In 2021, the Grohnde nuclear power plant in Lower Saxony on the Weser River was shut down. Now, immediately next to it, the Emmerthal energy cluster is growing with three very large battery storage systems, ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, and a new substation for several 380-kilovolt high-voltage lines.
Smugposting aside, nuclear is a heinously expensive thing to build, and from my understanding not a particularly cheap source of energy.
Its not super cheap to build, but it’s very cheap to run, and a lot more environmentally friendly than the several browncoal plants that Germany chose not to close when it shut down its nuclear plants.
You are wrong - nuclear is not cheap to run. It only used to be because the state limited the possible liability the companies faced in case of a malfunction and due to the fact that the nuclear waste costs were not part of the equation.
For Germany the price per kwh for a newly constructed nuclear plant would be around 45-63 ct/kwh - according to the power companies themselves. They aren’t interested in running these any more for a reason.
So how do you explain France having such cheap electricity, mostly through nuclear power plants? https://www.sfeninenglish.org/nuclear-electricity-price-gap-france-germany-2026/ The issue is not the technology, it’s the implementation. Just like in the US, Germany overegulated the industry, causing prices to increase. France can do it safely and cheaply. What’s the excuse? I don’t get it.
The French highly subsidize their nuclear power. It is not cheap at all and according to the French president, it only makes sense because they are a vital component of their nuclear arms industry.
Thank you for responding.
Can you provide a source for both of those claims? What I’m seeing is that it’s profitable on its own, and generation isnt behind subsidized.
The construction is state funded, and the majority state owned operator has high debts because it isn’t actually profitable on its own, and those debts are ultimatly underwritten by the state so another form of subsidy.
And that doesn’t even account for insurance costs which because it is owned by the French state are not done at all or not realistically priced. And decomissioning costs and nuclear waste disposal costs are also not priced in.
The French state pays a lot to keep up the false public opinion that everyone benefits from the cheap nuclear power, when in reality it is a heavy burden on their state budget and only done for national security reasons (and sunk cost fallacies).
So, exactly like the brown coal mines Germany keeps operating? Those don’t deal with the waste at all, simply pumping the CO2 into the air. They also don’t pay for the massive destruction caused by browncoal rooftop mining, or the immense opportunity costs of just having an immense hole in the ground.
But those still run, ruining the planet for everyone, while the nuclear plant “isn’t profitable”, because they actually do account for all the waste, and under incredibly strict requirements.
I’m not suggesting nuclear instead of solar/wind/battery, I’m suggesting nuclear instead of the second worst form of energy right after literally burning down rainforests for power.
The nuclear power plants shut down were all over or very near their design lifespan and would have to be shut down anyways.
There was no new nuclear powerplant construction in decades in Germany for various reasons (mostly due to them being uneconomic).
If Germany would decide to build new nuclear powerplants now, it would have to continue burning brown coal regardless for the next 10-15 years it would take to complete the construction of these nuclear power plants.
Investing in renewable power generation and battery storage gives immediate return in using less brown coal.
Technically true, in the same way that a car is near the end of its lifespan when the fuel pump is worn out. You can’t keep using it after that.
Of course, you could replace the fuel pump and hugely expand the lifespan if you wanted too. But then you’d have to want to.
And yet, they’re still digging up lignite and burning it right now. Those plants could have been shut down, but they weren’t
This is plainly false. The plants where at a age where they had to be practically rebuild, with only components like the power connection or the cooling towers still usable with newly build reactor blocks. And the OP example shows that the power connection can be better reused for grid battery storage.
And the total amount of nuclear power in Germany was never enough to entirely replace coal burning. So at best the ongoing phase out of coal burning would have been slightly faster, but in reality the necessary reconstruction of nuclear power plants would have bound investments for at least a decade. All the while the coal buring would have also continued, but at a higher level because the urgently needed funds for grid extensions to serve renewable energy would have been wasted on building new nuclear power plants that produce no energy at all in the decade they need to be constructed.
You really need to stop riding a dead horse 🤷
Were German NPPs especially poorly built? Every other country is happily running plants from the 70s and 80s.
The fuck are you talking about? Before the phase-out started in 2009 Germany was producing about 20 GW from both nuclear and lignite. They produce basically no nuclear power and lignite only very recently dipped below that number. Quite plainly, those numbers could have been reversed.
Everything you posted after that is speculation based on wrong data.
You need to stop lying. This was a political move, made to appease like you who dislike nuclear and are unaware that lignite is significantly worse for the entire planet. It was a popular political move and you agree with it, which is quite visible in your username.
Neither of those points make it a smart move. Germany spent massive effort to eliminate by far the least bad fossil fuel, and kept by far the worst fossil fuel. It’s great that they’re moving the right way on production, but they started at the wrong end in the shut down.
No, this was a rational move based on economic factors and actually caring about reactor safty of half a century old and outdated designs.
You need to take your head out of your nuclear villiage bubble and rationally assess the situation.
I am not even against running existing nuclear power plants that are somewhat recently build and relatively safe. But building new ones makes absolutely no economic sense and is actively bad for the climate since much better alternatives exist.