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jrockway

Nice to know that there is another country out there that's as irrational as the US.

Does Germany have a lot of tsunamis?

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Only in public opinion. Did you read the bit about Merkel getting thrashed in regional elections?

Naww, but soon they'll have more people with lung cancer from breathing all that burning coal and oil for energy.

I think this is a political move that is going to help in the next election. The "greens" will see this as a handout to them and nuclear power is too complex and scary an issue to have someone defend it properly. Oh well, back to fossil fuels!

the situation is a little bit more complex in Germany: after the former government negotiated the nuclear power exit with the four big power companies maintaining nuclear power stations, these big four were able to adapt their strategy for the days after, which they did. so especially the concession made by the current government about letting the old power plants run longer than planned is considered to be just a huge gift to these companies by a lot of germans (unexpected bonanza for the companies).

No, but earthquakes. And we are so clever to build nuclear plants on places where they are more likely to occur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BClheim-K%C3%A4rlich_Nucle...

This is more likely just a publicity stunt to calm down the people, since there are elections coming in several federal states and the reigning party CDU already lost a lot of ground. I would be surprised if anything really changes

Does it need a Tsunami to have the cooling system of a nuclear power station to fail?

How about: an accident with an aircraft (Germany has lots of air traffic), an earth quake (yes, Germany has earth quakes), sabotage , operator errors (happens sometimes, see Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, ...), terrorist attacks (Germany is a terror target due to its participation in the Afghan war), military attacks, random technical failures, ...

The nuclear power station next to me in Krümmel is shutdown because of technical failures and general total incompetency.

how come that so many HN readers are so pro-nuclear? would that change if the fall-out from japan would hit the U.S. like the chernobyl fall-out hit germany in the 80s?

My fellow Germans are sometimes a funny people. Apparently the sales for iodine pills skyrocketed this week.

This decision is not so much irrational rather than populistic: There are several upcoming elections this year.

IMHO, this is the best explanation for the sudden change of heart of those who decided to prolong the duration of the atomic reactors just a few months ago.

Did the US shut down any of its nuclear reactors, if they did, I certainly haven't heard about it

About as many as we have earthquakes.

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