Misguided takes like this is exactly why I hate the CDU, the conservative party. Germany’s energy policy did NOT prove that renewables aren’t enough to fulfill the energy needs of a country. The ONLY thing the conservative German government did prove is that replacing nuclear energy and coal with cheap imported russian gas will bite you. The expansion of renewables was smothered by the conservative government at the time. That is the only take-away: Conservatives will fuck your country, if it means they don’t have to make harder choices. They will always choose the path of least resistance, no matter how moronic that path may be. Vote left or see your country be driven into ruin. That is the only valid take-away that came from Germany’s nuclear energy exit.

However, regardless of the state of nuclear in Europe, the big problem is that Germany does not produce enough energy, which spikes the energy prices in neighbouring countries.

That is only half true. Northern Germany has an energy production surplus and frequently exports energy to Belgium and the Netherlands. However Denmark has even cheaper energy production, which is why northern Germany is importing energy from there despite having an energy production surplus. The real issue lies with southern Germany, mainly Bavaria. The conservative Bavarian government has effectively strangled renewable energy production capacity with obstructive legislation over the past decade, which, coupled with their block on strengthening the energy grid, has led to southern Germany being a net importer of energy.

Germany is already changing circumstances - towards truly renewable energy. Nuclear energy only has support from politicians that change their views like flags in the wind. Nuclear energy in Germany is dead. Current attempts to revive it are done to detract from getting the transition to renewable energy done. You can claim otherwise, but as a German speaker I can tell you that only politican frauds and charlatans are asking for nuclear energy.

Autocrats accusing the other side of what they are doing themselves. Old as time.

I’m aware she’s a real person, the photo is credited with her instagram after all. I’m still going to call her AI lady though. She certainly has the same spotty reasoning skills as contemporary AI models.

Yeah sure, let’s listen to that totally real AI lady and build new nuclear reactors. Just ignore that a sizable portion of the German people is still against nuclear energy. Just ignore that it costs more than building up renewable energy. Just ignore that even the energy companies don’t want to start building new nuclear reactors based on how risky that endeavour is. Just ignore that Germany still has no long term storage for nuclear waste. Just ignore the 15-year construction time that would do nothing to help our energy needs now. Let’s just ignore all that. But sure, I’m neoliberal.

(Tl;dr at the bottom)

Is this AI generated slob? Because it reads like AI generated slob. And the ‘picture’ of that lady looks like it’s AI generated as well.

Needless to say, what this lady is saying in regards to Germany has no basis in reality. She claims Germany’s unstable energy prices are a result of Germany shutting down it’s nuclear reactor. This is an oversimplification of the highest order.

For reference, the newest nuclear powerplant that went online in Germany, did so in 1989. The most recent plan to build even newer reactors was cancelled in 1999. 2002 a law was passed that prohibited the building of new nuclear reactors and limited the operational life of all nuclear reactors to at most 32 years. That would have meant that all reactors had to be shut down after 2021.
However in 2010, the operational life of a few select reactors was lengthened by 12 years.
2011 then, after Fukushima, the operational life was reduced to just two additional years; the last reactor was set to get shut down in April 2023. This all was decided by the conservative government led by the CDU.

In 2022, the Green minister for energy and the economy, Robert Habeck, passed an emergency resolution, allowing the at that time 3 remaining nuclear reactors, which in total provided at most 6% of Germany’s energy needs, to run for half a year longer.

So let’s tally up: The last nuclear reactor was built 1989. Since 2002, by law, no new nuclear reactors were allowed to be built. In 2022, the operational life of the last 3 reactors was extended by the Green minister for energy and the economy. Those 3 reactors provided at most 6% of the German energy mix.

What happened to the rest of the nuclear output that had to be replaced? The conservative, CDU-led government, in their infinite wisdom, killed the incentives to build up renewable energy, which Germany was a world leader in at the time (keyword: “Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz”, “Solardeckel” if you’re interested to read about that whole saga). They then allowed Putin to basically capture the German energy market with cheap russian gas. We all know how that worked out.

Compounding is the issue that southern, conservative-led states in Germany (mainly Bavaria) are blocking both the expansion of renewable energy (keyword: “Windrad Abstandsregel”), as well as the expansion of the energy grid, so cheap energy created in the north through renewable sources can’t be transported to the south.

But surely we could just build new nuclear reactors, right? The conservative state-government in Bavaria certainly thinks so (after being in favor of the nuclear shutdown even as late as 2020). The simple answer is: No. Renewable energy is simply too cheap. Nuclear energy was always subsidized in Germany, both during construction and during operation. And the task of finding a suitable location for storing the nuclear waste also falls to the government. So unless you are ideologically captured, financing new reactors as the government doesn’t make sense. It also doesn’t make sense for the energy companies either, because nuclear power is way too long of a commitment for them, compared to simply throwing up more wind turbines or solar panels. “German efficiency” would complicate the matter of building new nuclear reactors further. Nuclear reactors going online in Europe in the past years did so with hefty delays, cost overruns and construction times ranging between 12 and 20 years. And if the BER airport is used as a comparison, it would be even worse in Germany.

Bonus: A timeline (in german) highlighting steps towards the shutdown of nuclear power in Germany: https://www.base.bund.de/de/nukleare-sicherheit/atomausstieg/ausstieg-atomkraft/ausstieg-atomkraft_inhalt.html#a449768

Tl;dr: So no, dear AI generated swedish person, nuclear energy is no viable path for Germany, and also no, neither the shutdown, nor the ban on new nuclear reactors is the fault of Robert Habeck.

Personal opinion: Robert Habeck is the closest we get in Germany to a politician that is both ‘electable’ in the eyes of the broad public and genuinely for the people. Smears like that AI lady’s have been all too common in an effort to discredit him, most of those have been lies or deliberate misconstructions. So a heartfelt “fuck you!” goes out from me to her.

Is the megathread outdated? It has entries that both don’t work anymore and were already removed in earlier versions.