[grumpy-de-sre]

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

[walthamstow]

I'm not German nor do I live there, but I would have thought the legacy of Habeck would be more negative due to his opposition to nuclear.

[slightwinder]

Nuclear has no relevance in Germany, never really had. The plants barely added any value to the market. When Habeck became Minister, most Nuclear plants were already gone, and the last remaining were phasing out, lacking nuclear fuel and permits. Habeck even gave a permit for the last plants to run some more months, squeezing out even the last parts of fuel as much as they could, just so they could serve as an additional supply in a problematic winter, which turned out to be unnecessary in the end.

[Scea91]

Right at this moment Germany's electricity mix has 364gCO2eq/kWh carbon intensity, France is at 21. That is because 37% of Germany's production comes from gas and coal.

Even from an environmental standpoint, France is doing much better than Germany and that is thanks to nuclear.

Also, by closing operating power plants, Germany weakened European energy production at the time when we geopolitically need it the most.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...

[Pfeil]

Still not Habecks legacy. This was decided under Merkel.

Besides, CO2eq are often wrongly measured with nuclear energy, ignoring building emissions and effect on the water temperature in rivers (every summer more and more plants need to shut down because of this), etc. Even if this would be done right, there are again and again longer periods where Germany exports energy to France because their reactors are often in maintenance. In the end I would say it is always a bad idea to rely on only one technology to a large degree. Only a well done mix makes you resiliant.

[Scea91]

> Only a well done mix makes you resiliant.

I agree on this point, me not being anti-Nuclear doesn't mean I am anti-wind or solar. Every country has different circumstances, I live in a landlocked country with mild mountains, temperate climate and modest rivers. In our case nuclear energy seems like the most reliable and scalable option. For countries with huge coastline off-shore wind absolutely makes sense, simialrly with solar.

> Besides, CO2eq are often wrongly measured with nuclear energy, ignoring building emissions.

I think this point is overestimated. Based on a brief search, studies show nuclear carbon intensity around 6-12g, and the building emissions just around 13% of total lifetime emissions [1].

> there are again and again longer periods where Germany exports energy to France because their reactors are often in maintenance.

Valid point but the 2022 French nuclear "disaster" hasn't repeated at that scale so far. In recent years France is a net exporter to Germany. I can imagine that as with many problems in renewables having technical solutions the water temperature problem is also solvable technically.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/article...

[belorn]

How strong correlation is there with energy exports from Germany and the status of France nuclear reactors? From a casual look, exports seems to be correlated with weather and access to excess energy, rather than demand from neighboring countries. I would like to see some support that "Germany exports energy to France because their reactors are often in maintenance", rather than Germany export energy to France because windy/sunny weather is producing excess energy.

Looking at Denmark, their export and imports have little correlation to neighboring countries demand or supply. They will try exporting if the wind farms produce excess energy, and they will try importing energy when demand exceed supply. Neighboring countries demand will mostly only have impact on export price.

[micwag]

> Also, by closing operating power plants, Germany weakened European energy production at the time when we geopolitically need it the most.

Ironically that was France which needed to shut down a lot of its nuclear reactors in 2022 and 2023 due to repairs. So according to your own logic France "weakened European energy production at the time when we geopolitically need it the most."

Here in Switzerland the reason given for the "energy crisis" was also mostly France as Switzerland usually imports a lot of energy from France.

[lenkite]

Looks like that maintenance did a LOT of good. In 2024, France’s net electricity exports (gross exports - imports) reached ~ 89 TWh, a record.

France's total nuclear generation was ~ 361.7 TWh in 2024. It is expected to be even above that in 2025.

https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-marke...

France is currently the nation that exports the MAXIMUM electricity in Europe.

[bhelkey]

> Nuclear has no relevance in Germany, never really had.

In 2011 ~25% of Germany's electricity came from their nuclear reactors [1]. Germany closed their last nuclear reactor in 2023.

[1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/noland1/#:~:tex...

[DasIch]

The current state wrt to nuclear in Germany reflects a decades long consensus in Germany that spans the majority of the population, scientists, intellectuals, politicians and even energy companies.

Any opposition you do hear on this from within Germany is usually opportunistic. People are against the Greens so they just take the opposite position on their policy. A good example of this is Markus Söder (CSU) who flip flopped on this multiple times.

Realistically speaking there is no serious politician or party with a pro-nuclear position in Germany that has a plausible plan for leveraging nuclear power at meaningful scale in an economical way. Any such plan would realistically invite massive opposition because nobody wants nuclear facilities in their vicinity.

[rasz]

russians paid good money for this consensus! Best Chancellor money could buy. It was so successful Germany became a proxy paying French NGOs to torpedo French Nuclear program!

Anti-nuclear lobbying by German foundations in France and Poland https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-00217...

Edit: Actually should be plural - Chancellors. Merkel, big cog in NordStreams, went on some podcast last week to blame Poland for the war in Ukraine. See if only Poles didnt object so much she would placate putin with even more money.

[DasIch]

The anti-nuclear movement in Germany started in the 70s. The last nuclear power plant was built decades ago. In my opinion the decision to not invest into nuclear and scale it up further made the end of nuclear power inevitable.

Recent governments merely organized a shutdown that was effectively decided in the last century at the end of the cold war. The importance of Merkel, Fukushima etc. in these discussions are completely overrated imo.

As an aside Germany got fuel for nuclear reactors from Russia.

[MaKey]

Germany's nuclear power plants were shut down by the governments before him. What do you think he should have done differently?

[blueblueue]

Well most of them were, but not all. Notably the last three nuclear power plants in Germany were shutdown on 15. April 2023, while the last coalition was in power. At that time there was a big discussion whether the shutdown could be postponed due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a measure to curb rising electricity costs in Germany, but ultimately it was decided to go through with the shutdown. It was a largely symbolic move, but carried a lot of emotional weight since it put last nail in the coffin for nuclear energy in Germany. Hence people now blaming the Ampel government (and Habeck in particular) even though it wasn’t their decision to shut down power plants in the first place (with people of the party who made the decision openly criticizing them as well). Just to add a bit of context as German…

[jansan]

The plan to shut down nuclear power plants was done under the premise of a stable supply of Russian gas. This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock (at that time nuclear power was even classified as sustainable by the EU btw.), he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. In my opinion this was the worst political decision of German politics since WW2, unless he wanted to hurt German industry on purpose, which is not even unthinkable.

[benjiro]

Those 3 plants had been running on "deferred maintenance" as the plant shutdown was planned years ago. Keeping the plants open will have resulted in a ton of money to maintain the safety of the plants going forwards.

This was one of the biggest factors in the shutdown. Even if the plants stayed open, multiple reactors needed maintenance (and thus shutdown of those rectors).

Remember, they kept the open even longer then the planned shutdown (what was already extended before).

And the issue with the prices was not nuclear. By the time those plants shutdown, market prices already stabilized to pre-war levels. I remember this clearly as my renewal of my electricity contract came up, and ironically, my electrical price was even 2 cent/kwh lower then my 2021 contract.

The biggest issue for the German industry was not nuclear energie, it was the gas. And not because of power generation but because gas is used in several chemical reactions, with basf moving their production to the US. And thus more costs because supply chain changes. The LNG that we import is more expensive then the ultra cheap Russian gas we got.

And THAT is a issue for the German industry. And even more so with the US pushing to be the sole EU supplier for LNG (aka to replace Russia and use their leverage on the EU).

Anyway, a lot of your opinion is based upon the wrong conclusion.

[amomww]

Meanwhile, Dutch coal and gas plants are running overtime for electricity exports. Obviously to compensate for the German and Belgian nuclear exits. (see https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/NL/5y/monthly)

On top of that, NL govt is investing 10B EUR to prepare the construction of several new nuclear power plants, less than 300km from one of the abandoned German ones (Emsland). In conclusion the nuclear exits of BE and DE are some of the most stupid and hypocritical decisions in EU energy policy. Both countries will continue to depend on nuclear energy (from FR and NL). The only difference is that it is now produced <200km outside of their borders, in neighbouring countries.

[Asmod4n]

Nuclear is the answer to no problem we face currently. It’s expensive, slow to build new plants (decades). It’s also not flexible in the way it’s useable.

Solar + battery storage on the other hand is super fast and easy to build, costs virtually nothing and leaves no toxic waste which can’t be recycled.

Nuclear fuel is also mostly only available from Russia, which no one wants as a trade partner.

[chickenbig]

> Those 3 plants had been running on "deferred maintenance" as the plant shutdown was planned years ago.

They had > 95.4% unit capability factor in 2022 per https://pris.iaea.org/pris/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsUnitCapab... . It doesn't sound like they were being run into the ground, rather things were operating very efficiently.

> Keeping the plants open will have resulted in a ton of money to maintain the safety of the plants going forwards.

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-data-animation-nuc... stated LCOE "associated with the long-term operation of a nuclear power plant generally falls in the range US$ 30-40 per MWh, for typical refurbishment costs for Light Water Reactors and a lifetime extension of 20 years".

[benjiro]

> They had > 95.4% unit capability factor

That is not the issue. Let me give you a example. Belgium decided to extend the life on several nuclear reactors, that originally had plans for decommissioning.

So they started to do actual deep maintenance for the extended life. Then they ran into issues of cracks in the concrete, issues with cracks in metal storage tanks, and a whole lot of other issues.

Reactors down for a long periode for the repairs, AND a ton of extra costs. These costs of those repairs, i can not find them no matter where i look. Its interesting how hidden those are.

For the 2025 extension, the initial estimated 1.5 billion for the life extension. And still the whole issue about the reactors issues their full fix cost price is unknown. In other words, they did a patch job and for the next extension, they need to do a major maintenance / repair.

The extension of the German reactors was estimated at 3B+ if i remember correctly. And that does not include if any issues are found.

That is the problem... This type of deferred maintenance start to stack up over time, when you have a phase out time for reactors. So issues becomes a big black money hole when you already committed to the extension.

[V__]

> the worst political decision of German politics since WW2

Except the shutdown had no negative effect. There was no supply shock and prices keep trending down since (Though that of course doesn't mean because of). Let's keep it real. I can probably name worse German political decisions from this week.

[JamisonM]

"Except the shutdown had no negative effect."

Three things here:

* Didn't the diversion of natural gas to electricity generation end some German industrial production completely?

* Are there not large electricity subsidies in place via subsidies for US imported LNG?

* Isn't the alternate reality where there is a surplus of electricity in German due to nuclear power a better world where Germany has more opportunity? (the AI datacentre boom is built on excess electricity, isn't it?)

[V__]

* I would have dig deeper on that, but regarding the timeframe when the shutdown occurred, there wasn't a big effect on gas prices. That happened before due to the war with Ukraine and the reliance on Russian gas in general. [1] The idea once was to use cheap gas from Russia and at the same time build out renewables. The latter didn't happen, resulting in the mess Germany is right now.

* There were multiple tax reductions and I think some are in the talks now. Those were independent (and before) the nuclear shutdown.

* Probably. Nuclear should have been shutdown after gas, coal etc. I am with you on that. But the ship had already sailed long ago, before the last three plants were shut down.

[1] https://www.iwh-halle.de/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/...

[slightwinder]

> This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock

There was nothing to mitigate. The nuclear plants deliver electricity, which was never a problem in Germany.

> he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable.

That's a lie. They even prolonged the usage for some months to appease the fearmongers. But without fuel, there was a limit on how they could run anyway.

> unless he wanted to hurt German industry on purpose, which is not even unthinkable.

Ah, you're from the conspiracy-bubble...

[SJC_Hacker]

Grid power and LNG use wasn't very fungible. e.g., if you have a gas furnace, electricity costs being low doesn't help you unless you replace the gas furnace with electric. In the short term, very expensive.

Same goes for alot of industry, there also were industrial processes that BASF et al. were running that just required LNG as a reagant.

[blablabla123]

I would say the main political crisis of the moment isn't one about being right but about consistent plans. The plan for a Green economy is pretty clear since more than a decade and revolves around Smart Grids. Without these no decentralized energy, no storage etc. Indeed that's something that was done right and proofs actual long-term plans are worth it.

The irony is, at this point even many environmentalists don't oppose Nuclear anymore. But there's still the lack of a coherent plan. Where should the fuel come from? How is EOL of a power plant handled? How is it paid? The answers changed a lot in the last decades.

Apart from this the last 5 years were a PR disaster for the Greens. Protesters (Last Generation) have been connected to them although the LG is even protesting against the Greens. When there were these massive floods the Greens actually lost votes instead of gaining those.

[p2detar]

Well, I like the guy but compare the electricity prices in Germany to other European states, and also to China and the US. It’s about $0.15 kWh in the US vs $0.40 kWh in Germany. I personally think this is absolutely insane, but I don’t blame Habeck but the poor renewables transition execution in Germany. It is currently a failure in terms of electricity consumer prices.

Edit: I just rechecked China and wow! $0.08 per kWh. Can anyone confirm?

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-industrial-power-...

[infinet]

> Edit: I just rechecked China and wow! $0.08 per kWh. Can anyone confirm?

Yes, it is in the ballpark of $0.08/kWh. It varies a little bit across regions. Also in some places the price is only half during the night. But as you consume more power, you may see the price rise to $0.12/kWh.

In 2024, cost of renewable + storage was 0.52-0.88 CNY/kWh($0.08-$0.12). Advancement in storage is expected to drive that cost down by more than 50%.

[MarvinYork]

Interesting watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWR_7K6UIkE

[tfourb]

The average wholesale price for electricity in 2024 was close to 0.09 €/kwh.

The consumer price is about 0.3 €/kwh currently, depending on the deals you are getting. The difference between wholesale and consumer price is made up of transmission costs, taxes and markups of various middlemen.

Shutting down nuclear power had 0 impact on electricity prices, as wholesale prices are set by the most expensive producer needed to satisfy demand. That is usually a natural gas turbine. All producers get paid the rate that this marginal producer demands.

[twixfel]

That doesn’t really ring remotely true.

[tfourb]

What doesn't? You can check all of this with a simple web search.

[twixfel]

That reducing supply (shutting down nuclear) had no impact on electricity prices. Doesn't ring true. Simple google search you recommended confirms it.

[Asmod4n]

I got a “expensive” renewable only energy plan and it’s 31,4 cents per kilowatt hour in Germany. Conventional ones should be cheaper. So no idea where you got 40 cents from.

[wongarsu]

Even if power plants magically worked for free and all schemes for cross-financing renewables were cancelled, German electricity prices would still be $0.19/kWh (€0.16), using the numbers from [1]. The German electricity network is great and very reliable, but also very expensive

1: https://strom-report.com/strompreis-zusammensetzung/

[ajross]

It's just absolutely mind-boggling how the "But Nuclear!" refrain persists as a mind worm in this community. Every story on renewables, every single one, has a giant sub thread up near the top of the discussion screaming, again, about the clearly-must-be-important-because-everyone-says-so hypocrisy behind opposition to nuclear power.

It really just doesn't seem in good faith. It's been going on for a decade at least. Every win, every positive story, every bit of evidence that just maybe this part of the climate puzzle is actually being solved[1] gets met not with celebration, but with indignant tut-tutting that it was done with boring stuff and not Nerd Friendly power.

When does it stop?

[1] Doesn't take too much Googling to find coverage claiming that ~90% of new electricity generation capacity globally is renewable. This problem is solved folks. It's time to start looking at the higher hanging fruit.

[avhception]

I guess that depends on who you ask. There definitely is a lot of opposition to the Green Party, but that's hardly directed at Robert Habeck specifically.

[Archelaos]

Nuclear technology is a dead end. Renewables and saving energy is the future. Nuclear and fossil are in the same boat. They are both more risky and have huge hidden costs that the general public and future generations will have to bear. The only good reason to go nuclear these days is if you want the bomb, like Iran.

Interestingly, it is the same people who supported fossil in the past who are still promoting nuclear today. Those who have always warned against fossil fuels are usually the ones who recommend a complete switch to renewable energies. That should give one pause for thought.

[StopDisinfo910]

Nuclear and intermitent energy sources have no place in the same sentence.

Germany didn't avoid nuclear by switching to renewables. It does so by burning coal and building gas-fired power plants.

How to manage a grid fully on intermitent power sources is an open question. There is at this point in time no answer to this. At the moment, Germany fires up extremely dirty power generation capacity every time there is a shortage. Meanwhile, all europeans bear the costs of Germany shortsightedness - as usual - since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

With nuclear, it's pretty clear how to run a grid. Heck, France has been doing so for decades. The question is how to build it cheaply at scale but at least we have some good ideas and experience about how to do that.

[forty]

Funny story I like to tell here when nuclear chat come up: this summer (in France) they had to stop some nuclear plant because of the heat, which was causing the river used to cool the reaction to over heat. Right when people needed plenty of electricity for A/C. At least solar was there and working at it's best when we needed it ^^ (this is just for trolling the "renewable are not there when we need it" discourse ;) )

Anyway, the thing we'll need for better using solar is storage, if we can make some clean ones, it will be a solution for intermittentcy. But not matter what we do, we should target using less energy, because the only clean energy is the one we don't have to produce. I think that's the thing people miss (volontarily I think) when they answer anti nuclear discourse. Insulating homes and and designing cities so that people don't have to use cars, rather than producing more and more nuclear reactors doesn't seem dumb to me, no matter what's your opinion on nuclear itself.

[p2detar]

Germany and Belgium’s net electricity imports from France for 2024 are 27 TWh, which dwarf anything imported from Germany to France. [0]

If anything, this only showed that renewables and nuclear actually work very well together and relying on just one of both is shortsightedness and bad planing.

0 - https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/france-battu-record-ex...

[forty]

I don't disagree with this point of view. Then the debate remain: should we (France) create more nuclear power plants now, or invest in reducing energy consumption and adding more renewables to the mix.

[StopDisinfo910]

France was a net exporter of electricity all summer so no idea of what you are talking about. Slowing down some nuclear plants due to this kind of external condition is fully expected. They are not stopped by the way just slowed down. Nuclear is modulable.

People barely use A/C in France by the way.

> Anyway, the thing we'll need for better using solar is storage, if we can make some clean ones, it will be a solution for intermittentcy

Storage is a short term solution. Batteries are ok to manage intra-day variation, two days at most. Long term storage of electricity plainly doesn't exist. Saying some storage solution will somehow at some point solve the issue of intermittency is at best wishful thinking, at worst a dramatic lack of risk management.

Before someone asks how China is doing it, I will answer the question: they are not. Despite China being much larger and thus being able to somehow compensate variation by having more production sites, they are using battery storage for short term variation but have to rely on expensive and polluting small thermal power plants when energy is lacking. It's a stop gap while they build a ton of nuclear power plants.

[forty]

People do use A/C more and more in France for obvious reasons, even in the northern part (it has been the trend in the south already for a while now).

I'm not sure what I said is incompatible with being a net exporter? There was a lot of sun and heat, they had to shutdown some nuclear power plants, but the overall electricy production was doing fine, because they did not have to shutdown all the plants (but how about in a few years with even hotter weather?) and obviously solar was doing well.

And yes, I agree we don't have good storage yet, but then we can decide to invest in finding solutions or to try to re-learn how to make nuclear power plants in less than 12 years. Personally my intuition is that more distributed / local energy and also which doesn't have to rely on a state monopoly is better and more resilient (ask Ukraine) so I'd put my money on storage.

[nmehner]

On short sightedness: https://www.dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-5...

"Several commentators, business leaders and academics have identified that 1970 deal as a significant fork in the road of the Cold War, as it established a mutual basis for economic cooperation between Russia and western Europe." There are certainly different opinions on that. Gas imports started long ago and in the cold war that approach was working to some extend.

Only 13% of gas is actually used for electricity ("Stromversorgung"): https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/erdgas-absatz... most of it was used as cheap energy source for chemical plants and other industry.

> Germany didn't avoid nuclear by switching to renewables. It does so by burning coal and building gas-fired power plants.

That statement is plain wrong: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE... In 2013 about 300TWh of electricity came from fossil fuels, 92TWh from nuclear. In 2024 153TWh from fossil fuels and 0 from nuclear. So fossil fuels declined by 147TWh while nuclear only by 92TWh. Claiming that fossil fuels replaced nuclear is ridiculous, even after repeating it hundreds of times.

You can claim that keeping nuclear could have sped up the transition, but the inflexible nuclear plants could also have prevented people from investing in renewables, since the economics are worse if there is energy that is supplied permanently regardless of the price. Nuclear and renewables don't mix well.

[StopDisinfo910]

You are entirely missing the point. The issue is what do you do when you have no renewable because it’s the winter and there is no sun and no wind. German answer to that - like it or not - is building gas fired power plants and using coal in the meanwhile. That and buying a ton of nuclear energy from France a fact you are conveniently forgetting.

The ratios you quote are meaningless. The issue is that it can’t scale so as to fully decarbonise the grid. Thankfully the current German government seems to finally have seen the light.

[rcxdude]

'no sun and no wind' is not actually a thing that happens. What happens is less sun during the day and more or less wind in different places in Europe. This is a problem that can be solved through a combination of excess capacity, long distance transmission of energy, and storage, affordably and with existing technology. It's been obvious for a long time that a fully renewable grid can work, and Europe is rapidly moving towards that. Gas turbines are a reasonable stop-gap which will slowly get pushed out of generation as the proportion of renewables and storage grows.

[nmehner]

The long term strategy is H2:

https://h2-global.org/the-h2global-instrument/

And gas plants are what is closed to H2 and can be switched over easiest. But H2 is only viable once renewable production exceeds demands during long stretches of time. Otherwise it is always better to use the energy directly or use short term storage (batteries) which are also growing exponentially: https://battery-charts.de/battery-charts/

Sorry, you are all emotion and provide wrong statements. What I wrote directly contradicted your statements and proved them wrong, but now you say they are missing the point? Reducing fossil fuel consumption by 50% within 10 years is an achievement. There are always things that could be done in a better way. But let's be real here.

And yes Germany imports electricity from France: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

That is kind of the point of having an integrated grid.

But 19TWh. While producing 470TWh. 4%. That is not ... a lot. And in 2022 Germany exported 5.5TWh and had to restart coal plants when the French nuclear plants were in trouble. So what? That what a grid is for.

[Archelaos]

This is all propaganda of the nuclear lobby.

> Germany didn't avoid nuclear by switching to renewables. It does so by burning coal and building gas-fired power plants.

Germany is constantly reducing gas consumption.[1] From 2000-2024 it reduced electricity generation from coal by 61%.[2]

> How to manage a grid fully on intermitent power sources is an open question. There is at this point in time no answer to this.

Only details are open. (Compared to the open question of long term storage of nuclear wast these are very minor problems.) The general strategy is clear: use constantly available renewables (offshore wind, geothermal), connect distant regions for mutual compensation, energy storage.

Personally I think it neglegible if a very small percentage of fossil technology were held in reserve for emergency power generators.

> At the moment, Germany fires up extremely dirty power generation capacity every time there is a shortage.

We are in a transition period. It is impossible to suddenly move to complete renewables. Responsible for the rather slow progress are not those people who pushed for the switch to renewables a long time ago, but those who wanted to drag it out as long as possible. These advocates of fossil fuels were the same individuals and companies that wished to extend the use of nuclear energy.

> Meanwhile, all europeans bear the costs of Germany shortsightedness - as usual - since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Since September 2022 Germany imported no gas from Russia.[3] Meanwhile, the nuclear industries of France remains the sole buyer of enriched uranium from Russia in the EU. Admittedly, it has considerably reduced its imports from Russia itself,[4] but is still heavily dependent imports from Russia's sphere of influence (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).[5] The same applies to the USA.[6]

> With nuclear, it's pretty clear how to run a grid. Heck, France has been doing so for decades. The question is how to build it cheaply at scale but at least we have some good ideas and experience about how to do that.

I do not deny that it is possible to operate a reasonably stable electrical network with dirty energy, apart from the regular shortages in dry summers and during heavy frosts. But Germany is ambitious and is going to show the world that it is possible to do it with clean energy. The nuclear lobbyists fear most that this will be successful. This is the only way to explain why they are attacking Germany so fiercely, even though they could actually sit back and wait to see if it succeeds. They fear for their business.

[1] https://energiewende.bundeswirtschaftsministerium.de/EWD/Red...

[2] https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/coal

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor...

[4] https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2025-01-eu-and-us-re...

[5] https://en.fergana.news/news/137148/

[6] https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-06-18/rus...

[Flatterer3544]

You should look at what a proper planned all-in nuclear project looks like before commenting..

See Hualong One nuclear project that's operating at ~90% capacity and is ~1/3 of the price of solar, and 2/3 price of wind when comparing the same operation % capacity and taking into consideration the max life length of each technology.

[FredPret]

Renewables have huge hidden costs as well.

Solar panels and windmills are low density sources - we need a LOT of them to get the job done, and even then you still need base load somehow.

That means a huge amount of extra powerlines and future landfill of defunct panels. Not to mention the very sturdy windmill foundations scattered around the landscape.

Say what you will about nuclear, but all of its negatives are concentrated in a small mass and volume.

The optimal, nom-ideological solution is probably a mix of nuclear, gas, and solar panels.

[Jedd]

I find that people with strong, pro fission feelings, but no hard numbers, often preface their opinions on the matter with phrases like 'honestly' or 'objectively' or 'non idealogically'.

Concentration of power production is just one of the problems that renewables / distributed power generation systems solves.

[FredPret]

I agree with this but going on as if either fission or solar is the One True Electricity Solution is ideological. Every technology has tradeoffs.

[rcxdude]

Nuclear and renewables do not like to share a grid. Their attributes do not complement each other at all, despite their differences, because fundamentally both of them are not dispatchable. In practice what happens is either nuclear has enough subsidies to survive or renewables completely wreck the economics of it by supplying way cheaper power most of the time.

Both forms of generation want to be paired with something dispatchable, either gas turbines or energy storage. A mix of renewables and nuclear is a mix that is weaker than the sum of its parts, not stronger.

[adgjlsfhk1]

solar panels actually decrease load on power lines. every house with solar panels on it reduces the amount of power the grid needs to bring to that house

[FredPret]

In that case, yes. But for solar farms, it's the opposite.

That's why I think we should end up with:

- gas plants: easy and cheap to spin up, can provide district heating

- nuclear: squeaky clean, issues are concentrated in one spot, district heating

- solar panels: super cheap, decentralized, and there are lots of opportunities like rooftops and carparks where we are wasting sunlight right now

I just re-read Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez (great book if you like hard near-future sci-fi) and that has the idea of solar stations in geostationary orbit and beaming power to where it's needed with a phased-array microwave transmitter on the station, and rectennas where you need them on the ground. We can't do this economically any time soon, but that would be clean, and require no power lines

[adgjlsfhk1]

Solar farms aren't really any worse for the grid than other types of power plants that can't be located near cities.

[eldaisfish]

this is false.

Power line capacity is designed around the maximum power that must be delivered. Solar power by itself reduces the mean, and possibly the minimum as well, but never the maximum.

[Scoundreller]

Are we expecting peak a/c loads on cloudy days or something?

[gpm]

You do not, ever, need base load power. Base load power is by definition power generation that does not follow the demand curve because it is uneconomical to do so. In this way it is entirely similar to solar and wind in that it cannot, by definition, fill the entire demand for power and it needs to be completemented by dispatchable power sources.

You do need dispatchable power sources (which you can pair with solar/wind/nuclear/...). Recently that has mostly been in the form of gas peaker plants. Today, in most places, the most affordable form of new dispatchable power is batteries paired with excess solar generation.

The real estate costs for solar and wind are not hidden, you pay those costs up front when you install the projects.

[LunaSea]

> Nuclear technology is a dead end.

You should look at CO2 / kWh in Germany vs. France

[forty]

You can also decide to look at countries which went 100% renewable and have even better CO2/kWh rating than France (Iceland, Norway, Albania for example).

[LunaSea]

Iceland has massive volcanoes and a small population.

Norway has lots of hydropower and a a small population.

Not super familiar with Albania but they seem to be in the same situation as Norway.

France already implemented hydropower wherever it was possible years ago, so that's not an option.

Also France seems to have pretty much the same CO2 / kWh than Norway.

[forty]

Yes, situations are different I agree :) my point was just that you can pick and choose what you want to look at. We'll see how things evolve, but it's not very fair to compare the situation of France which did their switch to low carbon energy many years ago, to Germany which is currently doing it. When we have more countries with finished transition to full/mostly renewable, we can compare again.

[Scea91]

In the last 90 days France's CO2 footprint is at 78% of Iceland's.

Also, what lessons learned in Iceland, Norway or Albania should we apply in central Europe? We don't have their geothermal and hydro potential (all your examples are not solar+wind but hydro primarily).

[p2detar]

> The only good reason to go nuclear these days is if you want the bomb, like Iran.

I‘m sorry but this is just absolute nonsense.

Nuclear energy is the most dense energy type humanity ever produced. To put it in one line with coal and oil is not serious. Not to mention it’s far less hazardous to human health, again compared to fossil fuels. Here is a basic comparison:

> With a complete combustion or fission, approx. 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal, approx. 12 kWh from 1 kg of mineral oil and around 24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235. Related to one kilogram, uranium-235 contains two to three million times the energy equivalent of oil or coal.

https://www.euronuclear.org/glossary/fuel-comparison/

edit: typo

[stephen_g]

Who really cares about density? The biggest thing that means is that blowing up two or three substations can cripple an entire country’s grid. Distributed energy generation and storage is actually quite strategic for national security.

It’s also massive cherry-picking to just look at refined fuel. For example, H how many tonnes of ore do you need to mine and process to produce that 1kg of uranium (at least 2.5 tonnes, that is 2500 kg from one random source from a quick google).

But to use your metric, I did work out and find it interesting that the solar panels on my roof, per kg of silicon have produced over 1,400 kWh of electricity (multiply your figures by 0.3 to take into account efficiency from kWh of heat to compare) so far. I estimate almost 28 kg of silicon in my whole array, which has generated over 38 MWh so far, and I expect they will generate at least three times that over their life.

So 4000-5000 kWh(e) per kg of silicon sure comes in a hell of a lot of better than the 2.4 odd for coal or 4 for mineral oil (assuming your figures are correct).

[p2detar]

> Who really cares about density?

Everyone. If you don’t, then you need to scale. Case in point with renewables. It’s also not cherry-picking, but a well-known fact in physics. Do yourself a favor and look at the source link I posted above.

The thing about blowing up things I will just skip, because it’s not serious. If things go that far, there will be far greater problems than just that. Besides, if that’s your worry why don’t use SMRs then? Russia does.

To your 4000-5000 kWh point, you are not burning silicon here, are you? And a PV is not energy fuel, it’s a device composed of many different materials. I don’t understand your point and I can’t say more than that - my reply to GP was about fossil fuels and nuclear anyway. Not sure why you decided to jump into renewables here.

[eldaisfish]

this website is filled with people who believe that the future source of energy is entirely renewable energy. That is false, as many european countries show.

I live in a part of Canada with mostly nuclear energy and i am thankful that my electricity rates are low. This helps me reduce emissions via heat pumps and EVs. I don't need solar panels and most people do not either.

You are correct, the future is mostly renewable energy where feasible, with a combination of nuclear and hydro.

[jansan]

It is very negative amongst large parts of the population, but he also has a very vocal fanbase.

[hovering_nox]

Most Germans would view that as a positive thing. Pushing for nuclear power at this point would be utterly stupid.

[MrGilbert]

According to his Instagram, he is currently working in Copenhagen: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOFwjUfDXdp/

[grumpy-de-sre]

Thanks for the update! I wonder if he changed his mind on the Berkeley offer [1]. Part time role though so maybe he just hasn't relocated.

1. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/habeck-gastdoz...

[wvbdmp]

Copenhagen, then California was always the plan afaik. Berkeley is just not until next year.

[okucu]

How out of touch do you have to be with reality? 2+ years of recession and he was the leader we needed? He literally ruined us all

[kharak]

He has been well received among left-green voters, civil servants and alike. He communicated without the usual empty political phrases, that alone brought him sympathies. He also managed the Ukraine crisis well, for instance, he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines had been destroyed. I'd say he embodied the values, policies and mannerism of his electorate better than anyone else.

And yet I agree with you. Economically, he disappointed through and through. Same for climate change, which ironically is at the heart of the Green party he belongs to. For example, to more conservative voters, he's will mostly remembered as the politician who wanted to bring a central planning approach into their homes, forcing everyone to install costly heat pumps, with their own money, without much regard to their specific household situation. All to achieve no effective carbon emission reduction.

But to his left-green electorate, he remains sacrosanct, his critics are dismissed, often as far-right.

[okucu]

>he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines

The very same pipeline he helped to cover that their own ally destroyed

Also what the hell is your argumentation? "Actually the people who voted him, liked him" no shit. The very same people are more in favor of war than the average Nazi back in the 30s

[kharak]

I made no argument, merely tried to explain why he is viewed favourably by some. I could have left out the second and last paragraph, that was more about me showing that I didn’t agree with his performance either.

[mk89]

The leader we didn't deserve?

Sorry but Merkel reached almost 50% of energy production with renewables. Germany was already a leader in 2021-2022 with almost 45-50%.

The idea was to grow "sustainably", and in fact it was functioning.

Even the "original" GEG comes from Merkel who was slowly pushing for a change.

Then somehow someone decided they had to restrict and punish and this was our "undeserved" Habeck and friends.

There was no need at all to disrupt the country into what it has become today.

Literally everyone said that. Only the Scholz/Greens government didn't see that.

EDIT: in fact, if we just reverted the commits to pre-2022 we'd be already in a better situation. No new changes. Just start from what was working. And well, keep the new solar panel stuff for balconies. It seems a nice idea (which a lot of countries are doing anyways, so nothing so innovative here).

[qwertox]

What his enemies (CDU/AfD) don't mention is that even they wouldn't have been able to undo the stop.

But being in the opposition must be a fun thing since you can say the most beautiful sounding things and never have to actually deliver anything.

AfD even goes a step beyond raw stupidity because they want to destroy all the wind turbines. So not just stop the ones already delivering energy, but destroy them. They just don't realize that we need every bit of energy we can get. They have some donating friends which are against wind turbines, because of the looks.

It was close to funny how Elon Musk held back his disagreement with the AfD regarding their wish to destroy the wind turbines.

I'd go so far as to say that the only reason why Germany has the political and societal problems it has now are only due to the constrain in energy.

[nidskee]

That and the long running demographic issues (that one is global).