Don’t underestimate just how much of the denuclearization of Germany was financed by the Soviets and Russia. They astroturfed the heck out of this issue, ditto expanding airports and other infrastructure. Never mind training, funding, and deploying terror groups like the RAF to disrupt German society.
The data hasn’t changed. Nuclear is indeed a great option for baseline power, especially if you manage to avoid the US quagmire of building one unicorn nuclear plant after the other instead of standardizing like the French did to really push costs down.
Nuclear fission will continue to be a great option to decarbonize unless reliable, deployable and cost effective grid-scale storage can be developed. Only then may wind and solar in conjunction with grid-scale storage offer a lower LCOE than nuclear.
Germany used to be renowned as a smart country! They are certainly subject to periodic fits of madness. Anti-nuclearism involves a strange blend of New Age nature mysticism with para-communist social collectivism. Germany, and Australia and the UK who are following the German religion, needs to restore modern science as the basis of government policy, rejecting methods that destroy energy systems. As nuclear is to energy, solar geoengineering is to climate. Both involve the use of science and technology to deliver primary human needs for adequate resources in a livable world. The German rejection of science, under the delusional cloak of following the science, is something they need to snap out of.
Can you please FedEx this column to Gavin Newsom?
All of this is so ironic when you consider that Germany *discovered Nuclear fission*
Don’t underestimate just how much of the denuclearization of Germany was financed by the Soviets and Russia. They astroturfed the heck out of this issue, ditto expanding airports and other infrastructure. Never mind training, funding, and deploying terror groups like the RAF to disrupt German society.
The data hasn’t changed. Nuclear is indeed a great option for baseline power, especially if you manage to avoid the US quagmire of building one unicorn nuclear plant after the other instead of standardizing like the French did to really push costs down.
Nuclear fission will continue to be a great option to decarbonize unless reliable, deployable and cost effective grid-scale storage can be developed. Only then may wind and solar in conjunction with grid-scale storage offer a lower LCOE than nuclear.
Germany used to be renowned as a smart country! They are certainly subject to periodic fits of madness. Anti-nuclearism involves a strange blend of New Age nature mysticism with para-communist social collectivism. Germany, and Australia and the UK who are following the German religion, needs to restore modern science as the basis of government policy, rejecting methods that destroy energy systems. As nuclear is to energy, solar geoengineering is to climate. Both involve the use of science and technology to deliver primary human needs for adequate resources in a livable world. The German rejection of science, under the delusional cloak of following the science, is something they need to snap out of.