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Comment by alexott | Hacker News Reader

Who said that people are rational? Especially in green party?

The decision was made [0] by the CDU (government Merkel II) in 2011 right after Fukushima, not by the Green Party. Reversing it would come at a great cost [1]. Of course the Green Party also doesn‘t want to, but that boat sailed long ago.

And rational, for Germany which does:

- not have nuclear weapons

- has far cheaper renewables in cost per kwh

- is densely populated with no viable far away place to store the stuff

means to quit nuclear.

In the end the debate depends on whether externalities are internalized or not. If they are internalized, renewable energy wins hands down [2].

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[0] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium

[1] Germany got sued previously for undoing an exit. It‘s predictable this would happen again.

[2] As shown in the report by the scientific service of the German parliament: https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/887090/1867659c1d4edc...

> has far cheaper renewables in cost per kwh

Currently yes.

In the 80s and 90s not so much. It's huge a tragedy nuclear expansion stopped back then because nuclear was very cheap if we factor the indirect costs from burning fossil fuels (specifically premature deaths and other healthcare issues due to pollution. We basically get 2 to 8 free Chernobyls every year just by burning coal in the EU alone. Stopping climate change would just have been a free bonus).

Renewables are cheap, until you hit a day without a lot of Sun or wind and you start running your death-inducing coal reactors.

The green party hasn't been in power for the last 16 year. Still, the conservatives didn't change anything about this. Now they're a minority in a coalition. Still, nobody did anything about it.

The fact that some people (especially non-Germans) repeat this blame-show shows where it actually comes from: an misguided Astro-Turf campaign which doesn't care about facts.

They were not in power but heavily supported anti-nuclear. They also could have changed course now since they are in power and are heading all the relevant ministries.

I think it's fair to expect a party with this name to do better for climate change.

I like how you admit in the first sentence that you don't care about the facts regarding the false blame and just blindly continue to do so.

Meanwhile, without them, we wouldn't have almost half of our electricity generated by actually clean energy sources (renewables). They did a lot for climate change, and ignoring those facts in favor of false statements won't make it go away. It just makes those who spread those lies look stupid in the eyes of those who actually know the facts.

The German taxpayer did a lot to push renewable energy for the whole world, and the movement was very much motivated by the Greens. You should thank them and not spit on them.

Two things can be true at once. The Greens may have pushed for renewables and helped in that regard, and they may have made a horrible choice when aggressively campaigning against nuclear energy. The former was possible without the latter, and this thread is definitely about the latter. All I know is that their current energy policy is a disaster and should be criticised, I couldn't care less about whether you think me and the entire world are paid shills for believing that.

You neither proved that what they did was actually horrible nor did you actually stop blaming them, even when they're not to blame for the outcome we see today.

So what is this? Why are you keep doing this?

This thread is a circle jerk fueled by false information created by a right wing influenced Astro-Turf. You swim with them, and you keep on putting more nonsense on top of it. Now their current energy policy is a disaster?? What? I bet you don't even know what their current energy policy actually is. You just whine because nuclear is gone. The result of decisions made and not made by all other relevant parties in Germany.

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