[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.

[ahartmetz]

Solar has indeed become very cheap, battery storage less so. The price of storage is still a problem.

[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.

[chickenbig]

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

https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restarting-german... is for restarting the German reactors, with buckets of < 1B EUR and < 3B EUR for quicker restarts.

[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/...

[JamisonM]

Fair enough on the immediate consequences.. but shutting down these plants was a long term decision, so the long term consequences are still consequences. It is certainly true that no one predicted a Russian invasion of Ukraine when Fukushima happened but Germany's over-reliance on Russian gas was well understood at the time. Which I raise only to point out that the bad things that did happen were foreseeable, the German energy system was subject to systemic risks and those risks were made worse by these choices.

It seems like the statement "No negative effect" is probably not well supported by subsequent events.

[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.