Germany Shutting Down Nuclear Power Plants?

Great Debates
141

No, what YOU prove is that you expect US standards to apply worldwide, which reduces your argument to the point of natiionalist drivel. I have cited you actual material from safety information meant for residents, which you happily ignore, all the while claiming that as a rule, residents have to be supplied with gas masks. I hate to shatter your illusions, but the world is not a US colony, and I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you consider necessary simply because you’d like a power company to save some money.

I never pretended it’s not there. It is YOU who have failed, time and again, to show the ‘danger’ is anything more than scaremongering and greed regarding safety expenses on your part. So, regarding real world experience, he’re some things for you:

I lived for 20 years of my life just across a river from Europe’s largest chemical plant. Ammonia is produced in quantities there that probably go way beyond your imagination. A friend of me works as a chemist in said plant, and lives not far from it. Neither he, nor anyone living closer to the plant, is being supplied with gas masks, suits or any other safety equipment. Nor does he consider doing so necessary. Because when something happens that would require the use of such equipment, the gas is the slightest problem. In order for a gas mask to be necessary, the concentrations have to be extremely high, since gasp the gases released dilute in the air, and have to diffuse through windows and doors first. Which is why what is being done is advise people to keep doors and windows closed in case there is an accidental release of anything potentially hostile. Such as in the following example from another plant:

A few days ago, in a plant in Bremen, 500l of bleach was accidentally filled into a waggon already containing 2000l of hydrochloric acid. As a result, chlorine gas was released. People were advised to keep doors and windows closed, and the fire brigade prevented more people from entering the area. 39 people, among them seven workers from the plant, were checked by a doctor for respiratory irritation. No major damage to anyone.
And that with chlorine gas.

What you are doing is spreading paranoia. Scaremongering of the worst kind.

“Lie: 1 a : an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive b : an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker”

So, please state under which definition of ‘lie’ a false accusation is not a lie? There are occasions I am not surprised anymore I achieved an above-average score in the linguistic part of the GRE despite not being a native speaker.

The fact that you rebut something you drew out of your hat doesn’t mean you rebutted me.
Third, here is what you said:

No, it is not. As long as the liquid is a liquid, a gas mask helps you zilch, and given your claim that, as a rule, no matter what the circumstances (such as location), nitrogen oxide removal requires body suits and gas masks to be handed to the residents, I don’t think you are in any position to complain about generalizations. Your entire point is an overgeneralization. Especially since your claim is not even tenable when seen only under very specific circumstances of the US.

A)YOU were the only one talking about the circumstances within industrial settings, as opposed to the residents outside. My comment was NOT applied to an industrial setting. It was in immediate reply to your claim that RESIDENTS will have to be equipped with gas masks.

B)I don’t care a bit whether my statement is in line with OSHA safety precautions, because OSHA is completely irrelevant to me. And if I advised the precise opposite, it would be completely meaningless, and your continued citation of OSHA guidelines suggest that the concept of limited authority is completely alien to you.

You didn’t say outside a chem lab. You said ‘Any real woirld experience’ period. You only specifed that after it was pointed out to you that a little bit of reading the posts in this thread would have shown your accusations to be wrong before you even made it.

Your ignoring proof doesn’t make you any more credible, and your continued insistence on the necessity of gas masks merely demonstrates that all you know is guidelines, and not actual real world effects. The fact that you heap on additional claims about what I was referring to with my comment on gas masks that are easily refutable by just referencing you to the appropriate post again shows that it is you who is unable to retract a frivolous claim. I would suggest reading less OSHA guidelines -or rather the right ones- and gathering a bit more actual experience.

A few points that you conveniently ignore time and again:

OSHA is responsible for OCCUPATIONAL safety in the US, and the US ONLY. In OSHA’s own words, their mission is “to prevent work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths.” Not those of residents near industrial facilities. OSHA guidelines are not even worth the paper they are written on anywhere else, and no one outside the US is under any obligation to comply with or support them if he doesn’t feel like it. Frankly, I’ve experience plenty of OSHA guidelines while working in the US that would leave German work safety authorities shut down a facility posthaste. As I already pointed out, the emphasis here is to prevent something from happening to begin with. Once the going gets tough, there is no guarantee people will be in their body suits and wear their gas masks in time.

You claimed general applicability of MSDS to residents. Here’s what the MSDS FAQ at http://www.ilpi.com/msds/faq/parta.html#whatis
states:

The same wording is used all over the web wherever MSDSs are offered, such as as Penn State Erie police services:
http://www.pserie.psu.edu/student/police/msds.htm
LI Pigments
http://www.lipigments.com/product_inquiries.htm#7

PlastiCare:
http://www.plasticareinc.com/MSDS.htm

Truckspring.com
http://www.truckspring.com/mystik/msdsinfo.asp

And OSHA itself cites MSDSs in its Hazard Communication guidelines:

Even office workers who are exposed to hazardous chemicals only on isolated instances are NOT covered by Hazard Communications guidelines, and as such, MSDSs don’t apply to them, since they won’t get any.

MSDSs are covered by section 1910.1200(g) of the Hazard Communication Standard. If you actually bother to read that section, you will find that it refers only, and solely, to workplace environments.

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=10099

As such, your citing the MSDS as evidence for protection of RESIDENTS and your claim that I was wrong to point out that MSDS apply to occupational encironment only was BOGUS.

Even International Chemical Safety Cards are meant not for random exposures, but rather "An ICSC summarizes essential health and safety information on chemicals for their use at the “shop floor” level by workers and employers in factories, agriculture, construction and other work places. "
( http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/cis/products/icsc/dtasht/intro.htm )

Lastly, I’d like to point you at a report by the St. Petersburg Times :
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/05/28/Hillsborough/Road__schools_close_a.shtml

In this case, a pipeline with anhydrous ammonia ruptured, emitting sheer ammonia GAS right into the midst of residents. Despite them living near the pipeline, no gas masks EXCEPT for those used by emergency workers are mentioned. Despite the emission of the sheer gas from a pipeline, as opposed to slow vaporization from a liquid, residents are NOT dropping dead like flies, not having gas masks. Rather, there is ample time to evacuate them without serious damage to their health. Much like in the german example, residents were told to keep their doors and windows shut.

So, let me ask you: Do you maintain that it is absolutely necessary to equip residents near power plants with nitrox removal?

Or do you admit that your entire line of argumentation was bogus from the beginning to the end, and that your switching from the issue of residents to that of workers was merely an attempt to cover up? Do you admit that your claim that MSDSs have relevance for residents in case of leakage was bogus and is not supported by anything whatsoever?

It is extremely ironic that you claim a lack of real world experience on my part when only citing regulations, and regulations at that that you obviously are completely unaware as to what and who they apply to. And I am frankly scared about your actually having influence on safety issues at power plants.

142

While alternative energy sources are nice, they would prove to be catastrophic in the event of a failure in the system (and those failures do happen). After all, if one power plant suddenly goes offline due to a malfunction, the net frequency decreases.
There needs to be a fast and stable increase of power in the other contributing power plants or else the frequency drops so low that a lot of end users need to be cut off from power in order to compensate.

Obviously you cannot control how much sun is going to shine on a given day or how much wind there is, so you need to have a mixture of different powersources. Economically and for the stability of the net, it is best to have alternative energy, nuclear energy and fossil fuels to rely on. Trying to cut away those and to exclusively rely on alternative energy would be foolish. But fortunately the power generation and distribution is pooled these days and by buying nuclear power from abroad things can still be kept working, while giving the general population the good feeling of having abolished nuclear power.

If everyone else was as “informed” as the general public in Germany though, the system wouldn’t work anymore.

143

If a prosecutor accuses an innocent person of a crime, that is a false accusation.

If the prosecutor misinterprets the evidence and accuses an innocent person of a crime, that is a false accusation, but not a lie, as there is no intent to deceive or mislead.

Generally speaking, “differences of opinion”, do not imply deceit on the part of one party or another.

Maintaining that another party is lying without very strong evidence reflects poorly on the honesty of the accuser, in my not-so humble opinion.

I hope that helps.

In practice, defeating ignorance in battle often requires a certain humility.

144

Germany is producing a surplus of energy, and power failures the scale of what happened on the US east coast and in southern France and northern Italy recently are unheard of and virtually impossible due to superior distribution grids which can lock out failing parts of the network.

You don’t need to have a fast and stable way to raise power output when your regular power output level is more than enough to meet demands and can buffer both upward spikes in demand and downward spikes in supply comfortably. Which, coincidentally, is precisely what prevented the french/swiss blackout to spread through Germany.

If everyone else was so informed as you, the system wouldn’t work either, because we’d have a bunch of people who have no idea what they are talking about randomly pressing buttons to see what happens. Your statement has no connection to the real world and is merely suggesting everyone should have a jury-rigged power network that goes down in an average storm.

145

Arguing against evidence already presented isn’t a difference in opinion. It is plain and simple disregard for the truth.

Which unfortunately has no bearing for the case of this thread, since the evidence was already presented before accusation was made.

I cited the dictionary. That should have helped enough. Obviously not.

That after talking about your “not-so humble opinion” is quite ironic.

146

I am tired to hear the chants of how superior the USA is and I am as tired to hear chants of how superior Europe is. What makes you think German nationalistic bravado is any more appealing?

Besides, you’re comparing apples and oranges here - producing a surplus of energy doesn’t have anything to do with redundancy in power distribution. The states have got large areas, that will have a black out, if just one line is cut, whereas Germany has got redundant lines to prevent that. By no means does this say anything about the power generation though.

Your remark “Germany is producing a surplus of energy […]” implies that you are of the opinion that every nation is fending for themselves when it comes to energy generation and distribution. However, Germany is part of the UCPTE (Union pour la Coordination de la Production et du Transport de l’Electricité). Whenever there is a power shortage elsewhere, EVERYONE is going to pitch in to prevent the net frequency from breaking down and a massive power shortage.
Due to the infrastructure and the aforementioned redundancy it’s not as likely to happen in Germany, but that has got nothing to do with a “surplus of energy”. If Germany solely relied on alternative Energy, how do you suggest to create a surplus? Are you going to do a tribal dance to ask the gods for more solar power or more wind? The alternative energy is a nice bonus, but due to its unpredictable nature, it cannot sustain the fluctuating energy needs of a modern day community. It were a different case, if you could actually conserve the energy, but that’s only possible in a limited fashion.

As things are, the initial reserve comes from the kinetic energy of the rotating masses of the machinery and the later (hour) reserve to stabilize the net frequency comes from steam plants that are intentionally kept in reserve for such purposes or which are running at less than their maximum output in the first place.

You’re obviously not an engineer, thanks for playing, but come back when you’ve got a diploma in EE.
It is apparent that the model to rely on alternative energy can only function, if Germany holds a special place among the UCPTE states - namely it being the only country to follow through with that. If we would go back to national borders and don’t allow cross-national power bidding and distribution, then Germany’s power distribution would collapse, as a perfect grid doesn’t help you, when you cannot keep up with the demands of the end users.

Way back when we both happened to have the same opinion (mostly on US foreign policy), I used to agree with you. However, now that I see that your “rabid dog” style of argumenting is your normal tone of voice, I am starting to regret that.

Nevertheless, I still wasn’t talking about the network (Besides, I doubt anybody in Europe has got a jury-rigged power network and even for the USA that term is too harsh), I was talking about the problems of keeping a stable net frequency - when a major malfunction occurs - with alternative energy alone. And I maintain that the economically and probably even ecologically best model is the one with all the different power sources combined. Since Germany is part of the UCPTE that won’t change, as other nations are not as inclined to shut down their nuclear power plants. Thankfully!

147

If insults is all you have to counter facts… I would suggest you read what I said instead of simply putting things into my posts that aren’t there.

Look, if the power can go out because one line is cut, then the system sucks. It’s as simple as that. And producing power centrally and distributing it from there as opposed to producing it locally is another factor. As for power distribution problems, even the DoE admits that the US system is hardly fit for a developed nation and causes massive losses of energy.

Lastly, if you cut yourself off power lines bringing power in from the outside, you’ll have to provide that power yourself. So yes, being able to lock out failures in foreign power lines very much says something about power generation.

You have a vivid imagination, but that doesn’t mean anything is implied through your sheer say-so. No one said that every nation is fending for itself.

As for conserving energy only being possible in a limited fashion, do you know what a “Pumpspeicherkraftwerk” is?

Not the least, however, in your talking about the energy needs of a modern day community, you neglect that Germany is leading in many environmental technologies.

a)Thanks for answering my question above, you apparently DON’T know what a “Pumpspeicherkraftwerk” is. For someone who claims superior knowledge in electrical engineering, it seems strange that you don’t know about pumped storage head installations. Coincidentally, they are used quite extensively in hilly and mountaineous regions in Germany -which coincidentally is the majority of the country.

b)What’s wrong with running a power plant NOT at maximum output? It is actually quite sensible to do so. Precisely BECAUSE it avoids serious problems when other power plants have to go off the net due to a malfunction.

So you claim. Too bad that claims is all you have. Your arguing textbook knowledge without an idea of the state of things, much less the plans for the future, has precious little weight. Given that you don’t even know the different ways peak consumption is met in Germany, your flouting degrees is pretty worthless. A degree that’s not filled with actual knowledge is a nice medal, nothing more.

You might be content putting your hands on your lap and being thankful that some nations perpetuate the status quo. Fine with me. Leave pushing for progress to other. The phasing out of nuclear power in Germany is a project spanning decades. As such, your rants about what cannot be done today lack any relevance whatsoever. Continue running through the world backwards and leave research and development to people with a vision.

Coincidentally, this last summer proved what a load of garbage your praise is. Despite the higher reliance on nuclear power, France had serious problems in power supply. The water in the rivers was so low the nuclear power plants had to reduce their output drastically, or even go offline, because they didn’t get sufficient cooling from the river waters. The result was serious shortages. But hey, yeah, thankfully, some nations rely on a ‘healthy mix’ that will let you down in a hot sommer of which more are quite likely to come. German nuclear power plants had to do the same. Nevertheless, Germany did NOT suffer from shortages, but rather supplied plenty of power to France and other countries with shortages because the reserve was high enough to meet both German demands AND export power. You talk about unreliable supply of wind and sun and completely ignore that other power sources are dependent on the weather just the same.

148

For the record, I never claimed to have a degree, I just noted that you definitely don’t have one, considering the things you posted here :stuck_out_tongue:

Hey, I am not the one who thinks “Wer braucht Atomkraftwerke? Der Strom kommt doch aus der Steckdose!”.

If the green party had any visions and / or any viable solutions, I’d be all for it, but unfortunately Tretin and his cronies are content with being nay-sayers, rather than investing into future technology.

Certainly Germany can afford a little inefficiency in some sectors, however this isn’t something that can go on indefinitely. Especially, considering that Germany’s good medical system and other sectors are on the decline as well.

At least the Schröder administration had the common sense to contemplate selling that plutonium enrichment plant to China.

149

Given that you pretty much disqualified yourself with your comments on how demand peaks are met, that was painfully obvious, but as such, your claims about other people’s degrees are pretty meaningless.

No, you merely think “We always did it that way, we will always do it that way, why, anybody could come and say we should do it differently.”

That’s not how progress is being made.

Um, yeah. For the record, the name is TRITTIN, and several federal research institutions are leading the way in renewable energy technologies. There’s been plenty of support for actual installation of renewable energy production facilities, be it the 100,000 roofs program for the solar field, or programs to support biomass and other fields. The ministry is sponsoring research and studies in numerous fields. As such, your claim they wouldn’t invest into future technology is bogus. The BMU is investing 30 Mio Euros into research for heliothermal power production, geothermal power production, and for the ecological studies accompanying research into offshore windparks, biomass use and fuel cells. (Which also received funding out of other budget pots)

Their plan is to double the use of renewable energy until 2010 and supply half the energy need through renewables by the middle of the century. That allows for quite a bit of other sources, and quite a bit of R&D in the meantime.

R&D like that being done at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, the FI for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technologies, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, all federally funded institutions. You completely neglect that “investing into future technologies” is primarily the job of the ministry of education and research, which is doing quite a bit of it. Could it be more? Of course. It could always be more.

Um, no. They are contemplating ALLOWING that to happen. But since it isn’t theirs, they can’t sell it. That’s left to Siemens. The sale would have to be approved by government commissions, and THAT is the issue being discussed.

150

I am skeptical that research on increasing the efficiency of solar cells is going to pay off for a country as sunny as Germany.

And I wish I could share your optimism regarding alternative power sources, but I have that feeling of foreboding that the country is being systematically crippled by politicians, who don’t have to fear any repercussions.

Of course the concern for the environment is a noble and worthwhile goal, but the responsibility to our children isn’t just a clean environment (which is hard to achieve anyway, when everybody else is still busy polluting the air and also building new nuclear power plants), it’s also a responsibility to leave behind a country with a healthy economy.

Besides, I don’t really see why a country cannot both invest into alternative energy and still keep fossil fuel and nuclear power plants as an option.

I wouldn’t have said anything against decreasing their number, but this all or nothing approach is an invitation for disaster. We might be lucky, we might not be. Time will tell and as usual I hope you’re right. For the time being I will remain skeptical, though.

151

You DO realize direct visible-spectrum sunlight isn’t required for newer solar cells?

Given the billions german companies make with ecological technologies, I fail to see your point.

What part of the 50% by the middle of the century did you miss? As for why not keep fossil fuel plants as an option far beyond that, easy: The fuel’s going to get low.

Given the period over which nuclear power is being phased out, I don’t consider this a true ‘all or nothing’ approach. Who knows, if some plasma researchers hit the mother lode, we might see the first experimental continuously self-sustaining fusion reactors before the last fission plant is shut down -though that might be highly optimistic, given the difficulties encountered so far, but I am no expert in the field.

152

Europe does have one thing going for it in abandoning nuclear power: A stable population. Conservation and alternative energy sources seem much more practical when you don’t always have to accommodate millions more consumers, year after year after year.

As we do in my country. :frowning: