[so-and-so]

No doubt a hard decision, but IMHO it's correct. Accidents do happen and are extremely hard to deal with. Trying to increase safety has resulted in expences and construction time hugely increasing. The only countries that can deliver nuclear reactors mostly on time and on budget (China, Russia, SK) are the ones that are known to skip on safety.

[faeriechangling]

Nuclear power plants continue to have a DRAMATICALLY better safety record than the lignite plants that Germany continues to operate, so your argument doesn't make sense to me. Dramatic as in we could have a yearly nuclear meltdown worldwide and the safety record would still be better.

If anything you're more pointing out how hysterics over nuclear safety ended up endangering lives in practice by promoting the use of more dangerous forms of energy which don't arouse public fears as much since they kill people in an indirect and gradual way with unclear causation. Whereas nuclear kills people directly and suddenly with obvious causation.

[bayesian_horse]

You ignore fat-tail risks. The incident in Fukushima is already hugely expensive and the expense keeps growing.

Relying on past frequencies for future risk assessment is dangerous, especially when there is this high of a cost. Especially on the organization level of the decision makers: Maybe on average the risk for the global population is acceptable, but if a country like Germany loses part of its territory to a nuclear accident, that would be huge tragedy for the country and its economy. Germany is NOT replacing nuclear with lignite 1:1, much less in the long term. Anyone who says so is lying. And even those plants MAY have more risk, but that risk is hugely more predictable!

[faeriechangling]

I am accounting for fat tail risks, I'm literally accounting for a nuclear accident happening every year, how is that not a "Fat tail risk"? The plausible fat tail of nuclear accidents being the everyday of lignite is the problem, the death toll of lignite is in the ballpark of 1000x higher. Having CONSISTENTLY 1000x higher deaths is not really a merit.

Sure nuclear meltdowns making territory unusuable sucks, but the mining does actually present a fair amount of ecological damage itself, and I think there's more metrics than potential territory loss. Notably lignites causes more radiation to enter the atmosphere, but unlike nuclear, this isn't neatly concentrated in one area people can just stay out of, which isn't conducive to people not dying.

I could maybe humour the argument that nuclear waste storage (Even accounting for these being very little of it, there will be very little of it for a very long time) or especially nuclear power plants encouraging nuclear weapons development being fat tail risks, but accidents, no. We're never going to see dramatic nuclear meltdowns even get close to causing the death toll of lignite, it just is way too implausible.

[_ph_]

It is not only the death count. Large parts of Bavaria are still contaminated from the Chernobyl accident. They decontaminated most fields, but mushrooms and especial wild boar from the forests (they eat the mushrooms a lot) are only to be eaten with care (and the pigs should be all checked for radiation whether they are safe for eating at all, but of course that doesn't always happen).

[rhn_mk1]

I agree that it's not only the death count, but what do you do with contamination caused by fossil fuels? The radioactive isotopes released by burning coal are released gradually and everywhere, not concentrated into a certain region. If you want to eat mushrooms at all, you will eat mushrooms with coal-related contaminants. How much damage is that worth?

At least with Chernobyl, you can escape contamination by avoiding Bavarian mushrooms.

[bayesian_horse]

You are still assuming that the only alternative to nuclear power is coal power.

That right there is a big fat lie and makes all your arguments worthless.

[bayesian_horse]

I'd like to see some sources for the claim that this death toll is so much higher - on a per kW basis. And even that assumes that scaling up the number of nuclear plants scales the risk up linearly, which is probably impossible because regulations, standards and democratic participation would have to be lowered.

[rhn_mk1]

How would you convince me to take a guaranteed small cut to my life quality compared to taking a very low chance of earlier death?

In the end, the high impact risks of nuclear are of extremely low probability, and they compound better than fossi fuels: we have 1 30km-radius exclusion zone and some smaller non-exclusion cleanup efforts for some 1PWh(? can't find the number right now) of energy total. When an event like that happens, the affected population is tiny, and they are able to move out at a moderate one-time cost.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel generation downsides are inescapeable: every plant decreases the quality of life for every person, and we cannot escape it. How many people have died early because of the unescapeable, permanent health damage for each PWh of energy produced? There's no exclusion zone at all, so there's no ability to pay a one time price and be spared the long-term effects.

Which kind of generation has "this high of a cost"? What should be the average damage to the population which we take as a baseline?

[bayesian_horse]

You're still lying about the alternatives to nuclear power. You are still underestimating the impact of a nuclear disaster. You are still underestimating the risk of a nuclear disaster. These things have always occurred more frequently than expected, and we haven't seen anyone intentionally blow up a nuclear facility yet. The possibility for someone to actually make that happen intentionally (as supposed to the also criminal but less intentional neglect in the case of Fukushima) makes the risk calculations around nuclear impossible.

[rhn_mk1]

I'm not estimating anything, I'm asking you to provide the proof of coal's superiority over nuclear. If the numbers are so clear in favor of coal's guaranteed damage against nuclear's risks, you should have no problem convincing me.

So go ahead, show us the estimates. And if you say that estimating is impossible, then why do you insist my estimate is wrong? Sorry, I'm not buying the "impossible" part. Show us the data and the reasoning.

[bayesian_horse]

My point is actually that the risk of coal is calculable and the risk of nuclear is not. And if you provide any estimate, it is most certainly wrong, because it is based on false and dangerous assumptions.

Yet you repeat the lie that coal power is the only alternative to nuclear. That convenient lie is the core assumption between most or all your arguments.

[illiarian]

You are spreading FUD and fearmongering about nuclear.

We've had 60 years of nuclear and thousands of reactors. Still waiting for those terrorists I guess.

> as supposed to the also criminal but less intentional neglect in the case of Fukushima

Which is also a load of bull, mostly. I wish all criminal neglect was on the same level as Fukushima, really: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35711895

[dang]

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines extremely badly and often. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35717990.

[lawn]

Safety you say?

How many people do you think have died from nuclear reactor accidents the last century? I ask because they're shockingly few.

In fact more people have died from radiation from coal plants than from nuclear plants.

The safety argument isn't based on numbers, but on fear.

[bayesian_horse]

Past history is a bad indicator for future risk when the costs are so high.

And the reason why there were so few fatalities was because huge chunks of land have been evacuated every time and costly cleanup operations have been undertaken. The risk is not just lives lost, but rather the impact on those countries' economy.

[brazzy]

> I ask because they're shockingly few.

Only if you believe the official numbers about Chernobyl, which are worthless. The Soviet Union and later Russia was not being transparent.

> The safety argument isn't based on numbers, but on fear.

Very well-founded fear, based on how bad nuclear accidents can be, how bad people suck at adhering to safety protocols when there haven't been accidents for a long time, and the possibility of such accidents even being caused intentionally.

[peterfirefly]

> Only if you believe the official numbers about Chernobyl, which are worthless. The Soviet Union and later Russia was not being transparent.

Take the worst number you can possibly imagine and then compare it with known numbers for hydropower. I'll take nuclear, thank you very much.

[igravious]

The Soviets had one accident: Chernobyl. The USA had one: Three Mile Island. The Japanese had one: Fukushima.

To the best of my knowledge China has had none and South Korea have had none and the Russians (non-Soviets) have had none.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...

[bayesian_horse]

The Chinese ramp up in nuclear power is fairly decent. Give them time. Unfortunately I don't think they will have more luck in terms of safety, rather the opposite...

The Fukushima incident was a result of regulations being too weak or ignored and the government not keeping good enough tabs on the operator. I really don't think the Chinese government does a better job. They suck at regulating and enforcing plenty of things they care about.

[rhn_mk1]

That position might have had some merit if the replacement wasn't lignite burning plants, which score way worse on safety.

[bayesian_horse]

It's not the replacement. The argument that "lignite" plants replaced nuclear power is mostly wrong. Especially not long term. But this argument is highly convenient for people who are delusional over the benefits of nuclear power.

[rhn_mk1]

There is a distinct increase of coal-burning plants in the article a couple years ago, suggesting that they are partially a replacement. But what I actually want to highlight is that every nuclear plant closed instead of a closed coal plant shows how much safety is valued by those making decisions.

Because coal plants have been allowed to remain after forced closure of nuclear plants, safety is not the actual reason why nuclear plants are removed in Germany.

[bayesian_horse]

Those coal plants aren't operating at peak capacity, or at all, in some case. The suggestion they are replacing nuclear power 1:1 is a highly convenient lie.

The idea that coal power is less safe is bullshit. Nuclear power carries tail-heavy risk, coal plants have much more predictable risk. Nuclear power is only safer if you assume nothing happens that didn't happen in the past few decades and nobody actually deliberately blows up a nuclear power plant. Once you can't assume both, all risk calculations for nuclear power are meaningless.

[rhn_mk1]

Operating at less than peak capacity doesn't make burning coal any more healthy, and doesn't make the decision to not retire them any more safety-oriented.

[bayesian_horse]

You still don't understand. A coal power plant that doesn't run doesn't produce harmful emissions. And at lower capacity they produce less emissions, proportionately.

And you are still lying about coal being the only replacement for nuclear.

[pbazarnik]

Germany keeps expanding coal mines.

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/01/luetzerath-protest...

German TUV director on nuclear power plants: "The plants are in a technically excellent condition," Joachim Buehler, managing director at TUEV, told Reuters, adding that an extensive check, which is usually done every 10 years, was necessary but could be done within a few months.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-gas-crisis-...

[dghughes]

There are many types of nuclear reactors and fuel types used. They can be quite different in operation and risk.

[bayesian_horse]

And most of them are not a commercial reality or viable option for at least a decade or so...

[christkv]

You do realize that France right next door has tons of reactors and are building more.

[_rrnv]

Plus Czech Rep, Austria (and Switzerland) all have plenty of nuclear plants and energy, and will fight the EU to keep them. Germany stance is ideological at best and irrational at worst. Time will tell if it works well for German in the end. Unfortunately their recent track record with risky decisions is not great (I refer to the refugee crisis and the reliance on russian gas).

[Hitton]

>Austria

You are completely wrong there, Austria is the biggest anti-nuclear zealot in EU, they are the reason why investments into nuclear are not considered green (effectively stifling development of it).

[bayesian_horse]

Bullshit. There was no "decision" in the refugee crisis, we had to take in the refugees because of our constitution and frankly because we (constitutionally and fortunately) don't have the means to get rid of them even if we wanted to.

So far everything works well for Germany. Relying on Russian gas meant cheaper power for quite some time. Hard to tell if alternatives would have fared better. Hindsight is always 20/20. Putin's invasion of Ukraine is irrational from any standpoint and not expecting him and his country shooting themselves in their feet that way wasn't illogical.

[_ph_]

To be honest, there were plenty of warnings. Putins wars in Chechenia, Georgia. And he actually invaded Ukraine in 2014. That was the last date after which the German government should have planned for a future without gas from Russia.

[bayesian_horse]

Which isn't what you and others said at the time, I'd guess. Hardly anyone was advocating for this. None of the major parties for certain. Nobody wanted more expensive energy.

[_ph_]

Sorry, why would you say such a thing about me? I was actually quite concerned by the absence of a strong international and especially German reaction to the invasion of 2014. Especially it became obvious, that all the Nordstream pipelines were a weapon against the Ukraine.

[skrause]

> are building more

Fun fact: In the last 20 years France has reduced its nuclear power output by just about the same total amount as Germany.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation...

[mixermachine]

France needs to buy electricity from Germany because reactors are down or can not function because the river used for cooling is to hot already. Water problems will get worse in the following years. The nuclear operating company is bankrupt and needed to be nationalized. Not really the best look for nuclear. In other countries it might work better.

[Moldoteck]

How many plants were shut down because of water supply and how many due to planned maintenance and underinvestment of France govt last 10 or so years(bc of same 'green parties' as in Germany)? Asking because here I see there were only two (of 56 OPERATIONAL): https://www.thelocal.fr/20200825/france-authorities-shut-dow... but maybe you can find more info?

[illiarian]

> How many plants were shut down because of water supply

0.18% of power generation

> how many due to planned maintenance and underinvestment of France govt last 10 or so years

And that is the main problem.

[bayesian_horse]

Nuclear power projects are always finished late and way over budget.

There's definitely a pattern there.

[illiarian]

> France needs to buy electricity from Germany because reactors are down or can not function because the river used for cooling is to hot already.

Right now electricity maps shows that France produces 60% of electricity from nuclear, imports zero from Germany, and exports 6% of generated electricity to UK.

Also right now Germany generates 26% from coal and 9% from gas.

[mixermachine]

Here is the historical data https://www.ceicdata.com/en/germany/electricity-imports-and-....

[illiarian]

Doesn't this show how much Germany imports from France?

[mixermachine]

I read it the other way but I can be wrong. Still Germany is reported as a net exporter: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-....

[ikekkdcjkfke]

Can anyone calculate how many million tonnes of co2 was created because the "greens" (reds) wanted to shut them down?

[bayesian_horse]

Just wait until the summer. Also exports from Germany to France did indeed decline due to the transition.

[illiarian]

> China, Russia, SK) are the ones that are known to skip on safety

And you have sources on this except opinions and FUD?