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They've only delayed it until its politically easier to shut it down. The German greens' leader has backed running Coal plants as an alternative[1] The whole

They've only delayed it until its politically easier to shut it down. The German greens' leader has backed running Coal plants as an alternative[1] The whole political position of this party rests on their fanatic opposition to Nuclear power. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/19/energy/germany-russia-gas-supplies-winter-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/19/energy/germany-russia-gas...

OrangeMonkey 4y ago
Mark Nelson, from Radiant Energy Group, thinks otherwise. https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1582050941682954240 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1582050941682954240 quote: > For all those commenting "only until April 2023": > No utility will decommission a nuclear plant knowing this kind of reversal is possible even with Greens still in government occupying key posts. > They will not even mothball the plants. They'll just sit and wait for elections.
_dain_ 4y ago
>The whole political position of this party rests on their fanatic opposition to Nuclear power. Btw if anyone thinks this is exaggeration, it's not. They are evil fanatics: https://twitter.com/giuliasaudelli/status/1580973130990125056 https://twitter.com/giuliasaudelli/status/158097313099012505... >"Nuclear power and fossil fuels brought us here. They caused this crisis, they are not the solution." >Strong and at times emotional speech by Robert Habeck, after weeks under pressure. Defending his actions in government, but standing by Green values. He got a standing ovation. Reality: the Greens and their allies spent half a trillion USD on the "energy transition" and turned off perfectly good nuclear reactors. Result: energy shortages and diplomatic submission to Russia. And now they blame nuclear for it. If they had spent that half a trillion on new nuclear reactors, Germany would be an energy superpower. As it stands, they're having to burn coal and wood to get through the winter.
- Isolus 4y ago
  > Reality: the Greens and their allies spent half a trillion USD on the "energy transition" and turned off perfectly good nuclear reactors. Result: energy shortages and diplomatic submission to Russia. Um no. Renewable energy is now actually cheaper than nuclear energy. You could build renewable energy + storage within the same range of cost. The problem is the former government shut down nuclear power plants and then did exactly nothing. The nuclear power plants aren't perfectly good. They are very old and would need a lot of investment if run for more than a couple of month. And germany isn't even near electric energy shortages. It's currently supplying france with a lot of energy. If electric heating were used everywhere from now on, there would be an electricity problem. But for that the electric heaters are missing.
  - evilos 4y ago
    It's only recently cheap. It's true that if they had pivoted to Nuclear instead, they would not had these energy shortfalls and maybe even Russia wouldn't have felt they had the leverage to invade Ukraine. The global output of battery storage isn't high enough to switch to solar/wind. Energy is a solved problem. It's a natural progression of mankind's command of energy. Wood->Coal->Oil->Fission. There's enough Uranium in the ground and oceans to supply humanity for million of years. We can't let a few accidents hold us back for ever.
  - rasz 4y ago
    >You could Clearly Germany couldnt, otherwise they would decommission coal plants.
    - Isolus 4y ago
      As I said, the former government startet the nuclear phase-out but they also didn't approve any new renewable energy sources for years. Regardless of the type of power plant, it is totally stupid to shut down some and not allow any new ones to be built.
  - hbgl 4y ago
    I would really like to celebrate the affordability of renewable energy but Germany has one of the highest electricity prices in the world.
- squid322 4y ago
  The decision to turn off nuclear plants in Germany was __not__ made by the greens. It was made years ago by the CDU after Fukushima.
  - Lev1a 4y ago
    > after Fukushima And can we talk about how stupid and actively malicious it is to use the Fukushima accident as a reason for shutting down nuclear plants in Germany? Fukushima: nuclear plant in a seismically very active region in very close proximity to the ocean where tsunamis are not really a rarity vs. German nuclear plants: not very seismically active (if at all), no tsunamis i've ever heard of, not counting floods as those are 1. easier to foresee and manage and 2. very much less intense than a sudden wall of water razing everything in its path. Also in Japan you kinda have to build near the coast since its surrounded by ocean on all sides while being stretched out long and not that wide with mountains as a backbone in the middle. Germany on the other hand only has the North and Baltic Sea at its northern end then progressively gets higher above sea level the more south you go, ultimately ending at the northern end of the Alps. This decision and especially this reasoning didn't make sense then and still doesn't nowadays. It was just a kneejerk reaction to retain voter support by exploiting the fear of the uneducated and the anti-nuclear crowd.
    - fsh 4y ago
      The Fukushima reactors and a lot of the german ones were built by the same company. They overlooked the flood risk on the japanese coast (which has huge tsunamis every few decades). What did they overlook elsewhere? After Chernobyl, politicians promised that western reactors could not possibly explode. Fukushima proved them wrong.
      - anton96 4y ago
        No, Fukushima proved them right. Fukushima ended in no way like Tchernobyl did. The Soviet power plan released radioactivity in the air, make an entire area inhabitable and killed a few dozen a people. Fukushima did nothing of this, everything stayed inside the structure, no radioactivity went out. As Fukushima had no recovery generators available (no fuel in them), it is a great proof that a totally out of control modern power plant is not deadly.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dr-detroit 4y ago
legulere 4y ago
The coal plants are running as an alternative to gas plants, as is described in the link you posted. The shutdown of the nuclear plants was long planned. Germany managed to decrease dependence on fossil fuels for electricity production while shutting down nuclear plants. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschla... Now another topic that should be talked about: Germany could have shut down coal first, and nuclear second.

OrangeMonkey 4y ago

Mark Nelson, from Radiant Energy Group, thinks otherwise. https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1582050941682954240 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1582050941682954240 quote: > For all those commenting "only until April 2023": > No utility will decommission a nuclear plant knowing this kind of reversal is possible even with Greens still in government occupying key posts. > They will not even mothball the plants. They'll just sit and wait for elections.

_dain_ 4y ago

>The whole political position of this party rests on their fanatic opposition to Nuclear power. Btw if anyone thinks this is exaggeration, it's not. They are evil fanatics: https://twitter.com/giuliasaudelli/status/1580973130990125056 https://twitter.com/giuliasaudelli/status/158097313099012505... >"Nuclear power and fossil fuels brought us here. They caused this crisis, they are not the solution." >Strong and at times emotional speech by Robert Habeck, after weeks under pressure. Defending his actions in government, but standing by Green values. He got a standing ovation. Reality: the Greens and their allies spent half a trillion USD on the "energy transition" and turned off perfectly good nuclear reactors. Result: energy shortages and diplomatic submission to Russia. And now they blame nuclear for it. If they had spent that half a trillion on new nuclear reactors, Germany would be an energy superpower. As it stands, they're having to burn coal and wood to get through the winter.

Isolus 4y ago
> Reality: the Greens and their allies spent half a trillion USD on the "energy transition" and turned off perfectly good nuclear reactors. Result: energy shortages and diplomatic submission to Russia. Um no. Renewable energy is now actually cheaper than nuclear energy. You could build renewable energy + storage within the same range of cost. The problem is the former government shut down nuclear power plants and then did exactly nothing. The nuclear power plants aren't perfectly good. They are very old and would need a lot of investment if run for more than a couple of month. And germany isn't even near electric energy shortages. It's currently supplying france with a lot of energy. If electric heating were used everywhere from now on, there would be an electricity problem. But for that the electric heaters are missing.
- evilos 4y ago
  It's only recently cheap. It's true that if they had pivoted to Nuclear instead, they would not had these energy shortfalls and maybe even Russia wouldn't have felt they had the leverage to invade Ukraine. The global output of battery storage isn't high enough to switch to solar/wind. Energy is a solved problem. It's a natural progression of mankind's command of energy. Wood->Coal->Oil->Fission. There's enough Uranium in the ground and oceans to supply humanity for million of years. We can't let a few accidents hold us back for ever.
- rasz 4y ago
  >You could Clearly Germany couldnt, otherwise they would decommission coal plants.
  - Isolus 4y ago
    As I said, the former government startet the nuclear phase-out but they also didn't approve any new renewable energy sources for years. Regardless of the type of power plant, it is totally stupid to shut down some and not allow any new ones to be built.
- hbgl 4y ago
  I would really like to celebrate the affordability of renewable energy but Germany has one of the highest electricity prices in the world.
squid322 4y ago
The decision to turn off nuclear plants in Germany was __not__ made by the greens. It was made years ago by the CDU after Fukushima.
- Lev1a 4y ago
  > after Fukushima And can we talk about how stupid and actively malicious it is to use the Fukushima accident as a reason for shutting down nuclear plants in Germany? Fukushima: nuclear plant in a seismically very active region in very close proximity to the ocean where tsunamis are not really a rarity vs. German nuclear plants: not very seismically active (if at all), no tsunamis i've ever heard of, not counting floods as those are 1. easier to foresee and manage and 2. very much less intense than a sudden wall of water razing everything in its path. Also in Japan you kinda have to build near the coast since its surrounded by ocean on all sides while being stretched out long and not that wide with mountains as a backbone in the middle. Germany on the other hand only has the North and Baltic Sea at its northern end then progressively gets higher above sea level the more south you go, ultimately ending at the northern end of the Alps. This decision and especially this reasoning didn't make sense then and still doesn't nowadays. It was just a kneejerk reaction to retain voter support by exploiting the fear of the uneducated and the anti-nuclear crowd.
  - fsh 4y ago
    The Fukushima reactors and a lot of the german ones were built by the same company. They overlooked the flood risk on the japanese coast (which has huge tsunamis every few decades). What did they overlook elsewhere? After Chernobyl, politicians promised that western reactors could not possibly explode. Fukushima proved them wrong.
    - anton96 4y ago
      No, Fukushima proved them right. Fukushima ended in no way like Tchernobyl did. The Soviet power plan released radioactivity in the air, make an entire area inhabitable and killed a few dozen a people. Fukushima did nothing of this, everything stayed inside the structure, no radioactivity went out. As Fukushima had no recovery generators available (no fuel in them), it is a great proof that a totally out of control modern power plant is not deadly.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dr-detroit 4y ago

legulere 4y ago

The coal plants are running as an alternative to gas plants, as is described in the link you posted. The shutdown of the nuclear plants was long planned. Germany managed to decrease dependence on fossil fuels for electricity production while shutting down nuclear plants. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutschla... Now another topic that should be talked about: Germany could have shut down coal first, and nuclear second.