The point well made later in the article is that even if they had kept their nuclear plants running, coal would still have increased in 2012 and 2013 because in those years energy production from coal was very profitable and Germany has a ready export market to sell it to. Irregardless that domestic energy consumption actually trended down in those years.

> Both effects – the drop in coal and CO2 allowance prices – have made coal an extremely profitable fuel for power generation. Notably, both developments happened in 2011, the year of the nuclear phase-out.

Yes, I read the whole thing, hopefully so others can avoid wasting their time.

Germany could easily have counteracted this with public policy.

You can't take a post mortem of the effects of government heavily influencing energy policy, then throw up your hands and say "ah, capitalism, what can we do" when it's convenient.

Sorry, but I'm having trouble finding the cogency in this comment. If your point is that Germany could have cut exports of power generated by coal through public policy then yes, I would agree. But how is that a defence of keeping nuclear running?

Me: Article posted is intellectually dishonest because it doesn't mention the possibility of keeping nuclear but shutting down coal

You: Article in fact states that if nuclear were kept online, coal would still be profitable to export

Me: This could have been prevented by public policy

You: Yes, it could have. I don't understand your point, perhaps because English is not your first language (Edit: now deleted)

The point is that the shut-down in nuclear did not increase the use of coal (the reduction in nuclear production was more than ameliorated by increased renewables supply). That was my initial point of rebuttal from the top-level comment. The use of coal increased for reasons independent of the shut-down of nuclear and mainly because export of cheap coal energy became more profitable, as argued in the linked article. So the public policy failure was in letting CO2 price allowances fall.

The linked article also states the aim of the Energiewende has always been to transition away from both coal and nuclear (fission at least) to 100% sustainable energy production.