German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.
I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?
infrastructure, engineers and knowledge. Germany did not have any of those in sufficient amount
Germany had 17 nuclear power plants in 2011, when they decided to close half of them after Fukushima. Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Last nuclear power plant closed in April 2023. I find it hard to believe that there was not enough expertise to build some new ones in all this time.
the decision to switch to coal & gas
This is what really rubs me the wrong way: coal should have been phased out before nuclear, not used to replace nuclear.
It all seems like a grift and a knee jerk reaction under the guise of “look how green we are”, while actually doing all the opposite.
The issue being that of those 17 nuclear plants, the youngest was completed over 30 years before Fukushima. Germany had stopped construction of new nuclear plants way before 2011.
I agree they shouldn’t have closed ones already built of course. That was indeed a knee jerk reaction.
