Comment by uecker
5 months ago
Come, please do not repeat all this nonsense from the tabloids. First, you need to specify what prices you talk about. If you talk about household prices, then yes those increased. This, btw, was also intentional. The system was designed in this way to encourage energy conservation. It certainly got too far, but this is largely a political issue. In France prices were kept low artificially (which did not help the nuclear industry!). So these prices do tell you exactly nothing about the merits of the technology, and more about politics.
That reliance on Russian gas was increased is complete BS. Only a very small amount of gas which is imported is used for electricity production (10% or so) and it is certainly not true that this (relatively small) amount increased. In 2024, 80 TWh of electricity were produced from gas. In 2010 it was 90 TWh. In that time frame, renewables increased from 105 TWh to 285 TWh. 1.
CO2 emissions went down with roll-out of renewables exactly as expected2) Coal use for electricity production went down from 263 TWh in 2010 to 107 TWh in 2024. In fact, CO2 emission went down faster than planned which is the reason Germany still managed to meet climate targets despite other sectors (heating and transportation) not meeting their targets. That Co2 emissions for electricity production are still higher compared to some others is that there is still a lot of coal in the system (and electricity from that was already exported a lot until recently). But once coal is pushed out completely then this will be gone. The only real conclusion here is that the energy transition was started to late and is not fast enough. The past, nobody can change, but it would certainly be much slower when building nuclear plants now.
France wants to double down on nuclear for political reasons and my prediction is that they will fail because they can not afford it. They have huge fiscal problems and they did not invest enough to renew their nuclear fleet in the past, sold electricity too cheap (so could not build up reserves), and would now have to invest a lot, but their nuclear industry is in a horrible state and their state dept is out of control already.
1.https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/STR... 2.https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/co2-emissionen-pro-kil...
The "Russian gas" argument is so grotesque also because Germany quickly stopped important gas from Russia after the start of the attack on Ukraine, but neither Europe nor the US has stopped importing nuclear fuel from Russia.
The "nonsense" from the "tabloids" with no direct involvement or experience with the subject...like former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who initiated/approved the Nordstream 1 pipeline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0xx8LA8-o&t=817s
"We got out of nuclear, during my time, and we also will get out of coal and we should count on renewables. But it won't be enough".
As a justification for Nordstream 1, which was kicked off shortly after the nuclear exit was made law in 2002, and for Nordstream 2, wich was initiated later.
Same story with that other tabloid reporter with no idea of what she's talking about, Angela Merkel:
"Sie verwies auf die damals schon hohen Energiepreise durch Förderung der erneuerbaren Energien, den Atomausstieg und den Beginn des Kohleausstiegs. "
She pointed to the already high energy prices at that time due to the promotion of renewable energies, the phase-out of nuclear power and the beginning of the phase-out of coal.
https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Merkel-erklaert-wie-es-zu-Nord-S...
Nothing to do with the nuclear exit, no sireee.
Oh and more "tabloids", such as the Council for Foreign Relations:
"In the decade leading up to the February 2022 invasion, Russia became emboldened by the presumption that Germany valued its economic interests above all else. These interests were heavily tied to Germany’s significant reliance on importing cheap Russian natural gas."
"Russia rushed to finalize the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the months before the invasion and deliberately emptied German gas storages owned by Russian state energy company Gazprom to increase pressure on Germany."
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/one-year-after-how-putin-got-ge...
Or the Brookings institute:
"The argument centered on whether it was a commercial project, intended to meet Europe’s growing demand for natural gas, or a geopolitical project intended to deepen Russia’s dominance of European gas markets and to starve the Ukrainian economy of revenues from natural gas transit."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/europes-messy-russian-gas...
Or another German Chancellor:
"Putin’s plan to blackmail Germany with energy supplies has failed, Scholz says after one year of war
Russia’s attempt to blackmail Germany and the rest of Europe into giving up its support of Ukraine by cutting energy supplies has failed, chancellor Olaf Scholz has said on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion attempt of its western neighbour. "
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ukraine-war-tracking-im...
CO₂ emissions went down minutely, and by less than the switch to fracking gas in he US in he same timespan. Yes, even fossil fuels are better than the failed German Energiewende. And of course CO₂ emissions are still 10x worse per kWh than France's. For way, way more money.
This is such a failed policy, it isn't even funny. Or maybe it's funny again, I can't tell.
> Germany valued its economic interests above all else
This is your only solid assertion, and sadly there is no strong (nor even weak) counter-argument. Alas, it is true for nearly all nations.
Moreover this shows that either Germany isn't sound from an industrial standpoint (this would be ridiculous!) XOR Germany didn't consider nuclear as good for its economic interests.
Pretending that nuclear would majorly reduce its dependency towards fossil fuel is a joke: at its peak (in 1999), nuclear power produced only 31% of the electricity in Germany, itself less than 25% of the energy consumed (it only provided 12.7% of primary energy, and therefore about 35% of this in final energy), and by 2011 it was producing less than 18% of the electricity.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-mix-bar?time=1999&co...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
I am physicist and like to look at data instead of the press and opinons. Let's summarize the facts:
* Renewables did not cause an increase of gas usage for electricity production in Germany. The data clearly shows that it stayed around 80 TWh for last two decades despite a massive increase of renewables. (1) * It is also clear that gas usage for electricity is a very small part of overall gas usage in Germany. For example, total gas usage was 844 TWh in 2024 (2) * It is also a hard fact, that Germany stopped importing gas from Russia quickly after start of the war. (3)
In light of these facts, I think you are misinformed and should learn to critically evaluate information you find online, instead of trying to collect random confirmation for what you want to believe to be true. Note than none of the above means that there was no dependency on Russian gas, just that it was not caused by the use of renewables. The last point is interesting because most countries importing nuclear fuel from Russia did not stop imports, which would indicate that the dependency on Russian nuclear fuel is actually more problematic that Germany's dependency on Russian gas (which does not exist anymore since 2022).
1. https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/STR... 2. https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung... 3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor...