segnosaur Posted October 9, 2012 Report Posted October 9, 2012 public safety has always been the primary safety concern from day one So, the people who work to install solar panels (and who often fall to their deaths doing so) are not "members of the public"? The miners who dig out things like copper (used in some types of solar panels) are not "members of the public"? What are they, aliens? Slaves? ..industrial/work place deaths are a fact of life that will always be with us... Once concept you just don't seem to understand: An industrial death will not happen if there is nobody in the industry. One source of deaths from Solar are installation accidents (e.g. falling off the roof.) How many people do you know actually hang out on the roof? (Not sure about you, but I kinda prefer to be sitting on a nice comfy couch inside my house.) If people weren't installing solar panels, then there's not much chance that they'd be on the roof in the first place. Similarly, as I pointed out, Solar panels need more raw materials than nuclear... things like copper. (Yes, they need materials for nuclear power, but much less than for similar solar installations.) So, if the miners (many of whom die in accidents) weren't digging out the copper needed for the solar panels, why would they have been underground in the first place? Think they would be living under there in order to hang out with the mole-people? Quote
carepov Posted October 9, 2012 Report Posted October 9, 2012 I don't know, that wasn't the point of the thread...france will do what ever they want...germany is closing all it's nuclear plants by 2022, the plants provide some 23% of the countries energy, they shut down 8 reactors following fukishima and do not intend to restart those...germany has made a strong move into green energy...apparently the Germans don't know as much as some of our forum members as they think the risk of a nuclear energy catastrophe is to high a price to pay... Yes, you make a good point about Germany. Above all I admire Germany and other northern European countries for their efforts in conservation. They are leaders in solar and it looks like they are generating around 7% of their energy needs via solar. I sincerely hope that a breakthrough occurs in solar but I am sceptical due to its limitations. Renewables will not be enough to make up the loss of nuclear power: “At the moment, more than 20 new coal-fired power plants are being planned or already under construction in Germany; together, these plants would achieve a total output of 10 gigawatts and could, in terms of power supply, replace the nuclear power plants that are still operational.” http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/CO2REPORT2012.pdf Yes it does look like Germany is reducing CO2, but… http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/15/germanys-per-kilowatt-hour-co2-emissions-jump-4-transformation-to-renewables-flops/ Also, does anyone know: if Germany imports solar panels from China, do the CO2 emissions from the manufacture of the panels count in Germany or in China? I have great respect for their country but I would assume that German politicians are quite capable of making counter-productive decisions in order to gain votes. Quote
Moonbox Posted October 9, 2012 Report Posted October 9, 2012 (edited) Germany relies on coal for their energy. It accounts for probably 40-50% of their electricity generation. As they shut down nuclear plants, they'll be replacing it with clean, yet inefficient and expensive renewables and also a lot more coal. It seems pretty counter-productive, but I don't live there so w/e. Edited October 9, 2012 by Moonbox Quote "A man is no more entitled to an opinion for which he cannot account than he is for a pint of beer for which he cannot pay" - Anonymous
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