As a German (and more general, a human with a brain): Are they fucking stupid?
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Of course not, the truth is that they are corrupt
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No, they are pragmatic.
No, they aren’t (costs of energy production in germany):
(renewables on the left, fossils on the right)
sourceAnd there’s the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that makes you pay for emitted CO2. And the price for that keeps on rising as intended.
Add to that battery storage. The current weather is allows for a few hours every day, where renewables meet electricity demand. With something like 200GWh of battery storage it would be possible to switch of nearly all fossil fuels power plants in Germany about now. That is not a crazy amount at all.
Especially considering 200 GWh have already been approved and permits for over 500 GWh have been requested in '25.
How about turning them nukes back on?
Yeah, why did they think that removing their nukes was a good idea?
Because if they keep the reactors running, how are they going to justify buying Russian petrochemicals?.
In 30 years if you start now, and for how many billions?
And then you gotta turn them off in summer when rivers are too hot or too low.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-nuclear-power-plants-european-union-energy-policy/a-76305267
Even the ultra conservative ex-blackrock chancellor Merz with the least favourable public opinion polling results, says it’s impossible, though he regrets the exit, although his own party decided affirmatively on this back then after Fukushima.
CDU/CSU the christian conservative party of Merz had slogans of a reboot of nuclear power in their federal election campaigns and were touting heavy investments in fusion and SMR research and some of the ultra reactionary (no pun) NIMBYs of the CSU wanted to reboot their beloved reactors but always rejected nuclear waste storages in their beautiful state of Bavaria. Now they’re number 4 of 16 German states in solar buildout and Hubert Aiwanger, an infamous CSU politician always ranting against everything woke, is posting videos in which he standing in front of a pasture with grazing sheeps under solar panels and below whispering wind turbines.
The CEO of RWE, which operated the nuclear plants, says it’s not feasible:
Nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy production:
The grey bar on the first diagram represents the cost per kilowatt for nuclear. All the bars up to and including the blue bar are renewables. The tax payer would have to shoulder a lot for that all the while solar and batteries are getting cheaper and cheaper with tech like sodium-ion. You also have to train new operators for the power plants while many of those capable of training are already retired. In addition tax payers will still have to cover the cost of dealing with the nuclear waste leaking from the “end-storage” Asse.
All in all reactivating nuclear would heavily up the energy prices. The only chance for turning towards that course is when the fascists from AfD will take over who announced ofc they’ll tear down renewables and reboot the nuclear energy sector as well as the coal energy sector. That bunch of fucking boomers also deny any man made climate change and generally any kind of science and reality.
Do those costs include tax exemptions like fossil gets?
Regardless of progress in renewables you still need baseline power for when renewables aren’t renewing.
Lowering energy costs would mean more renewable power plants because they are cheaper. Fossil power should be merely backup for intervals where there is not enough wind, solar, battery, and hydropower.
Germans went full retard for closing their clean nuclear energy plants. Absolutely foolish decision that’s still biting them in the ass!
Yeah, because those are … looks it up … far more expensive than even coal. That would totally help with energy costs.
They were old, the costs for the upkeep off the charts. No insurance company insures the damn things and they didn’t provide that much power to begin with. We’re doing pretty well in terms of wind an solar power though. If someone shoots the damn Nazis on their collective faces (yes, CxU included), then this trend will keep going and we’re finally free from the corrupt oil/gas/coal cunts. Nuclear power is the dumbest shit that’s being peddled by former Redditors.
You are in the top 5 for electric cost in the WORLD. Your industry is begging for relief as they go bankrupt, yet you keep defending idiot policies. Well more and more Germans lose their jobs you’ll pass the point of no return. Loser policies cause loser businesses. Oh well we try to warn you but you all think you know better. It’s simple economic supply and demand. CAPITALISM NOT SOCIALISM WORKS
then why does the state always have to subsidize nuclear power? dont scream at us.
Well that’s why fossil fuel plants are needed. How are those coal power plants doing? Those cause more cancer and now you have to rely on them more. No?
Coal is a fossil fuel. Gas is expensive atm because of the US/Israel war. Thats why they now want to use coal more. Its (a lot) worse for the climate, worse for health but cheaper. Actually quite capitalist of them…
Or what do you mean with fossil fuel plants? Diesel generators?
Well the reason the fossil fuel plants (coal, gas, oil) are needed is because nuclear energy was taken out of the equation. Look at francez they don’t have the same energy issues like Germany
I understand your position as: Germany has expensive energy because they are stupid and abandoned nuclear power.
While abandoning nuclear power before coal was certainly a bad idea climatewise (i’m even with you calling this idiotic, thank you Merkel), coal is not more expensive than nuclear.
The 20 cent/kWh the french have on their electricity bill is not an honest price. The operator EDF is state owned and constantly loosing money the state then has to put in again, so the they also pay with taxes for their electricity.
Also the more renewables are in the mix the less economic nuclear becomes. Nuclear is good when it can run 24/7 but not when it has to constantly change its output or event has to be turned off during the day.
I concur that our politicians are a bunch of right wing cunts. But the rest you’re writing is drivel. Socialism is the only thing keeping the people happy. Capitalism only makes the capital-holders happy. And yes, electricity is expensive here but not because of the bullshit you shat on your keyboard, rather because of:
Taxes - we have super high taxes on electricity. This is OK, because taxes ensure that we can all live decent lives here.
Costs for expanding the electrical grid - this is inevitable as more and more electricity is consumed. These aren’t sunk costs however.
Electricity market - the price is based on the most expensive currently required form of electricity, which is gas. Nuclear power would make this more expensive.
The conservative cunts who want to stick with gas are the corrupt fucks that ruin it for us.
Idk, renewables won’t help you when the sun’s not shining in the winter. Renewables won’t help you when the winds are calm in the winter. When the winter comes and you need to heat your own home, you like all the rest of your countrymen will be depending on fossil fuels. Don’t forget about the future heat waves Europe’s about to experience, you will need more electricity to cool down your homes because you did not have the foresight like Americans who actually think that summers are hot and need to cool people. That’s the difference is you need to think!
My friend look at how many poor people died in Europe because there was no investment in the electrical grid and into cooling your cities. In the USA we would not allow that to happen because capitalism actually cares for people’s well-being and people know that they wanted to stay cool so they were able to buy that. In Europe, your regulations don’t allow you to do anything and there is no innovation and so people died. This is no different than what happened in communist Russia when so many people die because there’s no food because there was no innovation. Truly, all those that have died are just caused by more socialist practices. It really makes me sick to my stomach how Europeans are just okay with many people dying in the streets because of the heat when the USA has proven that you could cool down cities. You just do it. You open up the free market and capitalism will fix it all for you people!
France is a country fully devoted to nuclear Power. Must be paradise, cheap and Clean, right? Ask them how its going 😉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France?wprov=sfla1
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Oh, that’s cheap, nice. Does that include liability insurance and running costs for the nuclear waste repository for the next few hundred years?
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EDF remains heavily in debt.
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It does not. No insurance company does cover nuclear reactors and running the long term storage is not priced in. So, the costs of a potential disaster and of dealing with the leftovers are kicked to whoever encounters that problem at some point.
If I ran a company like that, I could damn sure be cheaper than someone else too.
I’m beginning to think you’re varying expertise is in bullshit and lies
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Last I’ve read was that the insurance only covers up to 1.5 billion € in damages. That would only cover small incidents
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Energy taxes are higher in Germany too
For households, yes.
Not for companies - they profit far more from the cheap renewables.
Especially companies which need a lot of electricity.
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Maybe, but wholesale prices are still more expensive in Germany.
Yeah, I already said that households pay higher prices than companies.
And: Are you saying that nuclear power is cheaper than other sources? really?
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next few hundred years??? i have some bad news for you…
The actual cost of generating electricity by nuclear power is not published by EDF or the French government but is estimated to be between €59/MWh and €83/MWh
Does France also have a
merit order“uniform pricing” system like Germany? Electricity prices are set by the most expensive producer, which is fossil by a large margin. This doesn’t reflect the actual cost of generating electricity at all, but favors the cheapest producer in the market.Edit:
Germany at €0.36/kWh average retail rate (2026 H1), driven by high tax + grid fees layered on top of moderate wholesale prices.
The article you posted doesn’t say that it’s because of high electricity generation costs, but because of high taxes and grid fees. Don’t know if you wanted to make that point or just wanted to “actually” the OP, though.
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The funniest thing is germany, opposing nucler power, is importing French nuclear power generated electricity labeled as green energy. The hypocrisy is appalling.
France is also importing from Germany when they can’t cover their own demand.
It’s a collaborative network.
So Germany follows China’s path? That’s not good.
No. Germany has been shutting down coal power plants. However since shit happens and those plants have been built, some have been put into a strategic reserve. That was extremely useful during the Russian gas crisis, as coal power plants could replace gas ones. Now the German energy minister wants to move those power plants out of that reserve into normal grid operation.
So no new coal power plants and honestly it is probably going to fail, because the economics are horrible for coal.
China’s coal power is on the rise and will likely rise at least for the rest of the decade - and China is already the world’s number 1 in terms of both coal production and coal consumption.
China’s heavily invested on nuclear – expect coal to be on the decline.
China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of coal, and even the Chinese government says the country will increase coal energy at least in the next years, bu the end of this decade.
Is that only about absolute numbers? That says nothing about relative compared to coal if coal also increases.
The second link shows nuclear from 60 to target 110, coal from 1.2k to unknown, wind and solar target 1.2k GW but already at 1.8k.
I don’t see nuclear replacing coal. I see renewables already massively winning.
Yes, I know, but China has also said to increase fossil fuels by 2030 (by 8-10%) in its current five-year plan. Coal will not peak before the end of the decade, and no one knows what happens then. China isn’t on a good path.
China isn’t on a good path.
Compared to the rest of the world? They installed more solar than the rest. How is that not a good path?
