[lispm]

> Germany is emitting heavily because most of its electricity comes from fossil fuel and it decided to kill nuclear power of purely ideological reasons

It does because it is a relatively industrialized country. CO2 emissions fell last year by 4.5%.

These are actual numbers for electricity production in Germany: from 2017 to 2018:

5.6% more wind electricity, 6.3% more solar electricity.

2.7% less coal/lignite, 6% less hard coal, 9% less gas.

The share of renewable energy of electricity production is 40%.

In 2030 it is projected to be at around 65%.

This is going to be a revolution. We now have working days in 2019 where >60% of the electricity are coming from renewables. There was a week this year with 64.8% renewable energy for electricity, with wind providing 48.4%. Two decades ago this was thought to be impossible.

[ElBarto]

> It does because it is a relatively industrialized country.

No, it does because its electricity comes from fossil fuels.

You are completely avoiding the point of my comment. Germany could have much, much lower emissions with nuclear but it has decided to continue emitting for political reasons, while trying to claim that they are 'green'...

[lispm]

We could also be much much less habitated with one Fukushima or Chernobyl scale event.

[ElBarto]

We know how to make nuclear power safe. Nuclear power is safe.

It's not helpful to try to kill the discussion by stroking irrational fears.

[redprince]

> We know how to make nuclear power safe.

No, we really don't. We know how to make all sorts of things reasonably safe. Yet planes still fall out of the sky, refineries catch on fire, dams fail, etc. In essence: Any nuclear reactor will have a probability different from zero for producing an incredibly expensive nuclear accident.

Much about accidents in complex high risk technologies has been said in "Normal Accidents" by Perrow in the 80s. The reasons he identified why complex systems fail will always be with us. Especially the notion that it is more often than not the organizations and not the technology which enables major accidents.

[reitanqild]

> Any nuclear reactor will have a probability different from zero for producing an incredibly expensive nuclear accident.

A coal fired power plant will also have a probability different from zero for producing nuclear waste.

In fact, AFAIK the radiation risk from living near a coal powered power plant is significantly larger than living next to a nuclear reactor.

I guess if this was taken into account coal powered power plants would also require incredibly expensive cleanup.

That said as long as renewable is cheaper we should go with that going forward.

[ElBarto]

We have "probability different from zero" to be annihilated by an asteroid...

This is again spreading irrational fears.