German poll: Majority for return to nuclear energy
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Nuclear works well with renewables. It provides reliable base load while the renewables and batteries can be used on top of that. Plus the fuel can be sourced from friendly nations like Canada.
Also worth noting that 15 years is a long time. SMRs are starting to be built and France is planning to build a bunch of nuclear capacity in the near future which might mean the possiblity to import cheap energy or leverage the human resources from those builds.
Nuclear works well with fucking nothing because it doesn't work... because it's just too fucking expensive, has to be shut down when it's too hot and is so dangerous you can't even find insurance. Base load can be provided by hydro, gas (which can be sourced sustainably) or batteries, all of which is cheaper, less dangerous and more easily available than nuclear.
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FFS, people are stupid.
There was a huge hysteria about nuclear when Fukushima happened. A clear majority was for immediate action. Merkel's coalition government would have ended if she hadn't done a 180 on nuclear and decided to shut down nuclear as soon as possible, which was 2023. I was against shutting it down back then but I thought you can't go against the whole population, so I get why they did it. People didn't change their mind until 2022. Nobody talked about reversing that decision in all these years when there was actually time to reverse the decision.
Now, that the last reactor is shut down, the same people that were up in arms in 2011 are now up in arms that we don't have nuclear. Building new plants will cost billions and take decades and nuclear doesn't work well with renewables because of its inflexibility. It makes no sense at all. It was a long-term decision we can't just back away from. What's done is done.
FFS, people are stupid.
Proceeds to be pro nuclear.
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Lol you contradicted yourself. First you implied that the sun is proof that there is a safe level of radiation and then you agree that the sun kills people.
It also gives us vitamin-d.
But hey, since nuclear is so bad, I guess you can never go to the beach, or outside, ever, because all radiation is evil.
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No need for name calling. I am an engineer specialized in radiation protection. Hell i actively work at nuclear sites on a daily basis. why would i lie? the underlying principle of the 'acceptable risk' i am talking about is called 'alara' - as low as reasonably achievable.
on another note: i am convinced that Staying uneducated and even actively manipulating those who dont know better is ridiculously destructive to our society. Please don't do that.
So as an engineer myself, airplanes are vastly more dangerous than nuclear power.
Cars even more so.
The issue is regulation, but the US has never had a nuclear accident that caused deaths in our history, and neither has France which is basically running half of Europe off its nuclear plants.
This is fear-mongering, plain and simple.
Russia obviously has killed many people, but they killed millions of people from not having food, they don't consider death a risk, it's just part of life.
The rest of the world? Engineers are easily capable of making the craziest things safe, again, see air-travel which has more risks by orders of magnitude.
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Those are old designs, new ones basically stop once the water is removed.
Hence the 'negative void coefficient', modern designs lose reactivity as the water is removed.
Look at pebble bed and other designs.
As far as I know (I'm not an expert), negative void coefficient only affects the fission reaction, i.e. the controlled splitting of uranium atoms. The uranium atoms split into smaller unstable atoms, which decays over time causing heat. If the decay heat isn't removed, the core will melt.
Pebble Bed Reactors seem to be generation IV reactors, and I don't think there are any generation IV reactors in commercial use as of today. Again, my knowledge is limited, but I believe most reactors in commercial use are some kind of water cooled, water moderated reactors. For example, European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) is one of the latest designs commissioned in commercial use, and that design includes 4 emergency coolant systems.
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FFS, people are stupid.
There was a huge hysteria about nuclear when Fukushima happened. A clear majority was for immediate action. Merkel's coalition government would have ended if she hadn't done a 180 on nuclear and decided to shut down nuclear as soon as possible, which was 2023. I was against shutting it down back then but I thought you can't go against the whole population, so I get why they did it. People didn't change their mind until 2022. Nobody talked about reversing that decision in all these years when there was actually time to reverse the decision.
Now, that the last reactor is shut down, the same people that were up in arms in 2011 are now up in arms that we don't have nuclear. Building new plants will cost billions and take decades and nuclear doesn't work well with renewables because of its inflexibility. It makes no sense at all. It was a long-term decision we can't just back away from. What's done is done.
I like that you mention the point, Merkel's coalition made a full 180 turnaround. Which was an error.
They could have just made a plan for phasing out the reactors until maybe 2040 or 2050. No, they had to stop them right away and now the existing plants are so gutted that they are not feasible to be rebuilt again.Anyway, building new power plants takes centuries in Germany. So we should just focus on renewables *and storage solutions now.
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So if our energy needs are not being met even while burning fossil fuels, why would you argue against nuclear energy which further reduces the supply of available energy?
Nuclear keeps us on the teet of fossils fuels for longer than switching to renewables. Nuclear takes too long to build. Renewables can come online incrementally displacing fossil fuels far sooner. It drops the rate of damage faster.
If we wait for nuclear plants that haven't even been green lot yet the accumulated damage will be massive.
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Our largest power plant, with 6 reactors, was built in 6 years. To this day it provides us with around 6% of our global power requirements. It's been running for 45 years, producing 32TWh per year with 0 carbon emissions.
It's like we could build them faster if we wanted to ? We've done it already, we can do it again.
45 years would be 1980. That sounds like you're refering to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, but construction started in 1980, and although the first five reactors went live 5 years later the 6th reactor didn't go live until 1996. 16 years later.
Even so, you're only counting construction. That plant would have been being designed for at least 5 years previous.
And safety standards have gone up since then, in part because of it's slightly older cousin at Chernobyl (different design, but also built in 5 years).
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45 years would be 1980. That sounds like you're refering to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, but construction started in 1980, and although the first five reactors went live 5 years later the 6th reactor didn't go live until 1996. 16 years later.
Even so, you're only counting construction. That plant would have been being designed for at least 5 years previous.
And safety standards have gone up since then, in part because of it's slightly older cousin at Chernobyl (different design, but also built in 5 years).
I'm talking about Gravelines in France. The first reactor was plugged into the national grid 6 years after construction began. The 6th reactor in 1985.
The EPR2 is already designed, and in service in Flamanville. Flamanville 3 took a long time because we had to rebuild our whole nuclear industry, by lack of political vision back in the 90's-00's.
We're building it again, two by two this time, and hopefully in less than half the time and budget.
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nuclear doesn’t work well with renewables because of its inflexibility
Uuuuh, why wouldn't it? Nuclear can provide a steady base load for the grid while the renewables are providing the rest, filling up storages for spike times if there is an excess. Don't really see how this is a big issue.
The issue is nuclear reactors become more expensive the less load they have.
As we build more renewables, nuclear energy will decrease in cost efficiency as renewables and storages start handling base loads.
The problem isn't so much that it can't work, it's that it will not be cost efficient long term.
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Germany is the obvious evidence for that claim. Their once great industry is doing really bad due to high energy prices. Which is why even they are second guessing the Energiewende.
Despite insane levels of investment in renewables, they are still stuck on gas en lignite and have very high energy prices.
Merkel's bet that Russian gas could always be depended on didn't work out.
Merkel is a conservative. Their party stopped the original long term nuclear phase out, the original long term renewables build phase. Germany had a lot of photovoltaic industry back then. But the conservatives stopped the funding instead of phasing it out slowly.
It's all intentional mismanagement here for the profit of some energy CEOs and politicians
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Nuclear keeps us on the teet of fossils fuels for longer than switching to renewables. Nuclear takes too long to build. Renewables can come online incrementally displacing fossil fuels far sooner. It drops the rate of damage faster.
If we wait for nuclear plants that haven't even been green lot yet the accumulated damage will be massive.
Yeah. You're just showing us that you lack a fundamental understanding of how the power grid works.
Nuclear keeps us on the teet of fossils fuels for longer than switching to renewables.
It doesn't, but I'd like to see you explain how.
Nuclear takes too long to build.
No it doesn't. We still need more energy sources.
Renewables can come online incrementally displacing fossil fuels far sooner.
Our energy needs are not being met right now. I can't stress this enough: you simply do not have even a basic level of understanding about how the power grid works.
It drops the rate of damage faster.
Yeah. You're clueless.
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FFS, people are stupid.
Proceeds to be pro nuclear.
I was against shutting down already written off power plants early while coal power plants were still running. I was in favor of shutting down coal first, yes.
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I like that you mention the point, Merkel's coalition made a full 180 turnaround. Which was an error.
They could have just made a plan for phasing out the reactors until maybe 2040 or 2050. No, they had to stop them right away and now the existing plants are so gutted that they are not feasible to be rebuilt again.Anyway, building new power plants takes centuries in Germany. So we should just focus on renewables *and storage solutions now.
Right away being over a decade later at pretty much the end of life of those plantd without refurbishment.
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nuclear doesn’t work well with renewables because of its inflexibility
Uuuuh, why wouldn't it? Nuclear can provide a steady base load for the grid while the renewables are providing the rest, filling up storages for spike times if there is an excess. Don't really see how this is a big issue.
Cost. You do not need much storage for a 95% renewable grid. For the last 5% nuclear baseload is still way too expensive.
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Well, good news, because I'm not the one saying it. That's coming from our Transmission Operator. Everything is detailed in their 992 page report:
Well our power providers have different claims, but I would not trust either. They obviously have their own goals.
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Summary
A new Innofact poll shows 55% of Germans support returning to nuclear power, a divisive issue influencing coalition talks between the CDU/CSU and SPD.
While 36% oppose the shift, support is strongest among men and in southern and eastern Germany.
About 22% favor restarting recently closed reactors; 32% support building new ones.
Despite nuclear support, 57% still back investment in renewables. The CDU/CSU is exploring feasibility, but the SPD and Greens remain firmly against reversing the nuclear phase-out, citing stability and past policy shifts.
Southern countries (Spain and Portugal) have a lot of wind and hydro (and soon solar) power to spare.
But somehow some "actors" are cutting them off from the rest of the European power grid.
Looking at you France, your greedy bastards! -
This is just straight up fear mongering. Say what you will about the economics, but the idea that there's no safe amount of radiation is ridiculous (we don't know, but presumably it's okay in some amounts since you're getting radiation doses every day even not living near anything nuclear).
The idea that NPPs are some unsafe technology just waiting to explode is dramatic and untrue.
the idea that there's no safe amount of radiation is ridiculous
Except that's literally the current model used by scientific organisations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
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the idea that there's no safe amount of radiation is ridiculous
Except that's literally the current model used by scientific organisations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
The model assumes a linear relationship between dose and health effects, even for very low doses where biological effects are more difficult to observe. The LNT model implies that all exposure to ionizing radiation is harmful, regardless of how low the dose is, and that the effect is cumulative over lifetime.
Emphasis mine. Sure that's a valid model, but not backed up by concrete empirical evidence.
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The idea that NPPs are some unsafe technology just waiting to explode is dramatic and untrue.
You're the first person to mention exploding here. GP was saying that they make for a good target in war time to turn into a dirty bomb, either intentionally or not.
...but the idea that there's no safe amount of radiation is ridiculous (we don't know, but presumably it's okay in some amounts since you're getting radiation doses every day even not living near anything nuclear).
"We don't know"??? Sorry, but we do know.
There's no 100% safe level because any level carries some risk. Higher levels means higher risk.
Background radiation has some risk, but it's a risk we accept. X-rays, plane flights, etc all have increased risk (hence people exposed to lots of x-rays wearing leads) but we accept them. Material from decommissioned nuclear plants is way higher on this scale.
Nuclear power has downsides as well as positives. Depending on your perspective (e.g. do you work cleaning up the aftermath, or just benefitting from the energy) one will outweigh the other.
Okay I didn't understand OPs point I suppose. Worth nothing that they are designed to withstand airplane hits.
There's no 100% safe level because any level carries some risk.
Actually we don't know that and there's no valid empirical evidence to support that claim. We only have data at moderate to high levels. There's a big gap between walked passed a container of level waste and got impacted by a nuclear destination.
