Summary
A new Innofact poll shows 55% of Germans support returning to nuclear power, a divisive issue influencing coalition talks between the CDU/CSU and SPD.
While 36% oppose the shift, support is strongest among men and in southern and eastern Germany.
About 22% favor restarting recently closed reactors; 32% support building new ones.
Despite nuclear support, 57% still back investment in renewables. The CDU/CSU is exploring feasibility, but the SPD and Greens remain firmly against reversing the nuclear phase-out, citing stability and past policy shifts.
I have been working in decomissioning npps in germany for over a decade now which is why I feel so strongly about the knee-jerk conservative BS. no, there are not -a million ways- to make waste from nuclear power plants safe. even material released from regulations (concrete from decomissioned buildings for example or soil from the ground) has some residual radioactive particles and just like alcohol in pregnancies: there is no safe amount of exposure to radiation, just a lower risk of provoking potentially fatal genetic mutation that european regulators deem acceptable. but that in and of itself is not really problematic. It is just that we cannot assume ideal conditions for running these plants. while relatively safe during a well monitored and maintained period in the power producing state of a npp that changes radically if things go south. Just look at what happened to the zhaporizhia powerplant in ukraine they actively attacked a nuclear site! And all the meticulous precautions go out the window if a bunch of rogues decide to be stupid - just because. and tbf whatever mess the release of large amounts of radioactive particles does to our environment, economy and society i would rather not find out. as others have laid out here, there are safer and better suiting alternatives that are not coal.
We have an almost indefinite source of energy below our feet and almost nobody talks about. Screw nuclear, go geothermal
There’s nothing more to come. Nuclear power is slow and uneconomical.
Joe Kaeser, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens Energy: “There isn’t a single nuclear power plant in the world that makes economic sense,” he said on the ARD program Maischberger on November 27, 2024.
https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/farbebekennen-weidel-faktencheck-100.html?at_medium=mastodon
A fact check by the Fraunhofer Institute on nuclear energy states: “For example, around €2.5 billion would have to be raised to cover the nuclear waste generated. Overall, considerable short-term investments would be required.” (for the construction of a new power plant)
Also the time it would take to build new power plants and get them to run would be something lile 20-25 years. We dont have that much time to get a grip on climate change so it doesnt matter annyways. Either we get 100% renewables untill then or we are fucked annyways.
I also have the real cost of building a new reactor in mind when thinking of Germany getting back into nuclear.
Is the economic sense really a good argument? That implies that a privatized group needs to make profit, all external effects paid for, and still be able to give you a good price.
If the government builds this with the aim of supplying cheap energy to people and industry with no profit margin then does this all matter?
The government spends large sums of money on this that and the other and the return of investment on these things are obscure or manifest over longer time horizons like building infrastructure etc
I am not against renewables, just to say that. I could not have too many windmills etc and the arguments against them are unconvincing.
Is the economic sense really a good argument? That implies that a privatized group needs to make profit, all external effects paid for, and still be able to give you a good price.
No, it’s not about privatized groups. Even the government has limited money (they can print more, but that leads to inflation). This means the money should be spent efficiently, so we get the most out of it. Nuclear is - by far - the most expensive form of energy we have. We can build more renewables + storage with the same money.
Is the economic sense really a good argument? That implies that a privatized group needs to make profit, all external effects paid for, and still be able to give you a good price.
The only way to make an expensive energy source cheap is by subsidizing it. We’ll get more out of the same amount of money if we build cheap energy sources.
They asked 1000 people - not that representative and most of the German don‘t want a return to the 60s or 70s - at least no people voting for the backward-looking CDU or the Neo-Nazis AfD. And well - Southern and Eastern Germany. No miracle, unfortunately. 🤷🏼♂️
Statisticians have found that for many types of surveys, a sample size of around 1,000 people is the sweet spot—regardless of if the population size is 100,000 or 100M.
Nuclear is the way of the future. Its between that and fossil fuels realistically.
I say we bury the waste in your garden then
waste is a much smaller problem than co2 emmissions. Waste can be put in water which completely shields it.
Due to an absolutely comical amount of disinformation on the topic. People are absolutely clueless about the potential costs in time and money.
That was mostly when they were rushing to shut down nuclear plants. Getting them operational again will be insane cost opposed to them keep on running like before.
Even before nuclear power was the most expensive type in the energy mix iirc.
We’re not saving the world by always choosing the cheapest option, that’s how we got here
Exactly. If you only go by kw/euro spent then you end up tearing down wind turbines to expand coal mines which Germany has already done.
If you go by the actual environmental cost and sustainability, specifically carbon use and land use ar square meter/kw, nuclear becomes so “cheap” you have to ask if anyone who is opposed to it cares about future generations still having a habitable planet and living in a civilization that hasn’t collapse into the pre-industrial.
We need nuclear to be the backbone of our future same as we need wind and solar as renewables to supplement and offer quick expansion and coverage of energy needs as our demands continue to rise.
yes even coal is “cheaper” than nuclear once you disregard polution
The costs in both time and money to build nuclear are due to regulations and NIMBY legal stuff, and not actually relating to the technology itself being built. If they can use some of the same locations then that should help
The locations have all outlived their life spans already. Also there is no more expertise in Germany, the old operators went to retire. Also it would take more than a decade to obtain new nuclear fuel. Also also also
It’s a wet dream of conservative politicians that want bribes from the electricity company ceos for implementing the worst kind of unneeded centralized power plant
electricity conpanies in germany don’t want nuclear energy. It’s way too expensive. just look at france - you can’t do it without massive subsidies. Frsmce however is another story as their electricity company is state-owned.
Building, running, maintaining and decommissioning fission plants is so unfathomably expensive on the taxpayer its not even believable. They are also super prone to war issues because they are so centralized. With a few attacks you can take out most of the energy supply of a country relying heavily on nuclear power. Good luck trying to take out all the island capable solar installations and every wind turbine.
It’s not expensive because they are actually particularly hard to make though. They’re expensive because we made them expensive. There’s so many requirements and restrictions on them that aren’t on other power sources. Some of that’s good, but a lot is designed by dirty energy to keep them in business. They drive up the cost of nuclear and then get to say they’re cheaper.
restrictions on them that aren’t on other power sources
Yeah i wonder why that could be lmao. Nothing ever went wrong with fission power plants right?
Yeah but this is for areas that don’t get enough sun or wind to meet their energy needs. The make small scale nuclear reactors as well. And cities themselves, being supplied by nuclear plants, are juicy military targets too. If a bomb lands anywhere near a city including the plant, it’s bad
Yeah but this is for areas that don’t get enough sun or wind to meet their energy needs.
Which is almost nowhere. There can be intermittent issues, but those can be overcome with a larger network and grid-level storage.
The make small scale nuclear reactors as well.
Which are less efficient, so even more expensive.
And cities themselves, being supplied by nuclear plants, are juicy military targets too. If a bomb lands anywhere near a city including the plant, it’s bad
Not sure what your argument here is, because no matter what kind of energy production you’re using, bombing a city is always bad. But it’s much easier to cause great harm with nuclear than renewable generators.
But renewables aren’t being replaced with this, fossil fuels are. The grid level storage is significant and requires significant mining and upkeep for that, and it’s very inefficient. We need blended energy sources for safety, with a mix of water, wind, wave, solar, geothermal, and nuclear
No, renewables have to be replaced by nuclear. Nuclear is incredibly expensive (the most expensive form of energy we have). If you don’t run it at capacity 100% of the time, it’s even more expensive.
All that money can either produce a small amount of energy if we go with nuclear, or a larger amount of energy if we go with renewables.
Grid-level storage is getting more and more efficient - a couple of years ago, the combined cost of renewables + storage got smaller than the cost of nuclear. Nuclear is still getting more expensive, whereas renewables + storage is getting cheaper and cheaper.
There is basically no place in the world where you cant use either wind or solar.
Yes, there are, especially if you don’t want to deforest land. And wind and solar and not constant sources. A mix of sources are needed. That you havent mentioned geothermal or wave energy shows that you’re kinda out of your depth here. I’ve gone to many engineering seminars about this, we must have a mix of energy sources and we must use nuclear if our goal is to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions. Other sources of energy all emit too much carbon.
I’ve gone to many engineering seminars
Wow what kinda propaganda seminars are you sitting in? Did they also tell you that “just one more lane” would fix traffic? Wind turbines recoup their entire production and installation carbon emissions in a few months. PV panels in like a year.
How are you so uneducated?
With minimal storage, gas peaker plants that only run like a day per year and a grid spanning several countries it is a breeze to have wind and solar only. Probably not even all of the above are needed.
getting back in to nuclear would be as foolish as dropping it in the first place. i swear i hate my government sometimes. a history of bad decisions.
lacht in nuklearabfall der in der asse das grundwasser verseucht!!
Warum downvotes??
The CDU/CSU is exploring feasibility, but the SPD and Greens remain firmly against reversing the nuclear phase-out, citing stability and past policy shifts.
SPD, Greens, the power industry, economists … basically everyone except the guys who wouldn’t want a nuclear plant or waste dump next to them anyway: Söder Challenge
It’s really sad to see that evidently more than half of the german population have an opinion on something which they have little to no understanding of. It’s frustrating what misinformation can achieve.
Nuclear power might work for some nations, but there is just no way it makes sense in germany. All previous plants are in dire need of renovation and will be hugely expensive to bring back up and running, and a new one is just as overly optimistic, as major construction projects routinely go far over budget here, and nuclear energy is already not price competitive with renewables. Nobody wants waste storage, let alone a power plant near them, and it would take years until a plant is even producing energy. By that time, it might already be redundant, because renewables and energy storage will be cheaper and more ubiquitous. there is just no way nuclear power makes sense for germany.
I wonder how the answers would be if following conditions are added:
- The permanent waste storage facility is built within 10 km of your place of living.
- In order to finance the significantly more expensive nuclear power you have to pay an extra income tax of 5% for the next 50 years.
- Between June and September you will not be provided running water, but have to buy bottled water, so cooling capacities for the reactors are insured even in 37°C+ weather.
- During the transition period until the reactors are ready your electricity price is doubled in order to finance importing electricity from other countries, rather than building cheaper renewables.
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10 km which direction? If it’s buried 1km down, you can stick it directly below my home for all I care.
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not sure who told you that nuclear reactors cost half a trillion dollars to build, or are you thinking they would be building 30+ reactors?
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closed loop cooling of reactors is a thing. There’s zero reason to ever have drinking water restrictions.
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this doesn’t make sense. Why would the price of electricity double to maintain the status quo? I thought you were paying for the reactors out of income taxes?
Long story short, there’s plenty of valid reasons to argue against nuclear power. Use those reasons, not made up bullshit.
It’s just more FUD trying to keep away from it. We’re still a ways off of 100% renewables and nuclear can very much help fill in that gap without reliance on foreign oil or fossil fuels.
How can nuclear fill that gap. Please explain
Nuclear can’t be built fast enough to fill the gap. It’s likely better long-term to invest in additional renewables + gas plants instead, until the gas can be phased out as well. It’s still fossil for a bit, but since nuclear nearly always is over time and well beyond budget, it’s likely to be a net greener option. Gas is pretty cheap and above all very flexible, making it more suitable for baseline power than nuclear.
Which is why they should never have been decommissioned in the first place.
Those plants were very old and already had their lifespan extended a couple times (for a lot of money). Ultimately they were decommissioned before the next end-of-life date, which perhaps was a bit early, but keeping them open indefinitely just wasn’t feasible.
So we made a mistake, and to make up for it, we should make another one?
It’s not made up, the main voice for nuclear has ruled out a permanent waste storage in his state if the scientists would recommend it as the best option in the country.
Rising water will leach into your drinking water table.
Using hinkley points C 60 billion Euro as reference, replacing Germanys remaining 74 GW of fossil fuels will cost more like 1200 billion euros.
If you are burying the waste, you’d be using a mine that is below the impermeable bedrock layer. There would be no leeching at all.
And using the most expensive project on the planet as your reference is disingenuous as best. Most other projects cost less than a third of that.
Additionally, almost no one is ever suggesting that nuclear is a 100% replacement. Most people suggest nuclear baseload with renewables+battery for peaks.
Most people suggest nuclear baseload with renewables+battery for peaks.
Except baseload doesn’t really exist anymore in a power grid with lots of renewables. Those renewables already produce 100% of what is required at times and those times will become more common, and small gaps can be bridged with batteries etc. The real gap with renewables is going to be those times when there is no sun and wind for days, which apparently happens only a few times a year for a week or so at a time. And building a bunch of hugely expensive power plants and then have them sit idle for 95% of the time isn’t a good plan.
Yeah. The impermeable bedrock that is readily available in Germany. That is why they are searching for a suitable and politically enforceable place since more than 50 years…
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Why would you add such nonsensical conditions?
There’s no good reason to be against nuclear power. It’s green, it’s safe, it’s incredibly efficient, the fuel is virtually infinite, and the waste can be processed in a million different ways to make it not dangerous.
It’s incredibly expensive when all costs over the entire construction period, operating period, dismantling period and storage period for nuclear waste are taken into account.
As for coal, it’s even more expensive when it kills off the planet.
No doubt but we have other viable options.
I’m not the kind to hate on nuclear power itself, but let’s not assume it’s perfect either. There are good reasons against nuclear power, its just not the usual reasons raised by people.
The cost and time effort needed for building one plant is one drawback.
The fact that you can’t say “let’s turn off the nuclear reactor now that we have enough renewables and later today we start it again when the sunlight is over”. It’s a terrible energy source to supply for extra demand needed without perfect planning.
Nowadays, nuclear is not so worth it in general, not because of fearmongering about the dangers (an old plant badly upkept is a danger, independent of what energy source you use, but specially for nuclear plants). Ideally a combination of different renewables would be best, with some energy storage to be used as backup, plus proper sharing of the resources between different places. There’s always sun somewhere, there’s always wind somewhere, …
It’s more expensive than the alternatives, and comes with additional downsides. There is no good reason to be pro nuclear, unless you need a lot of power for a long time in a tight space. So a ship or a space station for example.
NGL, I dig the idea of Sodium plants:
Not sure how practical they are outside the general idea, but it looks promising.
Even Japan is restarting their reactors
Solar and wind are great, but major industrialized nations will need some nuclear capacity.
It’s going to happen sooner or later.
The question is just about how long we delay it, with extra emissions and economic depression in the mean time.
This exactly. You need a reliable source of fuel for the baseline, which is where nuclear energy can supplant fossil fuels instead of or in addition to relying on batteries.
No, nuclear is awful as a baseline since you can’t turn it off and back on quickly
You’re absolutely correct, and few people realise this. They think “baseline = stable power”, but that’s not what you need. You need a quick and cheap way to scale up production when renewables don’t produce enough. On a sunny, windy day, renewables already produce more than 100% of needs in some countries. At that point, the ‘baseline’ needs to shut down so that this cheap energy can be used instead. The baseline really is a stable base demand, but the supply has to be very flexible instead (due to the relative instability of solar and wind, the cheapest sources available).
Nuclear reactors can shut down quite quickly these days, but starting them back up is slow. But worse, nuclear is quite expensive, and maintaining a plant in standby mode not producing anything is just not economically feasible. Ergo, nuclear is terrible for a baseline power source (bar any future technological breakthroughs).
There’s nothing green, cheap, or safe about nuclear power. We’ve had three meltdowns already and two of them have ruined their surrounding environments:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Mining for fuel ruins the water table:
A Uranium-Mining Boom Is Sweeping Through Texas (contaminating the water table) https://www.wired.com/story/a-uranium-mining-boom-is-sweeping-through-texas-nuclear-energy/
Waste disposal, storage, and reprocessing are prohibitively expensive:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-nuclear-fuel-recycling/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-nuclear-fuel-recycling/
Now list all the fossil fuels related incidents.
Nuclear + renewables is the way to go to stop the climate crisis in the foreseeable future.
People really don’t understand that climate change is worse for life on this planet than a million Fukushima accidents.
Fukushima isn’t the big argument against nuclear.
IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE
Wait until you see the price of climate change and not moving away from fossil fuels then
Wait what I am 100% pro renewables…
If nuclear somehow were the only option, I would support it. But it’s the worst option.
Completely moving away from fossil fuels with just renewables is a pipe dream. Nuclear is not a panacea and it has its problems but it’s part of the solution to get rid of fossil fuels entirely.
Ah yes, that’s why we should invest money into an expensive form of energy instead of a cheap one, that will help us displace fossil fuels!
And ironically enough, Fukushima and Chernobyl have not been that bad for plant and animal life. The area around Chernobyl is thriving because most humans are gone.
Sources: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-has-become-unexpected-haven-wildlife
Three Mile Island was a partial meltdown, which may sound close to an actual meltdown, it’s not even close in terms of danger.
Fukushima failed because the plants were old and not properly upkept. Had they followed the guidelines for keeping the plant maintained, it would not have happened.
That’s not really the fault of nuclear power.
Chernobyl was also partially caused by lack of adherence to safety measures, but also faulty plant design.
I’d say, being generous, only one of those three events says anything about the safety of nuclear power, and even then, we have come a very long way.
So one event… Ever.
Chernobyl shouldn’t have happened due to safety measures, yet it did. Fukushima shouldn’t have happened, yet it did. The common denominator is human error, but guess who’ll be running any other nuclear power plants? Not beavers.
How is a nuclear meltdown not the fault of nuclear power? Of course you can prevent it by being super careful and stuff, but it is inherent to nuclear power that it is super dangerous. What is the worst that can happen with a wind turbine? It falls, that’s it.
if we were to either replace all power on earth with nuclear, or replace all power on earth with wind, more people would die from- idk, falling out of wind turbines- then from deaths due to nuclear.Fukushima had a fucking earthquake and a tsunami theiwn at it, AND the company which made it cut corners. It was still, much, much less bad than it could have been and the reactor still partially withstood a lot of damage.
In the United States at least (and i assume the rest of the world) nuclear energy is so overegulated that many reactors can have meltdowns without spelling disaster for the nearby area. Nuclear caskets (used to transport and store wastes) can withstand fucking missle strikes.
Im not going to pretend that there arent genuine issues with nuclear, such as cost and construction time(*partially caused by the overegulation), but genuine nuclear disaster has only ever resulted from the worst of human decisions combined with the worst of circumstances. Do i trust humans not to make shitty mistakes? No, not with all this overegulation, but still, even counting Fukushima and Chernobyl, more people die from wind (and especially fossil fuels) then nuclear per terawatt of electricity production.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “Green” until we have a better way of disposing the waste that doesn’t involve creating new warning signs that can still be read and understood 10,000 years from now. :)
If it’s still a danger in 5,000 years, that’s not “green”. :)
Great story on the signage though!
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-nuclear-warning-for-10000-years-time
I’ve always preferred the IPCC terminology of “low-carbon”. Emphasizes that all power sources have carbon and other emissions at some point in their lifecycle. They also levelize the emissions based on energy produced over the expected lifespan of the power generation station/solar panel/dam/wind turbine/etc, and nuclear power is down there with solar, wind, geo, and hydro. Waste must be dealt with, and the best disposal method is reprocessing so you don’t have to store it.
Nuclear semiotics is fascinating. I was very excited when I came across the Federal Disposal Field in Fallout 76 and found that Bethesda used the “field of spikes” design.
This, it’s also pretty much the ONLY technology we have that can be near carbon neutral over time (mainly releasing carbon in the cement to make the plant, then to a lesser extent, mining to dig up and refine material, and transport of workers and goods).
The cost associated with nuclear is due to regulation and legal issues and not relating to the cost to build the actual plant itself so much. There are small scale reactors and many options. Yes it should be used wisely but we can’t keep burning fossil fuels.
lel mongo
For those who understand German, I would like to leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmixpDsrKR4
Sorry everyone else.
deleted by creator
Nuclear power is great. But I do wonder if they might be targets in a war with Russia or something. Can they be prevented from meltdown in the case of a missile strike?
Huh? Modern nuclear power plants automatically stop the reaction. In addition to other safety features monitoring things like temperature, radiation, etc. for automatic shutoff, the rods are held in place via electromagnetism. In the event of a power loss, the reaction will stop because the rods fall out of place. (This may just be one type; other modern reactors have ways of automatically stopping the reaction in the event of a power loss.)
The main reaction can be stopped within seconds, but the secondary reaction cannot. If the reactor isn’t sufficiently cooled by running water through it, it will meltdown due to the secondary reactions.
Depends on the reactor type. I know the CANDU reactors that Canada uses are very difficult to meltdown since they use unenriched uranium fuel, and if the deuterium moderator disappears due to a missile strike or something, the reaction just fizzles instead of running away.
Good, nuclear is one of the only ways we will be able to address carbon emissions
What are you talking about? Have you seen what kind of plants have been built world wide in the last 10 years?
Which outlines why you don’t do majority-vote politics. There is zero interest by private entities to restart nuclear in Germany. Why? Because it makes zero sense.
No one wants to front the money, no one wants to buy overpriced nuclear power, no one wants the waste, no one wants a responsibility for decades and I bet you, if you asked the people on the poll whether they want to live near a plant or waste facility, almost everyone is going to say no.
The sole reason for (modern) nuclear power is high reliability at very low emissions and much energy per space. You know what can also do this? A battery.
If you want to install state-of-the-art molten salt SMRs as high-reliability baseline supply for network infrastructure and hospitals, go for it. But don’t try to sell me a super expensive water boiler as miracle technology.
