> This is actually saying German imports from France will potentially cause an energy shortage, exacerbated by Germany's exit from nuclear generation
Actually, both countries import and export energy from each other, we're importing from France outside the winter when we have shortfalls with renewables because our grid can't shift enough energy from North to South. The difference is that unlike France we don't go and pat ourselves on our shoulder for being oh so carbon friendly. That French claim to grandeur can only be made because everyone ignores that it depends on Germans and Brits.
> This is the actual measuring stick of success: how much carbon is released for each watt-hour of electricity? France is way below Germany on this.
Yeah, because we have a lot of old coal stinkers that drive up our g/kWh emission average - and because the followup emissions of nuclear plants (from construction and teardown of the plant as well as the operation of the nuclear waste storage and the mining, refining and transport of the fuel) have been underestimated [1]. The old figure used to be ~66 g/kWh whereas the actual upper bound is 180 g/kWh which is even more than natural gas (~117 kWh).
The elephant in the room is followup costs though - nuclear power has a lot of these, from insurance in the disaster case to the teardown and storage of the waste. If these costs that are currently effectively offloaded to the taxpayer would be accounted for, nuclear power would be at 90 ct/kWh, and that's the optimistic case.
> And lastly, it's strange to call nuclear a "dead" energy source when it's still generating more than wind and solar combined.
It's a technological dead end for short-term woes. The most modern EPR reactor design takes a decade to build apiece, and every other design no matter which base technology has been vaporware to date. Even if we were to commence construction for a dozen plants now, they would only become available in the 2030s!
We need solar and wind now, and actually smart grids where big consumers like heating systems and providers like electric cars can be coordinated centrally.
[1]: https://www.dw.com/de/faktencheck-ist-atomenergie-klimafreun...