As a German (and more general, a human with a brain): Are they fucking stupid?
Spoiler
Of course not, the truth is that they are corrupt
No, they are pragmatic.
Should we have much, much more renewables right now? Yes, absolutely.
But lowering energy costs right now is also very important to keep people and business afloat right now is also important.
Lowering energy costs would mean more renewable power plants because they are cheaper. Fossil power should be merely backup for intervals where there is not enough wind, solar, battery, and hydropower.
How about turning them nukes back on?
Yeah, why did they think that removing their nukes was a good idea?
Because if they keep the reactors running, how are they going to justify buying Russian petrochemicals?.
In 30 years if you start now, and for how many billions?
And then you gotta turn them off in summer when rivers are too hot or too low.
No, they are pragmatic.
No, they aren’t (costs of energy production in germany):
(renewables on the left, fossils on the right)
sourceAnd there’s the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that makes you pay for emitted CO2. And the price for that keeps on rising as intended.
Add to that battery storage. The current weather is allows for a few hours every day, where renewables meet electricity demand. With something like 200GWh of battery storage it would be possible to switch of nearly all fossil fuels power plants in Germany about now. That is not a crazy amount at all.
Especially considering 200 GWh have already been approved and permits for over 500 GWh have been requested in '25.
France is a country fully devoted to nuclear Power. Must be paradise, cheap and Clean, right? Ask them how its going 😉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France?wprov=sfla1
The funniest thing is germany, opposing nucler power, is importing French nuclear power generated electricity labeled as green energy. The hypocrisy is appalling.
France is also importing from Germany when they can’t cover their own demand.
It’s a collaborative network.
Well, yes actually
France’s nuclear-heavy fleet keeps wholesale costs at €30–€80/MWh. Germany’s gas-coupled merit order pushes wholesale to €60–€120/MWh.
<https://euenergy.live/articles/average-electricity-bill-europe>
The actual cost of generating electricity by nuclear power is not published by EDF or the French government but is estimated to be between €59/MWh and €83/MWh
Does France also have a
merit order“uniform pricing” system like Germany? Electricity prices are set by the most expensive producer, which is fossil by a large margin. This doesn’t reflect the actual cost of generating electricity at all, but favors the cheapest producer in the market.Edit:
Germany at €0.36/kWh average retail rate (2026 H1), driven by high tax + grid fees layered on top of moderate wholesale prices.
The article you posted doesn’t say that it’s because of high electricity generation costs, but because of high taxes and grid fees. Don’t know if you wanted to make that point or just wanted to “actually” the OP, though.
No… that is on top of the wholesale price that I listed.
It says so in your own quote.
Oh, that’s cheap, nice. Does that include liability insurance and running costs for the nuclear waste repository for the next few hundred years?
next few hundred years??? i have some bad news for you…
Probably, since that is the price.
Energy taxes are higher in Germany too.
EDF remains heavily in debt.
That’s not just an EDF problem though. The entire French economy is slumping and France has the largest debt of any EU country.
Energy taxes are higher in Germany too
For households, yes.
Not for companies - they profit far more from the cheap renewables.
Especially companies which need a lot of electricity.
Maybe, but wholesale prices are still more expensive in Germany. And sure, solar is cheaper in the summer, but companies need power in winter too. And on days with little wind as well. That’s when Germany fires up the gas plants —and now apparently coal— and that makes prices skyrocket in the winter.
So that is why the wholesale price of power over a whole year is cheaper in France.
Not to mention the fact that German power plants emit millions of tonnes of CO2 each year and France’s emit water Vapor.
Maybe, but wholesale prices are still more expensive in Germany.
Yeah, I already said that households pay higher prices than companies.
And: Are you saying that nuclear power is cheaper than other sources? really?
Yeah, I already said that households pay higher prices than companies.
No, you said taxes are higher for households. The wholesale prices I showed are before taxes.
Are you saying that nuclear power is cheaper than other sources? really?
I’m not saying that. The analysis in the article tells us that France’s energy generation composition, which heavily relies on nuclear, is cheaper than Germany’s. You can read the article and find out for yourself.
Let me ask you a few questions in return:
- Do you have any idea what gas prices are at the moment and how they’re influencing electricity prices?
- Do you have any idea what the projected prices are in the coming year?
- Do you understand why Germany is firing up the coal plants?
- Have you factored in what the consequences of all those extra greenhouse gas emissions will cost us in the long term?
It does not. No insurance company does cover nuclear reactors and running the long term storage is not priced in. So, the costs of a potential disaster and of dealing with the leftovers are kicked to whoever encounters that problem at some point.
If I ran a company like that, I could damn sure be cheaper than someone else too.
I’m beginning to think you’re varying expertise is in bullshit and lies
No insurance company does cover nuclear reactors
Uhm… what? Of course they do.
This insurance typically includes coverage for third-party liability, property damage, and cleanup costs in the event of a nuclear incident.
Seems like you’re just making things up now because you don’t like to be wrong. Please stop arguing in bad faith, it’s not a good look.
Last I’ve read was that the insurance only covers up to 1.5 billion € in damages. That would only cover small incidents
Yeah I don’t think insurance covers a Chernobyl size event, but that is increasingly unlikely to happen with modern reactors nowadays. We don’t build inherently dangerous reactors like the soviets did —nor have we ever.
The only large disaster in modern history is Fukushima in 2011 and to a lesser extent the three mile island incident in 1979. After each we’ve learned a lot and made important changes to plants worldwide to prevent it. But yes, there is a non-zero chance for a meltdown in current NPPs.
But it would take a natural disaster of epic proportions and I don’t think those are covered for any power plant, nuclear or not.
And new technology like molten salt reactors and thorium based fuels will increase safety even further.
So Germany follows China’s path? That’s not good.
No. Germany has been shutting down coal power plants. However since shit happens and those plants have been built, some have been put into a strategic reserve. That was extremely useful during the Russian gas crisis, as coal power plants could replace gas ones. Now the German energy minister wants to move those power plants out of that reserve into normal grid operation.
So no new coal power plants and honestly it is probably going to fail, because the economics are horrible for coal.
China’s coal power is on the rise and will likely rise at least for the rest of the decade - and China is already the world’s number 1 in terms of both coal production and coal consumption.
China’s heavily invested on nuclear – expect coal to be on the decline.
China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of coal, and even the Chinese government says the country will increase coal energy at least in the next years, bu the end of this decade.
Is that only about absolute numbers? That says nothing about relative compared to coal if coal also increases.
The second link shows nuclear from 60 to target 110, coal from 1.2k to unknown, wind and solar target 1.2k GW but already at 1.8k.
I don’t see nuclear replacing coal. I see renewables already massively winning.
Yes, I know, but China has also said to increase fossil fuels by 2030 (by 8-10%) in its current five-year plan. Coal will not peak before the end of the decade, and no one knows what happens then. China isn’t on a good path.
China isn’t on a good path.
Compared to the rest of the world? They installed more solar than the rest. How is that not a good path?
Germans went full retard for closing their clean nuclear energy plants. Absolutely foolish decision that’s still biting them in the ass!
Its really not biting anyone in the ass. We dont actually have any problems with our energy production, its just corrupt politicians inventing shit. Getting rid of nuclear has saved us many billions of euros in taxpayer money.
We dont actually have any problems with our energy production
Because we exported industries, kept electricity prices higher than necessary which prevented more people from switching to electric vehicles and we don’t have the data centers to keep up with AI and will maintain our dependency on the US.
https://feddit.org/post/34851024
As artificial intelligence becomes foundational to economic output and military power alike, technological dependence may overtake security as Washington’s greatest leverage, leaving even a more militarily autonomous Europe bound to the United States.
No problems at all.
Wow this makes me sad. Are people really so naive that they just read shit like this and believe it? Putting the words “artificial intelligence” and “economic output” in the same sentence like that is one of the dumbest things i can imagine. The entire AI sector is a giant financial human centipede feeding itself on its own excrement. Sad to see that people still haven’t figured that out when its all public information. AI is the worst financial bubble to exist in modern history and you are falling for the most obvious lie if you believe the stuff you quoted. I wish you were trolling but it doesn’t seem like you are.
Even if it is a bubble, AI works as a search engine and speeds up work. The US have restricted Mythos 5. This should influence time to market enough that it is a strategic advantage.
AI works as a search engine and speeds up work
Wow as search engines, a thing that was invented and perfected decades ago and has since only been made worse artificially to sell adspace?
And no it does indeed not significantly speed up work as plenty of studies have shown. Its just very good at tricking people into thinking that it does while actually trading quality for speed, requiring later intervention that will cancel out any earlier speed gains. AI will also not replace you, it will just trick your boss into thinking that it can replace you. We have seen examples of this everywhere in the world where companies either go bankrupt right away or have to re-hire all the workers they “replaced” because it just doesnt work.
Did you read the article? Or even the headline of the article you posted your comment to?
You’re firing up coal firing plants (while also paying way more for your energy than France).
News to me… everything I read is that you guys are having an energy crisis
Welcome to post-factual reality where it’s all about selling a narrative to people dumb enough to ignore actual facts.
GERMAN MINISTRY MULLS RAMPING UP COAL,-FIRED PLANTS - sounds like energy crisis to me
Of course it does. You have already demonstrated your propaganda-induced brain-damage when you argued that cutting nuclear, the most expensive way to produce electricity, somehow increased energy costs.
So it’s not at all surprising that a “We reject (and block and sabotage) cheap renewable energy and storgae to focus on expensive fossil fuels to [somehow, magically…] reduce costs”-statement of a corrupt government paid by fossil fuel lobbyists makes sense for you.
The actual reality is the opposite: They are trying to establish the narrative of an energy crisis so they can justify using more fossil fuels. All to increase the profits of fossil fuel companies paying them. Then, when the costs go up even more, they will tell you that those evil renewables are to blame and we just need to burn more of the expensive coal and gas. And as you obviously lost contact to reality already, you will believe them and happily keep fighting against cheap green energy.
Do you know anyone that works in the energy sector, like anyone that is an expert in maintaining the power grid and electricity? You do not, you are making things up and you don’t actually know how much things cost, especially in the winter!
Do you know anyone that works in the energy sector
Yes.
like anyone that is an expert in maintaining the power grid and electricity
Yes
You do not
Oh, so that wasn’t a question and you just wanted to speak some more about the symptoms of your brain rot. Well…
you don’t actually know how much things cost, especially in the winter!
Yeah, sure. Reality is lying, facts aren’t real, economic figures are wrong… and the expensive energy sources are actually the cheap ones and one of the few countries actually highly autonomous with reserve capicities held back to supply themselves and several neighbours at the same time is suffering from an energy crisis.
Where have I heard that one before? Oh, yes… in the right-wing propaganda media that spend the last few years hallucinating about blackouts any moment now™. The same morons telling funny tales about Germany’s total on French nuclear power when in reality less than 4% of the total power was imported, the vast majority in renewables from nordic countries. The same morons that ranted against heat pumps for years (because “who doesn’t even understand how that magic is supposed to work” - paraphrasing but not really far from their actual coverage). The same morons that now loudly scream about EVs and how we really, really need to stick to combustion engines if we want to save the car industry (and civilisation!!)…
Guess I know where you get the shit you mistake for information.
You’re not very smart, are you?
Had you posted the full headline you’d have seen that this is about cost cutting. There’s no energy crisis here.
Cost is correlated with supply
No shit.
Nothing about a crisis in that statement though.
Yeah, because those are … looks it up … far more expensive than even coal. That would totally help with energy costs.
They were old, the costs for the upkeep off the charts. No insurance company insures the damn things and they didn’t provide that much power to begin with. We’re doing pretty well in terms of wind an solar power though. If someone shoots the damn Nazis on their collective faces (yes, CxU included), then this trend will keep going and we’re finally free from the corrupt oil/gas/coal cunts. Nuclear power is the dumbest shit that’s being peddled by former Redditors.
You are in the top 5 for electric cost in the WORLD. Your industry is begging for relief as they go bankrupt, yet you keep defending idiot policies. Well more and more Germans lose their jobs you’ll pass the point of no return. Loser policies cause loser businesses. Oh well we try to warn you but you all think you know better. It’s simple economic supply and demand. CAPITALISM NOT SOCIALISM WORKS
then why does the state always have to subsidize nuclear power? dont scream at us.
Well that’s why fossil fuel plants are needed. How are those coal power plants doing? Those cause more cancer and now you have to rely on them more. No?
Coal is a fossil fuel. Gas is expensive atm because of the US/Israel war. Thats why they now want to use coal more. Its (a lot) worse for the climate, worse for health but cheaper. Actually quite capitalist of them…
Or what do you mean with fossil fuel plants? Diesel generators?
Well the reason the fossil fuel plants (coal, gas, oil) are needed is because nuclear energy was taken out of the equation. Look at francez they don’t have the same energy issues like Germany
I understand your position as: Germany has expensive energy because they are stupid and abandoned nuclear power.
While abandoning nuclear power before coal was certainly a bad idea climatewise (i’m even with you calling this idiotic, thank you Merkel), coal is not more expensive than nuclear.
The 20 cent/kWh the french have on their electricity bill is not an honest price. The operator EDF is state owned and constantly loosing money the state then has to put in again, so the they also pay with taxes for their electricity.
Also the more renewables are in the mix the less economic nuclear becomes. Nuclear is good when it can run 24/7 but not when it has to constantly change its output or event has to be turned off during the day.
I concur that our politicians are a bunch of right wing cunts. But the rest you’re writing is drivel. Socialism is the only thing keeping the people happy. Capitalism only makes the capital-holders happy. And yes, electricity is expensive here but not because of the bullshit you shat on your keyboard, rather because of:
Taxes - we have super high taxes on electricity. This is OK, because taxes ensure that we can all live decent lives here.
Costs for expanding the electrical grid - this is inevitable as more and more electricity is consumed. These aren’t sunk costs however.
Electricity market - the price is based on the most expensive currently required form of electricity, which is gas. Nuclear power would make this more expensive.
The conservative cunts who want to stick with gas are the corrupt fucks that ruin it for us.
Idk, renewables won’t help you when the sun’s not shining in the winter. Renewables won’t help you when the winds are calm in the winter. When the winter comes and you need to heat your own home, you like all the rest of your countrymen will be depending on fossil fuels. Don’t forget about the future heat waves Europe’s about to experience, you will need more electricity to cool down your homes because you did not have the foresight like Americans who actually think that summers are hot and need to cool people. That’s the difference is you need to think!
My friend look at how many poor people died in Europe because there was no investment in the electrical grid and into cooling your cities. In the USA we would not allow that to happen because capitalism actually cares for people’s well-being and people know that they wanted to stay cool so they were able to buy that. In Europe, your regulations don’t allow you to do anything and there is no innovation and so people died. This is no different than what happened in communist Russia when so many people die because there’s no food because there was no innovation. Truly, all those that have died are just caused by more socialist practices. It really makes me sick to my stomach how Europeans are just okay with many people dying in the streets because of the heat when the USA has proven that you could cool down cities. You just do it. You open up the free market and capitalism will fix it all for you people!
