Um, you still take TODAY’s level as a ledger to judging something that happened quite a while ago.
It’s not really intelligent criticism to say consequences have not been taken into account when you have no knowledge, let alone evidence, that such is actually the case.
a)How do you know such has not been done? What do you know about the German energy market?
b)How precisely do you suggest making a fair evaluation over a time span of, say, 1,000 years? Cause that is very much a time frame that needs to be assessed when talking about nuclear power and its consequences. To assess the technologies available, and as such the risk posed by nuclear waste, at such a time is sheer folly.
The problem with Germany shutting down all their nuclear power plants is that they’re reducing the diversity of power sources they can use. I have no problem with using wind power, but it has to part of a multi-source program. For instance, if the price of producing power with coal goes through the roof, you as a utility don’t go bankrupt trying to deliver power at the same price as before. I think it was a very short-sighted to simply decide to shut the plants down prior to expiration of their licenses. Just ask the owners of Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station about that.
Most anti-nuclear rhetoric (whether from Greens or anybody else) that I hear does amount to this kind of oversimplification. It isn’t “slander” to point that out regardless of what you think. Of course the Greens have scientists working for them. So do their opponents. Proves nothing. Arguments from authority mean little.
Really. I’ve been oversimplifying. Let’s see. I’ve made two points in this thread. First was the point that getting out of nuclear will probably mean increased greenhouse emissions. Second was my point to counter the idea that nuclear plants should be eliminated because they “cause cancer” without taking into account that there are risks (of cancer even) associated with doing so. Both of these points make it clear that the issue is not simple. And of course I’m aware that cancer risk during operation is not the main concern with nuclear power. Even the increased cancer from accidents still needs to be weighed against the cancer risks of other types of power generation. Now show me how this oversimplifies things again.
“That you hear”. Thanks. Your perception happens to have very little connection to fact.
I think you are blaming others for your unwillingness to inform yourself on this issue.
I already showed where you oversimplified things. But obviously, you put as much effort into reading posts in this thread as into informing yourself as to what the position of “The Greens” is. Given that you are incapable of showing even the minimum politeness of actually reading the posts you reply to, I don’t think it will help much if I point out that your claiming that “radiation causes cancer” was the position of ‘the Greens’ towards nuclear power was an oversimplification. But I take it that in your eyes, you don’t oversimplify simply as a matter of definition.
Now you come with ‘even the increased cancer from accidents’. I would SERIOUSLY suggest you acquire a minimum background knowledge of what the positions in the discussion actually are rather than simply spooling a standard program of arguments that have little bearing to anything actually said by anyone else.
One can only judge people’s positions from what one hears them say.
Your implication that I’m not informed on the issues is obviously bullshit as anyone can see by reading this thread. But if you think I’m not informed enough why not inform me and everyone else here with what you obviosly think are the real facts.
If you think my assesment of the Greens position is wrong then tell us what you think it is and what it might be based on.
The Faroe Island studies I know of showed that there were elevated levels of mercury in children, as measured at birth and I believe at the age of 7 for comparison (as opposed to the Seychelles study, which measured them between ages 5-12). It is important to note that the study noted no actual health effects from mercury in either case, and the studies “support(ed) the EPA threshold (equivalent to one-tenth ounce of mercury per year for a 150 pound individual)” (EPRI Congressional Testimony, 2001). There was also, in the Faroes, a complex effect noted due to the presence of PCBs as well.
There were also studies in Japan and Iraq, but I don’t have those results nearby me.
IMO any mercury level is too much. However, sadly, to live in an industrialized world there will always be some exposure to mercury.
Depending on which model you look at (further complicated by the fact that mercury seems to be a globally-travelling pollutant, like CO2) it is difficult to say how much comes from coal combustion. A good guess by EPRI seems to be 25%. An alarmingly large amount of mercury seems to come from Chinese manufacturing - by some estimates, maybe as much as a third of the entire world total. However, mercury modeling and tracking has been notoriously problematic, and so it’s too tell.
The question is if one seeks out to hear what they have to say, or simply hold his ears shit
Quite the contrary, it is obviously bullshit that you have an idea about this issue. Cause, you see, I went to the website of the German Green party and accessed their program on energy policy. Lo and behold, I can’t find the word ‘cancer’ there. Hm. Strange, isn’t it? After all, you say that “Radiation causes cancer” is their only argument. Funnily enough, I find the word “waste” there several times.
Your ‘assessment’, as I already pointed out, is propaganda bullshit.
Their goal is a general trend towards renewable energy, and, to make sure during the transition period, that the power demands are met by as environmentally friendly technologies as possible, without heaving the burden of the drawbacks on future generations. e.g. moving from ‘dirty’ fossil fuels to cleaner high-efficiency gas power plants, expanding combined heat-and-power production, pushing solar, wind and other renewables, and encouraging those who can to produce their own power (i.e. farms using biomass combustion) by liberalizing the energy market.
So you couldn’t find my exact wording there. That’s nice. So why is “waste” a problem? Mainly because of its toxicity to humans and other life forms. But the risk analysis approach applies there too. If nuclear is eliminated we get other forms of “waste”. Which is worse?
All of which is great. But shutting down existing nuclear capacity will still mainly just increase use of fossil fuel. I admit to having a bias against fossil fuels though. And even solar (which I favor) has toxic by-products.
The waste produced by other technologies is pretty well defined, and can, in fact, be controlled to a large extent. (*) It’s toxicity is usually also quite limited temporally. The nuclear industry so far has been exempt from bringing the most basic concept of waste care to begin with, the likes of which are required by pretty much ANY industry prior to STARTING business, and what precisely happens in those tanks with heavily radioactive waste is pretty much anybody’s guess. Totally aside from that, a risk assessment over the entire period the waste poses a danger is pretty much impossible, since the period is too long to really make predictions.
Sorry, but that is far from a logical conclusion. While it might be realistic that energy demands won’t decrease, energy conservation is one of the party’s hallmark policies. Aside from that, you assume no reserves exist.
Renewable energy has grown in Germany quite more rapidly than fossil fuel, and there is no reason to assume that would change -at the least until the next general election, which is still a while off.
The downside of renewable energies so far has been that R&D was not as far as other energy sources. That is changing, not the least due to policies by the Greens. Wind energy now is already practically as economically feasible on a cost per kWh basis.
(*)My birth city’s municipal combined heat and power plant is running a side business with gypsum from getting sulfur oxides out of their exhaust, for example.
Beg to differ with you here. At the nuclear power plant I work at we know exactly how much waste we generate and we know exactly where all of it is. The same is true at every other nuclear power facility in the USA. Radioactive waste is highly controlled and transported under strict guidelines and security. Numerous laws and regulations exist for the storage and transport of radioactive waste to ensure the safety of the public. We also know exactly what’s going on in “those tanks”, i.e., the waste is sitting there.
Unless you consider an ongoing greenhouse climate disaster over centuries to be “temporally limited”. Granted, that’s not “toxicity” in the usual sense, unless you are alergic to heat.
I don’t know what the case in Germany is but here it is as Nuke said. We know where all our stuff is and the whole thing is very tightly regulated. As for the period being too long to make predictions. Nuclear radiation is one of the most quantifiable things imaginable. We know what the half-lives of all this stuff are.
I can’t find the original news article that started this but I seem to remember that even the Green party was admitting that it would lead to more fossil fuel usage. And reserves? Reserves of what? Existing power generating capacity presumably. But that just backs up my point. Your fossil fuel plants will have to crank out more power.
This is silly, for the reasons I already pointed out. The case for the french is an entirely different one.
This is factually wrong. In fact, Germany is now seen as exemplary by international organisations in its push for renewable energies (such as, for example, in Worldwatch’s “State if the World 2003”)
You seem to be understanding a lot of things that pretty much no one else understands.
Do you know where it will be 1000 years from now? No? Case closed.
That is complete and utter hogwash, sorry. The waste isn’t sitting there, it is undergoing nuclear decay and various chemical reactions. And if you claim to know what’s in there at a given moment without opening the pot and taking a sample, sorry if I laugh.
Except, of course, that Germany is moving to reduce its output of Greenhouse gases.
No, you don’t. To know the half-lives, you have to know the actual elements present. To know about the toxicity, you need to know the chemical compounds present. Both changes over time.
Huh? Apparently, you don’t quite know the meaning of the word ‘reserve’. It means you can go down with the production in a pinch. It means you don’t really NEED to produce as much power as you currently do to meet demands.
The nuclear power plants won’t be switched off tomorrow. They will be phased out. By the time the last one is switched off, R&D in other fields will have proceeded much further.
Second, power output does not equal waste output. You can increase power output without increasing waste by increasing efficiency.
As such, your entire case rests on ignoring the potential problems in technologies you prefer, while arguing a worst case scenario for those you dislike. The fact that the Green party is going the practical way in between is lost to you.
What? Are you suggesting that we don’t know what the nuclear waste we produce is? And yes, radioactive decay products change over time but it a well known, predictable way.
I only “favor” nuclear power except when compared to fossil fuel. If it is possible to phase out some of the power generating capacity without blackouts or brownouts then why not phase out some coal plants and leave the nukes while expanding renewables. That would guarantee a reduction in carbon emissions.
What? Are you suggesting that we don’t know what the nuclear waste we produce is? And yes, radioactive decay products change over time but it a well known, predictable way.
I only “favor” nuclear power except when compared to fossil fuel. If it is possible to phase out some of the power generating capacity without blackouts or brownouts then why not phase out some coal plants and leave the nukes while expanding renewables. That would guarantee a reduction in carbon emissions.
What you doubt could not possibly be of less relevance. You would need a far closer familiarity with the German energy market to even make a credible assessment.
Nuclear waste isn’t just spent rods. It is a whole bunch of other stuff. And the only thing that’s semi-predictable is the nuclear decay, and even that is merely a statistical average. There are plenty of other compounds which have to be stored as nuclear waste which can undergo a plethora of chemical reactions, and do so easily given the heat released by the nuclear decay.
As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t. Most nuclear power plants are outside the big cities. Most coal plants are near big city and serve as combined heat and power plants. As such, they have a pretty high efficiency, and if you shut them down, you would have to produce the heat by other means. Meaning you would move from burning fuel to generate electricity AND heat to burning fuel locally in each house just to produce heat. Through oil or gas ovens. Which, do you think, is the more efficient use of fuel?
When there are molar quantities of a substance it is not accurate to say that we have “merely” a statistical average. Nuclear decay is extremely predictable on the macro scale. The only thing that is somewhat uncertain is the behavior of individual atoms, which no one cares about.
Alright, I see how that makes sense. We do not do much of this here in the states and in many places all or most heating is electrical. We also need quite a bit of cooling in the southern states. Also electrical.
a)You completely ignore the chemical reactions
b)You are mistaking about the only uncertain thing being the behavior of individual atoms. Add to that the behavior of the containers over a long-term period. When constantly bombarded with radiation from the contents, I doubt the consequences are forseeable.
I know, I lived in Texas for over three years. Coincidentally, heating through electricity is about the worst efficient way possible. Totally aside from the fact that it is plain silly to transform heat into electricity first at the power plant, only to transform it into heat again…