True, but there was a bit more to it than that. Anti-nuclear sentiment has always run high in Germany, but Fukushima made it more intense. At the time of the accident, campaigning was underway in Germany. Merkel announced the closure as a way to hold off the Left and achieve a win for her party (It worked.) The Greens had always campaigned hard on this, the timing of Fukushima was a godsend for them, and had the potential to swing the election. Merkel had a tough choice: Keep the reactors online and lose the election, or announce a shutdown and take the wind out of The Green's key issue. She chose the latter, and CDU/CSU won. The reactors weren't EOL.

"Cheap" (or "costs") can get complicated to calculate as there's more that Europe factors in than simply the costs of running the plants. Europe doesn't have fantastic energy reserves, so that energy has to come from somewhere. Historically, a large percentage has been oil via the Middle East. That has political and military costs such as how they work with the Arab states, support for the U.S. which maintains security of the Persian Gulf, etc.

France's choice of nuclear is influenced in part because of security decisions they made in the 50s and their (until recently) ability to source cheap uranium from Mali.

Germany phased out their plants in order to stave off a last minute electoral disaster, which worked. But I'd argue that it was before they were ready. Renewables have promise, but have not reached the point where they are cheap and plentiful enough to power the energy-intensive Germany economy. I'm sure they'll get there eventually, but they're going through a painful phase to bridge that gap thanks to Merkel's decision.

Good read: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...

Cheap is absolutely true if you look at the older assets cost of baseload power providing the core stability of a lot of electrical systems. The only two things that aren't factored into the cheap component (sub 5 cents/kwh produced of baseload) is that you don't properly factor in the externalities -- $/ton of GHG avoided and waste removal properly. I would argue that if we had pollution pricing it would be even cheaper.

The new power plants are more expensive since you have all the upfront costs of development but those are long lived assets that as they get to the end of their lives are producing very stable cheap power.

And yes Germany absolutely turned off their Nuclear power - your comment agrees 100% with that. It was made by Merkels party and is absolutely tarnishing her legacy.

The US probably bought uranium because of fears it’d otherwise get sold to North Korea, Iran or terrorists. Just like it basically financed the Russian space program for decades to ensure those rocket scientists didn’t take a nice salary from Iran.

Uranium contracts are long lived contracts. It doesn't make sense to kill off a contract in the middle. They also buy uranium from many other countries since it is available only in certain countries.

> The U.S. and France bought Russian uranium until 2024, long after the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up.

Unfortunately in times of conflict like this, things aren't exactly clear cut, and our need for Russian uranium may be too high to stop buying. It is what it is.

> They bought Russian oil via the so called shadow fleets. Pure hypocrisy

Cite your source.

> Just now Biden sanctioned Rosatom and the shadow fleets in order to make things more difficult for Trump.

How does this make things more difficult for Trump? You mean it makes things more difficult for Russia? Or should we buy oil from Russian shadow fleets? I'm not following your point here.

> Just last month The U.S. coerced Ukraine to stop transit of Russian gas (while collecting transit fees).

Weren't you complaining about the United States and France buying Russian uranium?

Pensioners, the most reliable CDU/SPD voting bloc?

> I'm at loss where the money went

Well, I think the number of billionaires has doubled in Germany in the last years, so... Seems like it went somewhere.

Germany was a global leader in solar manufacturing in the early 2010s, but political infighting and lobbying against tariffs from China-dependent companies like Volkswagen undermined their solar manufacturing dominance.

The "Made in China 2025" strategy itself is a knockoff of the "Made in Germany 4.0" strategy of the early 2010s.

Germany has a much stronger reason to want Russia to lose then the US does. Germany is closer to most of Russia and other EU countries are next door. Germany is still in the EU and claims a sort of leadership role in the EU

The thing that gets me with arguments such as this is that it talks right over the heads of the Ukrainians like they don't matter. "Oh, the U.S. should moderate it's policy." "NATO shouldn't be pushing East." "The West didn't listen." I hear the same sentiment around the Baltic states: "NATO shouldn't have pushed in, and that angered Putin."

Give it up for those repeating those misconceptions and making the argument into one where NATO is pushing, or the U.S. isn't being "moderate" enough with regards to Ukrainian sovereignty.

Talk to the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians and Estonians, the Poles, and the Finns. And they'll all tell you the same: It's been Russian imperialism for centuries, be it under the guise of the USSR or Tzar or the current president for life. They don't want to give up their land and populations to become part of Russia's empire. And just a very cursory glance at history will pull examples of this. Finland lost it's second largest city in the 40s, and is still without it. The Baltics and Ukraine only became free in the 90s. The Poles went through multiple stretches of time where they were divide up and didn't exist.

Your country gets invaded one day, the occupied lands vacated of their residents, the children re-homed in families elsewhere, but you'd tell them to "moderate" their policy? That further more, they shouldn't be allowed to seek alliances? If someone invaded the U.S., I seriously doubt that line of opinion would obtain support anywhere.

It's not about U.S. policy. It's about Ukraine wanting to be independent and Russia wanting it as part of theirs. Simple as that. Don't ask the U.S. about Ukrainian policy like the Ukrainians aren't there. Have some respect, and ask the Ukrainians what they want.

Then I dare you to tell them to moderate it.

European nations like France and the UK have the nuclear trident (the ability for global MAD). They can dictate more than enough.

Also, until the 1990s, Western European armies were VERY professional and capable of military and technological innovation.

Hell, the Bundeswehr was well equipped with fairly competitive weaponry made by German manufacturers such as Heckler and Koch, KNDS (Leopard tanks), Rheinmetall, etc