Germany to shutter all nuclear reactors by 2022

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Germany to shutter all nuclear reactors by 2022

Sure, blanket Germany in solar panels and windmills. When that proves to be uneconomical, or fails to deliver for whatever reason, they'll go to coal, gas, und maybe diesel generators. Oh, Ja, that will be much better. (sarcasm)

Our cousins across the pond have been doing some boneheaded things lately, at least when it comes to energy. Don't they remember anything about that natural gas shutoff just a few years back?

He is Ollie. You are Sven.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO6KH0et5SE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXYVqzckMTo&feature=related[/youtube]

Last edited by sgrannel on 01 Jun 2011, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Germany will continue to buy electric power produced in the nuclear reactors of their neighbors. This decision by the German government is nothing but a Green Gesture. Purchasing electricity produced by nuclear reactors is a form of enabling.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 02 Jun 2011, 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Just like California! They'll use all the electricity they want, but throw a fit when someone proposes that additional generating facilities be built, especially nuclear. Not in my backyard, they'll say, not understanding that electricity has to come from somewhere. Mismanagement and fallacy abound.

Last edited by sgrannel on 01 Jun 2011, 10:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Outsource it to Mars, no one cares about Martians.

Yes. The Germans love to claim that they're going to be nuclear free but they purchase a lot of their electricity from France, which is 70% nuclear power.

A thorium reactor is far safer and cleaner than our present nuclear technology. And thorium is three to four times as abundant as uranium and
thorium fission is 200 times as efficient as uranium. I don't know why the industrial nations are not considering the use of thorium.

Something similar could be done with uranium, but thorium has a higher neutron yield and better neutron capture characteristics. Thorium is only one naturally occurring isotope, too, so an option of only burning one isotope and wasting the rest is locked out when thorium is used, which is also a good thing.

The effect on the price of energy due to difference in fuel cycles is measured in hundredths of a cent per kilowatt-hour. Maybe thorium isn't used because once through uranium vs. thorium costs 2 vs. 2.1 cents per kWh or maybe 3 vs. 3.1 cents per kWh at the fence. It's one of those things that can be best decided by policy, but the improvement has little impact on energy prices as seen by the consumer.

More silly German antics!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HixnvdtIXMM[/youtube]

"More silly German antics!"

WTF!? Are they vying for the Darwin Award?

This is absolutely stupid. The Earth is turning into a Venus inferno because of global warming and the environmentalists are still looking for bean fart power solutions to supply our energy needs.

That is Carl Sagan crap. No way are we turning into Venus.

ruveyn

Possibly, the global warming argument is over-exaggerated. Venus is closer to the sun and has about 100 bars of pressure on the surface, and an atmosphere of mostly CO2. There are just too many orders of magnitude of difference between the parameters describing Earth and Venus, for a meaningful comparison to be made. We'll probably get bit by economics and extraction rate limitations before global warming becomes a real problem.

Speaking of which, androbot2084 is straight on about the bean-fart-power thing. I submit, without proof, the statement that the replacement of coal, oil and gas with anything but nuclear and nuclear-derived energy carriers, will not be feasible. All other "alternatives" not yet fully tapped out, as a class, are characterized as low-yielding and/or uneconomical, and thus unsuitable for energy replacement in bulk. Even in part, Europe's partial reliance on wind and implementation of the "negawatts" concept has raised the price of electricity in some areas to something like 30 cents or more per kWh, as compared to something like 10 cents per kWh in the US.

Of course, I'm talking out of my hat on all this, and I state the above as more of an observation than as something I'm trying to prove. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, as that might lead to another promising new avenue of research, and we certainly could use that. Go ahead, prove me wrong. Come on, I dare ya.

OK, so maybe I really am becoming a cynical a-hole when it comes to energy research. I don't care. I just want to see something happen that has at least a hint of technical and economic plausibility.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e07-youre-getting-old

Last edited by sgrannel on 14 Jun 2011, 2:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

It all comes down to money.

[quote="androbot2084']This is absolutely stupid. The Earth is turning into a Venus inferno because of global warming and the environmentalists are still looking for bean fart power solutions to supply our energy needs.[/quote]
Earth can never be like Venus and it doesn't matter what type of power we come up with, the eco terrorists will always find something to b***h about as long as we refuse to be cavemen again. If we used exclusively solar power, they'd eventually b***h about the massive construction and land use, and the processing of the rare earth elements causing pollution. If I designed a turbine that ran on food calories, then there would be no end to the bitching about human and animal rights.

I saw this earlier, thank God.

Russia and France are certainly thanking God. Russia will have a bigger market for its natural gas and I'm sure France will be willing to export some of its excess electricity (over 70% nuclear). The only losers here are the Germans and I won't shed any tears for them.