Luxembourg against nuclear energy

20 comments

1. I think different countries may have different reasons, but as you say all of them are political.

   For Luxembourg, I can only imagine that it is not nice to be surrounded by nuclear plants belonging to other countries: they reap all the benefits, we share the risks in case of an accident.

2. As far as I can tell it is a combination of decades of anti nuclear fear mongering and an emotional response to little understood and thus “scary” things; people equate nuclear power to things that go bang in a big way and radiation being “bad.” Combined with an, in comparison, total lack of information on the dreadfully negative impact of fossil fuels. It would be interesting to see how much funding the anti nuclear lobby has received from the fossil fuel industry over the years.

3. The argument against nuclear power is IMO mainly emotional, particularly if you look at the proposals of our current sustainability department (building energy generating islands off the coast of Denmark).

   Nuclear power plants tend to be closely watch. They have the benefit of being able to provide base load electricity (i.e. the bit of electricity that we consume anyway). A combination of nuclear and renewables with the odd gas powered plant is the best mix right now: The nuclear produces the base load, whereas renewables pick up the variable bit of demand. Gas could take over when renewables can’t meet peak demand on their own.

   Granted, nuclear energy has the major issue of waste and what we do with the waste BUT new energy concepts (e.g. those islands, Lux wants to build in Denmark) may have significant consequences for local ecosystem that we haven’t even considered yet.

   Anyone interested in solving the climate crisis should jump on the chance to promote investment into nuclear fusion power generation. If we figure that one out, then we might just end the discussion altogether: no runaway reaction, nuclear waste with significantly lower half-life, etc.)

4. From my point of view the response is only partially emotional. At least in Germany there‘s also the concern of storing the nuclear waste safely. Finding a suitable site for long term storage proved to be a political suicide mission for the people involved (Gorleben).

5. I have to say, I’m not really keen on nuclear, but for once, I think that declaring nuclear green does make sense if the goal is to combat climate change.

   I’ve actually got more issues with declaring gas “green”, unless they have specifically excluded fossil gas. I don’t think they did, did they?

6. Nuclear rules but it weakens your national security and overall safety. We need to figure out the fusion process and that will solve it. The grid is huge and all renewal combined wont make it. We need to balance with the coal/fission until fusion is available. We can also create laws that engage citizens in personal energy production but the goal of this system is to stay on the grid and make it bigger so fusion my love come and shine us all✊

7. Most supporters of nuclear energy I discussed with suddenly become against it if the proposal is to have the plant near their house. Rationally or not, many people won’t want a place near a nuclear power plant, and this impacts the housing market.

8. Nuclear is all beautiful but there are no technologies that can effectively do something with the waste so that there is no threat to the environment and the people. Burying it undergeound is all nice until it starts leaking into groundwater and starts coming up. The risk is just too high.
   But that’s not the reason why some countries use nuclear energy and some don’t. It depends on sourcing uranium. Countries that have secured good supply of nuclear fuel promote it while the rest are switching to more cleaner energy like solar, wind, tidal. They are investment intensive but clean and self reliant.
   The day, countries where uranium is mined actually start controlling the supply and start dictating costs, even the most nuclear countries will change their stance. Hopefully imperialism will always be around to help fuel posts like this, preaching the benefits of going nuclear.

9. Fear mongering. They literally hand you out iodine tablets when you have a child at the hospital for example.

10. I am all for fusion power plants, while nuclear power plants have too high risks involved. I wouldn’t say that I am against them, but the main problem is that there is no real way of storaging the radioactive waste. In there I really have to agree with the people who are against it. However, if there is a ‘perfect’ way of storaging the waste, I’d be all for nuclear power plants.

11. Ah yes I love the reddit pro nuclear echo chamber, always praising the pros and never even mentioning the cons.
    Like for example the costs:
    Per MWh nuclear energie is the [most expensive](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating_costs.png) source of energie. And latest projects have been a financial disaster, for example: [Olkiluoto nuclear power plant:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant) 13 years over schedule and 8 billion dollars over budget. Or [Flamanvillr nuclear powerplant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant) 10 years over schedule and 16 billion dollars over budget.

    Another big problem of nuclear energie that never even gets mentioned is the decommissioning of old reactor. It is so expensiv that large energie companies [can‘t even pay for it](https://theecologist.org/2017/mar/16/edf-facing-bankruptcy-decommissioning-time-frances-ageing-nuclear-fleet-nears). Like always, the cost falls back to tax payer.

    Also uranium isn‘t unlimited, at momentary consumption, there is enough uranium for at least [230 years](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/) with todays standart for mining it. But nuclear energie also only makes [24 %of our energie production in the EU](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Nuclear_energy_statistics), if this number rises, uranium reserves gonna last for only a few decades.

    Also nuclear reactors are susceptible to heat, in summer they often have to [shut down](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Nuclear_energy_statistics).

    As you can see nuclear energie also has a lot of cons. A better investement would be to expand renewable energies and better interconnect the european grid.

12. In short, even beyond the unsolved issue of nuclear waste and NIMBYism, it is expensive. Proponents love to omit the enormous costs of planning, construction and decommissioning, and then claim that it is cheap.

    This does not necessarily apply to potential modern, safe variants like Thorium-based reactors and smaller, modular designs that can be built in a factory and assembled at the destination. But it seems that those are always only ready 20 years in the future. Regulators also seem to be dragging their feet to approve new designs.

    And let me also add that Germany’s (and other places, e.g., California) decision to shut down their fully working nuclear plants before their planned end date is incredibly moronic.

13. It’s easy:

    – nuclear = scary = not green

    – natural gas = natural = green

14. What a weird thread. As if Chernobyl and Fukushima never happened. As if Asse II and Gorleben don’t exist. As if it wasn’t a fact that Belgium and France deliberately built their reactors on the border so that only half the fallout would end up on their territory. As if Cattenom wasn’t shutting down with a technical failure every few weeks. As if the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 reactors weren’t shut down because of serious safety flaws.

    Lets just pretend all that doesn’t exist and didn’t happen and proclaim that “so many people don’t understand it at all”. My arse.

15. 🤯🤯🤯

16. I am for Nuclear energy and it is the only solution for going CO2 free. Luxembourg should operate nuclear power station and actually start selling abundant electricity to neighbouring countries and provide residents with free energy.

17. I love nuclear that’s it.

18. People fear the unknown and spectacular. Meanwhile air pollution kills or handicaps so many people but most don’t seem to care as much.

    They understand fire and smoke, but technology like nuclear is often indistinguishable from magic for them. From there it’s a very short walk to “burn the witch” or sth. 😉

19. We’re not against nuclear power, we’re against Cattenom. The moment anything goes wrong there our entire country is gone. In fact there was a documentary just now about it.

20. 1) Because the Green parties in all of these countries are pretty strong and represented in parliaments, especially Germany. And they have always been pretty much against the nuclear power plants. Changing their opinion now will destroy their careers(and that’s definitely against their plan), as their voters will feel themselves fooled and turn away from them.
    2) Because this is about who will dictate the EU in the next 30 years, the Germans(pumping Russian gas), or the French (the only ones left in Europe with competence in building and operating nuclear plants).