Replacing them with coal plants is indeed stupid and indefensible. But shutting them down was the right choice. Some of them were in a bad shape. In one plant,

Replacing them with coal plants is indeed stupid and indefensible. But shutting them down was the right choice. Some of them were in a bad shape. In one plant, Krümmel I think, they even had trouble getting replacement parts. Another one, it turned out had a flaw in the emergency power system and didn't even have an emergency control centre. Of course, you could refit them but also that will costs money and it might be better invested in newer technologies than in those old reactors. And we have enough issues with nuclear power already, no final repository, Asse II is still a problem. At one nuclear power plant it turned out, they store radio active waste in the basement and those barrel are complete eroded over the decades. AFAIK nobody knows what to do. The company didn't put CCTV in place because they wouldn't work well with the radiation.