From that two transition strategies was formed together with political alliances. The far left has opposed nuclear energy since the 60s, and hydrogen was a superior fuel without any of the drawbacks of nuclear, and so the green and the far left could join on this strategy. The center left and center right was also happy to build cheap natural gas power plants, reducing energy and heating costs for the working class, and provide new jobs. The natural gas power plants could be converted to hydrogen, which was the basis for declaring natural gas as "green" in EU, pushed by this coalition of political parties.
The strategy did not work out and green hydrogen never became economical viable, but despite this it is still the primary strategy for the green party. With climate change advocates in Germany being generally associated with the green party, the strategy being pushed end up being anti-nuclear and pro-natural gas. Abandoning this strategy would mean loosing the political alliances with the far left and center, and thus they are stuck with a failing strategy.
Must have missed when Merkel left the CDU and joined the Greens...
During that fantastic decision making, Schroder and Merkel moved Germany onto Russia gas. (Of those 2, Schroder now holds management positions in Russian Gazprom, and Russian-German NordStream, the company that owns the pipeline). Brilliant decision making all around.
Their other decisions were to count on America for defense, refusing any investment into defense or defense tech (despite America objecting), and to use China as an export market.
Each of those decisions now, as it turns out, costs every German citizen 3000-6000 euros per year, on a large average, and EU citizens about 5000 euros per year.
Brilliant politician. One would almost think that, since a broken clock is right twice daily, these people weren't at all "wrong" (and certainly Schroder wasn't)
While I don’t doubt there are some that believe nuclear is a no-go. Most of the ones opposing nuclear are in fact backed by some O&G lobbyists. At least, this is the case in USA.
I just can't comprehend why some people get so upset by Germany.
Today renewables and storage are the cheapest energy source in human history, and is reshaping the global energy system.
We still need to decarbonize agriculture, chemicals, aviation, shipping, heavy industry, construction and so on. Most of which use either chemical energy carriers, or fossil feedstock.
Siphoning off a tiny bit off that for grid firming duty is trivial. Or do sustainable biofuels from food waste and so on.
Which is also what the system studies lands on. Finding that adding new nuclear makes it far more expensive.
Germany also reduced theirs more than France since that point. And grown per capita GDP faster from a higher start.
Nuclear appears to be a distraction, it's not even visible on a graph of Germany's GHG emissions.
Global warming was not much interesting for public until about 2006 - 2007 and when public started to be interested in global warming, the public was promised that renewables would the solve the problem. They did not solve the problem, worldwide annual CO2 increased from 30,9 Gt (2007) to 37.8 Gt (2025).
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/co2-em...
Local decreases in some countries don't make a difference because, global warming is function of the total amount CO2.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...
> In 1997, the National Wildlife Institute, in co-operation with the University of Turin, produced an action plan to eradicate the American grey squirrel from Italy, as this introduced species replaces the native red squirrel through competitive exclusion and damages trees through de-barking. The first step, a trial eradication of a small population of grey squirrels at Racconigi (Turin) to evaluate the efficiency of the removal techniques, started in May 1997. Preliminary results showed that eradication was feasible, but the project was opposed by radical animal rights groups which took the National Wildlife Institute to court in June 1997. This legal action caused a suspension of the project and led to a lengthy judicial enquiry that ended in July 2000 with the acquittal of the Institute. Nevertheless, the 3-year suspension of all actions led to a significant expansion of the grey squirrel's range and thus eradication is no longer considered practical.
What is a "climate change activist?" Someone who is actively opposed to increased warming? I'm not sure if they're university opposed to nuclear energy and I'm not sure what the alternative is to bring a "climate change activist." Doesn't pushing for nuclear as a partial solution make you a combat change activist as well?
I find the constant shifting of the blame here very bizarre. Wouldn't it be more helpful to say "We need to stop opposing nuclear" or "We need to make nuclear more seriously?" And try getting active in the fight ourselves instead of just complaining about the credibility of the other.
The temporary transition to coal was studied long time ago and identified as the best solution even though it would increase CO2 for a small time. But in compensation it would allow to transition faster to green energy thanks to savings done on nuclear, hence overall reducing faster CO2 emission.
When and by whom? The "phase-out" in 2002 was enacted by a government led by a person who later turned out to be a paid Russian agent. How did that work out? Germany did almost nothing for 10-15 while it increased it's dependency on fossil fuel imports from Russia...
The 1.5 step that climate activists ignored (because why not? Humans are cancers. Industrialization is a mistake) is the crashing of economy. Germany is will paying for that mistake and will never recover.
> The climate change advocates have lost all their credibility
If you think there is a need for "climate change advocates" at this point, you're a moron. Climate change is a scientific fact, it doesn't need advocates. It would be like criticising "gravity advocates".
> by lobbying against nuclear
Again that's a completely stupid take. A subset of the people you criticise lobbied against nuclear. And by the way nuclear energy does not magically solve all problems.
> If this wasn't so tragic it would be hell of a comedy.
What's tragic to me is that everybody is very keen on telling how everybody else is stupid, usually taking big stupid shortcuts showing that they are actually not better.
Sure, nuclear is a good tool that we should leverage. But the reality is that the situation is such that we need to change a bit of everything everywhere, and the first step to do that is to realise it, accept it and vote for it. What do people instead? Say "it's because of those other people, I am better, and I will now vote for an extremist because my lack of common sense tells me it cannot be worse".
It might be worth voting for an extremist if that extremist being in a position of power keeps people out of power who would otherwise work against nuclear power plants; even if the extremist himself doesn't care about nuclear power one way or the other.
By using "if's" like that, I can fly.
My point is that people who vote for extremes "because it cannot be worse" couldn't be more wrong. Of course it can be worse. Instead of complaining and voting to say "I'm pissed because I think someone else should make my life easier" like a kid, people should start thinking about what's needed.
Right now, people seem to feel like "they" (anyone but themselves apparently) should prevent our life conditions from getting worse. Maybe it's time to realise that our life will get more difficult, and we as adults need to accept it and start planning for that. Not voting for the guy who says it's all the fault of foreigners and that nuclear energy will magically save us.
First, I don't care about looking smart, and even less about looking "intellectually superior".
Second, if it was obvious it would be even more tragic. But the fact is that it's not obvious at all: the solution to our big problems (energy, biodiversity loss, global warming) are complicated. Whoever says "vote for me, I have the solution" is either a liar or a moron.
And yet your comment repeatedly tells this person how stupid they are, even going as far as calling them a moron. Take a step back.