Why not? Merz is the chancellor after all. It’s safe to assume the majority of voters wanted him to be in power, even if they are all retirees and idiots.
That is no excuse, our majority has been voting again and again for a mixture of CDU and SPD - two parties that give a fuck about the environment. And the AFD is probably gaining more and more votes. This country is becoming a total shit show. Aber die Grünen…
Show me one country governed by a green majority. Also, prove the majority vote for SPD and CDU is based in a support for coal and not just climate being not a priority when voting.
My point is it is pointless to point at Germany for “supporting” coal burning electricity. Germany is not a singularity here and has the same problems with conservative politicians as any other european country.
Climate not being a priority is the ground for leaders to support coal and overall inaction.
Same as in France, where Macron said (again) that he couldn’t possibly anticipate a historical canicule event, even though there was one in 2003, and scientists and activists have been warning that France was warming up at least twice faster than the rest of the world.
Same in Canada where Carney rescinded almost all climate policies in favor of oil business.
It’s time to recognize our collective responsibility here: we elect ignorant idiots!
Germany reopened coal mines cause it was too scared of alternatives like nuclear. To me that’s like stabing yourself with a knife cause you are afraid of a bug bite
Since everyone mostly responded to the nuclear stuff, I am not very aware of a reopening or even extention of german coal mining. As far as I know the predefined end of germanys coal mining (at the very least surface coal mining) is still 2030 (unless the CDU decided to fuck that over as well).
To me, your take is completely uninformed, so allow me to enlighten you. When Russia attacked Ukraine, oil prices spiked and conservative media were trying to cause a panic that Germany hadn’t enough natural gas to get through the winter. Tangent: The natural gas levels are much lower today than they ever were 2022, but because we now have a conservative government, conservative media doesn’t care. Anyway, because the start of the Ukraine war was such a volatile time and to assuage any fears, the last government decided to give the last 3 operational nuclear power plants a 6 month extension and to bring back coal power plants as backup. And that is what they ever where. A backup. And building nuclear power takes decades and costs billions. They help neither in the short-, nor long-term.
After the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and subsequent anti-nuclear protests, the government announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022.[7][8] Eight of the 17 operating reactors in Germany were permanently shut down following Fukushima.
While nuclear power was gradually phased out of the German power mix, Germany increased its use of fossil fuel energy by 7% over the period 2002–2022, with a massive increase in usage of natural gas and only modest reductions of coal power and oil power.[9] By some estimates, Germany could have achieved a 73% reduction in its carbon emissions by retaining nuclear power during the period 2002–2022 and could have saved €696 billion on its energy transition.[9]
Yeah well, that’s the conservative government for you. We could’ve just as easily transitioned from nuclear to renewables, which don’t have the nuclear waste problem that is still unsolved. And Germany was for a brief time leading renewable energy innovation. But when the conservative government was faced with the cost of providing the infrastructure for this up-and-coming industry branch of the future, they instead cut all funding. This directly lead to the downfall of the German renewable sector (“Altmaier-Delle”). So while you are correct, when taking into account the entire time span from 2002, that Germany increased its reliance on coal and natural gas especially, it is incorrect to say that not sticking with nuclear was the sole reason for this. Betting on renewables was absolutely feasible even back then, as the current boom of renewables aptly demonstrates. But the conservatives do what conservatives do best: Stifle the future by fearing the up-front investment cost and sticking to the old and familiar instead of betting on the new and future-proof, even when the old way of doing this has already been shown to be unsustainable.
Regardless how you see it, keeping nuclear plants running would have considerably reduced the need for coal and gas, which should be the damn absolute priority.
One actually infuriating thing is, the EU set targets and penalties over installed renewable capacity, not over emissions.
So while Germany is generating considerably more emissions that most of western Europe, they were the “good citizen”, but France had to pay penalties for not having installed enough renewables.
sry but german nuclear power plants were a mismanaged mess and their closure probably saved lives. all power plants along the rhine river leaked thousands of tobs of irradiated water into the environment, same goes for those at the neckar. those are the ones i know for a fact.
they were outdated. mismanaged and ticking time bombs and it was time to put them to rest, maybe not that quick but better than never.
building new power plants just doesn’t make sense because renewables are just WAYYYY cheaper in the long run aswell as the fact nobody wants to build or run a power plant. that’s just an afd and markus söder pipedream.
solar/wind is about 7ct/kwh after investments while nuclear fuel is at about 35ct/kwh
our renewable output is almost doubling every year despite the cdu government’s best efforts to turn back to coal because reiche is a board member of E.On.
Fuck germany but their nuclear exit was a net positive.
Seems like nuclear power plants leaking would be big news in Europe, we are not living in the Simpsons universe, so I would also like a source on that.
I am all up for renewables, but the fear mongering and hate of nuclear energy is not racional, the amount of human deaths caused per TWh of coal is 58 people while nuclear has only killed 0.003 people per the same amount of energy produced, and this isn’t even considering the global warming effects and associated deaths. So yeah renewables are better than nuclear, but nuclear is vaaaaaaaaaaaaaastly better than coal
if you look into the other comment you’ll see i posted a link with a map of all european npp’s and if you click on them you’ll see all recorded accidents at these power plants.
i’m also not trying to argue that nuclear is worse than coal, far from it evn. but the power plants we had were old and dangerous and in the age of cheap renewables it doesn’t make sense to build them anymore in europe
all power plants along the rhine river leaked thousands of tobs of irradiated water into the environment, same goes for those at the neckar. those are the ones i know for a fact.
You have to do a bit more than just open the website and immediately dismiss it. Granted, it’s in German, but clicking on the individual reactors gives you a list of incidents there.
If you want something more condensed, here is a list of incidents in
That was 2023 to prevent an energy crisis triggered by the russian invasion in Ukraine and these coal plants (not mines!) were already shut down again.
Only because your entire country was brainwashed by Russian propaganda in the '90s. Germany used to produce 25% of its power from nuclear. As far as I can tell, currently you produce none from nuclear and still 25% from coal and another 25% from natural gas.
Most of our fuel rods came from russia. Also, nuclear is prohibitively expensive, uninsureable, and has unanswered questions regarding permanent waste storage.
The answer is both. Germany really did fuck up closing those plants. Just like the US 🥲 and for more reasons than you know. Breeding plutonium wouldn’t be the worst idea at this point in history.
Idk about that, but even if, but uranium is fairly abundant in the earth, more than gold or silver. Getting it from somewhere else is not a big deal.
nuclear is prohibitively expensive
Upfront, absolutely. But cost drop dramatically with life time of the plant.
uninsureable
That’s wrong. Nuclear Power Plants are incredibly safe. The security standards are immense and if everything is done by the books, nothing will happen.
Fukushima was a problem of risk assessment and massive complacency about procedures, where fundamental security protocols were ignored to “safe some money”. Also, building a nuclear power plant in an area that is facing tsunamis almost regularly was pretty dumb. And Chernobyl was a case of “What happens if we experiment with that hot rock we know nothing about?”
and has unanswered questions regarding permanent waste storage.
Yes, but it’s no longer as much of a problem. We’ve gotten really damn good at reusing burnt out fuel rods. I think we’re able to reuse like 60% of the burnt out fuel rods, dramatically lowering the waste we produce. And I once read about a theoretical processing method that could be able to reuse 95% of the rods, making the waste almost negligible. Even tho that processing method hasn’t been put to the test yet afaik.
Renewables are the answer
Probably not for germany. We don’t fulfill the requirements for widely used renewable power.
Solar is the first choice, we’d need absurd amounts of space for solar panels. Also, it’s obviously only available during the day, making batteries necessary. And I mean a LOT of fucking batteries.
Wind is great and widely available in the north of germany - but that doesn’t help the south. Moving power from north germany to south germany is incredibly inefficient and wasteful. Also has the battery problem.
Hydro is cool, where available. Just bad that it’s barely available. Same with geothermal.
Leaves us with biomass, which is a nice supplement to the power grid to use up waste from the agricultural sector - but it’s not going to carry germanies power needs in any meaningful way.
100% renewable energy is never going to be a thing for germany. It’s just a wishful thinking. We can’t magically produce vast amounts of power anywhere. We need a way to produce a reliable base load even in areas that are not in a great position for renewable power.
Upfront, absolutely. But cost drop dramatically with life time of the plant.
Even over the lifetimenof a plant, nuclear is by far the most expensive form of power generation.
That’s wrong. Nuclear Power Plants are incredibly safe. The security standards are immense and if everything is done by the books, nothing will happen.
Yet no insurance company will insure an NPP. They are uninsurable.
We’ve gotten really damn good at reusing burnt out fuel rods. I think we’re able to reuse like 60% of the burnt out fuel rods, dramatically lowering the waste we produce. And I once read about a theoretical processing method that could be able to reuse 95% of the rods, making the waste almost negligible.
We already do have a huge problem storing the waste we don’t have and nuclear waste is too dangerous to rely on hypothetical reusability. Germany’s federal Ministry for Nuclear Safety released a report in 2015 estimating the total cost of dismantling and managing nuclear waste from german NPPs based on 2012 prices and not including the cost of disposal facilities to be aroun 6 billion Euro until 2080.
We don’t fulfill the requirements for widely used renewable power. […] 100% renewable energy is never going to be a thing for germany.
It is though. First thing you miss ia that Germany does not have an isolated power grid. In fact, the Conrinental European Synchronous Area is one of the largest synchronous electrical grids in the world.
Second, the number of available batteries is constantly growing with fun concepts as using your electric car’s battery for overnight electricity. Every home can have sufficient battery storage individually (even without BEVs).
Third, there are still massive capacities for wind parks and solar parks all over Germany and certain concepts can even help mitigating certain consequences of climate change already in effect, like agriphotovoltaic protecting crops.
The future is renewables. Nuclear is superfluous, too expensive and too much hassle.
@Forester@CyberEgg And over 50 % are renewable. In fact: a vast part of German nuclear technology derives from Russia. So why would it be russian propaganda convincing the germans from renewable? Of course you mean they propagated Gas and oil, but that only worked for the CDU and the far right.
In fact: a vast part of German nuclear technology derives from Russia
In what reality do you live? Did you forget that all nuclear plants (ignore the single one in East Germany that was immediately shut down after reunification) were built in West Germany?
Yeah they definetly stole all that Russian Soviet technology from the exploded reactor that lacked a freaking containment back in the 80s…
Because Russia is not dependent on selling fissile material or renewables to support its war machine; it sells petrochemicals and will continue to do so into 2027 and possibly further as lawmakers continue to squabble.
Not to be disrespectful to the Germans who are suffering, but maybe now they will not support coal power plants.
You think German politicians care?
What support? Merz and Reiche don’t count.
Why not? Merz is the chancellor after all. It’s safe to assume the majority of voters wanted him to be in power, even if they are all retirees and idiots.
We don’t vote our chancellor, nor our ministers. We vote our parliament, the parliament votes the chancellor, the chancellor appoints their cabinets.
That is no excuse, our majority has been voting again and again for a mixture of CDU and SPD - two parties that give a fuck about the environment. And the AFD is probably gaining more and more votes. This country is becoming a total shit show. Aber die Grünen…
Show me one country governed by a green majority. Also, prove the majority vote for SPD and CDU is based in a support for coal and not just climate being not a priority when voting.
Not sure what your point is and I don’t mean it’s good, but Baden Württemberg is at least a state governed by the green.
Anyways I think we should move all elections to mid summer - that should get some people to consider climate issues when voting.
Baden-Württemberg is not a country.
My point is it is pointless to point at Germany for “supporting” coal burning electricity. Germany is not a singularity here and has the same problems with conservative politicians as any other european country.
I explicitly said “at least a state”.
Climate not being a priority is the ground for leaders to support coal and overall inaction.
Same as in France, where Macron said (again) that he couldn’t possibly anticipate a historical canicule event, even though there was one in 2003, and scientists and activists have been warning that France was warming up at least twice faster than the rest of the world.
Same in Canada where Carney rescinded almost all climate policies in favor of oil business.
It’s time to recognize our collective responsibility here: we elect ignorant idiots!
Germany reopened coal mines cause it was too scared of alternatives like nuclear. To me that’s like stabing yourself with a knife cause you are afraid of a bug bite
Since everyone mostly responded to the nuclear stuff, I am not very aware of a reopening or even extention of german coal mining. As far as I know the predefined end of germanys coal mining (at the very least surface coal mining) is still 2030 (unless the CDU decided to fuck that over as well).
To me, your take is completely uninformed, so allow me to enlighten you. When Russia attacked Ukraine, oil prices spiked and conservative media were trying to cause a panic that Germany hadn’t enough natural gas to get through the winter. Tangent: The natural gas levels are much lower today than they ever were 2022, but because we now have a conservative government, conservative media doesn’t care. Anyway, because the start of the Ukraine war was such a volatile time and to assuage any fears, the last government decided to give the last 3 operational nuclear power plants a 6 month extension and to bring back coal power plants as backup. And that is what they ever where. A backup. And building nuclear power takes decades and costs billions. They help neither in the short-, nor long-term.
Username does not check out ^^
Very much detailed and to the point. Thanks for taking your time against false information matey ❤️
Afaik after Fukushima they abandoned nuclear no?
Yeah well, that’s the conservative government for you. We could’ve just as easily transitioned from nuclear to renewables, which don’t have the nuclear waste problem that is still unsolved. And Germany was for a brief time leading renewable energy innovation. But when the conservative government was faced with the cost of providing the infrastructure for this up-and-coming industry branch of the future, they instead cut all funding. This directly lead to the downfall of the German renewable sector (“Altmaier-Delle”). So while you are correct, when taking into account the entire time span from 2002, that Germany increased its reliance on coal and natural gas especially, it is incorrect to say that not sticking with nuclear was the sole reason for this. Betting on renewables was absolutely feasible even back then, as the current boom of renewables aptly demonstrates. But the conservatives do what conservatives do best: Stifle the future by fearing the up-front investment cost and sticking to the old and familiar instead of betting on the new and future-proof, even when the old way of doing this has already been shown to be unsustainable.
Regardless how you see it, keeping nuclear plants running would have considerably reduced the need for coal and gas, which should be the damn absolute priority.
One actually infuriating thing is, the EU set targets and penalties over installed renewable capacity, not over emissions. So while Germany is generating considerably more emissions that most of western Europe, they were the “good citizen”, but France had to pay penalties for not having installed enough renewables.
You can see how much sense it makes at any time:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/live/fifteen_minutes
That’s what I call a cynical policy written by people who want to score points but don’t give a flying fuck about climate.
France has to shut down NPPs every summer because the rivers used for cooling overheat.
sry but german nuclear power plants were a mismanaged mess and their closure probably saved lives. all power plants along the rhine river leaked thousands of tobs of irradiated water into the environment, same goes for those at the neckar. those are the ones i know for a fact.
they were outdated. mismanaged and ticking time bombs and it was time to put them to rest, maybe not that quick but better than never.
building new power plants just doesn’t make sense because renewables are just WAYYYY cheaper in the long run aswell as the fact nobody wants to build or run a power plant. that’s just an afd and markus söder pipedream.
solar/wind is about 7ct/kwh after investments while nuclear fuel is at about 35ct/kwh
our renewable output is almost doubling every year despite the cdu government’s best efforts to turn back to coal because reiche is a board member of E.On.
Fuck germany but their nuclear exit was a net positive.
Seems like nuclear power plants leaking would be big news in Europe, we are not living in the Simpsons universe, so I would also like a source on that. I am all up for renewables, but the fear mongering and hate of nuclear energy is not racional, the amount of human deaths caused per TWh of coal is 58 people while nuclear has only killed 0.003 people per the same amount of energy produced, and this isn’t even considering the global warming effects and associated deaths. So yeah renewables are better than nuclear, but nuclear is vaaaaaaaaaaaaaastly better than coal
if you look into the other comment you’ll see i posted a link with a map of all european npp’s and if you click on them you’ll see all recorded accidents at these power plants.
i’m also not trying to argue that nuclear is worse than coal, far from it evn. but the power plants we had were old and dangerous and in the age of cheap renewables it doesn’t make sense to build them anymore in europe
Do you actually have proof/a source for that?
https://www.global2000.at/karte-atomkraft-europa
That is a map of reactors in europe. What has that to do with your claim?
You have to do a bit more than just open the website and immediately dismiss it. Granted, it’s in German, but clicking on the individual reactors gives you a list of incidents there.
If you want something more condensed, here is a list of incidents in
Germany https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_meldepflichtiger_Ereignisse_in_deutschen_kerntechnischen_Anlagen
or Europe https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Störfällen_in_europäischen_kerntechnischen_Anlagen
though also only available in German. Just because an incident does not make it to the news, does not mean that no radiation was leaked.
if you scroll through you’ll see a map with all european npp’s and their recorded incidents
Okay are the “power plants that leaked thousands of tons of irradiated water into the environment” on this map? Because I see none there.
That was 2023 to prevent an energy crisis triggered by the russian invasion in Ukraine and these coal plants (not mines!) were already shut down again.
And nuclear is not an alternative.
Only because your entire country was brainwashed by Russian propaganda in the '90s. Germany used to produce 25% of its power from nuclear. As far as I can tell, currently you produce none from nuclear and still 25% from coal and another 25% from natural gas.
Most of our fuel rods came from russia. Also, nuclear is prohibitively expensive, uninsureable, and has unanswered questions regarding permanent waste storage.
Renewables are the answer, not nuclear.
ALSO
Not correct its Canada the USA France and the Swiss. https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/DEU/year/2024/tradeflow/Imports/partner/ALL/product/284410
The answer is both. Germany really did fuck up closing those plants. Just like the US 🥲 and for more reasons than you know. Breeding plutonium wouldn’t be the worst idea at this point in history.
Idk about that, but even if, but uranium is fairly abundant in the earth, more than gold or silver. Getting it from somewhere else is not a big deal.
Upfront, absolutely. But cost drop dramatically with life time of the plant.
That’s wrong. Nuclear Power Plants are incredibly safe. The security standards are immense and if everything is done by the books, nothing will happen.
Fukushima was a problem of risk assessment and massive complacency about procedures, where fundamental security protocols were ignored to “safe some money”. Also, building a nuclear power plant in an area that is facing tsunamis almost regularly was pretty dumb. And Chernobyl was a case of “What happens if we experiment with that hot rock we know nothing about?”
Yes, but it’s no longer as much of a problem. We’ve gotten really damn good at reusing burnt out fuel rods. I think we’re able to reuse like 60% of the burnt out fuel rods, dramatically lowering the waste we produce. And I once read about a theoretical processing method that could be able to reuse 95% of the rods, making the waste almost negligible. Even tho that processing method hasn’t been put to the test yet afaik.
Probably not for germany. We don’t fulfill the requirements for widely used renewable power.
100% renewable energy is never going to be a thing for germany. It’s just a wishful thinking. We can’t magically produce vast amounts of power anywhere. We need a way to produce a reliable base load even in areas that are not in a great position for renewable power.
Nuclear is the best long term option we have.
Even over the lifetimenof a plant, nuclear is by far the most expensive form of power generation.
Yet no insurance company will insure an NPP. They are uninsurable.
We already do have a huge problem storing the waste we don’t have and nuclear waste is too dangerous to rely on hypothetical reusability. Germany’s federal Ministry for Nuclear Safety released a report in 2015 estimating the total cost of dismantling and managing nuclear waste from german NPPs based on 2012 prices and not including the cost of disposal facilities to be aroun 6 billion Euro until 2080.
It is though. First thing you miss ia that Germany does not have an isolated power grid. In fact, the Conrinental European Synchronous Area is one of the largest synchronous electrical grids in the world.
Second, the number of available batteries is constantly growing with fun concepts as using your electric car’s battery for overnight electricity. Every home can have sufficient battery storage individually (even without BEVs).
Third, there are still massive capacities for wind parks and solar parks all over Germany and certain concepts can even help mitigating certain consequences of climate change already in effect, like agriphotovoltaic protecting crops.
The future is renewables. Nuclear is superfluous, too expensive and too much hassle.
Btw, here is more to read on why nuclear is not a solution (german website): https://quellen.tv/energie#Kernkraft
@Forester @CyberEgg And over 50 % are renewable. In fact: a vast part of German nuclear technology derives from Russia. So why would it be russian propaganda convincing the germans from renewable? Of course you mean they propagated Gas and oil, but that only worked for the CDU and the far right.
In what reality do you live? Did you forget that all nuclear plants (ignore the single one in East Germany that was immediately shut down after reunification) were built in West Germany?
Yeah they definetly stole all that
RussianSoviet technology from the exploded reactor that lacked a freaking containment back in the 80s…@carrylex After the Fall of the Iron curtain the german nuclear plants were using mostly russian and kasachish uranium.
Because Russia is not dependent on selling fissile material or renewables to support its war machine; it sells petrochemicals and will continue to do so into 2027 and possibly further as lawmakers continue to squabble.
https://www.dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-year-relationship/a-61057166 https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/eu-russian-energy/
@Forester but Germany would rely on foreign uranium sources. Wo why would you make yourself dependent on the next foreign source of Energy?
Yeah the French and Swiss are notoriously such foreign and exotic peoples to the Germans.