Quote (Ghot @ 30 Apr 2024 03:53)
The description of the political background of Germany's anti-nuclear tendencies is good, but the article is highly slanted and misleading in the final section in which the German energy transition is portrayed as a roaring success.
Quote
Predictions that the nuclear exit would leave Germany forced to use more coal and facing rising prices and supply problems, meanwhile, have not transpired. In March 2023—the month before the phaseout—the distribution of German electricity generation was 53 percent renewable, 25 percent coal, 17 percent gas, and 5 percent nuclear. In March 2024, it was 60 percent renewable, 24 percent coal, and 16 percent gas.
Overall, the past year has seen record renewable power production nationwide, a 60-year low in coal use, sizeable emissions cuts, and decreasing energy prices.
1. Germany did have to fire up several coal power plants which were slated to go out of business because we needed them as backup after the end of our last 3 nuclear PPs.
2. Germany saw a big increase of energy imports from neighboring countries like Poland (coal) and France (nuclear). It's window dressing.
3. We were also helped by an unusually mild winter plus lots of wind in spring and sun during summer. The "we phased out nuclear and still didn't burn more coal than in previous years"-talking point is largely due to luck with the weather conditions for renewables, and the aforementioned energy imports from 'unkosher' sources.
4. Likewise, the "decreasing energy prices"-talking point is highly misleading because energy prices went bonkers in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine. Prices were always bound to come down substantially in 2023; this fact alone doesn't contradict the notion that prices could be a lot lower with a different energy policy.
5. Another factor which puts these numbers in context is that the German economy is stuck in a long-term stagnation, with very little (if any) growth and many companies, particularly the energy-hungry ones, throttling their production due to the high energy prices.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 30 2024 06:19am