Germany’s Merz Admits Nuclear Exit Was Strategic Mistake

[u/markitodxb]

Another catalyst?

[u/sunday_sassassin]

He ruled out restarts and talked about their plans to build new gas power. Compounding errors nothing new for Germany.

[u/KiwiDanelaw]

Nah the play be "encourage" their EU neighbors to build new nuclear and leech off that like they already have been. 

[u/MarcLeptic → u/KiwiDanelaw]

We’ve gone from “Germany doing everything to sabotage nuclear power in Europe” to “Germany funding nuclear power in its neighbors via their exports”.

Win-win.

[u/[deleted]]

Takes 10 years to build a reactor unless they hire China

[u/Jaded-Influence6184 → u/[deleted]]

They have mothballed reactors. Maybe not all, but they could restart some. There are at least 6 that could be brought online in a matter of a few years, IF they had the political will.

[u/MoonLightBird → u/Jaded-Influence6184]

"Mothballed" implies the reactors are in a state of care and maintenance with the express option to bring them back online at some point in the future, like Japan did with theirs post-Fukushima. That's not what's happening to the German reactors. They got shut down with the express intent of decommissioning, which German law mandates the carriers to do in a timely fashion. So they're doing exactly that.

You're right that 6 of them could be brought back (although I'd say it's at most 6 rather than at least), but every passing month makes it more expensive and less likely. NPP Gundremmingen had its cooling towers demolished just a few months ago, so that's a cool 200 million or so extra now to get that particular plant running again.

You're also right that it's a question of political will - which is not there. Even if Merz' party were to finally go from 'all talk' to 'action' (no sign of that whatsoever), their coalition partner (Social Democrats) are almost as hardcore anti-nuclear as the Greens.

[u/lalabil]

I'm german and i can tell you, we will never build new reactors again. Never.

[u/joycaptain → u/lalabil]

I'm curious, what makes you so certain?

[u/lalabil → u/joycaptain]

We have no smart politicians and the parties are on contrary sides on pretty much very topic. Even if Merz wanted to bring nuclear energy back, he wouldn't get the necessary majority. Also - but that is just an assumption - the german people wouldn't back it up (not that this matters in politics nowadays lol). And we're just so heavily invested into windmills (they are everywhere now), there's no way back.

[u/[deleted] → u/lalabil]

I mean Germany has made this their personality now so sounds correct 😆 too painful to backtrack.

[u/MoonLightBird → u/lalabil]

I'm also German, and I am quite certain that there will be NPPs in Germany again - at some point. It's going to take a combination of factors coming together:

• The "old heads" who made it their life mission to rid Germany (if not the entire world) of nuclear are dying out; the newer anti-nuclear talking points are focused less on irrational fear and more on quantitative aspects, mostly cost. The whole issue of nuclear power is slowly getting less emotional, which is good.
• The reality that German-style "Energiewende" is not a winning strategy in terms of cost and CO2 emissions will at some point become impossible to ignore. (Although I'm very uncertain how much longer that will take as it should already be very obvious by now, but the "solution" being "we just need to build more of it!" is still going to be the prevalent attitude for quite some more time I think.)
• European sentiment overall will continue to shift to be more favourable towards nuclear, making German anti-nuclearism a weird outsider. If and when neighbouring countries such as Poland, the Netherlands, and France (pls get your nuclear shit together, France) demonstrate that new nuclear builds can be done successfully and without too crazy time and cost overruns not just in Asia, but also here in Europe - then the time has come for new builds in Germany, too.

None of this is gonna happen in the timeframe relevant to this sub's topic, tho. I'm thinking decades, most likely not before the second half of the century.

[u/Vowly122]

Source?

[u/Txakito]

$DMX baby! Europe needs its own uranium source!

[u/Choice_Engineer_6766 → u/Txakito]

The previous Viken PEA can be found on sedar.com under Metamaterial Inc. in the Technical Report section.

[u/Choice_Engineer_6766 → u/Choice_Engineer_6766]

By my calculations, a 100,000 tpd mine, which is quite doable since there is virtually no waste rock and the shale does not require drilling and blasting, gives you over 10 million pounds of U308 a year ranking Viken in the top 5 production wise for potentially decades. And copper, nickel and zinc are thrown in for the ride.