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You make it sound like it's just the greens. In reality, it was a conservative Christian Democrat lead government that decided to get rid of nuclear power. Toge

You make it sound like it's just the greens. In reality, it was a conservative Christian Democrat lead government that decided to get rid of nuclear power. Together with SPD, the socialists. Both are moderate parties and quite representative of the German attitude towards nuclear. There hasn't been a government without either SPD or CDU leading it. No other party has ever supplied a chancellor in post war Germany. And you'd be wrong to assume FDP is very pro-nuclear. The current government features SPD (labour), the Greens, and the FDP (conservative). They have their work cut out but it's not an impossible job. Nuclear might get a temporary and short extension of life in Germany but that 8GW is not going to matter a whole lot relative to the tens of GW of gas that are used for electricity and the many GW more that are being used for heating. The numbers just don't add up. Short term it helps as a stop gap solution but long term there's a need for many tens of GW of additional capacity. Most of that inevitably is going to be wind and solar. Gas is a complete non starter at this point. And coal is quite expensive and coal supplies also are a bit tricky as most of that actually also came from Russia. The Ukrainian crisis is basically succeeding in making the Germans go cold turkey on gas and coal in a hurry. It's going to be disruptive and expensive but they are going to get it done much earlier than they were originally planning even a year ago. The disruption will be mainly to industry which will suffer most of the consequences of high prices and limited availability of gas. However, that will cause industry to respond by investing in reducing their dependency on those energy sources. Once that takes effect, the transition is permanent. Probably, ten years from now, most coal production in Germany will be gone; most gas heating and electricity will be gone and what little remains will be powered using expensive imports. Some of which might still come from Russia.

cardanome 4y ago
> Most of that inevitably is going to be wind and solar. Gas is a complete non starter at this point. And coal is quite expensive and coal supplies also are a bit tricky as most of that actually also came from Russia. Wind and Solar have the drawback of not being a constant or reliable source of energy. Yes, they provide cheap and clean energy but not always when you need it. Yes, the solution would be to save the energy when you need it BUT we don't have that, yet. I really hope we will figure something out but we need not face reality: The tech is not there yet. It might take decades that we don't have. This is so frustrating to argue with people. Like, I really like your optimism but we don't have a saving solution. We have some ideas but scaling them up towards the scope that we actually need is not easily done. I really wish you were right but the facts don't add add. > However, that will cause industry to respond by investing in reducing their dependency on those energy sources. Since when do they know that they should be transitioning to other sources? Decades? What have the done? Nothing. As long there are other countries with cheap gas I am not so optimistic. Yes, some will make the transitions, other will move production to other countries and lot's of them we will simply lose. The next years will be brutal. Only when the international community actually starts to take climate change and dependence on gas more serious will we see some change.

cardanome 4y ago

> Most of that inevitably is going to be wind and solar. Gas is a complete non starter at this point. And coal is quite expensive and coal supplies also are a bit tricky as most of that actually also came from Russia. Wind and Solar have the drawback of not being a constant or reliable source of energy. Yes, they provide cheap and clean energy but not always when you need it. Yes, the solution would be to save the energy when you need it BUT we don't have that, yet. I really hope we will figure something out but we need not face reality: The tech is not there yet. It might take decades that we don't have. This is so frustrating to argue with people. Like, I really like your optimism but we don't have a saving solution. We have some ideas but scaling them up towards the scope that we actually need is not easily done. I really wish you were right but the facts don't add add. > However, that will cause industry to respond by investing in reducing their dependency on those energy sources. Since when do they know that they should be transitioning to other sources? Decades? What have the done? Nothing. As long there are other countries with cheap gas I am not so optimistic. Yes, some will make the transitions, other will move production to other countries and lot's of them we will simply lose. The next years will be brutal. Only when the international community actually starts to take climate change and dependence on gas more serious will we see some change.