Nuclear Power Plants Could Stay Open, Says Germany

[mahatmakanejeeves]

WORLD | EUROPE

Nuclear Power Plants Could Stay Open, Says Germany

Berlin could reconsider its decision to shut down Germany’s nuclear plants in December, says chancellor

By Bojan Pancevski and Georgi Kantchev
https://twitter.com/bopanc
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https://twitter.com/georgikantchev
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Updated Aug. 3, 2022 9:50 am ET


BERLIN—German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said for the first time that his government could postpone the planned closure of its remaining nuclear reactors, as he criticized a decision by Russia to constrain gas flows to Germany—a move that could deal a severe blow to Europe’s largest economy.

Last month, Russia shut down for maintenance its giant Nord Stream pipeline, which connects Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea and is operated by Russian state-owned energy producer Gazprom PJSC.

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[hunter]

1. Cold showers, no lights: Europe saves as Russian gas wanes

--snip--

Germany had been getting about a third of its gas from Russia, making the EU’s biggest economy and most populous nation conspicuously vulnerable. Energy saving is in full swing, with lights going off, public pools becoming chillier and thermostats being adjusted.

The glass dome of the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin, is going dark after it closes to visitors at midnight, and two facades will no longer be lit. Legislators’ office temperatures will drop by 2 degrees to 20 Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) this winter. Berlin City Hall, the Jewish Museum, two opera houses and the landmark Victory Column with panoramic views are among about 200 sites in the German capital that will no longer be lit at night.

Saunas are closing in Munich’s municipal swimming pools, which have chillier water now, too. There’ll only be cold showers at public pools in Hannover, part of a plan by the northern city to cut its energy use by 15%.

“The sum of all the contributions will help us get through this winter and be prepared for the next one,” said Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister. He also told news weekly Der Spiegel he has slashed the time he spends showering.


--more--

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-paris-germany-90d38aea4805b0667b63b3dedfe8a00d

Shit's gonna get real this winter...

[FBaggins]

2. They ought to restart the recently-retired units

It's one thing to debate whether you're willing to live with coal/gas to avoid paranoia of a potential radiation event.

It's an entirely different thing when you're balancing that potential risk against the very real risk of power outages.

[hatrack]

3. Glad to hear Scholz is pulling his head out

.

[NNadir]

4. It's too little too late. Valuable infrastructure important to all humanity was wantonly destroyed.

There were 17 reactors at one point. The Germans decided - based on fear and ignorance foisted by people who have embraced doublespeak to call themselves "Green" - to kill people and the planet by shutting their nuclear plants to burn dangerous fossil fuels.

There are people here who applauded this criminal exercise.

[Finishline42]

5. And then there are those of us

That think a nuclear power plant should be used until it's useful life is at an end. IMO it's part of sustainability - once something is functioning, get everything you can out of the resources and energy it took to build, within reason.

But building new reactors in the US has a long way to go to make financial sense, as the Vogtle reactors are showing.

Had we instead used the French approach, govt built and run (like TVA), we might have built another hundred reactors, but with for-profit utilities having to start paying on the debt incurred long before they become operational, it's just not going to fly.

[NNadir]

6. I am well aware of what anti-nukes think.

They always seem compelled to share their malign views on the future of humanity.

I am well aware that they are unwilling to invest in the future; that they hold future generations in contempt, and are perfectly willing to leave them useless rotting junk to clean up - the hulks of wilderness destroyed to make industrial parks for wind turbines, abandoned mines dug to service low energy to mass reactionary fantasies the rotting waste of semiconductors, a destroyed atmosphere, all of because their moral educations are no better than their engineering or scientific educations or for that matter, their economic educations.

The damage done by this mentality is extreme as the extreme temperatures killing people, and still, and still, and still...

Still they continue to loudly proclaim their ignorant nonsense, whining about the "cost" of "cleaning up" Three Mile Island for 43 years while hundreds of millions of people died from air pollution in the same period, carrying on about the "cost" of the Vogtle reactors because of the nuclear infrastructure they cheered to destroy, and not giving a flying fuck about the "cost" of climate change.

At least, I've had anti-nukes here try to convince me that they're not anti-nukes, because apparently it's finally become obvious that anti-nukism kills people, this on a vast scale. Apparently being an anti-nuke is rapidly losing credibility, again, too little, too late.

More than credibility has been lost however. Human lives have been lost. And, finally, the atmosphere is collapsing, people are dying from extreme heat, crops around the world are failing, and the specter of famine is rising.

What do anti-nukes want to talk about during this outcome. Oh, I don't know... How about the cost of building the Vogtle reactors because the ignorance of anti-nukes has been applied to destroy nuclear manufacturing infrastructure?

Oh, and anti-nukes should not try to lecture me on French nuclear policy. EDF is bleeding money, apparently because the Hollande administration set up rules that rather than invest in the uprating of nuclear reactors, the money from the golden goose, the French nuclear infrastructure, needed to be diverted to wind and solar, a useless chimera that has left Europe hostage to a Russian imperialist with a thirst for blood matched only by his access to German money to fund that thirst.

One thing I'll say for anti-nukes is that they are entirely unashamed of lacking a sense of decency, almost to a Trumpian level. They seem to have a sense of themselves as being "very stable geniuses." There are almost none who are unwilling to present themselves as reification of the Dunning Kruger syndrome.

Their knowledge of economics is as weak as is their knowledge of engineering, of environmental science, and certainly ethics.

Anti-nukes are a rather disgusting bunch, but again, you have to admire their willingness to so loudly proclaim that they just don't give a shit about humanity.

I assure anyone who wants to know that I know who and what they are.