Yes, nuclear would eventually have been pushed out of Germany's generating mix as higher renewable penetration demanded more flexible complementary generation.

Yes, nuclear would eventually have been pushed out of Germany's generating mix as higher renewable penetration demanded more flexible complementary generation. But it wasn't going to happen this soon. In 2010 the German government agreed to extend nuclear plant lifetimes by an average of 12 years, into the 2030s: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11194117 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11194117 The German government reversed course less than a year later following the Fukushima accidents. 8 German reactors were shut down swiftly and the 9 others are scheduled to shut down by 2022. German coal consumption and emissions rose above the 2010 level for multiple years after the 8 reactors stopped, and I expect a similar effect after 2022. I understand that the voters wouldn't stand for reactor life extensions after Fukushima, but this reversal definitely made decarbonization slower and more expensive. The other thing that seems to be impairing German decarbonization efforts more recently is that they're not shutting coal plants as fast as economically feasible. The plants provide too many jobs. Germany has efficient, new, idle combined cycle gas turbine plants like Irsching Power Station: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-uniper-irsching-notification/operator-of-german-irsching-gas-plant-applies-for-further-idling-idUKKBN1HX2LS https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-uniper-irsching-notificati... Given the downward trend of European gas prices it seems like shutting down some old coal plants and buying fuel for these modern gas plants would be a pretty affordable way to reduce emissions at the margin. The gas plants are also more flexible than coal. But gas plants need only 20 or 30 people to operate where coal plants of equivalent output need hundreds. So Germany delays the retirement of dirty, inefficient coal plants as a sop to the economically depressed regions where they are concentrated. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/world/europe/germany-coal-climate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/world/europe/germany-coal...