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.
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
The “expensive” argument is bollocks.
It’s not too expensive for China, South Korea, Japan, the USA, France, the UAE, Iran, India, Russia.
The countries without nuclear will deindustrialize and the countries with nuclear will outcompete them.
Where is the evidence for that claim?
Germany is the obvious evidence for that claim. Their once great industry is doing really bad due to high energy prices. Which is why even they are second guessing the Energiewende.
Despite insane levels of investment in renewables, they are still stuck on gas en lignite and have very high energy prices.
Merkel’s bet that Russian gas could always be depended on didn’t work out.
The sabotage of solar and wind energy by Altmaier during the CDU government has had a bigger impact than the removal of the few percent of power we got from nuclear. Not to mention that nuclear fuel has the exact same problems as fossil fuels in that major sources of nuclear fuel are in Russia.
No it’s not.
Wait until you see the price of climate change and not moving away from fossil fuels then
Speed! The best time to give a nuclear plant a green light was about 20 years ago, as it will just be coming online now. The second best time is never, because we don’t have time to wait anymore.
Nuclear takes a long time to build, and in all that time you’re not switching away from fossil fuels. I swear nuclear proponents are fossil fuel shills just wanting to delay the day we switch away from them.
Our largest power plant, with 6 reactors, was built in 6 years. To this day it provides us with around 6% of our global power requirements. It’s been running for 45 years, producing 32TWh per year with 0 carbon emissions.
It’s like we could build them faster if we wanted to ? We’ve done it already, we can do it again.
Wait what I am 100% pro renewables…
If nuclear somehow were the only option, I would support it. But it’s the worst option.
How do we supply power when renewables aren’t enough?
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.
Just because you say so doesn’t make it true
Well, good news, because I’m not the one saying it. That’s coming from our Transmission Operator. Everything is detailed in their 992 page report:
https://www.rte-france.com/analyses-tendances-et-prospectives/bilan-previsionnel-2050-futurs-energetiques#Lesresultatsdeletude
What it says is that 100% renewables in France by 2050 is not possible, as the technology is not quite there yet, and also because our energy consumption ever keeps growing.
What they propose is a mix of nuclear and renewables to reach carbon neutrality, then phasing out nuclear over decades.
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!
Hate to break it to you, bud, but energy is already priced according to how expensive it is to provide.
It’s not about “this energy source vs. that energy source.” It’s about increasing the supply of available energy.
Read a book on energy and you’ll quickly realize that as we produce more energy, we consume more. Right now, our energy needs are not being met even with fossil fuels + nuclear + renewables.
Hate to break it to you, but with a limited amount of money you can only increase your generation so much. Choosing a power source that’s less efficient from a monetary perspective means you can displace less fossil fuel.
Read a book on mathematics if you don’t believe me.
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
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science
It also caused a bunch of Russian soldiers to get sick because they dug holes in the ground. It isn’t a nuclear paradise, and I’m not interested in Chernobyl-grown food, but it isn’t a complete wasteland, either.
I was talking specifically about plant and animal life.
It’s obviously not a paradise, but what I mean is, ionising radiation is literally less harmful to them than human presence. That’s pretty bonkers to think about.
Leave that zone alone, let nature take over again and make it a monument to human hubris.
I don’t think I talked about growing food in irradiated ground though? But, we currently are growing food in polluted ground thanks to fossil fuels (microplastics, coal dust, oil leaks, fracking in some backwards ass countries, etc.).
So how are burrowing animals doing? I’ve seen pretty pictures of deer and trees, how are the rabbits and foxes? What are their lifespans compared to those in other regions?
Just because the animals don’t look like cutscenes from The 100 doesn’t mean their life is idyllic, or even better than elsewhere. And all those animals are eating food grown in irradiated ground. Now, whether that’s better or worse than microplastics and fossil fuel waste and leakage is another interesting question.