Europe still produces more than 20% of its electric power from nuclear plants. In hindsight, it was premature by Germany to shut down theirs so early, but looking at the rise of renewables it’s just a matter of time until nuclear will just be irrelevant (1). In addition, this will allow true energy independence while for example the German nuclear plants relied partially on fuel rods produced in Russia …
(1) Yes, there is the challenge of dark days with little wind, but there are many, many avenues to solve this one (better grid interconnections across Europe, green hydrogen backup plants, overbuilding cheap capacity, …)
> In hindsight, it was premature by Germany to shut down theirs so early
What hindsight? Everyone knew at the time that it was premature. It was a deliberate choice to bear the burden of increased pollution and to make the country more dependent on the whims of a foreign dictator, because nuclear bad.
Yes, some of the consequences could have been seen at that time, but I cannot remember that they were really part of the wider discussion. It was mostly nuclear safety vs nuclear‘s low CO2 emissions and alleged low costs. My memory might fail me, but I cannot remember that energy dependence was a big topic. Rather the opposite, nuclear was seen as „bridge technology“ that would eventually pave the way towards full renewable energy. Even the utility companies did not argue for a permanent place for nuclear in the power mix, but a slower switchover to lower the costs of the transition. I think most were already picturing the future 20 years down the road when decentralized renewables would create a green, independent, … future
There was no discussion. It was a knee-jerk decision by then-chancellor Merkel in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear incident, and constituted pretty much a 180 (relative to the maybe-phase-out-not-clear-when-definitely-not-now that was pretty much the bipartisan consensus at the time). It was clear to observers at the time that it would make Germany more reliant on coal and gas and, by extension, Putin, that it would threaten the energy-intensive German industry and it was criticized for that at the time. Calling this a hindsight debate is just silly.
The phase out of nuclear had already started. Merkel reversed that, than in the wake of Fukushima reversed that once again, paying the nuclear companies hundreds of millions of damages in the process.
First, nuclear power has been discussed intensively in Germany since the 1970s. While political moods shifted somewhat over the decades, in practical terms there was less and less willingness to maintain or even expand nuclear power: maintenance issues, rising costs, lack of consensus on permanent waste storage, lack of political direction, … would have resulted in a transition away from nuclear power in any case. Yes, the decision by Merkel was sudden but it didn’t emerge from nowhere. Nuclear power was already doomed in Germany and it was just a question of when it would die. And despite all the discussions, I still cannot remember (or find) that dependence from Russia was even in the top-5 of arguments from either side
> And despite all the discussions, I still cannot remember (or find) that dependence from Russia was even in the top-5 of arguments from either side
The Nord Stream pipeline was completed in 2011, the same year Merkel decided to accelerate the phase out of nuclear. The US had repeatedly warned against constructing the pipeline because of energy dependence on Russia.
Everyone knew that apart from coal Germany has no energy resources. Given that it wouldn't be possible to meet climate goals with coal the energy would need to come from either the newly constructed pipeline or renewables.
That the newly created energy dependence would give power to dictatorships may not have been at the forefront of the public's mind. But treating it as something unknowable without hindsight lets the politicians who caused this travesty off too easy. If Merkel had been honest to the public about the potential consequences of her decision, perhaps it would've been a part of the debate.
> more dependent on the whims of a foreign dictator
You do realize that Germany is not allowed to do any uranium enrichment or waste processing? All of this was outsourced, partially to France, but primarily to Russia.
How is that not "dependent on the whims of a foreign dictator"
Actually, I'm pretty sure it was a lot of fearmongering due to the Fukushima incident which started that wave of anti-nuclear in Germany. A bad decision, for sure.
> Europe still produces more than 20% of its electric power from nuclear plants.
That's technically true, but France's representation is completely outsized in that, as the one country which went hard on nuclear it's got more than half the nuclear production of the continent: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
And that's being down 25% from its historical peaks because a significant fraction of the park was offline for unscheduled maintenance due to corrosion issues (I believe the park's been ramping back up and should be back to full).
IIRC France is the number 3 nuclear electricity producer on the planet behind the US and China.
With time being relative, nuclear might become irrelevant, though that's very far off into the future. It's very important to have stable baseline power generation that you can depend on, and not the whims of the weather. Wind turbines don't do constant production even off-shore, as there are periods where it's either too windy or not windy enough so they can't work, even though it's more rare than on-shore wind.
We don't need stable baseline power generation, we need a stable power line frequency. I know there are grid engineers here that could explain it better than me, but FWIW, nuclear power plants are sloooow, and thus terrible at reacting to fluctuations in the line frequency. Even if there are nuclear power plants, you use hydro-, gas-, or (hypothetically) battery-power in so called dispatch power plants to maintain the frequency.
Add on top the insane costs of building, maintaining, and waste disposal, nuclear power plants are, without subventions, just not economically viable. But keep on researching, there is interesting stuff happening in this space, and -- who knows -- maybe something moves the equation around.
> there are many, many avenues to solve this one (better grid interconnections across Europe, green hydrogen backup plants, overbuilding cheap capacity, …)
All those options are currently non-viable because they are too expensive.
The problem is that the few dark days with little wind cost as much to produce as all remaining days of the year (and may even surpass it). Interconnections added to the problem, with worse long term allocation of hydro storage and increased volatile in the energy market. Market forces has been a direct hindrance, with citizens in practically every EU country demanding government subsidizes to solve the issue of energy shortage, rather then reducing demand.
Looking at a typical energy bill from northern Europe, you almost don't pay anything for hours when wind production is optimal. The cost of those hours are basically a rounding error and all you pay are grid fees. The issue is the average price are more than 20x of that, and the peak price are well over 100x.
> In hindsight, it was premature by Germany to shut down theirs so early
This is a widespread talking point that is more wrong than correct:
Germany did not shut down its nuclear reactors early. In fact, those reactors should have been shut down decades ago. They had been well past their intended shelf lives.
The decision to finally shut them down also dates back to Merkel during the Fukushima incident (2011). So the timeline to shutting them down wasn't exactly short either. The last nuclear reactors were shut down well more than ten years after the original decision was made.
What you can blame Germany for is not building new nuclear reactors. Germany hadn't built new nuclear reactors since Chernobyl - the last reactor to come online was in 1988. The influence of the anti-nuclear protests was strong enough to prevent the construction of new reactors but not enough to phase out the ones that existed. Instead Germany continued extending their runtimes over and over again because this was easier to justify politically (or rather because it was less obvious than building new ones).
So in other words: it took Germany from 1986 (Chernobyl) to 2023 to shut down its reactors. But it did so in an extremely irresponsible way. And it still didn't have proper plans in place like investing in grid infrastructure and storage necessary to expand renewables.
That said, nuclear power is overrated as the one thing it does well is constant stable energy production. But the problem in the modern grid is not not having enough energy, the problem is not having enough energy on demand. Renewables can provide enough energy but they are unstable. You need something to cover those dips and nuclear doesn't work for that because you can't really scale it up and down much. Storage would be ideal but for the majority of time since the reunion Germany has been under a conservative government which doesn't want to spend money on infrastructure maintenance let alone investments (let's see if this conservative government will do things differently as Black Rock Merz has been promising in between his anti-woke populism). But for the time being the only option Germany has is fossil.
Germany spent 1 trillion euros on renewable energy, has the most expensive electricity in the EU and emits much more than nuclear France. Can we just move on and accept that renewables do not work at larger scales?
First they aren't, which is why Germany and other countries need to provide massive subsidies to producers. Also a source of energy that produces only when wind blows is quite useless, even if it's free. Your source of energy should produce when you have the need for it.
And storage is typically something thay doesn't scale, which is why Germany needs coal or gas to complement renewables. Polluting the rest of Europe while doing so.
Even the term of "renewables" is untrue, given the relatively short lifespan of most windfarms and solar panels. After 25 years you have to trash them, with no real way to recycle it.
Germany spent a lot on renewables but next to nothing on actual grid infrastructure and storage. Energy prices depend on the most expensive option in the mix at any given time. In Germany that means energy prices are dictated by the gas price. No amount of renewables helps with that unless you can eliminate gas entirely.
Because storage and grid infrastructure are immensely expensive and don't scale. Storage alone has negative returns above a certain capacity. You ask a country to rebuild its whole electrical infrastructure. It's a massive waste of capital.
Grid infrastructure requirements alone likely negates any ecological benefits given the amount of copper needed and the abysmal ecological conditions of copper mining.
You're misattributing the issues entirely. The issues right now are caused by the markets not reflecting reality.
If Germany were to split its electrical grid into two (north and south), as economists and the EU demand, things would be clearer.
The northern grid would produce more renewable energy than is required in total (hovering between 120-300% production vs usage). It'd have electricity prices around 10-15ct/kWh
The southern grid would have more pollution than even poland, as it's primarily fed with lignite, and would end up with an electricity price above 90ct/kWh.
The issues in Germany are not caused by technical or economical challenges, but by political ones. The southern states have passed laws to restrict renewables and limit construction of new power lines to gain favors with conservative NIMBYs and newage NIMBYs.
(1) Yes, there is the challenge of dark days with little wind, but there are many, many avenues to solve this one (better grid interconnections across Europe, green hydrogen backup plants, overbuilding cheap capacity, …)