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Switzerland Votes To Abandon Nuclear Power In Favor of Renewables (bbc.com)
Slashdot reader bsolar writes: Swiss voters approved a new energy strategy proposed by the government. Under this new policy no new nuclear power plant will be built and the five existing nuclear power plants will continue operating and will be shut down at the end of their operating life (expected to last about 20-30 years). The plan is to offset the missing nuclear energy production by renewables and lower energy consumption.
Though one-third of the country's power comes from nuclear energy, the BBC reports that more than 58% of the voters "backed the move towards greener power sources." One Swiss news site notes that "regions where the country's five nuclear reactors are situated rejected the reform with clear majorities."
Though one-third of the country's power comes from nuclear energy, the BBC reports that more than 58% of the voters "backed the move towards greener power sources." One Swiss news site notes that "regions where the country's five nuclear reactors are situated rejected the reform with clear majorities."
That's the plain and simple truth. Nuclear Fission only looks like it works if it is cross-funded by obscene truckloads of taxpayers money and nobody looks too hard at centralized power cartels (funded by said taxpayers money), reactor runtimes and maintenance costs (also paid by taxpayers mones). Factor in waste handling, storage and the risks of nuclear disasters and the balance sheet goes really deep-red.
The numbers don't add up and the whole concept simply doesn't work. Even the conservatives in Germany have noticed this. Replenishing Plant Wackersdorf - a multi-billion dollar project for the treatment and replenishing of nuclear waste - wasn't closed down by left-wing hippie protesters raising a stink of the better part of a decade, it was closed down by southern Germany state officials doing the math. Some backroom clerk adding up the numbers and seeing in awe and amazement that it wouldn't work, even with the best predictions. Same goes for the most advanced fast breeder at Kalkar - a building estimated more expensive than the Pyramids of Gizeh, inflation factored in.
Now Germany is moving out of nuclear alltogether and for once we're actually ahead of schedule - even with all the fuss about the new powerlines crossing the republic. AFAI understand we've simply decided to front a few extra billion and move those underground, so nobody can complain of them blocking their view. We crossed the 80% renewables a few weeks ago. If Germany can do this - really not a country known for it's sunny days - the rest of the world can do it too.
People have to see the light: Nuclear Fission as we know it is a 60ies techno-romatic pipe-dream. And a dangerous one at that, with a 200 000 year waste problem attached.
IMHO the world should move to decommission classic nuclear fission ASAP. I'm glad the swiss voted in favor of this. I personally don't want to many chernobyls and fukushimas happening before the world finally catches on.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So what is going to cover base load? Is geothermal and (ironically not very green) biomass enough to cover it in Switzerland?
I can't believe this gets voted on by the common man in the street, who will be swayed by whatever the media has been reporting. Shouldn't this sort of thing be looked at by people that understand costs, risks and benefits of the current and near future technologies?
I for one will be laughing when they end up importing coal/gas power from neighbouring countries.
Proof that democracy doesn't always work. People are morons. There are no "greener sources" than nuclear if you want a decent electricity grid with a reliable base load. All that will happen is what's happened elsewhere - wind, solar, and coal/gas to cover the inevitable large shortfalls as they fluctuate like hell (not to mention their massively lower energy density).
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
While I agree with a stop to build new ones, it's insane to turn off the ones that are still running reliably. Because whether you turn them off now or at their end of life, the building along with everything inside is radioactive waste you have to take care of. The damage is already done, the nuclear waste already created. You can as well reap the few benefits you gain out of it before throwing it away.
Or rather, driving it around Europe hoping to find some place to stow it. Maybe Moldova will allow you to dump it there if you throw enough money at them, they sure need it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh, stop that BS. Germany's power grid is going into a shithole and they're propping it with hastily expanding coal and natgas generation. That 2020 targets for CO2 emissions? Who cares about them!
Greeny idiots keep parading the peak numbers for renewable generation (now 100500% of the consumption!) but they conveniently forget to mention troughs. For example, this January the renewable production was 10% of the normal due to unusually cold weather with little wind. For about 2 weeks. Had Germany relied only on renewables they would have had thousands people dead from hypothermia.
What do you mean with "obscene truckloads of taxpayers money"? You mean more than the €40.1 billion Energy tax and the €6.6 billion Electricity tax that taxpayers had to pay in 2016 alone to fund alternative and green energies in Germany?
https://www.technologyreview.c...
"After years of declines, Germanyâ(TM)s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. Thatâ(TM)s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal."
The whole nuclear debate shows that the left can be just as "anti-science" as the right. Because of scaremongering, nuclear power plant construction and development has been hamstrung for decades. It produces less radiation than coal and scales a lot better than solar or wind. For all the money and jobs in solar it still produces a small percentage of power, even in places like Germany (less than 8%). Wind and solar combined only produce only 22% of energy in Germany.
If you believe that global warming is about to end the human race, we should be increasing all our options for non-CO2 polluting energy. Especially if you anticipate a huge need in energy as we shift cars from petrol to electric.
Abandoning nuclear is right when we need it the most is just stupid.
BS. German built -4 new coal power stations. In other words, they built some new ones but closed more older ones.
Anyway, you are pre-judging their effort. They are due to finish around 2024, when the last nuclear reactors are decommissioned. Until then it's still the transition phase and not indicative of the final outcome. Wait until the full renewable and storage capacity is there, and then compare some temporarily elevated CO2 emissions to permanently lower ones.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
wind and solar energy are cheaper than other sources of energy (even without subsisdies),
If this is true why is the electricity price in green renewables Germany twice as high as their neighbour France which relies on nuclear power for nearly all of its electricity generation?
It's really weird since Germany actually generates most of its electricity from brown coal and Russian gas which is dirt-cheap.
The headline lied again. The proposition to abandon nuclear power following German policy was voted on last last November, and it went down hard. The current proposition was to not build any new reactors after the current generation ages out after about 2030. The general attitude (I have relatives there) is that given such a comfortably far off year, why not make a symbolic gesture of support for hoping the German program will eventually produce enough clean energy to run the economy?
Before 1970, Switzerland's power mix was 90% hydro; because of nuclear, that fraction has dropped to 56% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Switzerland). So whereas Germany has to produce its baseload by opening new coal plants, Switzerland has all that hydro to fall back on.
Switzerland values the beauty of its countryside, which is exactly why it started building nuclear plants in the lowland rather than new mountain dams in the first place. Switzerland doesn't have any expense of offshore mudflats, and there is no sentiment for festooning the Alps with wind turbines. My personal guess is that by 2030 Switzerland's new renewable energy will be entirely in the form of solar roofing, and that the aged-out nukes will be replaced by new factory-built modular reactors from China.
The majority of people/voters inside and outside Switzerland are misinformed on both risk from nuclear and of the costs of the alternatives. Most could not accurately describe any of the important facts. This is a populist decision on how to deal with a technical problem.
The there would never be a valid excuse for turning off a working nuclear plant.
The incredibly small risk of running the plant would be nothing in the face of the dire risk being claimed for climate change.
Climate change alarmists call out the precautionary principle all the time. What if, what if, what if. To be true to the precautionary principle, the only course of action that should be supported is keeping zero emission plants running.
Production was only 85% momentarily, on a Sunday morning with exceptionally low demand and high wind conditions. Meanwhile, it was also shown how wind and solar production drops to below 4% quite often still. The problem is many talk about 'renewables' and fail to mention that it include burning biomass and hydro, but the only sources that can be added with any significance are the intermittent wind and solar sources. Wind and Solar only generated about 20% of German power in 2016, and they are already running into limits of what the grid can handle without significantly larger investments in transmission systems than what they've already had to do to get to this point.
Pleas read the article again. Only 15% of the fuel is produced in Switzerland not the electricity. We don't have uranium mines and the like here.
This statistics include not only electricity but also fuel for cars and machines - we don't have any oil!
From the same page for a study from 2009:
The study also showed that the production in Switzerland (64.6 TWh) is similar to the amount of electricity consumed in the country (63.7 TWh).[12] Overall, Switzerland export 7.6 TWh and import 6.8 TWh; but, in terms of emissions of carbon dioxide, Switzerland export "clean" electricity causing emissions of 0.1 millions of tonnes of CO2 and import "dirty" electricity causing emissions of 5 millions of tonnes of CO2.[12]
Pretty much says it all.
Uh ... no. That paragraph says nothing meaningful. Blaming everything on a vast media conspiracy is the second refuge of the scoundrel. The linked article is informative, but it would have been better without the persecution theory.
In the UK it's not the fear of accidents that is the primary objection to new nuclear plants, it's the incredible cost. We have to subsidise ours to an absolutely insane level. Guaranteed prices for energy produced, for the lifetime of the plant, plus the usual free insurance and other incentives.
I don't think people in the UK are more intelligent than the Swiss. In fact, looking at some campaign material for the Swiss vote, it seems that the cost of new nuclear power was the primary objection.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The coal miners in Appalachia are using their vast wealth and influence to oppress the poor who just want to power their Tesla's with their solar rooftops.