Comment by oezi
3 days ago
> Great to see additional public money to be spend to enrich private investors due to the German nuclear phase out. The 400 billions from the Energiewende are indeed not enough when we see the current carbon intensity of the country. #irony
As the nuclear plants were also owned and operated by private investors, I don't see why the German people shouldn't be allowed to say that they don't want nuclear power in their backyard. This certainly set back the climate goals of the country as did Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine.
400 bn EUR is indeed not a lot if you consider that it was spent to be part of an effort to kickstart solar and wind industries. Which worked and delivered a downward trajectory for LCOE which put solar, wind and soon batteries on the map.
> I don't see why the German people shouldn't be allowed to say that they don't want nuclear power in their backyard.
Did they ? https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/two-thirds-germans-agai...
> 400 bn EUR [...] Which worked and delivered a downward trajectory for LCOE which put solar, wind and soon batteries on the map.
400bn€ represents 26 European pressured nuclear at the current Olkiluoto cost . With 1.6GW per reactor, so around 42.6GW of raw stable power for Germany. Almost 70% of the entire freaking German consumption.
Considering the installed Hydro and solar capacity, the entire electricity production would be de-carbonated at ~80% in Germany if this amount would have been spent on Nuclear instead of masturbation.
> it was spent to be part of an effort to kickstart solar and wind industries
Sorry. You meant spent on importing Chinese produced solar panels and a bankrupting Siemens wind power ?
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/siemens-energy-revie...
This comes two days after, so not sure if you might ever read it.
> "Did they?"
The April 2023 poll reflects a divided opinion under energy cost pressures from Russia’s aggression. One-third opposed extensions, one-third supported them, and one-third favored temporary extensions—hardly a consensus against prior nuclear phase-out decisions made democratically in 2011 post-Fukushima.
> "400bn€ represents 26 European pressured nuclear..."
400bn€ decarbonized over 50% of the grid. This can’t be directly compared to reactor construction alone since nuclear entails significant long-term costs for running, decommissioning and waste disposal. Germany’s nuclear operators already allocated billions for waste storage and disposal (34bn EUR for 17 plants), and it’s unclear if this will suffice as one failed attempt to store nuclear waste temporarily at Asse failed and is projected to cost at lesat 4bn EUR to clean up. Meanwhile, renewables scaled rapidly, avoiding the delays plaguing nuclear projects like Olkiluoto.
My opinion is that Nuclear is already so far behind the cost trajectory of today's solar and wind that it will never recover. Solar will expand by another magnitude and Nuclear will become even more costly.
> "Spent on importing Chinese panels and bankrupting Siemens wind power?"
Chinese dominance in solar manufacturing is relatively new and Europe/Germany squandered their leading role, because they failed their industrial policy in the mid 2010s. China drove cost reductions so steep that over two-thirds of solar costs are now domestic: land, installation, and grid connection. Unlike fossil fuels, solar ensures local economic gains, with China unlikely to profit from solar as the Middle East did from oil. Siemens’ wind issues are a corporate misstep, not a referendum on wind's viability, as it remains crucial for global decarbonization.
Germany’s investment wasn’t a waste — it built a renewable infrastructure capable of rapidly scaling to meet climate goals. Nuclear might offer stability, but it’s slow, costly, and less suited to the urgency of today’s energy transition.