You may not owe opposing energy activists better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
(Fulminate is an interesting word, btw.)
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"Are the operators on board with an extension?
The three remaining plants are each run by a different company, which all declined to answer questions in detail.
A spokesperson for RWE said extending the operation of its Emsland plant in Lower Saxony would come with “high obstacles” related to technical matters and legal issues. Its Gundremmingen plant, which went offline in 2021, “has lost its operating authorization and is in the process of being safely dismantled.”
EnBW, which runs the Neckarwestheim plant in Baden-Württemberg, said it was “fully committed” to Germany’s phaseout decision.
E.ON has also ruled out an extension of its Isar 2 site in Bavaria. “There is no future for nuclear in Germany, period,” CEO Leon Birnbaum told the Financial Times this month. “It is too emotional. There will be no change in legislation and opinion.”
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source: https://www.politico.eu/article/politics-behind-germany-refu...
another older article from february: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/could-germany-keep-i...
The Government doubled-down on it's decision claiming that the plants didn't have the resources to continue operations.
In a rare moment, the operators of the plants embarrassed the gov't by going public that they could indeed continue to run safely.
One thing to note is that the prime minister appointed the head German head of Greenpeace to the cabinet this year - who is ideologically against any form of nuclear power, regardless of safety.
> On February 8, 2022, it was announced that she was to be appointed to the Federal Republic of Germany's Federal Foreign Office as a special representative for international climate policy.
Yes, one can debate whether it was a clever idea to decide in 2001 to get rid of nuclear power while there was no end date set for coal. However the plans allowed for 25 years of further run time, enough time for buildup of renewables.
And Germany was quite successfull, renewables make up over 50% of the electricity. However, they fell behind the expectations because the Merkel government curbed the roll out of renewables. You can see how solar collapsed after 2012 and wind after 2017: https://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Redaktion/DE/Bilder/G...
On top of that, after the Fukushima disaster, it was decided to cut the run times of the nuclear power plants short. Mixing those together wasn't a great thing. Without one or even both, the path to renewables would have been smother and much further ahead.
We are talking about only 3 power plants left, whatever we decide, it won't make a huge difference. But as things are, I would also be in favour of keeping them running, if we reasonably can. However that is not a given. Maintenance intervals were of course decide with the final shut down at the end of the year in mind, as was ordering of the nuclear fuel. I really don't know, whether this can be reasonably reversed without higher costs than the possible alternatives.
And it is important to mention, that there is no scarcity of electricity in Germany, nor is any expected in the winter. Only 14% of the imported Gas go to electricity production. Ironically German electricity production is espeically high at the moment, as Germany has to keep the European grid up as France is failing to produce enough electricity. About 50% of the French nuclear power plants are down at the moment, they are old and require maintenance. On top of that, the rest has to run at reduced power due to limited cooling in the summer and due to the draught.
Germany has for this reason produced an extra 20 TWh of electricity, partially coming from the precious gas reserves. Because the nuclear power plants are not delivering at the moment.
So please cut down your flaming of Germany while it keeps the European grid running.
I think this is a novel re-interpretation of reality, from the angle that the German Green party was somehow not responsible for the nuclear power shutdown in Germany, and the effects that had on the European power grid.
And what exactly are the effects on the European power grid you are talking about, especially any negative one? (Feel free to also list the beneficial ones)
Trump literally did exactly this. Needless to say they doubled down. Classic example of an inability to separate the value of a message from the messenger.
The Greens are barking mad though, and not just about nuclear. Parliamentary democracy being what it is, they can sadly inflict that madness on the republic.
Let's try to stop Germany from harming itself further via international pressure. Blame and shame. Call them idiots to their faces. Point fingers. They need to shocked.
The germans seem to need to need a healthy dose of sanity/science. Their politics have been hijacked by anti-nuclear anti-science activists for too long.
Their celebrated "Mittelstand" industry is no good if they can't provide basic functions such as electric power in a clean way, but then again I'm not really sure they care.