Germany decides to abandon nuclear power by 2022

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"BERLIN – Germany's coalition government decided early Monday to shut down all of the country's nuclear power plants by 2022, a policy change prompted by Japan's nuclear disaster, the environment minister said.

Meanwhile, the country's seven oldest reactors taken off the grid pending safety inspections following the catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March will remain offline permanently, Norbert Roettgen said. The country has 17 reactors total.
Roettgen praised the coalition agreement after negotiations through the night between the governing parties.

"This is coherent. It is clear. That's why it is a good result," he said in Berlin.
Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010 had pushed through measures to extend the lifespan of the country's 17 reactors with the last one scheduled to go offline in 2036, but she reversed her policy in the wake of the disaster.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, stands alone among the world's major industrialized nations in its determination to gradually replace nuclear power with renewable energy sources.

Through March — before the seven reactors were taken offline — just under a quarter of Germany's electricity was produced by nuclear power, about the same share as in the U.S.
Energy from wind, solar and hydroelectric power currently produces about 17 percent of the country's electricity, but the government aims to boost its share to around 50 percent in the coming decades.

Many Germans have been vehemently opposed to nuclear power since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster sent radioactive fallout over the country. Tens of thousands repeatedly took to the street in the wake of Fukushima to urge the government to shut all reactors."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110530/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_germany_nuclear_power
 
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Seems sensible. I dunno whether the cost of the extra windmills and stuff will be more than it was running the Nuclear Plant, but I guess if it wasn't, they would've done this ages ago.

Why does it seem to me that everyone except Japan is super freaked out by the disaster?
 
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The world will have been ended 10 years prior to that.
 
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Maybe they're confident on finding another reliable power source by then. Well not only Germany, other countries too.
 
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Enough time for a future government to cancel this decision, when nuclear power is less on the agenda of the everyday people.
 
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I'm happy they'r doing this, who uses nuclear energy anymore?
Our world is so polluted... we need to change things the better way...
 
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If they will start using coal as an alternative to produce electricity, man o man how pollution will increase.
 
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If they will start using coal as an alternative to produce electricity, man o man how pollution will increase.
*ahem*

Energy from wind, solar and hydroelectric power currently produces about 17 percent of the country's electricity, but the government aims to boost its share to around 50 percent in the coming decades.
 
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Japan's nuclear reactors were rated up to a 8.0 magnitude quake, they weren't ready for a 9.0 and a tsunami. Germany gets neither huge earthquakes or epic tsunamis.
 
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Might want to secure them from British airraids though.
 
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I've asked ostriches several times not to fly. They heed my every word.
 
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I'm happy they'r doing this, who uses nuclear energy anymore?
Our world is so polluted... we need to change things the better way...
Since when does using nuclear energy, cause pollution? It in fact does NOT cause pollution in the sense of CO2 (apart from getting the ores). The only waste it has is radioactive waste. And while that is incredibly nasty stuff, nuclear powerplants produce a lot of power. You'd need roughly between 2500 and 3000 wind mills to produce equal the power. Imagine the amount of space 3000 windmills need. And 2500-ish windmills is based on having wind 24/7. So really, you'd need a lot more, 4 times more. So while a nuclear power plant is about 2 square miles large, 10,000 wind mills will cover a piece of land the size of 375 square miles. 375 square miles that can be used for other important things, housing, food, nature, etc.

source (possibly not reliable, but I am inclined to believe him and cannot be arsed right now to do the calculations myself): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080520021116AAM0ZEM

Incidentally, stuff like this can also be taken in account (that said, the recent events in Japan blow these away, but still):

Summary of Wind Turbine Incidents (December 2008):
• 41 Worker Fatalities, 16 Public- Includes falling from turbine towers and transporting turbines on the highway.
• 39 Incidents of Blade Failure- Failed blades have been known to travel over a quarter mile, killing any unfortunate bystanders within its path of destruction.
• 110 Incidents of Fire- When a wind turbine fire occurs, local fire departments can do little but watch due to the 30-story height of these turbine units. The falling debris are then carried across the distance and cause new fires.
• 60 Incidents of Structural Failure- As turbines become more prevalent, these breakages will become more common in public areas, thereby causing more deaths and dismemberment’s from falling debris.
• 24 incidents of "hurling ice”- Ice forms on these giant blades and is reportedly hurled at deathly speeds in all directions. Author reports that some 880 ice incidents of this nature have occurred over Germany’s 13-years of harnessing wind power.
Source: Treehugger
http://www.inquisitr.com/18588/wind-power-causes-more-deaths-than-nuclear-power/
 
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Summary of Wind Turbine Incidents (December 2008):
• 41 Worker Fatalities, 16 Public- Includes falling from turbine towers and transporting turbines on the highway.
• 39 Incidents of Blade Failure- Failed blades have been known to travel over a quarter mile, killing any unfortunate bystanders within its path of destruction.
• 110 Incidents of Fire- When a wind turbine fire occurs, local fire departments can do little but watch due to the 30-story height of these turbine units. The falling debris are then carried across the distance and cause new fires.
• 60 Incidents of Structural Failure- As turbines become more prevalent, these breakages will become more common in public areas, thereby causing more deaths and dismemberment’s from falling debris.
• 24 incidents of "hurling ice”- Ice forms on these giant blades and is reportedly hurled at deathly speeds in all directions. Author reports that some 880 ice incidents of this nature have occurred over Germany’s 13-years of harnessing wind power.
Source: Treehugger
Is it just me, or does that sound like a description of a video game?
 
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I'm just going to **** all over someone's renewable, green energy fantasy:

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

DiebytheSwords Statement: It will always suck. It will always be bad for something. It will always dissapear eventually. Someone will always charge you for it. It will always generate heat and waste.

If you can find me an energy source that defeats all prior statements, I'll gladly go green. For real green, not Cucumbatonin green.

That being said, some power sources are better than others, and some are realistically du jour. You need to deal with what you have, and work towards what you want. Realistically. I hope Germany has fun restarting their Power Plants when they realize that their choices are Nuclear and Oil, not the fantasy power solutions on the green grass side of the fence. Those need a lot of work to power a nation effectively and cheaply.
 

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