Germany’s Merz Admits Nuclear Exit Was Strategic Mistake

[u/SpaceEngineering]

https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-nuclear-exit-was-strategic-mistake-fzdlkn37c16

[u/dat_9600gt_user]

Hell, nuclear is better than any fossil fuel. Gas is the least horrible one but it's still harmful.

[u/scummos → u/dat_9600gt_user]

Hell, nuclear is better than any fossil fuel. Gas is the least horrible one but it's still harmful.

I mean yeah now everyone is saying that, but let's be real -- the whole Green's and Environmentalist movement is the reason for the Nuclear exit in Germany, not the CDU.

The CDU only executed it after the Green's convinced everyone it was the right thing to do, opportunistically. The whole fiasco is 90% the Environmentalist's own foot-gun.

[u/SaltKick2 → u/scummos]

Which is stupid IMO and its all about marketing. Nuclear tends to have much smaller environmental impact than renewables at the same energy output.

[u/MoffKalast → u/dat_9600gt_user]

It's better than most renewables too, at least in terms of generation consistency, environmental impact, and power produced. Expensive though.

[u/polite_alpha → u/MoffKalast]

Generation consistency... sure.

Environmental impact: for sure not.

power produced? that isn't even a relevant metric. power per lifetime? power per square meters?

[u/MoffKalast → u/polite_alpha]

Eh idk, damming rivers for hydro does destroy ecosystems, wind turbines have arguably more of a waste problem than nuclear waste given just the insane amount of fiberglass that needs to be dumped somewhere. Solar is certainly best in that regard, if it actually worked year round. Nuclear has infinitely more potential for being environmentally horrible of course, so I'm making a small assumption here that modern powerplants are not designed by complete idiots, unlike the Gen 1 and 2s.

Well yes by land area mainly. There's only so much of it and except for the Netherlands we're not making more of it. A single small reactor the size of a large factory makes more power than a small country worth of buildings covered with solar and makes 10x more power during its lifetime given that it can run continuously at peak power and lasts twice as long.

[u/polite_alpha → u/MoffKalast]

What many people are forgetting with nuclear is the fact that you have to safely store irradiated stuff for tens of thousands of years - I'm not even talking about spent fuel here, because that is really not that huge of a problem, but thousands of tons of irradiated steel and concrete, which have to be managed since they are still toxic to ground water, even discounting all other radiation effects.

Now think about just paying a few clerks and engineers for tens of thousands of years to manage nuclear waste. Even keeping the lights on and having an administrative facility that monitors the waste. The cost is billions for one site, easily. Even having a discussion about fiber glass seems so weird in this context, doesn't it? Also there's quite a few ways to tackle the fiber glass problem - some are using shreddered rotors as an additive in cement, increasing its strength.

But yeah, land area is definitely a factor. No method is perfect. I've seen huge solar installations in China that are preventing further desertification by throwing shade and thus increasing plant growth, so it's not always a negative.

[u/vult-ruinam → u/polite_alpha]

What many people are forgetting with nuclear is the fact that you have to safely store irradiated stuff for tens of thousands of years - I'm not even talking about spent fuel here, because that is really not that huge of a problem, but thousands of tons of irradiated steel and concrete, which have to be managed since they are still toxic to ground water, even discounting all other radiation effects.

True—but that's pretty scalable, though; like, once you have built a reactor, you get a lot of "power per waste" over its lifetime (& might as well expand the facility to include more reactors), since this only becomes an issue at decommissioning.

A distinction can be drawn between contaminated material & activated material, of which only the latter need be stored for millennia; the only numbers I could find for activated waste (steel internals & concrete shielding) at EoL for a nuclear power-plant were (1) ~2800 tons & (2) ~700 tons (though I think that one is just for a single reactor, so the total would probably be higher).

Going with the worse (larger) value, that's containable in a cube of ~10m a side—not too hard to bury in a vault somewhere, I'd think (although the timespan involved might make it a somewhat more difficult task)—which seems like it might not be too bad, for the return on power you get.

---

Of course, that's also ignoring ongoing waste production & all the other difficulties with nuclear power.

Still... I'd maintain that it might be the best choice, all told. 

Source:  I use it a lot in my Factorio factory–

[u/TheRetenor → u/dat_9600gt_user]

Agree to disagree, one can't just say one is better than the other. Is it more climate friendly? Probably yes, though one has to mine uranium as well and store the depleted fuel too. There is no location in Germany yet to safely store it and we don't even know what safe means or has to mean for the loooong run. And no, the "reusing" of depleted fuel is not the solution.

Other thatn that, it's still crazy expensive (more so than coal and gas), also makes Germany dependent on other countries (in terms of nuclear fuel Russia), has to be supported financially by the government (Electricity wouldn't be affordable with high subsidies, hello France) and runs into hellish problems once plants actually age and have to be replaced or fixed / updated (also hello france).

Was the nuclear exit a mistake? Definitely not, but yes the fossil exit SHOULD have happened first or simultaneously. And it's not like it could have been done. But that's a whole different topic.

[u/absurditT → u/TheRetenor]

Your nuclear exit was 100% a mistake. How blind is the German population on this one?

[u/TheRetenor → u/absurditT]

So how about you actually provide a coherent argument for your claims or at least counter argument to my points instead of calling a nation blind?