Laying out key priorities for the EU’s upcoming Clean Industrial Deal, German Economy State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Monday (30 September) he wants the Commission to prioritise renewable energy, taking a tough line on nuclear power and France’s renewable targets.
Alongside a quicker roll-out of renewable energy facilitated by “further exemptions from [environmental impact] assessments,” Giegold outlined several other German priorities for the EU’s upcoming strategy.
Based on the 2030 renewable energy targets, the EU should also set up a 2040 framework, complemented by new, more ambitious targets for energy efficiency, he said.
“It should include new heating standards, a heat pump action plan and a renovation initiative,” he explained, noting a heat pump action plan was last shelved in 2023.
Hydrogen, made from renewables, should be governed by a “a pragmatic framework,” the German politician stressed, reiterating calls from his boss, Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), to delay strict production rules into the late 2030s.
Nuclear ain’t clean when you don’t have a solution for spent Uranium Rods.
We don’t have a solution for all the CO2 in the atmosphere, yet we happily continue burning fossil fuels at record levels.
And I wonder what exactly you think the danger is of radioactive waste. We have excellent methods of getting it into caskets safely. Maybe don’t dig it out of its casket and eat it? Then you’ll be fine.
Not to mention the dozens of ultra deadly forever chemicals we use by the tons in industrial processes. We store them perfectly fine and they pose a much greater risk to people of they were to come into contact with it.
It’s like we have this thing that guaranteed kills millions every year and causes so much suffering, but we keep on using it because the alternative might have some downsides. It’s so weird.
And where do you store that casket? That still leaks radiation.
But yeah both have downsides (nuclear and coal/gas/oil) so we need to force more Renewables.
The caskets don’t leak radiation, you can hug them and be perfectly fine.
Even renewables have their downsides, nothing is without downsides, but we need to way them fairly and equally. But nuclear for most people is like the boogeyman and gets an unfair treatment, even though it’s used with great succes all over the world.
With solar for example we are currently producing huge amounts of solar panels, but often (in China for example) the waste generated with this isn’t handled properly. Also they have a life span of 15-20 years and we haven’t figured out the recycling all that well. Do these issues stop us from going all in on solar? Hell no, we need to go in fully on solar. But with nuclear (in some parts of the world at least) it’s like it needs to be perfect, with no outstanding issues in order for it to even be considered an option.
And just wait till you find out they pump deadly industrial waste straight into the ground using injection wells, where it just sits for thousands of years. Nobody ever makes a fuss about that. But putting some concrete caskets into an old mine is somehow a crime against humanity. It makes zero sense.
