BBC – 30 May, 2011
Germany pledges to end all nuclear power by 2022
Germany’s ruling coalition says it has agreed a date of 2022 for the shutdown of all of its nuclear power plants.
Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen made the announcement after a meeting of the ruling coalition that lasted into the early hours of Monday.
Story here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208
The Swiss are following this lead.
I will be in Germany for 2 weeks this summer. My tenth year teaching at a Classical Guitar festival there.
I have made many good friends there, all are very green but many are also skeptical of CAGW.
I expect to have some “lively” discussions about nuclear power 🙂
I have sent them literature on thorium power and modern nuclear power.
We do what we can.
To be honest, a part of me wishes they’d do it tomorrow, never mind 2022 – and be guinea pigs, showing the world how idiotic this all this when they’re all fighting over bread again. On the other hand, if you remember the last time Germans were fighting over bread, the fascists took power. Maybe this is exactly what the greenshirts want.
Stark, staring mad. The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.
Fools
Yet right next door
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html
If one of our major economic competitors volunteers to commit economic suicide, how should we respond?
Deutschland, deutschland unter alles?
Now they only have to find an effective way to ban shale gas exploration, and they’ve reached their goal to deindustrialize Germany. And then this shining example will be joined triumphantly by all other nations, especially the chinese and indians.
An deutschem Wesen soll die Welt genesen!
My poor old country lost its china again.
Unless they replace with cheap coal, there goes the strength of Europe.
Just read this myself – so I expect the Germans will be energy poor in due course? Presumably, they will build more coal/gas fired power stations and back down from the crazy EU emissions regs?
It sounds like Black Outs and power shortages for Germany as well as the UK then.
Completely mad. Despite the recent disaster in Japan, nuclear power is one of the safest forms of power generation. Hydro-electric is far more dangerous. Ironically, I seem to recall that, after investigations into the disaster and assessments of their other sites, Japan affirmed that they would continue with nuclear power.
‘Knee jerk energy policy’ is a perfect description. How many magnitude 9 earthquakes and huge tsunamis does Germany normally experience?
Our UK government is similarly mad, but at least they are planning new nuclear build.
There’s a very interesting report in today’s printed Daily Telegraph. The first part is another blow against wind power: research predicts that winds in the UK are set to fall over coming decades. Current output is pitifully small and completely unreliable, despite all those monstrosities that litter our countryside, but if the research is correct, it will be even more pitifully small. But, on the other hand, that research is almost certainly based on computer models….
The second half of the report is even more interesting. It appears to contain a strong blow against AGW, which is surprising, as the Daily Telegraph’s climate coverage is normally completely biased and one-sided.
The report stronly relates changes in climate to solar activity. It strongly suggests that the mini ice age, 1645 to 1715, was caused by low solar activity, with quotes from Prof. Lockwood. A quote from Lockwood: “We reached a high point of solar activity in 1985. Since then, it has been declining. The probability is that that decline will continue for the next 40 years”.
After a lag of a bit over a decade, the global climate appears to be starting to follow the sun.
There’s another report on the same page: the IEA’s figure for 2010 CO2 emissions is 30.6 gigatons, a record amount. Naturally the report is filled with AGW doom and gloom, and it ignores the fact that nature emits around thirty times more, but it does raise a serious question: with CO2 emissions still rising, why is the global temperature failing to do the same? Could it be something to do – gasp! – with the sun?
Chris
Based on the feedback from one of my German friends – more people will be buying UPS and generators to keep their electricity supply going…
At least in Australia, currently, I only need to pull out the generator when the weather goes very ‘wild’ and trips out the local sub station. If we get the Carbon Tax I think will look to wiring it in permanently.
Germany doesn’t need nuclear energy as such. If 40 years ago West Germany had decided not to build up nuclear power plants and build more coal power instead, we would have no problem today. Electricity from coal is just as cheap, and we have plenty of coal resources.
Furthermore the nuclear programme has effecively been stalled after 1989 anyway, because since then no new reactors have been built. Nuclear has a share of 20 – 25% of Germany’s overall electricity production and has remained frozen at that stage for the last 20 years. Since old reactors will eventually be shut down anyway due to age, nuclear phaseout has been factually decided back then, even though few people in Germany are aware of this fact. And that is not a problem as such as long as it’s being done economically wisely and replacement power plants are built in time.
However Germany has decided to go mad this spring after the Fukushima incident and decided to shut down its reactors at a much faster pace. That decision alone is already costly and irrational, because it means to throw away functioning investments worth many billions long before the natural end of their lifespan, which thus have to be replaced much earlier than originally planned. Not only that, but the intention is to replace them not with cheap coal plants, but most likely with ecologically correct stuff such as wind turbines. This again will increase costs manifold, it will be a burden on our economy and reduce living standards. Unfortunately these implications are rarely discussed here.
Living in Germany is currently quite depressing. There is no rational reason for such a shutdown race. Even if you’re opposed to nuclear power, the Fukushima incident gave us no new information we didn’t have already, so no reason at all to change our policy, which had been a slow abandonment anyway. There is absolutely no reason to go down this economically insane route.
So let’s see:
That means relying on:
1. Russian natural gas supplies – now that’s really smart.
2. Wind power – already shown to be very unreliable and expensive in Germany – also very smart.
3. Solar power – could work for perhaps 25% of the time in Germany.
The coal has run out and also that’s not a green option!
So what are the Germans going to do for energy? The answer could be to buy it from France’s new generations of nuclear power plants. Another answer could be to invade Russia for its fuel resources – however, that didn’t work out too well last time around.
This is about a goofy a decision as any group of politicians has ever dreamed up – the certainty of de-industrialisation as part of an official policy of economic suicide.
The real story, which isn’t being told, is the disaster unfolding at Fukushima, which NOBODY seems to want to care about or give any data on the radiation in water, food, etc etc etc.
You guys DO know that 3 of the reactors are in meldown right? TEPCO only like 2 weeks ago finally fessed up to there being a meltdown since 16 hours after the tsunami struck, meaning, meltdown has been in full effect since March 11.
Unbelievable.
http://www.fairewinds.com
What was once the most powerful economy in Europe destroyed by “the movement”
Then again, as brownouts and blackouts begin to bite, perhaps they will see the light (even candlelight)
They’re kaput. Germany is heading for industrial collapse, unless someone pulls them back from the brink. As I remarked over at Bishop Hill, perhaps the upside will be found in what de-industrialisation will mean – people dying of cold and cancelled operations because of lack of energy. Once the rest of the world has seen that happen to a once-mighty nation like Germany, it will be a a wake up call.
Gas prices going up to $5+. Home gas bills tripling+. Electricity tripling+. Intentional mismanagement, and social engineering to steer it along. All geared towards more control of your personal life through financial thrashing of the populace, the gazillion new laws and regulations for our own protection, pretty much making everybody liable for being some kind of violator if they don’t like them for whatever reason. Automated machines to assure compliance, and/or to be used for enforcement… even elimination if necessary. This has been the dream of the military-industrial complex for decades, if not centuries.
Great news, it’s well past time to dump that disgusting technology.
New frontiers in energy will come from this.
Question…. you guys are weather people… what’s going to happen to all that radiation spewing at Fukushima if that supertyphoon hits the area…. curious about that……
Most of us will be alive ten years from now so we’ll have a front row seat to watch Germany compete for all those next generation telescopes since Germany will be virtually light free at night.
As Greenpeace predicts, there’s a lot of money to be made. Mostly at dawn – all those broken bones from stumbling around in the dark Then there’s the Spring Burial Festivals where the mortuary sector will be able to bury all those folks that froze to death in the winter (something about that long period cycle of cold predicted).
For the political minded, another example of kicking the can down the road. Regardless of no hydrocarbons and no nukes, they figure they’ll be out of office and basking in Bermuda in 2022 anyway. Oh, and the lots of money will be, as usual, used to buy votes and increased graft and corruption.
Austria did the same thing in 1978. At least they had a referendum.
It only works when you can buy your energy from decrepit Russian nuclear power stations, or from the French – who are going to make a fortune selling power from their nuclear stations. Germany cannot survive on renewables alone.
So a lovely opportunity for the Poles to sell them some fracked shale gas. Unless the French manage to get fracking banned, in which case the Germans can import nulear electric from them.
Ok, so now the little electron-thingies that everybody needs are going to be made by green pixies and sun-elves instead? mmmmm… or maybe they’ll just dig into those 100 years or so or worldwide coal reserves and burn that in the meantime….
Clearly Germany doesn’t like its industrial base.
Our goverment has gone totally mad. This is the end of the german democracy and the beginning of an eco-dictatorship. I hope that there is a place for a refugee in the USA,
Don’t forget that logically, there is no particular reason for a climate sceptic to be in favour of nuclear power. It is usually more expensive than coal-fired power and since greenhouse gases are not dangerous, why ditch coal?
Relevant, I think from Jo. Nova:
Only an Eco-dictatorship Will Save the World! Democracy be Damned!
Thanks to the Global Warming Policy Foundation we can finally See the Light!, and it shines from Germany’s green government advisers.
Get Ready. To save the world you must give up the right to vote. To cool the planet, you will forgo the right to have a say in the laws of your land. Why? There are gifted, anointed higher beings out there (who knew?) and they are smarter than the masses. They may not know what an 8-sigma-tree is, but they know how to control the weather.
Through their benevolence you and I will live in a bountiful land, where there will be no more floods or droughts, no more record hot days, or blizzard filled cold ones. Instead life will be perfect. Every asylum seeker shall find what they seek, every climate scientist will have their own suite, and thus and unto infinity, the glorious bliss of perfect weather will descend upon the poor and worthy people of all lands, starting with Germany.
The gifted elite who have the Vision have given up trying to convince or persuade the stupid throngs of doctors, geologists, engineers, lawyers, businesspeople and other heathen fools (like NASA astronauts) who “don’t understand” their control of the atmosphere. Now is the time to force the carbon legislation into being, to take action, and help those who cannot or will not think for themselves!
“*We*, the new preachers of the world, are here to tell you peasants how to live:”
This is the dark communist totalitarian megalomaniac side of Green exposed… (again)
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/only-an-eco-dictatorship-will-save-the-world-democracy-be-damned/
Just as Germany needed to learn the lesson of the folly of going to war against the world in 1939, now they will learn the lesson of the consequences of going to war against reality.
The anti-nuclear superstition and numinous dread of radiation of Germans is so profound and universal that no other outcome was possible, any more than war was avoidable in 1939 under the leadership of the founder of the modern green back-to-nature movement, Adolf Hitler. The country holds absurdly exaggerated views about the consequences of the Chernobyl accident in resolute defiance of reality. Attitudes to ionizing radiation are dominated by pure superstition uncontaminated with the slightest trace of actual radiobiology.
So be it. Having done my PhD in radiation biology, I have long ago given up caring about what nuclear and energy policy countries adopt – superstition is so deep that trying to bring a scientific perspective to the nuclear debate is a total waste of time.
Democracy gives a nation a choice about what nuclear policy to follow. But it does not give a choice about facing the irreversible consequences of a nation’s choice, half a century later. This will be fun to watch. I’m just about still young enough to see this all end in tears.
The dark ages begin…again. History repeating itself.
This is going to be fun to watch.
And France pledges to build some more and renovate the older ones. Glad i live in France (8 cents a kw/h including tax) rather then Germany were i presume they’ll follow Denmarks glowing example and prices will rise to more then 20 cents.
Sounds good to me!
The stupidity of this “policy” defies belief. Will the German people accept the inevitable blackouts? I think not.
The Daily Telegraph has a piece pointing out that Britain (and Europe) is “running out of wind”! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8545306/Wind-farms-Britain-is-running-out-of-wind.html
Never thought I’d say this but does this mean that France is now the last bastion of European sensibilty?
Lost for words!!!
And in the future there will be great towers that harvest the wind! and then….and then….wooden shoes!
They will buy electricity from France.
It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this lunatic, technologically regressive report from Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, could it?
Wow, a candidate for Darwin awards!
“The various studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that renewables could deliver, basically, global electricity by 2050,”
^^^ Good job Germany way to trust the IPCC. They’ve proven to be masters of projections.
This should make France happy for two reasons.
(1) Always good to see Germany surrendering instead of attacking. Doesn’t happen often.
(2) With no electricity of its own, Germany will be France’s biggest customer.
Maybe France can build a new Maginot line of reactors near the German border.
Stupid decision based on groundless fear.
All German nuclear plants shut down be 2022! You see what can be achieved by feeding unicorns sauerkraut!
Actually, the Germans are building coal fired power stations. Nuclear, when including decommissioning and spent fuel storage, is more expensive than coal.
http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/2010/04/26-new-coal-power-plants-in-germany/
I think Germany will bemore competitive than ever.
There’s me thinking that the Brits are world champions at crippling their own economy with suicidal green policies. Once again, the Germans are going to overtake us.
I hope my many friends in Germany will oppose this craziness. Germany stands for engineering excellence; Germany honours its manufacturing base; Germany trains many young people in crafts and mechanical skills (unlike Britain, where the proliferation of university degrees aims to make everybody above average penpushers (in German: Trestuhlpiloten – those who spend their lives piloting three-legged stools – nice one!)). Without a secure energy supply their industry will go into steep decline.
Was going to say something like “will the last one to leave Germany please turn out the lights”, but their energy policy will spare them this effort.
Polistra says
“(2) With no electricity of its own, Germany will be France’s biggest customer. ”
No, that will be the UK.
The decision is a natural consequence of the really wretched performance by the German nuclear industry when managing the nuclear waste disposal. The work was done badly, the dump site is leaking and those responsible lied about it.
Fukushima was just the icing on the cake after that, because it showed a Chernobyl could happen even with current day reactors.
It will however be interesting to see how Germany manages its dependence on Russian natural gas in the future, because the Russians have not been shy about pricing their product at full value. That full value is now set by solar or wind power, much higher than nuclear.
Yes Joe. At least some of us knew that the circumstances were such that the core(s) had been exposed an d that the result would be at least partial meltdown.
But Joe, a death toll of something over 13,000 people due to? Well …. everything except meltdown of the core. And that compares with, how many deaths from the nuclear plant? Any advance on … none??
Of course, nuclear safety problems can never be taken lightly. And it may even turn out that the designers at Fukushima did not take sufficient measures to avoid exactly the kind of accident which has eventuated in an earthquake and tsunami prone environment.
But it remains that any damages caused by the accident are a great deal less than those caused by the natural disaster. I think the nuclear issue should be approached with all possible caution, yes; but it must be kept in perspective. It is irrational to refuse to consider new technology which makes nuclear power much safer because an older technology partially succumbed to a natural disaster.
Excellent news.
Here in Japan, Sankei Shimbun has just reported that 13% of those polled oppose nuclear power. 87% believe that giving up nuclear power is a Green Fantasy.
I’m looking forward to a prosperous retirement as yurrup’s industrial base parachutes itself to the bottom of the ocean. Cheers.
Vive La France!!
They will succeed with this even faster than the politicians schedule.
“Nord Stream is a natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. In the last quarter of 2011, Line 1 of the twin pipeline system will begin contributing to the energy security of the European Union, helping it to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. When fully operational in the last quarter of 2012, the two lines will supply 55 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas a year to the EU for at least 50 years”
http://www.nord-stream.com
Once again, welcome to the 21st Century. It’s going to look a lot like the 19th.
“The various studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that renewables could deliver, basically, global electricity by 2050,” he said.
“Germany is going to be ahead of the game on that and it is going to make a lot of money, so the message to Germany’s industrial competitors is that you can base your energy policy not on nuclear, not on coal, but on renewables.”
This will be interesting to watch unfold. Almost one quarter of Germany’s electricity is from nuclear. I suppose they could rely on other countries through the grid. To be a net exporter of electricity in the EU is going to a lucrative venture.
Empirical evidence and common sense have now left science.
Today it is emotion, fear and ignorance that are guiding our society going backward.
Of course we know what happened in Germany last time emotion, fear and ignorance dominated in that country.
The green shirts are on the march.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower
Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.
Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering nuclear power.
Interesting stuff here – http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-germany-coalplants-sb-idUSTRE58G33020090917
Seems the germans have not yet given up on coal
Excuse me if I interrupt this little German-bashing, but (although a proud Englander myself) we have come to admire and respect German engineering and excellence. Don’t any of you want to stop and take a thought that way before 2022 we would have made solar panels much cheaper, that geothermal could make an enormous impact, that nuclear fusion would by then have finally been cracked? Personally I’ll trust that the Germans have made the right decision. Reliance on a potentially-dangerous form of generating electricity is the road to madness. The only thing that’s annoying about this news is that it will raise global energy prices.
Reading many of the comments here I cannot help think that I’ve stumbled upon a pro-nuclear forum. The cost of nuclear waste disposal is staggering, while the thought of an accident horrifying. And that’s without the question of terroist attack. Nuclear power is just too expensive and too (potentially) dangerous. I’m staggered that many of you cannot see this. Germany has.
This is great news for those of us in the UK: one of our key rivals is to commit suicide! Of course they won’t be able to buy as much of our exports, but still this must help compensate for some of our own (well, of our politicians’) suicidal eco-policies. Presumably nuclear fuel will also get a bit cheaper. In any case, France will probably just build a few more nuclear power plants, exporting the electricity to Germany with a nice price mark-up. ‘Ende gut, alles gut’ (all’s well that ends well), as they say in Berlin.
Idiots, they will be freezing in the dark in 20 years.
So the lights go out on Europe. Visit by the nighttime campfires!
Or, you can overrun all masters’ castles by pitchfork!
But voting them out would be easier, fiefs.
i have a friend who work in the energy industry, in switzerland
the swiss government has advised parliament to give up nukes, but the decision will be discussed in the parliament, and closure dates are so far away in time that all this is almost meaningless. just as footnote, the government is formed by 4 females and 3 males. this was saluted as a sign of modernity and liberalism and the usual BS, and is funny to see how the 4 women voted against nukes and 3 men for. things will be different in the parliament, however i dont trust people who on average dont have to earn their living and live parasiting on others. of course the media is all for giving up nukes. but i digress.
my friend said that the germans will merely start burning gas and coal to replace nuclear, and that they are already using old coal burning powerplants. the germans have the power to tell the EU to shove it and act acordingly. of course dont expect the media to report that, they will all chant the great advantages of renewables.
at any rate, and despite the goverment denying it, look for further increases of energy costs in germany. the germans already pay 3 (or 5, cant remember now) cents of euro per kwh in order to subsidize renewables. which is a lot of money, and is going to increase. in switzerland we pay a lot less, something like 30 cents if i remember well.
in switzerland now things look even funnier. swiss government is pushing hard and giving subsidies to convince people to convert oil and gas heating to heat pumps, and at the same time undermines the power generation capability of the country (swiss generate over 40% of energy from nukes) , while also germans switch off nuclear, and the french are already selling abroad all their excess capacity, and if soemthing goes offline they will shut down supply, with inevitable blackouts. italy is heavily dependent from the french for energy supply because generating capacity is already well below 100% and most energy is generated with gas powered CCGT
so the general outlook of european energy scene is dramatic, still politicians go parading their idiotic green projects which will destroy european industry.
the german move is expecially baffling considering germany is a bit manufacturing economy. but what to expect from people who live out or parasitism, and who will never have to work to pay their energy bill?
Joe Public says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:08 am
…meltdown has been in full effect since March 11
How far down has it got?
Where will it come out on the other side? (presumably not China)
The Germans arn’t stupid they have a cunnung plan. They are going to use wood from forest harvesting. They know that by 2022 the CO2 level will enhance tree growth. The incresed temperatures and the rain storms will result in firewood being grown in a single year. At this very moment they are designing massive wood chip power stations, steam vehicles and steam trains.
This will increase CO2 even more and put lots of moisture into the atmosphere and eventually allow the growing ample firewood in 6 months. Eveything will be wooden.
OT, but in Germany the current E-coli cucumber outbreak has been traced to organic produce from Spain. 1200 cases and growing. “Organic” seems to have some serious dangers.
Well, the story is somewhat longer. In 2000 the German government (then a coallition of social-democrats and greens) made an agreement with the nuclear energy suppliers to shut down the reactors by 2020-2025. In 2010 the German government (a coallition of conservatives and liberals) reversed the agreement and talked about letting the reactors run some 10-15 years longer (but still not building any new reactors). Now the same government just changed back to shutting down by 2022.
Right now 13 out of 17 reactors are shut down and we have no brown- or blackouts. 8 of them will probably not be turned on again, because they are supposedly too old and 5 are down due to maintenance. We are currently importing the equivalent of just 1 reactor (I guess it’s from nuclear reactors in France 🙂 ).
Yes, there are some new coal and gas power plants planned but some greenies are always opposing them too, so I don’t know how many of them will actually be built.
As for prices, gasoline is currently _down_ to some US$ 8.20 – 8.50 per gallon. And last year’s electricity bill was some US$ 0.30 per kWh.
So, we already are living all your tax-nightmares and still are thriving. I just wonder for how long.
90 percent of the school kids in Germany think AGW is real and they get to vote when they are sixteen.
Nuclear abolished, coal abolished (they just closed the last coal mines in NRW kicking 25.000 people who made good money on the street.
Shale gas exploration is under siege from the greens but there is one great prospect.
The imports of palm oil are doing great.
The Germans will generate their electricity with palm oil and by 2022 there won’t be a tropical forrest left.
We can’t blame the current German polulation for WW I and WW II but I really wonder why they are so susceptible for introducing and adopting totally mad doctrines that do more damage than good.
Don’t forget that the AGW scare was introduced in Germany in 1986 (well before the fall of the Iron Curtain) and their doctrine has Global aspirations.
One of those aspirations is to reduce the world population to a maximum of 1 billion people.
The rest is turned into bio fuels.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/28/schellnhubersmerkels-authoritarian-wbgu-blasted-from-all-sides-mocked-no-one-intends-to-build-a-wall/
This is most excellent news for the Russian natural gas industry. Putin will be glad.
Well time to buy German coal mining stocks . . . there is good money to be made off Nuke Fear Syndrome.
It would be interesting to see what Germany’s energy mix is in the year 2022. My guess is they will increase the use of imported French nuclear energy and / or increase their use of fossil fuels. This should make the greens’ blood run red, just like a watermelon.
I always thought Merkel was East German Communist party plant – this just confirms it.
If Germany does fail, who is going to pay for Spain’s failed ‘green power industry’?
I loathe nuclear power and coal power, even if its only in Germany. I would expect all rational people to share this viewpoint.
I would loathe blackouts and unreliable expensive power even more though.
Switzerland decided last week (before Germany) to get out of nuclear power plant by 2034.
Switzerland still have more than 20 years to find energetic alternative solutions, but Germany … it has only 10 years … good luck !
European governments are competing in different way to kill faster europe !
After Europe yesterday and America today, Asia is and will be for sure the economical driver of the world. Asia doesn’t take care about CO2 or other real pollution.
They will begin their transition to becoming total slaves to Putin’s natural gas…
Petrossa says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:51 am
And France pledges to build some more and renovate the older ones. Glad i live in France (8 cents a kw/h including tax) rather then Germany were i presume they’ll follow Denmarks glowing example and prices will rise to more then 20 cents.
Prices are already over 20 cents in Germany!
My understanding is that it costs around $300 million to shut down each nuclear plant. Just wait for the results of the next election in Germany and all of a sudden nuclear power will be back on the table. What a joke.
@ Joe Public, May 30, 2011 at 3:08 am
That’s not “the real story” as y0u put it. It’s a completely different story, and completely irrelevant. Unless you think that every time a disaster happens in one country then another country should react by closing down an entire industry?
Not gonna happen. The long lead time is the tip-off. They will gain the electoral advantage now from their promises, and 11 years from now either they will be forgotten or these “leaders” will be retired. Anytime a politician makes a promise of action in a time frame that extends beyond the next election, they have no intention of doing it.
The year 2022 is several political lifetimes away. This is the usual political joke. France and Sweden will provide them with nuclear electricity.
No worries. Cold fusion will easily take up the slack in as little as 5 years. Then no nation on earth will need a fission-based nuclear program except to make bombs. That will separate the sheep from the goats.
The Germans are in for at least two painful lessons taught by the folly of allowing ideology to override common sense, physics and basic maths:
(a) The backbone of German industry, predominantly located in the southwest (Federal States of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria) is even now making plans to emigrate to countries where energy prices are less choking: e.g., to France and the Czech Republic for starters — 7ct (€) per kWh as opposed to 24ct in Germany, where absurd subsidies for intermittent wind and solar “alternatives” (my sainted aunt’s left foot!) are bloating everybody’s cost of living.
(b) The jobs consequently displaced and lost will cost Germany, already indebted to the hilt by social give-aways to almost everybody, including illiterate and unskilled immigrants from wherever the half-moon shines, heavily beyond repair. Add the cost of bailing the PIIGS states out just to resuscitate the comatose European Union and the embezzled Euro currency — and you’ve got the perfect plot of how an industry giant climbs up to the attic, selects a fairly stout rope and ends it all.
Ends it all against sounder knowledge, expertise and advice, that is; Germany is being deindustrialised very much the lines of Henry Morgenthau, 1945, which were never implemented. (Just owing to the Cold War that rapidly developed in the wake of WW II, thus saving Germany from revisiting the Middle Ages.)
This time, ironically, it’s just to satisfy the “voices of the streets”, wayward opinion polls and half-witted clergymen and philosphers who were unwittingly raised to the state of “energy experts”, advising Comrade Merkelowa on nuclear power — howling, naturally, with the wolves, saying that (of all places) Fukushima showed how evil it all was, and how easily this evil could scourge Germany into oblivion … Ignoring that neither Germany nor France (operating a combined 80 nuclear power plants for 50 years) ever had a single nuclear incident worse than a failing light switch, or a transformer way outside the containment. — German media, though, keep headlining trifles like these as major predicaments …
To strike a placable note, please let me note that inconvenient truths have a way of cutting both ways. For the time being, however, Germany (not to forget the rest of Eurocatic rule) is determined to commit suicide for fear of death, as if all these blokes had subscribed to a correspondence course at Lemmings, Inc.
November came, with raging south-west winds.
Let the Germans run as far down that road as they can- the further the better.
Let them eat the full fruit of their folly.
The Germans are fully capable of learning hard lessons and bettering themselves for it.
I am totally against Nuclear power using Uranium, like today’s reactors. And the waste that is produced and has to be disposed of. I am far from being an expert on Nuclear power, but I’ve learned a few things in the last while about Thorium, and I may need to be corrected on a few facts!
L.F.T.R has been around but not developed because of the fact the American military could not make nukes from the waste! And the physicist who discovered it tried to convince the industry to change and he got fired!
No possibility of meltdown, less than 1% the waste of normal reactors, 1 tonne of Thoriun =200 tonnes of Uranium. Can be turned on and off when required! They can be a lot cheaper to build because you don’t need all that concrete or cooling towers!
Some research needs to be done but the nuclear industry is not willing to change or develop it!
Norway alone has thousands of years reserves of Thorium.
India is building Thorium plants, but not using L.F.T.R so defeats the advantage!
Energy crisis, what energy crisis? Just an excuse use by the powers that be to keep us controlled!
We have thousands of years supply of energy, and that’s a fact!
We can use L.F.T.R to make hydrogen for our cars, and to heat our homes!
No need for 8 hours to charge batteries when you can refill in 5 mins with hydrogen!
Nissan gen II will take 16 hours if twice the range on 220 volts AC!
Wind power??? don’t make me laugh, Ireland is one of the windiest places in the world and we will never meet our demands through wind alone, and we are a tiny island with 4.5 million! Just think what a few L.F.T.R reactors would do for us? almost total energy independence! The last 2 winters were the coldest, driest, on record and very little wind was generated, Imagine pumping Billions into such unpredictable technology! They want Electric cars eah? where do they think all that extra energy will come from if people stop using ICE cars?
Our largest power station is 1GW coal, and cost 1 Billion Euros in the 80’s, now the fools have to spend 40 million at a time we are broke to meet stupid god damn E.U emissions regulations!
When you sit back and educate yourself on what goes on in the world it’s no wonder we still fight each other, we don’t allow ourselves to progress, we are kept back in the dark ages, by corruption and greed! Chernobyl need not have been if L.F.T.R had to be developed, and the accident in japan and 3mile Island and of course the not talked about Windscale in the U.K, now called Sellafield. Who because of their near meltdown dumped a load of Plutonium in the Irish sea making it the most radioactive in the world! And all because they wanted to make nuclear weapons, they didn’t want to be left behind! +all the other things like missing plutonium, leaking plutonium, that place is a total disaster!
I don’t think we will see L.F.T.R any time soon!
Sorry, ladies and gents — the 3rd paragraph should end:
“… selects a fairly stout rope and ends it all.”
This is what happens when myth rules. Germany once again is succumbing to romantic mythology, first, master race purity with its disastrous consequences, now luddite mythology. With growing populations, third world poverty, no proven effective new technologies ready to replace existing energy sources there will be massive unemployment and food shortages. And the science isn’t even settled. Has the world gone mad?
Build more nukes – get more fuel – Brilliant
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/30/bloomberg1376-LLZK0I1A74E901-0PV3MV8LDJ1DOTDCLS9HQ5EHL3.DTL&ao=2
Fukushima Risks Chernobyl ‘Dead Zone’ as Radiation Soars
Belarus suggests for Chernobyl dead zone that grain be grown and used for ethanol production. Apparently radioactive elements do not transfer into ethanol .
And Fukushima is relevant to Germany, how?
A little bit of risk analysis wouldn’t hurt:
1. Are there major (earthquake) fault lines underlying Germany and its environs? What is the likelihood of a magnitude 8-9 earthquake?
2. How likely are German nuclear plants to be hit by a tsunami exceeding a few meters? Also, the map indicates none of the nuclear plants are right on the coast (but I know nothing of the slope).
RockyRoad says:
May 30, 2011 at 6:31 am
No worries. Cold fusion will easily take up the slack in as little as 5 years. Then no nation on earth will need a fission-based nuclear program except to make bombs. That will separate the sheep from the goats.
___________________________________________________________
Mon ami, are you expressing dreams and opinion, or are facts extant to support those statements, s’il vous plait?
Joe Public says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:08 am
You guys DO know that 3 of the reactors are in meldown right?
And the temperatures in the pressure vessel and containment vessel remain relatively stable and there has been no substantial release of radioactive materials in more then a month. What difference does it make if something melted…as long as it’s contained.
The decline & fall of the German economy has begun, as has their economic bondage to Russia and its natural gas.
So Germany has learned an important tradition from it’s old WWII ally (Japan) after-all – seppuku (also called hara-kiri).
Seriously, this decision has been made far enough, into the future, so that the next few sober governments can reverse it, if necessary. Besides, there are new promising technologies emerging which may change our entire grid paradigm. In any event, Germany will probably become a demonstration, of what not to do and WHEN not to do it. GK
walt man says:
May 30, 2011 at 6:51 am
Fukushima Risks Chernobyl ‘Dead Zone’
Mitigation planning already underway –
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110509p2a00m0na009000c.html
The Chernobyl ‘Dead Zone’ was a choice not to mitigate.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases
I truly hope Germany has a lot of natural gas or coal fired electric generating plants planned. Otherwise, the current generation of Germans will find out how miserable their grandparents were during the last three years of World War 2.
Chris Wright says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:03 am
“Hydro-electric is far more dangerous.”
I am not against nuclear power, however can you please explain how Hydro-electric is in any way, shape or form dangerous?
Peter Dunford says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:28 am
“Actually, the Germans are building coal fired power stations. Nuclear, when including decommissioning and spent fuel storage, is more expensive than coal.
http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/2010/04/26-new-coal-power-plants-in-germany/
I think Germany will bemore competitive than ever.”
There is a difference between operating costs and capital costs. Prematurely shutting down functiong and built nuclear plants, where only the operating costs remain and they are far cheeper for power generation then any other including coal, is not sound economics.
I also do not think the greens will allow the coal production.
This may help them, if it works: http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/30/energy-a-new-alternative/
They won’t build nuclear plants but France will and Germany will buy the power from them.
I suppose this means the end of Germany’s steel industry. Probably their automotive industry, too. Maybe even their industrial sector altogether.
Sad, too. They could have built *modern* plants that don’t have the Fukushima problem and been energy independent. But I suppose the continent not only wants a weak Germany, they have convinced the Germans that it is desirable for them, as well.
Oh, well.
France has 58 nuclear power stations across the country, with more currently on the drawing board. As far as I am aware, France has not experienced any serious nuclear problem since the French Government decided to go nuclear in 1974 following the world’s first major oil crises. But even if there is any risk with nuclear, how can Germany, or any other European country for that matter, be protected from the danger of radiation with so many nuclear plants just across her borders? Radiation does not stop at country borders as far as I am aware. This is an unbelievable decision to take for an otherwise outstanding industrial nation. It seems that Angela Merkel is more concerned with placating the ever stronger voice of the Greens in Germany rather than take a sensible and rational view on the future prosperity of her country. In any case, why should the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami be the basis upon which Germany has made this futile decision. Three old power stations were damaged by the dreadful earthquake and tsunami, but thay had a relatively small amount of radioactivity as a result. So much so that the Japanese government has decided to continue with their nuclear power station programme rather then close it down. Preumably Ms. Merkel has a plan as to how she is going to replace the lost eletricity output when her power stations are no more. or are the Greens looking forward to closing down half the industrial output of the country in the interests of AGW?
For the next 4 years Canada will NOT be committing economic suicide.
Come on German Industry … we got gas and oil and coal and hydro and nuclear.
Good mid-term buying opportunity of shares in uranium producers. I expect the Germans to be less concerned with hedging future supply – until they actually discover they need fuel!
Bought more shares this morning on this bit of “bad” news…
We’ll have to see if I am right, but unlike the ecotards who use my taxpayer dollars, I put MY money on this.
A couple of things. You should have left knee out of the title of this story.
Secondly, without a financially strong Germany the EU is toast.
As this is not practically feasible it is not going to happen. Fact remains that risks of nuclear power plants are hard to pinpoint and more fundamental safety precautions in basic design and dealing with spent fuel appears necessary.
The Germans have simply decided to locate their reactors in France for political reasons – no big deal.
Maybe the Germans have something secret in the works, like solar that works at night in cloudy, rainy weather, or batteries that hold infinite power, or some other such miraculous devices.
Statistically, nuclear is safer than coal. Add up all the health effects of mining coal, transporting it, burning it, disposing of the ash, etc., and nuclear looks safe and clean.
The Fukushima plants were old, poorly sited, and there was inadequate planning for worst case scenarios according to one source (a two page emergency plan was mentioned). New designs incorporate cooling water in tanks above the core, thus even in a total power outage, there is coolant available to shut things down in an orderly manner, which likely would have made Fukushima a non-event.
Germany needs to step back and consider what they are doing. I predict that there will be no new manufacturing plants built, or major expansions planned in Germany until sanity returns. The German government may be stupid, German industrialists are not. They will go where power is plentiful and cheap. China comes to mind.
Legislating utopia
Environmentalists remind me of people who avoid stepping on cracks to avoid the danger posed by stepping on cracks.
The year 2022 is nearly 100 years after the Treaty of Versailles that threw Germany into absolute poverty. This time, if they go through with it, they will have imposed it on themselves. The French next door are keeping their nuclear plants and are building more. It seems the French do think of other things than sex.
It is not a melt down, firstly. A melt down breaks through to the ground water. This has not occurred at Fukushima, and will not occur.
So stop saying it!
As for hydro, infinitely more people have died in history from collapse or overflow of hydro dams, compared with melt-down deaths due to uranium.
Germany is going to look as lit up as North Korea.
Slowly but surely the West is moving into the New Dark Age compliments of the Loony Left!
Look at the bright side – it will be a lot harder for the Muslims to build a new generation of nukes when they become the majority in Germany. In fact, if Germany collapses it’s economy and shuts down manufacturing, immigration will probably slow to a trickle since there will be no jobs.
Sound crazy? But that’s Obama’s plan to deal with illegal immigration here in the US!
tudiant says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:29 am
Fukushima was just the icing on the cake after that, because it showed a Chernobyl could happen even with current day reactors.
————————————–
The reactors at fukushima are not “current day” reactors. they are an old outdated design of generation 1 unlike modern reactors of generation 4.
The modern designs are much safer, and even more efficient using less fuel so there is less waste to dispose of.
By 2022 the Irish Economy should have recovered enough to help bail out the Germans.
After all, they are bailing us out right now and it will be nice to reciprocate.
Doo-be-doo-be-doo
Well I never. I’m going to be richer than a German. And I don’t have to do anything. Just wait and watch them on the way down.
Except that Spain needs a rich Germany……
Erm… Not good
Joe Public says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:08 am
Get your tense right. The reactors are not in meltdown. That implies an ongoing process.
The Fukushima reactors experienced a partial meltdown from the heat produced by the decay of fission products after the reactors were shut down properly. Why did that happen? Because the 45 ft tsunami took out the backup power. The heat could not be removed from the cores, and heat was still being produced by isotope decay. The water in the cores boiled, partially uncovering the rods, and the temperature of the fuel rods increased. The zirconium in the rods reacted with water at high temperature and made H2 gas. The hydrogen made a mess of the external structures when it was not vented and exploded. One building did not experience an explosion because workers created holes in it to prevent H2 from accumulating. Once the temperature of the rods reached 2200 C they began to melt. Again, this occurred due to the decay of fission products, not an ongoing fission reaction. This problem would not have occurred at all if the backup power had not failed due to the tsunami.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8379843/Japan-earthquake-Q-and-A-How-the-radiation-threat-unfolded.html
There were radiation detectors placed in various cities around Fukushima, some quite a distance away. It is clear if you look at the actual data that there was one major release of radioactivity composed of two isotopes: The first had an 4-day half life (nobody talks about that one) which might have been 124-I. The second had an 8-day half life, and was probably 131-I. The levels were not dangerous outside the 12 km ring. There was some uranium and plutonium found outside the plants, but that was perhaps due to damage to stored rods in pools above the reactors resulting from the H2 explosion. There is no nuclear furnace melting down to China. There is a temporary elevation of radioactivity due to 137-Cs, but the iodine is gone now. Hysteria will not help.
Where would we be if cave women had told cave men not to bring fire into the cave? I’m sure they did not like it, but warmth and cooked food were too important. We think we are so advanced, but we are facing the same choice. Warmth, food production, preservation, and preparation all require large amounts of energy. And unless we all want to go out and dig for potatoes in the mud, we need to power industry so we can type away on our computers in a comfortable office.
We can’t leave out the details about Fukushima or the termites of the left, who repeat their talking points and otherwise generally know nothing, will tear down the technology that supports our population. They seem to think we can go back to a ‘simpler time’. Perhaps, but only after 90% of our population dies. We have the technology to support perhaps a world population of 10 billion. The best way to control population growth is through advancing the standard of living for everyone. When we do that, people will not want to have so many children.
That strategy has been so effective at reducing the birth rate, that western civilization is beginning to die off, in part thanks to genocide of the unborn. Nature does things for a reason, and when we interfere, there can be consequences. For nature, the individual is often sacrificed for the good of the species. Our survival strategy is to take over our own destiny and not be subject to the whims of nature. Well, that’s fine as long as we survive. Finally, another risk is to allow us all to be ruled by the decisions of a few. Those people of limited brain power cannot possibly take into consideration the experiences of millions of people. Consequently, a command and control economy is doomed to failure. The free market can do that.
Discussion of America falling into the command and control economics abyss
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/steelman7.html
Peter Dunford says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:28 am
Yeah right. So i’m paying 8 cents per kw/h because nuclear is subsidized?. I’ll have you know France has about the lowest price per consumer kw/h in the civilized world. I believe only Canada comes close due to their hydroenergy.
Reality beats statistics any day, any time every time.
“I am not against nuclear power, however can you please explain how Hydro-electric is in any way, shape or form dangerous?”
He’s probably referring to dam failures like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
TMJ says:
May 30, 2011 at 2:35 am
I will be in Germany for 2 weeks this summer. My tenth year teaching at a Classical Guitar festival there.
Ask them if they want to stop buying nuclear generated electricity from us in France. If yes I wish them all the luck for the future and if you are a FOREX dealer be prepared to sell the euro because with green technology germany, and along with them the rest of europe, will go bust.
There are a lot of minutes, days, between now and 2022.
At the same time, fools are always a great educational medium for the rest.
…..Lady in Red
Petrossa says:
May 30, 2011 at 8:34 am
Peter Dunford says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:28 am
It seems to me that peter dunsford was supporting your premise. There is going to be one major problem, though. During the recent cold winters and hot summers France has been refusing to sell on it’s electricity to keep it for it’s own needs. It cut it to Italy last year for a preiod long enough fro the Italiens to complain. So, both the UK and Germany, both very socialist (read progressive) countries will find their industries and their people cease to function.
Well, the Swedish decided in 1980 that until 2010 they would be nuclear free. In 2009, facing relity, they abolished the phase-out of nuclear power plans.
See, e.g.,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5671753.ece
Can anyone seriously doubt now that behind fashionable “green” thinking is an industrial death-wish, a desire to destroy the technical foundations of modern civilisation? The UK is under the control of twit-of-the-week pseudointellectuals whose grasp of science is below first year university level. Germany is better, but not much, obviously. The Wreckers have taken over.
Rational people like to point to hydro-electric as a green alternative power. But logic and reason are not in play.
The same people that don’t want nuclear and coal power don’t want hydropower. Dams are nearly impossible to get licensed due to environmental reasons, and some people want existing dams removed for some reason. I think I recall reading that hydro is not even on the list of green energy alternatives.
Obama apparently does not think dams are a good thing, as he is cutting funding.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/04/obama-wants-to-cut-hydropower-fundding
and some green groups are against it for some reason
http://news.opb.org/article/hydropower-its-renewable-it-green/
“Fukushima was just the icing on the cake after that, because it showed a Chernobyl could happen even with current day reactors.”
Except that Fukushima was not current day reactors.
And the alternative is?
A number of assorted replies ..
@Petrossa
“Glad i live in France (8 cents a kw/h including tax) rather then Germany were i presume they’ll follow Denmarks glowing example and prices will rise to more then 20 cents.”
Actually electricity costs between 20 and 25 Ct/kWh in Germany right now, before the nuclear shutdown. It’ll rise even higher.
———
@Peter Dunford & Tom Mills
“Actually, the Germans are building coal fired power stations.”
Some maybe, but according to current ideology and policy, the bulk of electricity is going to come from wind turbines. Even if some coal plants are going to be built, the wind energy plans will guarantee that the German electricity prices will skyrocket anyway.
———
@Peter Miller
“The coal has run out and also that’s not a green option!”
No it hasn’t, Germany has several centuries worth of lignite in its soil. Coal can be quite clean if the exhaust is filtered properly, and all the coal plants in Germany do that.
———
@joel Heinrich
“Right now 13 out of 17 reactors are shut down and we have no brown- or blackouts.”
No of course not, but the shutdown converted us from a net exporter to an importer of electricity, at a higher cost than making it ourselves. Economically it’s a loss with no gain to balance it, except ideological satisfaction for those so inclined.
———
@R. de Haan
“Don’t forget that the AGW scare was introduced in Germany in 1986”
It was in the West German media in 1980 if not earlier.
———
@klem
“Just wait for the results of the next election in Germany and all of a sudden nuclear power will be back on the table.”
There is no mainstream party pro nuclear power, not even one against the sped up phaseout. And I can’t see a majority of the population voting for one. Even if reductions in living standards start to be felt, few will draw the connection, and even them some will probably say “It’s for a good cause”. The German media are universally in line as well.
———
@Indur M. Goklany
“And Fukushima is relevant to Germany, how?”
The mainstream line of thinking in Germany is “If it can happen in Japan it can happen here too” without much looking at the circumstances. I keep saying, if there’s a train crash in Japan, do we abolish our railways then? But most people don’t get it.
———
@Ken S
“I am not against nuclear power, however can you please explain how Hydro-electric is in any way, shape or form dangerous?”
One word: dam failures
Notrickszone’s take on the decision.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/30/china-to-german-nuclear-engineers-and-scientists-research-and-work-for-us/
Hoser –
You wrote –
‘The Fukushima reactors experienced a partial meltdown from the heat produced by the decay of fission products after the reactors were shut down properly.’
Wrong, there were 3 total meltdowns which occurred within hours of the cooling going offline. The telegraph article that you cite (published in march) is full of lies by ommission that filled the msm during the days following the disaster.
From the following link –
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/25/japan.nuclear.report/
‘Nuclear experts and scientists have long suspected this sort of damage to the containers of the reactors at the crippled plant, as well as a full meltdown of the fuel rods in reactors 1, 2 and 3’
You also wrote
‘Again, this occurred due to the decay of fission products, not an ongoing fission reaction.’ and
‘There is no nuclear furnace melting down to China. There is a temporary elevation of radioactivity due to 137-Cs, but the iodine is gone now. Hysteria will not help.’
Then why is reactor 1 showing a reading of 205 sieverts per hour!?
http://atmc.jp/plant/rad/?n=1
How do you propose that anything, robot or human is going to be able to get near this thing in order to stabilize it?
Make no mistake, this is an environmental catastrophy with no end in sight.
I wonder why Russia is planning and constructing so many reactors when it has oooodles of oil and gas?
German’s per capita income (at purchasing power parity) is only 3/4 that of the US. When they say that Europeans consume less oil than Americans, that’s in part because they are simply poorer, and not by a little bit.
By 2016, the IMF forecasts that German GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity) will be only 2/3 that of Singapore.
“Hydro-electric is far more dangerous.”
I am not against nuclear power, however can you please explain how Hydro-electric is in any way, shape or form dangerous?
When the dams bust they flood large areas and drown people,
“According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province,[5] in the province, approximately 26,000 people died from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were affected.”
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
To our euro states government friends, I’d like to say “Here, let me help you reload that Luddite gun so you can shoot yourself in the other technological foot! It will hurt like hell and leave you crippled, while the inefficiencies of the sustainable infection continues to destroy your economic foundations unchecked, but it’s a Green infection so it must be good for you!”
That’s real solid (aka dense, thick, opaque, mud stupid) Green thinking…
Luther Wu asks:
Mon ami, are you expressing dreams and opinion, or are facts extant to support those statements, s’il vous plait?
As a Registered Professional Chemical Engineer (with no proof) I believe that cold fusion has been adequately demonstrated and will be proven this fall.
See http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360#comments et al
Alex says:
May 30, 2011 at 6:15 am
Prices are already over 20 cents in Germany!
Wow. I pay 4.5 cents low tarif, 5.6 high tarif. With taxes it averages at 8 cents.
I live in an earthquake zone, within reach of a reactor. Just had a miniquake a few weeks ago.
Doing a cost/benefit analysis isn’t hard. The changes that a earthquake strong enough to cause the reactor to go chernobyl are so astronomically faint they have my permission to build another one in my backyard.
Don’t forget, it took a major earthquake, a tsunami, multiple chemical explosions to cause the current damage to almost half a century old reactor in Japan. Which is still limited compared to chernobyl.
If anything it proved beyond a shadow of doubt that nuclear energy is the safest form of all.
Ian E says: “This is great news for those of us in the UK: one of our key rivals is to commit suicide!”
Rivals? Rivals? Germany is part of the EU. The UK is part of the EU. You probably don’t remember voting to be admitted, but Herr Schnellhubris assures us that democracy is an outmoded concept. If the UK fails to fall into line or if the people rebel against its pretend-government of twits, after freezing in the dark, who will provide the shock troops called in to “restore order?” Got it in one! For those who still have electricity for their TVs, the BBC will interview the “German tourists.”
Good news from my perspective, as a weak German economy will mean the end of the repressive and undemocratic EU. The Euro is already in deep trouble and this could be the final straw that breaks the camels back. Can’t happen soon enough for me!
“The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
May 30, 2011 at 5:15 am”
Living is just too expensive and too (potentially) dangerous. I suggest you check yourself into an asylum to solve this. They will take good care of you.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chairman of the UN/IPCC, tells it like it is::
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
Any questions?
Nobody, really?
It’s even here on Brietbart: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.7a2801a3386edab0f0599fdf44c4ec31.741&show_article=1
As for the mainstream media, do you suppose they are covering up for nuclear power? Maybe you’re just not looking too hard for the story?
Bought the last 3.2kW generator in my local Aldi (which is, of course, a German company)….
Wonder if they’d like to buy it back..??
This is a response to the vociferous and sustained protests and boycotts and bockades by Greenstrife, Fiends of the Earth and others which has been strengthened by the Fukoshima meltdown. In truth all of Germany’s nuclear plants are approaching 30 – 40 years of age and the problem is that the new equipment needed to replace a lot of the control mechanisms is incompatible with the old plants …
The wind farms here generate more than enough power to make up the shortfall, but not always when it is needed. The second problem is that it can’t all be distributed. A newspaper recently carried a graph showing the demand and supply and the mismatch in power supply versus demand – when we need more we generally don’t have the solar or the wind and when we do have them we have an oversupply.
It must also be acknowledged that the politicians are not bothered by the possible power outages, they are more worried by the recent elections which returned Green majorities in two of the “Lande” and the loss of support from the Centre Parties by morons voting against nuclear policies of the current government. When the “Brown Outs” start to hit, watch the idiots change tack …
How is stopping the production of the most toxic waste in the world a bad idea? Radio active ground water found a mile from site, and nuetron beams, prove you are all deniars. Never knew this site was so biased. Radio active wild life ( Not just wild pigs) food and ground water are no big deal ??? Take another look at chernobyl contamination and get a clue. Even tepco has stated all three reactors have melted to some degree. Fools all right but they are not Germany THEY LEARNED FROM THERE GROUND WATER CONTAMINATION, when will you?
REPLY: Sir, If you wish to label us “deniers” from the cowardly safety of a psudonym, and insult the memory of the Jewish people, at least have the decency to learn to spell it correctly. Otherwise, kindly STFU – Anthony Watts
Delusional… this in the article:
…and:
Not gonna happen. Not without shifting manufacturing to China and washing their hands of as much industry as they can, while adding to the Chinese (i.e., net world) pollution.
There has been much written here at WUWT about how badly wind is failing. By 2020, the Germans will have enough information about wind farms to be able to make a more informed decision. Will they? As long as the greens press their delusional state of mind on everyone else, probably not.
This is such a ludicrous direction to go in, given the non-existence of the threat of quakes and tsunamis in Germany. Not the least of which is how many of those nuclear plants are anywhere near the sea.
It is said that David Cameron and his Father in Law are heavy investors in Wind Power. If this is true then that explains why we are wasting Billions on wind power to replace Nuclear and Coal. I ask myself why we are not spending the wasted money on developing Thorium based Nuclear Power generation, surely it would solve so many problems and avoid the madness that is Green Hysteria biased Renewables?
The Germs will rue the day they decided to axe Nuclear Power.
France is going to be the new Saudi Arabia of the EU. 75% from nuclear – that’s what I call forward thinking. ;O)
Smokey says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:01 am
Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chairman of the UN/IPCC, tells it like it is::
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
Any questions?
Well yes – just one.
If all the industrialized countries that were the ‘rich’ countries are de-industrialized due to IPCC policies, where will the riches and largesse come from to be redistributed?
Poland should build a bunch of nuclear power plants. It looks like they’ll soon have a market for as much power as they can produce.
Curious says:
Question…. you guys are weather people… what’s going to happen to all that radiation spewing at Fukushima if that supertyphoon hits the area…. curious about that……
It will be diluted to irrelevance; and it will diminish each day as it naturally decays and “goes away” via nuclear decay as it has a half life (unlike elemental poisons).
BTW, “all that radiation” is basically safe enough for folks to work inside the plant (with cautions).
Yes, there will be “issues” in the area for quite some time. Bioconcentration of Cs-137 in plant matter for a decade+ will make farming inside 10 km or so of the nuclear facilities a dicy or forbidden thing for a generation. Then it will heal all on it’s own as the toxic stuff decays away. (This cleaning process can be speeded up by things like planting mustard or pigweed that bioaccumulate minerals much more than most, then just harvest and sequester. Were I running things in Japan right now, I’d have a crop duster dust the area with mustard seeds so as to help prevent the migration of contamination into deeper ground levels).
Billy Liar says:
Joe Public says:
…meltdown has been in full effect since March 11
How far down has it got?
Where will it come out on the other side? (presumably not China)
I didn’t see a smiley on that, hope it was a joke… “China Syndrom” is a bad metaphore and a worse movie.
The core melts were “partial” in two of the units and in the other (#1 IIRC) it’s sitting on the bottom of the containment being cooled with water.
The biggest issue is just that as the fuel geometry changed, it is now harder to get to “completely cold”. ( I don’t count the busted pipes as part of the core melt problem. They were most likely caused by the quake.) But the biggest technical issue for the clean up / cooling is that some of the pipes and fittings are broken so they are accumulating contaminated leakage water fast.
BTW, if you don’t think that dumping this in the sea is a solution, realize that the ocean already contains somewhere over several BILLION TONS of Uranium…. adding a few kilo of contaminants (in many tons of coolant water) is essentially nothing to the ocean. I’d much rather they ran it through filtering equipment first, and they are building some, but are doing the “slow and careful” (and IMHO, too late) approach when they ought to just set up a giant “Doughboy” swimming pool full of adsorbant and run the water through it. (Some clean up fast is better than no clean up too late… IMHO). But the yankie tendency for working “field expedient solutions” does not seem to be in Japan; and has been exterminated in anything “nuclear” where regulation runs supreme…
We’ve had a pretty good running discussion of the technical issues here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/japan-nuke-sequelae/
Yes, it’s a mess. It is NOTHING compared to the tidal wave / quake damage and disaster. That it has been allowed to push the 10’s of Thousands of dead, injured, mangled, and destitute off the front page is a sin and “crime against humanity”.
There have been few injured by the plant, and MAYBE one dead (though even that is unclear). A km or two around the plant will be a “workers only” area for a few years and a 10 km or so radius will be a “no grow” area for a couple of decades. That’s about it. Oh, and TEPCO will get economically whacked and will need to spend a hugh amount of time and money figuring out how to get the slag heap that was a core out of each containment building and reprocessed into something usable or storable.
Far easier, IMHO, than trying to get chemical contamination out of the ground water from all the toxic CHEMICALS that were spilled when the tsunami swept away all the equipment holding them.
But the world has decided to “go crazy” with panic, so it will. In 10 or 20 years when it’s very dark and cold, they will change their minds. Until then, China and France can dominate the nuclear industry; and with it gain economic dominance. I’m OK with that. I speak French…
The German greens will be happy about the ending of nuclear as they push Germany towards more coal plants. Oh the irony hurts!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/10/germany-coalplants-idUSLDE7290OR20110310
HelmutU says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:38 am
“Our goverment has gone totally mad. This is the end of the german democracy and the beginning of an eco-dictatorship. I hope that there is a place for a refugee in the USA, ”
Helmut,
If you embrace capitalism, personal economic self reliance, personal responsibility for you own and your family’s successes and failures, and generous charity to deserving individuals and groups, Please Come Join Us!
Jimbo says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:34 am
I wonder why Russia is planning and constructing so many reactors when it has oooodles of oil and gas?
Because they plan on selling all that gas at exorbitant prices to the Germans.
Vlad Putin might not be the nicest person on the planet…but he recognizes an excellent business opportunity when he sees one.
Jimbo says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:17 am
France is going to be the new Saudi Arabia of the EU. 75% from nuclear – that’s what I call forward thinking. ;O)
In fact (straight from my bill)
Origine 2009 de l’électricité : 82,1% nucléaire, 9,5% renouvelables (dont 7,1% hydraulique), 3,5% charbon, 3% gaz, 1,6% fioul, 0,3% autres.
Whom the Dogs Would Destroy, They First Make Mad.
It’s rabies, I tells yez!
Let me see?
Germany is the economic powerhouse that is literally keeping the EU afloat with massive infusions of German taxpayers money in the way of bailouts!
Where did this money come from?
Answer: German has a dynamic economy, an industrious high tech, highly educated, highly mobile population, with a huge manufacturing base.
Where this money DOESN’T come from?
Answer: The government yes THEY SPEND IT, THEY PRINT MONEY, THEY WASTE MONEY, THEY CAN AND WILL DESTROY ANY ECONOMY EVENTUALLY!
What makes Germany successful apart from all the above, is the cost manufacturing or doing any kind of business products or services has to be produced and sold at a competitive rate, or it won’t be sold, except at bankruptcy sales.
The single largest cost is across the board is ENERGY. If the German government and the greens keep up this insane war on is energy, especially Nuclear power generation which is a vital source of abundant and economical electricity. They will destroy the goose that laid the golden egg.
I predict a massive industrial stampede out of German by manufactures accompanied by a brain drain of educated and skilled workers across the whole business sector (except PAWN AND SEX SHOPS) Nobody with a degree of intelligence will stay in a country that wages a semi religious and financial war against it’s middle class or the job makers.
For an example in the 1950’s to 1975 it was British brain drain that caused skilled and educated Brits to flee to every corner of the globe!
Good luck Germany, your going to need it and adios to the survival of the EU without her money!
2020 DER SPIEGAL HEAD LINE:
GERMANY PUTS GUN TO IT’S OWN HEAD, THEY PLAN TO DECOMMISSION NUCLEAR POWER – THE EU’S BANKER GOES KAPUT – THE EU COLLAPSES!
Just a point that the Germans might like consider…
After some hefty gales over the last few days, we are back to producing just under 1.5% of our electricity from wind….
It DOESN’T WORK, folks..!!
G. Karst: “So Germany has learned an important tradition from it’s old WWII ally (Japan) after-all – seppuku (also called hara-kiri)” – no, these people have not. Seppuku, after all, was expected from leaders, generals, people in power, pp., who had failed in their duties, lost battles, betrayed their lords, caused death and misery, or had thoroughly lost face – rather like Roman generals after a lost battle. It did not mean inflicting misery and suffering wilfully on your subjects, but paying the price for it. Which is what these people will never do. One can, however, wish heartily that they would.
UK Sceptic says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:08 am
It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this lunatic, technologically regressive report from Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, could it?
I think that’s what Jo Nova is on about:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/only-an-eco-dictatorship-will-save-the-world-democracy-be-damned/
Germany has become the most politically correct nation on the Earth. Not difficult to understand when one considers that while the we accepted the communists and all things leftist were cellibrated by the media, anything German has been depicted as evil, Nazi, etc. The Germans are simply running away from a history which was written by the winners of WWII. Every action they take proves this point. They no longer have any National pride or belief in themselves and cannot seem to recall any of their very significant accomplishments in science or industry, of which there were many.
It’s not the first time Germany has been pushed in a disastrous direction by it’s Government.
Yes, shut down the nukes, hurry, and cover what’s left of Germany’s beautiful scenic countryside with the giant wind monstrosities. That will be much better.
Gute Nacht Frau Merkel, you’ve lost your mind.
Ref: Kohl Piersen
“Of course, nuclear safety problems can never be taken lightly. And it may even turn out that the designers at Fukushima did not take sufficient measures to avoid exactly the kind of accident which has eventuated in an earthquake and tsunami prone environment.”
Sort of hard to design for the reactor operators manually overriding the emergency shutdown equipment that engaged after the quake. Seems they became alarmed that the pressure vessel had dropped from 74 atmospheres to 45 atmospheres.
Then the tsunami arrived.
One last point of interest:
The conservative newspaper Die Welt writes:
“The nuclear phaseout marks a creeping rejection of the economic model which has transformed Germany into one of the richest countries in the world in recent decades. … What will the new energy age cost us Germans in terms of money and jobs? And are we completely indifferent to the risk of a major power outage? Just recently, the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance warned that Germany is totally unprepared for a large-scale blackout.”
“It is certainly true that our economic system can survive without nuclear power in the long term. But it is careless to carry out a phaseout under extreme time pressure, rushing it through with scant regard for how fast the economy can adapt. Energy is the lifeblood of industry, which in turn is the basis of our economy and our prosperity. A stable energy supply is taken for granted in Germany and is an enormously important locational advantage when attracting foreign investment. The mere impression that this supply is no longer 100 percent guaranteed would be enough to scare off investors.”
Politicians will say anything as long as it keeps them in power and looking good.
2022 eh? This is a politician’s way of saying never. If we want save the planet economically we need engineers running governments not lawyers and political scientists.
China is already offering positions for German nuclear engineers.
verivox.de/nachrichten/china-investiert-in-atomkraft-wirbt-deutsche-experten-an-73919.aspx
Trans: China is investing in nuclear …recruiting German experts.
80 gigawatt by 2020 is the target.
This message is for Joe Public
Killed by quake/tsunami: 14,617Still missing: 11,111
Refugees: 128,555 (quake/tsunami/evacuated nr Fukushima)
Number dead from Radiation: 0
Source, Earthquake Report, Excel Spreadsheet with data
The number of anti nuclear blogs still headlining the Fukushima crisis dwarfs the number reporting on the quake/tsunami consequences
The blog population and Joe Public remains deranged in its focus on what might of happened instead of what did happen
Half of the German nuclear reactors are GE Mark 1 like the Fukushima plants. They’re old and amortized anyway, and replacing them with more modern Gas-and-Steam turbine gas or coal power plants is sensible as long as we don’t have a better technology than Uranium pressure cookers.
The danger here in Germany is not the phase-out of these old nukes but it is a political danger; now that the Green movement has brought a panic-stricken populace on their side, they have tasted blood and they will want more.
Most of the followers are old; Germany today has no youth in large numbers. What will the pied pipers of this geriatric protest movement attack next? They will need another target for the next federal election.
The nukes are not important; the irrationality is. There was no sane public debate after Fukushima. I am surrounded by old crazies who can now celebrate their success. What will they demand next, is the question.
Worry not, Americans. They are weak and will not bring anything outside Germany down. The world is safe, the Vaterland is not.
Seems they are all crazy in Germany – and they want to export it:
http://icecap.us/
Climate Dictatorship of the Enlightened: More Great Ideas from Germany
By Chris Horner, The Spectator
“…A telling pull quote from the story is “Germany’s green government advisors admit frankly that decarbonization can only be achieved by the limitation of democracy – both nationally and internationally.”…”
E.M.Smith says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:25 am
You’d be amazed at the number of people with an irrational fear of anything nuclear.
They think that’s what happens in a ‘meltdown’.
The decision proves elected officials have a limitless capacity to do stupid things. The sad thing is these folks are supposed to be more informed than the general population.
The speed of their action shows how ignorant they are regarding the consequences.
Do Germans have a fear of earthquakes and Tsunamis in Germany? Why else would they worry over the nuclear safety tragedy in 2011 Japan?
Do Germans cower every time a train shakes the ground because they fear it is an earthquake? (sarcasm)
German hard coal and lignite reserves are discussed here:-
http://www.euracoal.be/pages/layout1sp.php?idpage=72
Much of the hard coal is imported from Russia / Ukraine / Poland / South Africa.
Almost 50% of German electricity now comes from coal & lignite. Wind and solar are unlikely to achieve a much larger share of electricity generation than they have at present, for the obvious reasons that it doesn’t work and is unaffordable.
It will be interesting to see whether the British or the German politicians blink first as their respective economies hurtle towards the cliff.
And, for the nuclear paranoics who have been commenting on here, comparing coal & nuclear, which industry has a better safety record over the last 50 years BY FAR?
Absolutely no question – nuclear is far and away safer both for workers in the industry and for the public at large, by probably two orders of magnitude or more.
And I’m in favour of coal…..(as well as gas and nuclear).
shev says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:31 am
________________________
Why don’t we look at the real data?
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f1_lgraph-e.gif
A reasonable assessment is here:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f12np-gaiyou_e_1.pdf
Diagrams and health risk charts are here.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f12np-gaiyou_e_2.pdf
Radiation levels are falling, not rising. Rad levels are in the µSv/h range.
Your link mentions the suppression chamber and the drywell. You can select English to read that chart. Here is another reactor diagram.
http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/03/17/fukushima_schematic.jpg
Melting did not occur immediately or ‘within hours’ because the cores were still covered with water. As the pressure built up, operators had to vent the gas. When the rods became partially uncovered, the temperature rose in those uncovered sections to the point where water vapor could react with the zirconium alloy and produce H2. The venting allowed H2 into the building, leading to an explosion within hours. Workers tried to keep the reactors and the stored spent rods cool by pumping in sea water, however that was only marginally effective. The main cooling systems still didn’t work.
Materials such as fuel pellet debris is suspected to have fallen from the reactor pressure vessel to the bottom of the drywell (the primary containment vessel). If there is any water in the drywell, that might periodically cover this material and shield it from the radiation detectors. Note that the drywell levels rise and fall rapidly. However, the suppression chamber rad levels are quite low by comparison, and falling. There is no evidence that fission is occurring. Quite the opposite.
If you are serious about finding out what happened. Study this:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1306725917P.pdf
A lot has been learned, and engineers will make improvements. The learning process is comparable to train and airplane crashes. What were the actual effects of the Fukushima event? Almost no physical damage to people or the environment. Japan will fully recover. Replaced systems will need to be able to handle a large tsunami; these were not expected and may not recur for 500 years. The failed plants were all of the oldest designs. Fukushima Dai-ni has newer BWRs.
The last earthquake of comparable size near Sendai happened in the year 869.
http://www.paleoseismicity.org/blog/2011/03/11/mw8-9-earthquake-hits-japan-causes-tsunami/
Japan is resilient, wise, and determined. Its people will make the correct decisions. They know life is risky. You must take responsibility for yourself, and cooperate to strengthen your family, your community, and your nation.
Hysteria doesn’t help. That was my point.
So finally the Morgenthau plan will be reality, although somewhat late, I’m sure Morgenthau smiles in his heaven.
This is an excerpt from the (large) German news site spiegel.de
The articles are only from today…
SCIENCE | Nature | Technology | Climate change | more
Experiment with kites: Flying plants are expected to harvest wind energy
Climate statistics: Greenhouse gas emissions rising faster than ever before
Rock city of Petra: Archaeologists find bath house in the desert
Climate forecast: Warming makes parts of the Arctic impassable
EHEC pathogens: Experts fear more deaths
Interestingly the weather is causing problems to France’s nuclear reactors
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8546573/French-drought-fears-cause-government-to-set-up-surveillance-cell.html
Lack of cooling water
Enginer says:
As a Registered Professional Chemical Engineer (with no proof) I believe that cold fusion has been adequately demonstrated and will be proven this fall.
The e-cat is really exiting stuff, but since it’s really too good to be true, I remain skeptical (while growingly optimistic) until this fall. If this invention holds its promise, it will change the world forever in ways we still can’t even imagine (just imagine e.g. no more need to be connected to the power grid – can you?).
Anthony would need a new twist to his blog, though, CAGW will be such a non-issue then 😉
Alex says at May 30, 2011 at 1:52 pm
“Climate forecast: Warming makes parts of the Arctic impassable”
Wasn’t it supposed to be the opposit? Any way Germans has some experience of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_auxiliary_cruiser_Komet
Re: Joe Public says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:08 am
“You guys DO know that 3 of the reactors are in meldown right? TEPCO only like 2 weeks ago finally fessed up to there being a meltdown since 16 hours after the tsunami struck, meaning, meltdown has been in full effect since March 11.
Unbelievable.”
I second your expressions of bafflement. We have three nuclear units with breached pressure vessels and containment structures, at least one of those reactors with its entire fuel load sitting as a molten blob in the dry well underneath its pressure vessel, unit four reactor building leaning like the Tower Of Pizza with a triple load of fuel rods sitting in its spent fuel pool on the upper level and three reactors leaking so badly that “once through” cooling is necessary and the entire plant site is awash in a rising tide of highly reactive water that continues to exit those reactors. Yet, no matter how bad the news becomes (and it continues to get worse by the day) I continue to see entrenched and impassioned comments that stagger my sense of reality.
Early in this unfolding disaster, I tried to convey on this blog the seriousness of the situation at Fukushima with little effect. At that time, nuke proponents were denying “meltdown” and claiming the news media was “over-reacting”. Now that the crippled plant’s documented failures have progressed to just about the worst possible outcome for a boiling water reactor facility, I’m still reading “over-reaction”.
While I acknowledge that Germany’s abandoning nuclear without an economically viable plan for replacement power seems more politically reactionary than rational, I find many of the comments to this article to be, as you put it, unbelievable.
This irrational fear is in no way limited to power generation. There is a widespread ‘fear of flying’ which is, today, completely irrational. It is much, much safer to fly than to travel by train, boat, and especially by car (by far the most dangerous mode of transport). Yet how do most people travel? by road.
The same with power. Nukes are the safest by far, coal and hydro are very bad in comparison as per fatalities, and if you count health risks to coal miners (similar to smoking in past times), that takes top billing, I think.
I have yet to see any figures on wind and solar. I imagine they would be low, but then if there were enough to generate what we currently do with fossils and nukes, and then adding 33% to power all those ‘poley-bear friendly’ electric cars, we’d probaly be decapitating people every day with torn off turbine blades travelling at a hundred miles an hour.
They go through this after every other election and keep bumping the date back, though only by one year this time. Note that all the powerplants are supposed to shut down in the last 2 years, it never happens that way in the real world, replacement is gradual. But by that time the current politicians plan to be retired.
Germany exported electricity, so they could get away with shifting to ‘Green Power’ by exporting shortages to the rest of the EU, but this plan looks like they are through the fat and into the muscle and bone. 2011 would be interesting, but by then it will have been delayed several more times
There’s a graphic depiction in the Atlantic of what this means now. Expect more of the same.
Hoffnung und Wandel….
Some were due for replacement. Lets wait and see if they do something sensible and engineer their way out of an energy shortage with LiFTR technology. These are Germans we are talking about here. They know a thing or two about engineering.
Hoser says at 8:29.
Very nice post Hoser. I’m a little less tense now!
One word: “Nuts!”
Some unintended humor: Environmental tax threatens green energy research in UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/30/environmental-tax-threatens-green-energy-research
Claude Harvey says at 4:40pm
“unbelievable”
Claude you suffer from engineer worry. Why not worry about all the people who died in the tsunami or all the Americans who died in the recent torandoes. But no, lets worry about a contained breakdown of technology in a country that has no oil or coal and yet has achieved the scale of the worlds second largest economy.
Yes times are tough for the Japanese nuclear industry. So you do a Germany and run for the hills. Japan will rebuild. They will clean up the mess. They will climb back. Meanwhile Germany will have morphed into Don Quixote, not quite sure why they are tilting at windmills but certain that if it looks green then follow it .
Perhaps not as silly as might first seem mon ami. Exxon has been drilling test wells for shale gas since 2009. Maybe the government knows something that hasn’t been released yet? They have a lot of coal and a huge basin for shale gas. Hard to compete with natural gas on cost per kW/hr.
Jerome, actually wind and solar have rather high hazards. Remember that the most common form of industrial accident is falling. As of 2008, wind power in Germany had accounted for 21 fatalities, 20 in construction and maintenance and one bystander (a parachutist who landed on a turbine). Since then, I don’t have precise figures but I understand that the routine fatalities have averaged about two per year. There was one incident of a turbine falling on a highway and killing three motorists.
When you consider this per unit of energy produced, wind turns out to be nearly as dangerous as modern industrial coal mining. It works out to somewhere between 600-800 deaths per TWyear. Nuclear is about 15, hydro in the OECD is about 30-50, hydro in the 3rd world is about 900, coal is about 1,000, and liquefied petrochemicals are about 2,000. The definitive numbers on this, of which these are approximations, is produced by the Paul Scherrer Institut.
Claude, it still amounts to a ‘so what’. Doses to the public have been and will be negligible, no worker has received more than 200 mSv, which is the maximum permissible under emergency conditions, and there have been zero radiation related deaths or significant injuries. Your “highly radioactive” water will still not constitute a significant radiation dose to either the public or to the biosphere.
Excellent rebuttals, etc.
Do you happen to know what kind of conventional plant the Deutsche-gov is planning to use for the mandatory 100% (new) backup of wind and solar? That should be an interesting explification!
Well with any luck the new reactors that runs on fairy dust that is derived from unobtanium will come on line in 2020 so they will be okay.
Yes, perhaps that’s the Secret Sauce. It would even allow a certain amount of Wobbly Green power generation to take place, and dilute or offset its humongous cost per kwh.
Hmmm. So politicians speak and some people actually believe them. Silly them.
Is Guantanamo closed yet?
Merkel is just surviving short term while the Fukushima hysteria passes.
As this shutdown approaches, with brownouts, probably energy rationing, and of course ‘energy prices necessarily skyrocketing,’ reality will set in and plans will change.
A country with Germany’s economy needs abundant and reliable energy. Their only other option other than coal is natural gas, which will make them Russian puppets.
TRM says:
May 30, 2011 at 6:38 pm
“Perhaps not as silly as might first seem mon ami. Exxon has been drilling test wells for shale gas since 2009. Maybe the government knows something that hasn’t been released yet? They have a lot of coal and a huge basin for shale gas. Hard to compete with natural gas on cost per kW/hr.”
Agree. But with the loony Greens there it seems hard to imagine that that will ever happen in Germany. Greens have even put the brakes on it in the US. And the US doesn’t have a large proportion of the population playing weekend ‘Wild Indians’ and imagining that Karl May juvenile fiction is history. As we know from history, once a ‘movement’ gets going there things can get exceptionally… hmmm… rabid.
Any of you geniuses care to estimate what it might take to decontaminate 600 square kilometers of soil? I’ve seen $ millions spent decontaminating a single acre.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/japan-risks-chernobyl-like-dead-zone-as-fukushima-soil-radiation-soars.html
The maximum cumulative dose allowed by the Japanese government for the cleanup personnel is 250 mSv, not the 200 dose cited by “Colin”. It was raised from Japan’s standard 100 mSv limitation in order to avoid having to use “jumpers” for even routine chores at the crippled plant. Two workers are now reported to have received in excess of 250 mSv (reputedly the equivalent of 400 medical X-rays to the gut – there’s a reason why your X-ray technician covers some of your vitals with a lead blanket and hides behind a lead wall before unleashing the shot).
The catch-22 is that no one really knows what dosages were inflicted in the early days of the accident because nearly all the monitoring and recording equipment was disabled and the crew ran out of dosimeters very early on.
Great! I know the country in which I will initiate my pyramid scheme for selling perpetual motion generators!
Repeatedly asserted; wholly unsubstantiated (cross ventilating I could see; one panel on one side does not cross ventilating make!).
You’re referring, of course, to the panel that has been showed to be popped off the east side of the upper level of Reactor bldg #2.
That particular installation saw an explosion in the ‘torus’ structure awhile back –
Were you aware of that facet?
.
Bldg #3 suffered a greater-intensity explosion; please point me to the pictures you used to make this ‘leaning’ determination of #4.
As of a few weeks ago, inspecting a number of pictures I saw no Tower of Pizza lean on #4 …
.
http://www.thestreet.mobi/story/11064385/1/8-nuclear-stocks-with-upside.html
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Are-Uranium-Prices-Ready-to-Rally.html
I’m with T.C. …buying uranium producers.
Jumping straight from the objective (citing Reactor #1’s “radiation reading”) into total subjection with but one, related factoid between.
If you could have bridged that gap with a least something resembling rationality, your final-line delivery might carry some legitimacy …
.
Ian W says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:21 am
“If all the industrialized countries that were the ‘rich’ countries are de-industrialized due to IPCC policies, where will the riches and largesse come from to be redistributed?”
At Woodstock, the British group 10 Years After sang the song, “I’d Love To Change The World”. The lyrics were eerily prophetic: “Tax the rich, feed the poor, Till we run out, rich no more.”
“Claude Harvey says:
May 30, 2011 at 8:48 pm ”
The problem with pointing to Fukushima is that it is like saying that 1960’s Corvairs and deadly in head-on collisions so we should stop producing all modern cars.
Units 1 through 4 were *already* slated to be shut down and dismantled. Had this quake waited 10 or 20 years, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in right now. This was the strongest quake in the recorded history of Japan, which goes back a very long time.
Modern plants would not have had the problems Fukushima had because modern plants do not require power or mechanical pumps to dump decay heat.
So the argument of pointing to Fukushima as justification for eliminating all nuclear power plants is like pointing at the Corvair as justification for eliminating all motor cars. We just need to get those old plants decommissioned and replaced with newer ones that do not have this problem.
It just doesn’t stop this bickering about details. It’s irrelevant how much damage the reactors caused. That’s detailing.
What really counts is the big picture. How much energy is produced at what cost (in everything money, health, other damage).
So:
Doing a cost/benefit analysis isn’t hard.
It took a major earthquake, a tsunami, multiple chemical explosions to cause the current damage to almost half a century old reactor in Japan. Which is still limited compared to chernobyl.
At the same time it produced half a century of ‘green’ reliable energy.
If anything it proved beyond a shadow of doubt that nuclear energy is the safest form of all.
Re:crosspatch says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:49 pm
“Modern plants would not have had the problems Fukushima had because modern plants do not require power or mechanical pumps to dump decay heat.”
Where do you get such crap? There isn’t an operating nuclear power plant in the U.S., BWR or PWR, that does not require electrically driven mechanical pumps to haul out the heat from a scrammed reactor as well as decay heat. Why do you imagine there is so much emphasis on backup power trains? There are such unproven “gravity” designs on the boards, but they have yet to see the light of day in the real world about which we are discussing.
Re:_Jim says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Claude Harvey says on May 30, 2011 at 4:40 pm
…
unit four reactor building leaning like the Tower Of Pizza
Bldg #3 suffered a greater-intensity explosion; please point me to the pictures you used to make this ‘leaning’ determination of #4.
As of a few weeks ago, inspecting a number of pictures I saw no Tower of Pizza lean on #4 …
If you will read the Japanese news accounts and TEPCO’s reports, you will find the following:
Unit Four reactor building was severely damaged, probably by a hydrogen explosion, the source of which is suspected to have come from hydrogen backing into the building from the vent stack it shared with Unit Three. Unit Four reactor building is tilting on its vertical axis and frantic efforts are underway to shore the building up with pylons being constructed under the fuel pool. A large dike is also being constructed around the out-of-kilter fuel pool. If that fuel pool with three reactor loads of fuel gets away from them, it’s gonna’ get much uglier that it is already.
.
The Germans persist in their foolishness. I think they have gone mad again, this time to the farthest left of the spectrum from where they went in 1933. They will rue the day they made this decision.
Ken S says:
May 30, 2011 at 7:29 am
Chris Wright says:
May 30, 2011 at 3:03 am
“Hydro-electric is far more dangerous.”
“I am not against nuclear power, however can you please explain how Hydro-electric is in any way, shape or form dangerous?”
When hydro-electric dams fail the potential for catastrophe is enormous, for obvious reasons (mostly flooding or catastrophic failures in the generating station – for example, a failure at a station in Russia killed around 70 people).
Try googling for ‘hydro electric disaster’ or something similar.
I can’t put my finger on it right now, but it has been stated here at WUWT that, based on deaths for a given amount of power generated, nuclear is one of the safest and hydro-electric is more dangerous.
Chris
‘If you could have bridged that gap with a least something resembling rationality, your final-line delivery might carry some legitimacy … ‘
Are you trying to say this is not an environmental catastrophy?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/japan-risks-chernobyl-like-dead-zone-as-fukushima-soil-radiation-soars.html
Then I wrote that there is no end in sight
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110530a2.html
So now Tepco think that it may be impossible to stabilize the reactors by the end of the year… hmmm that date just gets pushed further and further back. What do you think is going to happen in the meantime ‘Jim’? Use some of that famed rationality of yours…
@BrianH
“Do you happen to know what kind of conventional plant the Deutsche-gov is planning to use for the mandatory 100% (new) backup of wind and solar?”
I’m not sure they have a clear plan. They do not have a clear line at all, not even a stupid one, and they’re economically incompetent. This is the same government that not long ago legislated to extend the lifespans of the nuclear reactors, and then invented a special tax for them. Now they’re going the opposite way, but the tax stays in place. It is also the same government thought it would be a good idea to pay citizens for having their automobiles destroyed.
Anyway, currently there is a lot of talk about natural gas, also coal, and “developing storage technologies”.
shev says:
May 31, 2011 at 3:22 am
Are you trying to say this is not an environmental catastrophy?
As compared to what? Deliberately flooding hundreds of sq km of land for hydro or cutting off mountaintops for coal or leaking millions of gallons of oil into the ocean? Deforestation for cooking and heating fuel?
Then I wrote that there is no end in sight
Here is the decay heat estimate by Tepco.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_110526_01-e.pdf
At some point some form of dry cask storage will be possible. Even without dry cask storage..the cooling challenge becomes less challenging with time.
Pheewww!! Great stuff !!
I was really worried that German industry would take over all of Europe, and make us all slaves of the Teutons.
No need to worry now…… Thanks, Angela 😉
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>>jorgekafkazar says: May 30, 2011 at 9:05 am
>>The UK is under the control of twit-of-the-week pseudointellectuals
>>whose grasp of science is below first year university level.
Prime minister Cameron acknowledged that he devised his foreign aid policy by watching Live-Aid concerts. These politicians are not simply stupid, they are downright dangerous.
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>>fp says:
>>He’s probably referring to dam failures like this one: >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
Ouch, what a disaster.
You should have highlighted the fact that some 170,000 people died in this dam failure, making hydroelectricity probably the most dangerous form of electrical production known to man. Only heartless nutters would support hydroelectricity.
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This is great, they will only be able to make BMW cars on windy days.
Also their hydo at full whack will last about 2 days before the lakes are empty.
barking mad.
David, UK says:
May 30, 2011 at 2:35 am
_ ___ _
Maybe you just hit the nail precisely on the head!
Good. I hope the morons close down their nukes ASAP…we will pick their economic bones.
alan says:
May 30, 2011 at 5:32 am
OT, but in Germany the current E-coli cucumber outbreak has been traced to organic produce from Spain. 1200 cases and growing. “Organic” seems to have some serious dangers.
_ _ _ _
Yes, you are off topic. However, I have to challenge your statement. We have never had problems with Spanish (or any other) organic salad item. We always WASH the stuff; so basic a routine it shouldn’t need second thought, but I see most people never bother to wash any salad. I have had upsets when eating away from home, but never at home.
ShrNfr says:
May 30, 2011 at 7:53 am
A couple of things. You should have left knee out of the title of this story.
Secondly, without a financially strong Germany the EU is toast.
– – – – –
The sooner the EU is toast, the better…hooray!
The Banqiao dam was begun in April 1951 on the Ru River with the help of Soviet consultants ….
Well that explains it, the Soviets were involved. Someone should write a book about all the catastrophic disasters Soviet engineers were involved with.
Time to buy stocks related to coal mining when the Germans have give up on CO2 fraud in favour of energy realism. They admitted that an additional 40 million additional tones of carbon dioxide will be emitted annually as the country turns to fossil fuels and in particular coal. (Startling revelation from such a greenified nation)
In reality Germany has just told admitted to the world that their faith in the supposed junk science catastrophe of our time “global warming” is over.
Neither the Westinghouse AP line of plants or the GE ESBWR require electricity to move water to dump decay heat. They use convection, evaporation, condensation, and gravity. They don’t use ANY pumps in the emergency cooling system, it is all done by natural forces.
Here is a reference for my above comment:
http://www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com/ap1000_safety.html
*MODERN* plants are much simpler and safer than the ancient 1960’s designed plants that are still running today.
In fact, the GE ESBWR was developed with Hitachi to *replace* the current GE BWRs in Japan.
Another reference:
http://www.nuclear.gov/np2010/pdfs/esbwrOverview.pdf
Note the recirculation pumps have been *eliminated*
No, wait for the uranium to bottom because it’s beat down so bad that it just has to bounce. Glad I held my cash this morning.
I used to respect the German people. I don’t know why. At least they get to have light and heat through 2022.
Of course, the US is hellbent on copying German history, re. Weimar Republic, so, not too much smarts over here, either.
What’s the bet that the shutdown will not happen and that by 2022 there will be renewal of nuclear power in germany – fads pass with time.
@Claude Harvey
What’s your point? Fukushima is just an exercise in cleanup now. If we have a 9 magnitude quake and a 50 foot tidal wave in Southern Cali, the the four nuclear reactors there will be the least of our worries (and the Cali plants can survive that). The “big one” everybody has been waiting for in So Cal is a 7.0, or so. Quit being such a bedwetter.
@joel Heinrich
You’re still thriving because we still have access to Chinese money to buy all the stuff you make and export to us (at a significant tax advantage compared to our manufacturers–thank the progressives for that). So, when the Chinese money dries up, your economy will only be able to take you as far as prevailing bedwetter mentality can go.
crosspatch says:
May 31, 2011 at 11:13 am
“Neither the Westinghouse AP line of plants or the GE ESBWR require electricity to move water to dump decay heat. They use convection, evaporation, condensation, and gravity. They don’t use ANY pumps in the emergency cooling system, it is all done by natural forces.”
My statement stands. Neither of those designs have actually been built. China is likely to get the first of the AP designs. Note that the “no pumping” feature lasts for 72 hours, after which the “tank must be refilled” presumably by electrically driven mechanical pumps. It seems to me that little “catch-22” would mean if the AP design worked as advertised, it would have simply delayed, rather that prevented the Japanese calamity.
Claude
There isn’t a single modern plant operating in the US. You’re right the US reactors are not modern. that does not make the statement that modern plants would not have this problem a false one.
If those plants in Japan had been any other type (ther than a newer nuke) would the cleanup be less? The fatality rate lower? I think we all know the answer to both of those questions is no way .
So, 3 of the reactors have been in meltdown since the tsunami… ‘repeating myself’ will maybe get it through some thick skulls?
Doubt it….
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/japan.nuclear.meltdown/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+International