@VQuaschning

CC: @kravietz

#Kernenergie #Atommülls #Asse

@aerofreak

That’s actually a very good case study in German radiophobia, because Germany already has two deep geologic repositories (Herfa-Neurode and Zielitz) which already store thousands of tons of highly toxic chemical waste (arsenic, cyanide, mercury etc) from the chemical industry. But because it’s not radioactive, nobody talks about it - which is absurd from physical point of view, because spent nuclear fuel loses 70% of its radiotoxicity in just 100 years, while chemical waste loses its toxicity… never.

https://www.kpluss.com/en-us/our-business-products/waste-management/underground-disposal/

Another gross manipulation is linking Asse with nuclear power, because there’s no spent nuclear fuel stored in Asse - it’s mostly industrial waste legally classified as “radioactive” such as gloves, rubber boots, tools and some medium- and low-level waste from nuclear medicine. Which, of course, everybody happily uses in Germany to treat cancer but nobody talks about abandoning it, because on emotional level it’s impossible to built hysteria around nuclear power but exclude medicine from that.

P.S. I don’t even mention German and Austrian radon spas, because from radiophobic point of view these are huge caves filled with radioactive water… except people go there voluntarily for dubious health effects 😂

@VQuaschning

@kravietz

I don’t know where you’ve got the 70 years from, but plutonium-239 only decays by 50% after 24,000 years. Iodine-129, which is also found in nuclear waste, has a half-life of 16 million years.
I suggest you spend a night in one of those storage facilities and we’ll see how you feel about nuclear power afterwards. 😂

@VQuaschning

@aerofreak

“has a half-life of 16 million years”

The key mistake you’re making is not understanding the physical relation between half-life and activity. It’s really very simple: isotope activity is directly determined by the speed of its decay, so high-active isotopes have short half-life while low-active isotopes have long half-life.

So if you really want to scare ignorant people with radiophobic scare stories I have a better suggestion: use potassium-40 as It has half-life of 1.248 billion years. That sounds much better than some ridiculous 16 million years, doesn’t it?

However, be careful not to mention that potassium-40 is present everywhere, including food, plants etc, and its metabolism is directly responsible for natural radioactivity of human body which is around ~4000 Bq, because if your audience is truly radiophobic they may suffer from a severe paranoia as result.

@VQuaschning

@kravietz

I suggest you read publications like this one before spreading false information:

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste

And then good luck with the Polish NPP in Gdańsk, if it ever gets finished. Instead of the planned 40 billion euros, it will end up costing 70 to 80 billion. Just think how many solar panels you could install on Polish rooftops for that money! Decentralised energy supply.
And where are you going to buy the nuclear fuel rods? In Russia? 😜

@VQuaschning

@aerofreak

You should really read the references you plan to use as a counter-argument 😄

Reprocessing separates residual uranium and plutonium from the fission products. The uranium and plutonium can be used again as fuel.

Quoting your comment:

if it ever gets finished

How is the German DESERTEC project going? Yes, the very same that was going to “power the whole EU from PV in Sahara”, as advertised in the 2011 Energiewende documents? 🤔 Oh wait, it’s not producing any electricity because it was never completed!

Nuclear power projects in Europe were delayed as result of regulative capture, but both Flamanville and Olkiluoto 3 are now operational. The only one delayed is Hinkley Point C… but so is, for example, Denmark Energy Island:

https://www.newsweek.com/denmark-energy-island-billion-delays-1945598

how many solar panels you could install on Polish rooftops

Germany has 70 GW in PV, here’s how its electricity generation looks like today (Poland for comparison)

@VQuaschning

@aerofreak @VQuaschning

But here’s a surprise! Why has France 17x less emissions? 🤔 I wonder what’s the difference in generation between these three countries?