Hacker News Reader

Comment by InsideOutSanta | Hacker News Reader

I'm happy they're doing this, and it's good and admirable to see people be able to change their minds on something they once believed so strongly, but this should have happened 30 years ago.

View on HN

People only "change their mind" when it becomes an existential crisis. And energy security in Europe has reached that stage 10x.

>People only "change their mind" when it becomes an existential crisis.

If only. There's people and parties (not in the UK) who would rather see the rest of the country suffer than admit they were wrong, so they feel compelled to die on that hill and take everyone with them, because defending their principle is more important.

also in the UK

Nuclear power plants ate quite the opposite of energy security especially with a foreign threat

We're talking about Germany shuttering their nuclear power plants despite USA warning them repeatedly that Russia was going to weaponize the Nord Stream gas dependence against them. Which is ultimately exactly what happened.

If Germans don't or didn't want, e.g., nuclear power plants, or fracking, or transmission lines, or ... then they are allowed to decide that way, no?

if the germans want to shoot themselves in the foot they are allowed to do this, yes. what is the point of your comment? it's not even remotely relevant.

I was trying to point out that societies make and are free to make decisions that others don't like or that aren't great for them by some metric - and that there is nothing wrong with that. Why is that not relevant when it comes to energy?

so your point is that it's fine that germany ceeded energy independence and gave power to russia, because they're a country and countries have the 'right' to make bad decisions?

we have the right to criticise countries too right?

If Germans don't want energy independence - you can criticize that but that's how nation states work or is there some UN Charter violation in there, for example?

im still so confused what your point is. it's like talking about the consequences of someone's alcoholism, and someone chiming in "well they have a right to die of the booze if they want" like...ok???

So any nation state needs to be energy independent? Is that your point? Or have cheap energy and energy independence? If people want low growth, expensive energy etc., why is that like alcoholism? What is intrinsically bad there? Not like life expectancy in Germany is low, for example.

are you german?

Are you? Trying to understand your position... the only good policy is energy independence?

Edit: what is your point? Being able to criticize? Sure, but so what?

there is no position, you're imagining arguments people aren't making.

> So any nation state needs to be energy independent?

It is obviously a good thing if a democratic nation state is independent from a totalitarian dictatorship.

> Not like life expectancy in Germany is low, for example.

It's not about life expectancy. They now have to make a choice between supporting an aggressive totalitarian state vs. suffering damage to their economy due to higher energy prices. That is obviously a bad position to be in.

Why is using domestic energy sources much more not another choice now or in the recent past?

Nuclear power replaced coal in Germany, not gas. A big dependence exists because people heat their homes with gas and lots of industry needs gas, nuclear doesn’t help with either.

Russian gas replaced Germany's own nuclear power. That's where the risk was and why the Nord Stream pipelines were so controversial.

But Germany wanted the cheap gas, so they ignored the risks and Russia ultimately invaded Ukraine.

It's a bit more complex, I think. When gas imports started from the USSR, nuclear power plants were still being built in Germany, for example. There were gas imports for a long time.

That is not really the case. Germany certainly wanted cheap gas, but there was also the theory that integrating Russia economically will prevent conflicts. While ultimately a wrong decision, it was not entirely stupid.

But regarding gas, one has to understand that a tiny fraction (15%) of gas is used for electricity and most for heating. So nuclear power is completely irrelevant here.

I also would like people realize that many nuclear plants in Europe and elsewhere still depend on fuel from Russia. So energy dependence is a bit more complex.

> But regarding gas, one has to understand that a tiny fraction (15%) of gas is used for electricity and most for heating. So nuclear power is completely irrelevant here.

You know that homes can be heated with electricity from nuclear power? The reason why Germany uses gas for heating is because it was historically very cheap compared to electricity, because it came from Russia. Good, while the attached strings could be ignored..

Sure, but we are talking about what was the reality in Germany. And gas was and is needed mainly for heating (and also industry), so shutting down the nuclear plants did not increase dependency on Russian gas despite what people repeatedly claim. Also gas usage for power production did not increase afterwards, while Russian gas imports were stopped. Both simple facts contradicting this myth.

That’s BS, Gas is used for heating and industry ovens not for energy production.

Germany runs gas-fired power plants for electricity production.

And yet, Germany did quickly stop importing gas from Russia, while various other countries still depend on nuclear fuel from Rosatom.

How?

Unlike fossil fuel power plants, NPPs don't depend on a steady supply of a high volume of costly consumables just to keep running. Reactor fuel loads last months to years, naturally buffering any price shocks or supply chain issues. And you can maintain an "energy security" stockpile of nuclear fuel that would add you even more years of runaway.

To have your nuclear power disrupted, you have to face an adversary that's both capable and willing to hit targets on your soil, and on top of that, is willing to target NPP infrastructure specifically.

A random rogue state lobbing mid-range drones over a strait wouldn't cut it. Neither would a war halfway around the world.

Russia already showed it‘s willing to hit targets on German soil. Of course not openly.

To attack you just need an inside man and an USB stick to fake an accident.

And with the AfD they get the information about critical infrastructure free of charge

I vaguely remember a quote that said:

“People act reasonably when left no other choice”

It stuck with me.

Which means new nuclear is about the worst thing we can spend our limited resources on since it won't be coming online until the 2040s, and then at a ruinosuly expensive price.

Meanwhile renewables and storage are reshaping our global energy system due to being the cheapest globally scalable energy source in human history.

We also need to keep in mind nuclear supply chains. After 21 sanction packages the EU still haven't sanctioned Russia's nuclear industry.

We're simply too deeply entangled across the entire supply chain: nuclear fuel, enrichment, reprocessing, technological partnerships, reactor maintenance, new construction and more.

Or more probably, it's imputable to biology and the natural replacement of the "old guard" by adults who didn't grow up during nukes schizophrenia. Or in other words, I doubt that those folks reasoned themselves out of the irrational fear for nuclear energy that they did not reason themselves into.

"the environment is improved one funeral at a time" -- Planck principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

I'm not sure it's irrational. It's perhaps oversensitive. There are dozens of nuclear power incidents rated at levels of 5+, affecting the wider region.

In the UK, Sellafield was a nightmare. Lots of less serious slip ups and malfunctions punctuated by a few critical incidents, between 1954 and 2003. You might understand why yesterday's Green Party might think it an issue worth pursuing.

As other people have mentioned, it's very likely not the same people; but rather more anti-nuclear people leaving the organization or dying, and more pro-nuclear people joining.

It really does feel a day late and a dollar short for Europe, especially Germany.

This is such a bummer. Russia still has good long term energy plans for Germany. (if you are European this is sarcasm).

Now by selling them uranium!

I believe a lot of uranium comes from Australia?

Definitely risks in the supply chain there, but probably less than Russia?

> Russia still has good long term energy plans for Germany

What do you mean?

There are suspicions that German energy policy was effectively controlled/influenced by Russia in the early 2000s.

E.g the ex chancellor is now paid handsomely https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...

I believe more recently there was an expose about some other politicians at that time having links to Russia, although don’t have them to hand right now.

It’s sarcasm. Russia does not have good long term energy plans for Germany.

I bet they are happy about it. Only need to sabotage one big power plant to get chaos.

Or the panic when the next drones appear near a power plant

Reply on news.ycombinator.com