>...Shutting down nuclear makes sense, we have much safer ways nowadays to generate (transform) energy. Unfortunately Germany took the approach of shutting dow

>...Shutting down nuclear makes sense, we have much safer ways nowadays to generate (transform) energy. Unfortunately Germany took the approach of shutting down nuclear before they had eliminated all coal plants. An operating coal plant will kill many people just through its normal emissions. >...The five EU countries whose coal power plants do the most harm abroad are Poland (causing 4,690 premature deaths abroad); Germany (2,490); Romania (1,660); Bulgaria (1,390) and the UK (1,350). Besides killing people in neighboring countries, Germans are also prematurely dying due to their use of coal and being downwind of its neighbors: >...The five EU countries most heavily impacted by coal pollution from neighbouring countries, in addition to that from their own plants are: Germany (3,630 premature deaths altogether), Italy (1,610); France (1,380); Greece (1,050) and Hungary (700). https://caneurope.org/report-europe-s-dark-cloud-coal-burning-eu-countries-make-their-neighbours-sick/#:~:text=The%20five%20EU%20countries%20most,)%20and%20Hungary%20(700) https://caneurope.org/report-europe-s-dark-cloud-coal-burnin.... As a comparison, in 2022, there were 2,776 road traffic fatalities in Germany. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331134/road-traffic-fatalities-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331134/road-traffic-fat... While Germany has a long term goal of stopping the burning of coal, every year this is delayed is more people dying. Energy supply disruptions have actually caused them to increase their use of coal: >...The ‘intensive use’ of German coal power plants lead to additional emissions of 15.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2022, according to a report by consultancy Energy Brainpool commissioned by Green Planet Energy. Due to the energy crisis caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, Germany temporarily reopened decommissioned and soon-to-be decommissioned coal power plants last year to avert gas shortages, which resulted in more CO2 being released. According to the authors, the emissions are ‘additional’ because they are not accounted for in the European Emissions Trading System (ETS). Germany's total emissions amounted to about 750 million tonnes last year https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/intensive-use-german-coal-power-plants-releases-additional-15-mio-t-co2-2022-report#:~:text=Coal-,Clean%20Energy%20Wire,commissioned%20by%20Green%20Planet%20Energy https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/intensive-use-german-co.... >...Storing the nuclear waste is an unsolved issue that is passed on to our children. In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can be recycled (as it is in France) which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste In the future there will be better solutions to deal with the rest of the waste. Newer reactor designs would also make it possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...What is more important today is why fast reactors are fuel-efficient: because fast neutrons can fission or "burn out" all the transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides) many of which last tens of thousands of years or longer and make conventional nuclear waste disposal so problematic. Most of the radioactive fission products (FPs) the reactor produces have much shorter half-lives: they are intensely radioactive in the short term but decay quickly. Through many cycles, the IFR ultimately causes 99.9% of the uranium and transuranium elements to undergo fission and produce power; so its waste is just the fission products. These have much shorter half lives; so in 300 years their radioactivity will fall below that of the original uranium ore." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry some people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least.