Nuclear Phase-Out

Germany's last three nuclear power plants were taken off the grid today. This marks the completion of the German Atomausstieg (nuclear phase-out). Der Spiegel published an article Deutschland schaltet ab (Germany switches off), and Red Baron used the copyrighted slides for the present blog.

Nuclear power reactors operating in Germany in 1994.
Note the "unsafe" reactors in East Germany were switched off soon after the reunification.

From today. The decommissioning work will be gigantic.

Is the world to be healed the German way? Note that the red-colored countries
plan to or are building new nuclear power reactors.

While some European countries envisage abandoning atomic energy, others plan or build new nuclear plants. 

 
The reactors presently under construction are well behind schedule and will cost much more than initially budgeted.

In Germany, electricity produced by renewable energies
surpassed that by coal-fired power stations already in 2017

There is no longer such thing as cheap nuclear energy, more so as clean, renewable wind and solar energies are more than competitive. Experts calculated that since 2010 electricity generated by wind is cheaper than that produced nuclear. The corresponding year for solar electricity is 2012.

The enormous mass of nuclear waste expected
during the dismantling of Germany's decommissioned nuclear reactors

Strangely enough, both types of power generation have problems with storage. While inexpensive electricity storage is not available in sufficient capacity for replacing renewables at night and during lulls (Dunkelflaute) there are significant problems with storing radioactive waste after nuclear power plants are shut down. Where to store highly active spent nuclear fuel safely for generations? Red Baron has blogged frequently about this issue.

In 2011 the Fukushima accident led the German Bundestag to decide by an overwhelming majority the phasing out of nuclear power in Germany.

Was this an overreaction? I have always considered the risk of a reactor accident negligible. In contrast, for me, the unresolved final storage of highly radioactive waste is the reason why, after initial euphoria for nuclear energy, I later rejected it.

Nuclear reactors are increasingly experiencing problems with cooling. While the warming of rivers by reactor waste heat has been abandoned for a long time, evaporators with their water consumption pose a problem, especially in summer months with little rain. Excessive water withdrawal from streams for cooling purposes causes water levels to drop to alarming lows. This is a problem not only for river navigation but also for fish fauna. It is a fact that in the past, Germany supplied electricity to reactor-ridden France.

I regard my country as being on the right path to the future by abandoning nuclear power and turning to renewable energies.

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