Germany's nuclear power phaseout turns off environmentalists

[GliderGuider]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-germany-nuclear-20120421,0,2490501.story

Germany's nuclear power phaseout turns off environmentalists

KLEINENSIEL, Germany — When the German government shut down half the country's nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, followed two months later by a pledge to abandon nuclear power within a decade, environmentalists cheered.

A year later, however, criticism of the nuclear shutdown is emerging from a surprising source: some of the very activists who pushed for the phaseout. They say poor planning of the shutdown and political opportunism by the government have actually worsened the toll on the environment in Germany, and Europe, at least in the short term.

To make up for the lost nuclear power, which supplied 22% of Germany's electricity before the phaseout began, the country has increased its reliance on brown coal, a particularly high emitter of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and a major contributor to global warming. Brown coal now supplies 25% of Germany's electricity, up from 23% a year ago.

Previously a net exporter of electricity, Germany now imports as much electricity as it sells abroad. Removing so much German electricity from the market has benefited power companies in neighboring countries that rely heavily on coal and nuclear power, thereby undermining Germany's environmental goals and its nuclear safety concerns.

Gee, who could have foreseen this?

Wait, I seem to recall a number of people on this very board six months or more ago predicting exactly this effect.

[kristopher]

1. So let me get this straight

The conservative pro-corporate, pro-coal, pro-nuclear Merkel government is not responsible, but rather it is the "fault" of the environmentalists? Is that your takeaway?

We've seen a huge amount of this type of nuclear industry propaganda lately.

The government did it not because they were convinced," Oezdemir said of the decision to abandon nuclear power. "They did it because they were losing elections."

Only six months before the Fukushima disaster, Merkel had decided to extend, not curtail, the life span of Germany's nuclear power plants, a move that aroused vigorous public opposition. After the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, she made a dramatic reversal, announcing that half of Germany's nuclear plants would be shut down immediately and the remainder within a decade.

To some residents in the northwestern German village of Kleinensiel, Merkel's sudden change of heart was born of political motives.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Where did you get that from?

It points the finger straight at Merkel's government.

[Dead_Parrot]

3. So that's +25 million tons in a mild year

Somehow, I don't find that re-assuring.

[kristopher]

4. With your primary focus being the promotion of the nuclear industry

I can't say that I'm surprised.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. With my primary focus being the environment

you shouldn't be surprised.

You view an extra 25,000,000 tons of CO₂ per year as progress, do you?

[kristopher]

7. It is the same type of "expense" as the carbon footprint of one of your nuclear plants.

You don't reject building nuclear plants because there is a temporary carbon cost, yet you find that same kind of cost on a larger scale to be a sign of failure. You are simply rooting for Germany to fail in its effort to move away from nuclear power.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. You have carbon figures for thier new offshore wind farms, I take it?

May we see them?

[joshcryer]

9. Wait a fucking second. It's not a one off.

Comparing it to a one-off is disingenuous at best.

Your statement is just as invalid as if you said "It is the same type of 'expense' as the carbon footprint as one of your wind turbines."

It's not a one off, it's SOP.

[kristopher]

10. It isn't "SOP"

It is a temporary state due to the shut down. They are well ahead of their carbon reduction targets and, because they were relying on a dead end technology they need to restructure their system. There is an associated carbon cost however their trajectory of hitting their targets for increasing carbon reductions is still on track for a minimum of 35% reductions by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

Here, on the other hand, where the "We love to glow" nuclear mentality is deeply embedded in out political system, we are not moving the needle at all, are we? Yet the nuclear propornents have the gall to bitch about Germany's decision making???

I'm not a religious person at all but I have read that passage in the bible about plucking the mote from your own eye...

[XemaSab]

11. Bible fail

n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

12. It worries me that you spotted that

Edit: Freudian slip, you think?

[XemaSab]

13. I've mentioned my fundie project, no?

If I never hear the words "Turning now to Psalm 127..." or "Please open your bibles to Titus 2..." or (God help me) "Today we will be reading in the book of Ephesians..." again I will be a happy soul.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Oh, I Dunno...

"Encourage and rebuke with all authority." would make a good motto for E/E

[XemaSab]

15. Or at least the hosts

[Dead_Parrot]

17. Nah. Ours would be 1 Samuel 1:14

“How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”

[XemaSab]

18. I never would have guessed you were a churchgoing man there

[Dead_Parrot]

20. I Used to argue with creationists a lot

You see me with a copy of Strong's Concordance, you start running.

Tend to label myself an agnostic pantheist.

[joshcryer]

21. Heh, same here. Denialists are the new creationists.

It's fun times.

[Dead_Parrot]

23. Same modus operandi....

Glom on to some science-free factiod, then repeat it ad infinitum. Or am I thinking of something else?

[XemaSab]

22. That book is missing from my library

I do have Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible though.

[Dead_Parrot]

24. Cool...

Try reading the whole thing from the beginning: If you get to Gen 2 without falling asleep, you've got me beat.

[XemaSab]

25. My insomnia reading these days is "The Institutes of Biblical Law"

:snore:

[Dead_Parrot]

26. Having googled some excerpts, I can safely say:

Fuck that.

[joshcryer]

16. Clark wrote a good book called "The Mote in God's Eye."

Definitely recommended.

edit: as far as SOP, you have only established it for me with lackluster reductions by the 2030s and still using 20% fossil by the 2050s.

Ridiculous.

[Dead_Parrot]

19. Tool Monkeys FTW! nt

[oldhippie]

42. Not Clark, but Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle ...

Good book and there were a couple of sequels.

[joshcryer]

43. Doh, you're right! I totally mixed them up! My bad.

Thanks for the correction.

[FBaggins]

27. What's the incremental carbon footprint...

...of an already-constructed nuclear plant?

[txlibdem]

29. Much less than the jump from 23% coal to 25% coal

[txlibdem]

28. The town residents HATE that their nuclear plant was shut down

From the article:
"Our facilities were serviced every year; they're in perfect shape," said Maik Otholt, a Kleinensiel resident. "Nothing ever went wrong. And so now what are we doing? We're buying nuclear energy from France. Their plant is just over the border. And now we're buying that expensive electricity. It's crazy."

It looks like the anti-nuclear cult is taking one on the chin with this issue.

[GliderGuider]

31. Here's my assessment of the core problem in this situation

• The German rush to decommission nuclear power - not the desire to denuclearize, but the desire to do so Right Now - was driven by politics.
  
  
• Changes in a country's energy mix need to be carefully planned, and necessary infrastructure/replacement capacity needs to be in place before a shift is undertaken.
  
  
• If changes to a country's energy mix are undertaken for political reasons before the necessary groundwork has been laid, the results are likely to be suboptimal. The German experience is evidence of this.
  
  
• Germany is the first Western industrial power to undertake such a shift, so the results of their effort will be watched closely by other nations.
  
  
• If Germany succeeds in bringing down their fossil fuel use as the result of this move, other nations will be encouraged to follow suit.
  
  
• However, if they DON'T bring their current rise in emissions under control quickly, it will provide ammunition to the pro-nuclear voices in other nations and may hamper/delay/prevent similar shifts in other nations.

The biggest problem I see in this situation is that last point. If Germany's desire to move fast on this issue stumbles over big lumps of coal, then the entire cause of a denuclearized Europe will take a hit. The longer it takes them to recover from the consequences of their hasty political decision, the stronger the pro-nuclear voices in other countries will become. Merkel's desire to retain political power may have done grievous damage to the anti-nuclear cause.

[kristopher]

32. Well reasoned however the foundational work is not accurate

Last edited Sat Apr 21, 2012, 11:10 AM - Edit history (1)

This wasn't a rush decision.

In 2000, the German government, consisting of the SPD and Alliance '90/The Greens officially announced its intention to phase out the use of nuclear energy. Jürgen Trittin (from the German Greens) as the Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, reached an agreement with energy companies on the gradual shut down of the country's nineteen nuclear power plants and a cessation of power-generation (non-research) use of nuclear power by 2020. This was enacted as the Nuclear Exit Law. Based on the calculation of 32 years as the usual time of operation for a nuclear power plant, the agreement precisely tells how much energy a power plant is allowed to produce before being closed down.

The power plants in Stade and Obrigheim were turned off on November 14 , 2003, and May 11, 2005, respectively. The plants' dismantling is scheduled to begin in 2007.[22][dated info]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_phase-out#Germany

The narrative you are reciting omits the fact that there is a strong economic force working to confound the transition and that the current political leadership of the country is in thrall to that force. The environment ministry has had in place a plan that does not involve increased burning of coal at all; the decision to resort to coal instead of following that plan is the political action that should be noted. We see the same obstructionist forces here in the US on economic recovery where there is a willingness to ignore what is recognized as the best interests of the country in order to increase strategic political leverage. Another place we see the same strategy over a long period is Japan where at the cost of a prolonged economic crisis the LDP, which ruled uninterrupted for more than 50 years after the war, has obstructed all meaningful action by its political opposition in hopes of eventually returning to power.

This is just one more battle in the struggle between the 99% and the 1%.

See also:Post-Fukushima nuclear allergy spreads in France
By Mycle Schneider
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120419a1.html

[pscot]

33. Unintended consequences

Swedens environment minister predicted this a year ago.

France has shown no sign of falling out of love with nuclear, and Poland is just falling in love with it, intending to build two atomic power stations.

The possibility of unintended consequences was raised by the Swedish environment minister who is not by any means a fan of nuclear power. “ There is a risk they will not manage as quickly to halt the dependency on fossil fuels, especially coal-based energy” (said) Andreas Carlgren Swedish Environment Minister

(That) country has decided to phase out its nuclear stations, leaving them run to the end of their planned lives rather than abruptly shutting them.

.... Carlgren said Germany's decision meant an "uneven energy policy" in Europe, so Germany will "most probably need to increase the import of nuclear energy from France".

He added: "There is a risk they will not manage as quickly to halt the dependency on fossil fuels, especially coal-based energy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13595171

Merkel was spooked because the greens were making political gains at the expense of the CDU by running aginst nukes.

[txlibdem]

34. Still a Political decision, not one based on the merits of the various power sources

I feel sorry for the Germans. They are being pulled this way and that like puppets on a string by the anti-nuclear cultists. The only phrase that could sum up is "well meaning fools."

Let's look at the logic: Greenhouse gases are killing the planet. Definitely. 100% sure.

Nuclear power emits zero greenhouse gases but the German government decided to end their nuclear power generation instead of ending the use of planet-killer coal first. Foolish.

[kristopher]

35. Says the guy that wants to solve the Fukushima problem by building floating cities

with underwater robots that are free...

Perhaps your judgment is more questionable than the Germans'.

[txlibdem]

40. You're silly. That won't solve the Fukushima problem

It'll solve the rising sea levels problem, along with the human dislocation that it will cause. You know about the rising sea levels, right? Yeah, the same ones caused by using ANY type of fossil fuels, including FRACKING GAS.

[GliderGuider]

36. If Merkel's government hadn't done what they did

They would have lost to a coalition that would have done it anyway. IMO Merkel was screwed either way.

I want the nukes closed down as much as anyone else (and a lot more than some), but I still think that Public Enemy #1 is CO2. That means the nukes have to be shut down in such a way that CO2 levels are not increased. That was not possible in this case, as far as I can tell - the agendas on all sides were too strong.

It concerns me that we may see other rash agenda-driven decision making in various countries as a result of this fiasco.

[kristopher]

37. Bingo.

"It concerns me that we may see other rash agenda-driven decision making in various countries as a result of this fiasco."
Unfortunately promoting agenda driven and partisan decision making by buying influence and peddling massive amounts of misinformation through every available information outlet has been the strategy of the entrenched centralized energy system.

They are being beaten back but it is a slow battle against a massive social and economic force.

[GliderGuider]

38. It's the same situation in every domain dominated by stateless trans-national corporations.

They now effectively own most national governments. Nuclear power has a special door in through the military, but the rest of them - Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Oil, Big Bucks - have all taken ownership of national governments through the policies of the WTO, IMF and WB, even in countries that have no nuclear industry.

They are not being beaten back. You may think the energy battle is being won, but I suspect your perception is somewhat influenced by your minutiae-oriented view of how that particular world works. In the broader view, We the People are losing big-time ... along with all the rest of the life on this planet.

If the global economy doesn't collapse soon, something terrible is going to happen...

[kristopher]

41. "I suspect your perception..."

"I suspect your perception is somewhat influenced by your minutiae-oriented view of how that particular world works."

That must be the effect of my early training in cultural anthropology. We tend to not be aware of the big human picture, fer sure, ya know dude?