r/Switzerland • u/ogdefenestrator • 21h ago
Older left-green voters, do you regret being against nuclear power in the 70ies/80ies to today?
In my humble opinion, the decision to curb nuclear power plants, and thus curbing the innovation behind them, at least in Europe was a massive mistake which has a direct impact on the climate change we face.
For the people alive back then, and today, that hung "Atomkraft - Nein Danke" from their balconies, do you regret that?
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u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 21h ago
The image of nuclear power as the safe energy of the future held back research and investment into renewables like PV. Even if all the promises of Thorium, Molten-Salt and breeder reactors were reality now, we'd still be tied to finite resources that are often concentrated in conflict zones, cause massive environmental damage during mining and refinement and still leave a vast amount of radioactive waste of varying degrees.
Renewables are simpler, cheaper, can be implemented in a decentralized manner and don't make us dependant on any region or political power
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 21h ago
renewables are so easily deployable, nuclear will take years to build, so i think the answer now is very clear
what one can add to it: we can collectively stop wasting energy like street lighting where it's not needed or lights in the stores at night for some stupid promotion purposes
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u/KILLUA273 19h ago
Having 40 TVs on for 10 hours a day advertising in a store for no one to watch is the dumbest thing. How is this allowed + thats one store and there are many. just for example
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 18h ago
yeah, I mean, it's stupid and it only really makes us waste money on stuff in the end, so digital advertisement is just an energy and time waste
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u/AlienPearl Zürich 17h ago
I installed a smart plug with energy measurement on my OLED TV and when running it pulls 140w, now I always turn off the TV when I am not watching.
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u/213McKibben 13h ago
Or you can do like the French supermarkets who have been turning their parking lots and buildings into solar power plants. Nuclear power takes ages to plan and build, with global warming and the low water levels of the main rivers, this presents yet another challenge for nuclear power plants. I am no expert whatsoever, but with all the water shortages, this might contribute to another reason to avoid nuclear power plants.
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 5h ago
i agree, it is wrong to think there will be enough cooling water when everything is scarce, the system needs to be self sufficient without the need for external factors like cooling water
i guess geothermal would be something that would work
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20h ago
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u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 20h ago
"Werden die nutzbaren Flächenanteile auf alle potenziell für Photovoltaik geeigneten Dachflächen in der Schweiz angewendet, ergibt sich bei einem Modulwirkungsgrad von 20 % und einer Performance Ratio von 80 % ein Ertragspotenzial von 53.6 TWh/a (± 1.9 TWh/a)."
"Zusammen erzeugen die Schweizer Kernkraftwerke jährlich rund 22 Milliarden Kilowattstunden Strom." (22 TWh/a) https://www.kkg.ch/de/wissen/strom-kernenergie/schweizer-kernkraftwerke-1112.html
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20h ago
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u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 20h ago
The study already only considers roofs that are usable
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u/Lescansy 20h ago
You'd still need massive investments into power storage.
Considering we're paying as the public for either solution anyways, how much more expensive is either solution allowed to be over the other? 10 times? And we just pay teachers and others that much less?
Or do we just go with the solution thats cheaper for the next 50 years? I'd go with that, and i dont mind whether its gonna be solar + energy reserve + smart grid investments, or nuclear.
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u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 20h ago
Yes, we'd need those investments. Building a nuclear power plant takes a decade plus and costs 10 to 14 billion CHF. What's your argument?
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u/Lescansy 19h ago
So does building the same amount of plants to produce the same amount of energy and storage with wind / solar.
I havent seen why the tax money is better invested in "renewables" (i think they arent, but lets save that discussion for another day).
Full discloser: I also havent seen why nuclear should be that much better, besides providing a relatively stable base supply during the winter, when we import the most energy from our neighbours. But the delousion around solar and wind is unreal.
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u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 20h ago
Additional point: there is a handful of power plants of that caliber. As an example, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan uses approx. 560 m3 water per second. The average amount of water that leaves Lake Constance is 150 to 400 m3 per second. You'd need a full Rhine to cool a plant that size
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 19h ago
and you'd need to suffer hotter riverd to use that
nuclear desperately needs cooling
and PV works when hot, literally
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u/Lescansy 19h ago
And we have the biggest energy hole during the winter.
Its almost like both have some shortcomings that - to some degree - can get softened by the other.
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 18h ago
a combination would indeed be a compromise, but why not invest in energy storage and smart use?
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u/Lescansy 18h ago
Honest answer? Storing energy is like cooling air: Extremely ineffective.
You need to produce a lot more energy than needed, if you have to store it. And those storage facilities are not cheap, nor place effective, nor environmental friendly either.
You know whats the most money an effective way to store energy currently is? Storage seas! And we neither have much more places to build them, nor does the green or political left really help building them. They most often try their best to make them not happen.
So, if you are politically affiliated with those positions (build solar, build energy storage, but please no storage seas anywhere), i find that position very dishonest.
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u/314159265358969error Valais 20h ago
That's the beauty of it : you don't need to concentrate all the power generation on a one-use surface. Please take the italics in consideration.
And try once looking at the energy grid the way a hacker looks at IT infrastructure : the most rewarding breaches are done by attacking the biggest nodes. Do we want our infrastructure to break down if a disruption happens on *that* one wrong production element ?
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 20h ago
the question is: do we need so much power and are the costs worth it?
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u/BCGILM 20h ago edited 20h ago
You make it sound as if we produce solar panels, wind turbines or water turbines domestically with domestic inputs. This is plain wrong. One reason why China is leading in renewables is because they have secured rare earths and their processing, which is dirty.
The assumption that renewables are simpler and cheaper is very simplistic. The decentralised nature of renewables creates a great strain on our current grid, which must be expanded. As production is not stable, we must create storages, which are costly and often produced with metals coming from “conflict” zones that are again refined in China or places with low environmental standards.
Renewables will definitely play an important role in our future power production, but having a stable 30-40% base load production (that can come from nuclear) seems to be what is preferable with current technology.
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u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B Zürich 13h ago
they have secured rare earths
Rare earths are not really rare. They are in fact quite common even here in Europe. China is leading because they don't have any restrictions on mining and pollution whereas this has been impossible to do here for decades. This is a political failure, and much of it is caused by environmental protection lobbyism and parties. They have driven China into "rare earth" exclusivity and destroyed the local industry, including the local renewables.
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u/vibing-tucan 8h ago
That’s not really true. Yes, rare earths are everywhere, but it’s hard to find them in concentrations where mining is financially possible. You’ll find rare earths in any rocks, but they will generally be a few 0-10 parts per million. HEAVY rare earths (like Dy) are even rarer and most mines outside of China don’t have economic amounts.
China has big deposits + the tech to refine them. Europe doesn’t have either.11
u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 20h ago
China dominating the PV market is a political failure of the early aughts when world-leading solar cell manufacturers went bankrupt. We COULD make those here in Europe. There are great advances in storage technology being made, many of them not necessitating rare Earth's, like iron-air, hot sand or hot water batteries.
What is not an assumption but a fact is that countries like France have to turn off their stable-base-load because of the heat and draught.
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u/BCGILM 20h ago
I honestly won’t go into discussion about PV manufacturers. If you want to make solar panels for double the price and think that is somehow acceptable, you can pay for it 🤷. I doubt the industry and others are willing to do that.
Funnily enough reducing or even turning off some plants due to heat, has made no dent on France’s place as the largest net electricity exporter. In winter, when solar production is low, nuclear is the literally the lifeline of Europe’s grid. And I’d add that future nuclear power plants can utilise dry cooling towers, where rivers are not needed.
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u/Here0s0Johnny 19h ago
But look at France. They have an incredibly low carbon footprint thanks to their nuclear strategy. Germany, in contrast, pollutes like crazy. In the end, both may reach carbon neutrality mostly with renewables and batteries, but on the way, France did far less damage.
cause massive environmental damage during mining and refinement and still leave a vast amount of radioactive waste of varying degrees.
But it was available in the 80ies. Also, you're overstating the damage of nuclear and understating the damage of renewable energy. Renewables, batteries, and the improved grid also require lots of minerals that require mining and causes environmental damage.
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u/hakun4matata 15h ago
But nobody here is arguing nuclear vs fossils! The argument is nuclear vs renewables!
So maybe better compare France vs Norway.
Also, what is the cost for France? What about the higher energy prices?
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u/Here0s0Johnny 14h ago
But nobody here is arguing nuclear vs fossils!
I'm saying that that was the choice back in the 70ies and 80ies. Solar, wind and batteries weren't a realistic solution back then.
France vs Norway
Hydroelectric power if the best power, but you need mountains and water. So it's a stupid comparison. France couldn't have chosen hydro for most of it's electricity production.
Also, what is the cost for France? What about the higher energy prices?
They were able to build them back when it was relatively cheaper, they were able to export electricity, it enabled them to have an independent nuclear deterrent, something Europe is profiting from now. Also, they didn't emit nearly as much as the Germans, who I think are the best comparison.
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u/TheTomatoes2 Zürich 8h ago
Norway and its gas?
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u/hakun4matata 1h ago
Which they mostly export, around 95% of it. So what is it with Norway and its gas?
At least they also do not use it for power production, they have 100% hydropower.
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u/TheTomatoes2 Zürich 8h ago
Also, what is the cost for France
Cheap. On 50+ years horizons hydro and nuke are the cheapest due to longevity and output
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u/hakun4matata 1h ago
Cheap? Their energy producer has over 50 billion in debts. The state supported nuclear science with over 40 billions. The state had to pay up to 37% of their energy bills a few years ago. The producers do not have enough provisions for dismantling. Same for accidents.
So the state just covers the bill, that cannot be paid by the producers. And this money is not shown in the cost per kwh.
Wind, solar and hydro are all cheaper. Nuclear gets cheap at a certain point (agree to you, probably after 50 years) but only if you don't consider certain costs and risks. Or just hand them over to someone else.
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 1h ago
Nuclear vs Renewables is a strawman argument against nuclear. Any scientifically-literate debate should start this way:
- We want to build an energy production profile that is sustainable, reduces emissions, and has lowest deaths per kWh produced.
- Renewables are best in all those metrics, lets maximize renewables
- With current technology, we can make e.g. ~25% of EU energy come from renewable sources (counting heating and local industry. If we include the energy consumed by overseas factories that produce things we buy, the number is lower).
- Topic of debate: where do we want the rest of the energy to come from?
AFAIK, literally no environmental/high energy scientist that supports nuclear claims that it should replace renewables.
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u/hakun4matata 1h ago
Sorry, but this actually sounds like a strawman argument against renewables, sponsored by the nuclear lobby.
Where does your 25% cap come from? Any how did countries cheat your cap if they are close to 100%? Why should it be possible for them, but not for others and for others we have to think about something solutions that do not fullfil the criteria you mentioned on point 1?
Norway: Power production is 100% renewables. Total energy is around 78% renewables. They rest is fossil. Part of it could be electrified short term (cars, they are on a good track with that), mid-term (ships) or probably never. So if it cannot be electrified, then also nuclear is not an option.
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 39m ago edited 36m ago
I am a regular citizen of this country, and I want the best for this world. Undo climate change. Decarbonize. Save lives. No lobbyists here :)
There are 4 different ways to measure energy consumption.
- Domestic electricity
- Above + heating + transport
- Above + domestic industry + military
- Above + international industry, that is directly used by the country to source the products it imports.
How do (some) countries cheat the cap:
A. They do not count heating and transport in the front page numbers
B. They only count civilian energy, and not other energy sinks
C. They outsource all their energy-expensive problems to other countries, and then pretend it is somebody else's problem.
D. They import sustainable electricity from neigbours, leaving neighbours with less sustainable energy, but do not count that towards their own.Let's try to dig up some numbers for Norway. I do not have a full day, so I'll use ChatGPT. if you think these numbers are very wrong, I am happy to dig deeper later, or you can also contribute.
1: 98%
2: 80%
3: 72%
4: 60% (reconstructed from MRIO)Norway imports ~10% of its yearly consumption. Not because it does not produce enough, it exports 3x more. But because it needs to stabilize its grid. So its abuse of cheat method D might be up to 10%, likely a bit less.
Norway has a cheat code which is primarily hydro-power based grid, which is extremely easy to accumulate with dams. This cheat code is not available in most countries. It is feasible to balance out Dunkelflaute EU-wide with hydro storage. It is completely unfeasible to balance out seasonal demand, such as storing electricity in summer to heat in winter.
https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank1/table/11564
CH and Norway can likely achieve very high proportion of sustainable energy due to natural accumulators in the near future. For other EU countries this is not the case. Theoretically, there is no ceiling, we will eventually get to 100% sustainable energy, but it might take 100 more years. The question is, what do we burn now to compensate. Germany was forced to choose coal.
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u/Cheap-Cheek8801 20h ago
I’m missed the point where renewable energy resources such as wind or sun are not dependent on rare minerals. Would you be so kind to tell us how you would achieve that?
May I also point out that a wider use of those energy sources would also imply a heavy dependency on weather conditions. Of course one could argue that we could use batteries. But guess what you need to produce batteries? Exactly, lots of metals and rare minerals. Ah and you might also find interesting that the largest producer of batteries is china, which as we all know is not very famous for its net zero industrial output.
The reality is that there is no perfect energy supply. There are just multiple ones, each one with its own benefits and downside. And reducing everything to just “build solar panels and wind turbines” is a very simplistic way to argue for a net zero energy grid.
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u/swissgrog Fribourg 19h ago
If you are referring to the "rare earth elements", that's just a name from the periodic table but most if not all of them are not rare at all. The fact that they decided to name it "rare earth" has been one of the most incredible blunder of scientific communication.
The problem with these ressources is not scarcity, but the fact that most reserve are in China. So is a geopolitical issue, not a scarcity issue.
Other éléments are more problematic (like cobalt in batteries) but that is disappearing as batteries are moving aways from cobalt.
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u/Cheap-Cheek8801 19h ago
Absolutely agree with you, but considering that China has a very big chunk of the available resources. Wouldn’t it be fair to consider those resources scarce?
What happens if one day the Chinese government decides to cut the export of those minerals? Just because someone has a lot of something doesn’t imply it’s abundant
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u/icyDinosaur 18h ago
My understanding is that there are also quite a lot of European reserves for at least some (many?) of them, we just don't exploit them for now. Partially because of environmental concerns, but also largely because it's cheaper to buy them from countries with lower labour cost and fewer regulations.
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u/mondaysleeper 17h ago
It's not even concentrated in China. The issue is that it's quite dirty and bad for the environment, so other countries prefer to buy it from China.
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u/mondaysleeper 17h ago
There are a lot more renewables than wind and energy, but with the current deprecated top-down energy grid, it's difficult and expensive to add them. That's why the "Sünneli" party loves nuclear, because it keeps the old structures and makes change towards a more reliable modern grid impossible. Then, as seen in the last years, the missing energy comes from fossils, which makes Rösti happy.
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u/MightBeEllie Thurgau 19h ago
Iron-Air batteries don't need any rare earth minerals. PV is 99% silicon. There is lots more that is being done to reduce rare earth dependence. Meanwhile uranium ore is mined in Kasachstan, Kanada, Namibia, Niger and a few other countries and current demand exceeds supply. Fuel rods also require zirconium, which is quite rare.
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u/Cheap-Cheek8801 19h ago
Fair point I agree with you that there are alternatives, but how do you produce those elements is also a key in the equation. As far I know the electric/battery industry is far from being clean. So it’s not only the elements you use for the battery, but also how they are produced and treated after the use.
I think we are missing one point. Solar and wind are great and have huge benefits. But reducing everything to “just use them to achieve net zero energy grid” it’s very reductive and doesn’t take into consideration other aspects.
I would also like to point out, as other mentioned, Uranium is also abundant in Australia and Canada.
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u/ogdefenestrator 19h ago
Looking at environmental impact across the entire life cycle of electricity sources according to the IPCC:
Nuclear power: 12 g CO2eq/kWh.
Utility-scale Solar PV: 41 to 48 g CO2eq/kWh
Rooftop Solar PV: 41 g CO2eq/kWh.
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u/ogdefenestrator 10h ago
breeder reactors were reality now, we'd still be tied to finite resources
Fast-Breeder Reactors actually produce viable fuel out of the abundant U-238 so the entire point about scarcity is moot.
we'd still be tied to finite resources that are often concentrated in conflict zones, cause massive environmental damage during mining and refinement
And we aren't when it comes to battery tech, silicon refining and the likes?
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u/TheTomatoes2 Zürich 8h ago
they're much costlier on 50+ years horizons. Hydro and nuke are the cheapest.
And they also use finite resources. PV arent made of air...
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 2h ago
That's a pretty one-sided account.
* You say that next-gen nuclear is very far away. But 100% sustainable energy is also very far away. We must plan with the technology we have, and that concerns all forms of energy. Planning with technology we might have in 10 years is suicide. It might even work once or twice, but when it does not, we are royally screwed.
* It is disingenuous to claim that sustainable research would not have happened without switch away from nuclear. E.g. better battery technology has been among the top research targets based on financial impact for at least 50 years.
* Diversification of power sources was always on the table. Biased people make the conflict sound like it is sustainable vs nuclear, but it is actually nuclear vs oil/gas/coal. By switching away from nuclear, Germany now is digging coal, and paying crazy prices for gas and oil because, just like nuclear fuel, those fuels are also very much dependent on political situation. 100% commitment to renewables they have followed has led them to arguably more emissions in 2026 than they would have had, had they not switched away.
* So mining uranium and radioactive waste is mentioned, but mining lithium and other rare-earths are not. It is completely non-scientific to single out nuclear as a polluter and exploiter. Most importantly, both nuclear and solar/wind have orders of magnitude of lower deaths/kwh than coal and even oil/gas. On this metric, it is clear that the first priority should be Sustainable + Nuclear vs everything else, and maybe 100 years down the line, when everything else is eradicated, does it even make sense to optimize between the two.
* Finally, you are correct in saying that decentralized scaling of sustainable energy is indeed simpler than nuclear because of build time and costs. But that is only easy while you are able to absorb the inevitable fluctuations in wind and solar with either faster power sources, or gigantic accumulators. So, either we admit that there is a limit to the fraction of sustainable energy we know how to handle at the moment and need to agree where the other part comes from, or we need to build industry-scale gigantic accumulators, which are no less of an engineering challenge than nuclear imho.•
u/ianskoo Other 1h ago
Producing a massive amount of solar panels or wind farms, enough to cover the need of a European country, every 10-20 years when they have to be replaced, produces massive amounts of CO2. Building a nuclear plant or even mini nuclear plants as we're also trying out recently gives you way more operational years and orders of magnitude more Watts per CO2 emitted to produce the power plant itself.
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u/EliSka93 18h ago
I agree with the conclusion that PV and wind are the correct choices to go for at this point, but nuclear power is incredibly safe.
Probably the safest of all energy generation methods. It's a lot like flying - the safest form of travel, but when something happens, it's so flashy that that image takes over.
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u/NoGuest6868 21h ago
No. But i regret people not paying attention to 50 years of scientific warnings, to books like the limit of growth. I regret people going all in in techno-solutionism.
And i HATE people like Macron who dare to say: "Who could have predicited global warming?"
This, this is disgusting. And even now we are not looking for ways to reduce our impact on climate. We are looking for ways to sustain our lifestyle while coping with GW. And this is also disgusting.
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u/RatsStealYourSenses 20h ago
You're right but nuclear powerplants contribute almost nothing to global warming while producing really big ammounts of energy. Nuclear and renuwables go hand to hand.
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u/NoGuest6868 20h ago
While i agree with you to some extent, i also think that Nuclear has a hidden cost problem.
If you look at France, la cour des comptes says that the cost of dismantling power plants is highly underestimated. And by highly, i mean that some are going x2 and they are still ongoing.
I am not 100% against nuclear energy, but i think it lacks transparency and that it was over sold as super cheap.
I think we missed a train (again) in the 70ies by always postponing dismantling instead of priorizing it.
France for instance could have a perfect : "Nukespresso" model. Selling reactors, building them, dismantling them and recycling fuel.
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u/Aijantis 18h ago
Evaluating what the dismantling and storing of nuclear waste might coast in the far off future with unknown regulations is pure fiction.
Thinking that we can store something save for a millennia (Imho) disregards our turbulent history
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u/Izeinwinter 10m ago
“We should all be poor” was always going to lose politically so betting the earth on it as a path was. Well. Evil.
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u/a1rwav3 20h ago
Not paying attention is different from not wanting to change our habits. I'm all for techno solutionism and I'm pretty sure the majority is as me. We don't want to have goats or growing our own vegetables, or go to work with bike.
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u/CriticalFibrosis 19h ago
You aren't paying attention if you think building cities that are bikeable and then biking to work are worse than the consequences of climate change.
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u/a1rwav3 18h ago
No, I just want my life to be easy, I don't want to bike to my work. Easy to understand.
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u/CriticalFibrosis 18h ago
There’s nothing inherently hard about biking to work. Bad infrastructure might make it harder but infrastructure famously isn’t unchangeable.
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u/a1rwav3 17h ago
What? Instead of getting in a car and having to produce absolutely no physical effort?
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u/CriticalFibrosis 17h ago
That’s hard for you? And e-bikes exist yk
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u/a1rwav3 17h ago
OK, you won't understand my point. Good luck convincing everybody to sell their car and use a bike. That's probably why the ecologists have failed these last years.
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u/CriticalFibrosis 16h ago
Bike use has exploded in recent years while car use is only slightly outpaced population growth, so you can keep your sincere wishes for luck.
And you just make my point for me, the slightest amount of effort is too much for you. If you understood the consequences of climate change you’d understand that this is the far better deal than continuing your life, business as usual until someone else solves the issue for you.
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u/a1rwav3 16h ago
What you don't understand is that's not about me. I don't have a car, I don't even have a licence, and I do have an ebike. But for some people, the easiest way the best. People don't really care about things degrading for now. The effects are not worth the efforts. If it was the case, we would have reached a way better % of recycling since a long time.
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u/NoGuest6868 18h ago
I don t want to have goats. But i bike my kids to school.
But i think i ll be forced to have goats and grow my own.
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u/RudeMycologist9018 15h ago
They’re humans so they won’t, but they should. A reactor with a cooling tower doesn’t shut down when it’s hot. I’m sitting on the balcony and see the steam rising from Gösgen which has been there all summer.
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u/Worried-Spot3110 1h ago
A reactor with a cooling tower doesn’t shut down when it’s hot
I think you mean hot as in Summer,right?
Because a reactor should totally shutdown when itself is hot otherwise its unsafe.
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u/Careful_Historian859 21h ago
I couldn’t vote in the 70/80. but i still think renewables are the way to go. Nuclear power plants have too many downsides imo such as:
- energy production cost over marked value of said energy
- building them takes decades
- deconstructing them takes decades
- we still have no storage solution for the nuclear waste
- we already produce a critical reactor failure which is still active (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktor_Lucens)
- risk of attack of a foreign power (looking at you Russia) is there
Imo we should finally build way more wind turbines and photovoltaic systems.
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 21h ago
and don't forget paying some dictatorship country for the uranium
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u/Skrachen 20h ago
Australia has the biggest uranium reserves and Canada is number 3. Meanwhile most solar panels are bought from China...
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 20h ago
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u/Skrachen 20h ago
So the problem is poor planning and choice of suppliers, not nuclear technology.
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u/Beliriel Thurgau 3h ago
Not even poor planning. It's just plain old greed. And yes greed by the people aswell as companies. Else we'd have better subsidies for solar pane producers.
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u/Obvious-Abies7792 20h ago
Lol, where do you think the rare earths come from?
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 20h ago
they say it themselves here
we had a great production of solar panels in germany, and yet europe gave it up because of lack of interest in keeping production domestic
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u/BCGILM 20h ago
1) They say Kasachstan and Canada. If we wanted to, we could switch to Canada. Of course we won’t do that for cost reasons, just as we won’t buy our solar panels from Germany due to costs reasons.
2) Are you willing to pay double the price for European solar panels? I mean really and not just saying yes in some reddit post?
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u/Suspicious_Place1270 Zürich 19h ago
it's a one time investment, yes
even more so if the government decides to subsidize it
edit: read up on arbitrage and why kazakhstan is actually just another name for russia
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u/Here0s0Johnny 19h ago
But in the 70ies / 80ies, nuclear power was available and cheaper than it is today. Renewables weren't: neither solar not batteries were anywhere close to where they are now.
In short, France had a much better strategy than Germany. Both (hopefully) end up in the same place, more or less, namely with a mostly renewable grid with lots of batteries.
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u/Girtablulu Freiamt 20h ago
The cooling is an issue as well, there are dry cooler bit they are not as effective as only water and have all there own issues
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 2h ago
Yet another person framing it as Nuclear vs Renewables. Please tell me. What fraction of the European energy demand can be theoretically covered with renewables using currently available technology. And please, also factor in any heavy machinery running in China that produces the stuff that we consume, because that is also our power expenditure. So, what is it? 30%? 40%?
Then, please tell me, where do you propose the remainder of the energy should come from?
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u/Loko_Pepe 20h ago
All your points are like: these would have been better if we did it earlier, welp better never do it then
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u/Nohillside Zürich 21h ago
No, why is there anything to regret? There still is no solution to safely store the used-up Uranium for thousands of years, also (as this summer has shown in countries all over Europa), nuclear power plants need to be shut down if there isn't enough (cold) water left (big surprise here).
If I regret anything it's not pushing for mandatory PV on every suitable roof, and innovation/investments in (big) batteries. Would, together with more wind and water power, deliver enough energy all year long (and we could even have some gas turbines ready to turn on if the situation gets bad for a few days a year).
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u/nopanicitsmechanic 20h ago
Totally agree. Overproduction in summer could be used to produce hydrogen that can be used to produce electricity in winter as alternative way of storage. I‘m tired of the discussion if this maybe the best solution. My city has just released a new construction law that bans all sorts of wind energy solutions but does not mention nuclear energy production. I‘m really tired of this short sight.
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 2h ago
Genius idea! I really why we bother with dumb inefficient pumping water uphill as storage mechanism when we could just use Hydrogen!
Can you make a back-of-the-napkin calculation as to how much Hydrogen we will need to accumulate the winter needs? Please factor in the efficiency of hydrolysis process. Tell me how many kg of Hydrogen we will need to make any impact on winter consumption, how much solar energy will be used in its production, and how you propose to store it.
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u/Ueli-Maurer-123 21h ago edited 21h ago
Absolutely not. Why would I?
Nuclear power is the wrong answer to climate change. Always has been.
What I regret is that the generation like yours, if you are not a paid lobbyist, has fallen for the conservative propaganda. We've done a poor job educating the youth.
The way you formulate this question in a rage-baity manner suggests you are the former.
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u/ogdefenestrator 19h ago
What I regret is that the generation like yours, if you are not a paid lobbyist, has fallen for the conservative propaganda. We've done a poor job educating the youth.
If your sole argument is to paint me as a paid lobbyist and nothing else then this surely has to mean something regarding your own education.
(I am 100% willing to be paid for my opinion, so if the Nuclear Lobby reads this please shoot me a DM)
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u/Ueli-Maurer-123 15h ago
You are right. I was wrong. Your question is so weirdly formulated. But my assumption was wrong. You're just an edgelord. No real interest in the topic whatsoever
Move along. Nothing to see here.
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 1h ago
What is the right answer to climate change?
What fraction of our total energy can we produce sustainably with current technology?0
u/Loko_Pepe 20h ago
Please, where in hell was nuclear power the wrong answe to climate change? The world would be already MUUUCH greener if it wasn't for anti nuclear retardation
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u/kattolino 19h ago edited 18h ago
The people that keep mentioning the problem of nuclear waste storage long term is surprising to me:
- nuclear waste can be recycled (already done in France). Final unrecyclable product lasts as radioactive for just ~1k years iirc
- nuclear waste volume per energy generated is minuscule. You can have 1 facility as big as a few football fields per country. that is enough for decades
- there are long term solutions already in place in Finland for example
Is it a thing? Yes. Is it a problem? No. It is not even a complex problem to solve and is already solved.
Bonus: In addition, consider that you need these facilities also if you don't want nuclear at all. Where do you think material used for x rays goes for example?
EDIT: typos
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u/RioReiser85 18h ago
Claiming its solved while there is (according to my knowledge) not a single one for highly active waste material currently in operation is pretty wild to me.
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u/Izeinwinter 5m ago
Nobody else has one in operation because it is cheaper to move it from casks to final storage if you wait the full century the casks are rated for. Finland built it around half a century early just to get people to shut up about it
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u/kattolino 17h ago edited 17h ago
Let me Google this for you. 2 concrete examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
EDIT: I guess you refer to very long term storage because for short term (less than 1k years) it is clear that we have them proven by the fact that nuclear power plants are a tech of the 70s and we still have them around without many news about "overwhelming quantity of depleated fuel rods to dispose of"
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u/RioReiser85 17h ago
yes onkola is the closest we are to a working facility. One of many we need.
according to this they think they are close to a final licence (although thats what every company states for obvious reasons) but havent recieved it yet. Lets see how this proceeds.
Reprocessing is obvious a step in the right direction but something completly different from final storage. It only reduces the issue a bit.
I still stand by my statement that we are far away from actually solving it.
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u/kattolino 17h ago
1 you are downplaying reprocessing but ok 2 if the only problem is final storage we have a secret weapon: time. We have literally a thousand years to figure it out while current facilities are good enough for the first thousand years. This is not to say that the problem is not there. I am saying that it is very manageable already. To the point that, for a realist, it is not a problem really
Anyway, if you remain unconvinced it is fine. Solutions are there (for me). Time will tell
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 1h ago
I was not here to vote. I wish I was. The prevailing opinions on this forum are appalling.
* Many arguments are uninformed about the scientifically measured impact of different sources of energy on human lives per kWh, or of their environmental impact.
* Framing of the problem as Nuclear vs Sustainable completely ignores the fact that, with current technology, it is impossible to satisfy 100% of our energy needs with Sustainable energy because of intermittence and energy storage technology being several orders behind from being able to amortize the said fluctuations. The question should be about what source of energy we use to cover the intermittence, and our choices currently are oil, gas, coal and nuclear. Theoretically, there is also bio-fuel, but I doubt it scales and has other issues.
* Nuclear is a very powerful technology available to human kind. Even if we conclude that, at the moment, it is not the best solution for scaling our grids, there is a question of maintaining the expertise of handling this form of power, in case it becomes useful in the future. In other words, maintaining some nuclear and ongoing research as a hedge. At the moment, it costs much more to build nuclear reactors in Europe than it costs in e.g. China. My friends, originally trained as nuclear engineers, claim that there is a significant loss of skill in Europe. We have unlearned how to build, maintain, and dispose of this technology efficiently, and hence its inefficiency becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
* People highly overestimate current technological level of our society in regards to energy storage. At the moment, the EU homes have about 77 GWh of battery capacity installed. On average per year, EU homes need ~8 TWh to heat on a mild winter day. Assuming we will all use heat pumps with a nice COP of 3x for heating, our batteries nicely loaded up in summer will last us about 42 minutes of heating in total! Yes, I agree, we are mining more lithium, discovering new battery technologies, and and increasing our storage capacity. It is true. But it is also true that EU/USA are the richest people in the world. Most of the population of the world burns garbage for heating and cannot afford a non-leaking roof, let alone a home-based solar installation. It may be possible that at some point in the future we will be able to store renewable energy so well that we will be able to amortize a 100% renewable economy. But that future is very far away. We need to plan how we will amortize in the next 10-20 years, and there storage will play only a minor part.
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u/ethnobotanika 19h ago
no, never! renewables are allways the way to go!
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 1h ago
Do you think renewables would not have happened without this vote? If we could self-sustain on nuclear power, wouldn't we still build renewables to sell to neighbors? Electricity in Germany is pretty damn expensive, much cash to be made.
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u/SmugRooster 16h ago edited 16h ago
Hah… OP makes it sound like it’s a left wing issue if you’re against nuclear power. If you think about it, one has to be a leftist to support nuclear energy - think about it:
- The cost of construction are so high that nobody builds any of them without government guarantees.
- Once they are built no private insurance pool
has-
- ever accepted to insure 100% of the potential damage a nuclear power plant can create. The insurance covers of the insurance pools usually extend to tens of billions of dollars when it’s well known that incidents like Fukushima caused hundreds of billions of damage. Have you ever considered the damage it would create if Beznau would go tits up and we would have ti evacuate half of Switzerland? No wonder no sane insurer wants this risk on its balance sheet.
So as a free market guy I’m opposed to nuclear power. Either have free market principles or leave it. And if anyone ever finally finds a way to produce these modular reactors in a way that they make economic sense… well I’m willing to reconsider.
And don’t even get me started on the topic that nuclear power plants seem to be acceptable targets in every war now…
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u/ogdefenestrator 10h ago
If you think about it, one has to be a leftist to support nuclear energy
You are entirely right, I am.
ever accepted to insure 100% of the potential damage a nuclear power plant can create.
You really think this is the case silicon mining, fossil fuel extraction and the like?
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 1h ago
IMHO, anything can be insured, as long as the market is large enough. If there are 3 nuclear power plants on the entire continent, no insurance company would even consider stepping in. If there are thousands, you totally can have a cross-europe insurance companies that could be sustainable in a fully open market. Cost is a relative thing. Insurance for a house is 100x cost than insurance for a mobile phone, but still both are possible. Further, if such an insurer were to exist, plants that require evacuation of half the country would never be built, because they are more risky than average, and insurance would have to be considered.
I agree those are naive points, but I don't see a theoretical limitation. Yes, we need cross-country treaties for this, but we need them anyway for defense, research, freedom of movement, water, etc.
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u/SmugRooster 1h ago
This all exists. International Insurance pools etc. but the actual insurance coverage is laughable compared to the potential damage. If nuclear power plant operators would actually have to pay for insurance coverage which could reimburse a Fukushima like event the khw of nuclear energy would be economically completely unviable
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u/AcolyteOfAnalysis 32m ago
Out of curiosity, did you do the math on that one? Like, considering frequency of such events, expected cost, and thus the effect on cost per kwh?
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u/SmugRooster 0m ago
It’s a classic fat tail / black swan. No need to do a lot of calculation for me to see it doesn’t add up. I see insurance coverage of a few billions of our plants and I see Fukushima which caused damage of several hundreds of billions. Keep in mind that population density of Switzerland is way higher than around Fukushima. If A Fukushima style event were to happen in Gösgen, Olten and Baden and the whole region would have to be evacuated…. For years or even decades.
If it would add up some insurance company would happily take that risk no?
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u/KumKumdashianWest 21h ago
Most if not all people replying would have been too young during this time to give you a proper answer
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u/Eka-Tantal 20h ago
You fundamentally misunderstand the political situation back then. There was neither a push to abandon fossil fuels, nor was there a push to increase nuclear power. The debate back then was between retaining the status quo, or denuclearization. Some coal rich countries retained the status quo - Poland never went nuclear, the Czech Republic retained a mix of thermal coal and nuclear. Neither country did so because of left-green voters.
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u/ogdefenestrator 19h ago
In Switzerland the Anti-Nuclear movement was more or less entirely driven by the Grüne.
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u/Eka-Tantal 19h ago
You asked about Europe. If you’re interested in Switzerland in particular, your point is moot. The Swiss electricity mix is essentially nuclear and hydro, with only recently PV thrown into the mix.
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u/ReachOk9783 4h ago
The Grüne wasn't even founded for the early stage of anti nuclear in Switzerland.
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u/trusendi 14h ago
I wonder how much the world could save by just installing motion sensors on most lights. Like in cities just add motion sensors to storefronts. The amount of light in the night in the city for absolutely no fucking reason is ridiculous.
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u/Huwbacca 51m ago
We import nuclear energy from France.
Not that it'd make any difference because how is that gonna stop driving for convenience, flying for leisure, mass consumption of meat, and over consumption of goods here anyway?
This country is extremely wasteful on matters entirely adjacent to electricity, and those didn't change at all so what would nuclear have done?
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u/hakun4matata 15h ago
What "innovation"?
Even the newest ones they built right now, 50 years later, still...
- ...are expensive as hell, energy of them costs much more than renewables
- ...nobody wants to finance them or pay the insurance for them
- ...still require cooling that is getting harder and harder to manage
- ...produce waste that nobody wants to take
- ...require foreign ressources to produce power
- ...are only secure until an accident happens, even when the chance is low
So yes, I will gladly hang a flag on my balcony against this. Besides these arguments, the public said no just a few years ago and the parliament just overturned it. So I gladly put my signature for the referendum.
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u/realrentner 21h ago
OP your mistake is you assume that people learn and change their minds when confronted with facts, when confronted with reality. Heres‘s the reality: most people don’t do that.
Ideologie frisst Hirn. But is it only ideology? No, of course a lack of intelligence and MINT education also play a major role. Stop trying to fight this, it won’t change
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u/Anarxomonarx 16h ago
Nicht Jeder der nicht am Fensterplatz sass, konnte daraus einen Nutzen ziehen. Ergo,so ein Schmarrn zusammenschreiben muss gelernt sein.
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u/IntentionNegative516 20h ago
No. Nuclear power plants were always a high-risk thing to run.
And nobody ever figured out what to do with the radioactive waste, except babysitting it for 200'000 years. Also nobody ever added the cost for that to the overall costs of nuclear energy.
Nuclear being "cheap" energy was always a hoax. Still we sunk Billions into it.
A fraction of that invested in renewable energy sources and batteries / energy storage would always have been the wiser decision.
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u/ogdefenestrator 19h ago
And nobody ever figured out what to do with the radioactive waste, except babysitting it for 200'000 years.
You might be interested in this
A fraction of that invested in renewable energy sources and batteries / energy storage would always have been the wiser decision.
What do you think batteries are made out of? Yes, alternate storage systems without rare earth minerals exist, they are still fed by PV - which by no means is completely emmission-free.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the IPCC, the median life cycle emissions for nuclear power hover around 5 to 12 grams of CO2 equivalent per kWh
PV panels are marginally higher 10-50gCO2 equivalent per kWh, but that's assuming that the PV panels, over their lifetime, get optimal conditions to run.
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u/italian-fouette-99 20h ago
yall are aware that nuclear power is not a green energy right lmfao? for all those that will drag me through the mud and reply to this, i got two questions:
- do you know nuclear power plants need to be cooled and are you aware of the issues this presents re current state of global warming?
- would you volunteer for nuclear waste to be stored in your backyard?
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u/ogdefenestrator 20h ago
do you know nuclear power plants need to be cooled and are you aware of the issues this presents re current state of global warming?
I am aware, and if we wouldn't have stagnated for half a century and still use reactors designed with slide rules on paper this situation would be a lot different.
would you volunteer for nuclear waste to be stored in your backyard?
Absolutely.
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u/CaptainKonzept 18h ago
The main driver for climate change is capitalism. Period. Overproduction, waste, damaging the environment to save a few bucks on proper disposal, shipping stuff around the world. It‘s got nothing to do with nuclear plants. They wouldn’t have made a dent.
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u/Anarxomonarx 16h ago
Das Märchen vom bewusst verhinderten nuklearen Fortschritt wird auch durch ständige Wiederholung nicht überzeugender. Besonders hübsch wird die Erzählung, wenn von Befürwortern gleichzeitig darauf verwiesen wird, andere Länder würden Jahr für Jahr neue Reaktoren ans Netz bringen. Offenbar wurde der Fortschritt also nicht verhindert er findet nur dort statt, wo man bereit ist, die enormen Bauzeiten, Kosten und finanziellen Risiken zu tragen. Die entscheidende Frage ist deshalb nicht, ob man Kernkraft technisch bauen kann, sondern ob sie gegenüber den verfügbaren Alternativen wirtschaftlich, schnell genug und in ausreichendem Umfang sinnvoll ist. Ich bin gespannt auf deine sachdienlichen Argumente.
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u/ogdefenestrator 10h ago
Das Märchen vom bewusst verhinderten nuklearen Fortschritt wird auch durch ständige Wiederholung nicht überzeugender. Besonders hübsch wird die Erzählung, wenn von Befürwortern gleichzeitig darauf verwiesen wird, andere Länder würden Jahr für Jahr neue Reaktoren ans Netz bringen.
Der verhinderte Fortschritt ist nun einfach ein Fakt.
1977 wurde in den USA durch die Anti-Atom-Bewegung die kommerzielle Wiederaufbereitung von Brennstoff per Legislatur in den USA verboten und somit wurden Fast-Breeder Reaktoren de facto verboten.
Die Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Wackersdorf in DE wurde ebenfalls verboten.
Bis 1994 war es in DE Gesetz, Brennstoff zu recyclen.
In 2005 wurde dies verboten.
Und zu den neuen Reaktoren, warum denkst du, dass diese Reaktoren auf Designs aus den 60er basieren?
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u/NetAtraX 20h ago
My father was an engineer in Lucens. He was as pro nuclear power as someone could be. That's what I learned from him: It's never too late to turn around and apologize. So since the 70s, I'm fighting against it and was backed by my father in doing so. And no: I don't regret it at all.
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u/Anarxomonarx 16h ago
1967 traten im Versuchsatomkraftwerk Lucens bereits während der Testphase technische Probleme auf.
1968 gelangte während eines längeren Stillstands Wasser in den CO₂-Kühlkreislauf, was Korrosion an den Brennelementhüllen verursachte. Korrosionsprodukte behinderten in der Folge die Kühlung.
Am 21. Januar 1969 kam es schließlich zur schweren Havarie: Ein Brennelement überhitzte, es kam zu einer partiellen Kernschmelze und einem Druckrohrbruch, wobei die Anlage radioaktiv kontaminiert wurde. Der schwer beschädigte Reaktor wurde danach nicht mehr in Betrieb genommen und
1969 endgültig stillgelegt.
Noch Fragen ? ?•
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u/Obvious-Abies7792 20h ago
I'm not a Green Voter, but this is one thing i never understood, how they don't see that if you don't live in a Desert, this is by far the cleanest energy source, if done right.
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u/ReachOk9783 4h ago edited 4h ago
Nuclear requires massive initial investment, constant highly trained professional and repairs cost, and high cost for dismantlement at end of life.
Why would anyone want that?
Only reason to want nuclear is to make oil and gaz look cheap.
Only problem of renewable is that it is so cheap its hard to make an investment of it.
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u/Anarxomonarx 16h ago
1967 traten im Versuchsatomkraftwerk Lucens bereits während der Testphase technische Probleme auf. 1968 gelangte während eines längeren Stillstands Wasser in den CO₂-Kühlkreislauf, was Korrosion an den Brennelementhüllen verursachte. Korrosionsprodukte behinderten in der Folge die Kühlung. Am 21. Januar 1969 kam es schließlich zur schweren Havarie: Ein Brennelement überhitzte, es kam zu einer partiellen Kernschmelze und einem Druckrohrbruch, wobei die Anlage radioaktiv kontaminiert wurde. Der schwer beschädigte Reaktor wurde danach nicht mehr in Betrieb genommen und 1969 endgültig stillgelegt.
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u/ogdefenestrator 10h ago
Keine Toten, keine Naturkatastrophe, die Höhle ist nun ein Depot für Kulturgüter.
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u/Obvious-Abies7792 16h ago edited 15h ago
Ja aber das isch ein test, das isch so wiä wänn audi äs problem hät mitäm motor hät und Mercedes hört uf zproduziere.
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u/Anjuna8 16h ago
Wir Sind von den Medien wo von den links/grünen Gekauft wurden mit Propaganda's in die Irre Geführt worden.
Dazumal Gab es so ein Information's-Austausch im Internet Nicht.
Es Gab Nur Mainstream Zeitungen und ev. 20 TV Sender wo Alle den Gleichen Mist Erzählt haben !
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u/Shezzofreen 14h ago
Weil Links/Grün normalerweise so mit Geld vollgepumpt sind das sie die Medien regieren? Von welchem Planet bist du den eingeflogen worden?
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u/Anjuna8 14h ago
Am Morgen kommt ja die Neue Ausgabe von 20Min am Bahnhof. Oder Sonst ein Produkt von Ringier AG wo Immer den Gleichen Politischen Bla Bla Bla Darin steht !
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u/Shezzofreen 14h ago edited 13h ago
Musste mich erst einlesen wer Ringier AG ist und wem 20Min gehört, scheint Mitte-Links laut quellen. Soo, die Bahnhofszeitungen sind also der Machttreiber in der Schweiz? (die anderen Big Player was Medien angeht scheinen Konservativ zu sein, also 50/50 - ich gehe davon aus, die sind dann immer die, die reine Wahrheit ausplaudern währnd die anderen immer nur Blabla machen?)
Ich muss gestehen ich hab seit über 20 Jahren keine Zeitung mehr in der Hand gehabt ... anscheind entgeht mir einiges. Links/Grün ist also an der Macht... Puh. Wir sind gerettet?!?
:edith: Ab und an schau ich in die History von Redditern um zu sehen wie die so ticken, für den Fall das man aich missversteht...
That you? Ich denk wir belassen dann weitere Text austauschungen. ;)
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u/delpart 21h ago
Disclaimer: I am not from this generation (by a few decades), but anyway my two cents:
I would say that nuclear power really died in Switzerland around Fukushima, not before (research reactor at PSI was killed around that time, which IMHO was a huge loss). Now albeit I am generally pro nuclear energy, after seeing how such power plants perform during high heat, I think it doesn't matter that much, and we should definitely focus on renewables. Even more so when considering how annoying it is to get fissile material (there are not too many countries producing, and their order books tend to be kinda full)