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Germany to shut down seven nuclear plants for safety review(edited)

ksu_aviator

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Germany to shut down seven nuclear plants for safety review | AHN

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Tuesday the shutting down of seven of the seventeen nuclear power plants in the country for three months for a safety check of the power facilities.

I call this a knee jerk because Germany doesn't get bad earthquakes.

Earthquakes in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People, we need to keep in mind that this incident happened after the largest earthquake in Japan's history and the 5th largest in recorded history. This isn't an every day thing and the worst that can happen is a melt down. What happens in a melt down?

Nuclear meltdown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency[1] or by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.[2] However, it has been defined to mean the accidental melting of the core of a nuclear reactor,[3] and is in common usage a reference to the core's either complete or partial collapse. "Core melt accident" and "partial core melt" are the analogous technical terms, though the severity of these nuclear accidents can vary in the extreme.
A meltdown occurs when a severe failure of a nuclear power plant system prevents proper cooling of the reactor core, to the extent that the nuclear fuel assemblies overheat and melt, either partially or completely. A meltdown is considered very serious because of the potential that highly intense radioactive materials with long half-lives and lethal threat could be released into the environment.

...

In a modern reactor, a nuclear meltdown, whether partial or total, should be contained inside the reactor's containment structure. Thus (assuming that no other major disasters occur) while the meltdown will severely damage the reactor itself, possibly contaminating the whole structure with highly radioactive material, a meltdown alone should not lead to significant radiation release or danger to the public.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown#cite_note-15
 
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Re: Germany's knee jerks

Well I guess it's a comfort to know it's not just America that has an irrational fear of nuclear power generation.


...wait, no it's not!
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

It's like Obama first and foremost sending inspectors to every gulf rig after the Deepwater spill and then shutting down the whole gulf for NOTHING.
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

Stupid is as stupid does.

They will shut these safe and clean energy plants down till the middle east blows up and/or Russia turns off their supply of natural gas.

LOL!
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

Well I guess it's a comfort to know it's not just America that has an irrational fear of nuclear power generation.


...wait, no it's not!

I wouldn't call it irrational looking at whats happening with Japan and not wanting the same thing to happen in your own country. I am sure that when they built those things in Japan they said oh no another Chernobyl disaster won't happen because it happened in a **** hole communist country,heck even a 3 mile island incident won't happen. Its like the government asking you to let them put a dangerous bomb in your back yard that could destroy your whole neighborhood, but don't worry about the neighborhoods that used to exist, this bomb has better fail safes to prevent it from going off.
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

I wouldn't call it irrational looking at whats happening with Japan and not wanting the same thing to happen in your own country. I am sure that when they built those things in Japan they said oh no another Chernobyl disaster won't happen because it happened in a **** hole communist country,heck even a 3 mile island incident won't happen. Its like the government asking you to let them put a dangerous bomb in your back yard that could destroy your whole neighborhood, but don't worry about the neighborhoods that used to exist, this bomb has better fail safes to prevent it from going off.

Another chernobyl wont happen. Nobody was harmed by 3 mile island.

This is one of the most powerful events we've ever recorded, and the reactor is still intact. The primary containment structure is not breached, and the reactor has two.
 
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Re: Germany's knee jerks

Another chernobyl wont happen. Nobody was harmed by 3 mile island.

So you wouldn't mind living next to a nuclear power plant?
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

So you wouldn't mind living next to a nuclear power plant?

Not at all.

This is one of the most powerful events we've ever recorded, and the reactor's containment is still intact. The primary containment structure is not breached, and the reactor has two.

A coal power plant literally exposes you to more radiation than a nuclear plant does.
 
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Re: Germany's knee jerks

This is getting ridiculous.

I'm certainly not wanting to downplay the seriousness, but I think a lot of people are equating this to a hydrogen bomb exploding, which is not what is happening here.

As Deuce said, the containment structure, thus far, has not failed. And even if it does, this is not the same as a nuclear bomb going off, and the likelihood of it happening again is not great, particularly in Germany.
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

Last night I saw someone who has been in the nuclear industry for many many years and he said that all the talk of there being a massive melt down and deaths similar to those that took place in Chernobyl is virtually impossible.

I am not an expert in any way, but i would say that a melt down is a real possibility eveb if it's rare.

I also know that new technology has come along in the last few years that take this type of incident off the table for new construction.

We need to be prudent and not reactionary and over react.

Germany has some plants that are older and might need to be replaced.
 
To all those in Germany that are so concerned about this happening in your country: When was the last time your country of Germany was hit by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a resulting Tsunami?
 
To all those in Germany that are so concerned about this happening in your country: When was the last time your country of Germany was hit by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a resulting Tsunami?

Never hurts to check just in case.
 
To all those in Germany that are so concerned about this happening in your country: When was the last time your country of Germany was hit by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a resulting Tsunami?

If a tsunami hits Germany, we're all screwed. It'll hit Tennessee, too.

The freak-out factor is way out of hand here.
 
In the event of review, I am posting this information. I did not approve of the change to my post. I used my own title and only a small summary of the copied links so as to comply with copyright laws. By changing the title of my post, this forum has forced my post into a violation of the copyright laws. I have asked for the title to be changed to conform with copyright laws and I have been denied.
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

Well I guess it's a comfort to know it's not just America that has an irrational fear of nuclear power generation.


...wait, no it's not!

It would be nice to have an opertational power plant after such an event though. Power plants are known as ciritcal infrastructure. Yes, they should not blow up or emit radiation, or contaminate the ground water, but it would be even better if they functioned after a natural disaster.
 
I call this a knee jerk because Germany doesn't get bad earthquakes.

Earthquakes in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People, we need to keep in mind that this incident happened after the largest earthquake in Japan's history and the 5th largest in recorded history. This isn't an every day thing and the worst that can happen is a melt down. What happens in a melt down?

I used to live in Germany... not a military brat. My dad lived there for a while before too... but they have always been talking about shutting down their older nuclear power plants. I believe Schroder started the debate, but the focus was always on the old power plants, Soviet style, built during the cold war. They just don't think they are safe, and I believe Merkel always supported the policy too.. They just didn't have the motivation to finally start shutting some of them down until now.
 
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Re: Germany's knee jerks

Stupid is as stupid does.

They will shut these safe and clean energy plants down till the middle east blows up and/or Russia turns off their supply of natural gas.

LOL!

Shutting those plants down was an issue in Germany long before this happened... I am not surprised Germany did it. I'd be surprised if America did this

Germans Reach Deal to Phase Out Nuclear Energy - NYTimes.com

All 19 plants would have been shut down by 2020 anyway... Merkel was just pushed by the environmentalists in the country. The green energy movement is strong in Germany... more than in America, and they didn't favor nuclear power. It's really not as much as knee jerk reaction as it appears...
 
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Re: Germany's knee jerks

Ok... reading up on my German politics..

The issue of German nuclear power plants was always a hot issue in Germany... but Merkel decided to prolong the life of the power plants 12 years longer than Schroder's Admin agreed to phase them out. It was controversial move on Merkel's part. Her response to the crisis in Japan was to temporary shut them down for review... this isn't a permanent shutdown of all plants.

It's just a move to save her own @ss, because her critics are all over her now... and like I said, the critics were always loud in Germany. At least that's how it appeared to me..

She also gave some big speech about the dangers of nuclear power, which kind of tells me that she knows she has to address this issue and not ignore her critics. She's a smart woman and politician, and knows it looks bad on her and the entire CDU Party to look careless and crass on this issue...

Merkel Pushes the Emergency Button: Moratorium Seen as Ploy to Placate Voters - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
 
If a tsunami hits Germany, we're all screwed. It'll hit Tennessee, too.

The freak-out factor is way out of hand here.

A hurricane hit Germany about 3 years ago.. They spin off from the Baltic Sea... and they get tornadoes, but they are kind of rare
 
To all those in Germany that are so concerned about this happening in your country: When was the last time your country of Germany was hit by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a resulting Tsunami?

When is the last time Japan was hit by a 8.9 earthquake and Tsunami....
 
A hurricane hit Germany about 3 years ago.. They spin off from the Baltic Sea... and they get tornadoes, but they are kind of rare

Actually, it wasn't technically a hurriane as it was an extra-tropical storm, though there were some light hurricane force winds associated with it, but they don't spin out of the Baltic Sea. Too small and two cold. Any sort of storm would come out of the North Atlantic Drift (as Kyrill did in 2007). Still, it was a relatively weak storm and doesn't seem to have had any negative impact on nuclear power generation.

We get multiple storms annually in Taiwan much stronger than that storm and we have never had a problem.

While I do believe all nuclear energy production should be reassessed and we should be moving toward fourth-generation reactors, it would seem a knee-jerk reaction to end the use of nuclear power, especially in northern Europe, and especially given that at the present time, the alternatives are coal, oil, and natural gas.
 
In the event of review, I am posting this information. I did not approve of the change to my post. I used my own title and only a small summary of the copied links so as to comply with copyright laws. By changing the title of my post, this forum has forced my post into a violation of the copyright laws. I have asked for the title to be changed to conform with copyright laws and I have been denied.

BN rules -- you MUST use the same name of the article in the title of the thread...
 
Re: Germany's knee jerks

So you wouldn't mind living next to a nuclear power plant?

I live across a river from one with the same type of reactor as Three Mile Island.
 
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