General > General Technical Chat
Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
Simon:
--- Quote from: Traceless on April 15, 2023, 08:51:32 am ---FWIW I think it is a very good decision to get rid of all NPPs. Gas should be substituted by hydrogen and the coal plants should be shut down ASAP as well of course and only serve as backups.
--- End quote ---
And unicorns are real. where will you get the hydrogen? oh yea, you can get it from fossil fuels or..... electricity
SiliconWizard:
@psychoacoustic: I do not disagree with most of your points, but the problem with this energy question is precisely that, as you pointed out, there are good, rational arguments for both approaches. So if you actually stick to a purely scientific/engineering approach, you'll be stuck with no decision. That's where politics comes into play. You gotta make decisions.
But then, once politics is involved, it's a whole other mess. Then political short-term goals come into play, along with heavy lobbying and all kinds of shit.
Long story short, you need politics to make the decisions and enforce them, but politics comes with nasty baggage, including having to plan things on a short term, because that's how our modern democracies are tailored. They have to promise stuff within a few years, while some decisions - like this one - should IMO turn into at least a 20- to maybe even 50-year plan, with a reasonable transition instead of brutal, unreasonable and even wasteful actions.
Nikola Tesla Junior IV:
Incredible amount of information and mis-information on this post.
There is an increased concern in VOLATILE weather. There has been a decision (non-disclosure) to shut-down many "Volatile Location Facilities".
Cesium 137 has a half-life of ~30-33 years. By the time it is "Inert" it will have caused more devastation on this planet, then it has seen FROM ANYTHING in thousands of years. There has been an unidentified amount released. They disabled many of the radiation monitoring stations across the pacific ocean, and "updated them".
There is much to consider, at the top of the list lies destructive potential. Some of these reactors have been classified to possess ELE (extinction level event) capability. Some believe "The bullet has already left the barrel". A Process in which can not be halted after a trigger event. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ECO system on the planet. To sum it up shortly, it is bigger then all the land mass on earth combined, it ultimately controls worldwide currents and interconnects throughout the entire world through them. It contributes monumentally to Global weather, Food chains, ETC.
Of all the things discussed in this thread, they pale in comparison to the destructive potential contained within nuclear reactors, which absolutely must be considered.
coppercone2:
well hopefully they will get rid of those ceasium gauges and implement more ultrasonic sensors. Developments in ultrasonic can maybe get rid of some radioactive measurement equipment that always seems to have its physics package go missing. The poster above is referencing to the ceasium canister that was apparently smelted by accident in thailand and sent dust to god knows where
for flow measurement it seems like a brute force caveman solution TBH
Neutrion:
--- Quote from: psychoacoustic on April 19, 2023, 05:11:22 pm ---Ah yes, those evil Greens...
...that weren't in power when the deadline for turning off the AKWs was decided. It was a Government of CDU/CSU and FDP. It was also their work (with generous help of the SPD) to get Germany addicted to cheap russian gas. Thanks Gerhardt!
Look. Turning off the the Nuclear Powerplants was a _political_ decision. Right or wrong, it's what the majority of people _at the time_ wanted. As others have pointed out already, the parties in power probably _didn't_ think this is a good idea, but they also wanted to get votes from that segment of the population.
I'm quite disappointed(?) by the absolutism in this discussion. There are good arguments for turning the power plants off (long-term storage, cost, safety...), good arguments for keeping them running (reduction of CO2 emissions, base load stabilization, ...) good arguments for (and against) building new ones.
While scientists and engineers can work out these arguments, it's the job of the media to keep the discussion factual, and thus let "the public" make up their minds. This should incentivize the politicians chasing votes to do what at least a significant portion of the people actually want. I'm dreaming, I know.
But if we as engineers (which I would hope on this forum would be the most vocal) dismiss every argument as either "links-grĂ¼n versiffter Quatsch" or "paid shill for the nuclear lobby", well, then the base for any discussion is lost.
--- End quote ---
I agreed in 2011 with the atom-exit. But during the years we have seen failures which were not corrected to the proper extent. (Coal staying in the system.) And the storage solution for the renewables not in planning.
We most of the time here discussed quiet factually the CURRENT situation not whether it was a good decision more than ten years ago. Every government can correct course in emergency cases as the german government also did that with the military but not with the nuclear energy.
There were two arguments for keeping the course:
1. It might be not possible to run the plants longer, or not "economical".
2. The majority does not want to run them longer doesn't matter the circumstances.
BUT: 1.It seems that it is possible to run them longer, even if not for just 1-2 years, and it seems to economical as well, at least no one could show here the docs from last year how much that would cost to prove the contrary.
2.The german government did not ask the people officially what they think.
(Sorry but asking 1000 peoples oppinion is not the way to do it, otherwise no one would run complicated elections.)
But if someone wants Facebook , Twitter and the rest to run a country, this is the way to do it.
I am only waiting for the day when some other ridiculous group will come up with the idea that every people should have three arms, and than governments will jump on it because the "majority" likes the idea.
"The public making up their mind":
Well, that is the case in Switzerland, where the population is being asked about the main issues. In Germany the population is never asked about any actual major decision, only about the the few faces to rule.
In some other countries at least there are a few referendums some times, like in Sweden the people were asked in a referendum about the nuclear exit. Or in Holland there was a referendum about the Ukraine to bacame some associated EU member.
So the problem is not how democracy works, but how most of the democratic countries are actually pseudo democratic, where no one actually knows which decisions are supported by the majority.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version