[jackcosgrove]

The main critiques of Germany I hear are not demographic but rather have to do with problems in industrial and energy policy. Namely the failure to anticipate the shift to electric vehicles and the over-reliance on natural gas for energy.

[liotier]

Germany's energy policy failed badly, but consider Germany as part of the European Union with nuclear-powered France as its neighbour. Ensemble wir schaffen das !

[ktosobcy]

You mean that Germany that shits in nuclear left and right, trying to block it from EU green agenda and then threatening it's neighbours when they wanted to went nuclear?

[liotier]

That is the funny part: when the sun is down and the wind is not sufficient (surprisingly often), nuclear-hating Germany buys power from its neighbours - chiefly France (nuclear) and Switzerland (hydro and nuclear)

[moooo99]

> That is the funny part: when the sun is down and the wind is not sufficient (surprisingly often), nuclear-hating Germany buys power from its neighbours - including France.

I'm not sure if I understand that line of thinking. While the nuclear exit of Germany may have been short-sighted, it is what it is now. And when shit hits the fan in France because their power plants are down for maintenance or a lack of suitable coolant water, Germany exports electricity to France. That's what a supra-national electricity grid is for and that's not a topic that ever was open for debate.

Also, regarding the decision Germany made regarding nuclear power, I am not sure if it actually was the wrong one. Looking at the cost overruns and extended timelines of essentially any new nuclear reactor construction, the people complaining about nuclear power not being economically viable may have a point. Whether the much proposed alternative of small scale nuclear reactors can live up to it's promise on any kind of meaningful scale remains to be seen.

What I think is the biggest failure of German energy policy is the fact that Germany went from a leader in renewable technology to desperately lacking behind. While this demise was partially driven by the companies themselves, some extremely short sighted policy failures also are to blame.

[liotier]

France concludes resorption of a huge backlog of nuclear power plant improvements that resulted in exceptional downtimes in 2021-2022. With that done and investment back to the levels it should never have fallen under, the deficit of the 2022 winter will not repeat.

As for the alleged cooling water shortages, they are not shortages but regulatory limits on downstream water temperature - which only concerns some riverine plants in summer. With three litres evaporated per kW/h produced, plants with evaporative cooling are very far from enduring a water supply constraint.

[PurpleRamen]

Germany usually buys from France because it's cheaper, not because they could not supply it on their own. Europe has a tightly integrated market, and everyone is covering each other, which also allows to usually buy where it's cheapest.

[imtringued]

Stupid Europeans and their cross country grid connections working as intended!! Texas did it better.

[Detrytus]

Or they power up old coal and gas plants :)

[mrits]

At least there exists a reason to prefer nuclear power plants from being farther away from you.

What the US does with oil makes even less sense.

What the US does with the transportation of oil makes even lesser sense. If climate crisis is existential it seems like it would be worth having a few oil spills along a pipeline to save some carbon.

[Detrytus]

> At least there exists a reason to prefer nuclear power plants from being farther away from you.

Not at the distances this short. If anything happens to any of the nuclear plants in France the pollution will reach Germany within 24 hours.

I've actually seen this used as an argument FOR building nuclear power plants in Poland: we already have like 10 such plants within 200 miles from our borders, so we already have all of the risks, but none of the benefits.

[mrits]

I think you are confusing the ideas of "anything happen" with "if the worst case scenario happens". There are plenty of examples that disprove your theory.

And even in the worst case scenario the farther you are away the better.

[ViewTrick1002]

The current discussion is France wanting to directly subsidize existing paid-off nuclear plants with EU money because they are not competitive on the European whole-sale market anymore.

The other side argue France can do it using their own funds if they deem it necessary.

https://www.ft.com/content/b1dbd7b4-d8b9-45eb-bd18-4976f7c9a...

[liotier]

If taking into account the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) in isolation, variable renewables are more competitive.

If taking into account the System LCOE (sum of generation, integration and storage costs to reach equivalent stable supply), then nuclear wins - and that doesn't even account for the VRE's huge land use.

[ViewTrick1002]

"Firmed renewables" are cheaper than or equal in cost to new nuclear today [1]. Renewables and storage are on an exponential cost reduction and learning curve, while nuclear famously has gotten more expensive with each generation [2]. Given that nuclear is uncompetitive against against renewables today, adding a 15-20 year lead-time just makes it laughable. Then another 30-40 years to turn a profit.

Nuclear is a technological dead-end economically. Perfect for niche applications like submarines, but not for the grid.

[1]: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost...

[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

[liotier]

Interesting Lazard study. First time I see such investment guys so optimistic about grid-scale storage beyond the currently supply-limited pumped hydro.

[hef19898]

The only way electricity is stored at the moment is using pumped hydro so. Regardless of the source.

[expertentipp]

Lots of bad things have happened because of and since the previous "wir schaffen das".

[hef19898]

Last time I checked, we actually did manage it, the last time I mean. Care to elavorate which bad things happened because of it? Because happening since is pointless, we have the war in Ukraine and Covid for example since then, and neither has anything to do with it.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Last time I checked, we actually did manage it, the last time I mean. Care to elavorate which bad things happened because of it?

I'd rather not get flagged.

[hef19898]

Ah, ok. So let me guess: Cologne attacks, serial raping of women, criminal clans? Just picking some BS talking points from top of my head.

[Manuel_D]

The new Year's Eve assaults were not BS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27s...

Not only that, denial of it appears to have been one of the instigating factors in launching far right parties to prominence.

[jansan]

Did you notice that almost every store in Berlin has a security personnel at the entrance? It wasn't like this before, but I remember being really confused when I saw this in Paris in the early 2000s. What happened? Do you think Hans and Jürgen have broken bad?

[rsynnott]

> Namely the failure to anticipate the shift to electric vehicles

I'm a _little_ confused by this narrative. VW Group is the largest seller of electric vehicles to the EU market. BMW is also pretty big. I mean, could German manufacturers be _more_ dominant? Perhaps, but it's certainly not a Toyota type case.

(I actually wonder how much of this is driven purely by the extreme... invisibleness of the eGolf and eUp; it was very difficult to tell that they weren't Golfs/Ups. Some people may think that the i3/4/5 are VW's first electric cars.)

[mft_]

While I'm still trying to get my head around things in Germany, I'd argue that those are symptoms of deeper cultural issues related to deeply-embedded conversatism and over-respect for hierarchy (e.g. status, age, seniority) in leadership, risk-taking, and decision-making throughout the private and public sectors.

[dj_mc_merlin]

You can call them cultural issues but that's just.. the German culture. I thought it was slow and needlessly tiring when I first moved here, but over time I've learned to appreciate the stability it brings. There is a method to the (lack of?) madness, although it may not be apparent at first.

[geff82]

Maybe Volkswagen et al. didn't innovate early enough in terms of electric cars, but it gets more interesting every day (to the point that I would by German instead of a Tesla).

But where the country is spectacular: in charging infrastructure. It has one of or even the densest high-performance-charger network in the world. 350kw chargers: world leading. Sure, the network is not finished yet. But having to actually have an electric car, Germany is one of the best places to be.

Few people noticed: Germany has also the leading hydrogen-fuelstation network outside Japan and South Korea.

[mrangle]

Industry's failure to anticipate political enforcement of electric vehicle adoption? Over-relaince on Russia for energy (to decode the natural gas comment). Both political complaints. Perhaps German industry just predicts their long term future differently.

[mrits]

The shift to EVs? When did that happen?

[delecti]

Look around, it's actively happening. Many jurisdictions have instituted deadlines, past which ICE vehicles won't be allowed. Where I live, I won't be able to register an ICE car manufactured after 2030.

[mrits]

Instead of looking I can read the data. Most western countries are selling between 2-20% of EVs. I think it is very reasonable to assume these "deadlines" will be extended.

But even in regards to this topic the small percentage of sales Germany manufactures might have missed out on EVs could easily be overcome with advertising or other external factors.

[Jensson]

Germany is already at 18% and rising rapidly, there doesn't seem to be a problem selling EV cars even in larger countries. Norway is 80% but they have oil money, but even Sweden is at 32% and they are sparsely populated and not richer than Germany.

So I see no reason why banning non EV by 2030 in some countries is impossible, Germany and many similar countries are ahead of the curve needed to get there.

[mrits]

There is no evidence to suggest the rate will increase but evidence that it will decrease. The demand for non-EV worldwide is growing rapidly and if Germany doesn't want to compete on this market there will be other countries standing in line.

[imtringued]

Around two years ago.