German Nuclear Phase Out Begins It's Own Phase Out: Nuclear Licenses Extended.

[NNadir]

Predictably, the anti-intellectual scientifically illiterate squad of clowns and fakirs at Greenpeace made asses of themselves.

BERLIN, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- After a rowdy parliamentary debate and a media-heavy publicity stunt by Greenpeace, German lawmakers approved the government's plan to extend the lifetime of nuclear power in Germany.

Government parliamentarians threw their weight behind German Chancellor Angela Merkel's energy bill that was adopted Thursday on a 308-289 vote. It would extend running times of the country's 17 nuclear reactors by 12 years on average.

The country had seen large anti-nuclear demonstrations in the weeks before the vote. On Thursday, 12 Greenpeace activists climbed the roof of Merkel's party headquarters and unfolded a large protest banner. Greenpeace says the bill mainly benefits Germany's four main utilities running the reactors -- Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall Europe.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/10/29/German-MPs-green-light-nuclear-revival/UPI-44141288372073/

After the sale of Germany to Gazprom in 2001, by the German Chancellor http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901755.html">Gazprom, in which Schroeder and his pal Joschka Fischer were allowed to assume management roles in the parent company, Gazprom and its sister company Nabucco, although the subsidiary retained the name "Germany" and was placed under new management.

The sale of Germany to Gazprom was sold to the stakeholders in "Germany" with huge promises about the new subsidiary's interest in solar energy.

In the period since the sale to Gazprom, the new subsidiary was able to increase solar production from 0.001 quads = 0.001 exajoules to 0.038 quads = 0.040 exajoules of energy.

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=6&pid=36&aid=12&cid=&syid=2001&eyid=2008&unit=QBTU">Solar Energy Production in the Gazprom Subsidiary "Germany" and other places.

The total output of the subsidiary's solar output did not however equal - according to people familiar with a concept called, um, "reality" - the output of a single large coal fired plant that the subsidiary is now building, but it did manage to make the prices that the subsidary pays for electricity the second highest in Western Europe, after Denmark.

http://www.energy.eu/

[maryf]

1. And you think this is a good thing?? I'm not clear what you are trying to say?

It wasn't just Greenpeace that was upset, from your link:

"A few miles north, in the Reichstag, opposition lawmakers voiced similar objections. They're furious at the government for prolonging nuclear power after a previous government together with the utilities in 2000 had agreed that all reactors must go offline by 2021.

"You are dividing society where it was already agreed," said a fuming Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats and a former environment minister.

Juergen Trittin, of the Green Party, who, like his party colleagues, wore symbolic black, called the bill a "gift to the utilities" that "won't last four years."

The utilities with their reactors are expected to make tens billions of dollars in extra profits and had to agree only to moderate tax payments in return for longer running time."

Nuclear power is very unclean, very economically unsound, and just plain dangerous...

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Tell us about all those nuclear deaths then, please.

But, in the interest of full disclosure, please also tell us about all the fossil fuel-related deaths which have occurred in the same time frame.

[maryf]

3. fyi

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/routineradioactivereleases.htm

[Nederland]

5. Where are the stats for fossil fuels? We need them to compare...

[maryf]

4. more

http://www.springerlink.com/content/km57537rx76wm425/

[Nederland]

6. Looks like US nuclear plant are extremely safe places to work

Thanks for the link. Here is the abstract:

A second follow-up of 9,000 workers at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant (MD, USA) identified 346 deaths in the years 1969–88, 101 of which were attributed to malignant neoplasms. The original study had the primary purpose of assessing the feasibility of studies of workers based upon individual plant and Nuclear Regulatory Commission records. The average, cumulative, occupational dose through 1984 was low, only 21 mSv, but ranged up to 470 mSv, with 12 percent of the workers receiving more than 50 mSv. Mortality from most causes of death was low and there was a deficit of deaths from diseases of he circulatory system. Ionizing radiation exposures were not related to the probability of death from neoplasms generally or from any specific form of cancer. There were only two deaths from leukemia, whereas four were expected at population death rates. Larger numbers of workers, followed for longer periods of time, are needed to determine the mortality risk to workers in the nuclear power industry. The difficulties in obtaining dose information for transient workers were so great, and so time consuming, as to make questionable the practicability of studying the workers at a large number of power plants in this way.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/km57537rx76wm425 /

Interesting that one cause of leukemia is exposure to radiation, and that plant workers showed a rate that is half the normal rate. Of course, the statistics are completely invalid in this case because when the expected leukemia rate is four and you only get two, all you've shown is that your sample size is too low. I mention that because I know that most anti-nukes would never admit when a figure that supports their biases is invalid and unscientific...

[maryf]

8. Can you say Chernobyl? nt

[Systematic Chaos]

9. Can you say "extremely old and outmoded technology, COUPLED WITH...

...architectural flaws which would have had to result in that type of meltdown, eventually?"

And yes, then there was that horrible thing at TMI in which nobody died.

Oh, and that big earthquake thing in Japan rather recently, where some "radioactive" water spilled -- which you'd have had to drunk half a swimming pool full of to suffer any serious cancer risk.

And then there are some nuclear material mining companies which are just about as bad as Massey when it comes to safety, where some workers do get sick and die young. I will grant you this one point but then in the same breath I counter that this is an issue with mining companies and not uranium per se. And again, HOW MANY coal miners have died from breathing in toxic, radioactive coal dust and other causes, compared to uranium miners? How much land and water (rivers, lakes, etc...) has been ruined by coal ash as opposed to the areas contaminated due to lack of uranium mine safety?

Apples to oranges, the whole damn lot of it.

Please temper your fear of nuclear energy, no doubt exacerbated by a media dominated by fossil fuel money, with some facts and an honest, unblinkered comparison of the real numbers.

It took me a while to come around, but in the past 15 years I've come to understand that nuclear energy remains our best and safest overall option, and furthermore that renewables will never take up the slack of Peak Oil no matter how much we may wish it so.

[maryf]

11. NO nukes ever, the risks are too great...

it is the most dangerous form of energy, and the only source for nuclear weapons...one of the few issues I'm intransigent on, so don't bother trying to convince me. I think you are on the opposite pole and equally intransigent. Peace.

[Systematic Chaos]

12. Mmmkay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SluRyO4EA4

[maryf]

13. LOL

Def Leopard????? Ha, ha, ha, ha!!!

[Nederland]

15. Did you fail geography? I specifically said US nuclear plants (nt)

[KossackRealityCheck]

7. Unreadable -- what are you trying to say?

"the sale of Germany to Gazprom in 2001" -- huh???

[Systematic Chaos]

10. It's a "thing" with NNadir, but despite the strange word choice it's fundamentally true

at least in the context of the OP.

Germany got conned into a so-called "complete nuclear energy phase-out" some time ago, and now they're realizing that it was a pretty fucking dumb idea.

[Iterate]

14. Utter nonsense

Poll: Germans oppose nuclear power extension
The Associated Press September 10, 2010, 9:18AM ET

"A majority of Germans oppose government plans to put off a shutdown of the country's nuclear power plants by an average 12 years, according to a poll released Friday.

The poll for ZDF television found that 61 percent opposed the plan announced earlier this week to undo a previous government's decade-old decision to shut down all German nuclear plants by 2021.

The poll of 1,221 people -- conducted Tuesday through Thursday -- found that 33 percent supported the change."

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9I530B00.htm

I can see how it would be troubling for you when such a technologically capable nation would turn its back on the nuclear priesthood, but you don't need to characterize them as "conned" or "dumb" or any other pejorative. The other option is to understand that they are smart and well informed and that nuclear power and nuclear waste dumps are not something they want for their nation. Period.

Unless people are willing to make the effort to understand the cultural, historical, and political context of those decisions then every decision that crosses the news wire devolves into a kind of dysfunctional rooting that reminds me of fanatical football fans. Make that effort and you might even find that the unthinkable has happened -that you agree that nuclear power is a bad idea for them, and that they aren't so dumb after all.