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Comment by leipert | Hacker News Reader

To be fair: Merkel (so conservatives and liberals) made the decision in 2011 after Fukushima in a move to align with popular sentiment.

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Unfortunately popular sentiment doesn't equate to scientific fact. Nuclear power is cleaner, safer and less environmentally damaging than fossil fuels in every way. Still, since when have politicians ever let facts get in the way of campaigning for power?

We are not choosing between nuclear and fossils - we have chosen renewables.

Clarification: I'm not German. I'm talking globally and long term. What's happening right now in Germany is just a blip. The big picture:

> Clean power growth is likely to exceed electricity demand growth in 2023; this would be the first year for this to happen outside of a recession. With average growth in electricity demand and clean power, we forecast that 2023 will see a small fall in fossil generation (-47 TWh, -0.3%), with bigger falls in subsequent years as wind and solar grow further. That would mean 2022 hit “peak” emissions. A new era of falling power sector emissions is close.

https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/global-electrici...

Still coal fired plants are supposed to run until 2038

You chose to shut down perfectly working nuclear reactors and keep burning coal. You COULD and SHOULD have replaced coal with nuclear.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2022/10/28/the-iron...

You thought you chose renewables. You actually chose coal, LNG, and buying power from France.

Germany exports more power than it imports. And France is only a part of the imports, with 2022 being much lower due to their issues with the nuclear power plants.

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2023/03...

Large power exports come necessarily from using non-dispatchable forms of power generation like solar and wind. Other people who can turn off their power plants will buy yours rather than burning their own resources. In other words, the amount of power a nation exports means very little about how you keep the lights on.

So you can import it at winter for much more $$$ than you sold it at summer.

We have not chosen renewables: if you compute how much oil for transport, coal for Chinese electricity, etc. you need to produce solar panels, as well as massive mining impacts, you realise that the new renewables (solar and wind, not hydro) are a complete dead end with current technology. A renewables world made only with renewable end-to-end production looks more like the year 1800 than any Green knows or would be prepared to admit.

"Nuclear power is cleaner [..] than fossil fuels in every way."

Actually not every way though.. nuclear waste has to go somewhere.

Nuclear waste doesn’t cause climate change and it doesn’t go anywhere - this is not an urgent problem.

>Actually not every way though.. nuclear waste has to go somewhere.

I don't understand your argument; of course waste must go somewhere. Nuclear power, with its waste, is still cleaner than fossil fuels in every way.

> nuclear waste has to go somewhere.

My stock comment for that is: bury it deep and with signs; if we've lost the ability to read the signs, we've lost the ability to dig deep and endanger ourselves.

Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warnin...

I'm not saying nuclear is worse than fossil fuels, just that we don't know the future impact of waste with such a long half-life. So I don't think it's demonstrably cleaner "in every way".

>I'm not saying nuclear is worse than fossil fuels, just that we don't know the future impact of waste with such a long half-life.

No, we've got a pretty good idea.

>So I don't think it's demonstrably cleaner "in every way".

It is, objectively.

Fossil fuel waste goes straight into the atmosphere is and is killing millions of people through climate change and respiratory diseases. And not forgetting slag piles and other fossil fuel waste (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster).

Nuclear waste has killed possibly a few hundred people at best.

You should also take in consideration, that nuclear waste is dangerous over a very long period of time. So a couple hundred now might turn into millions until the waste is no longer dangerous.

> So a couple hundred now might turn into millions until the waste is no longer dangerous.

Not if we store it properly, like we already do.

>You should also take in consideration, that nuclear waste is dangerous over a very long period of time. So a couple hundred now might turn into millions until the waste is no longer dangerous.

Take into consideration the burning of fossil fuels over a very long period of time. Billions.

What you do is finally close the cycle with a fast breeder... This was so clear, then Astrid got shot for no good reason.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor)

> nuclear waste has to go somewhere.

yes, and it's so dense that it fits in a ridiculous amount of space, unlike coal that will put cancer-causing dusts everywhere in the air for decades to come. Enjoy.

...made the decision in 2011...

That does not mean the plan has to be followed through without amendment today - in fact, it cannot be, unless restarting lignite-burning generators was part of the original plan. Responsibility for this development lies squarely on all those who chose this path today (and regardless of party affiliation.)

> after Fukushima in a move to align with popular sentiment.

So they were populists?

Too bad the populous are idiots.

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