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| Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th |
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| langwadt:
--- Quote from: james_s on April 10, 2023, 05:38:16 pm ---... have less chance of an accident. --- End quote --- maybe I don't know English but I think that should be risk not chance... |
| asmi:
--- Quote from: Kleinstein on April 10, 2023, 06:29:13 pm ---Building new nuclear power plants makes relatively limited sense. Currently in many places the costs for wind-power or PV is considerably lower than for new nuclear. Even considering the need for some (e.g. 25%) storage new nuclear is hardly competative. When calling for newer, safer designs this would likely add some 10-30 years of additional testing and developement with a somewhat uncertain result. Even build just new units of the old designs takes quite some time (e.g. 5-10 years) and the capacities to build new ones are limited. The usual PWR build in Europe need very large steel forging parts. AFAIK only a single plant in Japan can make these and the capacitiy is quite limited. Unless they build a new forge they may be faster with nuclear fusion than with getting a significant build up of new fission reactors. Even if they would now want to extend the life-time for the few remaining German reactors, it would now take quite some time for a major revision and maininance and also to get new fuel. So they would be down for 1-2 years anyway. In hind-sight it may have been better to keep the reactors running for longer, but that decision point was some 5-10 years ago. All plans are made to shut them down. Already the last extension was only with reduced power, as the fuel was essentially used up. Germany had to bring back some old coal power-plants last year. But this was not so much because of shutting down the German reactors, but because quite a lot of the French reactors were down for lack of cooling water and delayed maintainance. I would consider calling for building new reactors now as a bad idea - it comes with a risk, too late and at high (hardly competative) costs. Nuclear on a large scale comes with 3 additional problems: 1) When not running the reactors 24/7, but shut down in times of low demand, the already high costs additionally go up. A limited power (like 25%) to run near 24/7 is not such an issue, but this still leaves a large part to come from other source. 2) Having many reactors of the same / similar type is a risky situation. The safety concepts usually call a prompt shut down if a problem with the design is found (e.g. like with the BWRs in Fukushima). Taking safety serious may than cause a black out. So one has to choose between safe or dependable. Given the hard choices and reaction after Fukushima (delaying safety upgrades to keep the reacrtor running) one can not really trust the promissed safety. 3) For a world wide large scale expansion of nuclear power the uranium reserves get critical and the fuel would get more expensive. It would at least need reprocessing of used fuel and this did not work out economically. --- End quote --- This is such a classic example of German indocrination. Literally none of these points are true, yet majority of people there - who should know better one would think - for some reason believe it... |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: Norbert on April 10, 2023, 06:26:48 pm --- --- Quote from: james_s on April 10, 2023, 05:38:16 pm --- ›nuclear plants‹ … ›less chance of an accident‹ --- End quote --- Those two terms really shouldn't be put in the same sentence. 8) OTOH, I'm old, what do I care… --- End quote --- Absolutely everything we do has a non-zero chance of something negative happening. Every aspect of life is a numbers game, you weight the risks, you take your chances. Any one of us could drop dead this afternoon, an extinction level asteroid collision could occur tomorrow, you never know. |
| nightfire:
To put things in a technical perspective: The german nuclear plants are also somewhat old, and as the last date of operations has been determined politically, the operating companies very probably had some closer look at the nuclear fuel they are using. Means: the way they operate, the nuclear power rods detoriate slowly, until at a certain point when they do only give a very reduced power and have to be regenerated, so the reactor core has to be refilled with fresh rods. So very probably the operators would have made good use of that remaining fuel inside the core so that one cannot simply let those plants run longer, they would have to be replenished with fresh fuel and according maintenance work. Regarding the political aspects in germany: Yes, there is a certain awareness what nuclear desasters can do. I myself remember when I was little the Chernobyl accident, where we all had to stay at home and not go outside due to possible contamination via air from Ukraine. Some poltical pressure from certain political parties also is built into their agenda, so this topic stays quite high on the list. Frankly, I agree with the stance that the actually existing nuclear power plants are pressurized water reactor or scrubber reactor, so they have inherent security risks in case of danger. This is partly due to the military in the cold war, that wanted reactor types that could provide them with material for bombs. Other types of reactor (Thorium types) are probably way less dangerous in case of an accident. Also: The current situation in Ukraine has brought to attention that a country is only really sovereign, when every part of vital infrastructure is available on own soil. Regarding nuclear power, this is questionable, as resources like manufacturing of the fuel rods and the rework of them is scattered throughout europe. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: langwadt on April 10, 2023, 06:36:07 pm --- --- Quote from: james_s on April 10, 2023, 05:38:16 pm ---... have less chance of an accident. --- End quote --- maybe I don't know English but I think that should be risk not chance... --- End quote --- Chance and risk are roughly interchangeable in that context. Lower risk == less chance of something bad happening. |
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