…The fact that nuclear plants are difficult and expensive to replace is a reason FOR replacing them?
…they are a reason to phase them out, yep. The decision to close down the plants happened in 1998. That was 25 years ago. Early nuclear plants had a life of around 30 years. More modern ones 40-60 years. It’s not as if they just decided to close them down yesterday.
I have not. The strongest relationship of CO2 efficiency is versus the use of coal. Nevertheless, because nuclear is such a good replacement for coal, there is also a strong relationship there as well.
But Sweden has great hydro resources, so they do even better than nuclear-heavy France (Sweden still uses a lot of nuclear, but not as much as France).
Closing down coal plants is the important thing. You can close down coal plants more quickly if you keep your nuclear plants open. That is, as Chronos said, at the level of basic arithmetic.
In other words, they closed the plants ahead of schedule due to fears after Fukushima. That in no way contradicts anything I said.
Oh, you sweet summer child. Oil companies have been pushing anti-nuclear propaganda since the 1950’s:
And it’s been happening ever since. You don’t think they donated to the Sierra Club and other NGOs out of the goodness of their hearts, did you?
…no.
Reducing emissions is the important thing. Closing down coal plants is an important part of that. But so is doing other things, and Germany are doing the other things. Emissions are trending downwards and look on track to meet projections.
Which is why “basic arithmetic” isn’t quite as basic as it looks. Because it isn’t binary. If it were, the emissions wouldn’t have continued to trend downwards as the nuclear plants were being decommissioned.
The conservative government went back to the original plan. Which were put in place 25 years ago, long before Fukushima.
Oh, you sweet summer child. How long do you think “big nuclear” have been pushing pro-nuclear propaganda for? Because you’ve linked to a blog-post on a cite founded by a Managing Partner of Nucleation Capital, a new, non-traditional venture fund investing in advanced nuclear. I don’t have time or the energy to check the veracity of that cite. But if you want to complain about propaganda, perhaps it would be prudent not to use what looks like propaganda as your cite.
And the existence of propaganda doesn’t mean that this fueled the movement. You haven’t connected the dots. And you won’t be able to connect the dots, because the history of the anti-nuclear movement is well documented.
I can tell you the exact moment we resolved never to have nuclear power here in NZ. It was when the French government blew a hole in a ship at Marsden Wharf, killing a man. The history of both nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the South Pacific is tale of arrogance, hubris, and total disregard for the people that live here. It was the worst PR campaign in the world. It had nothing to do with the “world’s largest and most influential science funder takes aim at the atom” and everything to do with a complete lack of trust and faith in the people trying to sell it.
So let’s say a country closes down zero emission capacity ahead of schedule, and that forces them to temporarily go back to burning coal because that capacity cannot yet be replaced by “other things”,
A simple question, will that country’s emissions be higher, or lower than had they continued generating power via nuclear? That is the core question relevant to Germany’s course of action.
Do you feel able to answer that?
I did previously provide papers and cites that can help answer that question, the sums have already been done for us.
NZ is completely irrelevant to the conversation. You never had any need of nuclear power. You are too small to need plants of the current size and expense and your geography lends you plenty of scope for hydro (as long as it keeps raining).
NZ could afford to take a moral high-ground on nuclear as they know it is not something they would ever need and would feel few consequences as a result of that.
A luxury not afforded to more energy-intensive economies.
And you yourself relied on the words of an openly anti-nuclear group to make a point earlier in the thread. What matters is the content of the article, not who wrote it.
If it has errors then highlight them, if it makes good points then acknowledge them.
Complaining that you don’t have the “time or energy” to check it but then seeking to dismiss it as “propoganda” anyway doesn’t really contribute to the discussion.
…they are trending downwards. Coal use went up, primarily due to the impact of the war. But industrial production also went down.
It isn’t binary. It isn’t just about power. It’s about emissions. Its a long-term strategy. Decommissioning the nuclear plants was just part of a bigger picture.
It’s irrelevant to you.
But opposition to nuclear-powered warships was a thing. No we couldn’t really afford to take a “moral high ground.” It cost us economically, it cost us when we got suspended from ANZUS. The damage it did was real.
And there wasn’t anything wrong with the content of that article.
I have no doubt that there aren’t any errors in things like dates, or times, or names.
But it was an editorial. And one that doesn’t support the contention that the anti-nuclear movement was fuelled by pro-coal propaganda.
Well I don’t. Because upon reading the article, I found that it didn’t support the allegation. Why would I waste my time verifying it?
And you will note that I didn’t dismiss it as propaganda. I said it “looks like propaganda”.
Did you read the cites I gave earlier? which speak directly to the emissions caused by Germany’s nuclear withdrawal and decouples that from the overall trend shown in your chart?
I suspect not, you simply refuse to answer the question you are being asked.
You are answering the question you wish you were being asked.
I won’t play that game, I’ll leave you to it.
…I’m answering the relevant question. Reducing emissions is the goal. Decommissioning the nuclear plants was something that was decided 25 years ago. Once the wheels were set in motion it was going to happen sooner or later. And here we are.
you are answering a question no-one asked.
The boldened part is a throwaway comment from you but is central to to what others have been saying.
i.e. that doing it sooner as a result of poor risk-assessment and as an overblown reaction to Fukushima is quantitatively damaging to the end goal of emissions reduction.
…because people are ignoring the bigger picture.
The nuclear plants didn’t get shut down in isolation. Once the decision was made 25 years ago, there really wasn’t any going back. Not without a significant change in strategy and funding.
You can’t ignore that context, then look at only coal and nuclear in isolation. The same was as you can’t just look at “deaths” as the only metric. This isn’t binary.
They did it to the original timeframe. “Overblown” is a subjective opinion. And the end goal of emissions reduction isn’t quite where they want it to be, but emissions still trended down while the nuclear plants were being decommissioned.
And this is why I compared you to the people selling anti-trabs propaganda.
“I don’t like nuclear energy, because of my preconceived notions about who supports nuclear energy. So I will discount sources and cites I don’t like without even reviewing them, simply rejecting them off-hand because I don’t like them aesthetically, whether the information presented is correct or not”.
I mean, holy fucking shit, look at your other posts in this thread:
You keep asserting that nuclear energy is super duper dangerous and the people opposing it due to safety concerns are right. This is nonsense, as disconnected from reality as the idea that trans people go into bathrooms to harass AFAB women. Yet just like people insisting that there’s a trans threat despite all available evidence, you dismiss all cites as “pro-nuclear propaganda”. Just like bigots dismiss factual information about Trans people as mindwashing.
Nobody is doing that except you.
If Germany needs 100 MW of power, of which 70% comes from coal and 30% is nuclear, and they build 40 MW worth of renewable plants, they can either:
- Build 40 MW of renewable plants and remove 40 MW of coal
- Build 40 MW of renewable plants and removw 30 MW of nuclear and 10 MW of coal.
Despite this not being a binary situation, as you correctly point out, the opportunity cost of replacing nuclear (safe) with renewable (safe) is failing to replace coal (very harmful). So the net result is harm, unless like you do we binarily look at only renewables and nuclear.
The fact that Germany decided to drive off a cliff 25 years ago is no defense for failing to turn aside.
…LOL.
“I don’t have faith or trust in the people that are trying to sell it” is talking explicitly about the people trying to sell it, not power itself.
I’ll ask you once again to stop putting words in my mouth.
Nah. I haven’t. You are doing it again.
The people opposing it for a variety of different reasons, all of which I have laid out over and over and over again.
And this is just rude. I think I rightly dismissed that cite for the reasons I outlined: it didn’t support the original assertion. If you think it does, please feel free to quote the relevant parts.
But I’m insulted by your comparison here. And I would politely ask you to stop.
…yeah, but:
Germany hasn’t decided to drive off a cliff. The numbers that you are choosing to ignore clearly show that. I think that this is ridiculously hyperbolic. It isn’t an accurate reflection of what is happening.
That’s exactly what I hear from people who think that gender is a binary and it’s scary “Cultural Marxists” at universities who pump children’s head with nonsense.
How about, address the claims being made instead of making ad hominem attacks? Instead of making assumptions about who is making claims, how about you review those claims to see if they hold water?
Imagine if I linked scientific research about the validity of using a nonbinary model for gender, and your response was “This is propaganda put out by cultural marxists. I’m not saying it’s untrue, but it’s clearly intended to influence so I’m not going to look at your link.”
If you aren’t arguing that nuclear power is dangerous and should be avoided, what the hell are you arguing?
If your whole point is that Germany and Japan have the right to make their own decision here - no fucking shit. They are sovereign countries and no one has questioned their right to make a decision on this matter. We are simply pointing out that their decisions are not evidence-based and will have negative consequences.
So if all you want to say is “Germany and Japan have the right to make their own choice whether it is a good one or a bad one”, then again, no one is arguing against this. We are debating whether or not their decisions are good, and in that context factually analyzing whether or not they faced any danger is absolutely relevant.
It 100% does. The cite shows that the levels of radiation at Fukushima have very negligible imcreases of risk associated with them.
The fact that you don’t believe this because it comes from the US DOE is just as irrelevant as trans deniers’ own objections to fact.
I would suggest you consider what it is about your arguments that I am comparing to transphobes, and reconsider whether dismissing citations because you don’t like their source is a good policy for us to follow. If you want to dismiss any of the cites quoted because they contain incorrect information, then please, go ahead; but dismissing facts because you don’t like the conclusion drawn from them is exactly what they do.
If Germany didn’t make a monumentally stupid decision 25 years ago, their per capita CO2 emissions could have been similar to France’s today - about half of what they are now.
Germany pushed renewable energy MUCH more heavily than France did in the last couple decades (because they didn’t have as many nuclear power plants going into this period), and despite all their effort, they still pollute twice as much per capita.
You. Are. Wrong. By choosing to pivot away from nuclear power, Germany has polluted MASSIVELY more than its neighbor.
…good grief.
It sounds like you have no idea the history of what the nuclear powers did in the South Pacific.
We are getting off-topic now, but:
How about you stop making ad hominem attacks directed at me? I’ve asked you once politely.
Because not trusting the countries that literally bombed a boat and killed someone, or the countries that used our backyard as a nuclear testing ground, isn’t an ad hominem attack.
Which claims? The ones that I dismissed because the didn’t support the assertion? Or something else?
Imagine if you linked to propaganda put out by anti- trans activists claiming it was “scientific research about the validity of using a nonbinary model for gender, and my response was “This is propaganda put out by anti-trans activists, and even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t support your cite anyway”. Then imagine you started yelling me for saying that.
I’d go…why are you yelling at me? Did you read the cite? Can you show me how it supports the original argument?
Can I suggest you read my posts?
Because you’ve been strawmanning everything I’ve said from the start. You made an assumption about my position and you refuse to change your mind.
Thats not my problem. I don’t think I should have to repeat myself. My posts speak for themselves. If America wants to build more nuclear reactors that’s fine. I’ve said that several times already. I’m not going to judge what path you are on. Other countries have chosen different paths. I think its only fair you cut them some slack.
I was talking about the cite that asserted “leaders of the Hydrocarbon Establishment build the foundation for radiation fears” that was used to support the claim that the oil industry fuelled the anti-nuclear movement.
I don’t know what you are talking about.
I suspect it was something that was posted a few days ago? If it was: that cite was contradicted by the experts that were being used at Fukushima. The levels that they were using as a benchmark were lower than the ones in the original cite. I’m really not an expert on this. So I can’t tell you which one is right and which one is wrong. But the original cite was a very general, global statement. The benchmarks that the experts at Fukushima were using were specific to that situation. So I think its fair to defer to the Fukushima experts here. I’m not saying the original cite was wrong. I just think the Fukushima were working with more specific information.
Again: I didn’t do this.
You are entitled to your opinion. I disagree.
That isn’t how it works. We have no idea what the emissions in Germany would be right now. Think chaos theory. It may very well have been worse. Especially if they didn’t choose to focus on renewables.
Yes, they pushed renewables much more heavily, because they decided to decommission their nuclear power plants and instead to invest heavily in renewables. Congratulations. Well spotted. You have correctly identified their strategy.
And with that France will have a much bigger bill in the future when it comes to decommissioning then building new nuclear plants in the future. That’s a choice they have made. Which is fine! There isn’t a single right answer here. I just think the vilification of Germany’s decision here is overblown.
Did decommissioning nuclear plants (accelerate/decelerate/have no effect on) reduction of emissions?
The pro-nuclear folks here suggest decelerate is the answer. Germany’s total electric needs have to be filled with some manner of generation. The closing of nuclear plants does not in and of itself add renewable capacity, thus the only way to fill those needs is with fossil fuels.
If you think the answer is not decelerate, you have to explain how, because it’s very unclear how that could be. The fact that Germany chose 25 years ago to decelerate their reduction in emissions doesn’t mean that deceleration didn’t happen.
…why would you look at that in isolation though?
Because the decommissioning was for a number of different reasons. It wasn’t just because of emissions. It wasn’t just because of cost. It wasn’t just because of the problem of disposing of waste. It wasn’t just because of safety concerns.
It was a long-term strategic decision. Extending the life-span of the plants come with their own cost. 25 years is a very long time. Its a quarter of a century. If you reverse course, if you extend the lifespan, there are a whole host of different things come into play.
Ignore the nuclear aspects of this for a minute and focus on the logistics of basically rebuilding how your countries power supply works. This a giant investment in time, in labour, in money.
Do you have ANY IDEA what the colonial powers who developed electricity did in the South Pacific? This is a mind-numbingly irrelevant argument.
I’ve made 0 ad hominem attacks against you. I haven’t accused you of being racist or sexist or transphobic. I’m simply pointing out that your arguments ignore facts in favor of preconceived prejudices, just like theirs do.
This is ridiculous for a host of reasons. But key among them is the fact that I am not asking you to trust anyone. I’m asking you to look at the cites and tell me what factual information you disagree with. What harm do you believe the radiation levels at Fukushima are going to cause and where is your evidence for these claims?
If someone links anti-trans bigotry pretending to be science, you could certainly link some actual science to debunk it. But aside from your claims that US bomb testing decades ago means that anything the US says about nuclear energy generation (an entirely different technology) is propaganda, you have yet yo demonstrate that the pro-nuclear sources cited are anything like anti-trans sites. Unlike the anti-trans sites, the science is correct.
I don’t support trans rights because it feels groovy, maaaaan. I support trans rights because the science shows that gender is non-binary and that outcomes for individuals are better if they are allowed to present and live as members of the gender they identify with.
The science is there for trans rights (despite the fact that the many states within the United States, detonator of many bombs in the South Pacific, agree - facts are facts). The science is not there for your nuclear fearmongering.