I think it's a self made crisis. They turned off their atomic power plants in the middle of an energy crisis (even the current German government admitted that it was a mistake: https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-...) and now importing far expensive natural gas from middle east and USA

▲

k_g_b_ 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Germany's use of gas has basically nothing to do with nuclear energy. It's used for gas peakers (which are for now and were needed, whether some % of electricity is provided by nuclear plants or not), heating (which has/had nothing to do with nuclear plants) and heavy industry like steel (which wouldn't be able to replace their gas usage any easier with nuclear than with renewables).

The current government is full of hardcore ideological incompetents captured by fossil fuel interests that wouldn't recognize a free market if it threw € bills in their face. Merz in particular can "admit" whatever he wants, it was an uninformed talking point to get a few points on media as a response to a small time-limited news wave on nuclear - nothing else to it. He's easily triggered.

The previous government extended the runtime of the shutdown-ready plants because of the energy crisis. Shutting off the last few hasn't had any significant impact on industrial energy prices https://www.smard.de/page/en/topic-article/5892/216044/indus...

▲

sajithdilshan 10 hours ago | parent [-]

You do know that the gap left by shutting off the nuclear power plants are now being filled by fossil fuel which makes the pricing quite volatile due to geo political situation in middle east. Also other not only Germans, but also other European countries had to pay a price as well for the shutdown of the power plant (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-r...)

> The current government is full of hardcore ideological incompetents captured by fossil fuel interests

I could argue the same about the previous Green government, that it was an incompetent, eco terrorist extremist government where the shutdown of the power plants were spearheaded by an idiotic children book writer who has no idea about energy market.

	▲	k_g_b_ 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't know that because it is utterly untrue, as is easily verified by looking up plenty of available data in the German electricity mix - it's replaced by the growth in renewables, fossil fuels have continuously shrunk https://strom-report.com/electricity-mix-germany/. If you don't want to out yourself as a hardcore ideologue you should argue with data instead of political talking points. Congratulations on picking up far right "children's book author" talking points! I'd say that is more of a worthwhile economic activity than whatever Merz has done in his life. If you can't recognize the self-serving ideology of Germany's "conservatives", I do have some perpetual micro-nuclear reactors to sell you.

▲

ZeroGravitas 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The German government guy "admitting it was a mistake" hates wind turbines and claims they will all be replaced in a decade or two by nuclear fusion.

An absolute loon when it comes to energy. It is mind blowing that he is being touted as the voice of reason.

	▲	sajithdilshan 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure if that would happen in a decade or two, more like in five decades or so, but totally make sense. If we have fusion reactors, then why would anyone spend money on an inferior technology like wind turbine?