As a percentage of total generation nuclear in Germany was never as high as France, but couldn’t they skip the 20 billion euro cost of a new plant and simply restart an existing one?
Also to put things into perspective, Germany deployed as much solar in the last 3 years[1] as it had in total combined nuclear capacity ever (if you sum up every reactor ever build)[2].
0: https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nuklear...
1: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ausbau-erne...
2: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
This is clearly not true. Perhaps you a confusing the nominal capacity of solar plants to real electricity production?
Your source says "The total output of all solar plants rose to 82.2GW" / "Die Gesamtleistung aller Solaranlagen stieg auf 82,2 GW". Whereas in year 2000, Germany produced 170 TWh of electricity with nuclear power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#...
170 TWh / 1 year is an average of 19.41 GW: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=170%20TWh%2F1%20year
This output is a bit less than the PV capacity installed in Germany over the last 3 years, which is something like 27 GW depending on how accurate the estimates are for 2023.
However, the capacity factor of German PV is about 10%, so the energy produced in 2022 by PV in Germany from 67 GW of capacity was just under 60 TWh delivered. It's probably going to have been around 85 TWh by the end of this year, based on forecasts for installation.
Maybe this will shed some light: https://greennuclear.online/@collectifission/112588204256628...
By own admission of the same guy who said "it can't be done" 2 years ago.
They could have kept nuclear reactors open for way longer. But ... well, go and tell your green voters... It's much better to burn coal.
Nobody in the german government, except for the Pro-Russian bootlickers of AFD and BSW would buy new Uranium from Russia.
If you actually watch the interview you'll also notice that Merz of the conservatives also doesn't want to restart the nuclear reactors[1].
0: https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nuklear...
1: https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/illner-ha...
But in practice as long as you have Greens in the government you'll never be able to do it.
It was the konservative CDU/CSU that set the final decommission date after Fukushima [2].
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xznqbpv0QE
1: https://www.bmuv.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nuklear...
2: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/atomstreit-in-der-koaliti...
I still remember the discussions - they were literally the only ones not wanting to do it - they set hard conditions, red lines etc. Obviously this went against their political program - thus the resistance.
It was FDP that pushed for additional extensions. [0]
They even proposed to buy new fuel (and further extend) but no, of course not.[1]
PS: CDU/CSU did what unfortunately was hyped on TV - fear of 3 headed monsters etc. Greens, on the other hand, don't understand that we have an energy issue right now and extending nuclear reactors for another 5 years would buy us some time. The ideology won. The sad irony is that because of this ideological choice, they had to burn more coal....!!!!
EDIT: just found this [2]. What's more to add. They are admitting they could have kept the reactors open for another 15 years.
EDIT: according to Habeck, it was the chancellor that pushed for the extension. [3] confirmed also here. [4]
So all the Greens actually did was resistance.
[0]: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/ger...
[1]: https://www.dw.com/en/german-greens-lay-out-nuclear-power-po...
[2]: https://greennuclear.online/@collectifission/112588204256628...
[3]: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2024-06/robert-habeck-akten-a...
[4]: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-chancellor-decid...
> The chancellor’s decision came only two days after Habeck’s Green Party at a party convention officially accepted a runtime extension only for the two plants in southern Germany.
lol
Getting new fuel for them doesn't make any economic sense.
Your entire argument is an emotional appeal.
Show me the numbers that show that nuclear is cheaper than renewables and I'll change my mind, but until then it doesn't make economic sense, and would only be the "ideological descision making" that you accuse the green of.
It completely ignores the political dimension which is extremely complicated even if you ignore the Greens. For example the fuel elements are sourced from Russia.