{"id":11517,"date":"2023-08-22T15:54:16","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T15:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11517"},"modified":"2023-08-22T15:54:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T15:54:16","slug":"why-ultra-green-germany-turned-its-back-on-nuclear-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11517","title":{"rendered":"Why ultra-green Germany turned its back on nuclear energy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“the White House has invested heavily<\/a> in sustaining the country\u2019s nuclear infrastructure, and President Joe Biden<\/a> has also touted nuclear<\/a> as an important component in the country\u2019s quest for carbon neutrality. Many countries are following the same path based on similar climate calculations, and some experts support this position. \u201cNuclear is actually one of the cleanest and safest energy sources,\u201d Kharecha says. For countries that want to mitigate climate change and reduce air pollution<\/a>, he says that nuclear energy should be embraced \u2014 at least until better options come along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But environmental advocacy groups and left-leaning American voters have traditionally opposed nuclear power. And, despite the president\u2019s efforts, recent Gallup data<\/a> suggest this is still the case: Less than half of Democrats back nuclear, compared to 62 percent of Republicans.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Chernobyl meltdown captivated and horrified many Americans. But while the US shuddered, Germans suffered directly from the disaster\u2019s fallout. It wasn\u2019t just a question of tainted milk. Radioactive particles drifted across much of the German landscape. Sandboxes were nicknamed \u201cdeath boxes.\u201d Contamination turned up in<\/a> meat, vegetables, fruits, and foodstuffs produced all over the country, and frightened parents didn\u2019t know what to feed their children. Some experts estimated<\/a> that hundreds of thousands of people on the continent would eventually develop Chernobyl-related cancers. That didn\u2019t come to pass<\/a>, but recent government analyses of German wild mushrooms<\/a> found that 95 percent of samples still contained radioactive contamination from Chernobyl, and the residue of that disaster has likewise soaked deep into the nation\u2019s views on nuclear power.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are some unimpeachable justifications for opposing nuclear energy. There\u2019s the risk of a catastrophic accident, first and foremost, and also the problem of storing or disposing of nuclear waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom our point of view, it\u2019s not right to say nuclear is a sustainable technology,\u201d says Kopf, the Greens politician. \u201cYou need uranium, which is not extracted in an environmentally friendly way, and there is no real solution for nuclear waste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when making energy trade-offs, these risks must be balanced against the harms associated with the use of non-nuclear energy sources \u2014 such as air pollution and CO2 emissions produced by fossil fuels. According to estimates from Our World in Data<\/a>, nuclear is cleaner and safer than any power source apart from solar. The number of deaths caused by either accidents or air pollution as a result of nuclear power is estimated to be just 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour of energy produced. That is far, far below the 18 deaths and 25 deaths per terawatt-hour associated with oil and coal sources, respectively.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/7\/19\/23799448\/germany-climate-change-nuclear-power-fukushima-carbon-emissions-coal-global-warming<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“the White House has invested heavily in sustaining the country\u2019s nuclear infrastructure, and President Joe Biden has also touted nuclear as an important component in the country\u2019s quest for carbon neutrality. Many countries are following the same path based on similar climate calculations, and some experts support this position. \u201cNuclear is actually one of the cleanest and safest energy sources,\u201d Kharecha says. For countries that want to mitigate climate change and reduce air pollution, he says that nuclear energy should be embraced \u2014 at least until better options come along.
\nBut environmental advocacy groups and left-leaning American voters have traditionally opposed nuclear power. And, despite the president\u2019s efforts, recent Gallup data suggest this is still the case: Less than half of Democrats back nuclear, compared to 62 percent of Republicans.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The Chernobyl meltdown captivated and horrified many Americans. But while the US shuddered, Germans suffered directly from the disaster\u2019s fallout. It wasn\u2019t just a question of tainted milk. Radioactive particles drifted across much of the German landscape. Sandboxes were nicknamed \u201cdeath boxes.\u201d Contamination turned up in meat, vegetables, fruits, and foodstuffs produced all over the country, and frightened parents didn\u2019t know what to feed their children. Some experts estimated that hundreds of thousands of people on the continent would eventually develop Chernobyl-related cancers. That didn\u2019t come to pass, but recent government analyses of German wild mushrooms found that 95 percent of samples still contained radioactive contamination from Chernobyl, and the residue of that disaster has likewise soaked deep into the nation\u2019s views on nuclear power.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“There are some unimpeachable justifications for opposing nuclear energy. There\u2019s the risk of a catastrophic accident, first and foremost, and also the problem of storing or disposing of nuclear waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our point of view, it\u2019s not right to say nuclear is a sustainable technology,\u201d says Kopf, the Greens politician. \u201cYou need uranium, which is not extracted in an environmentally friendly way, and there is no real solution for nuclear waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, when making energy trade-offs, these risks must be balanced against the harms associated with the use of non-nuclear energy sources \u2014 such as air pollution and CO2 emissions produced by fossil fuels. According to estimates from Our World in Data, nuclear is cleaner and safer than any power source apart from solar. The number of deaths caused by either accidents or air pollution as a result of nuclear power is estimated to be just 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour of energy produced. That is far, far below the 18 deaths and 25 deaths per terawatt-hour associated with oil and coal sources, respectively.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[913,727,180,444,512,694],"class_list":["post-11517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-electricity","tag-germany","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-energy","tag-nuclear-power","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11518,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11517\/revisions\/11518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}