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As a German (and more general, a human with a brain): Are they fucking stupid?
Spoiler
Of course not, the truth is that they are corruptNo, they are pragmatic.
Should we have much, much more renewables right now? Yes, absolutely.
But lowering energy costs right now is also very important to keep people and business afloat right now is also important.
No, they aren't (costs of energy production in germany):
(renewables on the left, fossils on the right)
source
And there's the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that makes you pay for emitted CO2. And the price for that keeps on rising as intended.
Add to that battery storage. The current weather is allows for a few hours every day, where renewables meet electricity demand. With something like 200GWh of battery storage it would be possible to switch of nearly all fossil fuels power plants in Germany about now. That is not a crazy amount at all.
Especially considering 200 GWh have already been approved and permits for over 500 GWh have been requested in '25.
Lowering energy costs would mean more renewable power plants because they are cheaper. Fossil power should be merely backup for intervals where there is not enough wind, solar, battery, and hydropower.
How about turning them nukes back on?
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-nuclear-power-plants-european-union-energy-policy/a-76305267
Even the ultra conservative ex-blackrock chancellor Merz with the least favourable public opinion polling results, says it's impossible, though he regrets the exit, although his own party decided affirmatively on this back then after Fukushima.
CDU/CSU the christian conservative party of Merz had slogans of a reboot of nuclear power in their federal election campaigns and were touting heavy investments in fusion and SMR research and some of the ultra reactionary (no pun) NIMBYs of the CSU wanted to reboot their beloved reactors but always rejected nuclear waste storages in their beautiful state of Bavaria. Now they're number 4 of 16 German states in solar buildout and Hubert Aiwanger, an infamous CSU politician always ranting against everything woke, is posting videos in which he standing in front of a pasture with grazing sheeps under solar panels and below whispering wind turbines.
The CEO of RWE, which operated the nuclear plants, says it's not feasible:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-02-06/rwe-ceo-says-germany-needs-to-replace-nuclear-coal-video
Nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy production:
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/veroeffentlichungen/studien/studie-stromgestehungskosten-erneuerbare-energien.html
The grey bar on the first diagram represents the cost per kilowatt for nuclear. All the bars up to and including the blue bar are renewables. The tax payer would have to shoulder a lot for that all the while solar and batteries are getting cheaper and cheaper with tech like sodium-ion. You also have to train new operators for the power plants while many of those capable of training are already retired. In addition tax payers will still have to cover the cost of dealing with the nuclear waste leaking from the "end-storage" Asse.
All in all reactivating nuclear would heavily up the energy prices. The only chance for turning towards that course is when the fascists from AfD will take over who announced ofc they'll tear down renewables and reboot the nuclear energy sector as well as the coal energy sector. That bunch of fucking boomers also deny any man made climate change and generally any kind of science and reality.
Do those costs include tax exemptions like fossil gets?
Regardless of progress in renewables you still need baseline power for when renewables aren't renewing.
Yeah, why did they think that removing their nukes was a good idea?
Because if they keep the reactors running, how are they going to justify buying Russian petrochemicals?.
In 30 years if you start now, and for how many billions?
And then you gotta turn them off in summer when rivers are too hot or too low.