“P.S. We also don’t eat cats and dogs,” Berlin’s foreign ministry taunts Republican presidential candidate.
Germany’s foreign ministry hit back Wednesday at former U.S. President Donald Trump after he criticized the country’s energy policy at the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump slammed Germany in his closing remarks, claiming Berlin regretted its decision to transition to renewable energy.
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But the German foreign ministry took umbrage at that, blasting Trump in an unusually blunt statement on social media.
“Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50 percent renewables,” the ministry wrote. “And we are shutting down — not building — coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest.”
Nuclear power only has to go wrong once so why risk it?
Because in many cases the risks are much more manageable than the risks associated with any meaningful alternatives.
Nuclear power isn’t good nor bad, it’s one of many options, each of which may be suitable in a given circumstance.
The costs of safely decommissioning and dismantling nuclear power plants are immense and are borne by taxpayers. In addition, there are high insurance premiums for operators. Renewable energies, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly affordable and make us less dependent on fossil fuels and their price fluctuations.
The future belongs to renewable energies. With them, we can ensure a safe, clean, and sustainable energy supply for generations to come. Nuclear power is a thing of the past.
Would you like me to combine these options into a single statement, or perhaps focus on a specific aspect of the arguments? For example, we could emphasize the economic benefits of renewable energy, or the environmental impact of nuclear power.
Most of the benefits and drawbacks you mention only became a reality after a decade of heavy focus and investment on renewables, with no similar focus on nuclear. It could be argued that if the same investment and focused had been applied to it, then none of those arguments would be true. In fact, back then those were the same arguments used against renewables.
In other words, the arguments of “but money, and look at the economy” are absolute shit, and they are the reason we spent so long on oil. The facts it’s now used in favor of renewables and to shut down discussion of other alternatives is quite ironic.
Edit: To add, as I’ve mentioned somewhere else:
“Low-emissions sources are expected to account for almost half of the world’s electricity generation by 2026.”
That’s half, by 2026, and they are accounting for nuclear. That means the other 50% will still be fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the planet is getting warmer, some places are going underwater, and we are getting extreme weather events more and more frequently. “But-but, the economy!”
Because it’s still the second safest energy source, very close behind solar. And about 10 years ago, before heavy investment in renewables, it was the safest.
This is like being afraid of airplanes because things only have to go wrong once for hundreds to die.
Edit: Here is the mortality rate of different sources of energy in 2012, and here it is in 2022.
Yeah no, you cannot compare nuclear Fallout to airplanes flying down. At least Not from a risk Assessment and Management Level. From the nuclear Fallout you cannot prepare against it, when it Happens you are fucked (AS a country). From a airplane crashing you can prepare against that, as the severity aint that Bad regardless who sits inside (be it President, chancellor, CEO, other important person), for a functioning society its not that important as there are other people taking over that Helm. But when nuclear Fallout Happens, your whole people will fall ill to it, ceasing your society to exist. So it is only proper risk mitigation to end the use of all nuclear plants.
How would using nuclear as a source of energy (not weapons) result in a nuclear fallout, exactly? A nuclear fallout would result of nuclear superpowers (countries that possess nuclear warheads) initiating a nuclear war; meaning there would be nuclear warheads flying and detonating all over the world. There’s no reason a nuclear fallout would result from using fission as an energy source.
Great Job dissecting my comment.
Sure, you are right about the nuclear Fallout part, but a nuclear Catastrophe (or incident) like Fukushima, Chernobyl Happens, has the Same issue. You dont have any risk mitigation strategy available at large against it.
In what ways are hydro and wind unsafe?
Regarding hydro, the ecological effects upon the area flooded, the impact on migration of species, and risk of poorly designed and maintained dams needs to be considered. Wind? I’m guessing the impact on airborne wildlife - only thing I can think of.
Don’t know, you’d have to ask the experts; what I do know is that the data shows nuclear is safer than wind and much safer than hydro.
I’m on mobile right now so it’s convenient to find and post it, but if you want you can scroll my profile and you should some older comments with the data and sources.
There are reasonable and cost-effective alternatives to nuclear, to planes in many cases not so much. Also a plane crash doesn’t leave whole towns uninhabitable for centuries or needs special places to store burned fuel
There are both much safer (than Chernobyl or Fukushima or whatever) reactor models and fast-neutron reactors that can reduce the amount of spent fuel to be stored.
About reasonable and cost-effective alternatives - with bigger storage expenses and grid losses.
IMHO a good grid has at the same time a few nuclear stations (no, not those which will be inevitably shut down, but those which are being prolonged or replaced as the time passes), a huge amount of renewable sources, storage to alleviate spikes\falls of said renewable sources and backup coal stations.
And German grid is connected to a few others, so that they themselves have gotten rid of nuclear energy doesn’t matter much, with unified grids.
Again, this is baseless, unscientific, fear mongering. Nuclear is the second safest energy source, not far from solar. And still far safer than for ex. hydro, which destroys environments, and in that case it’s not an “if”.
Honestly,I feel like I’m back in like 2005 arguing against pro-oil people; in this case it’s about renewables, but the arguments are still unscientific and usually based around “But tHe ecOnOMy”.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Edit: Here is the mortality rate of different sources of energy in 2012, and here it is in 2022.
“Safest”, that’s why we need to think generations ahead to make signs that make clear forever that whatever is behind it shouldn’t be touched.
I feel the same, first pro-oil and now pro-nuclear.
We have safer and cheaper regenerative options and it’s about damn time we utilise them.
No, you have one safer option (solar), and just barely. And again, that is after a decade of heavy investment and development. The data doesn’t lie. You can’t just just throw out science and data when it doesn’t serve you. Stop spreading BS. You are quite literally spreading misinformation.
Where will you put the nuclear waste? Germany doesn’t even have the concept of a plan where to put theirs, they are currently keeping it
a) in a corroding salt mine, that is currently leaking water and will poison the entire area’s ground water within 20 years, so it’ll have to be dug up again, which will cost many billions b) in above ground ‘temporary’ holding facilities c) shipping it off to other countries
None of this is sustainable. Until the waste problem is solved, we shouldn’t even think about building out nuclear.
It has already been solved, and a search should tell you all about it.
I’m still on mobile, so sharing links is still a pain, but a few key things:
Nuclear waste is produced quite slowly, so whatever cost you associate with storage is over a large period of time; we have the technology to build centrals that can use that waste to produce more energy, reducing waste even further.
No, it’s not. There are ways to recycle parts of the fuel rods, true, but not the thousands of tons of contaminated material that inevitably gather during operations and end-of-life of a reactor. You don’t honestly think that the only dangerous waste are spend fuel rods?
And yes, the very problem is that storage needs to take place over geologic timescales. I can’t guarantee that our government will exist 20 years from now, much less 2000. Waste storage so far was managed so corruptly and incompetently that it is already failing after 50 years. Forgive me if I have little faith whenever someone claims that they’ll just dig a hole and forget about it for a few millennia. The waste sites need maintenance, and if that ever ends might poison a region’s ground water in perpetuity.