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Comment by Mrdarknezz | Hacker News Reader

Well this wouldn't be a problem if you didn't shutdown your nuclear power plants. Now Germany is polluting more than ever.

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> Now Germany is polluting more than ever.

That's incorrect. While Germany failed to make its reduction goals, it still reduced emissions while simultaneously increasing production.

Really? No problem in providing massive sums to build solar and wind power stations alongside the fossil fuel stations that already exist and will have to be maintained 24/7? As an example, difficult to see how huge swathes of EU country Romania would survive as habitable zones. Who will inject the cash needed? Moreover six months of winter conditions are not exactly conducive to energy production via solar and wind. What the heck do people do?

But but but atomkraft, nein, danke. I swear, these people are exactly like PETA, exept they are dealing real damage to the planet.

Radioactive waste is doing real damage to the planet. After decades of evaluation storage facilities germany has no option that is considered safe. We have a responsibility towards the following generations. This includes not warming the planet beyond no return and not polluting it with deadly waste. Both can be achieved with a shift towards renewable energy sources.

Renewable energy sources needs to be supported by power plants that can produce constantly. The only clean option is nuclear and hydro. Sweden has developed a safe storage which is used to stored used fuel.

> Renewable energy sources needs to be supported by power plants that can produce constantly.

Do you have a source for that claim? Keep in mind that there are also renewable energy sources that do not rely on weather events (water and biomass).

In combination with energy storing and a reduction of the total energy needed it is afaik considered possible to go fully renewable [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

EDIT: I misread your comment. I thought you were arguing that "unclean" power plants are nessecary. However my point about not needing nuclear still stands.

> Renewable energy sources needs to be supported by power plants that can produce constantly.

Varying power sources need to be combined with adjustable power sources. So do constant sources, unless you want to force consumption to correspond to availability. Shutting off nuclear plants and going fully renewable would require bringing more adjustable sources online, though. Hence the quest for better storage technologies.

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