What possible advantages are there to buying the resource that literally keeps the lights on from a country that you have conflicts with?
When the Green/Social Democrat coalition under Schröder decided on stopping nuclear the idea was to largely exchange that for renewables (and the German wind and solar industry was leading in the world at the time). This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence. The coal, nuclear and gas lobby (note that they typically are the same lobbyists) strongly pushed to reverse that decision and the Conservative, free Liberal coalition under Merkel initially reversed the decision, but at the same time was generally pushing for the cheapest energy solutions, which was largely gas. The strong regulations put into place for wind and solar at the time largely destroyed Germanys wind and solar industry, because domestic demand Collapsed.
It is important to remember that Germany has still very strong manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over the government. When Fukushima happened public sentiment went strongly towards quiting nuclear again. There was not really much opposition from industry either, because nuclear was more expensive than gas so we saw an even stronger push toward gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...
Asking because I think it's possible that many places don't bother to mine it due to a combination of regulations and cost.
LE: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium...
So, Australia is where most of the uranium is :| Also, Russia does seem to have significant reserves that could be mined.
... actually we do, around 130.000 tonnes of it[1,2]. Of course not as vast as some other countries, but still substantial. We just don't mine and refine it anymore. I don't know if this should be an actual argument pro nuclear, but we have it.
The GDR / DDR even supplied the Soviet Union with Uranium via SDAG Wismut[2].
[1] https://infcis.iaea.org/UDEPO/Statistics/ResourceByCountryAn... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismut_(company)
See the uranium mining section.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
If there was a compelling reason we could presumably start mining and refining those deposits again.
Nope. Pre-Ukraine conflict, 55% of Germany's gas came from Russia [1]. In 2021, 19.69% of Europe's Uranium came from Russia [2].
And fundamentally, the relative energy density of enriched uranium means that it's much easier to shift from one source to another versus gas.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-reliant-is...
[2] https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-observ...
This is very misleading, comparing EU imports on one side and Germany on the other. The biggest uranium reserves are in Kazakhstan, Canada, and South Africa. At the moment, uranium used in Europe comes from Niger, Russia and Kazakhstan in about the same quantities (2500 tons each), followed by Canada (2300 tons) and Namibia (1600 tons).
Overall, Russian uranium is ~20% of EU imports. For gas it was ~40% (~20% for Germany), and for oil ~30%. Also, both oil and uranium are easily imported by boat, whereas gas was so cheap because of the pipelines. So, not really comparable overall.
Switching uranium suppliers costs nothing. Switching gas suppliers renders huge infrastructure investments worthless.
It has been obvious for quite a while that structural dependency on Russian gas was a huge strategic mistake. Doing without will be much more painful than not doing it in the first place.
(Political dissenters were forced to work in those mines in horrible conditions.)
[1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium...
That's not comparable because the energy density of Uraniam is much higher, sufficient Uraniam can be imported from anywhere with any kind of transportation, so wherever the Uraniam comes from now, it can easily be imported from many other countries and doesn't make us dependent on anyone.
Good for them to not get rid of their industrial base otherwise they will depend on China more than the USA (that was (still?) proud of becoming a service economy) does.
One charge of fuel for a nuclear reactor lasts for years, while natural gas gets burned more or less as fast as it is produced (there's some storage, but it's certainly not measured in years).
If a bad actor cuts off the supply of uranium for your reactor, you have several years to find a new source. If a bad actor cuts off your supply of natural gas, you'll have a crisis in days or weeks at most.
> This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence.
You know what would have been a much, much, much bigger step? To keep nuclear and invest in nuclear instead of gas and coal.
Because the only method shown to prevent war in Europe is co-dependence. EU is founded on integrating the belligerents of WW2 close enough that it would be unthinkable to happen again.
The same method, which at least has worked previously, was tried with Russia and now 30 years later, or more likely in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea we can conclude that Russia is different in some core way of thinking. Not too different though, looking at how the Baltic states have developed when given the choice and chance.
The alternative scenario, with a Russia still riding on the tail ends of soviet military might in steep decline not even given a chance in the early 2000s seems like a recipe for an even worse outcome than we have today.
> The same method, which at least has worked previously
it was a common theory prior to WW1 breaking out, then WW1 broke out and falsified it
and now Russia has falsified this theory again
(the threat of the Soviet Union plus nuclear deterrence prevented war in Europe, not the EU)
Who knows how high it can go. Maybe in the early 22nd century someone will argue that economic interdependence before WW3 was nowhere near as they have it then...
It’s a bit unilateral. As long as Russia can save enough money or have other buyers for its gas and oil it can just shut the supply in the middle of winter. Germans can of course refuse to export their products to Russia but people freezing in the middle of winter is a bit more dire than not being able to buy the latest Mercedes.
So, like other sibling comment pointed out, it turned more into dependency than co-dependency.
I could see, in the previous years, maybe the Germans wanted to move way from NATO and integrate with Russia but seeing Russian behavior since the Chechnya war https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1999%E2%80... I wonder if anyone warned the Germans not to get in bed with the Russians. That was 20 years ago.
Or are you suggesting that in 2008 Germany should have supported Georgia in South Ossetia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Russo-Georgian...
The equivalence is in aversion to separatism. I think if the leaders of Ichkeria would agree to be jailed, the Russian government wouldn’t destroy the city. I am not sure what alternative you propose for a country that wants to ensure its internationally recognized claim to a territory.
> Or are you suggesting that in 2008 Germany should have supported Georgia in South Ossetia? > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Russo-Georgian...
There is a well-recognized contradiction between the principle of sovereignty and self-determination in the international law. What one should do is not clear if you agree with those principles less so if you don’t recognize them. So it is a quite complicated question. So those things almost always devolve to realpolitik.
The EU was of course promoted primarily to avoid the repetition of the World Wars, and it is indeed succeeding at it within its scope, and has also so far been a great influence outside of it as well.
However, it is a mistake to believe that economic interdependence is the reason for its success, or that interdependence is a disincentive for war. The period from the late 19th century was highly globalised, with much international free trade, and increasingly so up until the 1910s. However, that didn't stop war breaking out between wealthy military powers over nationalistic grudges, and neither would it in the 2020s.
I am not knowledgeable enough to fully understand how the EU has broken the cycle of war between European nations, but it has been something much more profound than economic interdependence. Germany was probably right in not wanting to keep close relations with Russia, especially before 2008/2014, but shot itself in the foot by naïvely assuming that co-dependence—or rather, German dependence—would in any way stop Putin's regime from aggressive expansionism.
So what same method are you talking about?
The Baltic states were gobbled up by the Soviet Union during WWII, and accrued significant Russian minorities during the Cold War, but they are culturally and ethnically distinct from Russia, with their own languages and histories going back centuries (just check out the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).
Especially Tallinn is becoming a hugely interesting city with the mix of centuries old history, some soviet heritage, new and tech.
They still make an interesting thought experiment since they actually were wholly integrated into the Soviet Union. The other examples near EU are Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova which have ended up on completely different paths.
In comparison to the former East Block nations which more were in the Soviet sphere which was a similar but different existence.
What is this, 1910?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion
It was a theory. It was tested. It didn't work, not with Russia, not with the rest of Europe.
Please do clarify. I am intimately familiar with one of those Baltic states, but fail to see what you mean.
They were in conflicts with the US a lot. I mean 911 was pretty much all Saudi Arabian terrorists.
With other nations like Iraq, Iran as well though depending on who ran it and who the president was.
I believe the US is producing enough oil domestically.
Yet I know the US was importing oil from Russia prior to the Ukraine war.
States like the US or EU do it because it makes economic sense.
The scope of oil is far too narrow.
EU and the US rely on many commodoties to mkae the country, industry and ecnomomy work. A loss in some of the more serious ones can have a devastationg imapct.
Thus, the question should be extended to: Why do states and unions make themself dependent upon commodities they must import. Should each state / unnion be self sufficent in all critical supplies?
That is of course impossible, or nearly so. Each state/union will remain voulnralbe ans exposed if supply lines get cut off for any reaosn.
The leader had a German passport and his main motivation was Israel attack on Lebanon.
US mostly didn't depend on middle-east oil, the US wanted middle-east oil to make sure that Europe and Asia didn't go communist.
It would guarantee future for Russia. Right now 50% of Russian budged is from carbohydrates. Due to fracking and decarbonisation it won't be profitable to mine in Russia in 15 years[1]. Without that income, states like Chechnya, are gonna try to leave the federation.
It's good for China as well, since USA sanctions would not be that effective.
The Atlantic world doesn't want the 3rd power (hence USA and UK are helping a lot in Ukraine) as well as Central European countries (Poland, Ukraine, Baltic states etc.) The table that shows military aid by GDP is an eye opener.
[1] Gas and oil from Ukrainian shores (Crimea) could speed it up.
Also, that's the reason why Germany was relying on gas from Russia. They are not idiots. It was not a stupid single point of failure, but geopolitics.
Geopolitics pits Germany and Moscow as geopolitical rivals, as they’ve been for centuries.
If the goal was building an alliance, letting one side unilaterally cripple your industrial base without similar unilateral counterstrike options is a strategic blunder. Berlin can’t do much, unilaterally, to Moscow. Even if we assume the Lisbon-to-Vladivostok theory, the gas reliance doesn’t make sense.
Only when the land between Moscow and Berlin is subjected to either state (division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact)
In this game, Europe is the swing vote. The Leviathan, a maritime power of Europe, the U.K., North America and Australia + Japan currently holds. Xi tried forging a Behemoth, a land power, in which Eurasia dominates Africa and the Americas. Behemoths, the thinking goes, will be army-driven and centralised; Leviathans, naval and decentralised.
The problem with the Behemoth is Eurasia is too culturally diverse to put under the sort of centralisation land powers (e.g. Rome, the Ottomans, Napoleon’s France + the USSR) require to stay stable. Maritime powers, historically trading powers (e.g. Carthage, the Dutch, the British and the United States), accommodate more diversity. Maritime alliances are inherently reliant on networks of local governments versus a central power dictating policy to the periphery. Put simply, the deck looks stacked against a Beijing-Moscow-Berlin alliance barring major right-wing shifts in Western Europe and social liberalisation in much of Asia.
> Germany and France wanted to build the Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok with help from Russia
The Arctic Sea is becoming navigable. Push for an independent Siberia, et cetera that exports via Arctic ports, not pipelines, and they get what they’re looking for without requiring a global reälignment. (Not advocating this. Just saying it’s a better play under that geopolitical model than trashing Ukraine.)
As of this movement, yes, but in the future USA won't be able to keep the hegemony. Right now there is a leverage on energy (oil and gas from middle east) and the cheapest from of transportation (maritime). USA can block both via Ormuz and Malacca. In 20-30 years China and Europe will be energy and resource independent. If land transportation* will be more cost effective than ships, USA hegemony is gone.
*hyperloop/magnetic rail/other
This geopolitical model predates modern energy dynamics; in any case, Siberian minerals will flow to Chinese and European factories for a long time to come. This model also doesn’t require American dominance. (Again, it dates from the age of British and Austro/Russo/French power.) A future Leviathan could operate with Europe and America on co-equal footing, versus the D.C. dominance we see today.
As for land transport becoming more efficient than ocean, that’s a pipe dream. We’re talking about orders of magnitude of cost difference between the cutting edge of where rail/loop could be in a decade and where an inefficient shipping industry is today. Rail is also less resilient in times of war, as we’re seeing with Russia, being more targetable (Ukraine) and deniable by intermediaries (Kalingrad).
The real tipping point in favour of the Leviathan, however, comes with air forces and missiles, force projection options which didn’t exist when the model was conceived. Xi’s strategic fuckup has been in failing to see that China, too, could command a Leviathan. In an alternate timeline, a patient and thoughtful China is signing trade deals and security compacts with the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia Korea and maybe even Taiwan and Japan. Instead, Beijing Bethemothed the islands which encircle China into an adversarial stance, a stance they can maintain thanks to the stopping power of water, and a position which prevents China from projecting blue ocean naval power.
I don't remember exact numbers from 2019, but it was something like:
Air: 1 metric tonne: $100, 24h
Rail: $40; 10 days
Ship: $8; 30 days
Let's say it's 2049 and we have 4 powers: new Europe, USA, China and India. China starts the full scale blockade of Taiwan to wait for the USA for the kinetic escalation. Only USA ships are blocked, so Japan, Korea, Europe do nothing. The situation last for years. The freight cost goes up massively due to risk, the fuel is 2x-3x more expensive - cheap oil is gone and the last big reserve is in Arctic. Magnetic rail China-Europe is finished and you stack up 3 containers which are delivered in 48h. Land transportation became better than ships.
> Rail is also less resilient in times of war
True, but the new Europe will be neutral is the USA-China conflict.
> Xi’s strategic fuckup has been in failing to see that China, too, could command a Leviathan
I don't think Xi made a mistake. I don't think we have a reliable data from China. China started shrinking due to Covid way sooner that the models predicted. The official number about 12 mln births, but that doesn't correlate well with mandatory tuberculosis vaccinations. The real number could be 9 mln. Xi perception might be he has 10 years not 30. What is more, I think China is like Japan in 1930. From China's perspective there is no option - we fight or we die.
The more optimistic scenario: Xi is gone. USA makes Kissinger 2.0 - a deal that must be secret. USA does nothing and China takes over Taiwan without the invasion. North and South Korea is demilitarised. China still uses USD.
How did a blockade around Taiwan turn into a global maritime halt? Magnetic rail and ships have similar energy inputs; if energy is going up for one it’s going up for the other. (Turning electricity into dense, portable stores isn’t trivial, but it’s comparable to long-distance electrical transport.) That rail link would also remain easier to strike than the world’s merchant fleet.
I don’t think American dominance is here to stay. But it’s highly unlikely a Europe-China nexus works, versus a rebalance America-Europe-Japan relationship. (There are no situations in which a belligerent China peacefully wins over Japan.)
Not a halt but increase of costs. 2/3 of world trade is near Taiwan. The insurance premiums will skyrocket. USA aka World Police will be busy with China, which will lead to tensions in other places and piracy. Business will pick rail if it's a bit more expensive (say 20%) and you get products faster.
See for example here: https://energycentral.com/c/ec/comparing-costs-renewable-and...
Storage issues might be solved before new nuclear plants go online at the current pace of progress.
Perhaps a few years of gas until the renewable infrastructure is set up will suffice? At least the issue does not seem to be as clear cut as most people claim they are.
The problem as I see it as that any '100% renewable' solution which could be ramped up relatively quickly would necessitate technology that doesn't exist yet. Of course there will be some progress in tech, but we have no way to predict exactly what it will be. It will also be extremely expensive simply due to the massive scale required, and there are numerous powerful & well funded groups who will throw down roadblocks along the way.
The reality is that we will continue to use fossil fuels for a long time. While nuclear energy is our best low-carbon option for baseline power, we probably aren't going to be able to build new generators quickly enough to displace natural gas usage for decades, and that's only if it's politically possible to do so. Which continues to appear to be a long shot.
In short, we're holding our collective breath for a 'hail Mary' breakthrough that somehow cuts through all the intractable quandaries and gives us a viable path forward. In the mean time, the increase in severe climate events will destabilize nations and make it even harder to reach the kinds of major agreements needed to go down such a path.
It's probably a good idea to either own land or have friends in an area near a large freshwater lake that isn't prone to flooding and has a history of handling both extreme heat and extreme cold. There's no way of knowing whether you'll end up embroiled in civil unrest or full blown war in such an area, but at least you can limit the number & types of risks you need to worry about.
Batteries exist, and estimates of how many would be needed are around 50TWh. We have over 500GWh of annual battery production, and the doubling period for that capacity is under 18 months.
This is where different types of batteries that are too impractical for vehicle use might come into play, but we still don't have a clear idea which of those battery technologies will be appropriate and/or agreed upon for grid use, let alone who is going to pay for the mind boggling amount of them we will need.
As for cost, if the next decade drops costs 90% like the previous 4 decades have, then 50 TWh will cost $500 billion. Given that the electricity market is $3T annually, that's peanuts.
But there is a MASSIVE amount of potential for nuclear to be cheaper and better.
People in 2000~ were more then happy to predict massive improvement in cost for renewables if money was invested but absolutely denied that the same could happen with nuclear.
Had the same amount been invested in nuclear, prices there could also have changed.
However we have 28 years until 2050 and for really deep carbonation having advanced nuclear would be really awesome. Not to mention other benefits like radio isotopes, medical isotopes, rational solution to the removal of the current waste, a backup option in case a volcano disrupts solar on a large scale and so on.
We are not doomed just because not every single $ of spending is going into more solar panels.
The Greens have brought some very necessary ecological improvements that would otherwise not have happened (probably), but their continuous crusade against anything nuclear, ignoring scientific findings and statistics, is just annoying at this point
Chernobyl was 1986 and the West German green party existed before that:
> Alliance 90/The Greens ... is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Germany in 1990) [1]
And there are still fools who think that economic integration somehow prevents wars, which was shown to be false after WWI. These people said if Europe just paid a bunch of money for Russian energy they'd obviously never attack them. See what's happening with China and the US as more proof that handing over your economy doesn't placate anybody
>“It’s quite a curious foundation. It is a puppet construction,” said Sascha Müller-Kraenner, head of Environmental Action Germany, a green charity, which is challenging the legality of the organisation both in the German courts and with the European Commission.
and German politicians from pretty much every single party have been taking bribes from Russia for years. Their energy policy of simultaneously shutting down coal but not spinning up any nuclear made them reliant on Russian natural gas, which they've been warned about by the US for years and are now paying the price for
from 2019 - https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/06/06/how-europes-green-p...
and a video from 2018 of Germany's UN delegation quite literally laughing at the suggestion they'd be reliant on Russia for energy if they proceeded with Nordstream 2. Some good schadenfreude here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwg
No sanctions? No finland minister asking to ban russian tourists from schengen?
Really?
Ok.. turn the ac then!
Us providing guns and trainning is not war?
Eu providing arms and guns is not war?
Economic sanctions are not war?
War is not a movie with bang.
War is happening now.
It started when they sunk the war ship russian..
> It started when they sunk the war ship russian..
I'm sensing this is a (((they))) kind of they.
No.
> Eu providing arms and guns is not war?
No.
> Economic sanctions are not war?
No.
> War is not a movie with bang.
No.
> War is happening now.
Yes between Ukraine and Russia.
Though, this being HN, I'd like to point out that you are technically correct, the best kind of correct. There is no official declaration of war between the EU and Russia (even if one could figure out how to do that).
Of course in practice there is very much a proxy war going on on Ukrainian soil. It is being done fairly openly at that: Weapons shipments are mentioned on the news, and eg. the movements of EU-based AWACS and Drones (patrolling along borders and over black sea, peeking in and providing intelligence) are also not hidden.
Poland stands out as a massive military logistics hub without which the Ukrainian army would struggle to import any Western stuff.
If the Poles weren't under the protective umbrella of NATO, I suspect that the Russians would already have tried to destroy Rzeszow airport.
Every competing energy source lobby is probably trying to stack the chances against each other, but the activists were not by and large funded by Russia.
> These people said if Europe just paid a bunch of money for Russian energy they'd obviously never attack them.
You can't expect any party to hold still forever. If you provoke your partner long enough they might react at some point. In the long-term that is basically a guarantee.
I think the sole reason the west moved away from Nuclear is because it sounds scary and because the oil countries had a strong interest in maintaining the non-nuclear status quo.
To use an old phrase, shit happens. When it happens where a Nuclear Power Plant is, the happening continues for a very, very long time. That kind of liability is not worth the risk and of course there are other power solutions than the fossil/fuel nuclear divide.
As a single data point, I just asked my wife (who, for background, is well educated and pays close attention to the news), and her guess was "hundreds".
The modern mass media has a lot to answer for.
There is a tram going on a track, killing 10 children each week. You can switch it yo another track where it has a small chance of killing a thousand and you will be blamed for that.
Pitting nuclear against coal is fighting a straw man. The alternative is renewables. With a tiny fraction of the negative side-effects either nuclear or of fossil energy brings.
The part I felt had merit is that none of Europe's lofty solutions to safely storing/disposing of the waste output ever came to anything. I believe until this day that industry is still trying to work out how to dig 30km down to safely store the waste underground.
That said I haven't kept up to date on any progress or better solutions.
But Onkalo is one of the few actually built long term nuclear waste storage locations anywhere.
It is for domestic nuclear waste only. There is no desire to become the international dumping ground for nuclear waste.
Tbh I believe the waste should be reprosessed as fuel and burnt in reactors instead of burial.
But non-proliferation things make that impossible.
The are actually more expensive then simply developing the reactors to burn up that fuel.
Its just crazy that we live in this world.
The US collected money from nuclear plants for 50 years for disposal, and had plenty of money to develop waste burning reactors. And yet that money is totally unused. While politicians dead-lock on this idiotic Yucca Mountain project.
Its beyond sad the state we are in.
I am German and very pro nuclear, but this is conspiracy bs. And why make such a grand claim without a single source?
https://www.eenews.net/articles/devin-nunes-claims-russia-is...
Dominique Reynié: "We found that Gazprom funded environmental NGOs that provided ministers to various governments, such as Belgium, which then advocated abandoning nuclear power".
https://twitter.com/ziontree/status/1497998920739274757
> For instance, the Soviets used front organizations to influence the anti-nuclear movement, the initiative that most visibly put Western leadership on the defensive. West German Interior Ministry and FBI reports concluded that Soviet-linked organizations were successfully swaying local peace movement initiatives to conform to Moscow’s positions
https://warontherocks.com/2017/09/russian-active-measures-in...
So it happened but how effective it was is questionable.
Nuclear power plants are mostly only used for electricity production.
The "light" is less of a problem, the real problem is "heating". Homes often use natural gas for heating, warm water and cooking.
Btw., there is a large dependence on Russia for Uranium: https://www.intellinews.com/radioactive-central-europe-remai...
Even the US buys from Russia.
That link between nuclear proliferation and nuclear energy production is sadly often missing from the discussion here. No country builds nuclear reactors only for the energy. It's always for the nukes. Nuclear energy has always been expensive and has been massively subsidized since inception.
Sure about that?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urananreicherungsanlage_Gronau
It also isn't like Germany didn't want nuclear proliferation. Public demand to be allowed to produce nukes already started with Konrad Adenauer in the 1950's, and parts of the conservatives still bring up the topic from time to time (e.g. Rupert Scholz in 2007).
There are lots and lots of countries who use nuclear civilian energy and don't have nuclear weapons.
While at the same time there are lots of countries who have nuclear weapons but no civilian nuclear power.
In fact, it would be more accurate to say that countries who have civilian nuclear power are less likely to have nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...
The NPT allows countries to have civilian nuclear power but not nuclear weapons, and many do. My country, Switzerland being an example. Japan is a large country where this applies as well.
The connection between civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons is almost non existent. Countries that want nuclear weapons, just get them directly, they don't develop civilian nuclear power first.
So please stop spreading this harmful misinformation.
So 9 countries have nuclear weapons. Of those, 2 don't use civilian nuclear power, that's 22%.
You have 32 countries with civilian nuclear power, that means 25 with no nuclear weapons. These 25 are literally distributed over all 5 continents. That is 80%.
And notably non of the 9 with nuclear weapons have primarily used civilian nuclear power to bootstrap the bomb.
So the data you provided is literally proving my point.
> Though note that they, too, seem to phase out the usage, though. Switzerland is planning it's phase out too, AFAIK.
That really has nothing to do with what we are talking about. But it was one of the worst votes in Swiss history. The campaign was totally based on absolutely absurd argument and driven by pure demagoguery. And we are not actively shutting down, we have just decided not to build anything new.
What we are witnessing is largely strong push by the nuclear industry to take advantage of the current situation to change sentiments to again get decades worth of guaranteed profits, largely at the cost of renewables.
Now, that is the anti-nuclear side of things, however CO2 is also a problem which we also don't want and this leads to the shutdown of the other potential sources of energy and we don't have a proper replacement for them either (wind and sun are not reliable sources).
In summary, we Germans want to swim, but don't want to get wet.
Berlin is incredibly anti-nuclear. When I lived there, even when there was little going on, you would see constant anti-nuclear propaganda. Lots of anti-nuclear footmats and stickers.
The tldr; is it started with a stated goal of <10% dependence, thinking that by creating the first pipeline they would open up trade and normalize relations. This is a good goal especially since Germany was split in half at the time.
Unfortunately through some combination of greed, complacency, and dumb nuclear strategy, dependency kept ratcheting up over the decades, slowly boiling the frog into the disaster soup we have today.
We will also have to see whether this war ends in another nuclear disaster, I have serious concerns it could considering the Russian military actions around the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. This would of course kill nuclear entirely. The region in Bavaria, where I live, is still quite contaminated from Chernobyl, we really don't need more of that stuff.
No-one will trust Russia (the country, not the people) for a good half century unless they make some really sweeping changes to... well, everything.
So why do I think that it's a good idea to quit with nuklear power? It's quite easy: We German like it to be on the safe side. If I get ill I've got an assurance for that. If my car burns down, I've got an assurance for that. If a railway train hits my house (there are no railway tracks even close to my house) but guess what: I've got an assurance for that. If a nuclear power plant blows up and makes the whole country within 20 miles radius a radioactive no-go area I've got... wait - there's no assurance for that. Tepco in Japan was not able to compensate the people who had to move. Not even close.
But there's good news: There is no nuclear power plant active anywhere in the radius of 20 miles around my home any more.
Now let's talk a completely different unrelated topic: Russian gas. Why unrelated? Because nearly nobody in Germany uses electricity to heat their homes (yet). We have gas lines in most cellars of our houses. Those who don't use oil. There's even hardly electric air conditioning anywhere in the private housing sector. The people fear that the heating will fail in winter due to the gas shortage. They now buy electric heating and we expect outages of the electrical power supply if they happen to use them, not because of missing power plant capacity, but because the grid is not strong enough to allow replacement of gas heating for the next winter.
But there are gas powere plants which are used to generate electricity from Russian gas. So it's all related, right? Yes and no. Yes we have gas power plants. We built them to help in situations of high demand because the Nuclear power plants are too slow to adopt on changing loads. Then over the last 20 years when wind power took over a major share of the power supply luckily we had those gas power plants to step in when a storm forces all wind mills to disconnect at the same time. But no. Gas power plants are not the solution as I stated. Even if we had enough power plant capacity to heat the houses we would never be able to distribute it. And more nuclear power does not help there either.
So nuclear power is not the solution if Russian gas is your problem.
But why do we use Russian gas at all? Why did we get into a situation like that at all? Well, that's not by accident. We fought and lost two world wars. Most people consider it a good idea for the German not to start another one. In the 1970s and 80s when the military presence of foreign forces in Germany declined it seemed a good idea to make Germany dependent on the mercy of the victorious countries. It worked quite well for nearly half a century. It's a good strategy as long as the German is the bad boy in town. It fails of course if the other bullys are even worse.
We could have emancipated from gas long time ago. Unfortunately our politicians especially from the CSU actively blocked regenerative energy.
So now the Germans have finally come to their minds and now want nuclear power back? No. The ARD (biggest German TV station) asked similar questions:
Q: Do you think we should do Fracking in Germany? A: Only 27% say yes.
Q: Do you think we should stick to nuclear power? A: 61% yes
Q: Should we extend wind energy and introduce a maximum speed limit? A: 81% yes.
That's my country and I'm OK with it.
I don't know anything about the situation in Germany in particular though, but I wouldn't be surprised if they saw integration with Russia as a good thing rather than a bad thing.
Citation needed.