• Tarte@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    The article is badly researched.

    This “red-green” coalition banned new reactors, announced a shutdown of existing ones by 2022

    The red-green coalition did not announce the 2022 date. They announced a soft phase-out between 2015-2020 in conjunction with building renewables. This planned shift from nuclear to renewables was reverted by Merkel (CDU/conservatives) in 2010. They (CDU) changed their mind one year later in 2011 and announced the 2022 date; but with much smaller subventions for renewables. This back and forth was also quite the expensive mistake by the CDU on multiple levels, because energy corporations were now entitled financial compensation for their old reactors.

    • Taiatari@lemmynsfw.com
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      6 months ago

      I’d like to add, my view. I’m from Lower Saxony and in an area nearby they tried for years to establish a temporary storage for the high nuclear waste. I never trusted the notion that the temporary storage will be save, properly maintained and kept from leaking into the local water supply.

      Add to that, that we have had very old reactors who were constantly extended rather than properly renewed. Further emphasising that they won’t care proper for the waste products.

      Then Fukushima happened, the movement for anti nuclear gained massive momentum. I assumed of course that the lack in energy will be compensated by building renewables and subsidising homeowners to build their own solar on their roofs. Why wouldn’t we, we were already talking about increasing renewables to safe the climate.

      The announcement came that atom is being phased out. Big hooray for everyone who had to live next to the old plants or in areas where end-storage ‘solutions’ were.

      Aaaaaaaand they increased the god damn coal which is way worse and really no one wanted but the lobby for coal and fossile fuels.

      Now lots of ppl. on the internet always advocate for nuclear, but never address the fears of the ppl. properly.

      The thing is, having a high nuclear toxic waste storage in your local area is shite just as shite it is to have the damn ash piles from coal.

      If nuclear really wants to make a proper comeback, in my opinion the first thing they need to solve is the waste. We have too much of it already and have solar, wind and water (tidal preferably over damns because those fuckers can break if not maintained proper) who do not create any nasty waste and by products.

      • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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        6 months ago

        Careful. You are waking all the people telling you that it isn’t much waste that those power plants produce and its so easy to store it long term.

        The same people that likely would oppose a storage like that in their own neighbourhood. I feel often people from outside Germany forget how densely populated it is, it is very hard to find area not somehow close to anyone.

        And I would also never trust the promise that this storage next to my home is very definitely going to be so so safe an great.

        • Droechai@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Those people compare the waste from nuclear and the storage compared to the waste of coal and that storage (which is in the local area and global atmosphere).

          Compare the waste amount per GWh produced how the waste is stored and you will see why some thinks nuclear is better than coal

        • Forester@yiffit.net
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          6 months ago

          I will happily sell the land under my house to let you store sealed vessels of nuclear material. There permanently. I can do that with 100% confidence because I understand the science involved in the matters. If it’s buried deep enough in a proper container, there is no risk.

          • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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            6 months ago

            Good for you. Once you actually do that, report back how its going. Its easy to post a statement like that in an anonymous online forum.

            • Forester@yiffit.net
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              6 months ago

              Literally go fuck yourself with a spent fuel rod. Your idea of a gotcha is that you can state that I wouldn’t do it and then when I say that I would do it, you tell me I’m a liar.

              • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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                6 months ago

                Mind your language. I can likewise say you only responded to “gotcha” me yourself.

                That said, in this case I definitely feel a “put your money where your mouth is” is very much warranted. Because I have not heard of anyone anywhere doing exactly what you are offering. But I knew posting my opinion on this is going to end me up talking about this topic, so that’s all I got to say to you.

                Good luck getting your personal radioactive waste storage, would earn you a pretty penny. Best of luck to you!

          • DdCno1@kbin.social
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            6 months ago

            If it’s so simple, why did a highly developed nation find no solution for it over the course of decades? There are no perfect containers that don’t leak, there is no perfect storage location that doesn’t have a chance of contaminating groundwater. The real world doesn’t work like that.

            • akakunai@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              It’s not considered worth undertaking such an initiative when most nuclear power plants have no problem just leaving the heavy (solid concrete and steel) casks as they are. They are not some looming threat, and they just sit there, outside, taking up a pretty small amount of space on the plants’ property. Nothing else is done because there is no real incentive to move them; no one cares.

      • realitista@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        It’s worth noting that even counting in all the damage from Fukushima and Chernobyl and all the issues with storing nuclear waste long term (which isn’t nearly as hard as people make it out to be), Nuclear is still as safe as wind and solar energy.

        Now follow the link and look at the numbers for the (mostly brown) coal that replaced it (much of who’s damage is caused by the nuclear materials in it’s ash), and the picture is pretty damn clear. Coal kills at 1000 times the rate of nuclear.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        So basically the reason Germans got rid of nuclear energy is that they don’t trust Germans to do it. Makes sense.

        If nuclear really wants to make a proper comeback, in my opinion the first thing they need to solve is the waste.

        Could buy expert assistance in nuclear energy from Russia instead of gas (partially laundered via Azerbaijan, as if that were better than Russia). Or from France. Or from USA.

        I mean, Russia is better than them due to the culture of kickbacks and bribes. That makes deals more likely to happen and makes German politicians happy.

      • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Just so you know, the ash particles in soot from coal power plants, regularly spewn into the atmosphere and stored in open-air dumps represents a far more real radioactive danger than nuclear waste does.

        • Taiatari@lemmynsfw.com
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          6 months ago

          I know, which is why I said that the damn ash piles are shite. Have no love for coal or how it is handled.

      • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Nuclear is also very expensive and takes a long time to build. Meanwhile the cost of solar reduced by almost 90% in the last decade.

        • Aux@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Nuclear is only expensive and slow to build if you’re building reactors from 1960-s.

          • baru@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            There’s various nuclear reactors that have been built in Europe in the last 10-20 years. They’ve all gone crazily over budget. Yet every time the answer is that it was the wrong technology and other excuses. Nuclear is NOT cheap.

        • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          And because it’s politically controversial, you can expect delays of many, many years for new builds in most democracies. Which is precisely why conservatives have been pushing it, because it allows coal and gas to dominate for a bit longer.

          • DdCno1@kbin.social
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            6 months ago

            The high cost also means that it’ll take away funds that could have otherwise been used on much cheaper renewables. Nuclear energy is a terrible deal.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        6 months ago

        I’m not especially anti-nuclear power overall, but temporary storage sounds like a terrible idea. Transporting nuclear waste twice means twice the possibility of something catastrophic happening.

        • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 months ago

          Redd… err Lemmy believes in the doctrine of safe, clean, wasteless nuclear. Even if there was waste it is completely harmless, not a big deal, please look the other way. They can be no other God… I mean viable alternative for generating energy. Also, did you know this straw man … I mean coal spreads nuclear isotopes too?