Because we have got a serious issue with finding long-term storage solutions for nuclear waste. And past commission(s) on solving this issue have often ended in a rather public and politically bad fiasco.
Heck, as long as it was properly guarded, you could store the waste in my backyard shed without any health issues arising.
I do not think relying so much on nuclear energy was a bad move but it should have been a transitional thing (to renewable energy, fusion, anything else?). And it requires good forward thinking, commitment and the kind of leader we have not had for decades.
Finally, the EPR looks more and more like a big mistake. Smaller designs might have been more successful and offered more agility in time of crisis.
They're like the kids in high school who decided they were avowed communists, except now all grown up.
The continual leaking of nuclear waste into the ground water at the Asse II underground nuclear waste storage site is a huge issue.
And so, already in '98, the Energiewende was started.
In the early 2000s Merkel tried to roll back the Energiewende, but was forced to roll back the rolling back when Fukushima happened, and people realized we had plants of the same construction type, where continually the emergency generators failed, and everyone said "nothing wrong, even if the generators fail, it can never go up".
German nuclear controls are just as much of a joke as nuclear controls in Japan or the US, and in most countries, they’re even worse.
One nuclear plant in Germany has bribed regulators for years to just sign it off, despite it violating regulations. Then there’s the plant in Belgium, where construction workers drilled through the containment vessel to screw a holder for a fire extinguisher on it.
Holes stayed open for many years.
Nuclear is a nice concept in theory, but in any capitalistic society, it can not work, because greed will end up with companies trying to save money, and if bribes are cheaper than following the laws, they will do that. If lobbying is cheaper, they’ll do that. If they can just leave the country and can’t be held liable, they’ll just do that.
Why do you think regulations around coal generation are any easier to enforce than regulations around nuclear generation?
You can talk about possibilities all you want, but the fact is that as they are done coal waste is a lot more dangerous. So it's weird to put so much emphasis on closing nuclear plants first.
Filter all the pollutants out, and use Compressed Carbon Storage for the CO2. We already are enforcing the first on all existing plants, and working on the second.
But long-term, renewables are the only solution.
Also, how do you store the pollutants, and why doesn't that technique work for nuclear waste? I'm guessing that storing the pollutants consists of putting it in good, strong containers, which works fine for nuclear waste too. It's not perfect, but it doesn't really make much of a difference whether it's mercury or uranium leaking.
For instance, wind power: http://i.imgur.com/xHyOoc9.jpg
This picture was taken just prior to these two engineers jumping to their deaths rather than being burnt alive. I assume the turbine spontaneously catching fire is not an intentional design feature, but rather the result of inadequate quality control during manufacturing?