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229

Why Germany ditched nuclear before coal—and why it won’t go back (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 136 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

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 (Greens/SPD) 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 without the emphasis on replacing it with 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.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago (19 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (16 children)

The real problem is that there are no renewable solutions for base load, nuclear is the best we've got. Renewables are good, but they're spotty, you can't produce renewable power on demand or scale it on demand, and storing it is also a problem. Because of that you still need something to fill in the gaps for renewables. Now your options there are coal, oil, gas, or nuclear. That's it, that's your options. Pick one.

If we can successfully get cold fusion working we'll finally have a base power generation option that doesn't have (many) downsides, but until then nuclear power is the least bad option.

So yes, if you tell them "no nuclear", you're going to get more coal and gas plants, coal because it's cheap, and gas because it's marginally cleaner than coal.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (7 children)

You wildly overestimate the danger nuclear waste represents.

First, transportation is done in small amounts at a time, completely encased in concrete and steel, and is of no risk of exploding: the only danger would be spillovers, which would call for expensive cleaning operations.

Next, storage. The whole waste produced by 60 years of nuclear waste in France amounts to only a few swimming pools of dangerous material. If this material was actually fully useless, we could ditch it in geological layers underground where it would become soon unreachable and dispersed, posing no discernable danger for the upcoming few billion years.

Furthermore, the only reason we don't ditch this nuclear waste right now is that this material can still be useful for plenty of uses that are not yet economically viable, but could be in the long term, such as energy generation with low-yield reactors.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 6 months ago (1 children)

IMO a lot of this had to do with Schroeder's and Merkel's connections with Russia and running the country's manufacturing base on cheap gas and oil.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (51 children)

As I suspected. Conservatism is the reason we can't have nice things. Again.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Because there was a massive coal lobby and Merkel was complete garbage. Next.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (5 children)

When I was a kid, Chernobyl happened. We weren't that far away and although I was very little I still remember the fear and uncertainty in my parent's faces. The following years were marked by research about what we can no longer eat, where our food comes from, etc

I also remember the fights about where to store nuclear waste.

I don't want to burn coal. I am pretty upset about what happened to our clean energy plans. But I will also never trust nuclear again. And I think, so do many in my generation.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 6 months ago (2 children)

which is funny because fossil fuels are everywhere poisoning the air and environment in general, not different from the nuclear radiation bogeyman

[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Especially when coal rejects a lot more radioactive materials in the air than nuclear power

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

There are still large areas in southern Germany where you’re not allowed to eat wild mushrooms and every boar that is hunted must be tested for radiation. That is because of the fallout from Chernobyl 38 years ago and 1400 km away.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

For sure, but there are places in Germany and everywhere in Europe where you shouldn't be eating or drinking anything that comes out of the ground because of coal emissions, and places you can't do anything in because of the gigantic coal mines. And that's still currently happening and will keep happening for the foreseeable future.

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[–] rottingleaf 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Which is mostly due to fear(mongering) and not real residue.

And see another comment about coal emissions which are happening right now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Please do note the official warnings of the BFS (Federal Office for Radiation Protection). Contamination of forests with Caesium-137 is a health risk in many southern Bavarian forests. It's half-life period is 30 years. The disaster was in 1986. That means it's still roughly half of it there and the layered forest grounds preserve radiation well.

If you're a mushroom forager on vacation in southern Bavaria - just don't do it. Or at least inform yourself which types of mushrooms you shouldn't eat in particular for radiation reasons.

General information and warnings (2022):
https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/notfallschutz/notfall/tschornobyl/umweltfolgen.html#doc6055566bodyText3

Specifically regarding mushrooms (2019):
https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/BfS/DE/broschueren/ion/info-wildpilze.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=7

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Actually coal plants which are in use, spew thousands of times of nuclear material into the air what any nuclear plant ever has.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (12 children)

The best thing to do when you fall off a horse, is climb straight back up on it. Rejecting almost limitless power because of an accident almost 40 years ago is foolish to me. Luckily research didn't completely stop and modern plants are a lot safer with a lot of medical applications for the waste.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Sorry but this sounds like: A car crashed when I was young because the driver was drunk. I will never trust a car again.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Surprisingly the title is not: Germany ditched coal and did went back to it.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Predictions that the nuclear exit would leave Germany forced to use more coal and facing rising prices and supply problems, meanwhile, have not transpired. In March 2023—the month before the phaseout—the distribution of German electricity generation was 53 percent renewable, 25 percent coal, 17 percent gas, and 5 percent nuclear. In March 2024, it was 60 percent renewable, 24 percent coal, and 16 percent gas.

Overall, the past year has seen record renewable power production nationwide, a 60-year low in coal use, sizeable emissions cuts, and decreasing energy prices.

This is my biggest take away from this article.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Yeah but if Germany hadn't been so anti-nuclear, by 2023 it could have been (for example) 53% renewable, 5% coal, 17% gas and 25% nuclear. Comparing the dying tail end of nuclear to just after it finally died is not useful.

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