[wortelefant]

Me and most relatives were exposed to this propaganda in school during the 80s and 90s.we produced more clean energy from nuclear power plants than we do now from solar and wind, if you measure actual power generation and not theoretical capacity. The only "cloud" to speak of today is the neverending plume of fine dust particles and carcinogens from the still operational coal plants that we require as backup for our maddeningly expensive bet on intermittent energy.

[atopal]

The maximum amount of energy generated from nuclear in Germany was 171TWh in 2001 [0]. In 2020 solar and wind generated 175TWh and in 2025 they generated 206TWh [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany [1] https://www.smard.de/home/marktdaten?marketDataAttributes=%7...

[idoubtit]

Here is an histogram of the energy mix 1990-2020 that illustrates your answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energymix_Germany.svg

The nuclear share (red) is reducing during the 200Os. The wind and solar (light blue and yellow) went over the max nuclear share at the end of the period — it seems there is much more wind than sun in Germany ;-). The fossil fuels (dark colors below red) are still very high.

[wortelefant]

Yes, solar and wind has produced a few percents more in total, after years of subsidies with >18 Billion Euro tax subsidies yearly. But we still need gas and coal plants, because wind and solar fail to produce when energy is needed. We had 573 hours of negative prices in 2025 https://www.enoplan.de/strommarkt-2025-573-stunden-mit-negat...

In summary, we still need fossil fuels, and we have high prices, and we need to pay other countries to get rid of the waste electricity. This is just an utter failure from any economic or climate perspective. Just think of all the clean energy we could export - when it is needed - with nuclear plants still intact. We could have helped austria and poland to reduce their fossil footprint as well!

[atopal]

I was just correcting your numbers, but I also want to point out that power generated from solar has grown more than 30% in just two years and I think it's uncontroversial that we are in the early stages of the s curve for adoption. Negative prices are obviously an arbitrage opportunity that Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are in the process of capitalizing on.

[CalRobert]

Fossil fuel plants are also subsidized, in part by health spending.