> German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, admitted recently that Germany’s departure from nuclear energy was a serious strategic mistake, saying the policy has made the country’s energy transition “the most expensive in the entire world.”
Even if that were the case, nuclear had no impact on the cost of the transition.
> eliminating nuclear power — once a significant part of the electricity mix — has complicated energy planning and driven up costs.
Not investing in the gird for decades and stalling renewables for cheap Russian gas arguably was more of an impact.
> Merz argued that Germany’s rush to pivot away from nuclear energy, combined with extensive investment in renewable sources under the Energiewende policy, has made the transition unusually expensive.
Reliance on Russian gas has made everything expensive, but since his party is responsible for that, it's easier to scapegoat the departure of nuclear energy.
The only mistake was to depart from nuclear before reducing gas, since that would have reduced emissions quicker.
Shutting down nuclear reactors means you lose a source of plutonium that can be diverted to weapons manufacturing. You also lose nuclear engineers and workers with skills and knowledge to fabricate with fissile materials which you need to manufacture those weapons.
Similarly, the reason so many countries have a civilian rocket launching program in spite of having no chance in hell in beating SpaceX economically is to have scientists and engineers who can build missiles if needed.
These are just insurance policies. Both Japan and Korea have them for instance. As recent events have shown, countries without nuclear weapons are essentially defenceless against and dependent on those with them.
For better or worse there is zero chance that Germany starts a nuclear weapons program. The public sentiment just won't allow that unless we are already at war, in which case it is too late. Besides that, nuclear weapons are stationed in Germany already. France and the UK are next door, so I am also not sure if it would actually benefit Germany at this point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_90/The_Greens#Energy_...
> After the Chernobyl disaster, the Greens became more radicalised and resisted compromise on the nuclear issue.
"Policy Reversal: In May 2011, just months after extending reactor lives, Merkel's government announced a total phase-out of all nuclear plants by 2022."
This is literally what we are discussing in this comment thread. Facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germa...
> Eight German nuclear power reactors (Biblis A and B, Brunsbuettel, Isar 1, Kruemmel, Neckarwestheim 1, Philippsburg 1 and Unterweser) were declared permanently shutdown on 6 August 2011, following the Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster.
So I don't think you could even call it a strategic mistake, but masochism maybe? Especially while keeping the exit date in the height of the fallout of a real strategic mistake, the dependence on cheap russian gas.
It wasn’t that hard to see that energy needs were only going to increase rather than diminish. And not because of ai datacenters, but (to make a simple example) for example because of the already ongoing at the time push for the electrification of the automotive industry.
It’s also crazy that the initiative was supposed at all by environmentalists.
Anyway, props to Mertz for admitting the mistake, we’ll see if they will fix it somehow.
That‘s the thing. Everyone knew it was costly, nobody ever thought it was good strategically. If he now says it’s a „strategic mistake“ that‘s laughable, did he think it was strategically clever before? If so he was the only one.
The whole issue is that Germany overestimated its own resilience and economic power, which is deteriorating. Of course environmentalists knew that this is not good for the economy but the Green Party is mostly left aligned they were ok with incurring some damage to the economy for their cause, after all that’s their whole point. But they thought well we are such a economic powerhouse anyway, we can do it. So the real strategic mistake was arrogance. And saying that particular action was a „strategic mistake“ instead reflecting on the whole self-image of the country, shows that exactly this arrogance persists
Do you think companies who couldn’t built a safe airport or train station can suddenly built something more complex like a nuclear power plant without massively going over budget, construction time and safety?
And I guess nobody fears Russian drone flying over WECs instead of nuclear power plants
Fun fact, the ministers of the federal states that are most in favor of nuclear power do not want a final waste storage.
What you seem to also have memory holed was that up until Crimea, the prevailing idea for Russia was that the more we trade with them, the more wealthy and informed the populace becomes and the more entwined the economy becomes globally and thus losing that access would become too painful to them. The exact same playbook was used for China up till 2016.
Interesting inference to draw.
> The exact same playbook was used for China up till 2016
Nope.
The Green party had the goal of de-nuclearization from the beginning, at that time the Soviet Union was still in existence. When the Green party came to power and negotiated the nuclear exit, they did not need any external motivation to do so.
The only way I can see this being Russian meddling would be the Green party being infiltrated from Russia from the beginning.
If you have sources that point to the Green party being undermined by Soviet/Russian espionage or some such, please point me torwards them.
The right was never anti-nuclear, but they were more pro-gas and pro-coal.
It was what bought political victory at the time for the CDU, thats why it was done.
The CSU/CDU Union party (from which Merz comes) has been, at least in recent historical time, consistently pro-nuclear (at least in terms of their actions). They have consistently voted to lengthen contracts with nuclear providers and consistently advocated for pro-nuclear policies, even when the power companies themselves had long since committed to ceasing all nuclear power production in Germany.
Additionally, the exit out of nuclear power was decided following public outcry after Fukushima -- ie, still squarely within the Merkel government. Merz has been consistently anti-Merkel.
So put into context, the article is saying "the current chancellor of Germany, Merz, thinks leaving nuclear behind was a strategic mistake!" while ignoring "whose party has consistently been pro-nuclear, whose predecessor, who (by the way) Merz doesn't like and frequently and loudly disagrees with, only presided over the decade-long phase-out in response to public outcry following a major nuclear disaster".
IMO this is about as newsworthy as what he ate for breakfast.
batteries are becoming dirt cheap, decentral production wins amidst clusterfucking climate catastrophes. solar and wind already are cheaper than anything else. the markets will adjust, simple as that.
any push to prolong the transition simply benefits fossil stakeholders.
> decentral production wins amidst clusterfucking climate catastrophes
If you do the math you will see Germany could have actually saved money if they had build nuclear in the 2000s.
> solar and wind already are cheaper than anything else
Only if you look at levelized dispatch cost, not if you actually look at is as a system for sustainable reliable power for a whole industrial country.
A decision to forego that benefit of energy density will be painful, especially if implemented quickly.
Involuntary XKCD:
Flamanville 3 is 7x over budget and 13 years late on a 5 year construction schedule.
The subsidies for the EPR2 are absolutely insane. 11 cents/kWh fixed price and interest free loans. The earliest possible completion date for the first reactor is 2038.
France is wholly unable to build any new nuclear power as evidenced by Flamanville 3 and the EPR2 program.
As soon a new built nuclear costs and timelines face the real world it just does not square with reality.
France keeps upping estimates for their refurbs and Ontario just announced price hikes to refurb theirs and mess around with SMRs.
No, even fusion won't rescue the climate. Fission certainly could have helped in the transition.
Fusion is unlikely to be cheaper anytime soon, even if somebody could build a plant that makes positive energy.
But the Gleichschaltung of the state media really pays for itself, who would otherwise fall for thid Alex Jones-level of disinformation.
Keep believing in power-generating TVs, that arabs are not significantly overrepresented in the crime statistics, inclduing rapes and knife attacks and that Maduro was the legitimate head of state.
But don't complain that other take note of your gullibility and lack of education.