Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by uecker 151 days ago
You are not addressing my comment and again instead switch topics and resort to rhetoric ("deeply irrational", "most expensive", "worst"). You should also say which price you are referring to, there are many different ones.
1 comments

Germany'a decision to shut down their perfectly safe and young nuclear reactors was a deeply irrational and very expensive decision. Shutting down functional low-carbon plants while operating coal plants during a declared climate emergency is difficult to defend.

Multiple studies estimate the climate and economic cost in the tens of billions of euros.

German culture, especially their "Greens" seems to have mentally fused nuclear power and nuclear weapons into one category unlike most other countries.

Please cite studies instead of making random claims. You again just repeat your rhetoric. But let's first agree that you CO2 emission comment was an invalid argument before we go on to discuss other issues.

As a start to discuss cost, here is Lazards' analysis about the cost of power generation: https://www.lazard.com/media/5tlbhyla/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...

"On an unsubsidized $/MWh basis, renewable energy remains the most cost-competitive form of generation."

Edit: In other news, and as usual for nuclear projects, EDF had to increase their cost estimate of new reactor again: https://sightlineu3o8.com/2025/12/edf-raises-budget-for-new-...

"let's first agree that you CO2 emission comment was an invalid argument "

It is absolutely NOT an invalid argument, if you think climate change is a real thing it is by far THE ONLY argument that matters. And it quantitatively proves how terrible Germany's decision to shut down perfectly safe nuclear reactors was.

"renewable energy remains the most cost-competitive form of generation."

Not if you want it to be as reliable as nuclear. Again you never explained what Germany is going to use as backup when wind and solar don't produce enough.

Debating you feels like debating Tesla fanboys about Waymo. Waymo actually has hundreds of self-driving cars RIGHT NOW while Tesla keeps saying they are going to have self driving cars any day now yet they all still need a safety driver.

Nuclear energy can power entire countries with almost zero carbon energy RIGHT NOW.

Again, you are not even addressing the argument I made. I never said CO2 emissions are not an issue, I said comparison of the results between a completed transition and and ongoing transition is obviously invalid.

Obviously nuclear power can not make CO2 emissions of any country go away right now, because you would need build more plant first, which also takes decades - just the same as with renewables.

And your ad hominem arguments does not help. Also writing something in caps locks does not make some non-sense valid. These things just make it clear that you have no actual arguments.