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Swiss Vote to Phase Out Nuclear Power

posted by martyb on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:06AM   
from the End-of-an-Era dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/switzerland-votes-phase-nuclear-energy-121710224.html

Swiss voters have backed government plans to replace the power from ageing nuclear reactors with renewable energy.

A total of 58.2 per cent of voters supported the phaseout of nuclear energy in a binding referendum on Sunday. Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, voters have the final say on major policy issues.

The plan will provide billions of pounds in subsidies for renewable energy, ban the construction of nuclear plants and decommission the country’s five existing ones, which produce about a third of the country’s electricity.

[...] The move echoes efforts across Europe to reduce dependence on nuclear energy and has been in the making following Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. Germany has announced it will close all nuclear plants by 2022 and Austria banned it decades ago.

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Original Submission

• Re:Sad Re:Sad (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:09AM (4 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:09AM (#513914)

  Favoring renewable energy is anti-science?

  No, pay attention:

  The plan will provide billions of pounds in subsidies for renewable energy, ban the construction of nuclear plants and decommission the country’s five existing ones, which produce about a third of the country’s electricity.

  Seem familiar?

  Germany consumed 100 percent renewable energy yesterday, but we’re unlikely to see clean energy supply 100 percent of generation anytime soon,” he said. -- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-16/germany-just-got-almost-all-of-its-power-from-renewable-energy [bloomberg.com]

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• Re:Sad (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:15AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:15AM (#513917)

  Nuclear energy is a science; coal is a technology; renewables are a sad.

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• Time marches on Time marches on (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:37AM (2 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:37AM (#513973)

  1879: "Mr.Benz, that internal combustion engine is a waste of time.
  Everybody knows that steam is the thing."

  1885: "Mr.Benz, that horseless carriage will never replace real horses."

  Stand in the way of progress, denying the future, and you're liable to get run over.

  -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

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  • Re:Time marches on (Score: 0) by scarboni888 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:01PM

    by scarboni888 (5061) on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:01PM (#514519)

    1895: "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible" – Lord Kelvin, British Mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society.

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  • Re:Time marches on (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:23AM (#514723)

    Power can be, and at no distant date will be, transmitted without wires, for all commercial uses, such as the lighting of homes and the driving of aeroplanes. I have discovered the essential principles, and it only remains to develop them commercially. When this is done, you will be able to go anywhere in the world — to the mountain top overlooking your farm, to the arctic, or to the desert — and set up a little equipment that will give you heat to cook with, and light to read by. This equipment will be carried in a satchel not as big as the ordinary suit case. In years to come wireless lights will be as common on the farms as ordinary electric lights are nowadays in our cities.

    - Nikola Tesla, over a century ago

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