution - NOx, SOx, ROx, CO2, heavy metals, radionucleides. Many enivros I talk with say they are really just hoping fusion will come along quickly so we don’t have to push the envelope with the environment. However, you would be surprised at how many environmentalists are against fusion as a power source, regardless of it’s relative cleanliness.

7

Several disjoined thoughts:

As I have said many times, the root of this problem and others is in the demographic increment. If people use 30% less energy and you have 60% more people you just have more people living worse. As long as we do not address the root problem the rest is just “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it goes down”.

Spain also decided to get rid of the nuclear power plants and it has been the same thing. They buy it from France who makes the profit in the process and if there would be an accident it’s next door to Spain anyway so they’d be affected too.

Then you hear all the (ignorant) ecobabble about renewable sources. They’re free!! well… yes… wind and sun are free in the same sense coal and oil are free… it’s the cost of transforming them into a usable form.

Hydroelectric: well, the number of rivers is limited and we’ve already messed most of them

Wind: you gotta be kidding. have you been to a wind farm? the noise is awful and you still produce a tiny amount. try filling the countryside with that.

Solar. The cost is astronomical. It’s just not cost effective

so what do we have left? While we figure it out will you all stop making babies and pay attention? :slight_smile:

8

What ever happened to geothermal power? From what I’ve heard, it sounded clean and eminently renewable; did they figure out the setup costs were too high, or what?

9

What you are left with when you are done must be less radioactive than what you started with because you’ve turned the radiation into energy.

Nuclear plants thus actually make the world less radioactive.

10

At least Germany has a stable population, instead of an exploding one like the United States has, thanks to political expediency and ostrich-style planning. So whatever problems they may be facing, at least they are that
much ahead of us.

11

javaman opines:

Yes, how unfortunate that, whilst Germany has and is situated in the midst of a declining European population, the United States not only has a Third World country on its southern border, but has a long tradition of admitting people as other than Gastarbeiter. The first thing that we should do is round up all of those wetbacks and make 'em swim back across the Rio Grande. Then, maybe, we could tear down our nuclear plants and import our electricity from France, too.

12

My impression is that it’s still an emerging technology (at least in the U.S.). And of course, new technologies are more expensive than buying off-the-shelf. Maybe we’ll see more of this in the future.

13

So far, anyway. The tech may improve and become less expensive. I doubt the world can go 100% solar (some places just don’t get enough sun) but it will probably be an excellent way to augment a power grid or even just to run a personal residence. (“solar”…“astronomical”…good one :slight_smile: )

14

What about harnessing tidal power? I remember hearing some preliminary stuff a while back. Anything new on that front?