Europe
News and information from Europe πͺπΊ
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
view the rest of the comments
As a German, many of my countrymen and -women are rather embarassing.
I think everyone is embarrassed by their fellow citizens
Germany has done a lot of good with green energy too, so it's not all bad
Except for what they did with nuclear power.
Unlike what France wants us to think, nuclear power is not green. Unless you count that warm and fuzzy green glow.
Nuclear was supposed to be a stopgap until renewables and battery storage can handle 24/7. Nuclear by far produces much less CO2 than coal or gas. That matter much more in the long run.
And guess what? That time is now. It's just politics holding us back. The technology is here.
It is still absolutely stupid to get rid of nuclear power before coal, I guess that's what they're talking about.
Our coal usage is at an all time low and continues to decline. In fact the decline in recent years is greater than the contribution of nuclear power has ever had to our energy mix (roughly 2% per year).
Yeah, I think we should rather stick to good old clean coal tbh. Nuclear is for the deranged.
Nuclear is for the people who want to take the risk and don't care about their neighbours they contaminate as well in case of a catastrophe.
Except usage of coal has been going down steadily and is at an all time low. The amount we use coal less is bigger than the amount of electricity nuclear has ever contributed to the German electricity mix.
The main threat here is climate change. Nuclear plants are an excellent low CO2 alternative to traditional baseline power.
We can handle the waste. We canβt handle a 3c climate change bump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
Except we can't handle the waste. At least not in Germany where we move it between temporary storage locations until we find a permanent one soonβ’οΈ and are shocked that due to improper storage the containers are rusting.
You're right about climate change. But for Germany, nuclear power is not the awnser.
For us, it is way more cost efficient, faster and safer to invest in solar, wind and battery's.
I live in Germany. I donβt understand the βno spaceβ argument. Just buy a 1km x 1km farm plot in Bayern and dig down. The space is there. The footprint is small. Look at the Onkalo site. The above ground footprint is even smaller.
This being said I think long term storage should be a EU level agenda modeled after the Finnish Onkalo model with shared locations.
Germany is already dependent on importing energy sources. So importing uranium ore from Canada is no different. Except we would import from an ally. Even solar which I support requires imports. Wind less so but even then our wind turbines are only partially domestic.
As far as reopening closed plants yah. You are right. I donβt think that is easy to reopen them after such neglect. The short term answer is to buy low CO2 power from France while Germany continues its renewable path. Aka nuclear base energy by proxy.
The same France that constantly buys electricity from Germany because of constant issues with their nuclear powerplants?
You can not just dig down anywhere. You need the right kind of rock and in a formation large enough that you can dig down and be sure, that no water can ever touch the nuclear waste and transport the nuclear material to the surface. That geology is pretty rarer.
This is true and why I think it should be a EU sponsored agenda. This being said a small plot with the right type of rock/location is not so rare it can not be found in all of the EU. We know this for a fact.
I suspect such a site could also be found in Germany. I mentioned Bayern just because there has been a large study done already that found several durable candidates.
https://www.bge.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Standortsuche/Wesentliche_Unterlagen/Zwischenbericht_Teilgebiete/Zwischenbericht_Teilgebiete_-_Englische_Fassung_barrierefrei.pdf
The glow isn't green, though, but more blue or violet. Real life is not the Simpsons.
Nuclear power isn't (and never was) about cheap and clean power generation, but about having and maintaining a knowledge, equipment, and personnel pool for the military application of nuclear power.
Even if you have no military nuclear programme, if you have a civilian one that is set up correctly, you are within months of building yourself a workable nuclear deterrent. Politicians should simply stop lying about its purpose and it would be fine. Especially in a time where Europe needs to think hard about becoming independent from a nuclear deterrent provided by an outside country.
There is a difference between operating a technology on a comercial scale and having the capabilities to build on it. The university I went to had a reactor in one of it's cellars. Granted, tiny compared to a comercial plant but enough to do research with and train people on.