Talk:Nuclear power in Germany/Archive 1

Initial article & expansion
This article was initially salvaged from |this version of the Nuclear power phase-out article, prior to it's merger into Nuclear energy policy. It requires expansion to reflect the non-phase-out aspects of Germany nuclear power. A further articles on Energy policy of Germany and Renewable energy in Germany would be interesting too, if someone has the time and knowledge to make a start. See the series on UK energy for ideas... Gralo 14:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Energy policy of Germany started with translation from Deutsche Energiewirtschaft? Gralo 22:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Needs information on government role in nuclear power
What part of the nuclear power industry is government owned? Does the government own the fuel cycle? Does the government insure the construction loans, the harm from power plant radiation releases and cleanup, disposal of the abandoned power plant, etc. Are nuclear facilitis regulated by the government, and if so, by the agency that promotes nuclear developments, or a separate agency? Mulp (talk) 06:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Map
I don't know if any of you will find this of any help: -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 13:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

WHY
Not once in this article is there any mention of WHY they are phasing out nuclear power - the reasons are almost assumed. Could someone please expand the article to include a discussion of why this policy of nuclear phase-out is being followed. Honestly it makes no sense to me whatsoever, so I would like to see what the different sides in Germany are saying about it.


 * Germany's Green party formed before global warming was the major environmental issue, and maintains an antinuclear stance for historical reasons. The phase-out was adopted as a political deal with the Greens so that a coalition government could be formed with their assistance. Ordinary Person (talk) 02:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem of final deposition of nuclear waste (and who has to pay for that) is an issue in Germany. The deep geological repository at Gorleben is situated in rock salt, and officially is only explored. After an earlier deep geological repository in Asse, situated in rock salt as well, now suffers from water breaking in (and causing a salvage operation costing the tax payers, not the energy provider companies), scepticism about the stability of such rock salt deposits after human intrusion has grown. There are also regularly huge demonstrations against transports of nuclear waste to the Gorleben repository.


 * Most German reactors are situated in areas which could be flooded, as a result of their access to cooling water from rivers or the Elbe estuary. Floodings as the result of strong rains or storm floods occurred every 20 years or so, until now not yet at locations with nuclear power plants, but compare e.g. the flooding of the Haseldorfer Marsch in 1976 with the positions of the Brokdorf and Brunsbüttel power plants.


 * While the track record of the nuclear power plants has failed to cause major failures in Germany, there are an irritating number of minor incidents, unresolved accumulations of children's leukemia around the Krümmel nuclear power plant, etc. which cause uneasiness - especially with the population nearby. The politicians' track records - especially Frau Merkel in her role as secretary of the environment under the Kohl legislature and the exclusion of alternative exploration for Gorleben repository - have created a climate which has left relatively few fervent supporters of nuclear power in Germany, a strong group of fervent opponents, and a group of undecided voters probably as large as that of the opponents.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.35.36.51 (talk) 11:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Because the overwhelming majority of the German people WANT it. Polls in April 2011 saw more than 85 percent voting for a phase-out by 2021 or earlier (see infratest dimap http://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/ard-deutschlandtrend/2011/april/ and Forschungsgruppe Wahlen http://www.forschungsgruppewahlen.de/Umfragen_und_Publikationen/Politbarometer/Archiv/Politbarometer_2011/April_I/ ). Even in 2010 more than 60 percent were against the extension of the lifetime of nuclear plants. Ruling against the wishes of 85 percent of the population would be a peculiar idea of democracy. It doesn't matter whether or not it makes sense to people in other countries. Many things in US politics don't make sense to people in Germany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.84.50.86 (talk) 16:53, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Jochen Flasbarth, who is president of the German government's Federal Environment Agency, provided some insight into this when he recently spoke with people in the area where I live. According to him, the decision to phase out nuclear power was mostly market driven. In 2000, when the question was being decided, the expectation was that cost trends would soon make renewable power far less expensive than nuclear. Possibly more importantly, nuclear power was seen as having an inhibiting effect on job growth, because it employed only a fraction of the number renewable power did, per unit of production; renewable power has a much greater portion of its income going into employee wages. Also, since renewable power can be produced by small utility businesses, cooperatives, and even individuals, the money tends to stay in the locality where the power is produced. In retrospect, the expectations of the people who made these decisions may have turned out to be correct, as German renewable power currently produces more than nuclear did before the phase out began, employs more people than nuclear and coal combined, is growing at a rate of 30% or so per year. ghh 18:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by George H. Harvey (talk • contribs)
 * I am still working on this question. I would really like to put something about this into the article, but I do not have a reference I can cite yet. I am looking...  ghh 13:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by George H. Harvey (talk • contribs)

Garbled sentence
Currently the article reads:

Energy may have to be imported from France's nuclear power facilities, no small irony, Russian natural gas, despite the fact that Russia is still not perceived as a safe partner in much of Western Europe.

This sentence does not appear to make sense, but I can't correct it since I don't quite know what it means. Ordinary Person (talk) 02:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Grammar
This article reads, in places, like a poor translation. It needs to be grammatically corrected throughout. (added grammar template) TestUser001 (talk) 12:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Acceptance of nuclear power
I have removed the following sentences from the article:
 * These concessions to the Greens came despite the high popularity of nuclear power in Germany. In 1993, 71% of Germans supported maintaining or increasing the number of nuclear power plants in Germany, but by 1999 this had risen to 81%. Hence, at the time of the introduction of the policy, only roughly 19% of Germans supported a phase-out of nuclear power.

At first its claims are misleading at best (or better to say a lie). Usage of nuclear power doesn't have "high popularity" in Germany since the 70ies. For decades the percentage of Germans who strongly oppose usage of nuclear power hasn't dropped below a third.
 * E.g. a recent poll by the Atomforum (german pro nuclear power lobby organisation) indicate higher opposition of at least 35% (according to this poll 35% of the Germans oppose usage of nuclear power even if the problem of secure final disposal of nuclear waste has beeing solved).
 * Second the quoted source for the "Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll from 1999" is strange. At first it doesn't have the "phase-out" question in the first place (just "exit now") but then elaborates in a second step on questions on an exit time frame.
 * The exact wording of polls (beside who did the questions) seems to have a big effect wether usage of nuclear power is supported by a majority of Germans or not. A 2005 study by Greenpeace indicates that an overwhelming majority of 70% want to phase out nuclear power at least within the currently agreed time frame:.
 * When the Greens first came to power in 1998 the topic was much "hotter" in Germany as it is now. Anyone who voted SPD or Grüne knows that these parties have phase-out of nuclear power a key point on theiry party platform for decades (SPD changed their pro nuclear power position after the accident of 1986). So no sane person can claim that nuclear power was or is "highly popular" in Germany or that the phase-out was a tribute to the Greens by the SPD, despite the fact that there are still quite at lot of people (at least 20 %) that support usage of nuclear power. Arnomane (talk) 14:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Renewable energy to be new source of power, jobs, economic growth
The section is not written from neutral point of view, quoting green extremists from Greenpeace is funny. --85.162.78.180 (talk) 07:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Giving the opinion of the nuclear industry isn't equally funny?


 * The only reason there was nuclear power in Germany in the first place was a decision by the government based on certain goals and expectations in the context of social and political realities of the day. Now there is to be no more nuclear power in Germany, and this too is a decision by the government based on certain goals and expectations in the context of social and political realities of today.  The section cites a former German Minister for the Environment, then gives the opinion of his critics; There is a statement by Merkel; We give the opinion of the German nuclear industry and then we cite a quote about the strategic, competetive message.


 * The point was to balance out the self-interested doom and gloom prediction of the German nuclear industry on the economic result with a non-governmental observer taking the opposite view of a positive expectation of this major industrialized nation's economy by exerting a geostrategic leadership on renewables.


 * I would not be opposed to sourcing this claim to some other observer. However, the nuclear advisor to Greenpeace was the one chosen to be quoted by the BBC, I didn't go off searching to find a comment from them, nor did I second-guess my source for the section, I merely strove to capture both sides.


 * But as to "green extremists", perhaps you're not aware that there is a Green Party in Germany, one that actually holds twelve to fifteen percent of the seats in the government. Of course this is a representation of the environmental interest of the German citizenry.  Environmental issues are a central part of Germany's decision — the move was announced by the head of an agency with the combined purview of Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.  The facts are that the green movement played a part in this decision and I noted this w-a-a-a-y down in the second-to-last section of the article.  That one might query on the talk page a quote the BBC put in their article is one thing, but that one would slap a POV tag and write "quoting green extremists from Greenpeace is funny" sounds like the real POV.  Abrazame (talk) 07:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the sections "Safety, affordability, responsibility and independence" should be merged with this one, then given a heading that doesn't sound like a slogan from a poster?ViniTheHat (talk) 17:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That a Green party "holds twelve to fifteen percent of the seats in the government" is not relevant to an article written with a NPOV. Truth in numbers might work at a Greenpeace rally, but it has no place on Wikipedia.  To quote someone from Greenpeace on the economic benefits of abandoning a major source of electricity is ridiculous.  (It would be like quoting a Gypsy on the benefits of abandoning permanent housing).  That the BBC did it speaks more to the reliability of the BBC than to the truth of the statement.  Greenpeace is not an "observer."  It is an organization that rabidly opposes nuclear power.  To say that a position or statement made by the German nuclear industry is "balanced" out by a statement from Greenpeace is like saying that a statement made by an astronomer regarding the spherical shape of the earth is balanced by someone from the Flat Earth Society.    ViniTheHat is right, the title of this section needs to go.  I think it should be changed to "Renewable energy to be a source of electricity and jobs" or something similar.  Abrazame needs to realize that more than just he and his friends are reading this. He also needs to stop accusing people of what he himself is doing. -- A ntigrandios ËTalk|undefined  21:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Or even more vaguely "State Plans for The Future of Nuclear Power"?ViniTheHat (talk) 15:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict
I have been working on the article, taking some of the above comments into consideration. There was an edit conflict when Anentiresleeve apparently started to edit the article contemporaneously to me, but I think both of us were working in the same direction, particularly to reduce the sections and somewhat awkward section heads. Abrazame (talk) 21:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Directly quoting Merkel
In general, I think these quotes are on the low end of the "encyclopedic-ness" scale. What we are quoting is some inspirational rhetoric by a public figure that does little to illuminate the factual, concrete situation of how nuclear energy is situated in Germany's energy supply and markets. As it happens, this article is, in my opinion, already very light on these kinds of encyclopedic factual descriptions, so giving Merkel multiple paragraphs to talk up this self-reversal contributes to an overtly politicized tone in the article. Compare to Nuclear power in Japan.

Of course, what Merkel thinks is important due to her obvious political significance, but there ought to be a way to find a better balance of article content -- weighted more heavily toward encyclopedic information. --Anentiresleeve (talk) 21:47, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Nuclear power in Germany — currency, concision and contrast
just moved from my Talk page. -Pavlo Chemist (talk) 19:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully, your edits remove both the concision/cogency and the current relevancy of the lead sentence. I don't mind admitting I don't understand the distinction — are you asserting that there is something relevant about the percent consumed versus the percent generated? If that is so, it might be helpful to place into context further down in the article, but certainly not out of context and in the lead sentence. Is there neither a source nor a mathematical way of arriving at the actual percentage of what those plants that have not been closed have provided these last three months and in the short term forward? That number belongs in the first sentence, the number for the corresponding metric prior to March can be elsewhere in the lead, and the explanation of the distinction between metrics perhaps in the body. And I do think the metric we should be using in the lead is consumption rather than production, though if there is some reason for the opposite, I would be open to hearing it. I invite your response at Talk:Nuclear power in Germany rather than here or at my own talk, for the purposes of clarity and article improvement. Thanks, Abrazame (talk) 16:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I agree that lead sentence must have "current relevancy", but at this moment I am not aware of any reliable source about the actual percentage of nuclear energy. If some experts publish at least their estimate, then we could place it into the lead sentence. When somebody finds such a reliable source, he or she is welcome to add it. The best way is to wait for the official statistics. Unfortunately, we should not calculate this percentage ourselves, because it would contradict with WP:NOR. Moreover, there is no straightforward way to do these calculations, see for instance interesting article in Der Spiegel : energy consumption and therefore generation are not permanent throughout the year. It depends also from the local expenses and deficiencies of electricity. Thus, it may happen, for instance, that some part of Germany buys cheap nuclear energy from France, while another part of Germany sells nuclear energy to Austria. As you can see situation is rather complicated. Therefore, percentage of nuclear power in generated electricity depends only on the power plants in Germany, while percentage of nuclear power in consumption on the power plants both in and out of Germany. Thus more sophisticated characteristic value of the Nuclear power in Germany must be generation rather than consumption of nuclear power. --Pavlo Chemist (talk) 19:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Perfect, I completely agree, Germany's decision was relative to their own nuclear power generation; the 40% reduction resulting from the 8 plant shutdowns is obviously relative to their own generation as well. We don't know the percentage of foreign nuclear that may aid in the transition, or how much more that is than what they normally used from across the border, and these figures have not appeared in any of the sources I have used in the article.  So we have come to complete agreement about that.


 * Obviously power generation ebbs and flows seasonally; this happens just about everywhere. I think you're making this aspect more complicated than it needs to be.  Every source we have seen has arrived at a figure.  The article sources I read and cited (just under a quarter, and 23%) were yearly figures.  Is it possible your source of 28% is a peak figure?  Peak potential isn't the relevant metric.


 * So next, whichever source we may agree upon, the article tells us that this was reduced by 40% with the eight plants taken offline. You link to, so apparently know, but I will point out for the benefit of others, that WP:NOR has a mitigating subsection, WP:CALC, which allows for simple mathematical equations to be done by editors to prevent just this sort of problem of being forced to prevent irrelevant data in an article; such calculations are not considered original research.  Aren't we giving a closer and more current picture by subtracting 40% of the 23%?  There has to be a way to present the reliably sourced percentage prior to the March shutdown, and — far more relevantly — point out that the reduction since then and going forward means Germany generates 40% less than that.  Of course when we have a reliable source and do not have to rely upon our own WP:CALC, then we will switch to the RS.  But it is untenable to present your edit of two figures for the prior percentage (in the lead sentence nonetheless) and none for the current, or percentage of reduction thereof.  Abrazame (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 23% appears in the sentence "By contrast, nuclear energy accounted for 23.3% of Germany’s total electricity consumption in 2010." of this source. However, I am talking about generation and it is 28.38% average in 2010 (yearly, not peak) in the very reliable source of the official website of International Atomic Energy Agency. Thus I would use 28% for the calculations. And by the way, how or where have you got 40%? Just matter of curiosity, because my own calculations from the data of de:Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deutschland give almost the same value (41%). But then we cannot just subtract that value from 28%, since the total generated electricity is decreased as well (till new alternative plants will be built or older ones will be improved), thus we need to use formula 28*(1-0.40)/(100-28*0.40) = 0.189 or 18.9%. Since all values are quite rough we should round off the percentage of nuclear power in generated electricity to about 19 or maybe to 20%. Nevertheless, in WP:CALC is stated that "This policy allows routine mathematical calculations, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, provided editors agree that the arithmetic and its application correctly reflect the sources", but we have done not very routine calculations, since we made a lot of assumptions, like that productivity of remained nuclear and other power plants remains unchanged, but power plants of other types must increase their productivity. So, it must be smaller than 20% (but larger than yours 13.6%, which would be obtained subtracting 40% of 23%), but we do not know how exactly. We could write in the range 13-20% as well. To do more reliable estimations, we really need a lot of statistical data for appropriate analysis. That everything is not as simple as it could be imagined. In any case, it would be great, if other independent Wikipedia contributors gave here their opinion. --Pavlo Chemist (talk) 21:32, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

more touch-ups
This article seems to have been started by non-native English speakers. There is a lot of cumbersome phrasing. But the article is valuable, I am grateful for it. I found the first paragraph, however, to be unacceptable.
 * Nuclear power in Germany produced about 28% of the country's electricity,[2] while the share of the nuclear power in the electricity consumption in Germany was 23%[3] before the ultimately permanent shutdown of 8 plants in March 2011.

I simplified it, especially because the linked to the 28% statistic was not accessible on the IAEA site cited. If Nuclear power produced 28% of the country's electricity of which only 23% was consumed, does that mean 5% was exported? If it was exported, why is it called 'the country's electricity'? Put the original back if you like, or find a better phrasing--Be gottlieb (talk) 09:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Naming
There is a discussion which is also related to this article or category. You are welcome to take a part of this discussion. Beagel (talk) 15:18, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Accidents section is inadequately sourced
The entire accidents section is sourced from two publications of Benjamin Sovacool, who is a known anti-nuclear activist. This is not sufficient. --Tweenk (talk) 22:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Blackouts
The part on blackouts has the following:

"Some German manufacturers and energy companies have criticized the phase-out plans, warning that Germany could face blackouts.[19] However, this did not happen.[20]"

Link 19 refers to blackouts when the total phaseout of nuclear power in Germany is achieved (according to current plans) in 2022. Link 20, does not take that into account, and so does not logically follow on from the statement in Link 19. Link 20 also has an obviously wrong picture of what it asserts is the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP, so the accuracy of the page has to be in doubt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.163.197.245 (talk) 07:59, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Coal and Renewables after Nuclear Shutdown
I removed some incorrect claims from this section. Not everything you find somewhere on the internet is a reliable source! Actual numbers (as can be found here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung ) show that after the shutdown of eight nuclear power plants, this was compensated for by renewables and not by coal. Also, Germany never had to import electricity (actually there is a European market and sometimes electricity is imported and sometimes exported), but overall Germany exports more electricity than it imports and that did not change even after shutting down eight nuclear plants. Martin.uecker (talk) 23:00, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This article seems dated, as the Renewable power sector is changing really fast in germany, it deserves a revisit, to rewrite

to more current numbers. --Patbahn (talk) 23:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Misrepresenting history
In 2002 the German government passed a law to phase out nuclear power plants ("Atomgesetz"). The government under Merkel undermined this law by originally extending the phase period by 14 years, which was heavly criticized at the time and could not be publically supported in the aftermath of Fukoshima. The introduction of this article should be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.75.18.2 (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Coal and Renewables after Nuclear Shutdown
I removed some incorrect claims from this section. Not everything you find somewhere on the internet is a reliable source! Actual numbers (as can be found here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung ) show that after the shutdown of eight nuclear power plants, this was compensated for by renewables and not by coal. Also, Germany never had to import electricity (actually there is a European market and sometimes electricity is imported and sometimes exported), but overall Germany exports more electricity than it imports and that did not change even after shutting down eight nuclear plants. Martin.uecker (talk) 23:00, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This article seems dated, as the Renewable power sector is changing really fast in germany, it deserves a revisit, to rewrite to more current numbers. --Patbahn (talk) 23:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Misrepresenting history
In 2002 the German government passed a law to phase out nuclear power plants ("Atomgesetz"). The government under Merkel undermined this law by originally extending the phase period by 14 years, which was heavly criticized at the time and could not be publically supported in the aftermath of Fukoshima. The introduction of this article should be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.75.18.2 (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2019 (UTC)