[ivan_gammel]

The problem with nuclear is simply that it is irrelevant to the current situation. Won’t add enough energy to the grid, won’t solve the problem of gas demand at all, so it really doesn’t matter if Germany was right or wrong about it.

[clemensley]

France is produces 75% of its energy with nuclear. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

A German produces almost twice as much CO2 as a Frenchmen. https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

[formerly_proven]

Yes, Germans have been wrong about nuclear.

No, nobody will admit to that or change their minds, the end of nuclear in Germany will be celebrated as a success for the environment.

No, changing the opinion now would not matter. Germany killed its nuclear industry decades ago. Being right about this would have mattered in the 80s and 90s. You don't get the CO2 or methane that has been emitted back into the ground or the people that died out of the ground by being right in 2022.

[kzrdude]

The second best time to change course is today.

[Faaak]

Careful: of it's electricity, not energy !

[ivan_gammel]

So what? I know the numbers too, how does this make them relevant to today’s crisis? It cannot be solved by building more nuclear.

[towaway15463]

It very much matters over the timespan of several decades. That is enough time in which many more nuclear power plants could have been brought online. Just because Germany made the gross error of not building out enough nuclear power to provide for their needs doesn’t mean it is impossible.

[jhgb]

No, it doesn't. The nuclear plants were never a substitute for residential gas heaters and the chemical industry consuming copious amounts of natural gas. Any shortfall from the nuclear shutdown can be covered by the underutilized coal plants. It's temporarily inconvenient but doesn't necessitate gas imports in any way.

[avar]

> nuclear plants were never a substitute for residential gas heaters[...]

Yes they were, France uses around 40% electrical heating[1], Germany around 5%. Norway is almost entirely electrically heated.

1. From some quick online searching.

[jhgb]

Uh...are we still talking about Germany? Because in Germany they clearly weren't, unlike in case of France. And Norway's absolutely prodigious consumption of electricity (quadruple amount per capita) even underlines it: electrical heating is absolutely not the way to go forward -- efficient building codes are.

[avar]

They weren't because of Germany's energy policy, not because nuclear is a bad fit for residential heating. We're talking about "[nuclear on] the timespan of several decades".

[jhgb]

Germany has neither a nuclear military-industrial complex like the French do nor the opportunity to waste copious amounts of energy the way Norwegians do, so I fail to see how references to those countries are in any way relevant for Germans' situation. No amount of energy policy will compensate for their different circumstances to the extent of turning Germany into a second France or a second Norway.

[rhn_mk1]

What is "enough"? If any solution has to solve all the problems to be considered at all, you're going to have trouble noticing solutions that chip away at the problem until it's solved.

[ivan_gammel]

Enough means sufficient to mitigate the consequences of today’s gas crisis. Other people in this thread explained it well enough.

[rhn_mk1]

If by "mitigate" you mean "completely solve", then you're committing an error of being blind to incremental solutions.

If by "mitigate" you mean "make less painful", then indeed it is enough, as it's a step in the right direction.