200,000 in Germany protest nuclear power

[jpak]

http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/200000-in-germany-protest-nuclear-power

Tens of thousands of people on Saturday turned out in Germany’s largest cities to protest the use of nuclear power in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima reactor disaster, police and organizers said.

In Berlin alone more than 100,000 took to the capital’s streets to urge Germany’s leaders to immediately abolish nuclear power, police spokesman Jens Berger said.

Organizers said some 250,000 people marched at the “Fukushima Warns: Pull the Plug on all Nuclear Power Plants” rallies in the country’s four largest cities, making them the biggest anti-nuclear protest in the country’s history.

“We can no longer afford bearing the risk of a nuclear catastrophe,” Germany’s environmental lobby group BUND said.

<more>

[Confusious]

1. Germany will replace Nuclear with coal

http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/carbon-prices-could-rise-on-back-of-german-nuclear-plant-closures-2191.aspx

[kristopher]

5. no they will not. They are expanding renewable deployment.

[Confusious]

7. Really. Name me one coal plant that has been shut down

or Nuclear for that matter, and replaced with renewables. I would really like to know.

Since you are the go to guy for renewables, I'm sure you can name one off the top of your head.

[kristopher]

8. Name one coal plant that has been shut down by nuclear.

[Confusious]

9. You first.

On edit: found one.

You show me yours, I'll show you mine.

[Kolesar]

12. That's a bullshit question

Renewable energy is new technology. If it had the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of public money that nuclear had, then it would be deployed at significant levels already.

[PamW]

2. They can afford to do that...

Tens of thousands of people on Saturday turned out in Germany’s largest cities to protest the use of nuclear power in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima reactor disaster, police and organizers said.
======

They can afford to do that. All the while, Germany is buying loads of electricity
from France. France gets that electricity from....nuclear power

France laughs all the way to the bank.

PamW

[kristopher]

6. Nuclear power isn't popular in France either.

[PamW]

10. Why the French Like Nuclear Energy

From PBS Frontline:

Why the French Like Nuclear Energy

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html

In France, unlike in America, nuclear energy is accepted, even popular. Everybody I spoke to in Civaux loves the fact their region was chosen. The nuclear plant has brought jobs and prosperity to the area. Nobody I spoke to, nobody, expressed any fear. From the village school teacher, Rene Barc, to the patron of the Cafe de Sport bar, Valerie Turbeau, any traces of doubt they might have had have faded as they have come to know plant workers, visited the reactor site and thought about the benefits of being part of France's nuclear energy effort.


I can alway count on kristopher to fabricate easily disproved nonsense.

PamW

[Kolesar]

11. Surly...eom

[kristopher]

13. France polling: more nuclear 12% / more renewables 70+%

58% of French also think the dangers of nuclear power are UNDERESTIMATED.

Your appeal to France does not withstand close scrutiny.

[catenary]

3. And not one single person has ever been killed or even injured in a German

nuclear powerplant incident.

[bananas]

4. It's time to phase out nuclear power - it's dirty, dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary.

[cbarcus]

16. Nuclear is unnecessary?

I think people in general completely underestimate the importance of energy. The world currently consumes some 16 TW of energy, perhaps 1/3rd of that is electricity, and that fraction is only going to grow as we transition our transportation system from fossil fuels. Furthermore, if we're going to address world poverty and overpopulation in any meaningful way, we'll need a lot more energy than we currently have (2 to 3 times in the near term). And if we're going to reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-industrial levels, we will need a lot more energy. And all of it has to be really cheap. In nuclear terms, that's thousands of 1 GW plants.

Until we are able to commercialize fusion (many decades away), fission remains the most viable energy source for scaling to the needs of the world. That isn't to say that renewables can not accomplish some of this, or that if we try really, really hard, that we can't build turbines all over the place and cover thousands of square miles with solar collectors...eventually. It's a high-risk path to exclude nuclear, especially considering such technologies as the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR/GE-Hitachi Prism) and Liquid Fluorine Thorium Reactor (LFTR/molten salt) which offer tremendous efficiencies and safety over conventional systems. LFTR is so promising, that we can imagine integrating it within housing developments. These are systems that are inherently safe even if the cooling system pumps are shut off or if power is lost indefinitely and there is no one around to do fix anything. We need to support an energy policy that gives very high priority to the prototyping of these technologies to that we may make use of them in a timely fashion.

Anyway, here's a fusion scientist's perspective on the world's energy problem (among the best talks I've seen on the subject):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGijutBSx0

Because of the high risk of the non-nuclear path, I think it is complete hubris for the Green Party (of which I am a member) to have in its platform, language which excludes the use of nuclear energy. It is also in contradiction (ironically) to its founding principles as a steward to the environment and to social justice.

Properly embraced, nuclear power can offer humanity a new era of energy abundance, peace, and prosperity.

[kristopher]

17. Yes, nuclear is unnecessary. We may want to go to a fusion technology, but I doubt it.

My Dearest Cbarcus,
First I'd like to thank you. I was looking for a thought about the broader social ramifications of our energy choices and you provided just the nudge I needed. So, thanks for the thought.

As to the content of your post, my opinion is that your argument has perhaps too many assumptions and a small inconsistency in reasoning?

I'll let you decide:
First, it is important to make a few points clear. The world community didn't learn about global warming yesterday. By 1965 the problem had been identified and was briefed at the presidential level, where it was taken seriously enough to initiate research not only into the severity of the problem but also into the solutions.
By 1993 this trickle of concern had become a flood and the world actually DID come together to ask ourselves how to respond. Check the records of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and you'll find the first comprehensive analysis of global renewable energy resources and their ability to serve the needs of the modern world.

The findings are unequivocal.

Renewable energy sources are fully capable of powering modern society. That report is when the point you stated as fact, "renewables can not accomplish ... this" was proven to be in error.

Now I want you to be completely assured about that fact, for it IS fact.

Yes, the scope, scale and nature of the demands that will be placed on our energy system have been fully and comprehensively examined. Further, it is my greatest hope that you will be assured this specialized examination been thoroughly vetted through what now amounts to generations of peer reviewed confirmation. All aspects of this investigation have confirmed that the economic and technical realities are currently underway to PERMIT the most efficient, sustainable, safest and cost effective solution to the eradication of centralized generation as a global norm. It is already happening; renewables are here and now; indeed they and rolling out in force even as we exchange our pleasantries.

So please appreciate that the last thing I hope to convey in any way is even the most minor hint of harshness when I was forced to mention that this is all established historical fact; and that it necessitates that we examine your argument in that light.

Against that landscape of reality you are suggesting that all of the research focused on the big picture of transitioning our energy supply has completely ignored the data you contributed; which seems to be a somewhat fuzzy point of data followed by an accurate speculation on the need to consider future energy trends; even though perhaps you will want to revisit some implicit assumptions in your line of thought on those points also.

Again, in all humility but with full candor, I ask if you really truly hold the belief that all of the hundreds of specialized researchers - working so hard and diligently across decades to master and comprehensively analyze the complex world of demand/supply aspects of energy systems and all the permutations of the relevant technologies - do you think we really overlooked what the quantity of global energy consumed might be?

Do you really accept as true that the concept of future energy trends never occurred to any one of us when we examined these issues over the years? I hope it cannot be true that you would think such a thought; and I cannot tell you how disappointed I am if you do, for it would mean you hold us poor honest researchers studying energy systems to be on an intellectual level somewhere south of the bottom of a whale; can you see how disappointing to us that would be?

I'll let you decide if you want to continue to believe that, but personally I have to say I'm a bit hurt. I hope that doesn't influence your opinion, but I thought I should mention it.


I've tried to be helpful and to that end have reframed the presentation you made and given it back to you as my poor mental processes parsed the words you used into images with meaning within my personal realm of experience.

(After your small lapse of historical knowledge) you offer your 21 point energy solution, (and I paraphrase):

- We use a lot of energy.
- We will use a lot more energy in the future.
- We need to make more energy and do it while reducing carbon.
- It must be cheap.
- Nuclear comes in the large gigawatt economy size.
- Fusion isn't here.
- Fission is though and it comes in the large economy size, unlike our puny competition.
- Don't get me wrong I like the competition, nice and all, but "puny".
- Also did you notice that it's hairy and has zits all over?
- Nope what you need is the latest, the greatest such as... (Now get ready for this!) The INNNNNTEGRAL FAST RECTOR; brought to you by GE-Hitachi Prism - always working for YOU!!! :)
- Don't lose out!!!!
- ACT NOW!
- Have your very own piece of glowing, muscular, military wet drrrrrrream!
- Before you know it you too can have your very own fission reactor in your garage.
- Not just safe but inherently safe even if there is no one around to fix anything.
- So call now!!!
- We can't pilfer the public purse without your phone call NOW!
- Act NOW before you lose out to that hairy, zit covered, lice infected renewable energy monstrosity.
- That's right those foul breathed windmills uses] YOUR money to set the people free of power elites and that means YOU LOSE.
- Hurry ACT RIGHT NOW - PICK UP THE PHONE and Call our easy toll free number before they cover the land like a plague of biblical proportions.
- Yes folks, you will feel so much happier and safer knowing that a techno-priesthood is working diligently to be the only source you need for energy and you know that like all priesthoods, we will take our vows to act with nothing but your best interest at heart as seriously for the coming 100 years as we have for the past 50.
- Would I lie to YOU?

I could just see the sparkling smile at the end...


You see, what turns your very polite and perfectly reasonable expression of a preference into a what I personally perceive as a bit of a huckster-ish sales pitch is the lack of genuine *relevant* factual content and it's reliance on proven counter-factual content to even open a door for consideration of the product you've offered.

Renewable energy can fulfill our needs in a far more timely and sustainable manner than any form of fission past or future. You haven't made a factual case because there is no factual case to be made without falsely excluding the competition as you attempted to do.

Now if you can produce any peer reviewed evidence where it is shown that renewable energy does in fact lack the technical ability long known to exist then you should show us where that is a conclusion, for I've never seen it published anywhere in the body of transition literature since 1992. Can you see the implications of that?

That also means that if you can actually prove it with data and analysis that will pass peer review, then you shouldn't waste your time here for one second longer. You should rush it to print because it would be a scientific bombshell that would turn the known body of knowledge on its head and if true the world of science is keen to know about it.

I mean we're talking the journal "Science" here, do you know that? That is how big the news would be if you could show that renewables cannot power. And it would certainly make it to the journal "Nature" if you could even just prove renewables were not our world's most cost and time effective carbon reduction, sustainable energy path going forward.

Seriously.

That's true.


For reference here is the text of your post

I think people in general completely underestimate the importance of energy. The world currently consumes some 16 TW of energy, perhaps 1/3rd of that is electricity, and that fraction is only going to grow as we transition our transportation system from fossil fuels. Furthermore, if we're going to address world poverty and overpopulation in any meaningful way, we'll need a lot more energy than we currently have (2 to 3 times in the near term). And if we're going to reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-industrial levels, we will need a lot more energy. And all of it has to be really cheap. In nuclear terms, that's thousands of 1 GW plants.

Until we are able to commercialize fusion (many decades away), fission remains the most viable energy source for scaling to the needs of the world. That isn't to say that renewables can not accomplish some of this, or that if we try really, really hard, that we can't build turbines all over the place and cover thousands of square miles with solar collectors...eventually. It's a high-risk path to exclude nuclear, especially considering such technologies as the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR/GE-Hitachi Prism) and Liquid Fluorine Thorium Reactor (LFTR/molten salt) which offer tremendous efficiencies and safety over conventional systems. LFTR is so promising, that we can imagine integrating it within housing developments. These are systems that are inherently safe even if the cooling system pumps are shut off or if power is lost indefinitely and there is no one around to do fix anything. We need to support an energy policy that gives very high priority to the prototyping of these technologies to that we may make use of them in a timely fashion.

Anyway, here's a fusion scientist's perspective on the world's energy problem (among the best talks I've seen on the subject):

Because of the high risk of the non-nuclear path, I think it is complete hubris for the Green Party (of which I am a member) to have in its platform, language which excludes the use of nuclear energy. It is also in contradiction (ironically) to its founding principles as a steward to the environment and to social justice.

Properly embraced, nuclear power can offer humanity a new era of energy abundance, peace, and prosperity.

[diane in sf]

14. Look at the new nuke shills on this thread--the old ones must have gotten exhausted!

[Statistical]

15. Look at the new coal shills on this thread - the old ones must have gotten exhausted!

See how easy that is?

[CJvR]

18. Well...

...if these guys have their way Germany should soon be rid of that annoying trade surplus they have been burdened with when they buy Russian gas and French nuclear power.