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German Parliament Backs Nuclear Exit By 2022
fysdt sends this quote from an AFP report:
"The German parliament sealed plans Friday to phase out nuclear energy by 2022, making the country the first major industrial power to take the step in the wake of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant. The nuclear exit scheme cleared its final hurdle in the Bundesrat upper house, which represents the 16 regional states, after the legislation passed the Bundestag lower house with an overwhelming majority last week. Germany's seven oldest reactors were already switched off after Japan's massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing reactors to overheat and radiation to leak. A further reactor has been shut for years because of technical problems."
...we going to see an earthquate and tsunami in Germany to justify this fearmongering?
Prior to the disaster I had heard of improved reactor designs that supposedly could not melt down.
Anyone know if these designs are limited to the small scale versions (the size of a semi trailer) Toshiba has designed, or can they be scaled up?
Hey Germany- you buy much of your electricity from France...they have nuclear reactors- are building more, and are right next to you. Good luck with this experiment in futility. You're probably going to kill more people in the long run with such knee jerk reactions.
Do they have a lot of problems with tsunamis in Germany?
Quit posting news from the Onion. Oh, wait. Germany did what?!!
A dog is walking along a street. A car comes racing down the street, hits the dog, and throws it 30 feet. The dog impacts against a phone pole. It survives and learns its lesson: It never goes near that phone pole again.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
building new coal and gas power plants
So, instead of nuclear energy -- which has killed only a handful of people over the past few decades -- they would rather have coal, which has killed at least hundreds of thousands of people in that same period of time. Never mind the long lasting environmental hazards created by coal mining and the toxins that coal fired power plants spew as part of their normal operation -- nuclear is obviously a much greater concern.
Palm trees and 8
importing your energy resources from the other side of the world is not the greatest idea in the world.
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*if* they were replacing their nuke plants with other sources of clean energy. If you knock down one source of clean energy and replace it with another one, this really affects nobody other than the folks paying the bill.
But they're not -- they're replacing them in part with coal/gas plants, according to TFA. This ought to be regarded by non-paranoid people as a step backward.
Japan's nuclear disaster has proven to me that neither the companies responsible for nuclear power plants, nor the people responsible for ostensibly regulating them can be trusted. I think Germany's decision is absolutely correct until we can come up with a better political/organizational technology for regulating nuclear power plants.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Common Germany, your engineering is some of the finest. Think long term and if nothing else, put money into research of "Thorium" or "Travelling Wave" reactors, the type championed by Bill Gates. Both of these are completely safe and the waste is minimal.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
From what I can see, I hope the European Union survives till then (with Greece, Portugal and Ireland in it), but if it does, most of the new nuclear reactors in France would be powering the industrial complex of Germany.
In some sense, that does make a lot of sense to have a single nation throw their weight behind a tech and sort of specialize in it. On the other hand, naming Fukushima as a cause is just political pandering of the lowest kind.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
If any country has the engineering capacity to move off of Nuclear for base-load power, it is Germany. Blast Germany all you want to, but I hope they make it work. Maybe America could use a little more vision.
Unless you have lived in Germany, you probably aren't aware just how controversial nuclear power has been, especially since the 1970s. Germany was planning on quitting Nuclear power once the useful life span of their reactors expired, but Chancellor Merkel reversed this decision in what was derisively known as the "Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg" or in English, the "Exit from the Exit" from atomic energy. Then Fukushima happened on the eve of provincial elections in Baden-Wuertenberg. So she reversed course just in time, but her Christian Democratic Union still lost the election to the Green Party for the first time since the end of WW 2.
I don't agree on Merkels U-Turns every time public opinion shifts, but I am in favor of ending Nuclear energy. The contaminated (evacuated) zone around Chernobyl is the size of Switzerland. If something similar happened in Germany, they would loose a major chunk of their country. Just food for thought.
I'll probably go down in flames from the nuclear fanboys, this being /. and all. Sometimes, I think they are more afraid of someone finding an alternative than they are of an actual mishap. Maybe Nuclear power makes sense in a larger country such as the USA, or Russia in an isolated location. But in Germany, a mishap would be catastrophic and affect the livelihood of tens of millions of people. Yes, I do live in Germany.
Sadly, I have to agree with what they're doing. For a long time I was all for nuclear power since it seemed to be the only realistic source of clean energy. However, as we have learned, corporations and government agencies simply cannot be trusted with anything as important as making sure nuclear power is produced in a safe manner. There will always be some level of incompetence, laziness, or greed that will make 100% safe nuclear power impossible.
giggity
Frist Post
Just how many Tsunamis are hitting Germany these days? I hadn't known the country to contain that much of a coast along a major deep sea fault line. Is Lex Luthor now in control of the alternative energy market and causing earthquakes to happen under the streets of Berlin? What isn't the news really telling us?
"The Bundesrat also approved measures to fill the gap left by nuclear power, on which Germany relies for about 22 percent of its energy needs.
These include building new coal and gas power plants, although Berlin is sticking to its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, and by 80-95 percent by 2050."
So, they're building new coal and gas-fired plants to fill in the gap in energy production, both of which will likely be imported at ever-increasing expense, but they're still going to cut CO2 output?
Either closing the gap left by nuclear power or reducing CO2 would be challenging enough. But both? At the same time? With world oil supply declines also expected over the same time period? Germany is going to implode in an industrial sense. At this rate the real money makers in a decade or two are going to be anyone with a spare cord of firewood in the winter.
"France's Nuclear Energy Sector predicts strong growth in French Electricity Exports"
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Strohdumme Amis halt...
Since the first halt, Germany became a net power importer from France -- whereas it used to be the other way around. And of course France generates 80% of its power from nuclear. So yeah, they aren't really doing anything except shuffling the plants around.
France is going to make out pretty well from all this, probably going to end up as the major electricity producer on the continent. They are already reaping major economies of scale, having the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing electricity prices in Europe.
what are we going to say cohorts of nuclear energy geeks who were ...... doh nevermind.
Read radical news here
The cost of a major nuclear disaster in Germany has been conservatevely calculated to be in the area of one two three times the GDP. The taxpayers don't want to bend over and pay this sum.
What is the deadline for phasing out organic beansprouts?
Nuclear power became very unpopular after the Chernobyl accident. This lead to a nuclear power plant exit strategy in 2001 implemented by the red-green coalition (liberal and progressive) government. The exit date was around 2020/2022. Just recently the autumn 2010 the black-yellow coalition (conservatives) changed that plan to something in the 2030ies. then the Japanese had that bid disaster and the black-yellow coalition became very, very unpopular, because of their recent gift for the energy oligopoly. So in panic they changed it back to 2022. The only difference is, that seven old plants and one new one (which was broken for years now) are offline. The old one are so secure that you can built you own Fukushima-accident in Germany with a sport plane.
However, it is very interesting to hear that there are so many people telling Germany: You don't make it. It is not possible to switch. Lets say your're right. We never know until we've tried. But, when you are wrong then what will you do?
There is still a long way to go until 2022, and such "decisions" are likely to change - more than once. This looks more like a "decision" that is designed to make politicians look better rather than an actual exit strategy.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Since nuclear power is heavily dependent on the availability of cheap oil, to maintain the plant operations, it only makes sense to shut them down now. Just imagine how difficult it would be to shut down a reactor without all of the gasoline/diesel powered equipment, and when the workers no longer show up for work.
I wish Germany good luck in coming up with ten new coal plants by 2022. Good luck finding a place to put them because no one wants their area to be smogged down.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Germany in the future will be a major importer of electric power. They will be to France on electricity as the US is to OPEC on petroleum: a captive market.
Am I the only one who always reads that as the "Fukushima Damacy" nuclear plant? ...What? The King wanted his uranium back...
By using the fear that was created by the nuclear meltdown in Japan the German government will be creating an artificial scarcity of electric power with a fairly predictable effect on economic output. Masking what the government must think is going to be a period of economic stagnation anyway, because of reduced exports to America... and instead being able to blame a reduction in GDP on scarcity created by the nation's shift away from nuclear towards a "safer" and "greener" economy.
The European Green movement was heavily, but indirectly, funded by the Soviet Union in the 60s/70s. It was also heavily infiltrated by communists. Perhaps we are seeing the modern day remnants of these old KGB ties being used to put Germany in a position to be more dependent upon Russian natural gas. Hey the Russian government is run by former KGB types.
I think it took two months for the following news to leak out and it appears it still hasn't reached you:
Some of the reactor cores melted even before the tsunami shut down the backup power systems.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
1. There is no nuclear threat from nuclear power. There have been 2 major disasters in the 60 years nuclear power has been running, and one of them has caused zero injury. This is a bunch of media-fueled hype, probably funded by the oil industry.
2. Congrats on removing a relatively clean source of power without any plans for what will replace it. I'm sure the options are coal, or oil, or natural gas...all of which are huge polluters and are not in any way as clean as nuclear. Yay progress.
Fucking idiots. Everybody in politics, no matter which country, is a moron.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
...when some random reactor in France overloads and spews radioactivity all over Germany.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
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You can't put a 'made in Germany' sign on the lack of something.
I'm happy enough letting you guys ban nuclear, and then seeing how our respective economies compare three decades from now. I'll wager that your decision will be eagerly reversed, once the results become clear. (And results will become clear.)
importing your nuclear energy from across your border with France is, however, brilliant.
Until the day after you shut down the last German reactor and find France has just raised the price of power by 600x...
Relying on anyone else for fundamental resources like power is idiotic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Great! I will sell you my house within 100 miles of Fukushima with a nice discount! (you know, I have offered this many times to nuke fanboys, and they never seem to take up the offer . . . Could BS travel more easily from the mouth than the wallet?)
Nuclear power is cleaner than coal power in a perfectly predictable world. It only takes one significant nuclear mishap to completely change the situation. At least with coal, the level of pollution is predictable, and you never have a large density of contaminants focused in a small but highly populated and vulnerable region.
Drop the hubris. Until we invent a way to clean up a mess like Fukushima, we are not ready for the technology. Face it, we screw up all the time, so we should only pick technologies that can be cleaned up after a screw-up. Anything else is a bunch of geeks self-gratifying themselves.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
There is not much of a difference here.
Yes there is. What you don't understand was the Chernobyl design was essentially a controlled bomb - when they lost control, off went the bomb, thus irradiating a huge area.
In any accident you can dream up, exposure would be measured in tens of miles, not an area "the size of Switzerland". Yes, even a plane hitting it... a well built reactor simply cannot contaminate a huge area. That was true in Japan and is true for Germany. They have just chosen to end prosperity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bill Gates drops bid for a German Parliament seat.
Three Strikes and Germany is out of electrical power!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Very disappointing they are not pursuing "safe" reactor technology which if far more fiscally sustainable than solar and wind.
I wasn't going to say it but....the German gov't is a bunch of idiots.
Sounds to me like blind gree-ness is the new Hitler. Sieg heil and sayonara you jackasses.
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What are they going to use for base load?
What the fuck have you invented, bub?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/08/france-nuclear-idUKLDE7670HA20110708
Not to inject politics where it doesn't belong, but quite frankly, I find that the vast majority of the issues relating to nuclear power safety stem from one simple problem: Power Plants, Nuclear or otherwise, are built and operated by the lowest bidder. Safety is expensive. When you're a corporation, and you have choices between cheap and expensive, as long as cheap is legal (and often even when it isn't, as long as you don't get caught!) you're gonna choose cheap. There are very few corporations who don't follow this logic. Nevermind that the real cost of a system failure is measured in millions of dead people (and for that matter, millions of dead customers). For a corporation, profit is profit, and as long as the risk of catastrophic meltdown is minimal enough, if they can save 19 cents each on nuts and bolts, they will.
Nuclear Power Plants should NEVER be owned by for-profit companies. They should be owned and operated by governments, or in lieu of that, non-profit organizations who devote 100% of the income from the power to maintenance and upgrading the plant, and staffed entirely with unpaid volunteers, and even then with massive government oversight and random inspection on a weekly or even daily basis.
Anyhow...I'm just saying, business is good at doing many things. Roads, power lines, schools, and public transit are all handled universally better by private corporations than government bureaucracies. But when saving a buck costs lives, it's best to leave it to those who don't have a budget to stick to. Hospitals, Nuclear Power Plants, and Bridges should be the sole domain of those who have massive boatloads of cash to throw at the problem until it works perfectly.
And yes, I realize the distinction between roads and bridges may seem a bit strange, but it's simple really. Roads slowly crumble away over many years and people have time to adjust for those. Bridge collapses kill instantly. Anything that can be designed or built in such a way that it it can kill users without warning shouldn't be built by a for-profit company.
They'll phase out domestic nuclear power production and then import nuclear power from France.
>>>
Nuclear energy is one of those things - very easy to dismiss out of hand but the only sane choice if done right...
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If you think some countries did it right, please list them. Otherwise you are just hoping and guessing.
But the real problem is not reactor design, it's the storage of the goddam nuclear waste!
That problem has not been solved (and is inherently unsolvable, some say).
Also, nuclear power is another example of "socialize the losses, privatize the profit", as the utilities can never be held accountable for losses from radioactive disaster - it's the state who has to pay. The sums set aside by the companies themselves are ridiculous.
The reactors themselves are usually built with subsidies (because it's so expensive) and the deconstruction is also assumed to be paid by the taxpayer.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
You know, I'm personally more interested to see what Japan will do after this then other countries. While other countries are screaming like ninnies, as are their sheeples, I bet they're going to tear down their old reactors and build new ones in their place... push for newer designs... invest in what caused a massive accident, research it, and make sure it never happens again all the while never forsaking a course of action they thought was prudent in the first place.
Amateurs. North Korea is not only phasing our nuclear-generated electricity; they're phasing out electricity altogether! This is great for astronomers in the country, and leaves a much smaller environmental footprint.
They'll just invade France again.
They won't do that... they wouldn't get any power, since as soon as France was controlled by Germany, they'd be phasing out the reactors in (the former) France as well.
-- Terry
The greater death rate from coal is manageable because we have systems which easily handle it along with other common causes of death in the modern world. Coal is a "non-disruptive" killer like nicotine.
Nuclear accidents are extremely rare but their effects are concentrated and highly disruptive even when they don't cause many casualties!
The disruption is the problem, not the dead people!
As an aside, that's what makes "terrorism" so effective. If Al Qaeda transparently added several thousand deaths to "accepted" causes of death it wouldn't be "scary" and wouldn't accomplish their goals.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Think rationally please. Let us even ignore the facts and deaths that will be caused by global warming. Let us even ignore the future. The facts are that the safest form of industrial power generation per watt that we have ever used is nuclear power even if you include Chernobyl and Fukushima. Cola does not cut it because of pollution caused deaths. Solar doesn't cut it because of the pollution caused in making them (and the coal burnt to make them). Only tidal power has a lower deaths per watt. So what you are saying is that it isn't SANE to use any form of power generation. Well, guess what, that puts us back in the caves with a life expectancy of forty if we are lucky. No medicine, no industry, nothing. So, not having power will cause even more deaths. If we want to opt for the lowest death rate then it isn't SANE to use anything except nuclear power.
Operating (or building) any infrastructure as a business is just insane. Infrastructure is there to support other activities. Hospitals, parks, planes, railways, roads, power distribution systems, communications, none of these should be for profit enterprises. Int the past and in many places these have gone from public to private hands at great cost to consumers. A for profit business requires efficiency and there are places, particularly in infrastructure, where efficiency is not necessarily the best way to go. Safety is more important than efficiency.
If you recycle the nuclear fuel you will get another twenty-fold increase, so you can make that 400 to 660 times less.
repeating this nonsens doesn't make it any more true. It won't happen much more than in the past. Germany is currently producing a lot more energy than it needs. All we need to do in the future is to stop electricity exports and upping the renewable energy production a bit further - and that's already work in progress.
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Just imagine what we might have by 500 years! I say go for IFR's NOW! They are the ONLY economical way to do carbon-free baseload power without bankrupting the economy.
What a slap in the face to the German people. Fear mongering, now over ripe BS from Greenpeace. Probably one of Germany's darkest hours. Certainly since post war. This isn't rocket science. They can make them safe. What happened in Japan was unconcionable. How could they put nuclear reactors in such a place? Oh, that's right. Not just one reactor, many reactors/plants. Not sure how they managed to get it built. Basic risk would have said no (in fact not just no, "are you crazy"). Sign of the Japanese. They were just made to stop whaling too. International people had to tell them to stop that as well.
Are just pulling this out of thin air or why are people spreading complete crap here? Just because Germany has such machinery it doesn't mean most of the electricity is from coal.
Here that's last year's energy mix in Germany: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F7%2F74%2FStrommix-D-2010.svg
Yes, that's 43% coal in total, but not the majority. It's a huge share, too huge if you ask me. But it won't increase significantly next years. The coal plants that are planned to be build until 2022 are mostly replacements for the old, aging and really dirty plants that are currently running. They were planned to be build either way, no matter if we shut down the nuclear power plants or not. So that share won't be affected.
What will be affected is the 22% nuclear energy share (it will drop to 0 by 2022) and the renewable energy share (currently around 17% if I calculated right) which is supposed to exceed 30% by 2022. Calculate in the saving by not exporting as much electricity and you'll see that there is no need to produce more electricity from coal.
Now put that into perspective with China (78% coal, 2% renewable energy) and the US (50% coal, 9% renewable energy) and then you'll see that you better think twice before telling anyone how to produce electricity.