Summary
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, called Germany’s decision to fully phase out nuclear power “illogical,” noting it is the only country to have done so.
Despite the completed phase-out in 2023, there is renewed debate in Germany about reviving nuclear energy due to its low greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at COP29, Grossi described reconsidering nuclear as a “rational” choice, especially given global interest in nuclear for emissions reduction.
Germany’s phase-out, driven by environmental concerns and past nuclear disasters, has been criticized for increasing reliance on Russian gas and missing carbon reduction opportunities.
I deeply wish that people would understand that this horse is deader than dead. There is no Frankensteinian experiment and no virus that will bring it back to even a zombie-like half-life. So would you, please, please, just stop beating the poor thing.
It doesn’t matter anymore how it died, it’s really time to get a new horse.
Edit: Instead of just down voting, could you explain to me:
I just fail to see any way how this could right now solve our problem.
Pumping all of our waste into the atmosphere is a much better solution!
If we had started building them the first time that question was asked we’d have them by now.
I never said that. But there are ways we have to do neither. Why not concentrate on those, especially since they are magnitudes cheaper.
That might be true, but how is that helping us right now? That’s why I said it doesn’t matter how the horse died. It’s dead now. There are many faster solutions, why take the one that takes longest?
But what if it turns out we do need it in 10 years?
All renewable everything is cool, but that’s also going to require a lot of storage for the days where it isn’t so windy or sunny. I think having nuclear to cover (some of) the base load on the grid will be very helpful.
And I think, you have absolutely no idea how incredibly expensive nuclear power is.
Solar power is literally free during the day in Germany right now. Investing a few hundred million in storage is much much much cheaper and easier to scale than building a nuclear power plant that will only start producing energy in 20 years or so.
Less expensive than whatever the fuck we’ve been doing with our climate these last 100 years. But those aren’t direct costs, so who the hell cares.
But still more expensive than renewables + storage, so what’s your point?
And that refutes what argument?
The costs of climate change are costs the people and our governments have to bear; just look at the billions in damage done by the recent hurricanes.
Those costs are a subsidy to the “cheap” fossil fuels we’ve been using. In fact, fossil fuels receive a ton of subsidies upfront too. Nuclear can be subsidised too.
I don’t have faith our governments will switch to 100% renewable, and any fossil fuel is too much fossil fuel given how far we have already gone. We need to actively start scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere, and we’re going to need as much power as we can generate for that.
Nuclear is expensive because it’s relatively rare. Economies of scale don’t apply to it as is. If we start building, it will become cheaper. Not cheap, perhaps, but cheaper. And it’s a cost worth paying. We are already paying the price for the “cheap” fossil fuels.
But you have faith they will be responsible for a nuclear power plant and won’t allow any shortcuts in maintenance and keep it safe?
Technical scrubbing is way to inefficient. It is powers of magnitude more efficient to invest in plants which build up the humus layer of fields, you can store way more CO2 that way.
But if we spend the same amount of money for renewables+storage we get more power per dollar.
That’s the point, we likely wouldn’t have any new nuclear power plants in ten years, even if we started planning them now. The one they are building in the UK was started somewhere around 2017 I think and maybe, fingers crossed, it might be finished by 2029. Right now the estimated cost is around £46 billion, up from originally about £23 billion.
That’s one plant. We need many more for any relevant effect. Not even starting on the fact that nuclear energy is very inadequate for balancing out short term differences in the grid since you can’t just quickly power them up or down as needed.
why do nuclear diehards always pretend it’s nuclear or fossil fuels only, like renewables are nonexistant? it smells bad faith as fuck. nobody arguing against nuclear fission power plants are arguing for fossil fuels. absolutely nobody.
Relevant comment from this thread.
But still false, because we had a short, small uptick while switching away from russian gas. Now Germany burns less coal than ever in the last 50 years.
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/presseinformationen/2024/oeffentliche-stromerzeugung-2023-erneuerbare-energien-decken-erstmals-grossteil-des-stromverbrauchs.html
The point is his claims "why do nuclear diehards always pretend it’s nuclear or fossil fuels only, like renewables are nonexistant? " is compleltly bollocks in the first place. I’ve never seen any one pro nuclear arguing against renewables. That’s the ideal combo.
And this could have been easilsy debunked by just scrolling a few comments down. Was just point out the blantent lack of good faith of the previous commenter.
Is not the same as
They mostly don’t argue against it (only sometimes on reddit) but they always ignore its existence and accuse everyone who is not a nuclear fanboy on wanting more CO2 emissions.