Germany to Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Germany to Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-to-keep-last-three-nuclear-power-plants-running-in-policy-u-turn-11660661914
97 comments
According to German sources the government denies this report and points to the currently running evaluations. (e.g. https://www.rtl.de/cms/atomkraftwerke-in-deutschland-verwirr...)
Given that the Prime Minister appointed an ideologue Greenpeace activist as the head of Climate policy, I too am skeptical that Germany has reversed its decision.
I don't know why you're flagged. Germany's special envoy for international climate policy, Jennifer Morgan, is indeed the chief of Greenpeace International. Granted it's debatable how much direct power the post has.
I haven't downvoted, but I think it might be because calling someone an ideologue because you disagree with them is bad taste.
“Nuclear power plants are not the solution to climate change. To make fuels for nuclear power plants, we have to go through the whole process of uranium mining, transporting, and disposing. Considering this fact, there will be a lot of carbon emissions.”
When you're so rabidly anti-nuclear that you ignore the fact uranium is 1.5 million times as energy-dense as coal, you are an ideologue. Uranium has so much energy per kilogram you could fuel the world's reactors by shipping it via airplane.
There's plenty to criticize about the environmental damage of uranium mining. Carbon emissions is not one of them.
It's my opinion this choice to attack nuclear energy by casting it in whatever critical light is trendy rather than its actual weaknesses demonstrates Morgan is against nuclear energy for ideological reasons that have nothing to do with its actual dangers, hence she is doing little or no risk/reward calculation, and that her future choices will not be based on human energy needs and accurate assessments of nuclear technology and industry.
When you're so rabidly anti-nuclear that you ignore the fact uranium is 1.5 million times as energy-dense as coal, you are an ideologue. Uranium has so much energy per kilogram you could fuel the world's reactors by shipping it via airplane.
There's plenty to criticize about the environmental damage of uranium mining. Carbon emissions is not one of them.
It's my opinion this choice to attack nuclear energy by casting it in whatever critical light is trendy rather than its actual weaknesses demonstrates Morgan is against nuclear energy for ideological reasons that have nothing to do with its actual dangers, hence she is doing little or no risk/reward calculation, and that her future choices will not be based on human energy needs and accurate assessments of nuclear technology and industry.
By comparison, mining of coal emits carbon, and using it emits carbon. Double whammy of carbon emissions.
I don't know the person we are discussing about in this thread and I don't know her opinions or the opinion of German green party etc, but I do know some arguments of green parties here in France that are also anti nuclear too (note also that France and Germany are very different when it comes to nuclear as here most of our electricity is nuclear already)
The arguments they make is that producing electricity and most usage of electricity are bad for our planet and thus we should use less electricity if we want to preserve it (and as a result wouldn't need to add extra nuclear or coal capacity).
This part is often forgotten which results of thinking they want to replace nuclear by coal, which would be absurd.
I imagine it's probably hard to imagine that someone would think that seriously from a US perspective (one of my US based colleague asked "when are you getting AC in Europe??" when here many people are wondering if the Americans are going to stop being crazy with their freezing AC ^^)
The arguments they make is that producing electricity and most usage of electricity are bad for our planet and thus we should use less electricity if we want to preserve it (and as a result wouldn't need to add extra nuclear or coal capacity).
This part is often forgotten which results of thinking they want to replace nuclear by coal, which would be absurd.
I imagine it's probably hard to imagine that someone would think that seriously from a US perspective (one of my US based colleague asked "when are you getting AC in Europe??" when here many people are wondering if the Americans are going to stop being crazy with their freezing AC ^^)
> The arguments they make is that producing electricity and most usage of electricity are bad for our planet and thus we should use less electricity if we want to preserve it
Unless they have ideas about how people and society can continue to accomplish all of the things we want to, using less electricity, this is not a serious argument. It's simply ideological fluff, advocating for people to embrace a lower standard of living for nothing in return.
If a person advocates against cleaner sources of energy on the grounds that "we should just be using less energy", then I don't think they are a serious person and they should be ignored. Let them go live their hippie life on a commune somewhere and free up the space for the adults to talk about real solutions.
Unless they have ideas about how people and society can continue to accomplish all of the things we want to, using less electricity, this is not a serious argument. It's simply ideological fluff, advocating for people to embrace a lower standard of living for nothing in return.
If a person advocates against cleaner sources of energy on the grounds that "we should just be using less energy", then I don't think they are a serious person and they should be ignored. Let them go live their hippie life on a commune somewhere and free up the space for the adults to talk about real solutions.
Well, what they would get in return is preserving the planet were we live. Even if they don't have children, the consequences of the past and current carelessness are already showing and severely impacting many people's life.
But there are also plenty of things that can be done to reduce energy consumption without impacting anyone's little confort. Regarding thermal confort the obvious solution is to improve insulation so they wouldn't have to heat or cool as much and might even save money in the long run
But there are also plenty of things that can be done to reduce energy consumption without impacting anyone's little confort. Regarding thermal confort the obvious solution is to improve insulation so they wouldn't have to heat or cool as much and might even save money in the long run
> Well, what they would get in return is preserving the planet were we live. Even if they don't have children, the consequences of the past and current carelessness are already showing and severely impacting many people's life.
The anti-nuclear-power movement started 60 years ago. Imagine what our past would look like now if instead we had replaced all coal and gas with nuclear back then. Is there a chance we would have had more disasters? Sure. But it's impossible to know. What we do know for a fact is that coal and gas emissions are killing the planet.
We have a problem with CO2 emissions and here you are talking about better insulation in homes to reduce power usage. We have a great, direct solution to reduce emissions by orders of magnitude. But no, let's continue to burn gas and coal, just use less of it.
This is why I say anti-nuclear isn't a serious position.
The anti-nuclear-power movement started 60 years ago. Imagine what our past would look like now if instead we had replaced all coal and gas with nuclear back then. Is there a chance we would have had more disasters? Sure. But it's impossible to know. What we do know for a fact is that coal and gas emissions are killing the planet.
We have a problem with CO2 emissions and here you are talking about better insulation in homes to reduce power usage. We have a great, direct solution to reduce emissions by orders of magnitude. But no, let's continue to burn gas and coal, just use less of it.
This is why I say anti-nuclear isn't a serious position.
> Imagine what our past would look like now if instead we had replaced all coal and gas with nuclear back then
It's not hard to imagine, I'm French and we did replace most things with nuclear back then ^^
The result is that right now we are purchasing (probably coal made) electricity to our neighbors because around 50% of our theorical nuclear capacity is unavailable either for maintenance or because we don't manage to cool them enough with the current heat :)
Nuclear is certainly a good thing overall but not the obvious and only solution to all problems as some would like to believe.
It's not hard to imagine, I'm French and we did replace most things with nuclear back then ^^
The result is that right now we are purchasing (probably coal made) electricity to our neighbors because around 50% of our theorical nuclear capacity is unavailable either for maintenance or because we don't manage to cool them enough with the current heat :)
Nuclear is certainly a good thing overall but not the obvious and only solution to all problems as some would like to believe.
It's people like her that won't sit down at a spreadsheet and put in basic arithmetic for things like recurring costs, nonrecurring costs, amount of pollution (broken down for the entire lifetime of the energy source) and make an educated call. They just react to their own knee-jerk opinion that they do not want to have challenged.
The problem with nuclear is that the other side does the same, which is why it's hard to have interesting discussion on the topic. If you want actual arguments on how nuclear is not the miracle energy some people would like to believe it is, look how here is in France half of our reactors had to be shutdown because of the heat during the recent heatwave or for maintainance, how we are unable to build those new gen reactors in any predictable deadline and budget, and how we struggle to shutdown older reactors which means we have to pay to prolong them over and over which is getting more and more expensive - and it's for an old tech from the 70s.
Of course there are many upside to it too (low carbon emissions and not from Russia among the obvious ones)
But it's pretty rare to find balanced and nuanced speech on the topic unfortunately, and I don't find the anti nuclear side to be any worse than the pro nuclear side on this.
Of course there are many upside to it too (low carbon emissions and not from Russia among the obvious ones)
But it's pretty rare to find balanced and nuanced speech on the topic unfortunately, and I don't find the anti nuclear side to be any worse than the pro nuclear side on this.
Do you think she cares? She's just catering to the common person.
The life-cycle CO2 emissions of nuclear power may become comparable with those of fossil power as high-grade uranium ore is used up over the next several decades and low-grade uranium is mined and milled using fossil fuels.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2051332
Their worst-case scenario is still twice as much power per kg of CO2 as natural gas and over four times as much as the lignite used in German coal plants.
Indeed, however no one (or nearly) now advocates those energy sources (as they emit way too much greenhouse-gases). This is to compare to emissions of renewables sources.
If we go ahead and look at the definition of the word, I think it would almost be an automatic label for a Greenpeace leader.
Admittedly I'm French and the negative connotation of this word might not have carried to English but looking at an English dictionary [1] it does seem to me that's it's something you would only say of someone you disagree with.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
I'm one to think ideologues "on my side" also deserve to be disagreed with because of their methods and absolutism.
But you are right, it's not a thing you'd really say about somebody you liked.
But you are right, it's not a thing you'd really say about somebody you liked.
Dictionary definitions generally don't include information on connotation.
Edit: I searched to find a dictionary for word connotations, best I found in a couple mins is https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~ychoi/connotation/
Edit: I searched to find a dictionary for word connotations, best I found in a couple mins is https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~ychoi/connotation/
Greenpeace, true to its name and thanks to its anti-nuclear position is one of the big reasons why 2022 is not Green nor Peaceful
I was sceptical. Turns out you are right.
> Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
> Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
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Insane that Greenpeace is anti-nuclear. Really undermines the organizations goals.
They would have to admit they were wrong when they opposed nuclear power, always a difficult thing for ideologically driven organisations. Some individuals manage to make amends with their mistaken activism but it takes a number of influential individuals to convincingly steer an organisation away from the cliffs it has been aiming for. Those individuals will initially be lambasted by the true believers so they often choose to leave the organisation instead of trying to reform it. This means the organisation is pulled even more towards the old/failed ideology which makes it even harder for it to be reformed.
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Fortunately, a majority of the new generation of Greens around Europe are coming to their senses and support nuclear power.
Not sure about Greenpeace though, they are a bit messed up.
Not sure about Greenpeace though, they are a bit messed up.
Because of green washing.
Nuclear is carbon friendly, might even be climate change friendly but its a long way from being environmentally friendly.
Nuclear is carbon friendly, might even be climate change friendly but its a long way from being environmentally friendly.
Greenpeace is pro-nuclear now.
I know nothing about Greenpeace, but their website seems to disagree with that:
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/issues...
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/issues...
They say otherwise. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/tag/nuclear/
"Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants."
"Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants."
The foreign minister, not the Chancellor (that's what our prime minister is called).
Assuming this refers to Jennifer Morgan:
* Germany has no prime minister, Germany has a chancellor.
* The prime minister didn't appoint her, the cabinet did.
* She is not head of climate policy, she is a special envoy for climate policy as part of the federal foreign office. This is a diplomatic position. That means such decisions are out of scope here entirely.Almost. The chancellor proposes the ministers, the president appoints them (never not followed the proposal of the chancellor). But she isn't heading a ministry, but reports to the foreign minister, which probably proposed her. She might or might not have the administrative rank as a minister, but she isn't a member of the cabinet.
https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-02/klimabeauftr... for example mentions that the cabinet appointed her. Of course she isn't part of the cabinet but that is also not what I claimed.
Thanks for the clarifications, it's always shocking to see the amount of bullshit on hackernews (and reddit) when it comes to Germany, renewable/nuclear energy and the like. Makes me want to question everything else that is posted here where I know less of. Reminder of the Gell-Mann Amnesia.
There is a lot of overconfidence on HN for non-core subjects of the HN crowd.
Non-computer sciences and engineering comment sections are full of people speaking their guesses with authority.
Non-computer sciences and engineering comment sections are full of people speaking their guesses with authority.
> Non-computer sciences and engineering comment sections are full of people speaking their guesses with authority.
Any idea why this is the case? I wonder, because I would expect most engineers to have had a university education that taught them respect for the complexity of things around us in the first place. The realisation alone of how little one really knows about one's own subject after several years of study should make one very cautious when it comes to subjects one has only heard about in passing. Or is it simply that an overwhelming majority of modest people simply remain silent, and that is why a few uninformed who rush to judgement stick out?
Any idea why this is the case? I wonder, because I would expect most engineers to have had a university education that taught them respect for the complexity of things around us in the first place. The realisation alone of how little one really knows about one's own subject after several years of study should make one very cautious when it comes to subjects one has only heard about in passing. Or is it simply that an overwhelming majority of modest people simply remain silent, and that is why a few uninformed who rush to judgement stick out?
As always, there's a webcomic for that: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2475
Technical people with some knowledge of a topic will often find themselves on the peak of mount stupid (see comic).
In other words, knowing just enough to feel like you know a lot, not knowing enough to realize how much you don't know.
And... well university education often doesn't succeed in teaching people to estimate their knowledge on a subject appropriately. "I don't know but I want to know more!" isn't a very common outcome when a topic comes up. I think it really has to do with people who spend a lot of time being the most knowledgable one on most topics around getting used to just having an answer whether or not it's correct.
Technical people with some knowledge of a topic will often find themselves on the peak of mount stupid (see comic).
In other words, knowing just enough to feel like you know a lot, not knowing enough to realize how much you don't know.
And... well university education often doesn't succeed in teaching people to estimate their knowledge on a subject appropriately. "I don't know but I want to know more!" isn't a very common outcome when a topic comes up. I think it really has to do with people who spend a lot of time being the most knowledgable one on most topics around getting used to just having an answer whether or not it's correct.
There is a lot of overconfidence on core subjects also. Think of the rsync dropbox thing or any thread about kubernetes (I don't need it, so nobody does!)
tbh, you probably don't need kubernetes
True but frequently people claim that it is bad and nobody needs it. Whereas I would say Kubernetes is a bit like a bucket excavator, you probably don't need it and a shovel would do you just fine but that doesn't mean nobody needs bucket excavators.
I currently need (to know) it and would rather not.
Especially in a multi cluster, kustomize, istio, argocd, Jenkins on bare metal over multiple physical data centers.
To me with intermediate data dev ops knowledge this is quite a level of complexity.
Especially in a multi cluster, kustomize, istio, argocd, Jenkins on bare metal over multiple physical data centers.
To me with intermediate data dev ops knowledge this is quite a level of complexity.
That is wrong. That former Greepeace member works for the foreign ministry, it seems with the purpose of dealing with international actions against climate change. This office has nothing to do with the German climate policiy.
That would be the minister of environmental affairs and the minister of economy.
The most sensible, efficient, and effective climate change policy would be to:
1. tax the carbon content of fuels
2. use nuclear power for baseload power generation
1. tax the carbon content of fuels
2. use nuclear power for baseload power generation
1. Tax the carbon emissions of all industries.
2. Let the market decide how to profitably generate power.
2. Let the market decide how to profitably generate power.
Are grid operators and electricity generation operators separated in the US? Depending on the grid policy, what is profitable may change.
If in case of surproduction you ask baseload to reduce production in favor of NREs, then NREs will be more profitable (compared to a fifty-fifty approach) and baseload will be less so. On the opposite, if you ask NRE to reduce production, baseload will be more profitable.
(in case of fossil baseload generation, favoring NREs makes a lot of sense since you save the fuel cost, but for nuclear uranium is only a minor part of the cost)
If in case of surproduction you ask baseload to reduce production in favor of NREs, then NREs will be more profitable (compared to a fifty-fifty approach) and baseload will be less so. On the opposite, if you ask NRE to reduce production, baseload will be more profitable.
(in case of fossil baseload generation, favoring NREs makes a lot of sense since you save the fuel cost, but for nuclear uranium is only a minor part of the cost)
This facet of the "merit of order" is, amongst clean (non-greenhouse-effect emitting) sources, mainly decided upon the cost of production, and therefore renewables are already (and more and more) preferred upon nuclear, reducing its capacity factor and therefore condemning it (because a nuclear reactor economics implies a high capacity factor: letting it down or idle is very expensive).
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020
It's much easier to tax the carbon content of fuel, rather than try to measure what the industry emits.
looking how bad things are in France, I'm surprised that nobody who thinks Nuclear Power is a solution to global warming discusses the high needs for cooling ... nuclear power plants need large amounts of water.
https://m.dw.com/en/french-nuclear-plants-break-a-sweat-over...
https://m.dw.com/en/french-nuclear-plants-break-a-sweat-over...
There are alternatives for cooling: https://world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/techn...
In any case nuclear is not the solution to global warming, just part of it (for electricity baseload generation where it makes sense).
Also, France has neglected building new capacity for decades.
In any case nuclear is not the solution to global warming, just part of it (for electricity baseload generation where it makes sense).
Also, France has neglected building new capacity for decades.
> France has neglected building new capacity for decades
No. The last built reactor (Civaux-2) was delivered in 1999, and the new generation architecture "EPR" reactor (which was set as the lead of a series) project began in 2004, its construction began in 2007, never stopped, and albeit costing way over its budget it isn't yet delivered.
No. The last built reactor (Civaux-2) was delivered in 1999, and the new generation architecture "EPR" reactor (which was set as the lead of a series) project began in 2004, its construction began in 2007, never stopped, and albeit costing way over its budget it isn't yet delivered.
Is it possible to design plants to allow salt seawater for cooling?
Yes it’s very common. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu...
Finally some good news. Too bad it needed a war to happen.
Shutting down power plants during winter was never a good idea and a kind of arbitrary decision. Given the situation with russian gas Germany probably will keep the nuclear power plants running until next summer and then shut them down forever.
This is the smart/obvious thing for them to do, bravo. This is also a very negative thing for Putin and Russia. Glad to see more negative results to the Russians from their invasion.
Why did they not do that before and chose Russian gas instead of nuclear power? It's puzzling me what bad did they find in nuclear power.
Concerns about nuclear waste disposal top the list for my German in-laws, followed by the increasingly less-theoretical worries about providing scary targets for when the unprecedentedly long current peace ends.
Could you elaborate?
It's not going to affect the 10m+ gas-fired furnaces, water heaters, ovens or stoves, or any of the chemical industry that use 85% of the gas. It's not going to replace even half of the gas-fired power plants that use the remaining 15%. So why is it smart, obvious, or very negative for Putin?
It's not going to affect the 10m+ gas-fired furnaces, water heaters, ovens or stoves, or any of the chemical industry that use 85% of the gas. It's not going to replace even half of the gas-fired power plants that use the remaining 15%. So why is it smart, obvious, or very negative for Putin?
Germany typically uses X joules of energy to run its economy. Some percent of that X comes via nat gas (and oil) from Russia. If they replace some of those Russian joules with nuclear joules, then a smaller percentage comes from Russia. That lowers demand for fossil fuels. That reduces revenue for Russia.
> It's not going to affect the 10m+ gas-fired furnaces, water heaters, ovens or stoves...
Not at once. But it certainly makes it easier for people to replace nat gas appliances with electric ones. If you are heating your home with nat gas and the price explodes, it would be beneficial to lower your thermostat and crank up an electric space heater to make up (some) of the difference.
> It's not going to affect the 10m+ gas-fired furnaces, water heaters, ovens or stoves...
Not at once. But it certainly makes it easier for people to replace nat gas appliances with electric ones. If you are heating your home with nat gas and the price explodes, it would be beneficial to lower your thermostat and crank up an electric space heater to make up (some) of the difference.
A fair part of the uranium burnt in many nations comes from Russia and its vassals. The first provider of France (22.1%) is... Kazakhstan.
US: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/russian...
US: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/russian...
The thing is that maybe around 1% of the joules can be replaced with nuclear. Most can't because connecting electricity wires to a gas-fired furnace does nothing (good).
I once started a bugfixing week with fixing a bug that caused around 1% of the crashes. My team lead didn't think that was either smart, obvious or very anythingatall, and said so loudly and clearly in the team meeting.
I once started a bugfixing week with fixing a bug that caused around 1% of the crashes. My team lead didn't think that was either smart, obvious or very anythingatall, and said so loudly and clearly in the team meeting.
> The thing is that maybe around 1% of the joules can be replaced with nuclear.
Citation needed.
These plants are running now. Are you saying the electricity they are generating is not being used? The question is what replaces those joules if they shut them down?
Citation needed.
These plants are running now. Are you saying the electricity they are generating is not being used? The question is what replaces those joules if they shut them down?
I think I misunderstood your question.
The plants are running now, but that doesn't make them able to replace gas. Most of the gas can't be replaced by them for the reasons in my other response, but I think your question was about the rest?
The rest is because of the different traits of nuclear and gas-fired power plants. Nuclear power plants aren't adjustable, they provide the same amount of power, day and night, plodding on, with only very slow adjustments. Gas is the opposite. Gas-fired power plants are easy to adjust on very short notice, to match the unexpected changes in demand. If you try to replace quick-changing power plants with slow-changing, the network's frequency (50Hz in Germany) suffers. When demand shrinks and the slow-changing power plant can't adapt, the frequency rises above 50Hz. When demand rises quickly, the opposite happens.
Some adjustment is possible by involving other entities than just the two, so it's not quite 0%.
The plants are running now, but that doesn't make them able to replace gas. Most of the gas can't be replaced by them for the reasons in my other response, but I think your question was about the rest?
The rest is because of the different traits of nuclear and gas-fired power plants. Nuclear power plants aren't adjustable, they provide the same amount of power, day and night, plodding on, with only very slow adjustments. Gas is the opposite. Gas-fired power plants are easy to adjust on very short notice, to match the unexpected changes in demand. If you try to replace quick-changing power plants with slow-changing, the network's frequency (50Hz in Germany) suffers. When demand shrinks and the slow-changing power plant can't adapt, the frequency rises above 50Hz. When demand rises quickly, the opposite happens.
Some adjustment is possible by involving other entities than just the two, so it's not quite 0%.
They are providing like 6% of the German electricity. So yes, replacing them will require more fossil fuel short time. On the other side, the idea is to replace them with renewal sources. Germany is already at 50 renewables in the electricity mix.
Nuclear is not really a replacement for gas, rather than coal, due to its slow nature. Gas power plants are used in Germany mostly for quick peak power.
Nuclear is not really a replacement for gas, rather than coal, due to its slow nature. Gas power plants are used in Germany mostly for quick peak power.
Most of the gas isn't used for generating electricity. Rather, it's used at the point where the electricity would be used. If you build a house you can install a furnace that gets joules from the electricity network or from the gas network, see? And there are a little over ten million houses and apartments that get their warm water and heating from gas-heated boilers/furnaces.
See https://www.haustec.de/heizung/waermeerzeugung/waermemarkt-w... for example. There's also the chemical industry, which uses gas as chemicals, not as a source of joules.
See https://www.haustec.de/heizung/waermeerzeugung/waermemarkt-w... for example. There's also the chemical industry, which uses gas as chemicals, not as a source of joules.
Cheaper electricity pushes the market to favor electric heating over gas. The cost of switching from a gas furnace to an electric one will be worth it if gas becomes more expensive and electricity cheaper.
If you fix a bug that currently causes few crashes but would later on turn out to cause big issues, and you see that outcome in advance, then it would in fact be smart wouldn't it?
If you fix a bug that currently causes few crashes but would later on turn out to cause big issues, and you see that outcome in advance, then it would in fact be smart wouldn't it?
Presumably because Germany won't have to start burning more fuel to replace the lost nuclear electricity, although I'm not op.
You could argue that it's getting outsized media attention compared to the impact, but any impact that reduces natural gas use is good for Germany, and anything that helps Europe withstand Putin's sanctions is bad for Putin.
The economic and safety questions seem settled, so the thing that stands in the way of this step being obvious is the self-image and identity of the German Green party.
The economic and safety questions seem settled, so the thing that stands in the way of this step being obvious is the self-image and identity of the German Green party.
Green voters are mostly fine with this, so it’s not a big deal for the party.
It's probably negative in the long term, since there is enough public awareness about the Russian gas imports being problematic and that nuclear power is being considered less of a problem than Russian gas. Also it means that political parties will likely add the sourcing of energy as an important part of their platform in the future, leading to debate as to what should be the future of energy in Germany and how independent or not they should be from Russian gas.
just out of my mind: they could export that energy(and maybe i'm wrong, but it is cheap to produce, somewhere next to gas) to countries that produce electricity from russian gas, at least till other sources will be used in that countries
But I really don't believe they'll keep them running, seeing what german politicians have done in the past
> This is also a very negative thing for Putin and Russia
This is to prepare for Russia cutting off gas entirely to the EU, which would cause harm to Russia's O&G revenue as a result of Russia's strategic choice, not due to EU actions.
Russia is making record profits off high gas prices, there were no negative results to their energy industry from their invasion. All of the negative results were from sanctions on the rest of their economy and from freezing their USD/EUR currency reserves.
This is to prepare for Russia cutting off gas entirely to the EU, which would cause harm to Russia's O&G revenue as a result of Russia's strategic choice, not due to EU actions.
Russia is making record profits off high gas prices, there were no negative results to their energy industry from their invasion. All of the negative results were from sanctions on the rest of their economy and from freezing their USD/EUR currency reserves.
Maybe they got the tip from the same sources that claimed Musk and Mrs Brin had an affaire
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