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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.
Yeah, I think we should rather stick to good old clean coal tbh. Nuclear is for the deranged.
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.
It is still absolutely stupid to get rid of nuclear power before coal, I guess that's what they're talking about.
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 can’t 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 soon™️ 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 don’t understand the “no space” 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 don’t 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.
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.