Laying out key priorities for the EU’s upcoming Clean Industrial Deal, German Economy State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Monday (30 September) he wants the Commission to prioritise renewable energy, taking a tough line on nuclear power and France’s renewable targets.
Alongside a quicker roll-out of renewable energy facilitated by “further exemptions from [environmental impact] assessments,” Giegold outlined several other German priorities for the EU’s upcoming strategy.
Based on the 2030 renewable energy targets, the EU should also set up a 2040 framework, complemented by new, more ambitious targets for energy efficiency, he said.
“It should include new heating standards, a heat pump action plan and a renovation initiative,” he explained, noting a heat pump action plan was last shelved in 2023.
Hydrogen, made from renewables, should be governed by a “a pragmatic framework,” the German politician stressed, reiterating calls from his boss, Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), to delay strict production rules into the late 2030s.
Nuclear ain’t clean when you don’t have a solution for spent Uranium Rods.
We don’t have a solution for all the CO2 in the atmosphere, yet we happily continue burning fossil fuels at record levels.
And I wonder what exactly you think the danger is of radioactive waste. We have excellent methods of getting it into caskets safely. Maybe don’t dig it out of its casket and eat it? Then you’ll be fine.
Not to mention the dozens of ultra deadly forever chemicals we use by the tons in industrial processes. We store them perfectly fine and they pose a much greater risk to people of they were to come into contact with it.
It’s like we have this thing that guaranteed kills millions every year and causes so much suffering, but we keep on using it because the alternative might have some downsides. It’s so weird.
And where do you store that casket? That still leaks radiation.
But yeah both have downsides (nuclear and coal/gas/oil) so we need to force more Renewables.
The caskets don’t leak radiation, you can hug them and be perfectly fine.
Even renewables have their downsides, nothing is without downsides, but we need to way them fairly and equally. But nuclear for most people is like the boogeyman and gets an unfair treatment, even though it’s used with great succes all over the world.
With solar for example we are currently producing huge amounts of solar panels, but often (in China for example) the waste generated with this isn’t handled properly. Also they have a life span of 15-20 years and we haven’t figured out the recycling all that well. Do these issues stop us from going all in on solar? Hell no, we need to go in fully on solar. But with nuclear (in some parts of the world at least) it’s like it needs to be perfect, with no outstanding issues in order for it to even be considered an option.
And just wait till you find out they pump deadly industrial waste straight into the ground using injection wells, where it just sits for thousands of years. Nobody ever makes a fuss about that. But putting some concrete caskets into an old mine is somehow a crime against humanity. It makes zero sense.
Asse, Germany, radioactive waste deposit. Known since 2008 to be leaking, research shows noticeable higher numbers of cases for thyroid cancer and leukemia.
Hug that shit all you want.
For information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine
Edit: Wow. I’m getting downvotes for providing additional information. Teriffic!
Yeah the anti-nuclear crowd just goes and downvote all the things, they don’t even read anything. It’s kinda sad.
So they fucked up one time 50 years ago and thus the entire process is deemed to be flawed? Mistakes were made, mistakes are going to be made and as long as we learn from them and fix our mistakes, that’s just a normal part of life.
Look at any tech, machine or industry we have today and you can see how many people died and suffered for those things to exist today. Hydro power has killed over a hundred thousand people and has destroyed entire eco systems, we still consider that clean and safe power. Cars kill people every day and planes still fall out of the sky sometimes. I still feel perfectly safe stepping into my car and driving on the road. So you saying “hug that shit” is like I’m supposed to fear my car, because of the horrible accidents that happen every day.
I can’t find the source for you claiming higher cases of thyroid cancer and leukemia due to the leak of hazardous materials from the Asse-II mine. I can find plenty of FUD articles from anti-nuclear websites, but no actual peer reviewed research.
Nope, it’s only an example. Castor caskets have always been critized for safety issues, especially because testing wasn’t done thoroughly enough. That’s not a mistake, it’s a systematic issue.
Your second paragraph is just not a good argument. We should opt for the safest feasible option and that is not nuclear. It has safety issues (especially with waste), takes too long to build and is too expensive.
By the way, for the reasons you mentioned (and more) you will not see me arguing for hydro power, and also I strongly argue for reducing the use if cars. The issue is, we have a straight up fetish for cars, to the point that we swipe away legislations that would improve the safety of drivers and non-involved (like a general speed limit on the Autobahn). Cars in Germany are similar to guns in the US regarding their respective standings in society. It is simply irrational.
Auswertung des EKN zur Krebshäufigkeit in den Gemeinden Cremlingen, Stadt Wolfenbüttel, SG Baddeckenstedt, SG Oderwald, SG Schladen, SG Schöppenstedt und SG Sickte is the source.
By the way, there is still no disposal site deemed safe enough for final storage of nuclear waste in germany.
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FYI: Kurzgesagt: Warum schießen wir Atommüll nicht einfach ins Weltall?
Do you have a source for that? Because that is not true. A properly built casket can go for at least a thousand years. The issues reported with caskets is where they’ve been exposed to salt water / brine. That’s a facility issue, not a casket issue. There are so many caskets stored around the world and only a very small amount have had actual issues associated with them.
Even with the issues, the impact has always been very locally. Not like with coal where radioactive matter is blasted straight into the atmosphere and spread in dust form. Radioactive dust getting into your lungs is a big issue. Water contaminated with waste you can simply stay a feet away from and be perfectly fine. And remember a lot of water gets contaminated all the time with a lot of different dangerous stuff, that’s why we monitor and treat the water we use. The leaks have been a problem, but mostly in the form of costs, not in the form of it being dangerous. It has always been detected right away and not gotten into water we use.
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Well those timelines aren’t correct. The EPA says 10.000 years and that’s for the entire storage solution. It doesn’t matter that the caskets decay after a 2000 years, once the entire thing is encased in rock.
The concrete degradation doesn’t really apply, because caskets are specifically made with longevity in mind and aren’t just made out of concrete. Causes for concrete degradation is also exposure to water and mechanical stress. That doesn’t apply in a long term storage facility.
And we still have examples of Roman concrete around these days, made 2000 years ago. There are also natural nuclear reactors which are contained, so we know in principle containment is possible.
It may take 100.000 years for something to become completely inert, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t safe much earlier. And something with that long of a timeline doesn’t produce hardly any radiation to begin with. The dangerous stuff is much hotter and becomes safe within hundreds to thousands of years.
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In the significant amount of space no longer used to store coal? People vastly overestimate the volume (physical dimensions) of nuclear waste produced, and ignore that the “waste” is largely still usable for other purposes.