The green party in Germany is still happy that they finally managed to get the last nuclear reactors offline. In April 2023. Imagine fighting something for 50 years and never adjusting your world view at all despite the masses of new data or “new” issues.
Nuclear in Germany was phased out by the Conservativs under Merkel. Whining about the Greens here is disingenuous.
Those reactors were ancient and, even without the nuclear power phaseout, they would’ve needed to be replaced. And contrary to popular belief, they were replaced with renewables, not fossil fuels. The choice was build wind turbines and solar panels and upgrade the grid or spend the same amount of money on building nuclear reactors that still rely on imported fuel that needs to be mined in some third world country in an extremely environmentally destructive way and that, regardless of design, produce nuclear waste.
And did they get replaced? No. Because bad nuclear, they still think like that. It is the only tech we have with a chance to actually reduce CO2 emissions as much as WE need to in the near future.
You say they were replaced by renewables… Sure. But then they did not replace fossiles, which is exactly the issue. Also, they provide base load, only hydro and geothermal can do that, and they did not suddenly get another few GW installed. We are still using as much fossiles as we did 20+ years ago, it is fucking crazy. Have a look at the chart (the absolute values are not better looking)
A lot of this is the problem with companies still selling combustible stuff as they have an overflow based on this stupid decision to overproduce. and act like this bus is too big to turn around to just use something else.
Don’t you see the stock to sell for potential $ $$$ $ is the real issue on every capitalists mind.
Won’t you think of the capitalist?? So selfish!
/s <just in case
Those reactors were ancient and, even without the nuclear power phaseout, they would’ve needed to be replaced.
Would the timeline have been the same?
The choice was build wind turbines and solar panels and upgrade the grid or spend the same amount of money on building nuclear reactors that still rely on imported fuel that needs to be mined in some third world country in an extremely environmentally destructive way
Solar panels at least use a lot of imported materials from what I’ve read. So similar issues there. Not sure which ends up as the lesser evil for the third world.
