One little thing though, while I do not live in, or understand Germany fully, I don't think it's that easy either.
Let me explain. Germany, over more than a decade, put €500bn into renewables. They shut down their Nuclear reactors, under pressure from the Greens and started having to burn Coal to cope.
Had Germany spent €250bn on Hinckley Point C type reactors, they would have introduced around 35GW of always on baseload power, which could then be augmented by wind and solar, from additional initiatives once the baseload was assured. 35GW nuclear nameplate power delivers half of the average GW used by Germany on any day.
If they had then invested the other €250bn in investments that only return 1% over inflation, they would, after 40 years, have a fund of €350bn (equivalent at today’s value), to work on either extension to 80 years or decommissioning activities for the expired reactors.
Instead what do we have? The ideologically pure, failed, renewables that see Germany “clean” of Nuclear but dumping their “dirty” CO2 on the rest of the world. Germany generates some 40% of its power via Coal.
This is the kind of environmental thinking which is damaging to the fight to reduce climate change. The fight against climate change has absolutely Nothing to do with Green and Everything to do with CO2 Neutral existence.
The Faustian bargain forced by the German Greens has ensured that we are one step closer to losing that fight.
Yet all I hear is how wonderful the German government has been in driving “green” initiatives. I guess it is true in some ways, extra CO2 will drive more verdant flora in the temperate zones…..
Contrast the UK. WHinckley Point C goes online in 2025/26, depending on construction issues and when it goes live, all coal power stations in the UK will finally be shut down. When that happens, the UK will be beyond the commitments made for Paris as it is already mooted that the UK is already there or thereabouts.
The plans for the UK to replace the entire remaining reactors with new HP-C type stations are still under way. Three more should about do it.
Unless the greens get their way!!
Carbon Neutral is the way. Green is a nice to have. After all, if we fail to control CO2, we will kill more species off than any amount of safe nuclear reactors. Including a significant portion of the human race.