this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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It's not a binary choice between coal (and other fossil fuels) and nuclear. Both are bad for the environment, and we should be looking to renewables instead. I fully agree that the climate crisis is the more pressing issue. I'm personally involved in climate activism. But this post is specifically about radioactivity, not overall impact
Germany is actively closing nuclear plants, one of the safest and cleanest energy sources, and replacing them with coal, the most dangerous and dirty one.
This is not what's happening. Germany is shutting down both coal and nuclear. Due to the incompetent CDU (the conservatives are ruining everything once again) there was a lot of back and forth on nuclear, and their lobbyist friends delayed the exit from coal. But there finally is a plan to shut down all coal, but build more, and all nuclear plants are shut down and in the process of being dismantled, and turning them back on would not accelerate the shutting down of coal. Building nuclear is a slow and expensive process. Could this have been handled better 20 or even 50 years ago? Absolutely. But in the situation we're currently in, nuclear is not the solution.
Nuclear is the solution until all coal plants are shut down. Coal kills millions each year (1000x more than coal) in addition to being a massive contributor to global warming. Nuclear is one of the safest power sources in the world and emits no greenhouse gas.
Shutting down nuclear plants while coal plants still exist is a crime against humanity.
You know what, I actually agree on that. Countries that currently have running nuclear plants should keep them running until they've eliminated coal (and gas, although their use not really overlaps - base load vs peak), but then shut them down.
Then we can totally agree. It's not what Germany did though.
Yes, but it's too late to reverse that course. Germany's nuclear plants are out of operation, and refitting and restarting them would take many years (most of them were at their end of life when they were shut down), and involve costs better spend towards the long term by building up renewables directly, and shutting down coal.
No, because Germany didn't replace nuclear power with coal.
Shutting down a nuclear plant while keeping coal ones open is replacing nuclear with coal. And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don't know where you are getting these ideas from.
No, it's going down. There was a sharp decline in 2019, in 2020 it was even lower due to the pandemic and then went up again to the level of around 2019. 2022 was a little worse because of lower gas consumption due to the war in Ukraine, gas was partially replaced with coal. The last nuclear power plants were shut down in April 2023, yet 2023 also saw lower coal consumption than even in 2020, which strongly suggests that nuclear isn't replaced by coal.
Honestly even gas should be phased out before nuclear.
Well, if we look at nuclear and gas we can also see that nuclear wasn't replaced by gas in Germany. Gas and nuclear have very different purposes in the grid, on can be spun up almost on demand the other can't. Anyway, at least in Germany there is no nuclear power anymore so arguing that something else should be phased out first is pointless, and saying that nuclear was replaced by coal or gas is spreading fakenews.
Every nuclear plant that is closed is a coal or gas plant that could be closed, so yes, coal is replacing it.
That's not what https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/ein-jahr-kernkraftausstieg is saying. Lignite ("Braunkohle") -29TWh, hard coal ("Steinkohle") -26TWh. A big factor of dealing with the evolved situation are much fewer energy exports (-23TWh).
If you close a nuclear power plant before closing a coal one, you are effectively replacing the nuclear with coal. It makes no sense to shut down nuclear plants before all the coal ones are shut down first.
And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don't know where you are getting these ideas from.
That's not how words work.
Your data source is outdated. You're looking at data up to 2022, whilst his data shows 2023-2024, which is more recent.
2022 also saw problems like the Ukraine war frustrating gas supply, forcing the use of more coal. And there was covid throwing a wrench into things as well.
Nuclear powerplants in Germany were beyond their lifespan and fixing and modernizing them was not economically feasible. Just too expensive compared to other forms of energy.
Germany certainly hasn't been "replacing nuclear with coal".
Closing a nuclear plant means you keep a coal plant open. So you are in effect replacing nuclear with coal. If you kept the nuclear plant open you could close the coal plants instead. Idiotic move.
The nuclear plants in Germany were too old and too expensive to maintain. At some point a reactor is just end-of-life. They get operational issues causing semi-frequent shutdowns. The reliability issues become a problem that skyrockets the costs further.
Closing a nuclear plant like that puts enough money back in the budget to afford a faster transition to renewables, which ultimately closes down the coal plants faster too. It's about the big picture, it's not as simple as simply saying "we'll do less coal" or "we'll do less nuclear".
I'd like to believe that this is true, but after the revelations of how much Merkel and Schroeder were in bed with the oil industry as well as the green party's role in this, I'm skeptical to say the least.
Merkel and Schroeder gambled on Russian gas imports as a holdover to transition from the aging nuclear plants and coal plants towards renewables. They did so because according to Merkel "it made sense at the time" and she did not really see the larger geopolitical picture. When Russian gas suddenly dried up due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they had to delay the closure of several coal plants to keep the power on.
So they're trying to replace nuclear and coal with gas.
I got this idea from reading (and linking) a recent 2024 source that you clearly didn't read or ran through a translator. Your 2022 source is outdated.
Mate, they closed the power plants because they have long surpassed their design operating hours. The upkeep alone costs so ridiculously much, no one can pay that kind of shit. Germany has even postponed the closing date due to the immediate crisis the Russians have created.
I'd like to believe that this is true, but after the revelations of how much Merkel and Schroeder were in bed with the oil industry as well as the green party's role in this, I'm skeptical to say the least.