If it doesn't burn down, you look great. If it burns down, you look like an idiot.
I think people will not understand (some|most) Germans if you haven't lived through Chernobyl and Pershing-II days, dying forrests (from East European coal plants) and also red terrorism (mid 70s, early 80s were a crazy time). The discussion is not a rational one but one out of trauma of that time.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shrugs-off-putin-comments-on-u...
If that is possible, why not pebble bed reactors?
Germany could have skipped the industrial revolution, so they should have reached their targets already.
Anyways, nuclear power is safer than people think. And most, if not all, nuclear power disasters were due to human error.
How is this less of an issue? Are modern reactors not built and operated by humans? We have better sensors and more digital components now, which reduce the risk. But the risk for a wind turbine is, and always was, zero.
You could say "that was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event!" (I'd love to have machine without flaws but nuclear fusion would be faster) but, if it wasn't for the European grid, this could have resulted in prolonged emergency saving measures or possibly a (partial) blackout. Nuclear power is often touted as the stable one, but ironically, solar and wind would not suffer from this kind of problem because they are inherently variable in output. If energy storage for renewables was already a headache, imagine an energy storage system for nuclear.
[0]: https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-france-climate-an...
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230114183054/https://www.nytim...
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240709121249/https://www.nytim...
Actually it is and here is the best summary explaining why I know of:
And the remaining nuclear power disasters were due to unpredictable natural disasters.
So at what time exactly did we eliminate human error and unpredictable natural disasters, so that we don't have to worry about the dangers of nuclear power anymore? It seems, I somehow missed this two super important historic events...
Of course the Chernobyl disaster played some part, but it didn't result in such irrationality in most other surrounding countries. Perhaps the anti-war mentality and guilt from the horrors of WW2 also plays a part?
In any case, what a disaster German energy policies have been for whole Europe.
> The mine near Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony is the perfect example of how a final storage facility for nuclear waste should not be built.
> Between 1967 and 1978, around 126,000 metal barrels containing low and medium-level radioactive waste were stored in the former salt mine. They contained contaminated laboratory waste, construction rubble and scrap metal, mainly from nuclear power plant use. Officially, it was an "experimental mine" in which the long-term storage of radioactive material was only to be tested. In fact, many of the barrels were simply dumped into the emptied salt chambers.
> The Asse became a problem in 1988. At that time, the operator at the time discovered that water was penetrating the mine. To date, 350 active and now dry areas have been found. The water is collected and brought to the surface - an average of 12.5 cubic meters per day. Without this work, the mine would flood. Recovering the waste, as decided by the Bundestag in 2013, would be impossible.
from: https://www.fr.de/wirtschaft/asse-milliardengrab-12926812.ht...
> The true cost of nuclear is not sufficiently priced in.
That's also the case in general for fossil fuels too. Pollution from burning fossils kills. (And this extends of course - be it lithium mining or recycling PV panels or composites in wind turbines.) There are very few, if any, truly priced-in mass-market commodities I can think of.
(Another not so minor nit is fortunately the EU-ETS exists, but it has its own issues/criticisms which might get too long for this comment.)
There can be legitimate objections to nuclear power, and it can be in the Russian interest for those objections to be heard as loudly as possible.
Obviously not working out in full with Russia, and I think Germany could've put themselves in a far better situation energy wise. But, it still stands that the core purpose of EU has been fulfilled. And very easy to judge in hindsight.
"most other surrounding countries."
Except Austria no other country had as much fallout after Chernobyl (in the West, and it was silenced in Eastern Europe, see GDR) - especially Southern Germany (Chernobyl happened around Wackersdorf riots in Bavaria).
Is US gun policy idiotic? Yes, but large groups of Americans have tied their identity to it, and can't give it up. Look at anti-nuclear opinion in Germany the same way.
No dependency on Russian gas, no money.
Furthermore, it is now one of the most anti-Russian parties, so any conjectured FSB operation could be considered to have failed spectacularly.
The former East Germany supported left wing terrorism and some hard left student revolts, but the anti-nuclear sentiment goes through many parties and simply does not need any external stimulus.
I used to think the Germans were especially sensitive to these types of fear, but then brexit and worldwide trends towards populism as a whole reminded me this is just baseline human behavior.
It didn’t help that someone figured out pretty good branding[0] against nuclear power that makes people feel happy to resist. I would see these silly “Atomkraft? Nein, danke!” stickers everywhere. You almost felt obligated to go along with the sentiment.
Germany has a long history of public opposition to nuclear power, going back over 50 years, and this is related to environmental concerns, safety concerns, and the association with nuclear weapons.
Both the USA and the Soviets had nuclear weapons deployed on German soil with the potential to be directed at the German people and this cultural and historical context is important to understand the current policy landscape.
The origin of the popular Green party in Germany is deeply connected to the peace movement and anti-nuclear activism that pre-dates concerns about climate change.
It’s fine to disagree with the policy decisions the German people made, but it’s good to understand the reasons why they made them.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-6241/china-pebblebed-reacto...
If there isn't another "Energiewende" (two 180° turns would finally amount to Baerbock's 360° turn gaffe), or alternatively friendlier relations with various resource rich countries, Germany's future is bleak.
Genious decisions all around.
Germany still hasn't a Nuclear waste repository. The time plan shifted now to somewhere after 2070.
And all this doesn't possible terror attacks and sabotage into account.
Can't remember any fears about rockets hitting Ukrainian wind turbines.
This is clearly willful incompetence.
Remember all the Russian propaganda about freezing Europe? Yeah, it didn't work, but at least Gazprom took a big hit, nature is healing.
When they were sabotaged, they were not in operation.
