A firm step backwards: Germany shuts down nuclear power

[Great Nepal]

Here's a fast fact: not every nuclear power plant is another Chernobyl waiting to happen; some might become Fukushimas or three-miles-islands too

... had to correct this...

I am getting tired of same thing over and over again...

3. No, Chernobyl does not count because when you start to fiddle around with safety switches - you will have a catastrophic accident. If I try to find out what will happen if I put wind turbines in middle of road; I will have a accident.
And Fukushima does count - to show how safe nuclear power is today. It took on 9 magnitude earthquake followed by a wall of water and yet survived despite of some mastermind thinking it was a brilliant idea to put emergency diesel cooler in ground level in a tsunami prone area.

[Caninope]

This is the only point I have an issue with. We are talking about firstly, the Soviets who were notorious for cutting corners to get ahead of us 'capitalist pigs'. (Unless you all want a reminder of Vladimir Komarov.)

The second was after a 9.0 Richter Earthquake, I don't feel I need to say more.

It has happened, and it might (and will almost sure sometimes) happen again; that´s all that counts !
No argueing here of "rare circumstances" or anything, it has happened !
Got it finally ?

And it could be that the President of the US could be killed by a massive prison break that ends up in DC and storms the White House successfully, but that doesn't mean that we shoot every prisoner.

[Coffin-Breathe]

So will the radioactive waist - how about a 25 000 years...nice garbage can I´d say...

Radioactive waists are pretty sexy, if you ask me.

...maybe if you´re a member of the "Addams family" - how would you feel, if we deposit some of it right next to your house ?

[Caninope]

Fukushima=earthquake
earthquake+nuclear reactor=meltdown
meltdown=not good

Germany=no earthquake
no earthquake+nuclear reactor=no meltdown
no meltdown=good

Germany makes nuclear energy look goood

...except the more than thousand "small" and "medium" incidents in Germany´s "so safe and good-looking" nuclear power plants the last few years, which never were "published for the masses" and hidden in "secret reports"; nuclear industry declared, that no or almost no radiation had leaked - well, and I declare to be the emperor of China...

Can you source these 1000 incidents?

[The Soviet Technocracy]

It only has the capacity to cause cancer only when someone doesn't do their job properly.
Table of radiation values

The hate and scare on nuclear power is far overblown. Chernobyl only happened because the control crew didn't know how to operate an RBMK reactor - and for some bizarre reason, RBMKs behave the exact opposite to almost every other type of reactor in service. Fukushima only happened
because of the seventh largest ever earthquake 250 miles offshore set off a tsunami that flooded some diesel generators. The plant's reactors themselves took very little actual damage in either the quake or the tsunami, the only problems began when they lost their diesel backups.

The funny part is that Chernobyl's reactors were ridiculously badly designed and were basically prototypes pushed to production, and it was actually the fault of the reactor, not the crew, that caused the disaster.

TMI was a fault of a poor crew and a good reactor.

Modern reactors have an operating life of roughly 1 million years:accident.

I suspect most of you are too young to remember the incident at Three Mile Island in 1979. The excuses used on that occasion were the same ones later used on the occasion of Chernobyl. Yet, seven years later, an even worse event happens at Chernobyl, and the same claims that it wasn't built correctly and/or someone pushed the wrong button at the wrong time were put forward.

I would not be surprised if the nuclear industry were putting out claims about Fukushima that involved the "not properly built" story. In fact, let's blame the seawall, shall we? It should have been higher, right? Yeah, we can trot out the old excuse "It wasn't built properly" with a new spin: the plant was built fine, but the seawall was built too short. If the seawall had been built taller, it would never have happened.

Eventually, people are going to start asking "Why the hell can't you clowns build something this dangerous and build it correctly so as to minimize the dangers -- and if you're so incompetent that you can't do that, then why should we allow you to build it in the first place?"

TMI was an incompetent crew and decently designed reactor.

Chernobyl was a competent crew and poorly designed reactor.

Those are the facts, I'm sorry you disagree with them.

[The Chaos Heart]

Radioactive waists are pretty sexy, if you ask me.

...maybe if you´re a member of the "Addams family" - how would you feel, if we deposit some of it right next to your house ?

...he was making a grammar joke.

[Coffin-Breathe]

So will the radioactive waist - how about a 25 000 years...nice garbage can I´d say...

Oh, the old "plutonium's half-life is like 25,000 years so it must be the biggest threat to human health EVER!!"

Here's a little secret.



That wouldn't even cause radiation sickness. And there's a picture of a Geiger counter right next to the reactor showing 0310, which could make you pretty nauseous, and isn't really liveable, but it won't murder everything on contact.

And remember—immediately after formation is the peak level of toxicity. After that, it just goes down.

So the "guided tours" to Prypjat and Chernobyl are using safety-suits only for a thrill-affect, and the "no-go" area is just for "baiting western tourists", you´d say, or did I get something wrong ? And there´s no reason why nuclear waiste is buried a few thousand yards below the surface in old salt-mines, while heavily embedded in concrete ? So I wonder, why people still use "radiation-badges" in nuclear powerplants and facilities ? Or why the Japanese even worry and frantically try to stop the leaking of radiation (not, that they have been really successful in this already) ? Or why no one till yet has started a nuclear war ?
I´ve heard, that land property is really cheap beneath nuclear powerplants, you maybe should go for some and build your house there...

[Arkinesia]

Here's a fast fact: not every nuclear power plant is another Chernobyl waiting to happen; some might become Fukushimas or three-miles-islands too

... had to correct this...

Oh, Three Mile Island. Heh.

Lemme let you in on a little secret about Three Mile Island. There wasn't a full accident. Because the operators of TMI knew what in fuck's name they were doing, the complete meltdown of the reactor core was avoided, and the radioactivity release did not produce a significant footprint on the existent background radiation.

Not to mention, by today's standards, TMI would be considered an unsafe design. And they still rescued it from the brink when it was seconds from a catastrophe.

So the "guided tours" to Prypjat and Chernobyl are using safety-suits only for a thrill-affect, and the "no-go" area is just for "baiting western tourists", you´d say, or did I get something wrong ? And there´s no reason why nuclear waiste is buried a few thousand yards below the surface in old salt-mines, while heavily embedded in concrete ? So I wonder, why people still use "radiation-badges" in nuclear powerplants and facilities ? Or why the Japanese even worry and frantically try to stop the leaking of radiation (not, that they have been really successful in this already) ? Or why no one till yet has started a nuclear war ?
I´ve heard, that land property is really cheap beneath nuclear powerplants, you maybe should go for some and build your house there...

Stop being so obnoxious. You might make people think that actual science doesn't work.

What safety suits? I know someone who's been on a Prypiat tour and they didn't have to wear safety suits. They went right up to the edge of the Chernobyl complex and didn't wear safety suits. Here's the kicker: he didn't die either! Amazing! Instant contact with radiation doesn't kill, you say? Preposterous.

Of course you have to keep the source of radioactivity covered—direct contact with toxic waste is dangerous. That's why they don't let you play with mercury anymore (though my mother played with mercury on a regular basis, and she's in her 50s with no reports of cancer or anything thus far, and she even does regular checkups. Then again, it was probably because it was only a drop at a time anyway). Any massive concentration of nuclear waste should either be shipped in sealed containers for re-processing, or, in the case of Chernobyl where extraction is nigh impossible, be sealed completely on-site. As for the Japanese, their backup generators were placed in an area that made them prone to flooding, and so the reactor overheated, which caused the meltdown.

Sorry mate, but no matter what objection you raise to nuclear fission, there has been a lesson learned and corrections made to counter the potential safety hazard. But when properly used, just like with any big saw or hammer, nuclear power is safe and efficient.

Nuclear war? I don't think you quite get why nuclear weapons are dangerous.

Take a bomb. Now normally a bomb is ignited with a simple bit of ignition, a spark or something of that nature.

A nuclear bomb works with a different kind of ignition. What happens is that a standard explosive initiates a reaction that then starts another explosion, and this latter explosion releases vastly more energy than the first one. So it's more akin to detonating some dynamite with a hand grenade.

And as for your last point: nobody is going to start advising that, kiddo.

[Coffin-Breathe]

Did you miss the news, the last few months ? Radiation is "clean", because you don´t see it - you only die from it...
...and if "Fukushima" was so "safe", them why this debate ? Why all the problems over there in Japan ? Why then is the area a "no-go-area" still ? Why are Tchernobyl and Prypjat "ghosttowns" ?

As noted before, the Fukushima reactors would have been perfectly safe...if the diesel generators hadn't been on ground level in an area that could flood if a Tsunami hit. Lax standards. And going on with the lax standards thing, Chernobyl, the epitomy of Soviet Engineering. As many corners cuts as possible to build it as quickly as possible, not to mention the staff were poorly trained and ordered to preform an experiment that violates all common sense - removing the control rods.

But let's put this in another way. The San Onofre NPP in southern California, sits nearby the San Andreas fault. That area is tectonically active, and yet, the NPP has had no problem, ever.

So, in short, it's not the reactors that are the problem, it's human error.

Well, but reactors are built by humans, operated by humans, and, just to add, might be destroyed or damaged by humans; while the reactors themselve don´t really care about the last one, we, the humans usually can´t stand it...

San Onofre, oh well...http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/26 ... e-20110426
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/23 ... l-20110323

[Delanshar]

Germany is overreacting. Blame the stupid, and sensationalist green party. A political party that is so damn stupid they don't even seem to realize Earthquakes don't happen in Germany.

[Great Nepal]

Cars cause more deaths than nuclear power plants. Wana ban those too?



Of course, cos:-
a) Modern day nuclear power plants are built to same standards as soviet ones.
b) Operator is going to fiddle around with switches for a stupid experiment...

right?

But of course the nuclear power plants are a risk! Studies have shown that no nuclear power plant in Germany would be able to withstand the impact of a small aeroplane! We must shut them all down, because we all know that there's hundreds of those falling down every day

And yes, the plane vs NPP argument was actually used in the German parliament...

Interesting, sooo when are they going to bulldoze all of their houses, parliament, capital building, factories etc? Since none of them can survive a plane crash either?

[Johz]

Does anyone here know what primitivists are? This is like Tea Party use of "communist", "socialist", etc.

Anyone who opposes nuclear energy and de-industrialisation is, by very definition, a primitivist.

So those scientists working on effective ways to harness non-nuclear yet renewable energy sources that are entirely safe and leave little waste are primitivists?

Also, I think you mean opposes nuclear energy and supports de-industrialisation. Most primitivists, I'm sure, wish to the pre-industrial days of yore when we swung around in trees. Indeed, one could argue that liberals are actually ultra-conservatives...

[Arkinesia]

I´m from Germany and I f*ckin HATE that these damn hippies here are crying so much just because a nuclear PP was going down in Japan. Our government is, as always, quite populist and got out some tears too, but it wasn´t enough, they still protested and we had to shut down a lot of nuclear PPs. Pretty annoying, since we get even more and more dependant on France and Russia for energy. That sucks quite hard.

See how far you have fallen? The country that now follows the will of hippies, once use to....er, never mind.

Well, yeah, once the hippies ran out of warmongering countries to hate that gave a shit, they took up environmentalism.

The founder of Greenpeace wrote a whole fucking book about it.

[Keronians]

Germany is overreacting. Blame the stupid, and sensationalist green party. A political party that is so damn stupid they don't even seem to realize Earthquakes don't happen in Germany.

Honestly, that isn't a very good excuse to keeping nuclear power.

I personally believe in keeping it (despite the relatively disturbing wastes) since it's clean, efficient and is actually capable of powering up a nation, as well as the fact that it could be dangerous keeps it so well checked and regulated.

However, that argument is flawed, IMO. It's widely believed that earthquakes don't happen in Spain either, yet look at what happened.

[Great Nepal]

Germany is overreacting. Blame the stupid, and sensationalist green party. A political party that is so damn stupid they don't even seem to realize Earthquakes don't happen in Germany.

Honestly, that isn't a very good excuse to keeping nuclear power.

I personally believe in keeping it (despite the relatively disturbing wastes) since it's clean, efficient and is actually capable of powering up a nation, as well as the fact that it could be dangerous keeps it so well checked and regulated.

However, that argument is flawed, IMO. It's widely believed that earthquakes don't happen in Spain either, yet look at what happened.

It does not matter even if there is a earthquake - there is not going to be a tsunami in Germany.

And even if there is, solution is not building emergency diesel cooler in ground floor.

[Senestrum]

Three Mile Island was not a major accident. If anything it's a good example of the safety of a non-cheap reactor seeing as radiation release was entirely negligible even though there was a serious core meltdown. Human misinterpretations of what the instruments were telling them caused the loss of the reactor, but nothing outside the reactor suffered any sort of harm.

Chernobyl was a very soviet sort of disaster. It was a cheap and poorly-built reactor with an inexperienced crew, who were running a test that required them to disable every single reactor safety system even though their superiors had told them not to run said test. What the hell did they think would happen? And even then, the only reason it went as bad as it did was because the reactor vessel was designed in such a way as to make an increase in heat lead to an increase in radioactivity, which would raise the heat further and continue the cycle until it exploded. Definitely bad, but I just can't see any more accidents of that scale happening again.

Fukushima is bad (definitely the second-worst nuclear disaster in history) but nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl was. They've now found that there was major damage to the reactors prior to the tsunami and that the loss of the coolant pump generators just made it worse. This is understandable, since the plant was only designed to withstand a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and got hit by a magnitude 9 quake. Still, radiological contamination of the surrounding area is nowhere near as severe as it was with Chernobyl and the vast majority of people are overreacting wildly about it. Also, it wouldn't have even had an accident if it was a newer reactor, as opposed to a four-decade old reactor built to be as cheap as possible.

[Moral Libertarians]

Chernobyl was a very soviet sort of disaster. It was a cheap and poorly-built reactor with an inexperienced crew, who were running a test that required them to disable every single reactor safety system even though their superiors had told them not to run said test. What the hell did they think would happen? And even then, the only reason it went as bad as it did was because the reactor vessel was designed in such a way as to make an increase in heat lead to an increase in radioactivity, which would raise the heat further and continue the cycle until it exploded. Definitely bad, but I just can't see any more accidents of that scale happening again.

Yes, correct me if I'm wrong, but during said test, did they not do something like shut down the coolant before a manager, fearful of power shortages in a nearby town, ordered them to abort the test mid-shutdown and restart the reactor? And to think that anyone would use this accident as a viable argument against nuclear.

I have to say, looking over this thread since I last posted, I've been both dismayed at the stubbornness of those arguing against and impressed at the logical counter-arguments, which I would never have dreamed. All I can say is the Germans don't know what they're missing, the French have it right, and roll on nuclear fusion!

[Coffin-Breathe]

Interesting claim; care to explain how it comes, that I´m living in one of the most industrialized countries of the world, though we don´t use nuclear power and have very few "thermal" power plants ? Amazing, isn´t it ? Plus, we´re exporting electric energy...
Oh, I forgot...maybe that´s possible, because we´re "retarded primitivsts" and "treehugging leftists"...

Because you live in a nation of 8 million. There're cities that are larger than your nation. Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army was almost larger than your nation at its peak.

Large nations need radically larger power grids than yours. You can't say "well, see how one of the smallest countries in the world fares, everyone can do it!" because it just doesn't work.

Interesting point; you´re stating, that if someone is bigger, than he must have "more food" than someone who is smaller, which is somehow (but not always) correct; but no one says, that the biffer one can´t feed of the same food, that feeds the smaller one...
So...what´s your point ? You first claim was, that anyone who want´s high-tec and "high living standards", which on your sight seems to be equal to "heavy industrialization" (I would strongly disagree, but that´s not the point) has only two choices; now I declare and proof, that that´s not correct, as my homecountry shows different, and your arguement is "so you´re small, that´s why it works"...but this is not an arguement. We need much less energy, because we use it in a more effective way than, for example, the States, and we don´t have nuclear power plants, because we, the Austrian people decided not to go down this road, and we´re happy with our decision (which didn´t hinder us to stay a very wealthy and industrialized country). Bigger countries have more landscape and more room and opportunities to gain their needed energies, plus, just to remind, also more "potentially wasted" energies to save.
Our solution is possibly not the best one and not the bet practicable one, but at least we mustn´t rely on a set time-bomb, and if Germany (and a majority of it´s citizens, I´d say, as you mustn´t think, that NS represents all Germans) decides finally to follow our way, it´s the decision of the German people (they have a democratic elected government, which represents them and is given power by it´s citicens), and, just to state this, in my eyes it´s a wise and future-looking decision (other countries will follow, I´d say it´s only a matter of time).

[Caninope]

Because you live in a nation of 8 million. There're cities that are larger than your nation. Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army was almost larger than your nation at its peak.

Large nations need radically larger power grids than yours. You can't say "well, see how one of the smallest countries in the world fares, everyone can do it!" because it just doesn't work.

Interesting point; you´re stating, that if someone is bigger, than he must have "more food" than someone who is smaller, which is somehow (but not always) correct; but no one says, that the biffer one can´t feed of the same food, that feeds the smaller one...
So...what´s your point ? You first claim was, that anyone who want´s high-tec and "high living standards", which on your sight seems to be equal to "heavy industrialization" (I would strongly disagree, but that´s not the point) has only two choices; now I declare and proof, that that´s not correct, as my homecountry shows different, and your arguement is "so you´re small, that´s why it works"...but this is not an arguement. We need much less energy, because we use it in a more effective way than, for example, the States, and we don´t have nuclear power plants, because we, the Austrian people decided not to go down this road, and we´re happy with our decision (which didn´t hinder us to stay a very wealthy and industrialized country). Bigger countries have more landscape and more room and opportunities to gain their needed energies, plus, just to remind, also more "potentially wasted" energies to save.
Our solution is possibly not the best one and not the bet practicable one, but at least we mustn´t rely on a set time-bomb, and if Germany (and a majority of it´s citizens, I´d say, as you mustn´t think, that NS represents all Germans) decides finally to follow our way, it´s the decision of the German people (they have a democratic elected government, which represents them and is given power by it´s citicens), and, just to state this, in my eyes it´s a wise and future-looking decision (other countries will follow, I´d say it´s only a matter of time).

The problem is that as population increases in a linear fashion, resources needed increase in an exponential fashion, IIRC.

[Nazis in Space]

Germany is overreacting. Blame the stupid, and sensationalist green party. A political party that is so damn stupid they don't even seem to realize Earthquakes don't happen in Germany.

Considering that

• The Green Party isn't in power. The conservatives are
• Earthquakes do happen in Germany

I think it's safe to say that you're probably just writing shit without bothering to do so much as half a second worth of background research. But hey, at least you get to have an opinion on the internet, right?

[Coffin-Breathe]

...except the more than thousand "small" and "medium" incidents in Germany´s "so safe and good-looking" nuclear power plants the last few years, which never were "published for the masses" and hidden in "secret reports"; nuclear industry declared, that no or almost no radiation had leaked - well, and I declare to be the emperor of China...

Can you source these 1000 incidents?

I hope, you can at least basically read German : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_meld ... en_Anlagen , but I guess, otherwise the tables and graphs should do...
...and those were only the ones which had to be announced as "incidents", but a lot of "lesser ones" did occur too...

[Hernier]

why is it a bad idea to just buy their power from France? Instead of building/maintaining npp in their country that CAN be dangerous, IS expensive and DOES cause alarm amongst their populace, they instead choose to have green nuclear power with as little risk as possible and at best a slight price increase. Money well spent I say.

[Moral Libertarians]

Interesting point; you´re stating, that if someone is bigger, than he must have "more food" than someone who is smaller, which is somehow (but not always) correct; but no one says, that the biffer one can´t feed of the same food, that feeds the smaller one...

Nah, what he's saying is that for a large country, the amount of investment needed to set up a functioning power grid is exponentially more than for a smaller one. Think of it in this way - if a larger and smaller country (in terms of area) have the same population, then the larger one will cost more to power up because of longer power lines and such.

We need much less energy, because we use it in a more effective way than, for example, the States

Well, no - they need more because they have 36 times your population and these people are spread out over 117 times more land area.

Our solution is possibly not the best one and not the bet practicable one, but at least we mustn´t rely on a set time-bomb, and if Germany (and a majority of it´s citizens, I´d say, as you mustn´t think, that NS represents all Germans) decides finally to follow our way, it´s the decision of the German people (they have a democratic elected government, which represents them and is given power by it´s citicens), and, just to state this, in my eyes it´s a wise and future-looking decision (other countries will follow, I´d say it´s only a matter of time).

But their decision could will endanger the livelihoods of other nations when they start using the intense fossil-fueled power stations they will need to replace the nuclear input.

[Great Nepal]

why is it a bad idea to just buy their power from France?

Because relying on foreign nation for your essentially need is not a good idea? What if French electric demand increases and it refuses to sell to Germany?
What then? Sit back and die?

Instead of building/maintaining npp in their country that CAN be dangerous,

Less dangerous than cars...

IS expensive

How much does buying cost?

and DOES cause alarm amongst their populace,

Then, teach populace not to listen to greenpeace...?

[Moral Libertarians]

The problem is that as population increases in a linear fashion, resources needed increase in an exponential fashion, IIRC.

This is what I'm getting at in my previous post.