Nuclear phaseout proving to be a success in Germany

We can let fission fizzle out in a renewable world, New Scientist, 20 May 2013 by Jochen Flasbarth If Germany can phase out nuclear power and still thrive, why would other nations pursue a uranium-fuelled future? AT THE start of this year Germany officially entered the Dark Ages again – at least according to its state weather service. A mere 22.5 hours of sunshine were recorded in January – a 60-year low. Despite this, the country’s power supply, which has a world leading input from solar panels, firmly stood its ground, even without the eight nuclear reactors that were switched off in 2011.There was sufficient energy for charging smartphones, running dishwashers and the like – and enough for slightly more essential things such as industry or life-support systems in hospitals. And people in need of a fake tan could easily get one.

Such good news probably did not go down well with the pro-nuclear lobby. Grim and cold spells of this type had been their favourite doomsday scenario. Talk of a Stromlücke, or electricity gap, made headlines after the 2011 decision to shut nearly half of Germany’s 17 reactors in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster.

The fear ran rampant that, without a nuclear backbone, blackouts might push German industry out of business – or at least out of the country. This proved groundless.Despite the reactor switch-offs, Germany was able to help nuclear neighbour France as she struggled to meet electric heating needs in the winter immediately after Fukushima. According to recent figures released by the Federal Statistical Office, German electricity exports in 2012hit a four-year high, which also rebuts the popular fallacy that the country relies on imported electricity from nuclear plants in France or the Czech Republic.

When a highly industrialised country such as Germany can cut a third of its nuclear capacity almost at the flick of a switch and still export more electricity than it imports, the pursuit of a nuclear renaissance elsewhere is puzzling. ……

Fortunately, there are far better alternatives. In 2010 my agency devised a study which showed how Germany could source all of its electric energy from sun, wind or water. Now the Energiewende, or energy transition, the country needs to make is high on the political agenda and gathering pace quickly. Remaining nuclear power stations will be shut by 2022 and fossil-fuel dependence reduced bit by bit.

Some fear carbon emissions will rise. However, Germany is still way ahead of its Kyoto target. In 2012 emissions were already down 25.5 per cent compared to 1990 levels. Under Kyoto only 21 per cent is expected. ……. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829170.200-we-can-let-fission-fizzle-out-in-a-renewable-world.html

1.This Month

Reluctantly, I have realised that the climate crisis is the most huge and urgent problem for humanity, now. This website is not able to do justice to this enormous topic. All that I can do is to pick out significant information as it arrives, and also note some, (not nearly enough) of the climate events happening.

Meanwhile, nuclear-news will focus on its original purpose, to reveal the disastrous effects of the nuclear industry, and to refute the propaganda lies from the nuclear lobby.

Existential Abrupt Climate Change Risks to Humanity: Part 1 of 3

of the week

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Before we enter “a new nuclear age” – learn from the newly declassified Chernobyl health records

April 7, 2019

Fortunately, Chernobyl health records are now available to the public. They show that people living in the radioactive traces fell ill from cancers, respiratory illness, anaemia, auto-immune disorders, birth defects, and fertility problems two to three times more frequently in the years after the accident than before. In a highly contaminated Belarusian town of Veprin, just six of 70 children in 1990 were characterised as “healthy”. The rest had one chronic disease or another. On average, the Veprin children had in their bodies 8,498 bq/kg of radioactive caesium (20 bq/kg is considered safe).

For decades, researchers have puzzled over strange clusters of thyroid cancer, leukaemia and birth defects among people living in Cumbria, which, like southern Belarus, is an overlooked hotspot of radioactivity from cold war decades of nuclear bomb production and nuclear power accidents.

Currently, policymakers are advocating a massive expansion of nuclear power as a way to combat climate change. Before we enter a new nuclear age, the declassified Chernobyl health records raise questions that have been left unanswered about the impact of chronic low doses of radioactivity on human health.

Chernobyl’s disastrous cover-up is a warning for the next nuclear age

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/04/chernobyl-nuclear-power-climate-change-health-radioactivity, Kate Brown , 5 Apr 19, Before expanding nuclear power to combat climate change, we need answers to the global health effects of radioactivity

Igor: Child Of Chernobyl (Medical Documentary) – Real Stories

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nuclear-news

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