What does the chinese government have to do with the decision of germany to shut down all its nuclear plants and switch to coal and other fossil fuel plants?
We’re using filters over here. So fortunatelly nobody has to die.
The problem wasn’t that Fukishima was too near to the ocean.
The problem was that it was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes ever, and then hit with one of the biggest tsunamis ever. You understand this, right? It wasn’t just “an earthquake”. It was the biggest earthquake in all of recorded history.
Sorry, but the gold standard for safety is not set up to work perfectly under ridiculously extreme circumstances. If you are hit by a massive earthquake and then a tsunami, you’re probably gonna be fucked the hell up. Your safety plans will probably fail if a comet impacts the reactor site too, but that’s not really a reason to abandon the idea.
Additionally, we don’t tend to get too many earthquakes followed by tsunamis here in PA.
At least we won’t have to bury nucular shit to appease the public only to have our descendants find out that the fucking ground is moving and unburying our radiating remains 100,000 years later.
You need to freaking educate yourself about this crap, chief. A coal plant produces more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant. It’s just that most of it either goes up into the air (and thus disappears!) or gets put into the ash ponds.
Oh, and you get the added bonus of massive amounts of arsenic, thalium, and all kinds of other wonderful junk!
We’re using filters over here. So fortunatelly nobody has to die.
You’re using “filters”? Really?
Cause… you’re not. You’re dumping massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere from your coal plants. Maybe someone somewhere once told you that you got magical “filters” going, but you should probably go check out your coal plants yourself and see how “filtered” they look to you.
Not magical, electrical. I provided a link showing current coal plant techonology earlier. Take a look, it’s quite interesting.
Link please.
Ya, it’s a bunch of PR nonsense, Lynch.
Germany is building a new plant, and it’s not quite as awful as coal plants used to be. Yay?
Check out this graphic:
So, compared to old coal fired power plants, the new ones are slightly better! But notice how those blue bars aren’t that low?
The difference there is like a million tons of CO2… Which means that the plant is still going to be producing MANY MILLIONS OF TONS OF CO2. Every single year.
And that’s the newest coal plant that you have… it’s not even operational yet.
So, does this really seem like a great plan to you? Switching from nuclear plants, which produce release zero carbon into the atmosphere, to a bunch of coal fired plants which release millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
Honestly, I don’t think you are really aware of what your country is actually doing. You’re so irrationally afraid of nuclear power, that you’re willing to embrace fossil fuel technology which is infinitely worse for the environment.
Sure thing. An article from Scientific American.
Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.
Excuse? Your kind of person is the reason that nuclear plants are dangerous. Why? Because you’ve stopped modern ones from being built. Even 80’s designs are FAR safer than the ones out there today, let alone modern Gen III+ designs. Fukushima Daiichi - which did NOT catastrophically fail like Chernobyl - was a 1960’s design. Meanwhile, Fukushima Daini - a 1970’s design - survived with zero leakage.
Yea, you argue for burning coal.
(Meanwhile, there have been successful trials of reprocessing coal fly ash for uranium…)
I kinda hope we get some small nuclear plant designs going (like those discussed here). I’d like to see our power system be more stable and redundant, and having more small plants instead of fewer large ones seems to be a step in that direction.
100,000 years is a pretty hopeful timeline for the human race.
A new coal fired plant every 7-10 days in China… and that was before Fukushima fueled nuclear panic caused them to put their reactor plans on hold… and replace them with coal.
Well they obviously won’t be human by our definition but it would be awfully short-sighted to assume that there will be no intelligent life on Earth in 100,000 years. Sure, maybe there won’t be, but then again maybe there will be.
The US government considers it a likely enough scenario that they commissioned a committee to come up with signs to warn future civilizations about our toxic waste dumps.
On the other hand, here is another benefit a space elevator could have: Lift the stuff out of the Earth’s gravitational well and launch it towards the outside of the solar system.
I like nuclear energy, but wen a coal plant explode you don’t lose a whole region four who know how much years/generations. It’s more a “if a nuclear plant explode, I have lost half my country”. Japan is Japan, and live with catastrophes as part of life. Other countries reactions to a plant melting would be pretty amazing incredible.
Yeah, you do. Not when a plant explodes (because neither coal plants or nuclear plants can explode) but when an ash pond lets go it’s as devastating. Plus you have the mining that destroys entire regions just to feed the thing during the good times, the pollution output while it’s running, and the transport pollution needed to shift thousands of tons of coal.
H.
No, you just always lose the area around the plant anyway because it’s so toxic that it’s unsafe, plus you have masses of nice radioactive fly ash to dispose of, in normal operation. Oh, and let’s not talk about toxic seepage into the water table. Or the death rate of workers in the industry.
No 70’s or later nuclear plant have suffered a major catastrophe (again, the 2nd plant from the 70’s managed to shut down without issue), the problem is again that treehuggers have kept older plants in operation. Some of the extensions going on now are /really/ not safe, bluntly. We’re likely going to see some worker deaths, sadly, in the West. (A small fraction of the deaths caused by coal, but you can bet every single one is a major media sensation)
Houngan - Technically the AGR’s turbines are a major explosion risk :P (yes, yes, I know!)
Staff Sergeant - Ah yes, a space elevator. When we can’t create materials at any scale which have NEARLY the proper strength. It’s like fusion, depending on technology we don’t have to solve today’s issues. Yea, it’s working about as well as it sounds.
I can’t believe I’m responding to you, but that was a joke. I know it’s the internet and everyone has credentials but just trust that I don’t need to be lectured on the feasibility of engineering projects by software developers on the internet, least of in this particular field.
Last year we imported electricity from France because it was slightly cheaper than to start our gas-driven power plants. Currently we´re exporting electricity to France because they don´t have enough to heat their homes.
Nuclear power plants are a nifty way to produce electrical power, but I still don´t want to live in the vicinity of one.
It´s the same with other things in live. Mass transit is a good way to reduce pollution but I still want to use my car…
Last year we imported electricity from France because it was slightly cheaper than to start our gas-driven power plants. Currently we´re exporting electricity to France because they don´t have enough to heat their homes.
The current cold weather has caused Germany to import again from France as it doesn’t have enough power. When the nuclear reactors are finally shut down, how much more do you think Germany will need to import?
No, currently we are exporting:
Because France has so much nuclear power, the country has an inordinate number of electric heating systems. And because France has not added on enough additional capacity over the past decade, the country’s current nuclear plants are starting to have trouble meeting demand, especially when it gets very cold in the winter.
As a result, power exports from Germany to France reached 4 to 5 gigawatts – the equivalent of around four nuclear power plants – last Friday morning according to German journalist Bernward Janzing. It was not exactly a time of low consumption in Germany either at 70 gigawatts around noon on Friday, but Janzing nonetheless reports that the grid operators said everything was under control, and the country’s emergency reserves were not being tapped.
DIE KÄLTE- und Klimatechnik: Fachzeitschrift für Kälteerzeugung, Klimatisierung, Kühlung und Tiefkühlung
Nevertheless, you´re right that we need a new power grid and we have to find reliable replacements for our nuclear power plants in the long term. Probably coal fired plants, but we have to further develop ccs-technology to make them cleaner.
No, you’re definitely still importing more than you export.
You may be exporting to France currently, but overall you’re importing more energy than you’re producing… About two thirds of your energy is being imported currently.
You’re actually importing a bunch of fossil fuels, burning them, and then exporting that as energy. The environment thanks you.
So developing “CCS” (which is unproven, and won’t stop the toxicity problems or the worker deaths, not to mention the coal mining…) rather than using a properly environmentally-friendly power source? Sigh.