Swiss To End Use of Nuclear Power

mdsolar writes "Energy minister Doris Leuthard is set to propose Switzerland gradually exits nuclear power, two Swiss newspapers reported on Sunday, citing sources close to the government. The multi-party Swiss government was expected to make an announcement on nuclear policy on Wednesday and may recommend an exit. Switzerland's five nuclear reactors generate about 40 percent of the country's electricity."

Re:What will they replace it with?

[xMrFishx]

Pacifism, obviously.

Re:Posted by 'mdsolar'

[clang_jangle]

The Japanese situation has people like mdsolar doing the Chicken Little all over the web. In reality they should feel reassured because the worst has happened and it didn't mean the end of the world. Hell, it didn't even mean the end of one small set of islands. That's quite good news, isn't it?

Re:Headline Misleading

[CrimsonAvenger]

Or perhaps we should just address the root problem, which is too many people, for a planet this size, at our current efficiencies. If the effort that went into typical 'green' causes (anti-nuke, wind, anti-whaling, etc) were to be directed instead towards slowing down the human population explosion, maybe then we could hit equilibrium and sustainability.

Hmm, US population growth is almost entirely a result of immigration (illegal and otherwise). We have almost the lowest population density of any industrial civilization.

Europe has a negative population growth, excluding immigration. It has been under 0.17% (including immigration) for the last five or so years.

China has a population growth rate comparable to the US's, or a bit lower. No immigration to speak of, of course.

India's population growth rate is still healthy (slightly above 1.5%), but lower than it was as recently as 40 years ago.

So it doesn't really look all that much like population is the big issue here.

Big issue, such as it is, is that more of China's and India's population wants to enjoy the kind of living conditions we take pretty much for granted in the western nations - electricity, running water, sewage treatment, that sort of thing.

Re:Have you noticed the Swiss have mountains?

[Errol backfiring]

So that is why the Dutch powered their golden age mainly with wind power. Wind + mountains = buffer. Just pump up water and attach the hydro generators to your precious grid. Gee, I wonder how mankind has ever accomplished anything before there even was a grid.

Re:What will they replace it with?

[Pinky's Brain]

They could always just ask France to build extra plants and import the electricity, I doubt a national nuclear program with all the regulatory mess which comes with it is cheaper. With France's economy of scale and a waste management infrastructure within it's own borders it has comparative advantage for nuclear power generation.

Re:What will they replace it with?

[nospam007]

"With France's economy of scale and a waste management infrastructure within it's own borders it has comparative advantage for nuclear power generation."

France builds reactors 1 mile from the border (Chooz, Cattenom, Fessenheim...), so in case of an accident, half of the damage goes to a foreign country. Sneaky.

Re:Headline Misleading

[peragrin]

For Japan to replace the 6 fukishima reactors, japan will need to build something like 12,000 2 MW wind turbines. If you put it on the coast your going to use something along the lines of 1,000 miles of shoreline.

To replace with PV solar you need a similar land area devoted to cells.

With Solar salt you get a higher density, so maybe only 20 solar salt plants.

To replace with tidal means you have to destroy your fishing grounds.

Geo thermal might be possible but with the number of earthquakes you will run into problems.

Take a good look at actual power output of the worlds largest turbine, and solar fields and then compare it to a single nuclear reactor. What you will find is that Nuclear aircraft carriers have larger power plants.