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German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against new nuclear power
(www.reuters.com)
Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo... then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
All this debate and nobody brings up that, thanks to climate change, cooling nuclear power plants will become a roll of the dice? Same as it already happened in France?
Droughts are really, really bad for nuclear power. Solar and wind don't give a shit.
Doesn't even matter much which technology is better on any other point. If you cannot run it, it's worthless. Especially at times with increased power demand for example due to AC usage spiking thanks to the same heat that just poofed your cooling solution into oblivion.
Thank you. The nuclear fanboyism is crazy here and on reddit. Looking back, almost all nuclear power planta in Germany had to shut down over the last summers, because the cooling water Was either not enough or too hot. That technology has run it's course and every potential investment is better routed towards renewable, battery capacity or green hydrogen.
In addition, the european pricing for power is defined by the most expensive source - and nuclear as well as coal are power sources that are getting more expensive, raising the cost for users. Supporting both sources for energy is madness.
And yes, tearing down windfarms for coal is fucking stupid, as is hoping that russia will keep selling us gas. Europe needs it's own power infrastructure and has enough potential for it.
So what about nuclear waste? I am opposed to nuclear energy because of all the reasons you pointed out, but also because we collectively decided to dump the waste somewhere underground where they will go on radiating for a few eternities more. Do you know if this bullshit or if that's a true concern?
U.S. commercial reactors have generated about 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel since the 1950s. If all of it were able to be stacked together, it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards. Nuclear waste is solid, it's not that difficult to store it. We get more nuclear waste leaked into our nature from coal plants.
As a reference, here is the room that Switzerland stores their nuclear waste.