France To Shut Down All Coal-Fired Power Plants By 2023 (independent.co.uk)

French president Francois Hollande announced at an annual UN climate change conference on Wednesday that France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023. He also "vowed to beat by two years the UK's commitment to stop using fossil fuels to generate power by 2025," reports The Independent: Mr Hollande, a keynote speaker at the event in Marrakech, Morocco, also praised his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama for his work on climate change, and then appeared to snub president-elect Donald Trump. "The role played by Barack Obama was crucial in achieving the Paris agreement," Mr Hollande said, before adding, in what has been perceived as a dig at Mr Trump, that becoming a signatory to the treaty is "irreversible." "We need carbon neutrality by 2050," the French President continued, promising that coal will no longer form part of France's energy mix in six to seven years' time. France is already a world leader in low-carbon energy. The country has invested heavily in nuclear power over the past few decades and now derives more than 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear fission. It produces so much nuclear energy, in fact, that it exports much of it to nearby nations, making around $2.66 billion each year.

Comments

What Hollande says

[manu0601]

Anyone still believe what president Hollande says? At least in France he does not have much trust left.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollande is extremely honest compared to Trump.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't much in the way of praise.

It's like saying you're less of a talentless slut than Paris Hilton, or more pleasant and thoughtful than Ted Nugent, or more likely to win the world series than the Chicago Cubs.

Re:What Hollande says

[Dutch Gun]

I can't speak for France's trust (or lack thereof) of Hollande. But one thing the US could do in emulating France is to start replacing our coal plants with more nuclear, especially in areas where solar or wind aren't a good fit. It's not like it isn't a proven, feasible technology. I still can't understand how environmentalists could be opposed to it, if they truly believe what scientists are telling us about what's happening with AGW and what the long term effects may be. Yes, nuclear is a compromise. We have to extract ore, it's potentially dangerous, and it generates very nasty waste products. But wouldn't it be worth compromising on this point a bit to get to carbon neutrality faster? We have the rest of history to start phasing nuke power plants out with better technologies, and there are theoretical ways to deal with the waste products other than simply burying it in the ground.

Maybe we should tell Trump that building a bunch of nuclear plants would really piss off the wacko environmentalists, create a bunch of new 'murican jobs, and help lessen oil dependency from all those foreign commies and terrorists. Sometimes, you just have to sell these things with your target audience in mind.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey. The Cubs DID win this year...

Re:What Hollande says

[dcollins]

"theoretical ways to deal with the waste products" = "no actual ways to deal with the waste products"

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that many European countries have successfully dealt with it. Only the fucking stupid Americans have decided to not reprocess fuel rods, and consequently are generating stupid quantities of radioactive waste. Get over your 1970's Jimmy Carter stupidity, start reprocessing fuel rods, and deal with two issues at once.

Re:What Hollande says

[CapOblivious2010]

"theoretical ways to deal with the waste products" = "no actual ways to deal with the waste products"

As opposed to coal and other fossil fuels, where we have a very effective way of dealing with the waste products: just let them go up the smokestack!

P.S. You do know that coal mining releases more radiation into the air, and kills more people, than nuclear power - right?

Re:What Hollande says

[Reeeeeeeeeee]

Who cares about making environmental jobs when it helps the environment? Who needs jobs anyway?

Re:What Hollande says

[Dutch Gun]

So, you believe that even in the next century or two we won't figure out how to deal with the waste? That seems a bit unlikely to me. And what if the result of a stubborn opposition to nuclear power is that we simply hang onto our coal plants? That would seem like a rather Pyrrhic victory. It really feels like opponents to nuclear are risking the life of the forest to save a single tree.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for France's trust (or lack thereof) of Hollande. But one thing the US could do in emulating France is to start replacing our coal plants with more nuclear, especially in areas where solar or wind aren't a good fit.

I still like nuclear as a power source, provided they stop extending the lifetimes of the old plants and un-mothball Yucca mountain. Decommission them and replace them with current tech. We also need to find one good design and use it everywhere, otherwise the economies of scale are non existent. Beyond that we just need to make sure all appropriate procedures are followed.

Until we have a better base load source, nuclear should likely continue to play a role, but we _must_ get rid of all the old and much less safe plants.

Then again, keeping nuclear safe does require fairly competent people, and we did just elect an orange bombastic monkey child who is likely going to be appointing people who influence how thorough some nuclear power plant inspections and such actually are...

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

No there are entirely non-theoretical, actual proven ways. About the worst possible thing you can do with the waste is what we do, store it on site in big swimming pools. Reprocessing and feeding into breeder reactors works.

Re:What Hollande says

[bzipitidoo]

Seems that mistake in Scientific American will never be lived down:

In response to some concerns raised by readers, a change has been made to this story. The sentence marked with an asterisk was changed from "In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—and other coal waste contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste" to "In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J. P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.

Coal waste is NOT more radioactive than nuclear waste. The difference is that nuclear waste is not dumped into the environment, while waste from coal burning is. Nuclear waste is stored, and storage space is limited. Permanent dumps for nuclear waste are difficult to engineer. They must be designed to hold nuclear waste for millennia.

The big problem with nuclear power is that accidents are extremely dangerous and costly. That wouldn't be a problem if accidents were extremely unlikely. We know how to design and operate nuclear power plants safely, the problem is that we won't. Fukushima showed that. That accident was entirely avoidable. They needed only to build the walls higher. They had good information on how high the walls needed to be, and the recommended height was not a strain on our engineering capabilities. But management chose to ignore the recommendations and build a lower wall, to save a little money. The fools in those management positions did not understand that the risk they were taking was very high, they chose instead to ignore the warnings. Disaster could still have been averted had they not also cut another corner to save a little money, and the backup generators had been in working order and not located in the basement.

Re:What Hollande says

[KeensMustard]

Complaints from environmentalists have hardly never stopped us in the past - why would it now?

No, the problem for nuclear is that coal is a giant jobs program (at least it was in the past, that is changing now), and elected officials get plenty of money form the coal industry - they suckle on that teat like they haven't eaten for eons. By way of example Trump is coal man, the chance of him walking away from that trough to embrace nuclear are about zero.

Re:What Hollande says

[aberglas]

Are you agreeing or disagreeing?

The claim was that coal dumps more radiation *into the air*. Would make sense given that their is very little nuclear radiation leak into the air.

As to accidents, with the notable exception of Cherbynol, there have been very few and most of the cost has been due to the hysteria. Very few people died in Fukushima compared to those killed by the tidal wave itself.

Re:What Hollande says

[Dutch Gun]

This is what happens when something turns into an -ism. I think opposition to nuclear is based more on dogma and irrational fear than anything else at this point.

Here's a thought: maybe we should listen to specialists (say, nuclear scientists and engineers, and throw in some statisticians to tally up safety records) about whether modern nuclear power is safe and effective enough to use. Because, I'm pretty sure the science is settled at this point. Should we also should start calling opponents "nuclear deniers"?

Re:What Hollande says

[Michael Woodhams]

We know how to design and operate nuclear power plants safely, the problem is that we won't. ... They needed only to build the walls higher.

Build walls higher, put generators above flood level, and make allowance for safely venting hydrogen, so that things don't progress from bad to total disaster.

According to one source I read, the USA realized the risk of hydrogen explosion and retrofitted all their stations to allow for safe venting. The Japanese chose not to retrofit. (Warning - the source was a USA nuclear engineer, but I read it years ago, and my memory is fallible.)

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also quite a bit of radioactive byproduct from

Re:What Hollande says

[Dorianny]

If Climate Change was not a concern I would say shut down all Nuclear Plants, but it is not only a concern it is a HUGE one. Compared to the global catastrophe that will be brought on by Rising sea levels, droughts and extreme weather phenomena, the Localized Chernobys/Fukushima Nuclear disasters seem like Small Fries

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Hillary would have been happy with "more honest than Trump" praise from almost anyone.

Re:What Hollande says

[ClickOnThis]

I still can't understand how environmentalists could be opposed to [nuclear power], if they truly believe what scientists are telling us about what's happening with AGW and what the long term effects may be.

Actually, environmentalists are on board when it comes to nuclear power, for the very reasons you mentioned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/en...

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

"theoretical ways to deal with the waste products" = "no actual ways to deal with the waste products"

Just because your country refuses to use the proven technology to deal with the waste products, that many other countries are currently using to do just that - does NOT mean the technology doesn't exist.

Re:What Hollande says

[Orgasmatron]

"Very few" = zero, if we are talking about radiation deaths at/around Fukushima.

Re:What Hollande says

[Orgasmatron]

We already know "how" to deal with the waste. We just don't have the political will to actually do it.

Re:What Hollande says

[ShanghaiBill]

Anyone still believe what president Hollande says?

Who cares? He will be long gone by 2023, and nobody will even remember this meaningless promise.

Re:What Hollande says

[SvnLyrBrto]

Easy solution: Give regulatory control of the nuclear power industry to the navy. No joke. The US Navy has been operating nuclear reactors... hundreds of them... for nearly as long as there's been such a thing. And they have a perfect operational safety record. That is: zero nuclear accidents in the 62 years since the USS Nautilus was launched in 1954. (They *have* lost two nuclear submarines at sea. But neither the Thresher nor Scorpion were lost due to reactor accidents.)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

They do it by standardizing on a small number of reactor designs (Generally one per ship/sub class. Though the S5W persisted from the Skipjack class until it was replaced by the S6G with the Los Angeles.), training the sweet holy hell out of their people (There are stories of standing desks at power school, so trainees don't fall asleep while sitting and studying... and of the occasional *thump* when someone standing falls asleep anyway.), and holding them strictly accountable to operations and safety standards throughout their careers.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try Hillary, nice try.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

P.S. You do know that coal mining releases more radiation into the air, and kills more people, than nuclear power - right?

You know that's clever idiocy - right? Opposition to nuclear does not mean support for coal. Now, here's a buttplug you can use to fill that hole in your head:

Your logical fallacy is...false dichotomy.

Re:What Hollande says

[h33t l4x0r]

The alt-right opposes clean renewables. Remind me again who's being unreasonable?

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. You do know that coal mining releases more radiation into the air, and kills more people, than nuclear power - right?

You know that's clever idiocy - right? Opposition to nuclear does not mean support for coal. Now, here's a buttplug you can use to fill that hole in your head:

Your logical fallacy is...false dichotomy.

Personal attack side, you are wrong. You can choose between nuclear, fossil and renewable energy. Given that renewable is not cheap and stable enough at the moment, you are left with the choice between nuclear and fossil, and fossil is mainly coal.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

"they have a perfect operational safety record"

"as far as the public are aware they have a perfect operational safety record"

FTFY

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mobile chernobyl" turns out to be much more costly and vuln to terrorism/ accidents than leavin the stuff at the plants. Yucca Mt is also a terrible site.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Right, in the same way the number of deaths from smoking will be "zero" if you and your circle of friends start smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day, every day, for the next four years.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Your stupidity. There is no amount of reprocessing that will make nuclear power cost effective. Disagree, name the nuclear power plant that charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

You can't do that because that nuclear power plant doesn't exist. Because nuclear power is corporate welfare masking ongoing nuclear weapons programs.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Personal attack side, you are wrong.

Fainting couch aside, no. I'm not.

You can choose between nuclear, fossil and renewable energy. Given that renewable is not cheap and stable enough at the moment

In the context of nuclear power??? That's like saying you can't afford $2,000 to fix your leaky roof (before hurricane season) so you can take a $200,000 vacation to Paris.

Renewables are already cost effective next to coal, much less the mother-of-all-corporate-welfare-programs, nuclear power. There is no nuclear power plant in existence that charges its customers the full cost of mining, refining, construction, security, maintenance, disaster preparedness and waste disposal.

All of this has been known since the '70's, and nothing has changed. So, drab and beige, or maybe a nice bondi blue? The color of the plug in your head, I mean.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There is no amount of reprocessing that will make nuclear power cost effective.

Of course, that's because fresh fuel is cheaper. But you Americans have been too spoiled by your cheap natural gas to realize that in Europe (where France is located), nuclear power is perfectly cost-effective.

Re:What Hollande says

[Some nick or other]

Both are. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend!

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Nuclear power is both currently and for the foreseeable future the cheapest way to provide significant and environment-friendly night-time baseload. And I'm saying that as someone utterly convinced that solar will ultimately win in the long run (for its physical advantages).

Re:What Hollande says

[thegarbz]

"theoretical ways to deal with the waste products" = "no actual ways to deal with the waste products"

These solutions are just theoretical in America. They very much exist in actual various forms in France who often take nuclear waste from other countries to process.

Re:What Hollande says

[JaredOfEuropa]

There are stories of standing desks at power school, so trainees don't fall asleep while sitting and studying... and of the occasional *thump* when someone standing falls asleep anyway

I hope that this doesn't reflect their operational environment...

Re:What Hollande says

[thegarbz]

That accident was entirely avoidable. They needed only to build the walls higher. They had good information on how high the walls needed to be, and the recommended height was not a strain on our engineering capabilities. But management chose to ignore the recommendations and build a lower wall, to save a little money. The fools in those management positions did not understand that the risk they were taking was very high, they chose instead to ignore the warnings.

Anyone who distils a disaster down to a specific layer blamed on a specific set of people fundamentally doesn't have a clue how accidents, risks, or their mitigation works.

I suggest you start reading some books which analyse how such incidents come to be before applying your expert opinion.

Re:What Hollande says

[thegarbz]

They do it by standardizing on a small number of reactor designs

Well there goes your idea.

No seriously, there are fundamental differences in management of a standardised platform vs a collection of assets which were each built independently. One model attempting to copy the other typically ends in disaster. The Navy is excellent in maintaining their safety as their management is tailed to their standard design. Handing the entire industry over to the Navy would just result in the loss of many years of learnt lessons and the repeat of many years worth of mistakes as they try to come up with a way of massaging their fundamentally incompatible processes around something it was never designed to manage.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Reprocessing produces MORE waste, than not reprocessing.
You are mixing up spent fuel with waste.

Re:What Hollande says

[dunkelfalke]

They do it by using very special and extremely expensive reactors and very highly enriched fuel (90%) or so. The latter part is already cost-prohibitive. The reactors are also quite small, barely larger than research reactors, have a limited lifespan (half of a commercial nuclear powerplant) and are only refuelled once or twice during their lifetime, instead of every year or two. All these reasons make American marine reactors much safer, but not really comparable to commercial reactors. If commercial reactors would be built and operated the same way, electricity would cost several orders of magnitude more.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Chernobyl was not localized.
In south germany and south sweden you still can not eat mushrooms harvested from the woods and game is unsafe to eat.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

And what exactly does your tautology mean?
Countries that have nuclear power most likely cover all their night time base load with nuclear power aleady.
There is no point in building more except you want a few for day time load following ...

Re:What Hollande says

[dwillden]

"There is no nuclear power plant in existence that charges its customers the full cost of mining, refining, construction, security, maintenance, disaster preparedness and waste disposal."

You keep stating this, citation needed. Yes they are very expensive to build, but produce for decades with very little actual fuel (as opposed to the constant supply of coal or NG needed for fossil fuel plants). And dismantling afterwards adds to the total cost. But if we can reduce the kneejerk reactions and opposition and cut the needless delays that often add years and multiply the total cost of construction the initial cost can be brought down. You say no plant charges it's customers in full yet most plants (at least in the west) are owned by power companies, how are those companies still operating and wanting to continue operating such plants.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Erm, no.
France is not reprocessing any waste. That is impossible, there is nothing in waste that is usefull for anything.
What france and others are doing is: reprocessing a mediocre amount of spent fuel, producing a tiny amount of reuseable new fuel and a huge amount of waste.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

So you prefer to believe what Marine LePen says? Good luck with that.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Best make that two buttplugs, one for each ear, and a mallet to hit them in with. You're a fucking idiot with no fact to back your claims.

Re:What Hollande says

[drinkypoo]

It's not like it isn't a proven, feasible technology. I still can't understand how environmentalists could be opposed to it

Well, it's pretty simple. Even in the best case you have an expensive and toxic cleanup process at the end, waste is not being managed correctly, and if your goal is to preserve the future from coal, risking it with nuclear is not intelligent especially when we already have alternatives.

Re:What Hollande says

[Sique]

Apparently not in Great Britain, where HInkley Point C seems to get more expensive every year without actually being running yet, and even with the current 25 billion pounds in subsidies, the operators coming from France and China want to get out as they fear to lose too much money on the project.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Only because currently, waste management is pile it somewhere and wait for a solution. 50 years of waiting and still no solution ... Waste keep piling up, especially the low radioactive long life kind. And when old power plants will need to be stopped, it will generate a huge amount of waste that noone knows how to handle except waiting a few hundreds of thousands of years ...

Re:What Hollande says

[AmiMoJo]

Nuclear plants can't charge the customer the full cost, because they can't get insurance for their full liability. No insurer will cover the potential losses in full. Governments have to cover the risk, which is kinda insane because if the worst happens it could easily bankrupt them. I guess the implication is that if that did happen, the government would do something to avoid paying out in full.

Re:What Hollande says

[CrimsonAvenger]

In south germany and south sweden you still can not eat mushrooms harvested from the woods and game is unsafe to eat.

Oddly enough, the wildlife (both plant and animal (and people)) in the Chernobyl exclusion zone are doing fine. Better than outside the exclusion zone, in fact.

So, is the problem in southern Sweden and Germany laws that declare the "safe" level of radioactivity to be so low that the level is impossible to achieve? Or is it more radioactive there than right around Chernobyl itself?

Re:What Hollande says

[AmiMoJo]

If by "dealt with it" you mean "lobbed spent fuel in an open pool frequented by birds and other wildlife" then yeah, we dealt with it quite successfully.

In fact a lot of our waste is being shipped to China for burial. We really need to stop using China as landfill.

Re:What Hollande says

[CrimsonAvenger]

I hope that this doesn't reflect their operational environment...

At sea, the operational environment is one six-hour watch followed by up to six hours of PMS, followed by six hours of "everything else" (food, sleep, that sort of thing). Then you repeat (yes, submariners live with an 18-hour day) till you get back to port.

That's with the reactor on, of course. When the reactor is shutdown, you generally get to take it easy - only one watch per 24 hours....

Re:What Hollande says

[AmiMoJo]

The science isn't the issue, it's the engineering. In theory you can build a very safe reactor (not perfect, but very very good). In practice you have to design it, make sure that the design is flawless, then build it exactly to spec, and do it on a budget that will attract commercial investment. Then you have to operate it for decades, with constant pressure to reduce operating costs. You have to anticipate that 40 years later someone will say "we could use new material X to save a few bucks" or "this part was over-engineered and has never failed, we can downgrade it", and somehow make sure that they are as careful and diligent as you were before your retirement/death.

Turns out engineering is quite difficult. You need multiple people, all at the top of their game. Geologists, metallurgists, scientists, architects, software engineers, electrical engineers... The list is long, and some of their fields are still a long way from having a complete understanding of how they work or what the risks are. Many of the nuclear plants in Japan that were thought to be completely safe have now been found to rest on previously unknown fault lines, for example. The geologists in the 60s and 70s when they were planned and built weren't even incompetent, their field just wasn't advanced enough and sensitive enough equipment didn't exist.

These issues could be overcome, but I don't think people would like the cost. If you can find a cheaper way or convince people to pay, then maybe we can talk.

Re:What Hollande says

[dave420]

The problem is that you are confusing two different things: animals being able to live in the exclusion zone, and bioaccumulation of radioactive particles in animals/plants/fungi that people eat. Animal populations can do fine and still not be safe for people to eat. The two are not at all mutually exclusive.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

HP-C is a clusterfuck. But one bad way of doing a thing doesn't mean that that thing can't be done.

Re:What Hollande says

[dave420]

Owned by power companies, supported by government policy, which includes (but is not limited to) partial liability for accidents and guaranteeing energy prices (in some places). Pretending the energy companies gain nothing from governments is slightly bizarre, as it's demonstrably false.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Your... stupidity. Coal releases more radiation, and there are also no coal power plants that "charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse".

Also there's no possibility of reusing coal's waste, while there are multiple reactor designs that use as fuel the older designs' waste.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I have just invested in Arch Coal. I look forward to them profiting handsomely under the Trump Administration. Clean, green coal is the future.

Re:What Hollande says

[Rei]

Nearly the entire new generation of nukes has been one giant economic disaster after the next, both in the US and Europe. The most expensive "things" on Earth are now predominantly nuclear power plants (ISS tops the list if you count it as "on Earth", otherwise, the first "thing" on the list that's not a nuke plant is the LHC, which comes in several slots down). Hinkley Point tops the list among nuclear plants (~$35B USD and counting if you count interest and such, at least $18B if you just count construction costs), but it's got lots of company. By contrast, the Burj Khalifa was a piddling $1,5B.

In the US at least, nuclear power has always had more popularity on K Street than Wall Street. Nuclear died for decades, and the new "renaissance" died as well, not because of NIMBYs, but because investors abandoned it. Indeed, when you look at the cost breakdowns, "NIMBYs" have almost nothing to do with it. Look, for example, at the Olkiluoto #3 reactor in Finland. The project started in 2000. Construction started in 2005, with plants to open in 2010. Now it's not expected to open 2018-2020 (and I wouldn't bet my life on even that). Why? From Wikipedia:

In February 2014, TVO said that it is could not give an estimate of the plant's startup date, because it was "still waiting for the Areva-Siemen [sic] consortium to provide it with an updated overall schedule for the project."[37] Later the same month it was reported that Areva was shutting down construction due to the dispute over compensations and unfinished automation planning. According to Kauppalehti the estimated opening was delayed until 2018–2020.[27]

The delays have been due to various problems with planning, supervision, and workmanship,[5] and have been the subject of an inquiry by STUK, the Finnish nuclear safety regulator.[38] The first problems that surfaced were irregularities in the foundation concrete, and caused a delay of months. Later, it was found that subcontractors had provided heavy forgings that were not up to project standards and which had to be re-cast. An apparent problem constructing the reactor's unique double-containment structure also caused delays, as the welders had not been given proper instructions.[38]

In 2009, Petteri Tiippana, the director of STUK's nuclear power plant division, told the BBC that it was difficult to deliver nuclear power plant projects on schedule because builders were not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction sites, since so few new reactors had been built in recent years.[39]

At the end of 2013, TVO said that the Areva-Siemens consortium plans to reduce workers and subcontractors on the construction site and says that it expects the contractor to provide details about the expected impact on the project's schedule.[40]

After the construction of the unit started in 2005, Areva began constructing EPRs in Flamanville, France, and in Taishan, China. However, as of July 2012, the construction of the EPR in France is four years behind schedule,[6] and it seems that the two EPRs being constructed in China will be the first ones to enter service.[36]

Cost

The main contractor, Areva, is building the unit for a fixed price of €3 billion, so in principle, any construction costs above that price fall on Areva. In July 2012, those overruns were estimated at more than €2 billion,[36] and in December 2012, Areva estimated that the full cost of building the reactor would be about €8.5 billion, well over the previous estimate of €6.4 billion.[2][3] Because of the delays, TVO and Areva are both seeking compensation from each other through the International Court of Arbitration. In October 2013, TVO's demand for compensation from Areva had risen to €1.8 billion, and Areva's from TVO to €2.6 billion.[41] In December 2013, Areva increased its demand to €2.7 billion.[42] As of November 2016, the case is still ongoing.[43]

According to some estimates, Olkiluoto reactor could be the

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

A major problem of the "new generation of nukes" is the virtual lack of serial production. A tinkering approach is not going to cut it. Lack of design and construction continuity in the 1990s isn't helping any. You can see the devastating effects of this on the EPR.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

(Also, a funny thing is that even HP-C is not outrageously expensive (per MWh) in European context. It's disappointing, yes, but comparable with, say, already installed European solar - my country basically pledged around 2010 to pay ~$15B over twenty years for subsidizing the installation and operation of ~2 GW of solar capacity with just about 200 MW of average generation.)

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

Get over your 1970's Jimmy Carter stupidity, start reprocessing fuel rods, and deal with two issues at once.

This whole argument falls on its face when you understand the facts. Reagan rescinded Carters order as soon as he got into office.

So, for the US, reprocessing must not be economical or it would be happening already.

such tired rhetoric

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

P.S. You do know that coal mining releases more radiation into the air, and kills more people, than nuclear power - right?

Except that it has not been enriched and stays in the fly ash, which is used in concrete.

Do you guys *ever* check your facts before spewing your rhetoric?

Re:What Hollande says

[TheRaven64]

Environmentalists, like 'the left' and 'the right' are a big group with quite a range of views. You can find some in any of these groups who will disagree with pretty much anything.

Re:What Hollande says

[Daemonik]

One of the reasons nuclear power isn't cost effective in the US is that each plant is a one-off custom build that has to be certified from the ground up. We should have built clusters of plants all on the same blueprint rather than each plant being a new experiment.

Re:What Hollande says

[Daemonik]

I think the OP's implication would be to replace the existing individual reactor system with the Navy's standardized reactors rather than trying to force the Navy's management system upon all the standalone one-off reactors currently in use.

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

Are you agreeing or disagreeing?

The claim was that coal dumps more radiation *into the air*. Would make sense given that their is very little nuclear radiation leak into the air.

Disagree, oh and for the record coal is almost as bad as Nuclear. The fanbois have really fucked any hope that nuclear may have solved problems for us.

As to accidents, with the notable exception of Cherbynol, there have been very few and most of the cost has been due to the hysteria. Very few people died in Fukushima compared to those killed by the tidal wave itself.

Whoopdee fucking do if transgenic disease propagates through the Human race over the next 1000-2000 years. Who knows how that will manifest - but do keep burying your head in the sand.

Re:What Hollande says

[JimSadler]

Sure, we have a great way to deal with coal waste. We use human lungs to capture the soot. That also helps us reduce our population with the unusal numbers of cancers and heart diseases caused by burning coal. Then we truck coal ash into the countryside and toss it in pits causing water pollution that also helps end those pesky human lives.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're making the wrong comparison, on three different levels. First, wildlife as a population can be fine even if some individuals suffer. The safety precautions (regarding eating mushrooms etc.) protect individuals. We know that many individuals fare badly around Chernobyl. Second, humans are much more long-lived that your wildlife, so there's more room for deleterious long-term effects in humans. Third, the reason why wildlife around Chernobyl thrives is much less because of the induced increase in mortality due to contamination being small and much more because of the decrease in mortality due to removal of humans being large.

Re:What Hollande says

[fnj]

In south germany and south sweden people are still afraid to eat mushrooms harvested from the woods and game is considered unsafe to eat because of ignorant atavistic fear-mongering .

FTFY

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Statement of facts is not a tautology. It's not even a compound logical formula in the first place.

Re:What Hollande says

[fnj]

one six-hour watch followed by up to six hours of PMS

They have pre-menstrual syndrome in the US Navy now?

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

Easy solution: Give regulatory control of the nuclear power industry to the navy. No joke.

Admiral Rickover was responsible for designing the systems that created that safety record. You need someone like him to do that with these different reactors and he did not put up with the stupidity that we see from the nutty nukker fringe here at slashdot.

I tend to agree with his sentiments about them.

They do it by standardizing

Been attempted with SNUPPS which is the basis of AP1000. EPR is a better reactor though.

Re:What Hollande says

[nojayuk]

So, for the US, reprocessing must not be economical or it would be happening already.

Freshly-mined uranium is cheap and plentiful and a once-through cycle of mining, enrichment and consumption is less expensive than fuel derived from current spent fuel reprocessing systems, in part because they are based on military-style weapons-grade plutonium production (the PUREX process) since that was the first method developed to deal with spent fuel. There is some research going on into lower-cost and simpler spent fuel reprocessing but it's not a priority given the low cost of fresh uranium and yellowcake production at the moment.

France and other nations such as Russia, Britain and Japan reprocess spent fuel for other reasons -- it vastly reduces the volume of material needing to be stored for long periods of time, for one thing. The Russians are working on advanced fuel cycles to burn spent fuel in fast reactors like the BN-800. Japanese have a breakout capability to make nuclear weapons if they decide to -- The Monju breeder, the reprocessing plant at Rokkaisho and they even have the small Epsilon orbital launcher to repurpose as an ICBM if they choose.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Exactly my thought - but they apparently managed to limit it significantly, which sounds like serious progress.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck are you trying to say?

Your sentence makes no fucking sense at all..

I know anti-nuke eviro nutters are dim, but fuck at least make fucking sense....

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and stays in the fly ash, which is used in concrete

Sounds like a great way to get lung cancer from radon exposure.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

can't be arsed to calculate actual probability, as wasting time on dumb fucks is just wasted time, but I would expect that yes the deaths even from your stupid sentence would be "zero"

Re:What Hollande says

[blind biker]

Coal waste is NOT more radioactive than nuclear waste. The difference is that nuclear waste is not dumped into the environment, while waste from coal burning is. Nuclear waste is stored, and storage space is limited.

This is a big red herring. The tiny amounts of radioactive pollution dumped in the atmosphere by coal plants is NOTHING compared to the hundreds of tons of heavy metals, arsenic, NOX and mercury (not counting nondescript particulates, which still cause various lung diseases). The number of premature deaths per year caused by coal-fired plants numbers hundreds of thousands. This without mentioning the thousands dying directly because of mining of the humongous amounts of coal needed by those plants. We could also talk about the gigantic scarring of the environment done by coal mining. And we could also talk about the hundreds of millions of children whose neurological development is negatively affected by the increased concentration of mercury in most foodstuffs.

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

This is what happens when something turns into an -ism. I think opposition to nuclear is based more on dogma and irrational fear than anything else at this point.

I'm so very glad you bough that up, check my sig friend, it's not my ism I am talking about.

Here's a thought: maybe we should listen to specialists (say, nuclear scientists and engineers, and throw in some statisticians to tally up safety records) about whether modern nuclear power is safe and effective enough to use.

OK, let me get you started. This is the peer reviewed science that show nuclear power provides no Net Energy Return with contributions from about 10 Universities around the world, including CERN.

Because, I'm pretty sure the science is settled at this point. Should we also should start calling opponents "nuclear deniers"?

That would be like saying climate change is bullshit, but I kind of like it.

Yeah fuckit, I'm a nuclear denier. I deny Nuclear is a real solution to climate change. I'll start calling the nutty nukker fanbois, physics deniers, better FACT deniers or 'unable to provide fact'ers - but I jest ho ho ho.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

How environmentalists could be opposed to nuclear power?

1. Mining uranium is an environmental disaster.
2. Processing the fuel gives highly toxic waste.
3. Spent fuel has to stored for practically forever, and kept strictly isolated from the rest of the world, which nobody knows how that's going to work out in practice.
4. Said handling is tremendously expensive, as is the safe dismantling of decommissioned power plants, which btw produces more of said radioactive garbage which needs to be kept safe until judgement day.
5. Any accidents mishaps or mishandling have potentially catastrophic consequences for hundreds of millions of people.

Nuclear power is not clean, it's not cheap, and it's not safe. Anyone who says any different is either a complete ignoramus, or a liar.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

We really need to stop using China as landfill.

To be fair, China needs to stop using China as a landfill too.

Re:What Hollande says

[Dorianny]

Chernobyl was not localized. In south germany and south sweden you still can not eat mushrooms harvested from the woods and game is unsafe to eat.

Ugh, technically the winds have carried a bit of radiation from Chernobyl/Fukushima all over the world so if you want to split hairs you could call them Global Disasters but compared to the Civilizations level dangers posed by the rise in sea levels, droughts and extreme weather phenomena one could hardly put them on the same scale Globally

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the entire point of evacuating a hazardous area is so that people don't get killed there.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

ok lets put this in perspective instead of nutter scares:

80,000 becquerel caesium-137 = about 1 millisievert

200 grams of mushrooms with 3,000 becquerel caesium-137 per kilogram corresponds to an exposure of 0.008 millisievert.
This corresponds to the radiation exposure during a flight from Frankfurt to Gran Canaria.

http://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mushrooms-game/mushrooms-game_node.html

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

80,000 becquerel caesium-137 = about 1 millisievert

Units do not match.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

AmiMoJo is SO TRIGGERED right now you guys... literally shaking

Re:What Hollande says

[currently_awake]

Shutting down Nuclear generators has almost always meant starting up coal fired generators. We have other options, but coal is cheap.

Re:What Hollande says

[unixisc]

Trump's answer on energy has been 'All of the above'. He is not likely to pick winners and losers b/w different industries

Re:What Hollande says

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

But the same is true of coal in spades. They also don't pay their cost in full. Not even close. So if we allow coal on the government's dime, there's no reason to allow nuclear on the government's dime.

More importantly in France (as in much of the rest of Europe) the government also owns and operates the plants. So you could well say that they're insured in full, the same way that governments insure everything else it owns. I.e. they don't. If you own the press printing the money, taking out insurance from an external insurance company makes no sense whatsoever. (Here in Sweden it is in fact illegal for me as a government employee to do so.)

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not a matter of whats proven. Its a matter of cost. Coal is cheap and coal keeps costs down.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada we have some good reactor technology that is supposedly super safe. I am sure that there is extremely safe tech out there that we could use for Nuclear reactors.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans are not stupid. Go back to your socialist collapsing cesspool of Europe. Maybe we'll bail you out the next time a maniac decides to start a new Empire.

Re:What Hollande says

[AmiMoJo]

But the same is true of coal in spades. They also don't pay their cost in full.

I agree, but why bring it up? France is moving away from both coal and nuclear, and I didn't advocate either.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

when you have high fixed by government feed in tarrifs for solar and wind, causing sky high prices, you seem to be calling the pot black, you kettle..

Re:What Hollande says

[avandesande]

This is the dumbest thing i have heard. These designs are highly inefficient and a big part of the reason we are in the mess we are in. I have a better idea... license France's design, repeal the idiot law about breeder reactors, skip the NRC approval and break ground in six months. It will never happen of course but it's what we should do.

Re:What Hollande says

[avandesande]

It also helps when you are surrounded by cooling water. :-)

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

So, you believe that even in the next century or two we won't figure out how to deal with the waste?

Let's hope so. My understanding is that the Swiss are using Granite mountains and bentonite clays to deal with ground water penetration issues that come with the fracturing of the granite. Not perfect but a lot better than the pumice mountains of Yucca.

The most promising research is coming from Australia where they are trying to understand how to make Uranacites out of the U, pu, du. They are rare but exist in nature. Very beautiful crystal (greenish) and impervious to water. So fingers crossed!

That seems a bit unlikely to me. And what if the result of a stubborn opposition to nuclear power is that we simply hang onto our coal plants? That would seem like a rather Pyrrhic victory. It really feels like opponents to nuclear are risking the life of the forest to save a single tree.

No, it wouldn't be. Using nuclear power is the ultimate pv because we burn our own genome for enegy now. These radioisotopes alter our genome - that is fact. These radioisotopes are toxic and energetic for geological timespans, that is fact. We use legal construct to provide corporate welfare to the Nuclear industry to make it viable, that is fact.

Nuclear *could* be good if it was engineered properly. The NRC already commissioned the studies, the design changes are expensive. There is no way it can be privately owned and it would be an infrastructure project so large even the economy of the US would have to be restructured to accommodate it (if you are serious about it). Materials science advancements would be required as well. They are dangerous elements which deserve our respect wrt handling, the reactor needs to be disposed of as well as the fuel. That all has to be designed.

Of course, that would mean we could actually talk about it like rational human beings however the mindspace of this discussion is polluted with fanbois and morons hellbent on imposing the 'idealized' version of nuclear power onto reality. It's kinda boring, really.

Re:What Hollande says

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Because the argument is always that "nuclear doesn't pay". And you did bring that up. That's not that interesting/persuasive an argument if it turns out that pretty much all the alternative don't pay either. Hydro-electric here in Sweden doesn't pay either. If one of those dams went, that would be it. (The fund that's supposed to pay would try up very quickly). But since they're (mostly) government owned, that wouldn't be a problem. Or rather that wouldn't be the problem.

And while France may be moving away from coal, Germany most certainly isn't. They'll keep polluting and polluting due to their "green" Energiwende for decades to come. When in fact, with their increase in renewables they could have gotten rid of all coal by now instead. Something that would have been worthwhile, rather than the mess they seem to prefer.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful what you say to Americans. We might come and grab your pussy.

Re:What Hollande says

[AmiMoJo]

Okay, but again you are assuming that I support subsidising dams that could cause catastrophic damage too, and I don't.

While it's true that most sources of energy are subsidised, I don't mind so much when the subsidy goes towards a clean, relatively safe source. And the subsidies for nuclear really are quite astronomical... France has gone off nuclear because it's basically welfare for the operators like EDF, and the new one being built in the UK is the most expensive object on the planet.

As for Germany, they are about half way through their transition. Judging them now is silly, they clearly need to build up the alternatives first. And in any case, they are not planning to get rid of coal, but have replaced many of the existing plants with newer, cleaner ones that crucially are better suited to supporting renewables. Let's look again in 2024, the projected end date for the transition.

Re:What Hollande says

[Pyrion]

Hollande also has a 4% approval rating.

Re:What Hollande says

[dyslexicbunny]

But wouldn't it be worth compromising on this point a bit to get to carbon neutrality faster?

Yes. But no one believes in compromise anymore. All sorts of issues are becoming all or nothing on from both sides. Why should this be any different? Remember the argument between Boehner and Obama on raising the federal gas tax? They both agreed it needed to happen but wanted to tie it to all sorts of other things rather than just get it done.

My dad was telling me that Duke Power was looking to build some new coal plants that replace much older ones. Was/has been held up in court for some time. You would think that while more coal plants are not an ideal outcome, replacing old plants with newer, more efficient designs would still be a net win in terms of reducing emissions. People aren't going to want to give up their comfortable lifestyles so we're going to continue to need to build more power generation.

Architecture does the LEED stuff for new buildings so I figure we can do stuff like that for components of home consumption. Let's make Energy Star the minimum requirements for appliances to be sold if it is not already. Then create a new targets for Energy Star or rename it Energy Star Plus or Energy Star Gold. Let's tackle phantom power waste. Let's boost efficiency requirements. Less power demand helps too.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Your stupidity. There is no amount of reprocessing that will make nuclear power cost effective. Disagree, name the nuclear power plant that charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

You can't do that because that nuclear power plant doesn't exist. Because nuclear power is corporate welfare masking ongoing nuclear weapons programs.

Nuclear power appear to be the ONLY fuel source were its true costs are not being externalized or resulting in unremediated environmental damage. If anything all the well funded political sides in the US have piled on excessive regulations that do nothing to actually improve overall safety, but do provide lots of billable hours for consultants, environmentalists and former government officials.

The only way to save the planet is to cut through the red tape on nuclear.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "doing fine" you mean the animals can still reproduce, okay.

If by "doing fine" you mean that accumulated radiation from repeatedly eating from now-polluted sources will eventually give you some kind of cancer, then no. It's not "fine".

Re:What Hollande says

[Eloking]

Coal waste is NOT more radioactive than nuclear waste. The difference is that nuclear waste is not dumped into the environment, while waste from coal burning is. Nuclear waste is stored, and storage space is limited. Permanent dumps for nuclear waste are difficult to engineer. They must be designed to hold nuclear waste for millennia.

Yeah, about this, why aren't we dumping it at the bottom of the ocean already?

Someone please confirm, but aren't the bottom of the ocean filled with clay and heavy water that are both very efficient radiation shield topped with the lack of much life there and the near impossibility for terrorist to get them?

Of course, there's always dumping them in the sun, but that's not for anywhere soon.

Re:What Hollande says

[Quirkz]

Third, the reason why wildlife around Chernobyl thrives is much less because of the induced increase in mortality due to contamination being small and much more because of the decrease in mortality due to removal of humans being large.

People: worse than radioactivity.

Someone should put that on a T-shirt.

Re:What Hollande says

[strikethree]

There is no amount of reprocessing that will make nuclear power cost effective. Disagree, name the nuclear power plant that charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

There is no amount of CO2 scrubbing that will make coal power cost effective. Disagree, name the coal power plant that charges its customer for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

Why do you hold the nuclear industry to a different set of standards than the coal industry? Do you enjoy being one of the chief causes of climate change? Just wow. Are you more afraid of atoms than molecules? I fail to see why you do not see your double standard here.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

>I still can't understand how environmentalists could be opposed to it

The same reason pro-life people are often against contraception. Sometimes, ideology has more to do with rigid adherence to dogma than rational reasoning.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Profitable or not, it's still a nearly carbon neutral way of generating significant power. One could easily say that the cost of coal and gas are subsidised because they don't have to clean up the mess they make.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Fukushima showed that.

Fukushima showed that the worst case is really for long term property damage which can cause loss of use of homes and property in the immediately surrounding area... so nuclear power plants should be sited as far away from residential areas and other productive areas as possible The risk of injury due to radiation is less than the overall risk of pretty much every construction or industrial site.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uecker]

Opposition to nuclear is not what killed it. Cost killed it.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, if some of us don't feel safe with "pretty sure".

Re:What Hollande says

[Uecker]

Cost in solar half every ten year (Swanson's law). Nuclear always got more expensive despite huge amount of direct subsidies and support for research. And scaling up nuclear to a level where it really matters would be even more expensive because you need to switch closes fuel cycle and have energy storage.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mobile chernobyl" turns out to be much more costly and vuln to terrorism/ accidents than leavin the stuff at the plants. Yucca Mt is also a terrible site.

We need to agree and accept a complete fuel cycle. By complete I mean that you don't have countless plants holding spent fuel for eternity. The cycle doesn't have to be zero risk. The risk/benefit profile just has to beat the alternatives.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uecker]

Germany is definitely moving away from coal. Of course it was stupid to shut down nuclear plants first, but this has to do with local jobs...

An no, nuclear is expensive even compared to most renewables except for solar (but solar is getting cheaper and nuclear always gets more expensive).

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

that charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave

Since it's boldfaced, I'm assuming "full" should also include long-term environmental effects, as well as the cost of society taking care of the health problems of individuals affected by the pollution. I'd love to see that same boldfaced-full standard applied to coal-burning plants.

Re:What Hollande says

[khallow]

The big problem with nuclear power is that accidents are extremely dangerous and costly. That wouldn't be a problem if accidents were extremely unlikely. We know how to design and operate nuclear power plants safely, the problem is that we won't. Fukushima showed that. That accident was entirely avoidable. They needed only to build the walls higher.

Suuure, that magnitude 9 earthquake was easily preventable. /sarc

They needed only to build the walls higher.

Let us note that they actually were in the process of doing so. Research had been completed a few years earlier to show the site did indeed experience higher tsunami than the 1960s era estimates (roughly 1 in a century worst case) indicated. The wheels of bureaucracy would have eventually determined that the walls should be built higher and the walls built. The earthquake just happened first.

But management chose to ignore the recommendations and build a lower wall, to save a little money.

And the evidence for that? You really should look at a time line here. Japanese researcher demonstrates that there was a risk of higher tsunami in 2001. Then the Japanese nuclear regulators get ahold of it and start requesting that plant operators investigate the threat to their reactors.

Regulators determine wall isn't needed because the reactors are going to be shutdown in a few years. The Fukushima reactors aren't actually shutdown down because regulators discontinued all new reactor construction earlier in the decade. Then the earthquake happens in the middle of all this.

The walls would have been built higher eventually. But there was all this bureaucracy to make reactors safe which got in the way.

And that's your simple-minded observation about knowing how to make reactors safe, but not doing so is so annoying. Sure, we do, but the intent to make reactors safe with a massive pile of regulation, halted construction of new Japanese plants, and extremely slow decision processes made them more unsafe rather than less in this case.

This isn't the first time that making something safe actually made it less safe.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I do not doubt about it, I'm very familiar with it. But night-time power would be more dependent on the cost of storage rather than on cost of primary generation if it were to be sourced from solar sources. I'm not sure what you mean by "scaling up nuclear to a level where it really matters"; my country is 30+% nuclear-powered and it matters quite a lot already.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we shouldn't have stopped doing research and engineering on nuclear for 30 years or so.

captcha: idealism

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Oh, and saying something that is so factually that it is basically wrong: how would you call that?
Base load: the minimum load all plants together feed into the grid.
That is most likely not what you meant when you said "night time base load with nuclear plants".
As contrast to base load would be load following. Contrast to night time would be day time.
Unfortunately the base load at night and at day time is the same, otherwise it would not be called "base load".

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

You did not fix anything.
You are just an idiot.
There are regulations how much radioactivity nutritions might contain.
Mushrooms and game are above the safety regulations.

But feel free to come over and collect mushrooms and eat them, moron.

Re:What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Average life span of a deer is a bit more than 10 years. No one even realizes if it dies to cancer because of radiation.

The area around Chernobyl just "prospers" because there are no humans. Actually a no brainer.

Or is it more radioactive there than right around Chernobyl itself?
That question makes no sense.

There is no "radioactivity". There is radioactive material spread all over Europe. Depending on distance the material is a different one, e.g. Plutonium versus Cesium.

laws that declare the "safe" level of radioactivity to be so low that the level is impossible to achieve?
Without a nuclear catastrophe they are easy to achieve. What is your question?
Should we make two control groups in south germany? Force feed one with "contaminated" mushrooms, the other one only gets normal mushrooms? So we know in 50 years after comparing the two groups if we were paranoid or right? What about those who hate mushrooms? Or are allergic? How do we make the study?

Did you actually grasp that we are talking about EATING and not walking around in a forrest? I guess you believe you grasp the difference?

I hope you do.

Re:What Hollande says

[rbrander]

If France was actually subsidizing 75% of their power production for over 40 years, they'd be broke by now. But the cooking of the books would have been spotted long since; the money they snuck into the electric utility would have had to come from somewhere, by some accounting route.

But in fact, the books of Électricité_de_France, their utility, which gets 64% of its power from the nuclear plants it runs, show a steady 9% profit for some years.

Their money all appears to come from sending people electric power bills. France has a very healthy culture of protest and dissent about government malfeasance and it does have an anti-nuclear movement, (though it is very small and unpopular) and if there were a scandal lurking there in the accounts, I'm sure it would have turned up in the last 40 years.

It's that record of safety and profit that really undercut the main anti-nuclear arguments for me: I always ask those guys: "So what about France?"

Re:What Hollande says

[thegarbz]

Well if we had a mythical unlimited supply of money beyond even what the magical US government printing machine could produce, and could declare martial law to keep the NIMBY's who don't understand replacing an old reactor is good for them at bay then I'm all for it.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm not fully anti-nuclear, I do realize it isn't perfect or emissions free. I haven't run the numbers to know how it compares to the concrete needed compared to wind turbines per MW/h, the amount of gas and salaries the workers require, and the amount of mining and processing the uranium takes.

The reprocessing thing I believe would need to be negotiated with Russia and is a leftover from the cold war.

Re:What Hollande says

[TemporalBeing]

"theoretical ways to deal with the waste products" = "no actual ways to deal with the waste products"

Actually there are very simple ways to take care of the waste products, but either (a) environmentalists and the EPA get in the way, or (b) we've removed them as options via International Treaty.

The simplest way to deal with waste products is ship into space - and we ship usable nuclear material - working nuclear reactors - into space regularly for use by satellites, etc. So yes, it is a perfectly viable to method to get rid of it - sent into a dedicated orbit around the solar system or to be consumed by the Sun at some point (months) in the future. However, this is banned by International Treaty - one of several treaties signed during the Cold War, primarily to keep nations from sending Nuclear Missiles into space for use (f.e see the movie Space Cowboys - yeah, not doable by Treaty).

So yes, there are ways to deal with it if we decided we really wanted to actually deal with the waste products.

Re:What Hollande says

[FlyHelicopters]

The alt-right opposes clean renewables. Remind me again who's being unreasonable?

Both, I'm not against renewables, in a measured and reasonable fashion, but the far left is against EVERYTHING that isn't sunshine and rainbows.

We can't build anything new anymore because of the extreme left greenies, so it just gets built overseas. Same pollution, fewer jobs, nothing accomplished.

The anti-nuclear is the biggest stupidity, nuclear could replace 80% of our fossil fuel power plants, but no, the greenies are against that, so we keep burning coal, oil, and natural gas.

Idiots...

Re: What Hollande says

[thesupraman]

You know.. Repeating a lie many many times just makes it a bigger lie.
You do understand that.. Right?
Because that is what you seen to be trying to do.

Re: What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So did Trump.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimmy Carter not just banned breeder plants, he stuck a moratorium on all new construction. So, at best the newest reactor we have here in the US is going on 40+ years old.

People bash nuclear in the US, but as a car analogy, it would be like bitching about the Studebakers and their lack of power steering compared to other countries having access to Teslas and Acuras. Half a century of research has greatly improved designs, and we have functioning thorium reactors to boot now.

Oh, don't forget the deaths/terawatt due to nuclear. Or lack of.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because of anti-nuke people doing anything they can to monkeywrench. Seen a research reactor in action? How about a reactor on a ship? They work, have an excellent safety record, and do what is needed without people pissing their pants fearing meltdowns.

Get the fearmongers out of the equation, and nuclear would be far, far more useful, safer, and able to help advance the world as a whole. Imagine what people could do with access to 10-100 times as much energy. Thermal depolymerization becomes possible, yanking plastic and waste out of the environment. Desalination plants can be used to handle desert area irrigation.

However, thanks to the anti-nuke guys who rather live in caves, we don't have the nice things.

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

and stays in the fly ash, which is used in concrete

Sounds like a great way to get lung cancer from radon exposure.

You might be thinking of the case where mine tailings were mixed with concrete for an apartment building.

Re:What Hollande says

[manu0601]

one thing the US could do in emulating France is to start replacing our coal plants with more nuclear, especially in areas where solar or wind aren't a good fit.

Perhaps you heard that France, as the owner of nuclear champions EDF and AREVA, now fear the two companies could go bankrupt. The reason is that renewable energy became more competitive, while EDF and AREVA kept investing in nuclear. It made sense at some time, but that seems to be over. A mix of solar, tidal, wind is what makes economical sense today.

Re:What Hollande says

[manu0601]

So you prefer to believe what Marine LePen says?

Fortunately the choice is not restricted to Hollande and Le Pen. With 4% of people satisfied, Hollande cannot even be a default choice to avoid Le Pen. Other candidates will fill that role.

Re: What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

The release of radiation from coal plants is very diffuse and over a long period of time and so not significant compared to background. The bigger issues are CO2 and sulphur. The latter was largely dealt with in the 1980s and 1990s with scrubbers.

Re: What Hollande says

[angel'o'sphere]

Dude, the one who is lying is you.

You have no idea what reprocessing is ... why don't you read it up?

But I give you a small example how it works, up to you to get a clue.

Typical reactor fuel is enriched uranium, which has about 5% U-235, the rest is U-238. lets call this: 100 units of "fuel", which is chemical an uranium oxide.
When a bit more than half of the U-235 has decayed, the "fuel" is spent and the reactor can no longer run.
Now we have 97 units of unusable "fuel" that still contain 2 units of U-235. And it contains 3 units of decay products. The stuff that is "created" when a U-235 core is split. Lets call them "waste"

Now ... the goal of a perfect refueling would be: remove the 3 units of "waste", and replace them with 3 units of perfect pure U-235.

So far I hope, you agree.

So, how do you remove the 3 units of waste? Hm? Any idea?
You use acids to dissolve the bunch of 97 units of reusable "fuel" and 3 units of "waste". For a ton of "spent fuel" you need about 100 tons of acids.
After you are done and removed the waste, you either have 97 units of "fuel", that can not be used as it is spent. Or you have a block with 47 units of U-238 and a 50 units block consisting out of 95% U-238 + 5% U-235. The first block, you throw away. Because to make it into a working 50 units block, you have to add 3 units of perfect pure U-238. Which you wont have (because it would not make any sense produce pure U-235 in another plant to add it to your wasted U-238. You rather make a 95/5 mixture in that plant).

So: you always have to throw away 47 units of unusable U-238. You also have to store the 3 units of "waste"

And now comes the catch: you have also to throw away and store the thousands of tons of contaminated acids, salts and what ever came into contact during the process and has to be removed, like trivial stuff as broken tools.

To reprocess 1 ton of uranium, which is perhaps a cube of a bit more than a foot. You produce "real waste" in the order of 1000 tons. Hard to handle chemicals that are on top of it highly radioactive, and if not diluted enough simply boil while you look at them.

So: get a clue.

Re:What Hollande says

[MrKaos]

A major problem of the "new generation of nukes" is the virtual lack of serial production. A tinkering approach is not going to cut it. Lack of design and construction continuity in the 1990s isn't helping any.

The NRC commissioned US reactor manufacturers (Westinghouse, GE, BEctel etc) to study what improvements could be made to reactor design. There were almost 30 recommendations. None of them have been implemented in the SNUPPS reactor which attempted to standardize reactor design into the AP1000.

For example one recommendation was to build the reactor *underground*.

You can see the devastating effects of this on the EPR.

The EPR reactor seems to be a better designed reactor than the AP1000 to me and appears to incorporate some of the design enhancements in the NRC study.

e.g. Containment is resistant to military attacks, different functional buildings, control room location moved away from reactor core.

Re:What Hollande says

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not saying it's a bad design. But you can see what it does if you're building just several units of something very new.

Re:What Hollande says

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Yes, well, the Germans aim to fix their problems with load balancing by leaning on the rest of us. Which isn't really solving the problem. They could have been well on their way.

And of course nuclear becomes "expensive" when you let solar and wind eat their lunch when it suits them (i.e. when the sun is out, and the wind is blowing just right) and then throw up your arms in the air when it doesn't.

Taking availability into account then of course nuclear is still dirt cheap. The only competition is hydroelectric (limited by environmental concerns and geographical limitations). And with political stability and production then of course the price would come down substantially, the ones you mention are one-offs. Even so, Swedish official calculations put nuclear at the same price as large scale biomass, and slightly more expensive than wind. (Sun is of course a fools errand for us). But that's not taking the low availability of wind into account (power output is the cube of wind speed, so optimal conditions are very rare).

So, my prediction. basically, we'll lose what industry we have left, and electricity prices will triple. Today, we release about half as much CO2 per capita (less when scaled for industry output) than German. But that'll change as well as we'll switch more and more from our 99% clean electricity to more and more fossil fuel. Just like they do in Germany. When the greens are done, we'll have damaged our economy and substantially increased our CO2 emissions...

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

I'd love to see that same boldfaced-full standard applied to coal-burning plants.

I've love you guys to Google "false dichotomy", then retire this trite pro-nuke talking point. I suppose you spent election season crying that any criticism of Hillary translated to support for Trump?

Re: What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Profitable or not, it's still a nearly carbon neutral way of generating significant power.

But why bother, when alternatives are cheaper, and with none of the long-term safety & security issues? The real Achilles heel for nuclear power is that it's just not cost effective.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

There is no amount of CO2 scrubbing that will make coal power cost effective. Disagree, name the coal power plant that charges its customer for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

Why? Didn't say anything about coal. We just had an election. If you said something critical of Hillary, did that make you a Trump supporter? Or vice versa. This pro-nuke straw man/false dichotomy is painfully facile, and needs to be retired.

Re:What Hollande says

[Uberbah]

Your... stupidity. Coal releases more radiation, and there are also no coal power plants that "charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse".

5th person with the straw man/false dichotomy that being against nuclear power means supporting coal power. You guys think this is a radio show where the 9th caller wins a prize?

Re:What Hollande says

[bzipitidoo]

Number of deaths is a poor measure of risk. By that reckoning, a bus accident earlier this year in Ghana is a worse disaster than the 1992 Hurricane Andrew, because 71 died in the bus accident and only 65 died from the hurricane. Andrew caused $26 billion in damage. A bus and a truck are worth what? Less than $1 million.

You have to look at total damages. Many sq km of Japanese land that can't be safely used for centuries is a loss of hundreds of billions. Land is very, very expensive in Japan. Expected increase in medical work to deal with all the cancers is more millions. Cleaning up the mess is another huge cost. And, Fukushima is still not over! It's still leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean.

Re:What Hollande says

[lsatenstein]

Your stupidity. There is no amount of reprocessing that will make nuclear power cost effective. Disagree, name the nuclear power plant that charges its customers for the full cost from cradle to grave: everything from mining & refining, to plant construction & maintenance, to waste disposal/recycling/reuse.

You can't do that because that nuclear power plant doesn't exist. Because nuclear power is corporate welfare masking ongoing nuclear weapons programs.

When properly managed, nuclear power is clean and disposal is clean.
Mega project Hydo power (dams are the best for low cost, low maintenance). I live in a low cost electricity zone (from 4.4 cents per KWH to 8cents). My home is heated and cooled with electricity, and it is affordable to me at my 7cents / kwh cost.

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Both, I'm not against renewables, in a measured and reasonable fashion, but the far left is against EVERYTHING that isn't sunshine and rainbows.

Actually, going by your posts, you've freaked out several times over the subject, and the right is against ANYTHING that has to do with regulation and investment in cleaner energy. They screamed to the high heavens about incandescent bulbs, HVAC efficiency and Solyndra.

Even in this campaign season, they're still blaming Obama for a war on coal, while ignoring the growth in natural gas.

We can't build anything new anymore because of the extreme left greenies, so it just gets built overseas. Same pollution, fewer jobs, nothing accomplished.

Nope, stop blaming the left. It's a choice in the corporate boardrooms, because it is CHEAPER and EASIER to build many factories overseas. And nobody cares how the workers are treated either.

The anti-nuclear is the biggest stupidity, nuclear could replace 80% of our fossil fuel power plants, but no, the greenies are against that, so we keep burning coal, oil, and natural gas.

Idiots...

Bush's Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave billions to put some nuclear plants up. Watts Bar 2, a site started in the 1970s is the only one to come on line. Meanwhile the TVA has shut down several coal plants. (Not to mention they finally sold off Bellafonte this week, after ploughing billions into it). Meanwhile Vogtle and Sumner are still eating cash, and may not be operational till 2020 or later. It wasn't the environmental movement that caused those delays, no matter how much you desperately and fervently want to believe it. Meanwhile, wind and solar have added to the power pool almost continuously. And improvements in power efficiency have reduced demand.

It's just like California, in 2000 and 2001, initially everybody raised their ire towards the environmental movement who was chided as causing this problem, but in reality, the problem was in Houston, at a little company of fraud called Enron.

But hey, good news, coal and oil usage for electricity generation have dropped. Not as much as they would have if a concentrated effort to eliminate them would have been, but a noticeable amount.

Re:What Hollande says

[IanBal]

Why build more nuclear plants? Just go off-grid and be self sufficient. Beats more nuclear any day!

Re:What Hollande says

[Anonymous Coward]

Because nuclear power is corporate welfare masking ongoing nuclear weapons programs.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Please admit it.

irreversible

[gravewax]

Since when has ANY treaty been irreversible. I think Trump is borderline insane but their is no such thing as an irreversible treaty as Trump can simply ignore it.

Re:irreversible

[harvey the nerd]

Obama operates as an authoritarian outlaw and failure in terms of average Americans, much of his regime will be repudiated. Professional protesters, criminals, camp followers, and illegals' antics not withstanding. Obama's signature is not US ratification of another climate extortion treaty.

Chinese and French fascists are simply trying to exploit and hobble the US economy, again.

Re:irreversible

[Jzanu]

You are a fucking retard. China and France have been better nuclear powers for decades and ahead of the US for as long in almost every facet of development. The fact that the US can't compete is the fallout of its own religious idiocy and hostility to Unions that could have instead been focused on workforce training as in Germany, the new leader of the free world.

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

Re:irreversible

[Reeeeeeeeeee]

You are a hyperbolic idiot, this isn't the Breitbart comment section

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

And you continue the hyperbole. Self reflection isn't your strong point.

Re:irreversible

[Jzanu]

Media/Light Technology companies aren't very powerful, despite the obsessions on sites serving sheltered western children. Musk is a failure in everything he does due to shitty management philosophy driven by pure greed, covered only by the shallowest marketing BS. The US truly has fallen though, defeated by vengeful Russians desperate to sabotage the EU (Brexit, AfD, sponsorship of Fascist Ukrainian separatists) and the US (Trump's election due to the actions of Russian hacking houses, and longterm sabotage of patriotism being replaced with Anti-American values of xenophobia and nationalism).

Re:irreversible

[harvey the nerd]

Yes, France is ahead in some U-Pu nuclear developments. India and China may have some advantages on thorium. US unions and pseudo-environmentalists are certainly a part of the time and cost problems for nuclear power sources in the US. I think politics played a significant part on fuel cycle choices in the US where I am favorable to thorium based developments.

However, I do believe in market based options including cheap, flexible gas and clean coal. The Piltdown Mann and similar hoaxes notwithstanding.

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Tesla, and SpaceX are all nuclear power companies. Who knew?

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Utter nonsense.

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to know that China's edge in nuclear power nullifies the massive damage from their industrialization that involved stripping factories of anti-pollution technology.

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain to me how nationalism valuing America first is anti American? That seems, well, tough to justify grammatically. You are anti American because you are pro American? Logic fail.

The President, whoever they are, is the President of the US, not the world. For them to put the interests of foreign nations or even the international community above the interests of the US seems treasonous on its face.

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Media/Light Technology companies aren't very powerful, despite the obsessions on sites serving sheltered western children.

Except the fact that Apple alone has more in cash than all European nuclear producers are worth combined.

Re: irreversible

[skids]

Explain to me how nationalism valuing America first is anti American

Because it is counterproductive and leaves the country in a worse place than being a responsible member of the international community does. Also, it is too easily leveraged into white nationalism.

For them to put the interests of foreign nations or even the international community above the interests of the US seems treasonous on its face.

We have many conflicting interests as a nation, many of which are the same interests as the international community (like defeating ISIS.) In order to make progress on some of our national interests, it is necessary to compromise on others.

In other words, you can wish really hard that America exists in a vacuum, but wishing does not make it so.

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Patriotism is American, xenophobic nationalism is not.

Re: irreversible

[s.petry]

Explain to me how nationalism valuing America first is anti American

Because it is counterproductive and leaves the country in a worse place than being a responsible member of the international community does. Also, it is too easily leveraged into white nationalism.

Bullshit! Every country in the world protects it's borders and puts it's own citizens first, or they fail. Every country that recently harmed their populaces by importing tons of immigrants has lost elections and had to reverse direction. Merkel, Brexit, Trump are three easy examples, but most other EU countries have reversed directions on things like massively importing refuges. Swiss people demanding a halt were not doing so because "white supremacy", nor were Germans, Brits, or US people. The argument that it's racism and xenophobic are lies, bold faced lies.

For them to put the interests of foreign nations or even the international community above the interests of the US seems treasonous on its face.

We have many conflicting interests as a nation, many of which are the same interests as the international community (like defeating ISIS.) In order to make progress on some of our national interests, it is necessary to compromise on others.

In other words, you can wish really hard that America exists in a vacuum, but wishing does not make it so.

Having fair dealings with other nations does not mean you want to exist in a vacuum. China makes trade deals with all other nations focusing on Chinese interests first. The same can be said for virtually any other Country in the world. The minute they don't, they end up with collapsing economies and massive debt. Your claim is hyperbole.

Re: irreversible

[Jzanu]

You're very wrong about Merkel - she has championed a policy of welcoming the Syrian immigrants and it is working to defuse tensions and reduce terrorism. She also didn't lose any election, and as leader of CDU/CSU since 2000 her party has been in power since 2005. Your rant is completely wrong.

Re:irreversible

[Capsaicin]

You are a hyperbolic idiot, this isn't the Breitbart comment section

And you continue the hyperbole ...

This is the Breitbart comment section?!

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Her party got it's clock cleaned in the last election and the local seats for her home district went to the far right anti-immigration Germany First party.

You are either stupid, a liar, ignorant as hell or some combination, but what you said is flat out the opposite of the truth.

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Try again. The next parliamentary election isn't until October 2017. You're referring to a minor regional election not national, and in an area that was right-wing already. That has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with Russian attempts at sabotage.

Re:irreversible

[MrL0G1C]

How on earth did you manage to come up with that rubbish? What websites are you reading that lead you to believe such bizarre ideas?

Or was it an attempt at satire?

Re: irreversible

[haruchai]

Patriotism is American, xenophobic nationalism is not.

Xenophobic nationalism is what made America great. Trump Fohevah!!

Re: irreversible

[laupark]

Do you have locks on your home? Do you use them? Then you are a xenophobic racist. Congrats

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking idiot and either paid to act like that or just a retarded kid. Look up what those words mean and try the fuck again. Reading is important, try it.

Re:irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...

I'm guessing he read the Constitution and what it says about Treaties. Sounds like 2/3 of Senate (66 Senators) has to approve a treaty for it to be valid. Before that happens next president can just toss it in the trash.

Not sure what was controversial about that part of what he said or why so many liberals are pretending that is not the case. The "unwritten" third step requires passing of laws to mirror what the Treaty says, if needed. Or amend the Constitution of the Treaty clashes with that (such as a UN treaty to ban private ownership of guns for example would require that)

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

She also didn't "invite" them, contrary to common beliefs here. She said the influx of immigrants poses a great challenge to German society, but that instead of giving in to panic or xenophobia she proclaimed to want all of Germany to face this problem head on and fix this regardless in the confidence that Germans have what it takes to do just that. That's what "wir schaffen das" meant, not "let's have everyone come over here, lol".

Re: irreversible

[fnj]

You're very wrong about Merkel - she has championed a policy of welcoming the Syrian immigrants and it is working to defuse tensions and reduce terrorism.

LOL. Just LOL. The level of denial in this bullshit is staggering.

Re: irreversible

[avandesande]

Are you confusing a cabal of banks with an 'international community'?

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot: in areas that basically are not at all affected by immigration, because even without the risk of being beaten up there no immigrants would actually want to live there. Kind of like Hungary proclaiming that having 0.01% of your population not Christian will be the end of their country (a very Christian attitude they are showing there btw., I would say that at least 40% are most definitely not the slightest Christian already now).

Re: irreversible

[skids]

No. Are you denying that there is an international community, and that in that community, shouting the equivalent of "I'm the best you all suck you should pay me more than everyone else and fuck you all I won't help you with your problems but you should help me with mine" does not damage our standing?

Re: irreversible

[skids]

Every country that recently harmed their populaces by importing tons of immigrants has lost elections and had to reverse direction.

I won't contradict your assertion that voters in many countries are pathetically stupid. You are probably right, there. I'd doubt such a sweeping statement is entirely true, though.

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

The level of stupidity you have is astounding.

Re: irreversible

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain to me how nationalism valuing America first is anti American

Because it is counterproductive and leaves the country in a worse place than being a responsible member of the international community does.

Interesting assertion. Care to elaborate?

Also, it is too easily leveraged into white nationalism.

Red herring (emotionally charged attempt to distract from the actual debate -national identity is not the same as racism) and slippery slope (this will lead to that). You managed two fallacies in one sentence.

For them to put the interests of foreign nations or even the international community above the interests of the US seems treasonous on its face.

We have many conflicting interests as a nation, many of which are the same interests as the international community (like defeating ISIS.) In order to make progress on some of our national interests, it is necessary to compromise on others.

Compromise. Ok. Makes sense -generally. Can you list some specific compromises and show how they are a net benefit?

In other words, you can wish really hard that America exists in a vacuum, but wishing does not make it so.

And... there you go with the personal attack -subtly insulting the intelligence of the previous poster in an attempt to distract from the issues with emotion.

You started out strong, but failed to go anywhere with it.

Re: irreversible

[Jzanu]

You're just too stupid to understand that post, try getting past primary reading level and try again.

Re:The USA mocks you

[Anonymous Coward]

No, those will be replaced by Coal.

To meet his Goal we must use and sell more coal.
Now the French Coal will be on the market.

becoming a signatory is "irreversible"

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if becoming a signatory to the treaty is "irreversible."

It is also not binding on anyone, with absolutely no enforcement clauses in it (Of course if it had been enforceable, Obama could not have unilaterally ratified the agreement - as it would have needed to be ratified by the Senate.)

Re:The USA mocks you

[Anonymous Coward]

After Fukushima, everyone was announcing that they were abandoning nuclear power. Since then, everyone, including Japan, has quietly started going back to nuclear.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[0100010001010011]

cuck harder

I'm genuinely curious as to the origins of this with regards to the Trump fanboys. Who sat down and flipped through the dictionary to settle on 'cuck'? Is that the most insulting thing you could come up with to get under the skin of people you disagreed with?

LePen

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Until LePen becomes Marine PM!

Re: LePen

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking of toxic waste.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

1 syllable. close to fuck. guess the best they could do.

Nothing to brag about

[Anonymous Coward]

In terms of years it will take for waste to be broken down, you can't do much worse than nuclear power.

Yes their design is one of the best, but they still have to bury waste.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Jzanu]

Sure there is: Lower cancer rates (Burning coal releases more actual Uranium into the atmosphere), and lower asthma, COPD, etc. from lower NOX and particulate pollution. Radioactive waste can be contained and when reprocessed as part of waste disposal generates more electricity and limits hard storage time to decades.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Solandri]

Actually, most of that "waste" can be reused as fuel. Modern light water nuclear plants only use about 3% of the energy in uranium. That's why the waste is "hot" for so long - it's like burning 3% of a gallon of gas and declaring the rest of it waste which has to be buried. A breeder reactor can use the "waste" as fuel, and in the process convert it into a form which can be sent back to light water reactors for use as fuel. Done properly, about 90%-95% of the energy from the uranium can be extracted, and the remaining waste is only "hot" for a few hundred years.

France uses breeder reactors, so they don't have anywhere near the nuclear waste problem that we do. (Jimmy Carter banned the commercial use of breeder reactors in the U.S. because they can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium.)

Also, nuclear in the U.S. produces about 800 TWh of electricity per year. The amount of spent fuel that's created to produce that much energy is about a single tractor trailer's worth (the entire volume of nuclear waste produced since we began using nuclear power would about fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool). Contrast that with coal. A ton of coal produces about 2000 kWh of electricity. So to produce 800 TWh would require about 400 million tons of coal, or about 300 million cubic meters - enough to fill a thousand oil tankers. It also produces 1.14 billion tons of CO2.

So compare that single tractor trailer of nuclear waste (which still contains 97% of the energy in the uranium because we don't reprocess) to a thousand oil tankers full of coal. Still think nuclear is such a bad idea?

Re:Nothing to brag about

[windwalkr]

Radioactive waste can be contained and when reprocessed as part of waste disposal

Therein lies the rub. Firstly, while you're absolutely correct when things are working properly, nuclear is very hard to clean up after things go wrong. While the immediate effect might still be reasonably small in global terms, a much larger area (and therefore politically more problemtic) is affected in a nuclear disaster than in an equivalent coal-power disaster.

An oil spill might be more comparable actually, but even there, hard radiation is much harder to clean up, and a much more dangerous environment (to humans, at least) than oil. Oil spills also likely to be further away from human population centers (easier to transport efficiently) which, while not a sound environmental argument, is pretty sound politically.

Secondly, there's historically been some conflict of priorities between "use nuclear fuel efficiently" and "don't allow anything that could be turned into a weapon".

I'm not anti-nuclear as such, but I do think that it's politically problematic and that "environmentally safe" fission power at large scale is a lot more expensive than what we're willing to spend on energy today.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Jzanu]

France has a single national nuclear utility Électricité de France that owns all nuclear plants and is itself owned in majority by the French government. This economic situation isn't the same as a dozen private companies like the US has, and that is what allows for use of breeder reactors. Carter's action was right given the fractured nature of US nuclear power production.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Michael Woodhams]

Although to be fair, taking that tractor trailer volume of nuclear waste and putting it all into the volume of a tractor trailer would be a Bad Idea.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Anonymous Coward]

So compare that single tractor trailer of nuclear waste (which still contains 97% of the energy in the uranium because we don't reprocess) to a thousand oil tankers full of coal. Still think nuclear is such a bad idea?

Yes, a very, VERY bad idea!

It would toss a huge wrench into one portion of our plans to reduce average US standards of living partially through hugely inflated energy prices. This is now a global civilization and as such global standards of living must be normalized across the board. In order to accomplish this goal in practical terms, it is far easier to lower standards for a fraction of the planets' population than it is to raise the standards of the majority to match. Only then, when there is nothing in another nation to covet and go to war to take, will there be world peace.

The ends DO justify the means.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Cyberax]

Uhm... Where do I start?...

Modern light water power plants use more than 3% of energy in fuel and they also produce quite a bit of (non weapons grade) plutonium. This plutonium can be extracted and re-used in MOX (mixed oxide) fuel in regular reactors, US does NOT do this but France and Russia do. Spent fuel also contains some nasty minor actinides that have long half-lives and must be stored for a long time, they are chemically extracted during reprocessing. It is possible to transmute them into less harmful elements by enough fast neutron flux.

Right now the only 2 working fast neutron reactors are in Russia (BN-600 and BN-800), France terminated its fast neutron reactor project long ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). Fast neutron reactors are not necessarily breeder reactors (breeder reactors allow to produce more fissile products than they get) but in most cases they are.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[John.Banister]

So, if our nuclear waste has about 97% of the nuclear fuel's energy, and the French can keep their lights on by running that on down to about 10%, do you think we could sell it to them?

Re:Nothing to brag about

[blindseer]

Actually, most of that "waste" can be reused as fuel. Modern light water nuclear plants only use about 3% of the energy in uranium. That's why the waste is "hot" for so long

That's not quite right. The uranium has a half life of billions of years, so it will be radioactive for a long time but that is not what makes spent fuel "hot". Just as a candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long a radioactive material with a long half life puts out very little radiation. Uranium has such a long half life and therefore very little radiation from it that uranium is routinely used as a shield against radiation.

Another thing about uranium is that most isotopes of the element are alpha emitters upon decay. In a solid fuel reactor the uranium is encased in a metal tube, an alpha particle would not leave the tube. Even if it did about a foot of air would stop it.

What makes spent fuel "hot" is the fission products, and to a lesser extent the transuranic elements. A fission product is from the uranium nucleus taking in a neutron and fissions into two smaller nuclei. The transuranic elements are from when the uranium takes a neutron and doesn't fission but instead decays into a heavier element, such as plutonium. These fission products and transuranic elements can be beta and gamma emitters upon decay, these require more shielding to stop, such as a few feet of water or other dense material.

In a solid fuel reactor it is very difficult to remove these elements. This is a problem because some of these elements like to soak up neutrons with a greater affinity than the uranium fuel. At some point the fission products will take up so many neutrons that a chain reaction cannot be maintained in the reactor, when this happens the fuel is "spent" even though there is still a large amount of uranium fuel in the fuel rod.

There's several ways to address this problem but one that is gaining traction is to use a liquid fuel. The uranium in a solid fuel reactor is usually a ceramic (an oxide), because in that form it can hold up to a lot of heat and radiation without turning into something else. In a liquid fuel reactor the uranium fuel is in the form of a salt, usually a fluoride (like the sodium fluoride in toothpaste). This salt can also withstand the radiation but it melts at a relatively low temperature, which make it easy to turn into a liquid. In liquid form many of the worst fission products, like xenon, will bubble out of the fuel and get collected at the top of the reactor tank. Many of the others, like noble metals, will fall to the bottom. With these fission products out of the way just about all the fuel can be burned. With the addition of a chemical processor on the liquid fuel the transuranic elements can be removed before they can become a problem of soaking up neutrons, becoming a weapon proliferation problem, or generally a nuisance. Some of these fission products and transuranic elements are quite valuable and would become a salable product for medicine and industry.

With a solid fuel the spent fuel rods are effectively worthless because the valuable elements are mixed in with the really radioactive stuff that built up over time. This is difficult to process until it has "cooled" which also means a lot of the really valuable elements have decayed away. A liquid salt reactor would save a lot of trouble by not producing this waste, and potentially save a lot of lives because many of the fission products the reactor could produce is used to treat and diagnose a lot of medical conditions. Some of them could also be used to disinfect surgical tools, find leaks in pipes, and make it easier to explore space.

A very good reactor using this liquid fuel is called the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, designed by Flibe Energy. Look it up.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Blaskowicz]

Correction, this is what allowed France to have a white elephant program of a breeder reactor plant, which most times was idling and constantly used power to keep the sodium melted. It produced less than 10 TWh over its life, and had an overall capacity factor of less than 10%. The reactor was slated to permanent shut down after a change of government in 1997. The preceding, smaller scale and non commercial (experimental) reactor was kept running until 2010.

Not sure if the technology was really that fucked up. Its main problem is the rationale for it (keep the nation running with lower availability of uranium) didn't materialize.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[archer, the]

>> nuclear is very hard to clean up after things go wrong.

As opposed to cleaning up the global fossil fuel disaster? We don't have a clue as to when the failure state (continued release of waste) will be corrected, much less how to clean up all of the waste.

Re:Nothing to brag about

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal disasters are hard to clean up as well. Do some reading.

Nuclear

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, because they produce something like 75% of their electricity with nuclear. I can't figure out why people who want to go carbon neutral are not strong advocates of nuclear, unless they are so dogmatically tied to "green" issues that they just can't accept that the cure to their problem is in the form of big bad nuclear. We should be building modern gen 3/4 breeder reactors on the sites of current plants and reprocessing all the waste that we don't know what to do with into fuel.

Re:Nuclear

[Anonymous Coward]

Because other options are better. Wind and solar mostly. Why aren't you shouting for those to be rolled out?? Cheaper and less risky both than nuclear. Or do you not understand "cheaper and less risky"?

Re:Nuclear

[Mike Van Pelt]

It is my observation that a lot of the "greens" aren't so much opposed to fission in particular as they are opposed in general to any energy source -- ANY energy source -- that threatens to produce enough consistent energy to power industrial civilization. Cheap, clean, abundant energy would be "Nothing short of a disaster", according to Amory Lovins. Back when it looked like Pons and Fleishman had maybe actually discovered something, Paul Ehrlich was quick to cry the alarm that the supposed discovery was "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child" in an editorial printed in the newspapers at the time.

It comes down to, do you want to continue having an industrial civilization, or do you want to starve it to death? You can't power an industrial civilization on just sunny days when the wind is blowing.

mdsolar spinning in his mom's basement

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick, mdsolar, find some anti-nuclear FUD stories to post to counteract this one, before we get consensus opinion to get us carbon-neutral on nuclear power in the US!

Use petroleum instead

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earth releases it into the air. Humans do too. Therefore, petroleum use is carbon neutral.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[skids]

The cultural connotations of the "cuckold" term allows them to combine derogation of their opponent's masculinity with devil imagery, given the historical association with horns, and can be construed (depending on what brand of lunatic you are) to apply to either immigration/cultural purity or generic ideology if you don't have the stomach for overt racism.

The whole thing is rather ironic considering trumpistas look more and more like rogonosets with each passing day.

I'm more curious of what brought marakesh or islam into a conversation about energy policy.

75% nuclear...thats why France can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again displaying the marvels of nuclear power done right.

Good luck getting nukes back in United States with the neoenvironmentalists.

Try pushing anything like that in Australia and the country would most likely go dark.

-k

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Reeeeeeeeeee]

It's 4chan parading as the alt-right making them even more crazy and riled up keyboard warriors

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[ColdWetDog]

'Rongonosets' apparently means 'cuckold' in Russian.

I was going towards 'hairpiece' myself but then again ....

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[imidan]

They thought about what they would find to be most insulting to themselves. They find 'cuck' to be so demeaning because it plays upon their own deep insecurities, and they project those insecurities onto those around them and therefore assume that trying to undermine their opponents' masculinity will be maximally hurtful. It would be emasculating to them to have a woman president who would 'dominate' them in the sense that she holds the highest office in the country. In their minds, then, men who voted for Hillary would be 'cuckolded' because we chose submission to a woman. Fortunately, most of us are secure enough in our masculinity that the attempted insult completely fails to connect.

Are they insane?

[blindseer]

Let's see, they plan to replace coal with nuclear power. So, not insane.

Good job, France. I wish we'd do the same in the USA. With Trump it might happen.

Re:Are they insane?

[Jzanu]

After Trump you'll be lucky to be even a third-rate nation.

Re:Are they insane?

[dcollins]

"Trump's Plan for Coal Industry Revival Means Big EPA Changes" (Nov-14)

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/trump-coal-industry-revival-plan/2016/11/14/id/758745/

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

France doesn't have a few centuries worth of untapped coal reserves in the ground. It's easy for them to wean off of coal. As long as coal is plentiful in the US, it's cost efficient to produce electricity with it.

Re:Are they insane?

[PopeRatzo]

Good job, France. I wish we'd do the same in the USA. With Trump it might happen.

Trump is committed to "clean coal" (sic) and getting all those Kentucky coal miners their jobs and black lung back. So nah, probably not replacing coal with nuclear.

On the other hand, Trump has already started racking up the imaginary successes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Gaslighter-in-Chief.

Re:Are they insane?

[theycallmeB]

"The Coal Industry Isn't Coming Back" Nov-15 Opinion piece
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11...
tl;dr version: coal's problem isn't Obama, its Exxon-Mobile and natural gas, and coal is not going to win that fight

Re:Are they insane?

[Orgasmatron]

Trump's victory must have the CTR guys really demoralized if this is the best they can come up with.

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

troll

Re:Are they insane?

[whoever57]

And when they tear down all those regulations, how many miners will die from preventable accidents or diseases?

Re:Are they insane?

[Orgasmatron]

Rule 3. SJW's always project. In Alinsky terms, the best defense is to have already accused your opponent of what you are guilty of, ideally before anyone catches on.

This is so common that accusations from certain people and groups can be interpreted as if they were signed confessions.

After watching a 16-month election cycle where the media was caught red handed acting as agents of the Clinton campaign, and where damn near all of the media polls were fiction, you are seriously dumb enough to accuse Trump of gaslighting?

I'm feeling really good about 2020 and 2024. You people have no self awareness at all. We are inside your OODA loop. We've defeated your tactics. We've spiked your big guns. Thousands of normies are waking up every day and you haven't figured out that we aren't waking them up, you are.

So please carry on. Shriek the word far and wide that Trump is taking credit for things that he didn't do while he is working to take the White House over from a man that brags about the fantastic recovery (that never happened) and who claims to have improved race relations (they're worse)

Re: Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

France has technically recoverable reserves of 3.8 trillion cubic metres (137 trillion cubic feet) of shale gas reserves, but they banned fracking...

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

And when they tear down all those regulations, how many miners will die from preventable accidents or diseases?

Dunno but I guarantee you Trump and his ilk will convince them the liberal left is to blame for every single preventative accident and disease.

Re:Are they insane?

[Namarrgon]

And worse than that, US taxpayers will (once again) have to foot the cleanup bill.

Re:Are they insane?

[Freischutz]

So please carry on. Shriek the word far and wide that Trump is taking credit for things that he didn't do while he is working to take the White House over from a man that brags about the fantastic recovery (that never happened) and who claims to have improved race relations (they're worse)

I don't think we'll have to. Churchill said once that in politics antisemitism is a good starter but a bad sticker, replace antisemitism with xenophobia and you have a summary of what will eventually happen to Trump, Bannon and the alt-right. You don't whip up so much hate against so many sections of American society and blame them for things that aren't their fault without suffering some major blowback sooner or later. Trump and the alt-right will self-destruct sooner or later and burn up on a bonfire of their own hate.

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are inside your OODA loop. We've defeated your tactics. We've spiked your big guns. Thousands of normies are waking up every day and you haven't figured out that we aren't waking them up, you are.

Yes, you're a regular Morpheus inside the Matrix, aren't you? Everybody's either taken the red pill, in the process of waking up, or an Agent, and you know you're on the right side. Must be nice to be that righteous.

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, xenophobia might just work for them. Also, I think that Bannon is essentially a racist and from what I've seen (I've watched nearly every speech of Trump), Trump seems to be some sort of unaware or hidden "I don't care" racist against blacks but not against hispanic or Mexicans. Racism works well to keep afloat in politics, too.

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, this was funny. So even after the previous poster pointed out the Alinsky style of thinking. You continue on by stating exactly what democrats have done for an age and that cost them the election. The major blowback happened but it happened to leftist ideology first, it was Trump winning. Will it happen to Trump if he swings too far? Sure it will, but at least have the capacity to recognize that democrats did this exact thing and are now experiencing the consequences.

Re:Are they insane?

[PopeRatzo]

You people have no self awareness at all.

There is an immutable law in US politics: With the Right, it's always projection.

We are inside your OODA loop. We've defeated your tactics. We've spiked your big guns.

You've been had by a carnival barker in an ill-fitting suit. The political equivalent of the guy at the state fair who hawks non-stick pans. Your over-the-top triumphalism is an indication that fact is starting to dawn on you.

Re:Are they insane?

[serviscope_minor]

Your over-the-top triumphalism is an indication that fact is starting to dawn on you.

Ha, no!

In 4 years time, with the Republicans in charge of hte senate, house, supreme court and of course a Republican president, when everything goes to crap, they will still be blaming "the left". Once people have gone that far, they are impervious to facts.

Re:Are they insane?

[Orgasmatron]

I'll say it again: they have zero self awareness

They should be reading articles like this one and pondering the meaning of it all.

Re:Are they insane?

[Orgasmatron]

LOL. I call you out for projection and for accusing your opponents of everything that you are guilty of - and your response is "With the right, it's always projection."

ZERO. SELF. AWARENESS. You literally can't stop yourself from acting on your obsolete and counterproductive world view.

Your understanding of Trump suffers from bubble disease. Since you understand neither yourself nor us, the best you can do is invent Just So Stories to explain things. In your imagination we are all ignorant racists, so Trump must be a xenophobic clown. You can't possibly imagine that we've been calling for someone like him for years, or that he's been planning this since at least 2012.

Police have a compliance model that goes "Ask, Tell, Make." We asked the Republican Party to fight for us with the dawn of the Tea Party movement. They didn't. We told them to by sacking House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker of the House John Boehner. And we've finally arrived at make.

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

" the best defense is to have already accused your opponent of what you are guilty of, ideally before anyone catches on"

So like Trump then? ... but wait, you're calling Trump an SJW? Sorry to break it to you, that initialism isn't usually applied to those who declare war on social justice.

Re:Are they insane?

[PopeRatzo]

In your imagination we are all ignorant racists, so Trump must be a xenophobic clown.

Right on both counts.

Re:Are they insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

faggot

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

The cultural connotations of the "cuckold" term allows them to combine derogation of their opponent's masculinity with devil imagery, given the historical association with horns, and can be construed (depending on what brand of lunatic you are) to apply to either immigration/cultural purity or generic ideology if you don't have the stomach for overt racism.

Great analysis. I would only add that there is an element of projection given the fear so often expressed that "black men are taking our women". In fact there is an entire genre (or two) of pr0n dedicated to sexualizing this particular racial anxiety.

Makes sense

[rsilvergun]

coal stops being profitable when you can't get somebody else to pay for the clean up and the health problems caused by the pollution. Said it before, say it again. If you can't externalize costs it's not economical.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Great hypothesis. Any actual evidence to back that up?

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal is already unprofitable. NG extraction saw to that. You can not beat the market in the long term. You can play it. You can twist it. But the market does not like to be tinkered with. You create all sorts of interesting side effects when you do.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[skids]

I was going towards 'hairpiece' myself but then again ....

Rogainosets?

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[pushing-robot]

It comes from cuckold, a derogatory term for the husband of an adulteress, and from Cuckoo, a bird which lays eggs in others' nests to be raised and supported by unsuspecting parents.

The alt-right started calling moderate conservatives 'Cuckservatives', claiming that there were like the Cuckoo, sitting in the 'nest' of the Republican party and feigning conservatism to win votes, but voting for progressive policies while in office.

It was later abbreviated to 'Cuck' and took on more connotations as it spread through the alt-right, most to do with some kind of perceived emasculation, submissiveness, or 'selling out': Men who allow women to hold too much power ('feminazis', 'SJWs', etc.), people who are accepting of foreigners (to 'steal our jobs' and leech off our social services), globalists who sell America out to the Jews, socialists who would turn the country over to freeloaders, etc, etc.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[0100010001010011]

attempted insult completely fails to connect.

I would pay money to sit and get 'insulted' by this crowd. Bring a lawn chair and popcorn and settle in for a comedy show. I mean when I was a 14 year old boy we tried to insult and push buttons but I'd like to think we could have been a bit more original than 'cuck'.

France: Energy Done Right

[Anonymous Coward]

The US should scrap it's entire energy policy and steal France's. They are 40 years more advanced than us. Literally. Check out their nuclear fleet.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[0100010001010011]

I know the etymology of the world. I'm just fascinated that that's what this crowd decided to run with this entire election.

As in, 'is that the best you can come up with. You get a C- on trolling come back with a better effort'.

They already have like 4 of them

[Anonymous Coward]

They already have like 4 of them. Shutting them down is no big deal for France. They're mostly nuclear and hydro at this point.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[PopeRatzo]

The alt-right started calling moderate conservatives 'Cuckservatives', claiming that there were like the Cuckoo, sitting in the 'nest' of the Republican party and feigning conservatism to win votes, but voting for progressive policies while in office.

That's simply not true. That story is just the alt-Right trying to lie about the fact that they started on 4chan, where the word, "cuck", short for "cuckold" has been a popular insult for a while. It is a mythical origin story that was concocted long after the term "cuck" and "cuckservative" were widely used.

It' never had anything to do with a cuckoo bird. It has to do with 4chan's seemingly very intimate knowledge of p0rn videos that show black men having sex with married white women.

So really, you could say that "cuck" is a term used by men who have a fascination with black penises. I hope that clears up your confusion.

Dogma

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason environmentalists can't embrace nuclear is that it is against the overall green dogma. It is heresy. You can talk all day about how we are continuing to use old outdated nuclear technology when much better, safer, proven designs exist. All they do is scream about Fukishima and Chernobyl instead of breeder reactors, waste reprocessing and passive safety systems.

TRUMP TRUMPS FRENCHEY

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the French to do?

What can the French do?

Surrender!

Wrong target there

[Anonymous Coward]

It is in the corporate board rooms that nuclear fails in the US.

They can't keep gouging us if nuclear power works cheaply, so they find ways to screw it up.

France to close where

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they closing the plants in France (makes sense, they have no coal), or, say, in Poland or Ukraine? Especially Ukraine with its Chernobyl would be happy to close their coal plants. Local nuking is so much better than global warming.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

... unsuspecting parents.

No, the parents frequently see the cuckoo chick murder their real offspring. It's fascinating that after 100 million years, birds haven't evolved an answer to ovum-icide and an imposter baby. Then again, birds can evolve rapidly: Maybe the cuckoo behaviour is only a few thousand years old.

Paris accord was NOT ratified

[Anonymous Coward]

He can't single handedly ratify the Paris Accord anymore than I can.

As far as the US is concerned the accord has absolutely no meaning or value unless you need to wipe your ass or wrap a fish.

Re: Paris accord was NOT ratified

[Anonymous Coward]

international agreements brought into force with respect to the United States on a constitutional basis other than with the advice and consent of the Senate are "international agreements other than treaties" and are often referred to as "executive agreements."

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

The word isn't intended to be exclusively an insult, but a derogatory descriptor. To be a 'cuck' is to put the interests of someone that is abusing you for someone of bad intention's benefit above your own.

In political terms, many people are upset that the left are pandering and protecting Muslim immigrants from areas where they record themselves torturing and murdering people in ever creative and cruel ways. Those victims are the typical core of the political left like homosexuals and trans people.

This situation would be akin to Israel wanting to import White Nationalists that actively seek out and murder Jews while deriding anyone that tries to stop them as being racist.

The word isn't some 14 year old boy trying to show off. It is more of a geopolitical warning delivered with disgust.

Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[raymorris]

Read some of the recent articles by the elder statesmen of the environmentalist movement, such as one of the founders of Greenpeace. They are now acknowledging that they spread a lot of FUD about waste. Here are the two biggest lies:

Intentionally conflating alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. They really hyped things up, through out a lot of numbers and such, about "radiation", carefully cherry-picking things about completely different types of radiation, while making it sound like all the statements went together. Of course you know there are different types of radiation - light from a light bulb is radiation, warmth radiating from a fireplace is radiation. When discussing nuclear waste, the two main types are alpha and beta. Here's the funny thing - alpha is stopped by almost anything - tissue paper, a few centimeters of air, moisture in the air, etc. Unless you press the uranium against your skin, the alpha can't get to you. So when any old 1980s article talks about radiation, ask "are they taking about ALPHA radiation, the kind that's blocked by even tissue paper?" Often they are.

The even bigger lie is intentionally conflating short half-life with long half-life. You know a candle radiates visible light, heat, uv, etc. Gunpowder radiates the same wavelengths - light, heat, etc. The difference between a candle and a bomb is that the candle releases the energy slowly, a little bit a time, while gunpowder releases it's energy quickly. So quickly, in fact, that there's a dangerous amount of energy, for about 50 milliseconds. Nuclear materials are the same. Some release their energy quickly, so there's a dangerous amount of radiation for a short time. Roughly 14 days, in one common case. Other nuclear materials release their energy incredibly slowly, over thousands of years. At any given time, the slow ones are releasing such a small amount of energy you could WEAR the waste on your head all day and it would have absolutely zero effect. In fact I, and many others, DO wear tritium on our belts.

There is waste that releases enough radiation in a year to be dangerous, and there's other waste that releases so little as at a time that it takes a thousand years before most of it is used up. Dumping the energy fast is like a firecracker which burns metal powder very quickly - it's dangerous, for a very short period of time. Releasing it over a thousand years is like the heat generated as a bolt rusts - it's an almost indetectable, and completely safe, level of energy being released.

It's really it like showing somebody a firecracker and saying "this is metal oxydizing" (true) and "the metal in your car could oxydize at any moment" (also true, your car is oxydizing all the time).

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you press the uranium against your skin, the alpha can't get to you.

If you swallow, breathe in, or absorb (through an open wound) material that's emitting alpha radiation, it's actually extremely dangerous. We meatbags don't have a layer of dead skin cells shielding the inside of our bodies.

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[whoever57]

It's like the crazies in the Sierra club who want to hear down the Hetch-Hetchy dam. The dam and the reservoir behind it provide large sources of water and clean electricity.

Tearing it down would be an environmental disaster, but hey, it would create some beautiful views, so, what the heck.

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[jandersen]

Here's the funny thing - alpha is stopped by almost anything - tissue paper, a few centimeters of air, moisture in the air, etc. Unless you press the uranium against your skin, the alpha can't get to you.

When calling for honesty, it is always weise to try to be honest yourself. Nobody claims alpha radiation our in the environment is going to harm you - it is after all just Helium kernels buzzing around, and because they are big and heavy, they don't go very far. The problem arises when you ingest the radioactive material, in which case it becomes extremly dangerous, for that very same reason: it doesn't penetrate very far - so it deposits all of it energy in he tissue and causes huge, localised damage. The same goes for beta radiation - the only radiation that is likely to escape at least partially from your body, if you have ingested the material emitting it, is gamma radiation.

By all means, do go ahead and swallow radioactive isotopes, if you feel they are harmless, but don't force others to follow your lead.

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[CrimsonAvenger]

The problem arises when you ingest the radioactive material, in which case it becomes extremly dangerous,

There is something called "biological half-life", in case you were unaware. It's based on the radioactive half-life and the time any given thing takes to be expelled from your body.

What that means, among other things, is that the biological half-life of most radioactives is the time between you ingesting it and your next crap (or the one after). So, no, your average alpha-emitter isn't that big a deal.

Caveat: depending on the energy of the alphas, which varies from emitter to emitter, of course. Realistically, you're in more danger ingesting solder (which contains lead, and has an INFINITE half-life) than most radioactives (by "most", I mean anything you're likely to come across in normal life - yes, you can go out of your way to kill yourself with radioactives but it takes some effort. Generally, the easiest way is to gather together a couple hundred pounds/kilos of some radioactive substance and drop it on your head from a height of a meter/yard or so).

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that radiation from alpha emitters is easily "blocked". What you mean is, all energy of the particle gets transferred in collision with other matter. If that's air or paper, fine. If that's your living tissue, not so fine because you just absorbed the full dosage and thus maximized the damage done to your cells. Unlike gamma radiation, which most likely just passes through your body without hitting anything. And unlike beta or gamma radiation, you can't detect a spill or a leaky container with monitoring equipment unless you swap surfaces for it.

I've worked with isotopes before, in a previous professional life. It was never the gamma or beta radiation isotopes that made fellow scientists nervous. It was the goddamn alpha emitters. Yes, its radiation blocked by an air gap of a few millimetres. And undetected when spilled.

So periodically you swapped random surfaces in the lab, to see if things were still in order. And too often you detected an alpha emitter spill, carried by a tiny spilled drop on someone's glove to equipment, the counter, the water taps, the door handles... Fuck alpha emitters.

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[pipingguy]

"carefully cherry-picking things"

All the enviro-"concerned" groups do this. And the media uncritically eats it up, elevates non-issues and amps up the alarmism. Looming disaster is a "compelling story" and as such is absolutely irresistible to feckless media.

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

where did you learn that kindergarden, I guess your about 4..

If you believe that load of horse shit, beware the banana...

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[MrKaos]

Read some of the recent articles by the elder statesmen of the environmentalist movement, such as one of the founders of Greenpeace.

oh, so NOW your listening to them.

Intentionally conflating alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.

Please, please, please can you people please learn the difference between a radionuclide and the radiation it emits. I'm not fucking einstein but I'm fairly certain you don't want to breath plutonium oxide or have plutonium chloride in your food.

Too late, who knows how much of a serve Fukushima and Chernobyl gave us of that. I guess we will have to rely on the promotional materials from the IAEA.

The even bigger lie is intentionally conflating short half-life with long half-life.

ok, how about radon seeping into water tables from mine tailings or CFC114 emissions from enrichment (now thankful ceased) or megalitres of radioactive sulphuric acid slurry from acid leach mining or DU DU everywhere!

There is waste that releases enough radiation in a year to be dangerous,

Yes there is

It's really it like showing somebody a firecracker and saying "this is metal oxydizing" (true) and "the metal in your car could oxydize at any moment" (also true, your car is oxydizing all the time).

My brain is oxidizing.

Re:Waste is mostly a political problem, FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a dozen more Hetch-Hetchy dams all up the northern Sierra Nevadas to capture the rest of the water. California wouldn't have faced near the impact from the recent drought if we'd done so.

But instead, we have morons in Sacramento wanting the existing southern Sierra Nevada dams to dump more into the rivers for fish flows instead of storing or using it wisely.

Re:The USA mocks you

[ShanghaiBill]

Since then, everyone, including Japan, has quietly started going back to nuclear.

Germany hasn't. They are still on track to be nuke free by 2022.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[quantaman]

It comes from cuckold, a derogatory term for the husband of an adulteress, and from Cuckoo, a bird which lays eggs in others' nests to be raised and supported by unsuspecting parents.

The alt-right started calling moderate conservatives 'Cuckservatives', claiming that there were like the Cuckoo, sitting in the 'nest' of the Republican party and feigning conservatism to win votes, but voting for progressive policies while in office.

That's hilariously ironic considering that describes almost perfectly what the alt-right did to the GOP, especially their new patron-saint, Trump.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Sique]

Birds in general raise mainly one chick and have the remaining offspring only in reserve if something happens to the first one. Thus the behaviour of the biggest chick is always to shoulder its siblings away and get the most of the feeding and care of its parents. Cuckoos lay their eggs into nests of birds that are smaller than the cuckoo itself, and thus cuckoo chicks will be the biggest and largest chick in their respective nests. And then they behave as the native chick would have too, maybe just a tad more extremely.

Re: Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it really is like some 14 yo boy trying to show off.

On the subject of "excess" french energy

[Anonymous Coward]

The French used to provide us (The UK) with energy, that has recently stopped, I believe technically we are now providing them with power. Essentially the french nuclear plants are now suffering the same fate as the British nuclear plants have over the last few decades. They have aged, become too old, decommissioning has begun but with no new plants to replace.

I assume they will expand their renewables, but the certainly aren't ready to just drop any of their energy infrastructure.

Re:The USA mocks you

[MayeulC]

And to achieve this goal, they buy electricity from France. A smart move, after all: you get the praise for how clean your energy production is, and you let the others deal with the dangers associated with its production.

The future is [may be] fusion.

Re:The USA mocks you

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany just burns the most coal in Europe to make up for it.

And ...

[kjhambrick]

The poor bastards will be freezing in the dark in 2024

Re:And ...

[serviscope_minor]

The poor bastards will be freezing in the dark in 2024

Why on earth would you think that?

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[DNS-and-BIND]

A cuckold sits by and watches his wife get fucked.

A cuckservative sits by and watches his country get fucked.

Re:The USA mocks you

[Joce640k]

Germany is run by the hippie party. We all know coal is small lumps of nature.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Freischutz]

It comes from cuckold, a derogatory term for the husband of an adulteress, and from Cuckoo, a bird which lays eggs in others' nests to be raised and supported by unsuspecting parents.

The alt-right started calling moderate conservatives 'Cuckservatives', claiming that there were like the Cuckoo, sitting in the 'nest' of the Republican party and feigning conservatism to win votes, but voting for progressive policies while in office.

It was later abbreviated to 'Cuck' and took on more connotations as it spread through the alt-right, most to do with some kind of perceived emasculation, submissiveness, or 'selling out': Men who allow women to hold too much power ('feminazis', 'SJWs', etc.), people who are accepting of foreigners (to 'steal our jobs' and leech off our social services), globalists who sell America out to the Jews, socialists who would turn the country over to freeloaders, etc, etc.

Is there anybody they don't hate? Just the fact that they hate women and want to muzzle them and chain them to a stove already means they already hate half the human race. That covers Jews, Muslims some of them also hate Christians. Add to that Asians, Africans, Latinos, Middle Easterners, in short anybody who is not white and male. They hate any white people who are not alt-right and surely they hate the portion of the alt-rigth that they consider rivals or betrayers of the one true way of hate. I think that covers most of the human race. Being alt-right activist must be a lonely existence. These guys are beginning to sound like the bloody Sith. Do they hold meetings at Breitbart HQ where a pale, hunch backed and prune faced Steve Bannon dressed in a black hooded robe preaches to his acolytes, waiving his withered hand: "Use the hate my minions, let it flow through you, It will make you strong!" ???

Re: The USA mocks you

[Frankzy]

Aaaaah so that's how they are able to rationalise it.. Always wondered about that

Not entirely true

[aepervius]

While I am for Nuclear and keep pointing out to people that the coal industry is allowed to emit more radioactive material in the atmosphere than nuclear industry, it is worth to point out that they usually try to catch as much fly ash as possible. This is not 1850 anymore where there was no filter, nowadays in most country the fly ash is caught (and reused as building material , e.g. for road IIRC) and there are filter for sulfure among others.

Re:The USA mocks you

[alex67500]

Hang on, France only said they were going down to 50%. It's carbon neutral. And France isn't on any major fault lines so they should be alright...

Nuclear myths

[uulbri]

This post tends to imply that Nuclear industry is profitable in France which is absolutely not the case.
This is a speciality in France to split responsibilities between different entities to trick the results. For example EDF (selling electricity and profitable) and Areva, managing nuclear plants, and deeply indebted (billions) same as for example for the rail, with the SNCF (selling train tickets and profitable) and ERDF in charge of the railway network and deeply indebted...
Most French nuclear plants are out of age, with an end-of-service date constantly delayed and the next Chernobyl / Fukushima will unfortunately and definitely be French, although no-one seems to care... At least our neighbours should care.
Not even mentioning the legacy for our children as none of the real issues are addressed, ie waste reprocessing/storage and plants dismantling.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[dunkelfalke]

Rogonosets, literally "wearer of horns". In German, and apparently, in French, horns stand for the same thing.

Re: Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of suppressed homoeroticism in that segment (for example the adoration for that Milo Minderbinder Twitter guy) which is expressed as hatred for anyone who isn't a single white male.

Still don't know why Marrakech, Morocco.

germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Germans are full of crap..
Boast that they are Europe's leaders in green energy and will be nuke free,all they have done is Vick the entire decision up,they now have to import lots of electricity from Frances nuke power system and their use of carbon fuels is going up at a massive rate,and Germany uses the dirtiest rubbish of any major nation,they have no coal,what they strip mine and burn on a massive scale is lignite,possibly the worst rubbish that you could pick for large power generation,and because they reckon they are going to generate everything from green sources they are not investing in lignite burning stations,so they are now burning more crap through older and dirtier plants than they did in the past !
Germany is an object lesson in how not to green an energy system...

Re:germany

[Sique]

Contrary to common belief, Germany is a net exporter of electrical energy, and the amount of coal going into generating electrical energy is declining. In 1990, Germany generated 311 TWh of electrical energy from coal, in 2015, it was 273 TWh. At the same time, the total output of electrical energy in Germany has grown from 550 TWh to 645 TWh.

Yes, lignite plays a major role, but the total electical energy from lignite hasn't changed much, it's between 145 and 170 TWh yearly, with 170 TWh in 1990 and 145 TWh in 2009, currently (2015) being 155 TWh. And also yes, if you just look at France and Germany, France is a net exporter of electrical energy to Germany. But Germany itself exports electrical energy to other neighboring countries like Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. In the end, Germany bought 33 TWh of electrical energy in 2015, but at the same time exported 85 TWh, making it a net exporter of more than 50 TWh in 2015.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[serviscope_minor]

I'm genuinely curious as to the origins of this with regards to the Trump fanboys. Who sat down and flipped through the dictionary to settle on 'cuck'? Is that the most insulting thing you could come up with to get under the skin of people you disagreed with?

It's a mixture of things. Much of it centres on rather broken ideas of how things should be and cuck (cuckold) is about the most devastating insult they can think of to themselves, so they try and use it on other people.

http://www.wehuntedthemammoth....

The trouble is that no one except them cares, so they just end up sounding like a bunch of chickens

PS sorry about the thing the other day. I was thinking of the OTHER guy with lots of 1's and 0's in his name. I dobule checked, it wasn't you, so please accept my apologies.

Re:The USA mocks you

[MoarSauce123]

Because it is cheap for the power companies. The biggest expense is safe long term storage and that is covered by tax payers. Same applies to any fallout from accidents. The better option for power generation is renewables because they are safer, but not necessarily better for the environment. As for energy storage, use the old coal mines as pumped storage hydro power station. That not only is highly efficient, but also requires the skills and know how of current mine workers to operate the plant. What is often ignored is the dire need of curbing consumption regardless of how power is generated. A lot can be saved when implementing intelligent technology and better designs...such as a power mains switch on every and all electric devices.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[AmiMoJo]

It was popularised by anti-feminists, "neomasculinists" and Men Going Their Own Way who like to portray "beta" males as cuckolds, doomed to keep giving their resources to and even marrying women who have sex with many other men. They call it the "cock carousel", and think women primarily gain resources by exchanging them for access to their vaginas.

That soon evolved into calling everyone that they didn't perceive as a manly man alpha male as a "cuck".

Re:The USA mocks you

[Rei]

To be fair, Germany's approach to coal isn't bad. They're working to retire their old generation of coal plants and replace them with advanced coal gassification plants. The big difference is that the new ones are dramatically more efficient than the old ones they're replacing, and will be responsive to rapid changes in demand or production. This in turn will let them gradually transition from baseload to peaking as renewables continue to make up an increasing share of the European power mix.

Ohmigod. So much bullshit in so few sentences.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Actually, most of that "waste" can be reused as fuel. Modern light water nuclear plants only use about 3% of the energy in uranium. That's why the waste is "hot" for so long [...]

I'll just pick on one: most of the uranium is *not* radioactive (U-238). What you do in a breeder is you control the neutron flux in a way that this harmless isotope is converted into plutonium. Granted, you can extract much more energy from your mined uranium this way (and weapon-ready material as well), but you *dramatically increase* the amount of highly radioactive by-products in the process.

Get your physics straight (or is that Trump physics already?)

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[fnj]

Spoken like a true cuck.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[blind biker]

The alt-right started calling moderate conservatives 'Cuckservatives', claiming that there were like the Cuckoo, sitting in the 'nest' of the Republican party and feigning conservatism to win votes, but voting for progressive policies while in office.

That's simply not true. That story is just the alt-Right trying to lie about the fact that they started on 4chan, where the word, "cuck", short for "cuckold" has been a popular insult for a while. It is a mythical origin story that was concocted long after the term "cuck" and "cuckservative" were widely used.

It' never had anything to do with a cuckoo bird. It has to do with 4chan's seemingly very intimate knowledge of p0rn videos that show black men having sex with married white women.

So really, you could say that "cuck" is a term used by men who have a fascination with black penises. I hope that clears up your confusion.

Either way, nobody in the known universe really gives a fuck.

Re: The USA mocks you

[Anonymous Coward]

More efficient, and cleaner -- but emits more CO2 than coal by itself, so not a solution.

Globalists out! Globalists out! Globalists out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to undo the damage Obama and his gang of thugs have done to the world by strong-arming their way into our coffers in the name of climate hoaxing. Regulation cripples innovation, and worse yet no other country is paying their fair share while the U.S. is at record high debt. You can take your refugees with TB back while your at it.

Re:The USA mocks you

[fisted]

As if Germany wouldn't be in trouble if a French nuke plant shat itself...

Re: The USA mocks you

[Rei]

Coal gassification does not emit more CO2 than coal by itself after taking into account the efficiency difference.

Re:The USA mocks you

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhhh...so clean coal then.

Doesn't matter

[acoustix]

China, India, and other countries are still building them left and right. France closing theirs will have no effect.

I know you are but what am I

[rsilvergun]

seriously though. Coal and Gas are much, much more expensive than nuclear when you can't _externalize_your_costs_. The pollution gets into the air, water and land. It causes massive health problems to anyone living anywhere near the plant. You also need to risk miner's lives to mine it cheaply or you need to do fracking (which has it's own unique problems: earthquakes, water you can light on fire, etc).

All of this either gets paid for by the taxpayer or you let the people hurt by it suffer and die (google "Cancer Villages"). Sorry, but you really have no idea wtf you're going on about...

Re:I know you are but what am I

[Uberbah]

You're seriously the third person so far to engage in the trite straw man/false dichotomy that criticizing nuclear means supporting coal. Yawn.

Don't eat it, or bleach, paint thinner, hair dye

[raymorris]

True, you shouldn't EAT nuclear waste, cleaning products, paint thinner, swimming pool chorine, nails, dirt, etc. I tell my two-year-old "we only put FOOD in our mouth."

Re:The USA mocks you

[Pyrion]

And how much lignite will they burn to make up for the loss in nuclear nameplate capacity?

Re:The USA mocks you

[bigpat]

And to achieve this goal, they buy electricity from France. A smart move, after all: you get the praise for how clean your energy production is, and you let the others deal with the dangers associated with its production.

let the others deal with the [fear mongering] associated with its production.

There I fixed it for you.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[0100010001010011]

No problem, I know that guy's an asshole.

https://slashdot.org/comments....

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[serviscope_minor]

No problem, I know that guy's an asshole.

Your needs are not my needs, therefore you suck and I shall make snarky comments. I, too have a mobile workstation (1 wifi, 2 bluetooth, 2 hard disks).

Re: Marrakech, Morocco

[0100010001010011]

Milo is a caricature of everything the alt-right says the left says the right hates. Hell I didn't even know he was Jewish until Bannon came under fire and he came out as "Hey look, I'm a Jew! He's not anti-Semitic".

I mean you have a flamboyant gay, Jewish man that loudly proclaims how much he enjoys large black men being the figure head for a large swath of single white males. For a lot of his followers I wouldn't be surprised if he was the token [adjective] that proved they weren't racist/homophobic/anti-Semite. "I can't be a racist hoomphobe. I follow this guy on Twitter".

I can see it...

[kaatochacha]

Green reader: Oh, they're killing coal yippeee!
(reads about nuclear)
Green reader: but, nukular bad! Grrrrr! um,(head explodes)

Re:The USA mocks you

[Rei]

It is cleaner than old coal plants, yes. But the key point is, you need peaking with renewables. So when the renewables get built and connected to the grid, it automatically scales back to being a peaking plant; you don't have to build new peakers.

Small feat

[nospam007]

Yes indeed. They'll close them all, _both_ of them
This is not a joke, they have only 2 of those. the rest are nukes.

Cordemais Power Station
Provence Power Station

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You must work for the Democratic party!

[s.petry]

Looking out for self interests is not "stupid", people with delusions of Utopia are. You may consider drinking lots and lots of bleach to fix your illness.

Re:You must work for the Democratic party!

[Jzanu]

Repeating that bullshit doesn't make it true - this isn't your Facebook/Twitter echo chamber. You seriously need to be committed for a mental health evaluation, for your safety and for the safety of those around you.

Re:You must work for the Democratic party!

[skids]

Except they aren't looking out for their own self interests, they are falling prey to their baser instincts. Those don't work anymore in modern civilized society. They are hurting themselves by squandering the opportunity they were presented to spread their culture and foster a sense of goodwill. Instead of future trade partners, translators, intelligence assets, and neighbors, they get instead resentful, easily radicalizable transients. Bum deal.

Re:You must work for the Democratic party!

[s.petry]

Repeating bullshit which is a live interview you could hear for yourself is "untrue" how exactly? Oh, this is a fun game. Reading your post history I see the majority of your posts starting by insulting people and standing for the establishment at every level. Wholly fuck you shills are stupid. Go pound sand up your ass, before your master bends you over preferably.

Re: You must work for the Democratic party!

[Jzanu]

Faggot all you do is waste time go learn something! A misquote is wrong. Deutschland ist ein starkes Land. Das Motiv, mit dem wir an diese Dinge herangehen, muss sein: Wir haben so vieles geschafft â" wir schaffen das!" means only that "as a nation we have and we will continue to create a strong country!". It is followed by "Wir schaffen das, und dort, wo uns etwas im Wege steht, muss es überwunden werden, muss daran gearbeitet werden." Which means "We will face those problems that threaten our strength and work to overcome them". Remember CDU CSU is center right so this is both appeal to being German and being German post-Hitler and his crimes. For more context read it

Re: You must work for the Democratic party!

[Jzanu]

Faggot all you do is waste time go learn something! A misquote is wrong. Deutschland ist ein starkes Land. Das Motiv, mit dem wir an diese Dinge herangehen, muss sein: Wir haben so vieles geschafft â" wir schaffen das!" means only that "as a nation we have and we will continue to create a strong country!". It is followed by "Wir schaffen das, und dort, wo uns etwas im Wege steht, muss es überwunden werden, muss daran gearbeitet werden." Which means "We will face those problems that threaten our strength and work to overcome them". Remember CDU CSU is center right so this is both appeal to being German and being German post-Hitler and his crimes.

Re:Marrakech, Morocco

[Anonymous Coward]

>citing WHTM as though it was ever insightful or useful