You can still visit the nuclear power plants that were built but never switched on

https://youtu.be/WUVZbBBHrI4

Good politicians deliver the end goal people want (e.g. cheap and clean electricity), in the best way scientifically possible, then convince their base their method was the right decision.

Bad politicians ask people how they should do a thing, then do that thing.

It's been awhile since Germany has had good politicians where energy is concerned.

I mean at least they are currently trying to make and implement long overdue policies to fix this mess and speed up required processes.

That same logic lead to gas pipelines with Russia and Russia blackmailing Germany

Fair. The whole point was that gas was supposed to be the "Plan B" bridge to ensure flex and resiliency during the cutover to renewables.

Then they did away with a big component of "Plan A" in nuclear after Fukushima, which promoted Russian gas to an essential component of their transition energy mix.

At the end of the day, if Germany hadn't stopped building nuclear or decommissioned reactors, Ukraine probably wouldn't have been invaded.

I think it's not that far fetched to assume Russia had big influence in shaping the anti nuclear narrative and "building relationships" with key politicians.

We'll never know, but it doesn't seem fair to chalk up a country's poor democratic choices to external forces.

Russia surely nudged, but if Germany hadn't already been trending in that direction then it wouldn't have stuck.

> Ukraine probably wouldn't have been invaded.

Putin invaded Ukraine because he wanted to, and Germany had nothing to do with that.

As one of the strongest European economies and militaries, Germany played a big part in Russia's calculations.

The belief that Germany would rather sacrifice Ukraine than lose Russian gas would have been less plausible if 30% nuclear energy had been retained.

That's pure speculation, isn't it?

Russia didn't make a rational decision: we know that Putin hid the plan from most of his subordinates, ignored concerns presented by the rest, and the system withheld important facts from him likewise. He made a huge gamble with his "3-day special operation".

Also, the nuclear plants would have provided only a partial backup for the Russian gas, as electricity from the plants couldn't replace the direct use of gas in German houses and industry anyway.

Russia absolutely made a rational decision.

A bad one, because their facts were wrong, but one based off calculations rather than rolling dice:

+ Russian Cold War-era (and refits of same) military materiel is reaching obsolescence and end of life. Russia can't afford to modernize its military at scale (hence the obsession with announcing prototype superweapons)

+ US and European ties are at a low point, as a consequence of the Trump presidency

+ US is focused on China as a peer threat

+ Germany is uniquely diplomatically vulnerable to gas energy pressure, but only until additional renewables come online, transmission infrastructure is upgraded, and efficiency measures implemented (see the Nord Stream bombing whodoneit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sa... )

+ Remaining ex-Warsaw Pact / non-NATO countries are likely accede to NATO in the next few years (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Current_... )

... ergo, there was no better time to make the attempt than now. Everyone just assumed Putin wouldn't be stupid enough to try.

But that calculation looks very different without the energy vulnerability, as Russia understands the economic difference between themselves and Germany.

> in the neighbouring Austria, nuclear power is prohibited

Which is funny, because we actually built a pretty much complete nuclear power plant, Zwentendorf. It‘s now a unique museum.

A vote of just 50.47 % ruined our radiant future...

Also we do have one research reactor left right in the city. I was blessed enough to visit it once.

> A vote of just 50.47 % ruined our radiant future...

There really should be a rule that important decisions can't pass with a tiny majority

> There really should be a rule that important decisions can’t pass with a tiny majority

There are at least two major problems with such a rule:

(1) On an important question, “yes” and “no” are both important decisions.

(2) Who decides what is “important”?

You can make a rule that is closer to “you can’t make specific kinds of deviations from the status quo without a supermajority vote”, but that’s…very different from “important decisions”.

Now you are buying nuclear power from Czechia.

The US also built at least one nuclear reactor and never used it.