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by RcouF1uZ4gsC 977 days ago
> Germany is only worse them in emissions because they temporarily boosted coal usage last winter to ease gas supply constraints.

That and they closed nuclear power plants

2 comments

Closing the nuclear power plants was an idiotic decision on Germany's part, but it wasn't particularly relevant to the spike of coal usage (rather it causes a higher base amount of coal usage). The last nuclear power plants were extended through the winter, and decomissioned in April 2023, instead of their originally planned closure before the winter of 2022.

Coal usage has continued to fall despite the closure of the nuclear power plants (though obviously it'd fall even faster if they had kept them open).

On the other hand, a lot of coal-fired plants had to be brought back online because many more than usual of France's nuclear power plants were offline during winter, so Germany had to burn coal to make up for their shortfall.