That's not true. The phasing out of nuclear energy was decided in the late 90s after the Social Democrats and Greens had taken over the government. This was part of a larger green energy package. This had been a major issue for the Greens since at least the 80s when the party was founded.
The Merkel government attempted to roll some of that back in 2010, but was blindsided by the Fukushima accident that caused public opinion to become much more polarised again w.r.t. nuclear energy.
Please stop spreading this misinformation that the end of nuclear energy in Germany was caused by Fukushima.
P.S. I misread the comment...
In a democratic society, the will of the people is relevant. Fukushima caused the end of nuclear energy in Germany.
The end of nuclear was decided by the red/green government a few years earlier. The conservative successor government (Merkel) tried to reverse that decision and after Fukushima they joined the German mainstream position to end nuclear and to invest further money into a new type of distributed electricity production with the focus on renewable energy.
... thus ending it.
The decision to end nuclear power has been one of the “Merkel just decides without really caring” decisions. Germans are not entirely stupid. We have lived through Chernobyl, we know what a Tsunami is - the French and Belgians run much more unreliable reactors in direct vicinity of large densely populated areas. It was not “the will of the people” - but Merkel. Just like the end of the compulsory military service, the bailouts for southern Europe, the refugee crisis... Nothing democratic about that. The German public has nothing to say in these decisions and I don’t recall that ANY of these topics were actually discussed agenda points by any party. The stock prices of publicly traded energy companies folded - keep in mind: they PURCHASED the power plants from the government and were then told to shut them down. The stock price development is an economic reflection how fair the “compensation payment” was.
Electricity prices are now about 30 Ct/kWh in Germany. That is 50% higher than the UK and 100% higher than France. And they keep rising.
I would not infer that Bild headlines (aka the German Sun) are “public opinion”. Of course nuclear power was discussed quite heavily - but ever rising electricity prices, coal’s contribution to electricity remaining flat and the increasing resistance against wind farms certainly paint a more differentiated picture.
Coal is on the move out. Most coal production in Germany has been closed or will be closed. Last year coal use for electricity production was on an all time low at 28%.
> 100% higher than France
The electricity price is political in France and electricity production is basically state owned. The losses are paid by the tax payer.
I may have been biased living somewhat close to the Hambacher Forst and just seeing these giant holes in disbelief.
I did not know that electricity is state owned and subsidised. Maybe Germans should ask their french neighbor for an extension cable or two...
Checkout how many mines have been closed by now for 'Braunkohle' / lignite.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Braunkohletage...
East Germany ALONE produced end 80s almost twice as much lignite as the reunited Germany today.
> Maybe Germans should ask their french neighbor for an extension cable or two...
There's the idea for the EU-wide grid and energy market. It's all happening and will take decades, but it is in the works.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/drop-coal-use-pushes-ge...
German electricity from coal is down 35% since 2010 and 46% since 2000:
https://www.bdew.de/media/documents/20191212-BRD_Stromerzeug...
I remembered the “very steep decline in nuclear energy whilst fossil fuel kind a went down less”
So, yes: we are way down on coal.
Because of the intermittence problem, there is simply no chance that Germany can catch up with the best gCO2/kWh results (France and Nordic countries) without an hypothetical breakthrough in battery storage for renewables. Its electricity's carbon intensity is currently 5-10 times higher. Pretty much only Poland is doing worse.
The unflexibility of the nuclear reactors is also a problem to network operators, as is the intermittency of wind and solar.
1) Brokdorf was run in loading following mode as an experiment, but the reactor failed, and begun decommissioning early.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomausstieg#2000:_Deutschland
The phase-out was decided in 2002, with precise amounts of energy allowed to be generated until shutoff. That was not a hand-wavy "we'll do it sometime in the future" thing. The "grace period" was then extended by Merkel's government in 2010 under heavy pressure from energy providers. Only to be reversed in 2011. I and you are pro-nuclear, but the decision was made by the German public: 77% were against the 15 year extensions in 2010 (https://www.zeit.de/2010/30/Atomausstieg). After Fukushima 79% were for a phase-out until 2022 or earlier. (https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/190403/umfrag...)
That's democracy if we like it or not.
I may just be a bit “disillusioned” by any political decisions as they are just amended changed and reversed so in my own subjective feeling everything always kind a is possible if political parties want it at the time.
A poll is a poll and not a vote. I personally don’t trust any of these to reflect public opinion. A question can be asked and interpreted in many ways. You can always get the opinion you want.
As for “that’s democracy”: well, it’s kind a the chancellor/government deciding. Not the people per se. I would be careful concluding that a poll stating 77% and Merkel “rushing” the nuclear exit (not extending as most believed certainly) is just a reflection if a thorough public thought and decision making process.
but because the market did bid for a merkel win, where he extended the nuclear energy marekt (or she wanted to). so our energy industry betted that they save money if they do not be active by going renewables. their bid was good because now we subsidize our renewables heavily.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source...
the eeg started way diffently than the 2014 eeg version and it got worse overtime, with all the newer versions.
also the csu (bayern party) actually dismisses on-shore wind power completly 10-H-law, besides no sane reason. merkal and the cdu/csu are not PRO renewables they just want to keep their power, which they would quickly loose by making turns. also merkel mostly did "rushing" things in the past because things that should've been done 10 years prior, weren't done. see our car industy. (which will be rushed by going all in electric, because we lost 10 years on the run)
That's insane - I thought California was bad at ~$0.15/kWh residential, but that's on par with Hawaii. At least Hawaii has the excuse of being an island...
[0] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... "Kohle" is coal; "Kernenergie" is nuclear; "Erneuerbare" is renewables.
[0] https://www.bund-nrw.de/fileadmin/nrw/dokumente/braunkohle/2...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
It's an absolutely atrocious energy source.
Fukushima was not updated like modern plants, and it did not experience a 'China Syndrome' type meltdown where the core melted and then kept breaking through all the containment material, rather it fused to the material (sand I belive) of its container and stopped indicating that even an old model nuclear plant might not ever experience a 'China Syndrome' type event.
Granted probabbly a really hard sell that a disaster might indicate safety.