According to the AP, NY Times and a boat load of other AP carriers, the country boasting the loudest about how much of their energy needs are fulfilled by renewable sources, coal may be about to win out over one of the oldest forests still standing in Germany:
BERLIN (AP) — A court in western Germany says an ancient forest near the Belgian border can be chopped down to make way for a coal strip mine.
Cologne's administrative court ruled Friday against a legal complaint brought by the environmental group BUND that wanted to halt the clearance of much of the Hambach forest.
Hambach forest has become a focus of environmental protests against the expansion of a vast mine that supplies much of the coal used in nearby power plants.
The coal, a light brown variety called lignite, is considered one of the most polluting forms of fossil fuel.
Meanwhile their reactors are being systematically shut down and dismantled. But dirty coal use shows almost no decline.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:18AM
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/22/respect_existence_of_expect_resistance [democracynow.org]
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/17/keep_it_in_the_ground_as [democracynow.org]
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/15/special_report_from_the_occupied_forest [democracynow.org]
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/6/headlines/germany_thousands_march_in_bonn_shut_down_open_pit_coal_mine [democracynow.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:19AM (26 children)
There is clearly no end to the "nuclear" scaremongering stupidity. Yes lets shut down perfectly fine working reactors and go back to burning coal again. Not to mention then all the extra logging and stripmining involved in getting the coal. I'm sure that does wonders for the environment to.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:26AM (4 children)
Only fools are saying that.
Only shills for the most expensive form of electricity generation bring it up.
Everybody with a working brain is saying "Let's stop digging up stuff in order to produce electricity; let's use renewables."
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:32AM (3 children)
translation: "If you don't agree with me, you're an idiot!"
Damned leftwing fascists.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:45AM (1 child)
The economics of the electricity production have been obvious for over a year.
...and the costs of renewables CONTINUE to fall while the costs of polluting energy CONTINUES to rise.
So, yeah. That statement is correct in this case.
...and you needn't agree with -me-.
Check out what the majority of people on the planet who are investing in energy infrastructure are choosing.
Hint: It's not polluting energy for which they must repeatedly buy inputs.
...and, again, the price of renewables continues to get smaller each month.
So, King Canute, you can continue to try to hold back the tide.
You're going to look awfully silly doing that.
leftwing fascists
You're showing your ignorance again.
Fascism is the merger of Capitalism and Authoritarian gov't.
"Left" means "Socialist" (Anti-Capitalist).
The 2 concepts couldn't be more opposite.
Make an attempt to expand your vocabulary.
Pejoratives are more effective when they actually have some semblance to reality.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:44AM
Nitpick: Again with the misinterpreting of the Canute thing....the whole point of the Canute fable/anecdote/whatever was that Canute was trying to show his sycophantic followers by extremum exemplo that there were limits to temporal powers, his specifically. This is what I was taught way back in primary school (ages 5-12) 40 years ago, even Wikipedia has this....
If the holding back the tide incident did indeed happen, I think that old Cnut would be somehow saddened by the fact that even after close on a thousand years people still didn't grok the true meaning of his actions that day.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:49AM
That's insightful? I see the conservatard mods are out in full force tonight...
Translation: if you're not with us you're with the terrorists. We got ours, FUCK YOU!
Hey dumbass: the "left" aren't the fascists, that alt-right are. If you weren't a Faux News-echoing alt-right fucktard you'd know that.
Damed tribal-mentality dipshit alt-right conservatards. Do the world a favor and don't procreate. Help correct the societal damage your parents did by creating you. Go do something actually useful with your life for a change, like sitting in a forest turning oxygen into carbon dioxide for the trees and turning yourself into bear chow when a hungry bear walks by.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:51AM
...and if Thorium was such a great idea, profit-driven Capitalists would be jumping on that worldwide.
Nukes take a decade to build and are then the most expensive way to generate electricity.
Without subsidies and waivers, nukes don't get built.
Renewables have passed parity on cost.
Renewables are the future and the present.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:58AM (7 children)
Dont worry, as you see above, the Morons have rationalised their stupidity already, and blinkered themselves to any actual facts.
'We have managed to wrap nuclear in so much FUD and red tape that now it is too expensive to use! hurrah!'
'Renewables! Renewables! dont worry, we dont need power ALL the time, we are prefectly happy with brownouts, and rare earth production facilities massive pollution footprints are in China, why would we give a shit?'
'ALL RADIATION IS BAD, ITS EVIL, MADE BY HITLER, Except, you know, solar radiation, shining on our happy cells that make unicorns feel even cuter!'
'What about the millions of dead caused by the nuclear industry! Coal is WAY more safer for people, because lung cancer is nice! Mine cave-ins happen to people who deserve it! (they should have lived in micro-appartments in the city and ridden pushbikes to the park to work on their lit-major like us!''
And the outcome is things like this.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:17AM (3 children)
Dear Mr. van Winkle,
Welcome to the 21st Century.
In the current timeframe, we have rechargeable batteries.
There was concern about what to do with partially-depleted batteries from electric vehicles.
That's a solved problem: Use them as stationary storage.
Pumping water uphill when excess solar/wind is available has been known technology for decades.
Solar thermal (salt) storage is also a working technology.
Do open your eyes and look around.
Feel free to ask questions.
(We still speak a form of English and can probably understand the word you use.)
.
RADIATION IS BAD.
Radiation in terrestrial power generation is unnecessary.
Nukes are also the most expensive way to do things that aren't being shot into deep space.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:35AM (2 children)
You play the condescending cocksucker well. Oh, wait, it's not just an act?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:04AM (1 child)
I'd engage in a battle of wits with you, but it wouldn't be fair of me to engage with someone who shows up half-armed.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:19AM
What a clever remark! Pity you didn't think of it.
That chestnut has been variously attributed to Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and Winston Churchill. But not you.
http://wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1506 [wordwizard.com]
Is Ownership the upper limit of your Originality?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:37AM
>'ALL RADIATION IS BAD, ITS EVIL, MADE BY HITLER, Except, you know, solar radiation, shining on our happy cells ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_unit [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:48PM (1 child)
You betcha I'm afraid of nuclear power. You should be too.
It's not that nuclear power can't be harnessed with reasonable safety. It can. The problem is that it won't be. Fukushima showed that. Though Japan is a wealthy nation, well able to afford all the measures needed to operate a nuclear power plant safely, the bean counting idiots in charge still cut corners to save a little money, and the result was a nuclear power plant that was guaranteed to fail if a big tsunami hit. They didn't understand, didn't care to understand, the recklessness and severity of the gambles they were taking. You shouldn't expect to do well if you join a high stakes poker game without at least knowing the odds of all the hands. You should expect to lose everything when the pros at the table peg you for a poseur and adjust their play accordingly. They played poker with Nature, using our money, bet big that Nature would never, ever get a straight flush, and lost.
If you think Fukushima was a one time exception, and we've learned our lessons, then why didn't Chernobyl, and the dozens of lesser accidents, serve as a lesson to the operators of Fukushima?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:08AM
You can only learn from your own mistakes.
Who cares about what some foreign monkeys do? Oh sure, there's a news article, some place some where had an accident. Well, that sucks.
A nuclear accident in your own country though, with yourself and your friends and family personally affected? People remember that one.
The problem is, the natural reaction to such a lesson is not "Let's do better next time", but "No more nuclear, period". People are really bad at judging risk. People die in car accidents all the time, but one airplane accident in a decade and suddenly airplane ticket sales tank.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:19AM (9 children)
I hung out with some German kids in a backwoods town in the very early 1990s - they're not all green to stupidity, but there's a critical mass there where things will be done just because the other thing is baaaaad. Chlorinated paper is baaaaad, so our yearbooks are printed on unbleached recycled paper (with high acid content that will be rotted away within 5 years). Nuclear power is very very baaaad - first Chernobyl and now look what happened in Japan (very un-German design and maintenance, and a Tsunami - yeah, like either of those would happen in Germany, but...) we've got to shut them down, we can replace them with solar and wind, we've got to do something about it now - oh, coal, um, yeah - solar and wind und nuclear RAUS NOW!
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:14AM (7 children)
We did that to them. Americans should have just scratched our asses and let them win. We'd have better beer, and better schnitzels!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:54AM (5 children)
Let them win? The Germans were already losing by the time the US got into it in December of 1941. Granted, Allied material support was a huge help to the Soviets but not essential. Operation Overlord and the subsequent Allied offensives merely accelerated the inevitable.
Even the OKH knew the game was up when the final assault on Moscow failed. It was a very near thing, but the failure of Operation Typhoon was the beginning of the end for the Wehrmacht. Every subsequent German strategic offensive failed, albeit at a huge cost to the Russians.
Hitler was already becoming unhinged when he declared war on the US, but the German generals knew that Russia would always be able to out-produce and out-number them.
Convincing Stalin to "let them win" would have been quite a trick.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:00PM (4 children)
Only in hindsight. You're still forgetting Stalingrad, which would have gone different, if Hitler hadn't ordered German forces into terrible strategy (taking the city directly rather than enveloping it), the USSR hadn't picked up a zillion light trucks the US (which played a significant logistics and mobility role in the last years of the war), and the effective espionage of the Allied side (several cases where the Russians were aware of German strategy long before the battle).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:00PM (3 children)
No, I haven't forgotten a thing.
While the myth that Stalingrad was really a clever trap set by Stalin has been thoroughly debunked, the reserve forces for Operations Uranus and Mars that sealed the fate of 6th Army, were already being gathered even before Paulus began his actual assault on the city proper. Chuikov's 62nd Army was given just enough to (barely) hold out until the counterstroke could be unleashed.
In fact, even had the city fallen, by November of 1942 the vaunted 6th Army was a spent force and would have still been encircled by the Soviet offensive.
The fact that OKH had to rely on 4th-rate Rumanian and Italian troops to secure their over-extended fronts clearly illustrates the Germans being on the losing end of the numbers game before Case Blue even started.
The professionalism (and wanton brutality) of the Germans could only forestall the inevitable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 26 2017, @11:44PM (2 children)
That's how reserve forces worked. They would have gotten used one way or another. Operations Uranus and Mars wouldn't even exist, if the Germans hadn't attacked Stalingrad in the way they did.
Let us note, by no coincidence that the battle for Stalingrad had started in August, 1942 and was fully lost by February, 1943 when the German 6th Army surrendered. So your month (when the encirclement of the German army happened under Operation Uranus) is halfway through the battle and the final destruction of the 6th Army.
The Russians lose badly enough and the inevitable could be forestalled forever. The Russians didn't have infinite manpower.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @10:58AM (1 child)
The Russians didn't need infinite manpower, just more than the Germans. It worked.
I'm perfectly aware of the timeline events, unit TO&E's, commander's biographies, and weapon technical specifications. As an armchair general, I can reasonably claim 4-star rank with some justification. I served in the US Army Signal Corps for eight years as a commissioned officer who attended the AWC at Carlisle, and have studied military history from a professional perspective.
I chose November because that was the Germans' last decent chance for an organized strategic withdrawal. After that, not even the great Manstein, albeit with inadequate forces (there's those damned numbers again) could save them.
The timing (the arrival of General Winter) was also critical. To quote my favorite band, history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.
Look, there are many "if only x had done y" scenarios that might have led to different tactical outcomes on the chessboard of battle, but ultimately war is economics. Russia had he greater pool of resources, and the will to commit them. Hitler underestimated both.
Strategically, thankfully, the Germans were just plain fucked from the get-go, just as the Japanese had no chance against the US. If only so many millions hadn't had to die to prove it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 27 2017, @04:02PM
What would be the point of withdrawal? Germany didn't have a more defensible border further west. And that would have just given the Soviets more resources and people with which to invade Germany. Germany either defeated the USSR or it would die to the USSR. Such was the nature of the gamble they took when they first invaded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:12PM
Don't worry. You'll be shitting black and red any day now.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:20AM
The times of unbleached paper are long gone. In the mean time we've learned how to bleach without chlorine.
And the acid problem is completely unrelated to that, and also affected bleached paper. It's because of a change in paper production to a method invented in 1806. For purely economic reasons. Long before anyone associated "green" with anything but either a colour or immaturity.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:03AM (1 child)
The accelerated shut-downs in Germany are partially in response to the Fukushima disaster. At Fukushima, reactors of a very old design were kept running, and were not retrofitted with modern safety features such as catalytic recombiners. Three reactors suffered melt-downs there. Prior to that, Ms. Merkel was ardently pro-nuclear, [spiegel.de] but she promptly changed her position. There was an election in 2013, and her party remained in power.
If Japan, one of the most advanced countries, was careless about nuclear power, what about Germany? There have been two accidents, of which one was INES 3, at Greifswald [wikipedia.org]; one at the THTR-300 thorium reactor [wikipedia.org]; and several of INES 1 severity at Biblis [wikipedia.org] (Fukushima and Chernobyl are rated INES 7, the most severe).
I see from the graph linked by Hawkwind that, since 2002, Germany's use of fossil fuel-based electricity in total, and of coal-fired electricity, has remained roughly constant, while its production of biomass, solar and wind energy has increased greatly, as has its total production of electricity. The increase in production from renewables is very similar to the amount of fossil-based production. Merkel has been in power since 2005, so she's overseen much of that. Had Germany kept its electric generation constant, the renewable sources it has now could have replaced the fossil sources, instead of augmenting them.
What country do you see as setting the best example in electric production? France, perhaps? In 2015, the National Assembly voted [world-nuclear-news.org] to limit nuclear electricity, mandating that it be reduced from 75% to 50% of production by 2025, as proposed by François Hollande. Last year, many of the country's reactors were shut down [powermag.com] due to the widespread presence of parts made from inferior steel [economist.com] by Areva (you may know them from their participation in Hinckley Point C).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 27 2017, @04:28PM
I disagree. Japan was somewhat careless about it's future with nuclear power, having frivolously scuttled the next generation of plants that were to replace Fukushima, but Fukushima would have still been operating at the time of the earthquake even in the best case scenario. Even during the meltdowns, the reactors performed mostly as expected. Those failure modes were planned to go that way. There's no graceful way for a nuclear plant to experience meltdown, but there was surprising little harm given what happened.
The other aspect was the discovery that tsunami could be much larger than expected at the location. TEPCO, the plant owners and the Japanese regulators were slowly moving to study and fix that, but the earthquake happened before that could be corrected (with higher sea walls). I still don't consider that to be carelessness, because one would expect such activities to be deliberated on and because the plant was early on expected to be decommissioned which would have rendered sea walls and such things useless in the long run.
After all, one doesn't expect corrections to be implemented instantly just because there's some vague intimation of danger. It's a conservative industry. And if your plant is going to be completely shut down inside of ten years, what corrective measures should you take for a possible disaster that happens once every few hundred years?
All the people glibly speaking of "carelessness" are suffering from hindsight. Sure, if Japan knew ahead of time that the earthquake and tsunami would have happened, then it would be gross negligence to not be ready for it. But they didn't know. These decisions made sense at the time. Fukushima was to be decommissioned so why build protection for a rare event when it won't matter in ten years? Why make hasty changes, when those tend to cause more problems than they solve? And why was only one site affected by meltdowns when numerous plants were hit by those tsunami? Looks to me like someone did take care, just not enough care for Fukushima.
My take on this is that Germany made a poor decision and is harming its future because nuclear power was scary back in 2011. We're seeing a few of those consequences in this story.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:22AM (18 children)
Costa Rica Runs Entirely on Renewable Energy for 300 Days [commondreams.org]
...and though Germany is the cloudiest place in Europe, solar is still cheaper and better than digging up stuff and burning it to produce electricity.
The coal thing is dead technology.
The only people who think it isn't are fossils.
...and nukes remain the most expensive way ever devised to boil water.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:13AM (7 children)
Don't be such a fanboy. There are significant problems with solar and wind also. You have to account for all of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:26AM
Mr. van Winkle's concerns have already been addressed in the (meta)thread.
Do make an effort to keep up.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:46AM (1 child)
Don't be so rude. Mr. Original enjoys being a fanboy. If you disillusion him, he may have nothing to live for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @10:00AM
And that's a bad thing how?
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:27AM (1 child)
We need all the energy. Believe me, we need all the energy we can get. And so does Angela. But wind is the worst, the absolute worst. Windmills are great but a lot of times the wind doesn’t blow, folks. But that's not the worst part. It kills all the birds. I don’t know if you know that. Billions of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. There are places for wind but if you go to various places in California, wind is killing all of the eagles. They’ve killed so many eagles and birds and you know, things. You know, if you shoot an eagle, if you kill an eagle, they want to put you in jail for five years. And yet the windmills are killing billions and billions of eagles. One of the most beautiful, one of the most treasured birds, and they’re killing them by the billions, and nothing happens. So wind is a problem. In California, where are the eagles? You don't see them like you used to. In New York City, you have plenty of eagles. I had one on my desk. But Calfornia, where are they? You don't see them, and it's not a "guns" thing. Not many guns out there. It's a "wind" thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:14PM
Oh yeah! a reply from RealDonaldTrump. And i just happen to be in California, haven't seen one eagle. You are the funniest.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:57AM (1 child)
Informative? Really?
[citation needed]
Are you posting AC and then modding yourself up with a logged-in account? Not that I'd expect anything less from a lying, cheating conservatard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:32PM
No, i do not have an account here or slashdot and i'm not that kind of a person that would do that.
You really need a citation to the problems of wind and solar? Just for your info, nothing is perfect, wind and solar are not some savior that have no negatives. I'm not against wind and solar, provided they are not installed where they are in your face. I worry about the costs of producing and maintaining the farms, the environmental effects, the scalability etc. I just want that all the negatives are accounted in all energy producing forms.
I'm definately against coal and fanboysism. Germany needs to be ashamed. Need a citation for that? Nice input by the way, very much related to the topic.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:41AM (3 children)
And, have you factored in the costs of digging up stuff to turn into batteries with which to store your energy? A recent article suggests that there isn't enough material on earth to supply all the batteries you visualize.
https://www.scribd.com/document/35979345/Lithium-Shortage [scribd.com]
So - what other methods are there of storing energy aboard a mobile power source? Oh yes, certainly, there are other methods, but how economical are they? And, how much of the earth do we need to dig up to obtain whatever minerals and elements and metals necessary to produce them?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by WalksOnDirt on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:15AM (2 children)
There's plenty of lithium for cars, and the best thing about it is how easy it is to get. It's already in solution or very easy to get it there. It's even affordable if you get it from the oceans, and there is a lot there.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:26AM
Furthermore lithium is not consumed in batteries. Take an old battery, strip it down, new electrodes repackage and good as new again.
Still waiting for all those newly discovered technogies to appear though.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:54AM
Our nuclear arsenal, at one time, was awesome. Until President Reagan came along. Who was so smooth and so effective a performer that he completely won over the American people. Only years later, did people begin to question whether there was anything beneath that smile. There was a demeanor to him and a spirit that the country had under Ronald Reagan that was really phenomenal. But our nuclear capacity fell very far behind. He was a disaster for our nuclear. Right now we have so many nuclear weapons, I want them in perfect condition, perfect shape. Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a “tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. That's pure fiction. When they said I want 10 times what we have right now, it’s totally unnecessary. I know what we have right now. We won’t need an increase, but I want total modernization and I want total rehabilitation. It’s got to be in tip-top shape, the strongest. We're going to be at the top of the pack. And for that we need cobalt. For what's called a cobalt bomb, and many things for our military. But we also need cobalt for the cars, for the electric cars. And we only have so much cobalt. We don't have much, Africa has most of it. Niger, Nambia, those places.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:02AM (5 children)
Correction, insane, anti-science nuclear regulation put in place as sabotage efforts by "green" activists has made building and operating a nuclear plant more expensive than the alternatives. The technology isn't actually more expensive. It is the cleanest, greenest, cheapest technology available. It's safer, it's greener, and it makes anti-science people stomp around like petulant children.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:32AM (3 children)
More apt word: waivers.
If the nuke industry had to buy insurance on the open market, no nuke plant would ever have been built.
N.B. Vehicle operators have to carry insurance and, unlike a nuke plant, a driver can't irradiate an entire region.
anti-science
Deny. Deny. Deny.
Chernobyl. Fukushima. Three [stanford.edu] Mile [googleusercontent.com] Island. [counterpunch.org]
Willful ignorance is one thing.
Shilling for an irresponsible industry is quite another.
cheapest
You are woefully ignorant and more than a year behind the curve.
Renewables are now the cheapest.
...and nukes have ALWAYS been the most expensive--despite the industry propaganda.
greener
You have managed to omit the of tons of radioactive waste that sits beside each nuke plant--tens of thousands of tons in total since 1943, with none of it EVER permanently dealt with.
Quit repeating the propaganda.
It makes you look foolish.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @03:27AM (2 children)
Insurance companies happily sell insurance with things with a greater probability for disaster, but they don't sell insurance for things that would require payout that exceeds the worth of the insurance company. Basically, you need a larger insurance company. Find a company worth a $trillion, and you can buy insurance. If no such private company exists, the government can do the job.
Chernobyl was a fuckup of Soviet proportions, playing around with a known-bad reactor design in known-bad ways. Fukushima was absurdly bad luck with an obsolete 1960s reactor, and it really wasn't bad compared to all the other damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami. The "disaster" at three mile island hurt exactly nobody; American containment worked as designed.
We do have a problem: opposition has made us unable to modernize. We can't replace the nuke plants because of protesters and lawsuits. We really need to do this.
The radioactive "waste" is there because of President Carter's ban on reprocessing. It isn't really waste. Roughly 95% of the fuel is unused, but it can't be used without removing the 5% that has been used. President Carter banned this, effectively throwing away 95% of our fuel and increasing fuel costs by a large factor. (should be about 20x depending on relative costs of reprocessing and mining)
Meanwhile, coal plants emit far more radiation. Coal contains thorium, uranium, radium, and other awful things. This all goes up the smokestack to be spewed across the land. If we apply the radioactivity regulations of nuclear plants to coal plants, all the coal plants must shut down due to being in violation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:51AM
> Coal contains thorium, uranium, radium, and other awful things. This all goes up the smokestack to be spewed across the land. If we apply the radioactivity regulations of nuclear plants to coal plants, all the coal plants must shut down due to being in violation.
Unless, you know, the flue gases are filtered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @06:57AM
You have missed (or, more likely, evaded) the point.
Nukes have been given waivers on liability by gov't so that they can go ahead and produce material for bombs.
Chernobyl was a fuckup
You'll get no argument from me on that.
...but if that place had used renewables as the source of energy, the worst that could have happened would have been completely benign.
That technology is now available and, for a year now, it's been as cheap as what's in second place, and more recently passed that for cheapness.
There will never again be any viable excuse to build a terrestrial nuke that PRODUCES waste.
Fukushima was
...built on The Ring of Fire. [google.com]
There was a magnitude 9 event on The Ring of Fire in 1964 (Alaska; the ground shook for 20 fucking minutes).
Locating a nuke anywhere near the Pacific plate was just plain stupid.
...and they put it on the side of the island that faces the ocean where a tsunami could clobber it.
It's like these people got their engineering degrees out of a Cracker Jack box.
...then they had a Capitalist company running it, cutting every corner to maximize profits.
Anyone with half a brain would look at all of that and say "a disaster waiting to happen".
...and, again, had that place used renewable technology, the worst that could have happened would have been benign.
Nukes are obsolete.
Another should never be allowed to be built.
Shut down all the existing crap as soon as possible.
really wasn't bad
Real estate in Fukushima is now extremely cheap.
Got a photocopy of your deed for the "bargain" property that you bought there?
Put up or shut up.
three mile island hurt exactly nobody
Already rebutted by experts, shill.
It isn't really waste
When Capitalists start building plants that CONSUME that shit, THEN we'll have a starting point for a discussion.
Not holding my breath on that.
Again, nukes remain the most expensive way to boil water and renewables are where investment is going these days.
coal plants
...are obsolete.
Renewables are cleaner and cheaper.
The only bozos who mention coal are shilling for (obsolete) nukes.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:14PM
Our regulations are a DISASTER. I'm going to cut regulations by 75%, maybe more. To UNLEASH our nuclear, frankly, our nuclear power. Like the world has never seen. 🇺🇸
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hawkwind on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:24AM (2 children)
What I found interesting is power production has been going up, while starting around 2011 power consumption has been going down (see graph "Germany's power export"). It looks like roughly 40%-45% is now being exported. While looking at the "Power Production" graph it looks to be about 25% hard coal and Lignite.
I'm left wondering why Germany is doing this to themselves. Anyone out there who know's the story behind this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:35AM
Does Germany have publicly-funded election campaigns?
...or is their system for sale to the highest bidder (as USA's is)?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:30PM
If you mean why Germany is undertaking its Energiewende, part of it is concern about climate change, part of it is political in the sense the Greens have become a more influential party, and part of it is strategic. The first two are no mystery, but the last might need some explanation.
Back when things were heating up between Russia and Ukraine Ukraine got most of its winter heat from Russian natural gas supplied by a pipeline. Ukraine hadn't paid its energy bill and was claiming all of the Black Sea fleet left over from the Soviet Union. So Russia decided to put the hurt on Ukraine by cutting off the natgas in winter so all its people would freeze.
But as with many things in life there are consequences to actions like that, and the consequence here was that Germany and Poland and others in Central Europe also relied quite a bit on the gas from that pipeline in winter, so they all got to freeze too. Consequently the Germans resolved to move everything to renewables so they wouldn't suffer that again. Now Russia is selling far less gas than they had been, which means their little stunt with Ukraine has massively backfired on their pocketbook.
For Germany there have been other positive externalities of moving to renewables. They're developing serious renewable know-how. That too will wind up reducing their dependence on other fossil fuels like coal and oil, so Russia gets to lose three times on that deal.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:30AM (3 children)
...the Black Forest?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:43AM
Of all the things in Germany that are worth seeing, the Black Forest heads the list. Keep your saws off the forest!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:22AM
No, they save the Black Forest - it's their shining example of a saved forest. Other forests, meh, got that Black Forest down there all saved super good, if we can make some money cutting this other forest, why not?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:27AM
Probably because there's no coal below it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:06AM
But hey, and with apologies beforehand to Mr Lehrer
"Once the oxides go up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Merkel von Braunkohle'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:22AM (1 child)
Although withdrawing, the USA is still in the Paris Accord for a couple more years. There was a meeting. Instead of the usual types, the delegation Trump sent was power industry people. One represented coal, one represented nuclear, and one represented natural gas. All were there to sell American fuel.
We got protested. Diplomat-type people and members of the press started singing and chanting to disrupt the presentations.
It turns out Germany needed to listen. We were pointing out that American coal is cleaner-burning than German coal. Germans should buy American coal... unless they secretly just want to employ German coal miners. Maybe they don't actually care about the environment.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:33AM
Bingo. "It costs jobs" is the #1 argument against anything these days.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:35PM (5 children)
at least with coal strip mining you can see the damage.
also it was living nature that made the stuff and will make it again, given enough time.
and living nature (humans) will probably consume it again.
with nukes it's a invisible, unsmellable and generally undetectable hazard debt inflicted on future generations ...
also let's not forget, that nuke needs licenses to run, provided by the people government and then in the same
breath get a carte-blanch to hold the public hostage with endless payments to keep the nuke fallout-in-a-can safe from
"proliferating" all over the place.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:29PM (4 children)
All coal was laid down before any microorganism evolved the ability to break down wood. Can't happen again.
Burning coal also releases more radioactive substances into the environment than nuclear power (chernobyl and fukushima included) per watt-hour generated. Yes you read that right. Coal has radioactive elements in it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
Eh?, and FFS!
ok, here's a really 'Noddy' [cbv.ns.ca] version of coal formation, specially for you..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:01PM
thank you! you are smart :]
FYI i have a piece of land that is peat. it's pretty old "green" land.
it has accumulated alot of leafs and dead-but-previous-alive-stuff. it floods every year (good luck with mushroom theory there:) ).
i now want to build on this land. i have proceeded to dig into the ?peat? and rescue it, before filling it up with rocks, rocks and some (bad) clay.
after the filling is done (less then 2 m) i will return the peat (on top). let's see how it turns out.
"peat" is not spectacular at sustaining vegetation but it is better then rock and especially clay. clay is the worst. clay is only good for retaining or diverting water.
anyways, i hope the cracks in the rock and the top-laid "peat" will again allow for micro-organism to generate more life (and death).
one side note: unlike "coal", be it lignite, brown or anthracite, "peat" is still alive.
so people like to call earth "gaia", like one big organism, but "peat" is also a kinda organism. coal is dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @12:21AM
The key word is "releases." You've muddled up your factoid, which is stated clearly here: [scientificamerican.com]
It's making a false comparison by deeming the fly ash as always released but deeming spent nuclear fuel as not released.
The fly ash from burning coal can be trapped and sent to a tip, or used [wikipedia.org] to make concrete and various items. But in the factoid, it's deemed "released." Nuclear waste can also be recycled, in a reprocessing plant. In the United States, they don't do that; spent fuel is kept in a storage pool or in a cask. The factoid appears to deem that as not released. Those forms of storage, however, are intended only as temporary storage places for the waste.
If there had been coal plants with no pollution controls at Chernobyl and Fukushima, there would be damage to the environment, but there wouldn't be exclusion zones around the plants.
(USGS [usgs.gov])
Burning coal releases radon which is released from the smoke stack. However, nuclear plants also produce noble gases, which can be released through a reactor's smoke stack [canberra.com] or during reprocessing [hanford.gov].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:27PM
coal "might" be radioactive. there's no theory that states that the formation of coal entails the formation of radioactive elements.
all radioactive elements thus were present in the basket called "earth" when burning coal, let's call the amount X.
now there are radioactive rocks that are not coal. they are included in the above "X", say it's "y".
if nothing changes -or- we burn coal, then the total radioactivity on earth remains the same.
however, if we "burn" the radioactive rocks "Y" that are not coal in chernobyl and fukushima or any other nuclear reactor
then the obviously more radioactivity comes out, which we can call "Z".
thus nukes generate MORE radioactivity (X - Y+ Z) but Y is-smaller-then Z overall for the WHOLE planet :] yes?
for total convincment, ask yourself this, would you rather hold a fresh "fuel rod" (Y) or a "spent fuel rod" (Z) in your hands?