Electricity isn't the issue, several countries have re-opened coal plants to deal with that (also from what I understand the nuclear plants can't just be turned back on, they are several stages through decommissioning and were already reaching the end of service without refurbishment, etc.).
But natural gas itself is still required for industry and domestic heating in most of Europe, and that cannot be solved in the 3 months remaining to winter.
Well, to continue operating the three nuclear plants that are currently still operating (not to mention restarting those that have been shut down years ago), they would have to order new fuel rods. Obviously those aren't things you can simply order on Amazon. Usually, these orders have to be planned years in advance, and the chances of reducing the waiting time are pretty slim, because guess who is the largest manufacturer? Right, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosatom.
Every so often I see adverts for a far broader range of things than is plausible. I assume Amazon and eBay bought “$NOUN, buy it cheap!” for all nouns.
I still do not understand why there's a lot of focus on Germany without mentioning Italy.
They have voted in the 80s to ban nuclear power as well, and now energy costs are through the roof. It will be an awful, expensive winter over there importing French nuclear electricity and Russian gas.
AFAIK there is no movement whatsoever to reconsider that referendum. Last I checked Italians are very much against it.
Italy can get gas from Algeria IIRC - like Spain does from Nigeria too.
But the referendum doesn't matter right now anyway, there is no way to rush through electrification of domestic heating and industry and build functional nuclear power plants in ~4 months.
So the only question is what to do regarding gas sources or shortages.
Italy also voted recently to ban nuclear _again_ after it had been allowed a second time. There are some people in favor, but it's unlikely to get reversed any time soon.
FWIW, France is currently importing energy from Germany, and will be doing that until the winter, because they shut down many reactors for maintenance, the futures for electricity in France were > €1200/MWh last week.
> Italy also voted recently to ban nuclear _again_ after it had been allowed a second time.
The first referendum was 6 months after Chernobyl, the second one 3 months after Fukushima. No wonder the outcome was overwhelmingly against it. Demagogy in its purest form.
The plants would need refueling and a big safety check and overhaul, which would take them offline at pretty much exactly the time where they would be the most useful. The only way to make them useful for this situation would be to skip the safety check. And everything the last few years has been done under the assumption that they will shut down, this is not an easy decision to reverse on the spot.
And for energy generation we can fall back to coal, which is easier and quicker to reactivate than nuclear energy. Not nice in terms of CO2, but the most practical solution right now.
When we originally legislated the closing of the nuclear plants, the next (conservative) government reverted those plans, only to change their minds after Fukushima. If we now revert again, the comedians would have a field day with Germany doing an exit from exit from the exit from the exit from nuclear energy
But natural gas itself is still required for industry and domestic heating in most of Europe, and that cannot be solved in the 3 months remaining to winter.