[aagd]

The view I share with a majority of Germans: Costs of nuclear energy are very much a burden that future generations will have to carry. A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price. It is also clear now that the the companies running the plants will not pay for the deconstruction of the plants after they reached their end of life. Tax payers have to pay for this, and a large part of the remains will need to be stored safely for millenia as well. This is the opposite of sustainability and fairness towards future generations. Worldwide there still exists only a single final storage solution for nuclear waste - in Finland for the finish waste. In densly populated Germany the search for a storage site has been going on since the late 1950s, so far without success. All this on top of the risk of a system failure that would devastate huge territories. In a country where, as we've recently seen, simple emergency warning systems are basically non-existent and fax is still the main communication tool for the authorities...

[izacus]

The Germans have switched from nuclear to coal. Can you cut this "future generations are going to have to carry the cost" when the alternative is literally helping destroy the whole planet's ecosystems? Not to mention they spew up significantly more radioactivity in the air than nuclear powerplants.

A 30x30m pool of radioactive fuel is nothing compared to what their powerplants are doing to the future of young generations. Is cancer caused by coal particulates really something you wish on people around you?

[aagd]

In Germany renewables are at over 42% in 2021, despite a 'conservative' government that for decades has blocked the development of windfarms and solar for the benefit of the coal and nuclear lobby. That kind of lobby-work is the actual problem here. The way forward is renewable energy. The huge difference is that the source of renewable energy is free and basically limitless.

[earthnail]

The problem is that only a fraction of power consumption is electric. The rest is burning fossil fuels.

In order to get away from these, we have to increase electricity production significantly. And we have to build a better electricity grid.

It is completely unclear how renewable energy should provide this in the short or medium term (i.e. until 2050). Without nuclear, we’ll just continue burning fossil fuels.

[WhompingWindows]

Renewables paired with batteries can improve grid resilience, actually. Distribution of generators means less loss in the wires travelling, batteries paired with renewables to provide overnight power and load-smoothing, these are good things. Renewables also are very predictable, so you can use a little natural gas to supplement at night while you build out batteries and more wind. Solar will take care of our day-time needs no problem, it's the overnight stretches and the wind-less winters where nuclear would really shine.

[izacus]

How much batteries and renewables do you need to provide baseline power on the level of a single 1000MW nuclear plant?

And how will you construct all that sooner than constructing those plants?

[jhgb]

Batteries are a bit of a red herring. The combination of pumped storage plants, overgeneration, and demand response already has you covered for at least two decades even in Germany. The minimal cost solution calculated for Germany assumes 1.6 GWh of storage for your 1000 MW nuclear equivalent for a 60% RE penetration scenario, only some of which needs to be batteries (Germany is currently at ~45% or so, many other countries are considerably behind). At the expense of extra costs, lower storage could be compensated for by higher overgeneration (= by not consuming all the power you produce).

However, this was all calculated for current grid conditions. Spread of BEVs would likely put dedicated grid storage needs lower, since in Germany, for each of your 1000 MW nuclear equivalents, there's 700k cars which already have ~600 MWh of storage capacity even just in form of lead-acid batteries, and even replacing just 10% of these cars with 40 kWh BEVs would give you a whopping 2.8 GWh of capacity per your 1000 MW nuclear equivalent, necessitating higher overgeneration to provide the vehicles with motive energy and lowering grid storage capacity because of demand response ("smart charging"). For reference, a 100% replacement of ICE cars with BEVs in Germany would require a ~25% increase in average power generation - by around 250 MW of average power per your 1000 MW nuclear equivalent.

Electrolytic hydrogen production would do exactly the same thing to grid storage - require more generators, and with demand response, lower grid storage capacity. Just replacing German ammonia with "green" ammonia using electrolysis would necessitate another 60 MW of average power generation per your 1000 MW equivalent that could be subject to demand response.

[JoeAltmaier]

I'm not sure there are (can be?) enough batteries in the world, to support the grid for any length of time.

[nmehner]

There was a project to try this: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/german-utility-...

Unfortunatly this project was cancelled since Germany taxes electricity from batteries two times: Once when charging the battery and once when discharging it (since it is then seen as "producing" electricity).

[tim333]

There are not now but there may be a solution in the future eg "Seasonal energy storage in aluminium for 100 percent solar heat and electricity supply" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259017451...

[aagd]

Not completely unclear. Renewable energy can be even more local than nuclear plants. A good grid is a valueable tool, but not the only solution. The zero-energy-house is a working example for self-sufficient development. Large office buildings or small residential houses are already being build this way. It's a matter of where to put the subvention money - to the big old coal companies (and their lobbies) or the innovative smaller engineers.

[himinlomax]

You don't get points for using Nice Green power, you get points for not releasing more CO2 in the atmosphere. Right now, France's electricity is at 30g CO2 per kW.h (the figure includes the whole lifexyle), while Germany's is at over 400g.

Sure, we have to deal with the waste ourselves, but you're just dumping yours in everyone's air.

[DoingIsLearning]

Those 42% percent in Germany include Bio-mass. A Bio-mass 'plant' is a wood chip furnace, it is only renewable based on the weak principle that the burned mass and C02 emissions can be captured 'because we can just plant trees'.

The energy needs we have and the land avaialable in Europe for forest makes this impossible without importing 'bio-mass' wood pellets at which point the ecological argument goes out the wind. [0]

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302972714_Tracking_...

[tarsinge]

And despite 42% of renewables Germany CO2 emissions have increased in the last years, and Germany will obviously miss its 2030 target (which is already not enough). Just look at electricitymap.org to see how that strategy is going. Also nuclear is kind of renewable too so that distinction is not really relevant regarding climate. That view needs to be updated with 2021 reality, we need a baseline production that always work, and choosing fossile for that like Germany (Coal, Gas) is irrational (nuclear issues pale in comparison of climate change for future generations).

[jhgb]

> The Germans have switched from nuclear to coal.

No, they did not. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/p...

[melling]

There have been several recent stories about the increase in coal usage this year.

https://amp.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec...

Coal is the primary source of electricity this year

[cesarb]

> > > The Germans have switched from nuclear to coal.

> > No, they did not.

> There have been several recent stories about the increase in coal usage this year.

But was there any closure of nuclear power plants in Germany this year? If not, you cannot say that this increase was because they have switched from nuclear to coal; they must have switched from something else.

> https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec...

That story implies that Germany this year switched from wind to coal (due to weaker winds), not from nuclear.

[melling]

So they switched from nuclear to wind to coal?

Coal in the primary source of electricity. If they hadn’t reduced nuclear, coal could almost be gone?

“ Nuclear power in Germany accounted for 11.63% of electricity supply in 2017[3] compared to 22.4% in 2010”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany

[jhgb]

No, if they hadn't reduced nuclear production, the relative changes between coal and renewables would have exactly been the same, only coal would have had the same uptick from a lower 2020 value. "The increase in coal usage" would have been exactly the same regardless of whether they shut down some nuclear power plants or not. That should be obvious to you. Since this inter-annual change would have happened regardless of nuclear generation levels (unless you for some reason assume that the number of nuclear power plants operating in Germany affects German inter-annual weather changes), you can't use the nuclear generation levels to make this argument.

[jhgb]

This is completely irrelevant. The inter-annual variability means nothing in the long run since the climate only cares about long-term averages. You're ignoring the long-term trend on purpose. This doesn't mean in any way that Germany is switching from nuclear to coal. They're switching from nuclear AND coal to renewables.

[fsflover]

They could reduce coal dramatically by not switching from nuclear, all else being equal.

[izacus]

This graph does not show the failure of renewables to provide sufficient power this year (it ends at 2020).

The renewable power production is down for up to 40% and french nuclear power being in maintenance mode has caused the coal consumption to rise significantly.

[jhgb]

It's completely irrelevant. The reason for the transition is climate protection and the climate cares about long term averages - the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is on the order of centuries. Pushing that average baseline lower is what matters, even in the presence of occasional spikes.

[inter_netuser]

There is no "waste".

Waste is just partially burned fuel. There is only ONE reason why it exists.

We made a political choice that storing partially burned fuel instead of reprocessing is safer than allow people have technology that can also create nuclear weapons.

[svara]

I agree it would have been better to phase out coal before nuclear, but it's not correct to say that there was a switch from nuclear to coal.

The switch was from nuclear to renewables. Coal was stable for a long time, and is now decreasing. Coal is currently scheduled to be phased out by 2038.

Source: Quick Google image search for the power sources over time plots.

[hiq]

> Source: Quick Google image search for the power sources over time plots.

Which plot did you use exactly? Another comment written before yours seems to indicate it's not the case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28856599

> Coal was stable for a long time, and is now decreasing.

Over which time period?

The stats in the article they link indicate a switch from 21 to 27% for coal, from 52 to 44% for renewables, when comparing the first halves of 2020 and 2021. If there's a downward trend, it's less than obvious.

[cinntaile]

A time period of one year is too short to draw trend conclusions, it really doesn't tell us anything about the (long term) trend. It's like using the weather from last year and comparing it to this year to say something about the climate. Look at 5 years or 10 years to spot energy trends.

[google234123]

You shouldn't believe a plot the projects that far :P

[xg15]

Coal is being phased out until 2038 if not earlier.

The future is neither coal, nor nuclear.

[titzer]

A typical large nuclear plant will produce 3 cubic meters of solid waste in a year. That's a little bigger than a refrigerator.

A lot of solid waste can be reprocessed, though doing so requires regulatory and logistical challenges to be solved that apparently only France has figured out.

Nuclear waste, comparatively, is not the problem. The risk of accidents, proliferation, and the generally higher cost of engineering are. Every energy technology produces waste, too. As others have mentioned, coal-fired plants produce literally thousands of times the radiation of a nuclear plant, blasting that right into the atmosphere in the form of radioactive fly ash, as well as huge amounts of CO2 and particulates. The production of solar panels is not waste free. Nothing is waste free.

The nuclear waste argument is a distraction. Nuclear power, of all the options, all things considered, leaves the smallest scar on the planet of all the options available to us. Solar panels, wind, hydro, they all require land use changes that are a big impact on the planet. Uranium mining is comparatively small in terms of its impact. So IMHO nuclear is the best option.

[drran]

Do you include atomic station itself after EOL into your calculation?

[titzer]

I think we should, and yes, it's a lot to be sure. This is why I think small modular reactors offer some hope for a smaller footprint future.

We should do calculations that include all parts of the production pipeline for parts--factories, mines for raw materials, the trucks, the fuel, all of it, as well as the opportunity cost of not using that infrastructure for something else.

[wazoox]

Nuclear energy kills about zero person per annum. Coal itself kills at least 50000 Europeans every year. Even taking into account the worst case scenarios such as Chernobyl, coal (and fossil fuels generally) is several orders of magnitudes more dangerous than nuclear.

I just don't get this mindset. People prefer killing literaly millions of persons right now while there's a safer alternative. That's incredible, really.

[suetoniusp]

There is a safer alternative in the short term. The two are comparable in the long term for safety. Also "Coal itself kills at least 50000 Europeans every year." is far from a truth. Coal may have increased the chance of death by some amount for at least 50000 Europeans every year is more correct.

[titzer]

I believe that statistic. Air pollution is a killer. That causality chain is more indirect and longer than dying of acute radiation poisoning, but that radioactive coal fly ash is a stochastic killer; roll 400 million dice (the population of Europe) and just bias them a tiny bit (.01%), and a number like 40,000 easily pops out.

[wazoox]

In fact recent estimations are much worse: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-p...

[asdff]

The costs of the status quo are also beared upon by us and future generations. Instead of the waste product being contained in a controlled environment, it is dispersed into the atmosphere and breathed in by millions of Germans, where it will continue to warm the world for future generations to attempt to right our wrongs before its too late. Even if emissions stopped globally today, temperatures would continue to rise due to greenhouse effect just from what is already present in the atmosphere. I fear for a world where climate change advances faster than our ability to adapt our foodstocks to it, that world is not as far away as you might think, especially with the left's resistance toward species saving technologies such as nuclear power and genetically modified organisms.

[Ensorceled]

This is a like a preposterous version of the trolley problem ... "The trolley can continue down the nuclear track and maybe, perhaps, kill people far into the future or you can switch to the coal track and continue to kill thousands now and maybe destroy the planet"

And people are choosing to switch.

[ars]

> A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price.

It's completely unnecessary to do that. So many people have this misconception.

If you combine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor you burn up everything, leaving very little waste.

[xg15]

From your very own linked Wikipedia page:

> In 2010 the International Panel on Fissile Materials said "After six decades and the expenditure of the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars, the promise of breeder reactors remains largely unfulfilled and efforts to commercialize them have been steadily cut back in most countries".

[ars]

Like many energy things, this is a money question, not a technology question. (There are functioning breeder reactors today, but they cost more.)

If it was important enough we could do it. The government could also mandate it, and we could feed them all the existing nuclear waste.

[freemint]

But radiated concrete from the reactor housing doesn't burn that well.

[louissm_it]

I’m sorry but no. The future costs of nuclear are comparatively irrelevant if you consider the immediate doom our climate and thousands and thousands of species are facing because of burning fossil. If a 100 nuclear disasters happen in the next 5 years it will still do less damage than coal.

There is simply no more time, the only option is to stop burning at any and all costs.

[znd]

The marginal cost of storing a few years worth of spent nuclear fuel doesn't seem that high, as you have to find a place to store the waste already generated anyway. I for one would accept other countries spent fuel to be stored in Finnish bedrock. Might be hard politically, though.

[michilehr]

Totally agree.

"Der Graslutscher" has written 6 parts about "Energy transition in 10 years". Sorry it is in german but it is worth reading.

https://graslutscher.de/how-to-energiewende-in-10-jahren-tei...

[Ericson2314]

The background issue is that Germans, with their harmful surpluses, all this talk about costs, seem to completely misunderstand economics.

----

I get that the Cold War hurt a lot in Germany. I've met my distant relatives stuck on both sides of the iron curtain, for example. That would have made issues of proliferation and whatnot extra salient.

But the fact of the matter is that the environmental problems we face now completely dwarf whatever environmental problems were being chased after then.

You have to realized that when you thought you were fighting the end-game boss, but you were actually fighting the mid-game boss which is the minion and now the big boss has shown up, everything changes.

-----

Please connect those necessary readjustments to thinking more critically about economics and whole-system things in general, to connect my two points, and we'll all be very happy.

[rib3ye]

The "hundred thousand years" argument is one I hear a lot, but why do we all assume 1. our civilization will last more than 1,000 years. 2. there will be no new tech to address the issue in the future? The estimated time until catastrophic climate change are MUCH sooner than that.

[silexia]

Oil and gas plants are far worse. They kill tens of thousands TODAY and produce long lasting poisonous waste that affects everyone now.

Nuclear waste is easy to store and not voluminous compared to oil and gas waste. The US for example designated a waste mountain in Nevada that could store all of our waste but is not using it yet due to politics.

Nuclear is FAR safer than oil and gas and even the worst tragedies like Chernobyl or 3 Mile Island did a tiny fraction of the damage oil and gas to every year.

[rb2k_]

> A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price

People always mention that as an argument. I'm pretty sure that we could figure out a solution if we actually worked on it. Given how far we've come over the last 100 years, I don't see this as a problem that we couldn't solve over the next 100 years.

[raxxorrax]

The only advantage is the reduced CO2 emission, economically nuclear energy isn't viable. Sure, safety regulations play a huge part here, but they aren't optional.

Every form of energy production has disadvantages, but I cannot really say that ending nuclear was a mistake if it isn't just exchanged for coal and I don't believe this is the case. Maybe we could have opted to let remaining plants run for longer, but Germany actually never had that many of them anyway.

Uranium isn't available anywhere and some say it may deplete at some point. I think this problem is not in focus because nuclear is still a small part of overall energy production. But it could very well be a problem, especially if countries increase nuclear.

edit: A bit disappointed in Theo Sommer here. I think he got swept up by wrong information about costs and benefits here. Otherwise a great writer.

edit 2: They just argue to keep plants running, that might be a sensible decision, depends on the numbers.

[627467]

So, 100 thousand years is not long enough to find a use of disposing nuclear waste but it is enough to try to terraform earth to undo the changes enacted from NOT using nuclear?

[kensai]

There are so many solutions for the safe storage problem and very little research. I believe if we think out of the box, the problem will be solved relatively easily and effectively.

Just bury them to hell: https://www.deepisolation.com/

[Valakas_]

Storing nuclear waste for millennia? How long ago was the first nuclear reactor activated? Do you really think in one thousand (!) years we will be using 2020's technology? In a thousand years nothing we see today will be even vaguely familiar.

[janmalec]

The view is based on some false assumptions. Nuclear reactor fuel can be efficiently recycled. Besides, the reason why storage of nuclear fuel is expencive is because nuclear industry actualy takes care of biproducts of operation, unlike other industries that produce equally or more dangerous chemical waste. It is also not true that a system failure would "devastate huge territores". No PWR accident had major consequences on human health, even in Fukushima there were no fatalities from radiation. Statistically nuclear power is the safest form of electricity. The largest storage battery (Australia) can replace a NPP for about 10 seconds. In winter you might have no sun and wind for weeks. This is why you are, and will continue burning fossil fuels in Germany.

[gjhh244]

Nuclear is problematic, but it should not be phased out as long as there's fossil fuel used in energy generation. All efforts should go into replacing fossil fuels for now.

[UncleOxidant]

Aren't there newer nuclear technologies that use alternative fissionable materials that have much shorter half-lives?

[loeg]

To risk oversimplifying: the really harmful stuff has very short half-lives, and the stuff with long half-lives isn't especially harmful.

[eecc]

If you’re referring to Thorium and pebble bed, they’re both not proliferation safe and have their issues with ecological confinement of highly active waste.

So unfortunately they never managed to overcome the initial “should we even seriously try it” cost/benefit analysis

[andbberger]

is the oil lobby performing the cost benefit analysis.

because...

[beeboop]

How is something so entirely wrong the top comment on this? Waste storage is not even close to a problem for nuclear and even having the option to store the extremely minimal waste is basically a miracle compared to the disaster that is coal, which stores the waste literally everywhere, including the air we breathe