Comments for Germany Will Phase Out Nuclear Power by 2022 at http://www.ecogeek.org , comment 1 to 13 out of 13 comments http://www.ecogeek.org Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:14:29 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-48106 Phasing out nuclear sooner rather than later would even be better. Which country is next in line? - ID Card Printer Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:32:20 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-45500 A laudable goal and a positive step towards cleaner safer energy - Brett Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:10:15 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43727 @Cam: One word: waste. Nuclear waste is terribly volatile and takes thousands upon thousands of years to degrade into safer isotopes. Germany still does not have a safe storage site for nuclear waste. One fear of nuclear waste is that we will accidentally destroy the surrounding environment with it. Water is a great conductor of nuclear waste. Once it's in water, everything in contact with it has radiation and nothing is safe to consume for fear of bio-magnification. Another problem with nuclear waste is the fear of terrorist attacks. One could simply bomb one of the many insecure nuclear waste storage sites and wreak havoc upon the surrounding land when the radiation is released and spread. Nuclear power is just way too dangerous with our current technology. There are so many more alternatives that are just as clean and far less dangerous. In addition to all of this, some scientists argue that nuclear power has a negative net energy cycle. Producing power from nuclear energy is not a 1-step process. The uranium must be mined (destroying the surrounding land and risking contamination), transported, processed to remove impurities, transported, finally used in a reactor and then transported once again to be unsafely stored. The only reason that nuclear energy appears attractive in the US is because it is subsidized heavily. This makes the net energy cycle look positive. - Jacob Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:14:27 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43717 First of all one should note that this is really not the germans running scared, how it's often portrayed in US and UK media. There were concrete plans to have all nuclear shut down around that time, since the early 2000s. Those were made by the back then green party / social party government. The right wing party government just reversed these plans a short time ago. Now that the outcry of the people got louder and louder they finally stop buckeling to nuclear lobbyists and went back to the original plan. Futhermore germany does not get one quarter of it's electric energy from nuclear. It's much less, since most of the time about half the nuclear plants are shut down for maintenence. Really it's more like 15%. And we still export energy to other countrys, even with all those plants switched off at the moment, just fyi. It's also false that the gas plants will replace the nuclear plants. Those will be offset by renewables by 2022. The gas plants are there to replace old cole power plants, to secure the base load. @Cam "All paid off" nuclear power plants really don't mean anything to the population in terms of energy or energy costs. They only mean big profits for the energy companys. For the people it means that there are old nuclear power plants running that you could fly into with a sporting aircraft to produce a catastroph. That's right you wouldn't even need a jet to do it. Not to mention that incidents are piling up in these old things anyway. I guess you are american. A lot of americans really love the free market. Don't know if you are one of them but the odds are probably good. Did you know that no insurance firm would ever insure a nuclear power plant? If those are so save why wouldn't they? It would be easy money. They would never have to pay out. The answer is simple. Because they are not save. A big Tschernobyl or Fukushima like incident might only occur every 20 years, but when it does, the damages are massive. In a small country like germany such a big percentage of land would be unuseable, that the economy would collapse. No ensurance company could ever pay those damages. The free market has spoken. Nuclear power is not save. And minimal waste? Do you have any idea how much it costs to transport and properly store this minimal waste? I give you a hint: It's a lot. Besides do the energy companys pay for that? No the tax payers do. Otherwise nuclear power would be the most expensive power there is. So nuclear power is socialism. I always found it funny how republicans can ramble against socialism, but in the same breath promote nuclear power. - Slowking Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:05:23 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43688 I think it's too difficult to overcome the pressure of CO2 in the country after huge population and pollution. - Deals Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:00:35 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43682 It's a good idea to phase out nuclear power plants not only in Germany but as well in other places that uses this kind of power source. I'm not good at science and I only know few about this stuff, but look what happen tsunami hit Japan and Fukushima's power plant. You can site that as an example. - Home Inspector Training Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:35:30 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43681 de you support replacing a cleaner source of energy (nuclear) with a dirtier one (natural gas)?! - noob Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:24:30 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43677 It looks like the increased popularity of Germany's anti-nuclear Green Party surprised Merkel. Funny to see how fear of losing power can make you take the right decisions. - Jay Banks Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:19:38 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43676 Germany has paid-up nuclear plants which produce minimal waste and no direct carbon while providing base-load power. They aren't in an earthquake prone part of the world. They've got a stable and secure government. Why on earth would they take these plants offline other than Fukushima induced panic? How can anyone applaud removing existing near-zero carbon sources of power and replacing them with hydrocarbon burning plants? - Cam Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:39:50 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43675 I think what Germany has committed to is an important first step in consigning nuclear power stations to the past. I live in Scotland and the Scottsih government has made a very public pledge to not allow any further development of nuclear power stations, only decomissioning activities, despite nuclear power being a cornerstone of the Uk government's plan to maintain electrical baseload. The view here is that by doing so, the imperative for renewable energy sources becomes much greater and will therefore get much more attention and investment. - Green Budget Living Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:45:43 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43673 I hope that this idea is soon followed by other countries. - Marcela Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:34:56 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43667 Safe, clean alternative energy is the future. Fukishima and Chernobyl have poisoned the air, land, water and food in the surrounding areas. It is time to phase out nuclear energy and ramp up wind, solar wave energy and geothermal. - Personal Home Inspector Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:34:00 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3517-germany-will-phase-out-nuclear-power-by-2022#comment-43666 I fully support this initiative and hope they can set an example for the world. Meanwhile we will remain politically paralyzed and continue to belch toxins into our air and water and get tangled up in un-winnable foreign wars to appease lobbyists. - Online Home Inspector Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:50:01 +0100