Thread: Germany ends nuclear era as last reactors power down

Germany will switch off its last three nuclear reactors on Saturday, exiting atomic power even as it seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.


While many Western countries are upping their investments in atomic energy to reduce their emissions, Germany is bringing an early end to its nuclear age.


Europe’s largest economy has been looking to leave behind nuclear power since 2002, but the phase-out was accelerated by former chancellor Angela Merkel in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.


The exit decision was popular in a country with a powerful anti-nuclear movement, stoked by lingering fears of a Cold War conflict and atomic disasters such as Chernobyl in Ukraine.


“The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who this week made a pilgrimage to the ill-fated Japanese plant ahead of a G7 meeting in the country.


But the challenge caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which put an end to cheap gas imports, and the need to quickly cut emissions has upped calls in Germany to delay the withdrawal from nuclear power.


Greenpeace, at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement, organised a celebratory party at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark the occasion.


“Finally, nuclear energy belongs to history! Let’s make this April 15 a day to remember,” the organisation said.


In contrast, conservative daily FAZ headlined its Saturday edition “Thanks, nuclear energy,” as it listed benefits it said nuclear had brought the country over the years.



‘A mistake’


Initially planned for the end of 2022, Germany’s nuclear exit had already been pushed back once.


As Russian gas supplies dwindled last year, officials in Berlin were left scrambling to find a way to keep the lights on, with a short extension agreed until mid-April.


Germany, the largest emitter in the European Union, also powered up some of its mothballed coal-fuelled plants to cover the potential gap left by gas.


The challenging energy situation had increased calls domestically for the exit from nuclear to be delayed.


Germany had to “expand the supply of energy and not restrict it any further” in light of potential shortages and high prices, the president of the German chambers of commerce Peter Adrian told the Rheinische Post daily.


The conservative leader of Bavaria Markus Soeder meanwhile told the Focus Online website that he wanted the plants to stay online and three more to be kept “in reserve”.


Outside observers have been similarly irked by Germany’s insistence on exiting nuclear while ramping up its coal usage, with climate activist Greta Thunberg in October slamming the move as “a mistake”.


Sooner or later


At the Isar 2 complex in Bavaria, technicians will progressively shut down the reactor from 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Saturday, severing it from the grid for good.


“It will be a very moving moment for colleagues to shut down the power plant for the last time,” said Guido Knott, CEO of PreussenElektra, which operates Isar 2, a few hours before the deadline.


By the end of the day, operators at the other two facilities, in northern Emsland and southwestern Neckarwestheim, will have taken their facilities offline as well.


The three final plants provided just six percent of Germany’s energy last year, compared with 30.8 percent from all nuclear plants in 1997.


“Sooner or later” the reactors will start being dismantled, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the Funke group ahead of the scheduled decommissioning, brushing aside the idea of an extension.


The government has the energy situation “under control”, Habeck assured, having filled gas stores and built new infrastructure for the import of liquefied natural gas to bridge the gap left by Russian supplies.


Instead, the minister from the Green party, which was founded on opposition to nuclear power, is focused on getting Germany to produce 80 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030.


To this end, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for the installation of “four to five wind turbines a day” over the next few years — a tall order given that just 551 were installed last year.


But the current rate of progress on renewables could well be too slow for Germany to meet its climate protection goals.


Despite planning to exit nuclear, Germany has not “pushed ahead enough with the expansion of renewables in the last 10 years”, Simon Mueller from the Agora Energiewende think tank told AFP.


To build enough onshore wind capacity, according to Mueller, Germany now has to “pull out all the stops”.


Greenpeace organised a protest at the Brandenburg Gate Saturday, with a model dinosaur symbolising atomic power dead on its back, vanquished by the anti-nuclear movement, surrounded by replica barrels of radioactive waste.


“Finally, nuclear energy belongs to history!”, the group said. In Munich, a “nuclear exit festival” saw several hundred people gather to mark the milestone.


https://www.thaipbsworld.com/germany...rs-power-down/

Just pure madness.

While France goes full bore nuclear right beside them.

France to build up to 14 new nuclear reactors by 2050, says Macron | France | The Guardian

Originally Posted by misskit

Germany has not “pushed ahead enough with the expansion of renewables

Isn't nuclear renewable? Just stick more fuel in?

No.

The materials used to generate nuclear power, most often uranium, are a finite resource.

Originally Posted by misskit

Germany will switch off its last three nuclear reactors on Saturday,........

Good move in the right direction

There is an estimated 6 tons of uranium fuel left with an estimated 10 tons as yet undiscovered according to the IAEA. 1 gram of u235 fuel is roughly equivalent to 3 tons of coal. At current consumption rates there is about 200 years of reserves. There is another fuel called ANEEL(acronym) that combines thorium with low grade uranium which is more efficient and produces 80% less waste, currently being tested in the USA which will be suitable for existing reactors. Then there is the development of Thorium Molten salt reactors. All of which will greatly increase the amount of available fuel.
Every CO2 fuel alternative has its downside be it lack of water for hydro or the pollution in manufacturing and disposal of solar panels and wind turbines. I cant see how Germany will be able to match supply to the usage increase as fossil fuels are ditched and electric vehicles become the norm putting further strain on electrical supply, without severely curtailing their industrial output. IMO they are making a huge mistake as their competitors move towards nuclear energy while they move away. It is a furphy to think of Germany as a green power country they use huge amounts of gas and coal and are one of the largest emitters. The most likely outcome is increased emissions over the short and medium term.

^

^Bit dated. You drinkin’ again?

Learning curve

U.S. electric capacity mix shifts from fossil fuels to renewables in AEO2023

Originally Posted by S Landreth

^Bit dated. You drinkin’ again?

its all looking a bit fossil there dumbo

Originally Posted by malmomike77

its all looking a bit fossil there dumbo

I hate to side with you whingy, but ya, he is coming off as a bit of a nutter here. Lots of coal is being burned in the shithole red states of the US.

^ shhh don't let the negatives get in the way of yet another dreary Landreth crusade thread.

Is there something that can get in the way of the forum's worst polluter by far?

Anything?!

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

Isn't nuclear renewable? Just stick more fuel in?

It is 100% renewable and produces zero C02. But it isn't Malthusian.

Originally Posted by Backspin

If nuclear isn't renewable,

correct

Germany has 6 different states on its borders surrounding it with a total of 75 nuclear power plants. (including Poland which is building one) Nuclear power will just get imported from its neighbors. It is really pathetic how German industry is so toothless that they cannot prevent any of this madness.

Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai

I have heard the argument that we will be with the nuclear waste problem for thousands of years , and it mentions half life and such.
This argument is a bit of a red herring argument because it assumes that both the Nuclear reactor technology and the waste production and disposal technology remains static for the next few hundreds of years.
Greenpeace is IMO the fossil fuel industry's best friend.

In the meantime, you can continue to bury the problem, only to disover the latest ‘solution’ does not work, and toxic radiation still leaks. As I said earlier, the adequate solution has been sought since the 1940s. Getting close to 100 years and the ‘solution’ is no closer despite continual efforts to prevent the danger.

Originally Posted by Backspin

Windmills wear out and have to be put in landfills. So do solar panels. If nuclear isn't renewable, neither is solar or wind. And I am not an anti wind or solar crusader. They work for niche applications but trying to replace base load with them is madness.

Skiddy spouts crap again...

Those windmills have around 85% recycle parts. Solar panels even more, although it costs to separate the materials.

I'm not a fan of nuclear plants, great in theory but too problematic in practice.

Originally Posted by Troy

Skiddy spouts crap again...

Those windmills have around 85% recycle parts. Solar panels even more, although it costs to separate the materials.

I'm not a fan of nuclear plants, great in theory but too problematic in practice.

America buries around 8000 turbine blades a year. They are extremely difficult to recycle. They take up a very large landfill area as the blades are 35 to 45 metres in length. Germany installed the worlds first recycleable blade offshore wind turbine in just August 2022 which means many more will be in landfill, even if they are all eventually replaced with recyclable blade turbines which hopefully will become the norm in the future.The 85% does not include the blades which require the use of a semi trailer to transport each blade to the landfill site. Most nuclear power stations that have been decommissioned have had their base load power replaced mainly by coal and gas. Modern reactors are much more efficient and many can run on the waste of old reactors. This is not to say there are no problems with nuclear fuel as far as the reprocessing of spent fuel is concerned but is difficult to see how the necessary reduction in emissions can be made without it. Hydro is a slave to water availability.
In the end entropy rules.

Fortunately, used wind turbine blades and solar panels do not produce toxic waste from energy production. The toxicity of nuclear waste, and backspin’s thought processes are a different problem, for which there is currently no solution.

Originally Posted by Troy

Skiddy spouts crap again...

Those windmills have around 85% recycle parts. Solar panels even more, although it costs to separate the materials.

I'm not a fan of nuclear plants, great in theory but too problematic in practice.

Lets see how that logic stacks up.

They say 85% is recyclable and they list off the part. Steel tower, copper cables , steel bolts, generator motor ect ect ect.

Well the exact same thing can be said for nuclear plants which are made of the same material.

Google, first result:

Most parts of a nuclear power plant do not become radioactive, or are contaminated at only very low levels. Most of the metal can be recycled. Proven techniques and equipment are available to dismantle nuclear facilities safely and these have now been well demonstrated in several parts of the world.

And here is the result for the fuel itself:

What percentage of nuclear waste is recyclable?


Thanks to Orano's world-leading industrial-scale technologies, almost 96% of the spent fuel used in nuclear reactors for power generation or research purposes can be recycled. Nuclear material is recoverable to make new fuels that will in turn generate their own electricity.