Germany's Energy Catastrophe

Germany was in between a rock (dependency on energy imports) and a hard place (popular opposition to nuclear energy) and sadly is now going to get crushed between them. The consequences will be felt by the Germans, by Europe and in the end, everyone on the planet.<p>It takes min 10 years to get nuclear on grid (even if you had the industry to do it), so absent Russian gas it&#x27;s either US LNG (of course much more expensive, and also foreign) or back to burning coal. It&#x27;s going to have to be the latter, in order to keep the energy intensive manufacturing economy going.<p>More carbon in the air, and it probably won&#x27;t work anyway as German manufacturing goods will be more expensive, less competitive compared to East Asia than they are today. Multi-decade decline on the cards for Europe&#x27;s biggest economy - which will in turn find expression in the politics of democratic systems

Green policies consistently treat good as the enemy of perfect. Needs to be a perfect outcome, or no outcome at all!<p>And even now it’s the same ridiculous tired arguments. “It’s too late for nuclear!”<p>Oh yeah? Well enjoy the coal power. You’ve earned it.

Clear, definite answer to this is that construction of any new nuclear plant will take longer (10-15 years) than it will take for renewable generation to completely take over the market. By today, it&#x27;s no longer environmentalism, concern over spent fuel, or NIMBYsm that stops nuclear - it&#x27;s simply there&#x27;s no time left for it. Sure we may have a few tough years ahead, but by 2035 Germany and almost all of Europe will have 100% renewable grids, and no new nuclear could be commissioned by then if the project starts today. Nuclear ran out of time.

1.we had to close the permanent storage for depleted full and other radioactive trash, because the contaiment leaked<p>2. Nuclear reactors require permanent external cooling, we already had to shut down reactors because of insufficient cooling, but that is not an permanent solution, because they still require cooling.<p>3. The fatalities in the text are only some of them, in bavaria wild boars still have to be tested for radiation and have to be disposed as radioactive trash. Plus the radioactive clouds were all over europe.<p>4.france has to shutdown most of its nuclear reactors already plus they found Fake certificates of integral parts of the new edf reactors and in old ones.<p>btw: france is replacing the missing power with reneweable power from germany<p>5. The current energycrisis is caused by the cdu and csu, because they made deals that made germany more dependent from russia and after he served and made an deal with the state owned russian oil corporation he got an high position in said company.

Blah.<p>FWIW, nuclear and gas aren&#x27;t even replacements for each other in Germany, and never were. There are some nine million furnaces that burn gas and can&#x27;t burn anything else, lots of gas stoves in people&#x27;s kitchens, and some important gas users who use gas molecules to make other molecules. Only a little gas is used to make electricity for sale.<p>The article mistakenly confuses niche and common uses, and uses that mistake to support its conclusions. But when the support is mistaken all conclusions crumble.

Russia has a ton of gas, and Germany needs a ton of gas. As unsavory as it is, the truth is that ultimately gas will be the solution to Germany&#x27;s current energy problems.