Yep stupid !! and there isnt much down for there economy without cheap and plentyfull energy, Im no expert but it seems japanese companys are off shoreing manufacturing for instance not one of the pick up trucks are made in japan anymore its gone to thailand , south africa and spain now !! we would do well to take note and not make the same mistake HMMM....

Yes but would you rather have subsidised something that works 24/7 and keeps the lights on and people warm or subsidy for rich people to have windmills...???

RWE and Eon arguably aren't pulling out of the Horizons venture because nuclear is fundamentally un-economic, RWE in particular is taking a big hit in Germany where the nuclear plants are being forced to close, and coupled with the economic climate the large up front capital costs are too much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_b...

Estimates have large error margins, and it's difficult to compare as it is never a level playing field (subsidies, tax breaks etc.). Gas still takes some beating, and the new plants are highly efficient. Depending on how important you think it is to reduce CO2 emissions and/or reduce dependence on imported fuels, then gas isn't a long term option. From the Wiki page, wind seems to come out at a similar cost to nuclear - but this is comparing apples with oranges as nuclear has a 90% capacity factor vs. 33% for wind, and that difference has to be made up with a mix of energy storage and backup generation, neither of which is cheap!

But re: the original article - all of the plants in Japan have had to shutdown and go through stringent safety checks, which IMO isn't a bad thing (although not necessarily what the economy needs right now). The anti-nuke camp is jumping on the opportunity to make sure that they don't get switched back on though, which is going to cost Japan a lot (as well as being considerably worse for public health and the environment than nuclear ever will be!) as they will have to import a shed load of fossil fuel to make up the ~30% shortfall.

Not really - nucleur power provides less than 30% of Japan's power .

And dont you think theyve had their fair share of 'issues' with nucleur...

What I found totally confounding was Germany's knee-jerk reaction to close all of their reactors in response to Fukushima. Brave or foolhardy?

I've been to a few talks on nuclear/renewables from people in the industry and there seems to be a general opinion that if anyone can make it work on a big scale, it will be the Germans - it's an interesting country-scale control group. They probably can make it work, it's just going to be very, very expensive. There is plenty of rooftop solar already installed, and potential for lots of wind energy in the North Sea (although this has to be transmitted to the industrial south, and the infrastructure currently isn't there). I don't know what % of renewables they are aiming for or how they plan to smooth out the generation (although I suspect they have more interconnections than we do?).

Clearly Germany's nuclear plants aren't in much danger of a tsunami, they and neighbouring France have been using them for >30 years without any problems so it wasn't at all logical. The decision wasn't based on a rational scientific/engineering discussion, it was politically driven. Merkel got away with giving all the nukes a life extension in late 2010 but in the regional elections after Fukushima, the Greens and anti-nuclear sentiment in general gave her party a bit of a bloody nose so she reversed the decision and they'll all be shut down by 2020ish.

Trumpeted a lot less by the Greens is that Germany is planning to build some truly filthy brown coal power stations (cos the coal is cheap), plans for which have been brought forward to offset the drop in nuclear generation. There is some notional investment for 'clean coal', but it's just to put positive spin on it. And again, they will do far more damage to the environment and public health than nuclear ever could.

http://thegwpf.org/international-news/5536-germany...

How many were killed by Chernobyl?

About 65.

50 to 100,000 Americans die because of particulate air pollution, the biggest cause of which is CPPs.

Even taking the max predicted death toll from Chernobyl, you'd about 1 Chernobyl accident every three weeks to equate to the deaths from fossil fuels.

If you can quote your sources rather than your own assumptions that would be good. There is a fairly straight forward solution to the waste disposal, which is internment deep underground, preferably in a subduction zone, but the concern is thousands of years someone may accidently mine that area. Frankly I'd prefer solutions created by those in the know ie nuclear scientists/mining engineers, rather than people informed by opinion. Last time I checked I failed to note any decisions made by politicians with a doctorate in nuclear engineering?