> In fact Germany even recently invested in new coal powered plants.
Any sources on this? In Australia in the past few weeks Germany is given as an ideal example of a country decommissioning all of its coal mines and power plants.
Any sources on this? In Australia in the past few weeks Germany is given as an ideal example of a country decommissioning all of its coal mines and power plants.
Basically, in order to set a deadline, politicians decided to compensate power plant owners for their losses. Problem is: suddenly, all power plant owners came up with very optimistic plans on how long they would’ve kept each plant running.
This would’ve been acceptable to a certain degree if the plan to shut down plants was aggressive to begin with. However, the phase-out plan is largely in line with the plant’s lifespans anyway, so we’re not actually shutting anything off very early.
Reactions have been very mixed, to say the least.
On the bright side, it does close the discussion around coal energy once and for all, but for an unnecessarily high price.
You're not hearing about it because it's very embarrassing to Germans, as it should be in my honest opinion. I get that Germans have a very unique and real perspective on the use of nuclear power. I get that nuclear power has very real and serious risks. It's still done less harm to the planet and the things that live on it than the use of coal. Furthermore, the forced dependence on fossil fuels as a result of shunning nuclear power has all kinds of add on effects. There's no Germany without Russian gas, and Putin knows it.
Maybe I am wrong, but the way I see it Germany is sacrificing the overall less negatively impactful option (nuclear power) for fossil fuel because they are unwilling or unable to confront the cultural stance on use of nuclear power. That's the norm for cultures so I don't blame them for it, but I do think it's leading to the wrong choice here.
but we don't. Fossil fuel consumption for electricity production is going down.
There are lots of factors which are working against it. For example Germany has heavy coal resources (unlike France for example) and it's the largest domestic source of energy. Thus the country has used it for many many decades and this brought wealth and employment to people. Now to tell them that their coal-related jobs will be replaced is creating massive resistance in certain federal states against changing that.