Germany: how to save the remaining six nuclear power plants

In the face of the imminent shutdown of three german nuclear plants in january 2022 and the switch-off of the remaining three plants in 2023, experts contemplate how to save them in order to meet the climate goals and also preserve energy security for Germany, writes WELT:

Time is running out. In a good eight weeks, three of the last six German nuclear power plants will be shut down, and the rest will follow in 14 months. That is more than all solar systems installed since the beginning of the energy transition provide. What is switched off there has so far contributed to clean electricity generation in Germany about as much as 15,000 of the total of 30,000 wind turbines.

A gigatonne of CO2 could be saved if the reactors were to continue to operate, have calculated technology-oriented climate protection associations such as “Öko-Moderne e.V.”. Such organizations have come together to form the “saveger6” initiative, an abbreviation for “save Germany’s six”, to “rescue” the last six German nuclear power plants.

Germany: physicist praises new Dual-fluid reactor

German physicist Dr. Götz Ruprecht advertises a new type of nuclear Dual-fluid-reactor. He claims the reactor to be inherently safe and more efficient than any other reactor design:

"Ruprecht: The recycling of fuel rods is complex and expensive. The rapid-gap reactors used today are therefore not an option.

WELT: Then why the DFR?

Ruprecht: Because it is a fast reactor but has no fuel rods. Two liquids flow through its core, one carries the fuel, the other is the coolant. This technology, on which we hold a patent, enables the use of the entire uranium. And once the reactor runs, it becomes an omnivore: it can convert natural uranium, thorium, but also nuclear waste. Then we would not need a repository."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/plus207983265/Dual-Fluid-Reaktor-So-laesst-sich-Atommuell-vernichten.html?ticket=ST-A-319819-KKl0omsNSfLjQs4tmBdH-sso-signin-server

New York Times Opinion: Nuclear power can save the world

Another plea for nuclear in an april opinion piece of the New York Times:

"All this, however, depends on overcoming an irrational dread among the public and many activists. The reality is that nuclear power is the safest form of energy humanity has ever used. Mining accidents, hydroelectric dam failures, natural gas explosions and oil train crashes all kill people, sometimes in large numbers, and smoke from coal-burning kills them in enormous numbers, more than half a million per year.

By contrast, in 60 years of nuclear power, only three accidents have raised public alarm: Three Mile Island in 1979, which killed no one; Fukushima in 2011, which killed no one (many deaths resulted from the tsunami and some from a panicked evacuation near the plant); and Chernobyl in 1986, the result of extraordinary Soviet bungling, which killed 31 in the accident and perhaps several thousand from cancer, around the same number killed by coal emissions every day. (Even if we accepted recent claims that Soviet and international authorities covered up tens of thousands of Chernobyl deaths, the death toll from 60 years of nuclear power would still equal about one month of coal-related deaths.)"

 You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-nuclear-power.html